COMPOUND 49. KANDAHAR PROVINCE. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.
Several hours later, Stark sat by the side gunner of a Black Hawk helicopter, approaching a drop zone a mile south of Compound 49, another suspected IED factory. But unlike the last one, there were dwellings of various shapes and sizes forming a sort of sparse village surrounding the target, which was set up against a 1,200-foot hill that connected gradually to an 8,000-foot mountain.
Larson had already confirmed the topography, enemy intelligence, weather, and a host of other critical data with Lieutenant Peter Wiley and his platoon sergeant, John Baxter. Both Wiley and Baxter had already been briefed by their company commander and should know well what they were getting into.
Hopefully, thought Stark, remembering what Duggan had said about Wiley being new. He scanned the village in front of the target with a pair of field binoculars as the Black Hawk circled the area.
People farmed and tended herds of goats. A dozen boys kicked a frayed soccer ball around a rusted goalpost near a large building that looked like a schoolhouse. A group of women wearing partugs, their heads wrapped in black burkas, washed clothes by a well just left of the school, on the outskirts of town. It all looked like your typical Afghan village scene postcard, except for the one-story structure surrounded by an eight-foot wall that U.S. military intelligence believed housed a Taliban bomb-making operation.
The issue that had not been worked out yet was how the platoon would approach the compound. There was also a serious question of how many Tallies were really in the compound, as the count varied by as much as ten insurgents in a twelve-hour period, assessed by a mix of satellite, drone, and human surveillance.
“Sir, did I already tell you I don’t like this shit one bit?”
Stark turned to Larson as the chopper entered a hover prior to landing. Like the big chief, Stark’s experienced internal danger sensors were all flashing red. He knew that only two things could explain the large discrepancy on the Tango count: either the intel was completely wrong or the Taliban had tunnels, and either answer made mission planning impossible. Without a clear picture of the enemy, any attack, already inherently dangerous, became exponentially more so.
The marines were huddled behind a rocky formation east of the target, but when he jumped off the helo, followed by Larson and the rest of the guys, Stark counted only about a third of the soldiers in the rifle platoon that Duggan had deployed. In the marines, a rifle platoon consisted of forty-three men divided into three rifle squads, each consisting of three fire teams, the latter being the basic element of a ground combat element made of four marines. Following the “rules of three,” a rifle company was formed by three rifle platoons, and an infantry battalion formed by three rifle companies. The chain progressed up to the infantry regiment commanded by a colonel and consisting of three rifle battalions, as was the case with Colonel Duggan commanding the 7th Marine Regiment.
“Where’s the rest of your platoon?” Stark asked loudly over the noise of the helicopter, kneeling by a young marine crouching behind a boulder. “I need to speak to Lieutenant Wiley!”
“The LT and Sergeant Baxter moved out with two squads, sir!” the marine replied, as the departing Black Hawk’s downwash kicked up sand and dust all around them. “Headed that way fifteen minutes ago!” He pointed in the direction of the kids playing soccer near the front of the village. The compound was behind several structures and farm fields. “I’m with the third rifle squad! We’re standing by for orders!”
“What’s Wiley doing? My team’s supposed to run recon first! He has no idea how many hags are in that compound!” Stark shouted back, as the helicopter rushed off in the direction from which it had come.
The marine shrugged and pointed at his rifle squad leader a dozen feet down from him, in a crouch next to the radiotelephone operator.
“Talk about FUBAR,” said Ryan.
“Is this for real, boss?” asked Larson.
“Tell me again how much are we getting paid for this one?” asked Martin, who had a camouflage bandanna covering his short blond hair and a lollipop sticking out from under his thick mustache. Hagen, the quiet one of the group, stood next to his SEAL brother and simply lit up a Sobranie Classic. He took a long drag and exhaled through his nostrils while slowly shaking his head.
Stark glared at his guys before going over to the pair of marines. The squad leader, which usually would be a sergeant, only had two stripes on his shoulder pads, meaning he was a corporal, probably on his second tour. The radio guy next to him was a private who looked fresh out of 29 Palms and scared out of his mind. By now the Black Hawk was a good half click away, so no need for shouting, but Stark did it for effect as time was of the essence. He had to get those rifle squads turned around. “Soldiers! Get me your lieutenant on the horn right now!”
The marines almost jumped when they saw Stark, with all his gear, standing over them, flanked by his ominous-looking team. Their eyes drifted to Larson and his Browning.
“Yes, sir!” the squad leader said, reaching for the radio strapped behind his RTO, but Stark beat him to it.
“Lieutenant,” he said into the unit. “Hunter Stark. Why did you deploy your men before I got here?”
Silence, followed by, “I don’t understand the question, sir. The gunny and I are keeping it simple. We’re blowing the front gate, go to the corners, and overwhelm them … just like we’ve been trained as marines to do.”
“Okay,” Stark said. “Good for you. But do you see this as a hard fight? And what is your it-all-goes-to-shit plan? And are you confident in the intelligence you have been supplied, especially the Tango count?”
“Hold on, sir,” Wiley said. “The gunny wants a word in.”
