15 August 2008, 1700 Hours
A CHINOOK HELICOPTER touched down in the moondust outside FOB Airborne, dispensed a dozen counterintelligence (CI) agents and support staff, then chugged away into the northern sky. The CI team leader, known only as “Dave,” grabbed his duffle and led the way to the FOB gate. For the millionth time, he braced himself for the reaction of the gate guards to his unconventional-looking crew.
Dave himself sported shaggy hair, a scruffy beard, and utility civilian clothes. Every time he stood in a lineup of awardees, his staff intel officer said he looked like an air conditioner repairman. It was a perfect look for counterintel: Be forgettable or, better yet, invisible. A relatively junior agent, Dave had been perceived to color outside the lines of good order and discipline. His fondness for using the F word in government email rankled his major, for example. But he had laser-like analytic skills and did his job strictly by the book, which earned him the respect of his bosses, as well as a pass on gentlemanly manners.
A soldier driving a Gator met Dave and his team at the gate, casting a skeptical eye on their appearance, all plainclothed and anonymous looking. But they had the proper ID, so the soldier pointed the way to the TOC. Dave left his guys with stacks of tuff boxes containing their gear, and walked past plywood huts and olive-drab tents looking for the base commander, CPT Roger Hill.
Dave had studied Wardak, along with the rest of Regional Command (RC) East. The east-central Afghanistan province was 3,800 square miles and home to half a million souls. Some called it “the south gate of Kabul” because of its proximity to Afghanistan’s capital city. As he headed toward the TOC, he noted the FOB’s topography. The base sloped down toward Highway 1, which lay about half a click away. Beyond the highway, a gradual incline led toward the Jalrez Valley, a Taliban nesting ground.
The RC East deputy commanding general had planned a large-scale clearing operation in Jalrez dubbed Nomad. The general hoped to disrupt Taliban operations in the valley, capture enemy fighters, and net actionable intel. In the process, a participating Special Forces team hoped to certify an Afghan National Army (ANA) special ops battalion as ready to ditch their training wheels.
Dave’s interest in Wardak had begun months earlier at Bagram when he learned of suspect signals in the province that fit in with another set of intel variables he’d been working on. The proximity of these signals to Jalrez Valley and Operation Nomad was serious enough that the general had sent Dave and his team to lock it down.
Dave reached the TOC, knocked on the door, and poked his head in. Whether it was a palace or a shack, his tour of the Afghanistan badlands had taught him never to walk into a commander’s office uninvited.
“Come in,” said a young lieutenant whose face was set in grim lines. The name “Kay” was embroidered on the lieutenant’s desert-camouflage uniform. Across the room, Dave saw a captain he knew to be Roger Hill—tall, dark hair, a vaguely Asian cast around the eyes. A black soldier built like an NFL defensive back stood at Hill’s shoulder. Dave glanced at his rank insignia and name: First Sergeant (1SG) Scott. From the look of it, Hill and Scott were in the middle of something serious. The first sergeant glanced up briefly, then looked away.
“I’m Dave with the Division counterintel cell,” he said to the lieutenant. “We just landed. Is it possible to have a minute with your commander?”
Larry Kay’s voice was flat, emotionless. “It’s not really a good time. Come back tomorrow. Or the next day.”
Dave remembered the general’s final words to him—“Don’t let my op get compromised. Hear me?”—and felt his blood pressure tick upward. In his pocket, Dave had a FRAGO, a fragmentary operations order, requiring Hill’s full cooperation. But he didn’t want to play that card if he didn’t have to, so he struck a note between cordial and firm.
“Sir, I really don’t have that kind of time,” Dave said.
Kay tried not to look annoyed. “What is it then?”
“My team and I just arrived. We’re here to help you with some security issues, screen some Afghan employees, that kind of stuff. Where can we put ourselves?”
Kay relented. “Look, stop back in later. We’ll figure something out. There’s an ODA across the FOB. Stop in there and talk to Captain B.”
Works for me, Dave thought.
The ODA (Operational Detachment Alpha) Kay referred to was a Special Forces team that operated out of FOB Airborne. Dave bowed out of the TOC, crossed the FOB, and tracked down the team leader, “CPT B,” who showed the CI guys a couple of plywood B-huts where they could bunk down.
When the counterintel team had settled in, CPT B pulled Dave aside. “Listen, Dog Company got hit this morning. A couple of guys got blown up just down the road a ways. A lieutenant and a specialist. Not a good day. Figured you might want to know.”
Now Dave understood the cold reception at the TOC. Hill was busy dealing with casualties, and here he was with his merry band of misfits trying to get his foot in the door. He was glad he hadn’t come in hot with the FRAGO.
