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In fact, higher wanted us to protect our identities by
remaining in quarters when we weren’t conducting
night reco
CO MB AT O P S
33
and vampires while in country, but that didn’t last very
long.
I finished up a quick conversation with General Keat-
ing via my satellite phone, and he gave me the usual:
“We need Zahed in custody, and we need him talking to
us about his co
trade. It’s up to you, Mitchell.”
It was always up to me, and I had a love-hate relation-
ship with that burden.
Keating’s trust in me was like a drug. Sometimes I
felt like he was grooming me for his own job. I’d already
turned down a promotion only because that would
mean less time in the field, and I thought I was still too
young to rotate to the rear. Scuttlebutt about the mili-
tary restructuring was rampant, with talk of a new Joint
Strike Force, and the general told me I needed to catch
the wave. But I believed I could make a greater differ-
ence in the field.
I guess, even after all these years, I was still pretty
naïve in that regard, probably because most of my mis-
sions had allowed me to turn the tide.
With the sun beating down on my neck with an
almost heavy-metal pulse, I headed toward my quarters.
Up ahead, Harruck was coming into the base, riding
shotgun in a Hummer. He waved to me as the truck
came under sudden and heavy gunfire.
Rounds ricocheted off the Hummer’s hood and
quarter panels as I dove to the dirt, and the two guys on
the fifties on the north side opened up on the foothills
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GH OS T RE C O N
about a quarter kilometer away. But the fire wasn’t com-
ing from there, I realized. It was from inside the FOB.
Three insurgents had somehow gotten past the wall
and concertina wire and were firing from positions along
the south side of one Quonset hut, which I recalled housed
the mess hall.
Harruck and his men were climbing out of the Hum-
mer when one of the insurgents shifted away from the
hut and shouldered an RPG.
“Simon!” I hollered. “RPG! RPG!”
He and the two sergeants who’d been in the vehicle
bolted toward me as behind them the rocket struck the
Hummer and exploded, flames shooting into the sky,
the boom reverberating off the huts and other buildings,
whose doors were now swinging open, soldiers flooding
outside.
I had my sidearm and was already squeezing off
rounds at the RPG guy, but he slipped back behind the
hut. At that point, reflexes took over. I was on my feet,
catapulting across the yard. I rushed along the hut
between the mess hall and the insurgents, reached the
back, rounded the corner, and spotted all three of
them—at exactly the same moment the machine gun-
ners up in the nest did. I shot the closest guy, but only
got him in the shoulder before the machine gu
shredded all three with one fluid sweep.
At that second, I remembered to breathe.
Up ahead came a faint click. Then the entire rear
third of the mess hall burst apart, pieces of the hut hur-
tling into the sky as though lifted by the smoke and
CO MB AT O P S
35
flames. The explosion knocked me onto my back, and
for a few seconds there was only the muffled screams
and the booming, over and over.
Something thudded onto my chest, and when I sat up,
I saw it was a piece of the roof and accompanying insula-
tion. And then it dawned on me that there’d been per-
so
gone off. Wincing, I got up, staggered forward.
A gaping hole had been torn in the side of the mess,
and at least a half dozen of Harruck’s people were lying
on the ground, torn to pieces by the explosion as they’d
been heading toward the door. Some had no faces, the
blast having shredded cheeks and foreheads, skin peeling
back and leaving only bone in its wake. I began cough-
ing, my eyes burning through the smoke, as Harruck
arrived with his sergeants.
“I’ll get my people out here to help!” I told him.
He nodded, gritted his teeth, and began cursing at
the top of his lungs. I’d never seen him lose it like that.
The facts were clear. We Ghosts had brought this on
the camp; the attack was payback for our raid the night
before. I
done.
I felt the guilt, yes, but I never allowed it to eat at me.
We had orders. We had to deal with the consequences of
those orders. But seeing Harruck so cut up left me feel-
ing much more than I wanted. Maybe that was the first
sign.
My Ghosts were already outside our hut, all wearing
pakols and shemaghs on their heads and wrapped around
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GH OS T RE C O N
their faces to conceal their identities. I ordered them out
to the perimeter to see what the hell was going on.
A roar and thundering collision out near the guard
gate stole my attention. A flatbed truck had just plowed
through the gatehouse and barreled onward to smash
through the galvanized steel gates.
The guards there had backed off and were riddling
the truck with rifle fire.
And it took Treehorn all of a second to shoulder his
rifle and send two rounds into the head of that driver.
But as if on cue, the truck itself exploded in a swelling
fireball that spread over the buildings and quarters beside
it, setting fire to the rooftops as more flaming debris
came in a hailstorm across the walkway between the huts.
We didn’t realize it then, but a hundred or more Tal-
iban had set up positions along the mountains, and once
they saw the truck explode, they set free a vicious wave
of fire that had all of us in the dirt and crawling for cover
as our machine gu
and the rat-tat-tat commenced.
FOUR
Two more pickup trucks raced on past our FOB, cutting
across the desert and bouncing up and onto the gravel
road leading toward the town and the bazaar. Hundreds
of people were milling about that area, setting up shop
or making their morning purchases. If the Taliban
reached that area and cut loose into the crowds . . .
I shouted for the Ghosts to follow me, and we com-
mandeered two Hummers from the motor pool on the
east side of the base. A couple of mechanics volunteered
on the spot to be our drivers. We roared out past the
shattered gate, me riding shotgun, the others standing
in the flatbeds or leaning out the open windows, weap-
ons at the ready. I quickly wrapped a shemagh around
my face.
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GH OS T RE C O N
Behind us, the fires still raged, and the machine guns