Ultimate Betrayal (3 page)

The Taliban fighter dropped his weapon and grabbed David’s wrist with both of his hands. David hopped forward and continued to press the knife against the man’s chest. It took almost half-a-minute before he felt the man’s grip weaken. Then the Taliban fighter sagged to the ground and went still.

David figured the jets were still about fifteen minutes out. He retreated behind the rock outcropping again. A minute passed and then he heard whispers. A group of half-a-dozen or so men passed him, stopped, and clustered around the two bodies of their comrades. He moved from the rocks and fired his assault rifle into the group until his magazine was empty. Then he again took cover, ejected the empty magazine, and inserted his last fresh one.

Voices echoed off the mountainside and mixed with the groans and cries of the men he’d just fired on.

Then he heard in his ear bud, “Sergeant Hood, where the hell are you?”

David ignored the voice and took a step forward when automatic weapons fire drove him back behind the rocks. Rounds struck and ricocheted off the rock wall behind him and propelled metal and rock shrapnel at and around him. Then something hot hit him in the back, knocked him to the ground, and drove the air from his lungs. He felt blood dribble down his back. Sharp shards of rock slashed his face and torso. Blood poured from a cut on his forehead and blinded him. He felt light-headed. Each breath he took felt as though someone twisted a knife in his lungs. On hands and knees, he sucked in minute quantities of air until his head cleared. He jerked the scarf from around his neck, wiped away blood from his eyes, and tied it around his head. He rose, stood on one leg, and lobbed two grenades in the direction of the trench. Then from above and behind him, his team rained a hailstorm of bullets down on the Taliban positions. The enemy fighters stopped shooting.

David took this opportunity to hobble up the goat path. He stumbled over the Taliban bodies that littered the trail. After a few seconds, the enemy fighters down by the trench opened up on him again. He dropped to the ground. Bullets slapped the rock wall behind him and kicked up dirt and rock from the path. His team again fired at the enemy. David tried to right himself, but his wounded leg wouldn’t support him and his good leg cramped. Then his men stopped firing. They had to be out of ammunition. He looked down and saw tribesmen move in his direction. He rolled onto his back, aimed his rifle, and fired a burst. The first three men fell while the men behind them retreated.

Suddenly, a tribesman came out of nowhere, screamed “
Allah akbar
!” and charged. David shot him with his last bullet. He tried once again to stand; he didn’t want to die on his back. But it was no good. He took his 9 mm pistol from his holster and vowed to kill at least one more of the enemy before they killed him. He had a brief thought about his brother before one of the Taliban fighters stepped onto the path and moved toward him.

David shot the man as he shouted, “Die, asshole!” He expected more of the enemy to appear when the sweet throaty sounds of jet engines roared overhead. Barely conscious, David saw two F/A-18 fighter jets scream past as they dropped incendiary bombs on top of the depression where David and his team had been a few minutes earlier. The planes circled around and fired their M61 Vulcan cannons into the side of the mountain. David could see Vulcan rounds impact the hillside twenty yards from where he lay.

David awoke at a field hospital. A man with Major’s insignia on his white coat stood next to his bed. The man held a two-inch metal fragment.

“Nice to see you finally awake.” He handed David the piece of metal. “That came out of your back. Thought you’d like a souvenir.”

David couldn’t have cared less about the metal shard the doctor had taken from him, but he said, “Thanks.”

The doctor patted his shoulder.

“How are my men?”

“Two dead, including the lieutenant, and one wounded. The others all got back. Thanks to you.”

“I didn’t do a thing,” David said.

The doctor shook his head. “I hear that shit all the time. Despite the fact you don’t think you did anything, that firefight will probably get you a Silver Star, besides the two Purple Hearts for your wounds. And I hear you’ve been promoted to Master Sergeant. Not bad for being in the Army less than two years.”

“When can I rejoin my unit?”

The doctor laughed. “That won’t happen any time soon. It will be a couple months before your wounds heal and you’re able to rehab your leg. You’ll have a limp for a long time, if not forever.” The man picked up a brown envelope off the bottom of David’s bed and handed it to him. “Those are your new orders.”

After the doctor left him, David opened the envelope and read the orders. He had been assigned to something called the Special Logistical Support Detachment at Headquarters, United States Forces-Afghanistan. His heart sank. They’ve assigned me to some bullshit desk job, he thought.

