Seals (2005) s-1 Read online

  "Right, sir," Gunnarson said. "They're the ones that'll hump the stuff, so I'm sure there won't be any unnecessary items. The rucksacks will be for the third line equipment. That'll be the basic load of MREs, entrenching tool, poncho, poncho liner, foam mattress, extra socks, water bladder, an extra BDU, night vision goggles and those other goodies I just mentioned. That's it, sir."

  "What about sleeping bags?" Berringer asked.

  "We won't need 'em, sir:' Gunnarson answered. "The mission shouldn't go on that long."

  "Don't forget contingencies, Chief," Carey cautioned him.

  "If there's a delay, we can make envelope rolls out of the ponchos and liners to sleep in. If we keep our clothes on and we put them foam mattresses between us and the ground, we'll all sleep toasty warm."

  Carey smiled at the tough SEAL using a term like "toasty warm." He glanced over at Bill Brannigan. "It seems you're well prepared for the operational part of the mission. Now it's my turn. Here's your itinerary. You'll fly from North Island via C-130 on a easterly flight with the necessary refueling stops. You'll make station time aboard the aircraft at eighteen hundred hours this evening. The minute the landing gear goes up, you're between commands. Your ETA at Station Bravo in Bahrain will be oh-six-hundred local on 7 August.

  At that point, the Army S-3 of the area's SOCOM will take you under his wing." He picked up his papers and put them in his briefcase. "Now, this just in. I saved it for the last to avoid interrupting the debriefing. Be prepared to extend your mission if so ordered. The situation is very unstable at the moment."

  "It won't change much," Brannigan said. "We might have to make a couple of adjustments. No sweat. The problem will be resupply if we need it. That's out of our hands."

  "That will be handled by SOCOM in the area," Berringer interjected.

  "They damn well better handle it perfectly or we'll be in deep shit," Brannigan commented dryly.

  "In a situation like that you'll have to hope for the best," Carey said. "If there're no more comments or questions, I say good luck and God bless."

  After the two staff officers exited Isolation, Senior Chief Buford Dawkins went into his senior enlisted man's mode. "All right! Equipment inspection in one half hour! Turn to it, gentlemen!"

  .

  WARLORD BURTAMI'S COMPOUND

  AFGHANISTAN

  1130 HOURS LOCAL

  THE bucolic fort was well organized, with a dozen mud buildings behind a high, thick defensive wall. The largest structure was Durtami's residence, and there was also a small village of huts where the mujahideen lived with their families. Some portable storage containers and a vehicle park with pickup trucks, motor-rickshaws and motorbikes made up the remainder of the layout.

  The narrow streets were laid out in a zigzag pattern to create sudden ninety-degree turns, then a short distance before the street veered back in the original direction. There was excellent reasoning behind the asymmetrical arrangement.

  Such streets could be easily defended, while attackers, unable to see ahead any great distance, would have to slow down at each intersection, where gunmen would be waiting to ambush them.

  Everyone living within the walls was armed to the teeth. Even ten-to twelve-year-old boys toted AK-47s, eagerly waiting to reach the age to become mujahideen and fight the many enemies of their community. Not far away was a village where the farmers who cultivated opium poppies lived. This was the area's main source of income.

  Warlord Durtami and his people called themselves Pashtuns, though outsiders had named them Pathans sometime nearly two hundred years before. The Pashtuns spoke their own language called Pashto and had a long warrior tradition that went back eons. This male-dominated society governed itself with a set of laws and rules they called Pashtunwali. This code of conduct had four main elements:

  Melmastia--a requirement for showing hospitality to strangers. Many times Warlord Durtami ignored this stipulation. All strangers were potential enemies to this schizophrenic megalomaniac.

  Badal--an obligation to avenge any insult, mistreatment or injustice. Durtami twisted this one to suit his personal needs. The fact that he started all the trouble he faced meant little to him. This, like melmastia, was more for strangers than his own people. *

  Nanwatai--a requirement to submit completely to anyone who is victorious over you. The loser must beg forgiveness and admit fault, while the victor is expected to be magnanimous. This was the situation in which Durtami enthusiastically practiced badal when outsiders were concerned.

