Quest for Honor (9 page)

“Follow me. Stay sharp, watch out for bad guys on the wall.” Mark led the squad off at a run, hanging a left around the southeast corner. The secondary gate was in the middle of the east wall. Ahead of them, Mark saw one soldier boosting another up to the top of the wall at the northeast corner. The soldier scrambled up to the top and lay prone, rifle extended, then reached his left hand down with a thumbs-up signal.

Mark edged closer to the double-doored gate. The wood was roughly hewn and didn’t look too terribly solid, but was probably barred on the inside. Mark motioned Swanson over. “Who has the C-4 to breach the door?”

“Uh, nobody, Colonel. But Weeden here brought a sledge.”

Mark couldn’t believe it. They were on a mission to assault a compound and they hadn’t brought explosives? Solum would hear about this, assuming they lived to talk about it. Fortunately, the big Nordic-looking soldier with the sledgehammer looked like Thor holding his hammer. “All right, Swanson, half your men on the other side, half with me. We’d better hope this damn door isn’t barricaded from inside.” He sized up the men with him. Some faces showed fear, others a sense of calm. Those would be the veterans, he knew. “Any of you guys been in Iraq?” Four men nodded, including Swanson. “All right, this is gonna be just like that. We clear the buildings one by one. Two-man teams. Get your buddy right now. Anybody with a gun in his hands, you shoot. Unless it’s a kid or a woman, got it? Take down the women and kids hand-to-hand.” Mark knew that the smart thing would be to spare nobody, that anyone with a gun should go down, but after Iraq, he couldn’t bring himself to give that order. He knew he was ratcheting up the risk to himself and his men, but so be it.

The men took their positions. From the south wall, Mark heard one of the soldiers yelling in Pashto, demanding that the gate be opened. They had to identify themselves as American soldiers, but Mark figured that probably wasn’t a surprise to anybody inside. The response was a shout of “
Allahu akhbar!”
The soldier on the southwest corner opened up.

“Take that door down, Weeden!” Two powerful strikes with the sledge did the job. “Go go go go!” Mark yelled, and he led the troops through the gate.

The men moved with trained efficiency through the compound. Mark felt his senses expand, taking in everything around him. The fading daylight lent menace to the shadows. He smelled the peculiar Afghan aroma of cooked food, human sweat, and goat excrement. He heard shouting in English and Pashto, the crying of a baby, the screams of women, the crash of wooden doors being broken, the popping of the soldiers’ M-4’s greatly outnumbering the distinctive rattle of AK-47’s.

The moment the gate was breached, time seemed to slow down for Mark. His long years of training and experience took over the moment the gate was breached, and despite the fear and the chaos around them, Mark felt calm, and he sensed, rather than saw, that his men were in the same zone as he was. They were soldiers in the United States Army and they had a job to do, and in only minutes it was done.

Mark’s closest call was in the second building. The first had been a storeroom, empty except for some rugs, scattered cans of food and baskets of grain. The second was the armory. Two men were inside, grabbing for weapons from a crude stack of submachine guns and old bolt-action rifles. One of them swung around to face the door, bringing an AK up, and he went down with two rounds into the chest from Mark’s M-4, and at a range of only six feet the rounds lifted the man off his feet and he crashed backward into a row of rocket-propelled grenade launchers leaning against the wall. The second man, younger and more nimble, dodged the body of his comrade and pulled a knife from his belt and came at Mark, screaming, bringing the knife back with his right hand to slash. Mark stepped in toward the man, thrusting his rifle up and out to slam the Tal’s forearm. The man’s scream changed to one of pain and the knife flew out of his hand. Mark finished him with a sharp thrust with the butt of the rifle into the man’s throat, crushing his windpipe. The man sagged to the floor, eyes rolling backward.

The sound of an explosion rattled through the room. Mark’s partner, a private from Minnesota named Roberts, crouched in the doorway, peering out. “What’s going on out there, Roberts?”

“Jesus, Colonel, looks like one of the gomers took a grenade.”

Roberts dragged the unconscious insurgent out the door as Mark moved on into the courtyard. There was no more shooting, just shouts as the Americans herded the Afghans into the open. Solum had deployed some of his men for perimeter security, with the rest surrounding the Afghans, weapons leveled.

“Any casualties, Lieutenant?”

