Kill Bin Laden: a Delta Force Commander's account of the hunt for the world's most wanted man (34 page)

The warning Adam Khan had been given about the increasing intensity of the enemy activity ahead had been correct. He pressed the gas pedal and sped through the curves, dodging the impact of several mortar rounds. The bed of the truck was peppered with shrapnel twanging into the thin metal as he roared deeper into the foothills until a group of muhj on the road forced them to stop.

They had driven as far as they could go. The rest of the way would be on foot. Another muhj fighter emerged to warn the group that the mortars were much more accurate at this close range. As Hopper and the Admiral took up security positions and manipulated a GPS to pinpoint their location, Adam Khan rapped with the muhj for whatever information he could muster. The distinct rattle of machine-gun fire could be heard to their front.

As anticipated, al Qaeda would not be causing all of the problems. Word that a few American commandos were coming forward with the permission of General Ali to support the late-afternoon attack never made it to the frontline folks who most needed to know about it. For the next half hour, several muhj acted like they were in charge and corralled our guys, shuttling them aimlessly from one group of fighters to the next.

At one point, a muhj leader motioned toward the sky and made some flickering hand signals to mimic bombs dropping. They wanted the Americans to make it rain death. The Admiral was happy to grant their request, and radioed some aircraft to work up a fire mission.

Then another set of muhj that they had been with earlier came and interrupted the Admiral’s call for fire to ask why the Americans had stopped moving with them and had taken up with this new group. It was a bizarre scene that was to be repeated several times. Hopper, the Admiral, and Adam Khan were mixed up with a bunch of foot soldiers who had no clue why the Americans were there, who had sent them, or where they were supposed to be going.

The one thing that kept Hopper and the Admiral happy was that, despite the headaches, at least they were heading in the right direction—south toward al Qaeda.

After moving several hundred more meters, their latest muhj escort took a break along the military crest of a steep ridgeline. Hopper and Adam Khan moved to a nearby hilltop in hope of getting “eyes on” a suitable target so they could start the aerial fireworks. In the meantime, Adam Khan found a forward command post where small-arms fire, machine guns, and sporadic rocket rounds were clattering about. The three of them made themselves at home in the position, deeper into the Tora Bora mountain range than any other Americans probably had ever gone.

The Admiral asked for all aircraft call signs in the area to check in, since he would be orchestrating the fight that night, and everyone was ready to demonstrate the art of the possible to General Ali. But General Ali was not there.

The Admiral is one smooth talker on the radio. Most important in this business was his willingness to risk everything for his fellow man, an unhealthy but common trait among air force combat controllers.

Darkness was falling fast, and Hopper attempted to reach OP25-A on his handheld FM radio and pass along their current location, in case things took a major turn for the worse. No luck. The FM was not working in that jagged landscape.

The boys of Jackal knew that India Team had arrived at OP25-A, but the reverse was not true. Things had developed so quickly back at the schoolhouse to move Hopper, the Admiral, and Adam Khan out in just five minutes that word of their departure had not yet made it to OP25-A. So the boys in the observation post remained unaware that their teammates were under fire on the other side of the valley.

But OP25-A had received an astonishing report from a muhj commander that the prime target of this entire mission, Usama bin Laden, had been seen on a hilltop and was surrounded. The commander was positive it was the al Qaeda leader and was adamant that “Bouyahs! Bouyahs!” should smash the hilltop now. “Bombs! Bombs!”

Once again the map problem complicated matters. The Delta snipers
and the Green Berets worked with the excited muhj to make sense of what he was trying to say.
Where is bin Laden? Show us!
They actually resorted to drawing in the dirt and holding up fingers to represent the various crests and peaks and finally agreed that the target was Hilltop 2685—the First Knuckle, better known as Hilltop Larry.

The Delta snipers, Jester and Dugan, passed the data to a nearby warplane and set about developing another modified nine-line fire mission solution. Just as the combat controller at OP25-A began to call for the aircraft to make its run, they saw several bombs slam onto what they thought was their target, just below the peak of Hilltop 2685.

The perplexed combat controller now asked if the pilot had dropped the bombs early. The pilot told him the attack had been guided by someone down there using a different call sign, and passed the frequency they were using. It had been the Admiral doing his thing.

The men at OP25-A were stunned. They had been handling the majority of the calls all day long, and now someone else had taken over, someone they knew nothing about. The OP25-A combat controller switched to the new frequency and heard the Admiral passing a correction for the next bomb run. The boys in the observation post quickly figured out that somehow the rest of us back at the schoolhouse must have launched an attack and perhaps as many as a couple of dozen operators were down there with the Admiral. Chances were ripe for a friendly-fire, blue-on-blue incident if too many people started talking to the pilots, so the crew in OP25-A quickly relinquished control of the air space. They would watch the fight unfold from a distance, silently hoping that the Admiral also had the reported location of bin Laden.

