Operation Dark Heart (23 page)

“Well, we can postpone his knowledge of the ***** mission,” I said. “He does know that Wana is a location of interest because of the HVTs there, but since this is a **** ***** * target, we’ll just inform him rather than asking permission.”

Randy and Jim nodded.

“So we’re agreed that Jim has the lead in this mission area,” I said.

“Agreed,” they said.

“What can we do about the overall border area? We don’t know how loyal the Afghan border police are,” I said.

“We’re working on that,” said Randy ***** **** *********** **** ******** *** ********* *** ** *** ********* ** *** ********* and that should give us significant insight.”

Now that we had Randy’s buy-in, we headed back to Bagram to begin preparing for the staff concept briefing for General Vines. He didn’t have to approve the operation—yet. He just needed to know about it so we could get started. Approval, assuming we got it, would come later, but I had to brief Colonel Negro first.

Dave and I decided to brief him after the LTC stand-up. After it, the FBI rep, John Hays and Tim Loudermilk, Colonel Negro operations officer, remained, and the CIA rep departed. Dave watched him leave the SCIF to make sure he was gone. Colonel Negro gave us a suspicious look.

“What’s up, airborne?” he asked.

“Sir, we have a concept that we gave your staff hard copy on regarding cross-border operations into Pakistan. We need your guidance and approval.”

“What ya got?” he said.

Dave and I gave him a forty-five-minute presentation of the concept of the operation, looking over our shoulders periodically to make sure the CIA rep didn’t reappear. We detailed the task organization, the timelines, the technology, and the ultimate end-state of Operation Dark Heart.

After, Colonel Negro gave us a big smile, and Dave and I looked at each other in relief. He got it. Colonel Negro sat back. “Have you talked to Colonel Boardman about this?”

“We haven’t said a word,” I said.

Colonel Negro thought for a second. “Well, General Vines needs to see this, and the sooner the better.”

“We agree on that,” I said, “but if we take it to Colonel Boardman, he’s going to say no. And we don’t need the senior intelligence officer becoming a problem in this operation.” Boardman liked to hoard information. He considered all intelligence assets in country as belonging to him, and we believed our job was to run operations—to achieve results—not just to collect intelligence.

Colonel Negro glanced over at Tim. “What’s General Vines’s calendar like for the next two days?”

“I’ve already checked, and he’s got a window of an hour and a half tomorrow. About ten. Right after the J2 briefing.”

“Did you check where Colonel Boardman’s going to be?” Colonel Negro asked.

“He’s scheduled to be in Kabul.”

Colonel Negro turned to us. “Can you do the briefing tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Easy,” I said. “Dave’s folks will brief first on the intel. I’d like to do the concept and content briefing. Sir, can you jump in and request that he give guidance on what to do? I’d appreciate that.”

“You got it,” Colonel Negro said. He turned to Tim. “Make sure you put this on General Vines’s schedule as an LTC briefing, and don’t put in any names of the briefers.”

We were nervous about the next day’s briefing, even though we were only briefing General Vines on the concept of operations, illustrating to him how it fit into his larger mission objective for Afghanistan and obtaining his planning guidance for implementation. It wasn’t meant—yet—to get his approval. Eventually, though, he would have to give us a thumbs-up—or a thumbs-down.

In the briefing were Dave Christenson, Tim Loudermilk, John Hays, as well as Captain Knowles, the FBI, and reps to the LTC from **** ***** ** CJSOTF Information Operations. We used the video-conferencing room. It was smaller, but used for the most sensitive briefing because it was the most secure—as secure as you can make a tent.

Major General Vines was no wilting lily. White-haired, slightly balding, but rugged, with keen eyes that seemed to look right through you, he had served in Panama, Operation Desert Storm, and three years in Somalia—not a cupcake posting. Standing near him, you got this feeling of refined aggressiveness. Many military officers aren’t comfortable with spooks. They know—and care—little about what we do. They seem to regard it as ungentlemanly or something, and they sure don’t like the fact that we’re often not in uniform. Yet I had the sense that this didn’t bother Vines one damned bit. He had a war to fight—despite what the Pentagon was saying.

He always let you know where he stood and whether he believed you were doing a good job. He had developed a strong reputation as a war-fighting general, one who was more and more at odds with Pentagon leadership, which wanted to move away from the Afghan war to reconstruction operations. Albeit we were presenting him with a concept predicated on the idea that the war was not over and people were still dying—an inconvenient fact for a Washington obsessed with the Iraq war.

We stood up as General Vines came in and he asked us to take our seats. He looked around the room and greeted Colonel Negro in a slight Southern accent; he had been raised in Alabama.

“Juan, what have you got for me?” he asked briskly.

In his typical quiet manner, Colonel Negro laid it out. “We’ve got a concept of operations that we want to give to you today that will allow us to better conduct leadership-targeting operations while simultaneously supporting the objective of Task Force 180.”

“Sounds good. Let’s go,” said General Vines.

With that, Colonel Negro looked at Dave.

“Sir, the intelligence that’s driving this operation was discovered by Captain Mary Knowles, and she will first brief on the intelligence in which she has identified three key centers of operation of al Qaeda and Taliban leadership in Pakistan. She will be followed Major Shaffer with the concept of operations.”

For about ten minutes, Captain Knowles laid out for General Vines what she had told us about Wana, pointing it out on a map on the flat panel screen on the wall. He looked up at her. “So this fits with what you have been telling me regarding the creation of multiple safe havens in Pakistan?”

Captain Knowles glanced at Dave, then back at the general, looking for approval to say more. “Yes, general,” she said. “While you do not see them here on this map,” she said, pointing to locations north and south of Wana, “there are *** other major safe havens we now know of**** **** ****** *** *** ***** **** ********.”