  Nang involved sexual matters. A man must defend the honor of his family's women to the death. A lingering glance, unwarranted conversation, flirting or having sex with a woman meant death to the couple involved. The warlord was devout in the observance of this most important law. Sexual matters were the main reasons behind the bloodiest intracommunity conflicts, and no quarter was given or expected in these situations. It was one-sided where men were concerned, however. A raped woman was punished as harshly as her rapist.

  The territory that Durtami controlled was part of Afghanistan the British had occupied while spending many long years fighting his Pashtun ancestors in the nineteenth century. This fierce resistance was the biggest problem Queen Victoria's soldiers faced. In desperation, they constructed a long string of forts to contain these native rebels, but this did little to bring the situation under control. Eventually, things got so bad that the Pashtuns were given complete rule over their own territory with a promise that they would be left alone. This didn't make the warlike people all that happy, and over the decades there were times when they rebelled in fury; fighting skirmishes with the British troops on many occasions. As late as 1937 the Pashtuns attacked and massacred an entire British column in one memorable battle.

  WARLORD Ayyub Durtami and his chief lieutenant, Ahmet Kharani, had just returned from inspecting the compound redoubts, and settled down at a table in the warlord's private quarters. The warlord was a thin, wiry man with a pointed beard. His eyes betrayed his devious and suspicious attitudes.

  Within moments three prepubescent girls appeared carrying an urn of khawa green tea, small cups and a platter of deep-fried vegetables called pakoras. They were at an age where nang did not apply to them. The warlord and Kharani smiled and spoke to them openly in a friendly, paternal way as the service was set out. The young females smiled shyly, pleased by the pleasant attention.

  After the girls left, Kharani took a sip of tea. "It appears that the attacks of the Taliban on the balloting centers in the cities will not stop any more planned elections."

  Durtami shrugged. "I do not concern myself with such madness. Even if they hold a thousand more elections, my activities will never be governed by a crowd of idiot voters being given unlicensed liberties by the lackeys of infidels."

  "We are too far away for such activities to seriously affect us," Kharani said, taking a piece of pakora and biting into it. "The only thing that worries me is the formation of a national army."

  "Only fret about a large national army," Durtami counseled him. "Sparse patrol activity by a weak force will never harm us. They would be like fleas biting at our ankles."

  "We do not want the poppy crops threatened, Amir," Kharani said.

  "I will be able to provide all the necessary protection for the farmers," Durtami assured him.

  A knock on the door sounded, and one of the sentries on duty outside opened it and peered into the room. "Hamid is here to see you, Amir."

  "Send him in," Durtami ordered. He looked over at Kharani. "I hope he has been able to drag some useful information out of that cursed prisoner."

  Hamid walked in, smiling broadly. He was a large, fat man, but the thick layer of flesh on his body covered solid muscle beneath, and he served as the warlord's jailer and inquisitor. "I have broken Kariska, Amir."

  "Der khey--very good!" Durtami said. "I thought he would have died by now."

  "He begs for death even as we speak," Hamid said. "Beatings meant nothing to him. It was fire
that finally brought him to the point that he wished the torment to stop. Branding and hot coals loosen even the most stubborn of tongues."

  "What information have you?" Kharani asked impatiently. He both disliked and feared the torturer.

  "When the man Ishaq snuck away, he promised Kariska he could get people to come here and fetch him," Hamid said. "They were to meet him at the village that was attacked by the Soviet helicopters so many years ago."

  "Why would Kariska help him sneak away from us?" Durtami asked. "We knew they were friends. That is why we chose to question Kariska after we noticed Ishaq's absence."

  "Kariska promised to tell all he knew about the activities in this area," Hamid said. "It would serve the infidels well in working out a way to defeat us and destroy the poppy cultivation."

  "That makes sense, Amir," Kharani said to his chief. "The infidels and their lackeys cannot fully control Afghanistan until the warlords are deprived of the money made from heroin."