Frustrated, the Green Beret A Team’s attached air controller at OP25-A flung his hand microphone to the ground, let out a few choice cuss words, and stalked away.

I can’t say I blame him. Keeping them informed was my job, and I had failed to promptly update everyone because I had lost sight of the big picture at a critical time. I was focusing more on the location of bin Laden being reported by the muhj than on the boys currently at the tip of the spear; and I was not aware that the two groups could not communicate with each other. Nevertheless, it was a colossal screwup with
the potential of catastrophic results. That’s what I got for assuming something.

Our boys in OP25-A wasted no time pouting that someone else was now on the playground, for they knew that was exactly what was supposed to be happening. The communications snafu was solved, the emergency was over, and so they dreamed up another mission on their own.

For the past two days they had a front-row view of the sporadic attacks and retreats of General Ali’s troops and had watched the muhj reeling under heavy mortar fire time and time again. The boys decided to confine their search to anything that would help them destroy the al Qaeda mortar position that had been such a thorn in everyone’s sides.

They finally established a sketchy FM radio contact with Hopper, the Admiral, and Adam Khan that would allow OP25-A to serve as a hasty radio relay back to us at the schoolhouse. As the temperature on the mountain dropped, everyone listened to the Admiral steadily bringing in the bombers while the distinct sound of gunfire muffled some of his calls. Just listening raised goose bumps on Jester’s arms.

The Jackal bunch had taken cover behind a stone building about the size of a Volkswagen, and most of the muhj also were snuggling up behind it as an al Qaeda PKM heavy machine gun laid fire around the area, severing tree branches above the heads of Hopper and Adam Khan.

Even more deafening was the outgoing racket of the AK-47s. Two or three of the muhj would jam fresh thirty-round magazines into their rifles, lean around the corner, and open up, holding down the triggers for four to five seconds. While they ducked back to reload, another couple of muhj would do the same thing. One fighter with a shouldered RPG stepped away from the group only slightly and frantically jerked the weapon’s grip trigger without pausing to aim.

The stone structure offered only an illusion of safety. Hopper tried to get the muhj to spread out and press the attack and use the nearby tree line to maneuver to better locations, which at least would make the enemy have to worry about more than one or two targets. Although the muhj were
more vulnerable when they clustered in large groups, they were also much more comfortable doing so. At present, although they were pinned down, the muhj seemed willing to leave well enough alone and would be ready to call it a day after a few more impressive bursts of unaimed automatic rifle fire. Besides, it had worked this way all week, so why change anything just because a few Americans had shown up?

Hopper had no intention of remaining a sitting duck behind the small building. They needed to move, and fast. I was on the horn with the Admiral from the schoolhouse as he updated us on their situation, and we all heard the chaos, the rocket explosions, and the stuttering machine-gun fire in the background as the Admiral coolly relayed their plan to reposition.

He then directed the first available F-18 fighter to drop his payload on the enemy machine-gun position that was pinning them down. The first drop was impressive but did not silence the position, so a second F-18 repeated the engagement and put his bombs right on the money.

The three Americans then absolutely astonished the muhj by using the lull in firing to dash from safety behind the structure to some trees roughly forty meters to their front—heading even closer to the enemy! This was not the way the game was supposed to be played, but our guys were aggressively moving up to deliver the coup de grace with B-52s.

At the schoolhouse, we looked at each other with strain on every face. We didn’t need to discuss it; Jim and Bryan had already ensured that the rest of the boys were ready to head out to assist the Jackal unit should it become necessary. The courageous actions of our forwardmost people, worming their way steadily into enemy territory while under fire, made me proud to be not only their teammate, but an American as well.

Adam Khan managed to coax, or threaten, five muhj into coming along to supply more protection. They moved, shooting as they went, although at what no one was sure. Hopper’s attempts to get them to preserve their ammunition fell on deaf ears. It was as if the muhj figured if they didn’t shoot all of their ammo, they would just have to hump it back down the hill.

About the same time, we received word of a signal intelligence hit that had been intercepted, stating that “Father [meaning bin Laden] is trying to break through the siege line.”

Had Hopper, the Admiral, and Adam Khan truly struck gold? Could they be flushing out al Qaeda’s command group?

The al Qaeda mortars got back into the game with a first volley that landed right in a group of muhj. Remaining active, the mortars opened a tremendous window of opportunity, and Jester, Dugan, and India Team over at OP25-A were hard at work trying to spot the elusive mortars’ firing signature. Just some sign, and they would take out al Qaeda’s favorite indirect fire asset. They hunkered down on the cold mountainside, waiting for the mortars to reveal their position.