Over his time in Afghanistan, Dave had learned that when he stepped off a bird at a combat base, he was on the commander’s sovereign territory. There were entire bases in Afghanistan from which counterintel agents were banned because one of them had gotten into a chest-thumping match with a combat commander like Hill. Or worse, had gone all spooky and said something like “Sorry, sir, I can’t tell you who I’m with… but you can call me Bob.”
Dave’s first meeting with CPT Hill and 1SG Scott hadn’t gone as expected. But he and his guys could still set up shop and start working. He’d loop Hill in when it seemed appropriate.
When Dave left the TOC, LT Larry Kay was glad. He had not wanted to spare the emotional bandwidth to deal with whatever this new guy was selling. Now he returned his attention to his computer screen and checked the status on Carwile and Conlon. The bodies of both men were being flown to Bagram Airbase for their final transit home.
After the QRF cleared the rest of the wounded from the IED blast site, Hill had dispatched patrols, including a section of 1st Platoon—the Dirty First—into the nearby village of Andar to knock on doors looking for the bombers who had killed their brothers. Hill and Kay had known it might look like retaliation. But the reality was that these bastards attacked Americans then melted into the local population.
The patrol’s emotion had been well beyond rage. In Andar, Grant Hulburt, 1st Platoon’s platoon sergeant, teamed with SGT Jason Dudley and busted down a dozen doors without compunction. In 2006, the two men fought together at the dawn of the Surge in Ramadi, Iraq. Had cleared whole buildings—just the two of them, alone. By comparison, Andar was a nothing little village, and they moved from house to house with fluid aggression.
Five foot ten and wiry, Hulburt, thirty-seven, was old-school crusty, a dedicated chain-smoker, “motherfucker” every other word out of his mouth. He gave the impression that he had possibly never been a child but had arrived on some secret Pentagon loading dock packed in a clear case bearing a sign that read IN CASE OF WAR, BREAK GLASS.
Dudley, twenty-eight, of Plano, Texas, had earned a psychology degree before enlisting. He could have joined the Army as an officer, but he did not feel that a college degree gave him the right to lead men. That, he felt, had to be earned.
At each mud-brick qalat in Andar, householder males squatted with fearful women and children, and the answer was always the same: “We saw no one! No Taliban!”
By the thirteenth qalat, Dudley had had enough of that answer. When an Afghan male in his thirties claimed ignorance, Dudley whipped his combat knife from its sheath and began tapping its gleaming tip against his thigh. The Afghan’s eyes grew wide and his story changed: “We heard the explosion,” he said through Hulburt’s interpreter. “We saw two men ride off on a motorcycle.”
“Which way?” Hulburt said through clenched teeth.
The man pointed northwest. “Badam Kalay.”
It was the village where the Dirty First had been nearly overrun by Taliban fighters a few weeks before. But further patrols to the area did not yield Carwile’s and Conlon’s killers.
Word of their deaths spread quickly throughout the AO (Area of Operations). Now Kay sat at his desk reading the messages of condolence that poured in. He read a note from his former company commander, CPT Spencer Wallace of Bravo Company. He opened another from Major Christopher Faber, an engineer who had served with Dog Company as operations officer from April to mid-July. Faber had been with Paul Conlon during the firefight in the Jalrez Valley that took Conlon out of the fight for a while. Conlon had earned a Purple Heart that day.
Faber’s sympathy note was earnest and touching, remembering how Conlon had been the one to care for the stray puppy Dog Company had adopted and how the Afghans had loved Carwile with his easy southern manner.
Among the messages of sympathy, however, Kay noted a glaring absence: There was nothing from Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Anthony DeMartino, Hill and Kay’s battalion commander.
Dog Company was one of five in 1st Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry.4 Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie were infantry “line” companies, 120 to 130 soldiers each. Line companies are the proverbial “boots on the ground.” Echo was the Forward Support Company that handled supplies and logistics. Delta Company—call sign “Dog Company”—which Hill commanded, was a heavy weapons unit, about ninety men at full strength.
As 1-506th Battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel DeMartino was Hill’s immediate superior. Kay was astonished that he had thus far not acknowledged the loss of his men, especially LT Donnie Carwile, one of his officers. Kay felt DeMartino should have been first in line.
A hand grasped the top of Kay’s laptop screen and he looked up. It was the chaplain, Steve Moser, an Army major.
“Larry, if you ever want to talk, let me know,” Moser said.
“Thank you, sir. I will,” Kay said.
Kay wasn’t ready to talk to anyone just yet, perhaps most particularly not a chaplain. Some soldiers carried those little camouflage-covered Bibles in the sleeve pockets of their uniforms. Kay carried a copy of the Constitution. He lived in a tangible world, focusing his energy and intellect on what was in front of him, what could be done, and what resources he, personally, could bring to bear to make that happen. Or, in this case, how to keep what had happened from ever happening again.