Limbo (26 page)

Helmand rhymes with Hell-land, and it was as feared as Hell itself. Starting with our initial prep training in Italy, it was always described to us as one of the most problematic regions in the entire country because it has the biggest poppy plantations; all Afghan opium has to pass through here on its way to the Pakistani border. A symbolic border really, because the Taliban already controlled the area below Lashkar Gah. When, in 2007, our paratroopers installed themselves in Delaram, aiming to regain control of the valleys leading north, the drug traffickers felt threatened and reacted by attacking. There were some fierce clashes, even a siege. Their COP, or combat outpost, was renamed Fort Apache. Headquarters explained that the rebels were linked to the drug traffickers. In fact, the peasants who cultivated opium were the rebels. During the harvest they'd all be in the countryside with their poppies, but as soon as the work was done they'd pocket the money from the sale of their crop, unearth their AK-47s, and go back to making IEDs and planting them along the roads. The harvest began in mid-April. Which is why Mullah Wallid had to be captured first.

We spread out around the crumbling, cube-shaped houses, which jutted up precariously from the undulating earth like rotten teeth, separated one from the next only by the narrowest of alleyways. They seemed more like heaps of ruins than houses, and the few still standing were deserted. The inhabitants must have fled years ago, and clearly not even the coalition forces' promise of financial compensation had convinced them to return. In my night vision goggles the landscape looked mysterious, a ghostly twilight: the walls and burned-out cars were black, the soldiers green, like creatures from outer space. The night belongs to us, I kept telling myself, our technological superiority makes us practically invulnerable, darkness is our Achilles' shield. The hoarfrost crust crumbled beneath my boots. The stench of shit and sheep came from the houses. So they weren't deserted. It was up to the ANA soldiers to make sure. To open doors, rend the night, violate its secrets. To search every house, one by one, leaving none unchecked. They disappeared down the alleyways, shadows among shadows.

In the silence, the only sounds were the snow creaking under our boots, our labored breath, doors slamming in the distance. Not a single voice. House by house. From the radio came the order to tighten the cordon and take up position one hundred meters farther in, beyond a group of innocuous-looking buildings where ANA hadn't found any suspicious elements. We advanced silently, like spirits. The doors were all wide open, the wooden frames like white flags in mud walls. I couldn't help looking. Bare rooms, walls riddled with bullet holes, the smell of feet and sheep fat. A freshly trampled carpet over which a cloud of dust still hung. A pair of shoes on the threshold, but no one inside, as if the owner of house and shoes had fled barefoot through the window. Teenage shepherds gathered around an old man with a white beard, bodies lost in sleep on the bare ground, a curtain drawn, like on a stage, behind which women were probably hiding. We advanced farther. An emaciated invalid stretched out under a prickly blanket, his head on a high pillow, bent to one side, his neck like a thin stalk. Three bearded men drinking tea, barefoot on a dusty carpet, indifferent. Images stolen from the night, from the naked intimacy of poverty-stricken lives. They blur together in my mind—threadbare carpets; small glasses for tea, chipped and opaque; worn-out shoes; slippers; an oil lamp; a Koran.

We halt again and wait, making eye contact with each other while the ANA soldiers continue their search. House by house. We're looking for a killer. But we can't arrest him. The rules of engagement forbid it. We're merely cutting off his escape route, flushing him out so that others can take him. We're like the dogs in a fox hunt. American helicopters hum behind the mountains, making the ground shake. The radio calls me, it's Spina. The Afghani commander asked Spina to surround the corner building: there's something inside, but ANA can't stop to check it out because they've identified the suspects. But Spina can't move, he's in position on the other side of the alley. So it's up to me. I send Puddu ahead, to reassure the Afghani soldier who has stayed to guard the building. He shows him the mud on the threshold: freshly made footsteps I can tell right away weren't made by army boots. The rickety door is ajar. Cold seeps through the cracks in the walls. Dirt floor, the roof partly caved in. There's no one there. But the unmistakable odor of agricultural fertilizer stings my nostrils. Fertilizer is what they use to make the explosives with which they blow us up. I'm supposed to radio in my suspicion, request authorization to enter. But what if they don't give it to me? What if Vinci steals my find and claims it for himself? He hates me and lets it show, even in public. I'm the one here, and I want the credit for me and my men. Four of us enter: the Afghani soldier, Owl, Fox, and Mulan. Crates and sacks, dusty but neatly stacked, as if ready to be loaded and taken away. Transceivers. Detonating fuses. Five petrol drums. Ammunition belts. This hovel is really an arsenal. They left it all behind, they're still here.