DECEMBER 22, 2002

CHAPTER 4

David reported in at Bagram Air Force Base for his new assignment. He cooled his heels for an hour in the air conditioned splendor of a camouflaged building the size of a Wal-Mart store before Marine Gunnery Sergeant Fred Laniewski came and led him out into one of the myriad corridors that crisscrossed the enclosure.

“Inside this place, you’d never know you were in the middle of a war zone,” Laniewski said as he moved aside to avoid two Army generals.

David chuckled. “Sure isn’t what I’m used to.”

“I heard,” Laniewski said. “You miss the boonies.”

“Yeah, like a sharp stick in the eye.”

“This place is the little sister of the Pentagon,” Laniewski said. “We call it the Afghan Puzzle Palace. You can’t walk around here without running into dozens of high-ranking officers. They all have one purpose in life—build up the enemy body count for the Pentagon so they can politic their way to a promotion.”

David looked askance at Laniewski. “You’re joking, right?” The grim, determined look on the Marine’s face told David otherwise.

“So, what kind of unit is this? Grunts and Jarheads together?”

“Navy and Air Force, too,” Laniewski said. “You’ll see.”

Laniewski led David through the halls and stopped at a metal-clad door in what appeared to be a vault planted in the middle of the building. The Marine picked up a telephone receiver from the wall and identified himself.

An Army lieutenant opened the door and frowned. “It’s about time, Fred,” he said, as he backed into the room.

David followed Laniewski through the doorway.

“The Colonel’s having a conniption fit about the records you owe him,” the lieutenant continued. “He owes CENTCOM a report.” The lieutenant stared at David, as though he’d noticed him for the first time. “Is this the new meat?”

“Yes, sir. Sergeant David Hood, meet Lieutenant Eric Carbajal.”

“Good to have you here,” Carbajal said. Then he turned back to Laniewski. “Show Hood his desk, then take that information to Colonel Bishop.”

Laniewski pointed at a gray metal desk in the second of three rows of identical ones. They were crammed into a forty-foot by forty-foot room. Most of the desks were occupied. “You’ve been assigned to the Special Logistical Support Detachment, a newly formed, top-secret unit,” Laniewski said. “Our mission is code-named “Operation Harvest.” The unit’s commander is Army Colonel Rolf Bishop.” Laniewski scowled and in a whisper said, “You sure as hell don’t want to get on Bishop’s bad side. He’s the worst sonofabitch I’ve ever met. The guy’s got steely-gray eyes that scare grown men and would give little children nightmares.”

David thought Laniewski had exaggerated. Bishop would have to be a psychopath to be a worse sonofabitch than the men he’d fought against for the past few months . . . or men who worked for Gino Bartolucci back in South Philadelphia, for that matter.

“The War in Afghanistan is only in its second year,” Laniewski said, “and it’s already obvious the U.S. will smash the Taliban and their Al Qaeda buddies. The only questions are how long will we hang around, what kind of Afghan government and military will we leave behind, and how long will it take the Taliban to recover and replace the Afghan elected government? Some congressmen have already warned about Afghanistan becoming another Vietnam. There are threats in Congress to drastically cut funds targeted for Afghanistan, which is what happened in the early seventies in Vietnam.”

“It’s a bit early in this war to compare Afghanistan to Vietnam,” David said. “In 1971, we’d already been in Vietnam for, what, eight or nine years.”

“How do you know that? That’s ancient history.”

David shrugged. “I read a lot.” After a beat, he asked, “So, what do we do here?”

“We bring weapons, ammunition, and all sorts of other equipment and materiel into Afghanistan that won’t be needed here for years to come. The serial numbers of hundreds of critical items not even scheduled for production are inputted to Afghan government property books. As quickly as these goods are manufactured, they’re shipped over here. The Pentagon’s goal is to enable the Afghan military to continue to wage war against the Taliban, even after U.S. forces and U.S. financial support are eventually withdrawn.

“The Pentagon learned a big lesson in Vietnam. This time, in Afghanistan, it decided to find a solution in advance. It created the SLSD here, patterned after the Vietnam unit of the same name.”

“Yeah, but what if we leave and the Taliban overthrows the government? They’d have access to all the equipment, materiel, and supplies we brought in.”