“Just one, Colonel, a crease on his leg, not serious,” Solum said, and Mark noted with some relief that the young lieutenant’s eyes and breathing were normal. He’d come through. “About five enemy KIA, a couple wounded.”

“What happened over there?” Mark pointed to the large home where the explosion had ripped off the door. Blood and human remains stained the mud-brick sides and the dusty floor.

“Gomer came out with a couple grenades, must’ve had the pins pulled because when one of my guys nailed him, they dropped and went off. I’ve got a couple men inside—”

A soldier appeared at the blasted doorway. “Medic! Medic!” He motioned frantically to the officers. “Lieutenant! Gotta see this!”

Mark and Solum hustled over to the doorway. “What have you got, Johnson?”

The trooper’s eyes were wide, contrasting with his dusty, black features. “There’s a tunnel in here. Somebody bugged out for sure.”

Mark ran back out into the courtyard. The soldiers who had been on the parapets were still there. “You men up there! Keep a lookout for squirters popping out of a tunnel!”

“Roger that, Colonel!” yelled the man on the southwest corner. Probably an Iraq vet; he recognized the term American troops used over there to identify insurgents escaping from buildings. Mark turned to look at the man on the northeast corner, who waved at him, then suddenly raised his rifle and aimed to the north. The soldier fired two shots.

“Got him! Comin’ up outta the ground!”

Mark pointed at Swanson. “Corporal, take three men out there and get him. Watch out for more of them in the tunnel.”

“I’ll go down in the tunnel, Colonel. My old man did that in ‘Nam, told me all about it.”

“All right, go.” Mark trotted back to the main house as Swanson and his team rushed for the east gate where they’d come in.

Inside the front room, Langdon’s medic, a ruddy-complexioned veteran from New York who’d joined the Army after 9/11, was hunched over a small figure on the floor. Two other soldiers were assisting him. Solum was coming into the room from a side room. Mark edged closer, making sure to allow enough room for the medic to work. “What have you got, Tranelli?” Then he saw, and his heart sank.

The medic was working on a girl of about four lying motionless on a rug. He’d removed her shirt, showing a bloody entry wound in the right side of the abdomen. The girl’s eyes were glassy, but she was breathing.

“Took shrapnel from the grenade, sir.” He applied a field dressing. Another soldier put a small pillow under the girl’s head and gently stroked her forehead. Tears ran down his face. Tranelli glanced at him. “Keep her still, Evans.” The medic listened to the girl’s chest with his stethoscope. “I think her right lung is collapsing.” He rummaged through his medical kit.

“Come on, Doc, for God’s sake, you gotta help her!”

“Easy there, Evans. Let the doc work,” Mark said.

“Sorry, sir. I got two girls at home, no older than this one here.”

“I know. Keep it together. She needs your help now.”

Tranelli took out a small tube with a three-inch needle attached to it. “Gotta do a needle decompression. Bleeding’s not too bad, but we have to get the lung to expand again. Colonel, we‘re gonna need a medevac for this kid.” He inserted the needle just above the wound, then attached a short catheter.

Solum gave the order to his radioman. “Should have a chopper here in about twenty minutes, Doc.”

“Tell the doc at Roosevelt to get prepped for this one. I’ll get on the horn with him in a couple minutes.” The soldiers watching the procedure were breathing heavily, but a couple had turned away. Evans was calmer now, gently stroking the girl’s forehead and cheeks, whispering to her in English. “Okay, that should hold her for a bit. What about that chopper?”

“Medevac’s about fifteen minutes out,” the radioman said.

“Tell him to land just outside the south gate,” Solum said. “Anything else we can do, Doc?”

“A prayer or two wouldn’t hurt,” Tranelli said grimly.

Mark stepped outside, and Solum joined him. “Looks like this place was home to a pretty big fish,” the lieutenant said. “Found some documents in the other room, a couple maps, some radios. I’m having it all gathered up for the intel guys.”

“Was that the gomer who sent himself to the virgins with the grenades?”

“No, he was just providing cover. Looks like the head honcho was the guy in the tunnel making a break for it.” He motioned over to the south gate. “Here they come now.”

Swanson and his team were carrying an Afghan man. “This guy’s wounded!” Swanson yelled as they hustled the prisoner over to the officers.

“The doc’s busy inside with a patient,” Mark said. “How bad is this guy?”

The Afghan was laid down on the dirt floor of the compound. The troops had already field-dressed his legs. “He’ll live, I think,” Swanson said. “Esser up there on the wall put a round in each leg. Mighty fine shooting.”