  "He said the people coming to get him would give him a number between one and nine," Hamid said. "Kariska would then say a number that added up to ten. That would prove he is the man they came for."

  "They would have to keep it that simple for the stupid bumpkin," Durtami said with a laugh. "When is this meeting going to take place?"

  "At any time," Hamid said, "between midnight and dawn. No particular day was picked."

  Durtami smiled at Kharani. "From now on, put men out by that old village every night between midnight and dawn. They will stay there until the infidels try to make a contact."

  "We shall begin tonight, Amir," Kharani said.

  Durtami turned to Hamid. "You have done well. I will see that two goats are sent to your house."

  "Shukhria--thank you, Amir!" Hamid exclaimed. "What shall I do with the prisoner Kariska?"

  "He has had a rest now," Durtami said. "Go back and take him to death. Use that fire that he fears so much. Perhaps as he suffers under the torment he will ponder the terrible price of betrayal." He turned to Kharani. "Organize the group to go to the village. This is something that must be dealt with successfully."

  "I will pick only the best fighters, Amir," Kharani promised.

  Chapter 3

  C-130 AIRCRAFT

  OVER THE MID-ATLANTIC OCEAN

  6 AUGUST

  1800 HOURS LOCAL

  LIEUTENANT Bill Brannigan glumly sat in the web seat just aft of the entrance to the cockpit. His mood seemed bad enough that the rest of the platoon, including his 21C and chief petty officers, avoided him. Any comments or questions directed to the CO were met with curt, near angry responses.

  As their leader seethed in solitude, the other Brigands coped in their individual ways with the monotony of the long and unpressurized airplane ride. Most were sleeping, but the Odd Couple Mike Assad and Dave Leibowitz were deeply involved in a pinochle game while others read paperback books. A few simply stared at nothing, their eyes directed at, but not focused on, the bulkheads opposite them. The more pensive platoon members had their minds turned to girlfriends, families back home, plans for their next furlough and dozens of other matters important to servicemen on active duty.

  Brannigan was in that gloomily pensive mood because of a deep personal problem. The time spent in Isolation had worsened this inner tension because he was unable to telephone his wife Lisa. Things had been getting worse between the couple. She was an aviator in a Prowler EA-6B squadron at NAS North Island, not far from the naval amphibious base the SEALs called home. Brannigan had met Lisa at the North Island Officers' Club three years earlier. He'd gone there to cruise the local civilian women who hung out in the place on Saturday nights. These ladies were also cruising, looking to hook up with handsome officers. Normally Brannigan concentrated on them without giving servicewomen a second glance, but the beautiful lady wearing a summer khaki uniform sporting aviator wings caught his eye. He tried to ignore her initially, but finally had to make his move. The attraction turned out to be mutual, and that particular evening was the beginning of a year of steady dating.

  When they married, the union seemed destined for long happiness. But after a little more than a year, a tension evolved between them, and they went through several crises, as did all families where both husband and wife served in the armed forces. Long separations and conflict of career interests were the main culprits behind the unpleasantness. But the strife between the Brannigans had additional friction because of his being a SEAL.

  This was the root of their biggest problem: he couldn't stand her pilot friends. Several times yearly he was required to attend functions of her squadron's officers, and Brannigan found it difficult to act civil, much less pleasant, in their presence. He fully realized that they did an important and useful job for the United States Navy, and they were damn good at it. The aircraft they flew jammed enemy weapons systems and communications and were the most powerful electronic warfare airplanes in a CVBG. Lisa and her friends also had to meet high standards in the training that qualified them as aviators, but it was nothing like the muscle-cramping, sleepless, bone-chilling, sometimes frightening and exhausting ordeal of BUD/S. As far as Wild Bill Brannigan was concerned, this was a case of them and us.

  Part of the contempt he directed toward the aviators stemmed from the fact that even when they were out with the fleet in harm's way, they weren't in combat situations very long. Within a couple of hours they would be back aboard a carrier or in an officers' club at some air station. They had hot chow served on china; never had to wear dirty clothing; were always well rested unless they went out partying; and they slept between sheets with roofs over their heads to keep away foul weather.