“That’s right,” Laniewski said. “But it’s a risk the higher-ups will take.” He spread his arms as though he encouraged David to draw his own conclusion.

David’s right leg suddenly ached so he stood to stretch it. “My God,” he said, “if tons of stuff are shipped into Afghanistan, years before its needed, where’s it all stored?”

“Great question. The SLSD is the ringmaster of this three-ring circus. It’s a logistical nightmare. The unit’s responsibility is to track the status, on a daily basis, of every shipment into Afghanistan. Every day, C-5 cargo planes unload massive quantities of equipment and supplies. The unit keeps records of these shipments: When they leave the States, where they are en route, when they’re off-loaded, and where the goods are warehoused. The problem is that we have more stuff than we have warehouse space to store it.”

David looked around the room and then back at Laniewski. “So, this unit was formed to hide the Pentagon’s agenda from Congress. Could we go to prison if Congress discovers what the Pentagon is up to?” Fighting the Taliban in the mountains and valleys, wounds notwithstanding, might be preferable to this assignment, David thought.

Laniewski waggled his hand, but didn’t give David a definitive answer or much comfort. He pulled a sheet of paper from under the telephone on David’s desk and handed it to him. “This is a list of the members of our unit. Colonel Bishop has organized us into two teams of seven men each. The teams work twelve-hour shifts. Our team works 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.”

He tapped the sheet of paper in David’s hands. “Sergeant Campbell has been with Colonel Bishop at least eleven years. The other team members, all with combat experience, were pulled together from completely different units.”

“What’s my job?” David asked.

“Let me get my report to Peg Leg and then I’ll explain your duties.”

“Peg Leg?”

Laniewski looked around. He again whispered. “Bishop has an artificial leg. Got shot as an Infantry lieutenant on Grenada.”

“The Army didn’t muster him out?”

“The way I heard it, Bishop was a gung-ho West Point graduate who wanted to become Chief of Staff some day. Had visions of four stars on his shoulders. After he lost his leg, the Army offered him a medical discharge. He wouldn’t take it. Fought like a wounded tiger to keep his commission. He finally won, but the Army transferred him from the Infantry to the Quartermaster Corps. No crippled Quartermaster officer will ever make General, let alone become Chief of Staff. He’s been bitter ever since. Stay out of his way. He’s a fuckin’ asshole.”

JANUARY 21, 2003

CHAPTER 5

Captain Andrew King removed his wire-rimmed glasses and mopped his face with an Army-green handkerchief. It was unusually hot in the SLSD vault and the air conditioning was on the fritz. He yelled across the room, “Hey, Hood, didn’t that shipment of M16s, M-4s, and ammunition come in last week? Tuesday wasn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.” David glanced across the room at King. The officer looked like a subject of a Norman Rockwell painting: freckles, red hair, and a Midwestern, boy-next-door appearance. But like every other member of the SLSD, King had paid his dues in the field. For all his Opie of Mayberry looks, David knew the Infantry officer had proven himself under fire. Two Silver Stars, a Bronze Star, and two Purple Hearts said it all. “The ammo and rifles came in on a cargo plane. I met it at the airfield and had the shipment off-loaded onto trucks that were supposed to carry the stuff to the warehouse.”

“That’s what I thought, but I can’t find the damned things anywhere on the computer. It’s like they never existed. The Quartermaster Corps claims they have no record of the shipment and the cargo manifests have disappeared.”

“I can run out to the airfield and track them down, Captain. I bet they’re still on the trucks or stored on pallets, getting dirt and snow blown on them.”

King grunted with disgust. “I wouldn’t bet against you.” He looked at his watch. “Nah. It’s already past six o’clock. You’ve busted your ass enough hours today. Take off and get yourself a beer. I’ll drive to the warehouse. I can’t wait to hear the line of bullshit the warehouse guys give me about what they’ve done with ten thousand assault rifles and tons of ammunition.”

King smiled when he walked out of the building into the cold Afghanistan air. Snow patches checker-boarded the landscape for as far as he could see. Glad for a break from computer reports and the heat in the vault, the cold and snow hardly bothered him. After he waited fifteen minutes for a Jeep from the motor pool, King drove out of the headquarters compound and headed toward the warehouse complex.