General Vines nodded. “Thank you, captain. Great briefing. It enhances my understanding of the target.”

We all sat for about thirty seconds as she gathered up her notes and quietly departed. I felt kind of bad for her. She would never know the outcome of her work.

Colonel Negro gave me a brief smile as I began my presentation.

As I stood up, I realized that I was the only person in the room not wearing a uniform, and it worried me for a moment—I hoped that my goatee, Nike golf shirt, and tan tactical pants would not affect the general’s view of my briefing.

“General,” I began, “as you know, we were successful in integrating multiple intelligence capabilities. **** *** ********** In addition, this concept has been coordinated with **** ***** * and its personnel ** ** **** ******** ** ******* **********

General Vines nodded. “You did great work.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said. Good. He was on board so far. “We’d like to continue that concept in what’s called Operation Dark Heart.”

Then came the detailed briefing, to which General Vines listened without comment. It took about an hour, each representative giving a short briefing on his specific organization’s role in supporting the operation. I gave the task organization—who would be doing what—and pointed out that the CIA was not involved.

Throughout the briefing, I kept glancing at him, trying to gauge his reaction, but he was expressionless. Damn. What if he didn’t approve of the concept? Without that, we were dead in the damned water.

After, he stared at us for a moment before speaking. Then he rocked us back in our chairs.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “if you want my approval, you’ve got it.”

We stared at him, shocked.

“This is outstanding,” he said. “It’s the most integrated I’ve seen you all since I’ve been in country.”

This was way more than we had expected. Not only did he buy into the concept of operations, he’d given us the go-ahead to execute it.

In the midst of my relief, though, there was one aspect I wanted to make sure I was absolutely clear on—the CIA.

“You do understand that we’re proposing that this be done without CIA participation,” I told the general.

Colonel Negro spoke up. “Sir, with all due respect, we believe we have the legal authority based on current guidelines to conduct operations within cities along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border without CIA coordination.”

Here, we were dealing with the division of authority between the CIA and DoD. Since Afghanistan was a war zone, it was covered by Title 10 of the U.S. Code, which governs the armed forces. The area of vagueness came in the fact that we would be conducting operations on the Pakistani side of the border, where the CIA felt it had authority under Title 50 of the U.S. Code, which covers foreign intelligence operations. Having conducted most of my operations over the past ten years in DIA under a combination of both Title 10 and Title 50 authority, I had been involved with the policy debates about what the distinction really meant. We were successful in using Title 10 when necessary. In some cases, we informed the director of Central Intelligence but didn’t request concurrence, so I felt comfortable working in this area for General Vines.

“I understand,” General Vines said. He moved quickly past that issue. “Let me know when you are ready for implementation. I want updates every thirty days. Got it?”

We all nodded, still slightly in shock.

He gave us a hint of a smile.
I’m pleased
, he seemed to be saying,
but this isn’t going to be easy
.

“Anything else for me?” he asked.

We all looked at Colonel Negro, who shook his head no.

General Vines stood up. “Thank you for the briefing. Good job. Drive on.”

We all stood up until he left and then collapsed in our seats.

I looked over at Colonel Negro. “Did I hear what I thought I heard?” I said.

Colonel Negro just smiled. “Boardman is going to be very unhappy about this.”

“Yes, and so is a certain chief of station when he figures out what is going on,” I said.

I looked over at the **** ***** * rep, a navy lieutenant, and asked him to pass the general’s comment along to Jim and to ask him to execute the first part of the mission.

Operation Dark Heart was a go. Soon after that, Kate finally collected on her massage request.

*   *   *

I didn’t quite know what to expect. I’d never given a massage in a combat zone before, but I dug out some hand cream scented with lotus flowers that I’d picked up at the ******** ****** ***** ** ***** ***** ** * ******* ** ***** and figured it would do in place of massage oil.

By some miracle, and some careful planning, the whole DIA crew that I shared a tent with was out to the four winds from Bagram for the day: Ken the debriefer was tied up doing a debriefing for ISAF, Greg had gone forward to the front and was working with Ray Moretti in Kandahar, and Special Ed, Jack, and Chris W. went to visit the Safe House to pick up Chris W.’s new bed.

The Safe House was being upgraded with new beds, and Randy said they’d have a couple extras and wanted to know if we wanted them. I turned him down. I wasn’t going to take something unless the whole team could have it.

Chris W. didn’t see it that way and decided to bring one back for himself. After all, he was an air force officer, we joked, and not really part of the military. Chris W. enjoyed the Safe House and spent as much time as he could there. You gotta admit, cable TV, real running water, real food made by a chef, and no rockets being fired at random over your head was kinda attractive. So he had taken Special Ed and Jack to the house that day to bring back the twin-sized bed and somehow crowd it into our tent.

The previous night, at about 0200, while sitting side by side and smoking a cigar and chatting, Kate’s leg kept gently bumping mine—one of those small flirtations. It was a welcome touch.

I finally could not hold back anymore and leaned over in her direction until my mouth was about two inches from her ear. In not much more than a whisper, I told her that she could collect on her massage after her overnight shift.

“How did you arrange this?” she asked quietly, when I told her about my absent tentmates. She put her hand on my right upper leg and leaned in to whisper into my ear.

With her head still leaning into my body, I whispered back, “I’m the ops officer. I move things around. I was able to move everything at once to create some space.”

I could feel the heat of her body as she stayed just inches from mine, the weight of her hand still on my thigh.

I added, “Are you still up for a full body massage, or would you like me to just do your feet?”