I radioed the captain. His operation code name was Libra. Mine was Ripley. My very hairy deputy's was King Kong, the bomb disposal unit's was Hare. Beaming, I informed Libra that there were at least three hundred kilos of ammonium nitrate in there. He told me to wait for Hare.

ANA had reached the far spur of the village. We were behind them, beyond them was only the precipice. There was no way out: our man was trapped. When the ANA soldiers passed us, I heard them praying under their breath. Men and boys, I couldn't say how old, with baggy uniforms and thin, ancient bulletproof vests. Born to fight and accustomed to war, even though their OMLT trainers said they had trouble understanding that they were supposed to follow orders, trouble believing that discipline was not servility but rather the first duty of free men. Their courage was enviable: they despised death, and we all respected them. If I were fighting to defend my family and my country, I wouldn't be afraid to die. And tonight I'm not afraid. Pegasus is my family. Silence covered the village like a lid. There was enough fertilizer piled in that dump to make bombs to kill us all. But now it had been neutralized. I was the smallest cog in the machine, but even I was good for something. I'd made my minuscule contribution to the cause. As the proverb says, if you never stand up, you'll never know how tall you are. Now I knew.

All of a sudden a rifle shot, followed by a machine gun. Mullah Wallid had been spotted in a cave used as a sheep pen, under the rock face. The gunfire lasted only a few minutes, then the shouting started, a sort of chant. The radio informed me that he'd been taken alive. ANP handcuffed him and took him away. There were five other men with him, cut, bruised, and bleeding. Six insurgents arrested in a single operation: that exceeded all our expectations. Paggiarin would get a medal. The Panthers had reason to celebrate. “I can smell leave time, Owl,” Venier whispered. I only caught a glimpse of our target as he stumbled amid the houses, pushed by some ANP officers: a gnome in a turban and filthy white rags. Mullah Wallid looked straight ahead as he walked, his expression proud and fearless.

*   *   *

“Congratulations, guys,” Zandonà said when we climbed back into the Lince. We earned it. Not a single mistake. A textbook operation, fast, clean, no accidents or losses—apart from a goat, hit head-on by a machine gun. And an old geezer from Cerberus, who dislocated his ankle on the rocks. But he came back with both his legs.

I suggested he concentrate, because it wasn't over yet. In fact, the return was the most dangerous phase of Goat 4. It's like when you're in the mountains; the tension drops when you reach the summit, and you tend to get distracted, but the descent is more treacherous. We were at least four hours from the base, and night was beginning to fade. We were going to have to cross hostile terrain—a long, narrow valley—at first light. A few miles from the clearing, after crossing the dry riverbed, the track dropped into a sort of canyon, a narrow gorge between sheer cliffs that the Linces would have to traverse single-file. Impenetrable barriers of all-but-vertical rock faces that reminded me vaguely of the Dolomites, torn by deep crevices and ravines. There was no way out. I didn't like it at all.

We entered the gorge at 0447. According to my calculations, we should exit it by 0507 at the latest. Before sunrise, in other words. We drove as fast as possible, though given the rough terrain, we couldn't go more than ten kilometers an hour. Jodice kept his Browning aimed at the crest of the mountains, at least four hundred meters above us. He kept seeing dark shadows, but they might have only been pyramids of stones. The mountains rumbled, the rocks amplifying the echo, and then silence fell over the valley again. It was 0459, and we were in the exact middle of the gorge.

The vehicle in front of ours braked suddenly, and Zandonà slammed on his brakes as well. “King Kong, what's happening, King Kong?” The radio worked only intermittently, the looming rock faces blocking the signal. All I could pick up was that 06, the sixth Lince in the convoy, had hit an IED. In the gloom of the vehicle's interior I could just make out Zandonà's drawn face, he was biting his lip nervously. Puddu was exhaling forcefully, as if in a trance. All I could see of Jodice in the turret were his legs. All the vehicles were stopped in a line, single-file. Stone chips rained down from the sheer cliffs, landing like confetti on the windshield. Greenish spots, filaments of bodies in the dark. “The gunner went flying, like a scrap of paper,” Lance Sergeant Spina said over the 07 radio. “I saw him with my own eyes. Who is it?”

Info was racing from unit to unit. Names of Cerberus platoon guys. But no, I realized with a shock, if it was 06, he was one of mine. Iota Squad. It was Michelin! Pieri, the rubber man. “Medevac, medevac right away.” I can't lose one of my men. Why did fate choose Michelin of all people?

