One Child (12 page)

Chapter

21

Dabarey, Afghanistan

Andrew
grabbed
Russell
by the arm and yelled at him over the roar of the Stryker engines and the incoming small arms fire as they entered Dabarey.

"We're going in hot. I want you to stay in the vehicle."

Russell
shook his head. "No way. I'm more of a target in this thing than on the ground with you guys. I'm coming with you."

Andrew
made an instant decision. "Okay, but they're shooting at us. You understand that?"

"Yes."

One of the crew members threw back the rear hatch and the men piled out of the vehicle.
Andrew
scrambled out and took a defensive position against the side of the Stryker, then yelled to
Russell
. "Let's go. Now. Now." He pointed to a six-foot mud wall on the right side of the road. "Get flat against that. Hurry."

Russell
jumped off the Stryker. The impact when he hit the ground sent a shock wave from his knees through his body to his skull and jarred his teeth. He almost collapsed but stayed on his feet and ran to the wall. He hugged the hot, rough-textured mud, his hands shaking so violently he hitched his thumbs under the camera-bag straps to keep them from vibrating.
Andrew
scurried up beside him.

"Here's the deal. We're coming at these guys from three different angles. Left flank, right flank and the center. We're in the center. Got it?"

"Got it."

"There's an irrigation canal about a hundred and fifty meters ahead and we expect them to be dug in behind it. But we're going to get face-to-face with them as we move through the streets. We want to engage them before they can drop back and regroup behind the canal wall."
Andrew
glanced both ways on the street. "Stay behind me. Don't get ahead. We won't push too hard or too fast or we'll be like a thumb sticking out of a glove and they'll come in behind our platoon and cut us off."

"I understand."

Andrew
adjusted his helmet and snugged his M-4 tight to his chest. He indicated to the rest of the men from his Stryker that he was ready and the lead man started down the narrow street. Behind them the Stryker backed off far enough that it wasn't vulnerable to any RPGs coming from the nearby buildings. Inside the vehicle, the gunner checked the optics on the remote weapons station for the .50 caliber gun, ready to provide cover fire. They fell into formation, one of the soldiers taking up the rear so
Russell
wasn't the last man in the line, and moved down the street.

It was quieter after the roar of the Stryker engines diminished. Still omnipresent was the steady crack of automatic gunfire and a constant wave of explosions. The two-way radios in their helmets crackled with short reports from the three platoons - their positions and what sort of resistance they were facing. Left flank, totaling twenty-three men, had the easiest route through the town. The spaces between buildings were wider, giving the enemy fewer hiding places. The thirty-eight men working the right flank had the toughest slogging. The roads leading through the town were narrower and shaped like crescents. The soldiers were constantly rounding corners and dealing with thin crossroads, not much wider than their shoulders. Enemy fire was steady and according to the radio, three troops were already injured. The talk coming back from the point men on all three platoons wasn't good. They were meeting fiercer resistance than expected. Intel had pegged the number of Taliban way too low.

"Get the Strykers to circle the town and lay down some grenade fire on the irrigation canal," Captain Conroy, the officer in charge of the company, ordered over the radio. "Close the back door on these guys. Don't let the ones inside the village get into the canal. Target some of the shells on the back edge of town."

Verbal affirmatives came in from the lieutenants in charge of the platoons. The Strykers were on the move, seven to the west, six to the east. The first Stryker to hit an IED was detouring on the left flank. The explosion tore off two wheels and it leaned precariously to the right. The commander and gunner were uninjured and they radioed in what had happened. Another of the light armored vehicles hit an IED a couple of seconds later. The Taliban had laced the ground surrounding the town with caches of explosives with pressure triggers. The disabled vehicles still had their firepower and the commanders set up firing positions from where they had been hit. Word came across the radio for the rest of the Stryker drivers to find a firing spot ASAP and pull up. They were caught in a minefield and moving anywhere in the area near the town was too dangerous.

