The village we were surveying had thirty-two houses. I counted them on the satellite picture. But we did not know which one Sharmak was in. Neither did we know if the houses were numbered in case we got better intel while we were up there.
We had some pictures of the layout but very little on the surrounding country. We had good GPS numbers, very accurate. And we had a short list of possible landing zones, unnecessary for the insert, because we’d fast-rope in, but critical for the extract.
I was certain we’d need to blow down a few trees on a lower level of the mountain in order to have cover when we left and to bring the helicopters in with the DA force if it was required. Barren, treeless mountainscapes are no place to conduct secretive landings and takeoffs, not with Taliban rocket men all around. Especially the highly trained group that surrounded Sharmak. He was goddamned lethal, and he’d proved it, more than once, blowing up the Marines.
The one aspect of the mission that dominated my thoughts as I walked back to meet the guys was that there was no place to hide, no place from which to watch. You simply cannot do effective reconnaissance if you can’t get into good position. And if those mountain cliffs that surrounded the village were as rough and stony as I suspected, we’d stick out on those heights like a diamond in a goat’s ass.
And there were likely to be between eighty and two hundred armed warriors keeping a very careful lookout on all the land around their boss. I was worried, not about the numbers of our enemy but about the problems of staying concealed in order to complete the mission. If there was a very limited selection of hiding places, we might have to compromise our angle on the village, not to mention our distance from it.
I met Mikey back at the bee hut. I told him we were going in, showed him the maps and what photographs we had, and I remember his reply. “Beautiful. Just another three days of fun and sun.” But I saw his expression change as he looked at the pictures, at the obviously very steep gradients, truly horrible terrain, a mountain we would have to clomp up and down in order to find cover.
By this time Axe and Danny had appeared. We briefed them and wandered, a bit apprehensively, over to the chow hall for lunch. I had a large bowl of spaghetti. Right afterward we went back to dress and get organized. I wore my desert bottoms and woodland top, mostly because intel had said the landing zone was fairly green and we would drop into an area of trees. I also had a sniper hood.
Mikey and Danny had their M4 rifles plus grenades; Axe had the Mark 12 .556-caliber rifle, and I had one as well. We all carried the SIG-Sauer 9mm pistol. We elected not to take a heavy weapon, the big twenty-one-pound machine gun M60, plus its ammunition. We were already loaded down with gear, and we thought it would be too heavy to haul up those cliffs.
I also took a couple of claymores, which are a kind of high-explosive device with a trip wire, to keep any intruder from walking up on us. I’d learned a hard lesson about that on my first day, when two Afghans got a lot closer than they should have and might easily have finished me.
We took a big roll of detonator cord to blow the trees for the incoming landing zone when the mission was complete or for the insert of a direct action force. At the last moment, still worried about this entire venture, I grabbed three extra magazines, which gave me a total of eleven, each holding thirty rounds. Eight was standard, but there was something about Operation Redwing. It turned out everyone felt the same. We all took three extra magazines.
I also carried an ISLiD (an acronym for image stabilization and light distribution unit) for guiding in an incoming helo, plus the spotting scope, and spare batteries for everything. Danny had the radio, and Mikey and Axe had the cameras and computers.
We took packed MREs — beef jerky, chicken noodles, power bars, water — plus peanuts and raisins. The whole lot weighed about forty-five pounds, which we considered traveling light. Shane was there to see us away: “ ’Bye, dudes, give ’em hell.”
All set, we were driven down to the special ops helicopter area, waiting to hear if there was a change. That would have been “Turn three!” The third time Redwing had been aborted. But this time there was only “Rolex, one hour,” which meant we were going as soon as it was dark.
We put down our loads and lay on the runway to wait. I remember it was very cold, with snowcaps on the not-too-distant mountains. Mikey assured me he had remembered to pack his lucky rock, a sharp-pointed bit of granite which had jabbed into his backside for three days on a previous mission when we were in a precarious hide and none of us could move even an inch. “Just in case you need to stick it up your ass,” he added. “Remind you of home.”
And so we waited, in company with a couple of other groups also going out that night. The quick reaction force (QRF) was going to Asadabad at the same time. We had just done a full photo recon of Asadabad, which they carried with them. The deserted Russian base was still there, and Asadabad, the capital city of Kunar Province, remained a known dangerous area. It was of course where the Afghan mujahideen had almost totally surrounded the base and then proceeded to slaughter all of the Russian enlisted men. It was the beginning of the end for the Soviets in 1989, only one range of mountains over from the spot we were going.
Finally, the rotor blades began to howl on the helos. Apparently the many moving parts of Operation Redwing, so susceptible to change, were still in place. The call came through, “Redwing is a go!,” and we hoisted up our gear and clambered on board the Chinook 47 for the insert, forty-five minutes away to the northeast. “Guess this fucker Ben Sharmak is still where we think he is,” said Mikey.
We were joined by five other guys going in to Asadabad, and the other helo took off first. Then we lifted off the runway, following them out over the base and banking around to our correct course. It was dark now, and I spent the time looking at the floor rather than out of the window. Every one of the four of us, Mikey, Axe, Danny, and me, made it clear, each in his own way, that we did not have a good feeling about this. And I cannot describe how unusual that was. We go into ops areas full of gung ho bravado, the way we’re trained — Bring ’em on, we’re ready!
No SEAL would ever admit to being scared of anything. Even if we were, we would never say it. We open the door and go outside to face the enemy, whoever the hell he might be. Whatever we all felt that night, it was not fear of the enemy, although I recognize it might have been fear of the unknown, because we really were unsure about what we would encounter in the way of terrain.
When we reached the ops area, the helicopter made three false inserts, several miles apart, coming in very low and hovering over places we had no intention of going anywhere near. If the Afghans were watching, they must have been very confused — even we were confused! Going in, pulling out, going back in again, hovering, leaving. I’m damn sure, if Sharmak’s guys were out there, they could not have had the slightest clue where we were, if we were, or how to locate us.
Finally, we were on the way into our real landing zone. The final call came — “Redwing is a go!” The landing controller was calling the shots: “Ten minutes out...Three minutes out...One minute...Thirty seconds!...Let’s go!”
The ramp was down, we were open at the rear, the gunner was ready with the M60 machine gun in case of ambush. It was pitch black outside, no moon, and the rotor blades were making that familiar bom-bom-bom-bom on the wind. So far no one had fired anything at us.
The rope snaked from the rear of the aircraft to the ground, positioned expertly so our guns could not get caught as we left. Right now no one spoke. Loaded with our weapons and gear, we lined up. Danny went first, out into the dark, I followed him, then Mikey, then Axe. Each one of us grabbed the rope and slid down fast, wearing gloves to avoid the burn. It was a drop of about twenty feet, and there was a stiff, biting wind.