The radio reports that medics have already reached the wounded. But he doesn't seemed injured, he bounced on the snow, he really is the rubber man. He's moving, moving his legs, no broken bones, not even a scratch, Saint Lince has granted him a miracle. “The other four in his squad are unharmed as well, only a few abrasions,” I radioed. No response. “Can you hear me? King Kong, Skorpio, it's Ripley. The Lince held, but the hull has been gutted, it won't start, there's no room to go around it, we're stuck.” I looked up at the imposing mountains, the sheer cliffs, the setting stars, the lifting darkness. If someone was spying on us from above, they could see us clearly now.

The wreck was wedged among the rocks. The heat of the explosion had welded metal to stone. Three hundred kilos of deformed door now looked like part of the landscape. I kneeled over Pieri. They had laid him out between the wheels of Spina's vehicle. He seemed dazed, but kept trying to get up, repeating, “I'm fine, I'm fine,” over and over. Zanchi and Montano had to hold him down. “The chopper's on its way, Michelin, you'll be evacuated, you'll be in Sollum in half an hour,” I told him. He gave me a dull look. “The Browning's done for, I think” he said. He didn't seem to realize what had happened to him; he looked surprised by the fear he read in our eyes.

A Lince costs two hundred and fifty thousand euros—three hundred and forty-five thousand dollars—but all it takes to destroy one is a hundred and fifty kilos of TNT, which they sell here for a few dollars. Numbers always prove you wrong in this country. I knew that Paggiarin would be upset at losing a Lince, he would have preferred a clean run. This was the first IED to hit Ninth Company. The captain was almost as attached to his vehicles as he was to his men. But 06 was totaled. I thanked it silently, as if it were a dear friend. I was sorry to condemn it to death, but not even a scrap of metal can be left for the enemy. I radioed in its coordinates so our planes could destroy it as soon as the field was clear. I tried contacting my superiors, to ask for orders. Were we supposed to wait until the area was cleared? The sun would rise at 0524, the sky was already growing light.

But all I got in response was an electric short, like fingernails on a blackboard. I'd lost contact with headquarters. The only person I could talk to was Skorpio—Vinci, that is—the Cerberus commander, who was in 01 behind the ANA vehicles. “I'm already past it, I'm going to keep going,” Vinci said, “we'll position ourselves at the mouth of the canyon. It's too risky and pointless for all of us to stay trapped in the gorge.” “Roger, over,” I confirmed. But I had my doubts. “Should we divide up the column?” I wanted to ask him. It had been beaten into my head: never divide up the column. But it wasn't just numbers that didn't add up here in the Stan. The rules didn't either. I told myself that you have to decide for yourself sometimes. You have to assume responsibility. There's no such thing as an absolute right and wrong. It all depends on the circumstances. In the wrong circumstances, nothing is right. It wasn't right to divide up the column, and it wasn't right to keep it together. Only a few seconds to evaluate the pros and cons. If this was an ambush, then maybe he was right, it was better for one group to make it to safety. And if it wasn't, even better. All in all, there were seven vehicles trapped in the gorge. Two of my squads and one Afghan squad. Thirty-five men. I looked at my watch. We still had twelve minutes of night. I gave the order to turn back: we had to get ourselves out of there as quickly as we could.

“What the fuck,” Zandonà protested, as he shifted into reverse. It was a tricky maneuver, the gorge was as narrow as a birth canal. The Lince veered, its sides scraping against the rocks. “When I was in Bosnia,” Jodice was saying, “a Serb shot out one of the tires on my Jeep. I swerved off the road. So I climb out the broken window and go looking for the bastard. That asshole could have killed me. He was the size of a bear, sure, but to shoot at a headquarters jeep! So I jot down his house, his street, everything, but there's nothing I can do, I'm unarmed. Two days later, I'm on leave and I run into him in the bazaar. Turns out he's the butcher. He's slicing up a bull's balls. I jam the punctured tire around his neck, like a life preserver, and throw him in the river. The tire's popped, the asshole starts to sink, nearly drowns.” I didn't find Jodice's acts of bravado very amusing, but at that moment I was grateful he'd come up with another story, because it diffused the tension, put some distance between us and the shadow of death which had passed over us all; we could still feel it. And as the seven vehicles slithered slowly back up the canyon, I could clearly see the white trail of a rocket-propelled grenade above us. An antitank rocket whizzed by and exploded against a nearby boulder before I had time to yell “RPG left.” Rocks as big as plates crashed against the windshield. So it wasn't just an isolated IED: this was an ambush.