The three Strykers with the MK19 grenade launchers settled into position and the commanders input coordinates to the computers. They targeted the narrow band between the village and the canal, and the canal itself. Six minutes after the order to pull back and set up a barrage, they were lobbing grenades onto the rearmost Taliban positions.

Fighting inside the town was intense. Of the seventy-eight men who had entered the town, six were wounded, two severely, and the entire right flank was pinned down by stiff resistance in the narrow alleyways that dominated that side of town. The left flank was moving ahead, but cautiously so that they didn't run ahead of the main force and allow themselves to be cut off from behind. The center force was under the most intense fire, from Taliban entrenched behind the walls bordering the canal and in the houses skirting the main road.

Talk on the radios was confirming something they already suspected. They had been set up. The Taliban had brought in hundreds of men under the cover of darkness. Some of the soldiers had tried ducking into houses for cover and found some of them occupied by scared women and children hiding from the fighting, other buildings were crammed with Taliban. Training, and their ability to react immediately to the volley of fire coming at them, had saved them from being killed. Calls for MEDEVACs were coming in from every squad. They were bogged down and in the fight of their lives.

"RPGs."

The voice came over the radio a second before the first Rocket Propelled Grenade hit one of the Strykers. It bored into the armor between the driver's hatch and the turret, knocking out their communications and disabling the gun. Additional RPG fire came from the canal, peppering the Strykers as they laid down a withering barrage of cannon fire.

Russell
was tucked up tight to
Andrew
, in a small compound just off the main road. A Talib manning a machine gun at the north end of the street, about fifty meters from the canal, had them pinned down.
Russell
slipped his video camera around the corner and focused it down the street, shooting footage that he couldn't see.
Andrew
grabbed him by the shoulder and he pulled the camera back.

"Here,"
Andrew
said. He pulled his 9mm Berretta from its holster and handed it to the reporter. "Do you know how to use one of these things?"

"Yes,"
Russell
said, taking the gun.

"When this is over, you hand me the gun and I put it back in my holster. This never happened. You understand?"

"I understand."

Andrew
's grip on the reporter's shoulder strengthened. "We're in trouble. Serious trouble. If you see a bad guy, shoot him."

"Got it."

Andrew
and two men from his Stryker conferred for a minute, then he took a couple of deep breaths and ran out from behind the wall. The two soldiers ducked out and laid down covering fire on the machine gun.
Andrew
's legs pumped hard and he wove from side to side toward the Taliban position. He started taking fire and ducked into a doorway. He disappeared inside the house and there was more gunfire from his M-4. Then silence.

In the distance the grenades from the Strykers were targeting the Taliban positions at the canal. Deadly accurate, the rounds were decimating the entrenched Talibs with hot shrapnel. The amount of fire coming from the canal was lessening. Another RPG hit a Stryker, destroying the gun turret. The casualties were mounting - quickly. Radio talk indicated they were down to eight functioning vehicles out of thirteen.

But the tide was beginning to turn. The artillery fire from the Strykers had the Taliban pinned down behind the canal, allowing the soldiers to move up the streets without taking as much fire. They were clearing each house they came to, finding Taliban in many of them. Training in how to enter occupied buildings surpassed the advantage of being dug in, and the US troops cleared the houses with almost no casualties. Both right and left flanks were moving fast now. The problem was in the center where the men were bogged down by the machine gun positioned in the house at the end of the street. They needed to take out the gun, a tough job considering how well entrenched it was.

Andrew
's voice came over the radio. "Drop smoke on the street in front of the gun."

Seconds later two plumes of red smoke billowed across the road ten meters in front of the machine gun nest. The heavy thumping of the machine gun followed as the Talib shooter panicked and blindly sprayed the road with lead.
Andrew
waited until the gunfire stopped, then sprinted toward the smoke. He wove hard left and right in case there were other shooters in the neighboring houses. Nothing. He made it to the smoke and disappeared.

