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one of the dozens of aid groups in the country. She
might even be arrested. I couldn’t think about her any-
more, and I’d made it a point not to learn her name. Her
plight fueled my hatred for the Taliban and the local
Afghans. No one cared about her. No one . . .
I sent the rest of my team back to quarters. We’d
debrief in the morning. I sat around Harruck’s desk, and
he offered me a quick and covert shot of cheap scotch,
saying we’d turn ourselves in later and receive our letters
of reprimand.
Harruck was a dark-haired, blue-eyed poster boy
who made you wonder why he’d joined the military. He
resembled a corporate type who played golf on the week-
ends with clients. He was taking graduate courses online,
trying to earn his master’s, and he kept on retainer two
or three girlfriends back home in San Diego. Because he
was so articulate and so damned smart, he’d been
recruited to teach at the JFK School, and when he wasn’t
overseas, he participated in our four-week-long uncon-
ventional warfare exercise, Robin Sage. The first time I
met him, I was immediately impressed by his knowledge
of our tactics, techniques, and procedures. His candor
and sense of humor invited you into a conversation.
Once there, you realized, Holy crap, this guy is for real:
talented, intelligent, and handsome. If you weren’t jeal-
ous and didn’t hate him immediately, you wanted him
on your team.
CO MB AT O P S
29
But those attributes did not make him famous around
the Ghosts, no. He was, as far as I knew, the only Army
officer who’d been offered his own Ghost unit and had
turned down the offer.
Let me repeat that.
He’d become a Special Forces officer, had led an ODA
team for a while, but when asked to join the Ghosts,
he’d said no—and had even gone so far as to leave Spe-
cial Forces and return to the regular Army to become a
company commander.
We called it temporary insanity. Or alcoholism. Or
some said cowardice: Pretty boy didn’t want to get a
scratch on his smooth cheek.
I’d never asked him why he’d done this. I didn’t want
to pry, but I was also afraid of the answer.
“I don’t know how much help you want with your
gear,” Harruck said after we finished our drinks. “All
your toys are classified, but I’ve got some guys that’ll
take a look if you want.”
“That’s all right. I’ll have to ship a few units back and
see what they say. Meanwhile, we’ll have to wait till they
drop in replacements.”
“Any thoughts?”
“Taliban bought EMP weapons from China,” I said
through a dark chuckle. “It’d make sense. We’re run-
ning a war on their money now. Wouldn’t they do every-
thing they can to keep us spending? It worked when we
did it to the Russians.”
“I hear that.”
“I’ve still got a half dozen more drones I can send
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GH OS T RE C O N
up—if I can get some Cross-Coms. The disruption’s
localized, so we’ll find out what they’re using. I’m curi-
ous to see who they’re playing with now.”
“What if it’s us?”
I snorted. “NSA? CIA? You think they’re in bed with
Zahed? Well, if that’s true—”
“You sound tense.”
“I’m not good with setbacks, you know that. I fig-
ured we’d capture this guy tonight and get out.”
Harruck wriggled his brows. “Yeah, I mean he’s a fat
bastard. He can’t even run.”
I smiled. Barely.
“You need to relax, Scott. You’re only here a few days.
And the last time you were here, that didn’t last long,
either. You’ve been lucky. It’s eight months for me now.
Damn, eight months . . .”
“Still smiling?”
“To be honest with you—no.”
I shifted to the edge of my seat. “Are you kidding me?”
“This might sound a little hokey, but you know what?
I came here to build a legacy.”
“A legacy?”
“Scott, you wouldn’t believe the pressure they’ve put
on me. They think this whole war can be won if we
secure Kandahar.”
“I hear you.”
“They’re calling it the center of gravity for the insur-
gency. That’s some serious rhetoric. But I can’t get the
support I need. It’s all halfhearted. I’m going to walk
out of here having done . . . nothing.”
CO MB AT O P S
31
“That’s not true.”
Harruck leaned back in his chair and pillowed his
head in his hands. “I know what these people need. I
know what my mission is. But I can’t do it alone.”
I averted my gaze. “Can I ask you something? Why
did you do this to yourself?”
“What do you mean?”
I took a moment, stared at my empty glass.
“Another one?” he asked.
“No. Um, Simon, this isn’t any of my business, but
you could’ve been a Ghost.”
“Aw, that’s old news. Don’t make me say something
I’ll regret.”
I smiled weakly. “Me, too.”
I’d had no idea that Harruck was exercising tremen-
dous reserve in that meeting, when, in fact, he’d proba-
bly wanted to leap out of his chair and throttle me.
Forward Operating Base Eisenhower lay on the north-
west side of Senjaray. It was a rather sad-looking collec-
tion of Quonset huts and small, prefabricated buildings
walled in by concrete and concertina wire. The main
gate rose behind a meager guardhouse ma
sentries, with more guards strung out along the perim-
eter. The usual machine gun emplacements along with a
minefield on the southern approach helped give the
Taliban pause. The juxtaposition between the ancient
mud-brick town blending organically into the landscape
and our rather crude complex was striking. We were
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GH OS T RE C O N
foreigners making a modern and synthetic attempt to
assimilate.
Harruck knew he’d never get his job done by hiding
behind the walls of the FOB, so nearly every day he went
into the town to communicate with the people via
TCAF interviews (we pronounced it “T-caff”), which
stood for Tactical Conflict Assessment Framework. Har-
ruck’s patrols were required to ask certain questions:
What’s going on here? Do you have any problems? What
can we get for you?
And he’d get the same answers over and over again:
We need a new well, we want you to rebuild and open the
school. We need a police station, more canals. And can you
get us some electricity? The diesel power plant in Kanda-
har serviced about nine thousand families, but nothing
had been provided for the towns like Senjaray.
The following week, Harruck’s patrols would ask the
very same questions, get the same answers, and nothing
would be done because Harruck couldn’t get what he
needed. The reasons for that were complex, varied, and
many.
Despite the cynicism creeping into his voice, I still
trusted that he’d fly the flag high and struggle valiantly
to complete his mission. He said that at any time the
tide could turn and assets could be reallocated to him.
We Ghosts didn’t have the luxury of leaving the base.