Mark looked up to the northeast corner where the soldier was standing, his rifle at the ready. He gave Esser a thumbs-up, and the soldier waved back. Mark made a mental note to look up the man’s service jacket later. He suspected he’d find some impressive marksmanship records. He also thought the man would be in line for a commendation.

The Afghan was about forty, with streaks of gray in his thick beard. He was conscious and glared defiantly at the Americans surrounding him. One of the soldiers pointed his rifle at the wounded man. “This guy the motherfucker who hurt those kids in the village? We should waste him right now.”

“Secure that weapon, soldier,” Mark said firmly.

“Sir! After what he did—“

Swanson stepped up to the soldier. “Stand down, Private. This bastard will get what’s coming to him.” The soldier stepped back, holding his weapon at port arms, breathing heavily.

Mark gave him one last hard look, then knelt next to Afghan. “What is your name?” he asked in Pashto.

“
Sta plar…nikkan sara..yo kam…sodar bachiya.”
The man’s eyes showed pain, but also hatred.

“What’d he say?” one of the soldiers asked.

“’I equate your fathers and forefathers, son of a pig.’ He says he’ll kill my family.” Mark leaned closer and whispered in the man’s ear, then stood up as the man glared at him.

“What’d you say to him, Colonel?” Swanson asked.

“I paraphrased Patton. ‘May Allah have mercy on you and your kind, because we won’t.’”

Mark was having late chow with the rest of the troops at Langdon. Men decompressed from a mission in different ways, some better than others, but one thing Mark had found helpful was having a meal together. Plus, they were hungry. Chow at the FOBs was a bit less refined than at Roosevelt, but it was still good.

Solum approached him when Mark was disposing of his trash. “Colonel, do you have a minute?”

Outside the large hooch that served as the mess hall, the night was chilly. Mark flipped up the collar of his jacket and pulled his patrol cap down a little tighter. Down in the valley, there were no lights on in the village. The only sounds from outside the hilltop base were the whistling of the wind, carrying the occasional bleat of a goat from the valley floor.

“Man, I can’t get over the stars,” Solum said. Above them, the heavens were alive with uncountable millions of lights. “Seems like so many more than back home.”

“A lot less ground light over here,” Mark said. He knew the young man wasn’t out here to discuss astronomy. “What’s on your mind, Ken?”

“Colonel, I…well, I guess I wanted to know what you thought of the mission.”

“We’ll have a formal debrief in the morning, before I go back to Roosevelt.”

“I know, sir. But, well, I was hoping you could…”

“You did fine out there, Ken.” He’d bring up the C-4 during the debrief.

He heard the younger man exhale, just a bit. “Thank you, sir.”

They were silent for what seemed like a full minute, then Solum said, “I was scared, sir.”

“We all get scared, Ken. If you don’t have fear, there’s something wrong with you. It‘s how you deal with it that counts. How you help your men deal with it.”

“I know, sir, I heard that more than once back at CFT.”

“You were ROTC, right? Back in Wisconsin?”

“Yes, sir.”

Another link fell in place for Mark. Solum’s jacket had indicated he was one of his battalion’s top students, but Mark must’ve missed the CFT notation. Cadet Field Training was a course for top ROTC sophomore cadets over eight weeks in the summer, most of them at West Point’s Camp Buckner. Leadership skills were one of the things cadets learned there. “I taught one year at the Point,” Mark said.

“You did, sir?”

“Yes. It was before your time,” Mark said with a grin. “One of the reading assignments I gave my students was a book called
Never Without Heroes
, about Marine Force Recon troops in Vietnam. The writer had something very interesting to say about how you feel in combat. He talked about combat in terms of engaging the enemy, but also engaging ourselves.”

“How so, sir?”

“He described it this way: ‘The conflict that pits courage, duty and responsibility against fear.’”

The men were silent for a moment. Mark could almost hear Solum processing what he’d heard. “The men were talking about how you took out those two gomers—I mean fighters, in the assault,” the lieutenant finally said. “One of them came after you with a knife?”

“Yes,” Mark said, remembering the moment. He hadn’t thought about it till he’d seen a woman weeping over the body of the man with the knife. He’d died, choking to death on his own blood, before the medic could get to him. It occurred to Mark that he had killed two men that day. He looked up at the stars, wondering if God would forgive him.