Once inside the smoke screen he ducked hard to the right and rolled until he slammed into a mud wall. He oriented himself, gained his feet, injected a new magazine and lowered his gun. "Cover fire directly up the middle for five seconds," he said into his radio. Small arms fire erupted behind him and he counted. One - two - three, the heavy machine gun opened fire, aiming straight down the road - four - five. He lunged forward as the smoke dispersed, his M-4 on three-burst automatic and aimed at the nest. He cleared the smoke and pulled the trigger again and again. Twenty-seven rounds spit out in three-round busts. His accuracy was perfect. The first shots cut into the men manning the gun and the remaining twenty were overkill.
Andrew
jammed a new magazine into his gun and jumped through the window the Taliban had been firing from. Three bodies lay splayed out on the dirt floor. One of the men was still alive and grabbing for a rifle.
Andrew
squeezed the trigger and the Talib's body jerked as the bullets slammed into his chest. He lay motionless on the floor.
Andrew
double-checked the room and the area outside the rear door.

"Clear," he said into his radio.

The smoke screen had blown off in the afternoon breeze and he looked out the window to see the remainder of his squad moving up the road. Bringing up the rear was Matthews, his camera bag banging against his side as he ran. He clutched the pistol firmly in his right hand, scanning the peripheral buildings for any sign of the enemy.

"You'd make a good soldier,"
Andrew
said as
Russell
entered the house and fell against the wall next to the door. The reporter was sucking in deep breaths and his face was flushed. His hands shook with nerves and adrenaline.

"You are completely fucking crazy,"
Russell
gasped.

Andrew
grinned and checked the mag on his gun. "
Completely
fucking crazy gets you dead.
Sort of
crazy gets the job done."

Russell
shook his head and pulled his video camera from the bag. He switched it to record and hit pause. He waited as the squad regrouped, radioed in their position and got the news back on the situation. With the threat in the center of town eliminated, the flanks were pushing to the canal and meeting limited resistance. The grenades from the stationary Strykers were raining down on the canal and the enemy was retreating, using the canal walls as cover.

"I'm almost out of ammo,"
Andrew
said.

"One mag left," another man said. The others agreed. Everyone was low.

"Switch to single shot,"
Andrew
said, adjusting his M-4 from three-round burst. The rest of the men did the same.

Andrew
's squad exited through the rear of the house, five of them followed by
Russell
and
Andrew
bringing up the rear.
Russell
hit the pause button and the machine went to record mode. He taped the men ahead of him as they moved slowly up the alleyway toward the canal. There was gunfire on both sides and grenades were exploding almost directly ahead.
Russell
panned the camera 180 degrees and focused on
Andrew
, who was intent on keeping their tail clean.

Russell
didn't see the Talib with the black turban until he was leveling the gun at
Andrew
. He came out of a doorway so narrow that he couldn't keep his gun parallel to the ground, and that gave
Andrew
a half second to react. The specialist spun fast, his finger tightening on the trigger. A single shot ejected from the barrel, the casing flying back and bouncing off the soldier's helmet. The bullet sliced through the hot summer air and smashed into the Talib's face, just above his nose on the right side. The bullet exited his head and took a massive chunk of skull and brains with it, splattering the mess across the door and the dusty wall. The man dropped to the rough stone, blood leaking into the sand and porous rock.

Andrew
turned to
Russell
and stared at the camera. Neither of them spoke. The line of men ahead of them were stopped and looking back.
Andrew
gave the all-clear sign and jerked his head at
Russell
.

"Let's move," he said.

The final fifty meters to the north end of town was uneventful. Any Taliban who had been in the center part of town had melded back into the dust and rocks from where they came.
Andrew
sat on a short wall with a view over the canal. He held out his hand and
Russell
relinquished the pistol.

"Did you fire it?" he asked.

"No."

Andrew
lit a cigarette and watched the troops moving out of the narrow streets to the west and east. The explosions had stopped and there was a spattering of small arms fire. The battle was over. It had been tense for a half hour, then training and determination had kicked in and swayed the outcome. If anyone in the company had ever wondered why they spent so many hours running drills, they weren't wondering anymore.