  Lieutenant Bill Brannigan simply could not relate to them.

  He had nothing in common with their attitudes or life experiences. As a schoolboy, Brannigan had spent at least one or two sessions in detention every week. He was notorious for turning in his homework late or not at all, and he detested the classroom environment. From the way those Navy aviators spoke of their school days, they must have all been on the honor roll and the pets of the faculty. Only a strong desire to attend Annapolis and have a career in the Navy had straightened Brannigan out as a student in high school, but he never lost his dislike of book learning.

  Another thing that irritated him about the pilots was the workaday problems they complained about. This suffering seemed to center around having to fly a few extra patrols now and then or putting up with some sassy aviation machinist's mate who wouldn't take any shit off them. At times when he mentioned something going on in the SEALs, they looked at Brannigan like he was crazy as hell for getting himself into such a gut-pounding branch of the Navy. Their glances of dismay seemed to say that only a Neanderthal would spend six impossibly grueling months qualifying to live a demanding life fraught with danger, hardships and incredible discomfort.

  Candy asses!

  Brannigan and Lisa had gone to a formal function at the NAS officers' club a week before. Maybe he did drink a little too much, and maybe he wasn't real sure what that one aviator had said that pissed him off, but it must have been insulting or he wouldn't have gotten so goddamn mad and thrown the guy across the hors d'oeuvre table. Shrimp, cheeses, puffy delicacies and other delectable goodies went flying against the wall amid gasps and cries of shock and admonishment.

  Needless to say, there was one hell of a showdown when he and Lisa got home later that night. And things hadn't improved one iota since then. Maybe it was a good thing this mission popped up after all; it gave the couple some time apart that would provide a bit of a cooling off period.

  Brannigan yawned, closed his eyes and drifted off into a restless nap amid the thunder of the four T56 turboprop engines.

  .

  STATION BRAVO BAHRAIN

  7 AUGUST

  THE platoon had been involved in several tasks at the base, which took a couple of hours, before they were able to go to the rigger shed to chute up. When they first arrived on station, a young Army Speci
al Forces lieutenant from SOCOM had met them and taken them over to the armory to draw ammunition. After the 9-and 5.56-millimeter rounds and HE, illumination and smoke grenades for the M-203s were issued, the platoon was taken to an empty tent to make the final preparations on their gear.

  Station Bravo was a new and unfinished garrison, and the closest thing to permanent buildings were portable models that looked like oversized mobile or manufactured homes. These resembled the domiciles that blew away in hurricanes and tornados, but all the command, staff and logistics matters were conducted in the structures.

  The billets were no more than fifteen-by-twenty tents, with canvas sides that could be rolled up to expose netting to keep out insects. During the summer, the grumpy inhabitants of these crude quarters baked from the suffocating heat, getting a little relief from floor fans placed at strategic locations. But at those times when cooling breezes wafted in from the Persian Gulf, it wasn't really all that bad.

  After loading magazines and stowing grenades, the Brigands made final preparations of their gear. The two officers and chiefs had to attend a session with the flight crew for final coordination of the route and azimuth over the DZ. While this was going on, the rest of the platoon settled down in the tent to grab some z's and store up energy for the ordeal ahead.

  .

  RIGGER SHED

  1200 HOURS LOCAL

  THE jumpmaster briefing given by Senior Chief Petty Officer Buford Dawkins was alarmingly short. He knew nothing of the velocity or direction of winds across the DZ. At least the ASL altitude of that important plot of ground was known, from data supplied by fighter pilots who had flown support missions in the vicinity. That meant the wrist altimeters could be set accurately for the jump. Dawkins also was unaware of what the exact direction of flight would be, except that it might be sort of southerly to northerly or sort of northerly to southerly. One way or another it had to run either up or down along the edge of the terrain feature the SEALs had named West Ridge. The flight crew would determine which direction, and react accordingly.