Stark glanced at Larson, who just raised his brows.
“Sir, this is Gunnery Sergeant Baxter, and it’s been my experience that no plan survives the first round being fired. We may never have enough intelligence, and I don’t recall being given a choice here. We have a mission to hit this place, and hit it we will, as best we can.”
“Okay, Gunny,” Stark replied. “We’re here to support you in any way we can.”
“Good,” Baxter replied. “Then remain with the third squad and wait for our signal.”
Staring at Larson, Stark handed the receiver to the RTO.
“So that’s it?” asked Martin, removing the lollipop and waving it at Stark. “We just sit on our thumbs and wait for ‘their signal’—whatever the hell that is?”
“Hey, they’re getting what they’re paying for,” said Ryan.
Before Stark could reply, a blast echoed from the rear of the village, near the target, followed by screams of men, women, and kids, and then a second blast. Gunfire, a mix of AK-47s and American M4 carbines, the standard U.S. Marines rifle, echoed across the village.
Shrieks of pain and of anger reached them as the villagers scattered, some aboard weathered cars and pickup trucks, others on foot. Kids scrambled toward the schoolhouse, followed by a pair of dogs and several cackling roosters.
“Oh, God!” the radio guy screamed. “We’re all going to die!”
For a moment, everyone just stared at the columns of smoke rising above the village.
“Ah, sir?” Martin said, leaning close to Stark, as if about to convey something important, using the lollipop to point at the commotion. “I think that’s the signal.”
“Dammit!” Stark shouted. “Chief, Danny, Mickey, on me! Ryan, cover us!”
Turning to the squad leader, Stark added, “Let them know we’re coming in, then radio for air support, and get that helo and four more like it back here! Got that?”
“Yes, sir. Got it. Anything else?”
Stark nodded. The corporal definitely had some battle experience behind him, unlike the private, who looked as if he just pissed his pants. It went to show that no matter how many simulated scenarios they went through during basic back at 29 Palms, nothing came close to the real thing.
“Yes,” Stark replied. “Tell your squad to keep their cool and conserve ammo. And watch what they shoot at! Don’t feel like catching one in the ass today, okay?”
“Okay, sir.”
“Good. We’re going in there to help your guys!”
Ryan took off and began to climb up the closest and tallest rock mound while Stark took off in the direction of the village, where chaos suddenly reigned as the villagers, true veterans at this, had already almost dispersed, vanishing inside buildings or running across the field in different directions, along with their bleating goats. And in the middle of this chaos, he spotted three groups of marines, each carrying a wounded soldier. Several marines fired back at an enemy Stark could not yet see.
“Ryan! Get eyes on that!” Stark screamed, while charging with the contractor team, covering the few hundred yards separating them from the retreating soldiers in under a minute.
Stark let those carrying the injured get past, noticing that one of them was a second lieutenant and another a staff sergeant, both missing their legs below their knees, medics tending to them on the run. The third wounded soldier had been shot in the gut.
“Who’s in charge, soldiers?” he shouted at the eight marines covering the retreat.
“Well, that’s the LT and the gunny over there!” shouted one of the soldiers, a corporal with the name Gomez stenciled on his uniform, as he pointed at the men screaming and bleeding. “So I guess that’s you, sir!”
“All right, Gomez, what are we looking at?” Stark asked as Larson, Martin, and Hagen took up defensive fighting positions, DFPs. The chief set up his Browning behind what was left of an old Suzuki SUV chassis while Hagen and Martin crouched behind the stonework surrounding the village’s hastily abandoned water well.
“A trap, sir, and we walked right into it. The LT and the gunny stepped on IEDs. Then all hell broke loose. We were taking fire from rooftops, windows, and street corners. There’s a large posse right behind us. About fifty Tangos, and they’re—”
“You said fifty, as in five zero?”
“Yes, sir, and they’re fucking nuts, sir! We keep blasting them but they just keep coming! They’re right around the corner!” He pointed at the street-like space between two compounds five hundred feet behind them, left of the abandoned soccer goalpost.
“Anyone missing?”
“We’re marines, sir! No man left behind!”
“All right. All right. Pull back to the rocks! We’ll be right there! Make sure the helos and the air support’s on the way and that everyone is dug in a DFP!”
“Yes, sir!” and the marines were gone.
Stark huddled next to Larson and got his MP5A1 ready. “Talk to me, Ryan!”
But instead of a reply, the distinct sound of a .50-caliber round parted the air toward the incoming wave of insurgents looming in the street. Corporal Gomez had been correct. It was quite the posse, the muzzles of their AK-47s flashing, their shouts mixing with the rattle of their Russian guns.
Larson opened up the Browning on them while Hagen worked an M32 six-shooter grenade launcher and Martin used his MP5A1 with devastating accuracy.
Stark watched the half dozen XM1060 thermobaric shells thumping out of the launcher, arcing over the space between his team and the posse of screaming men. They went off just over the initial wave of rebels, in overlapping blasts of pressure waves that ruptured their lungs and eardrums while the high-temperature fuel deflagration burned through their clothes and fried the skin off their bodies.
It was a cruel weapon, and in an instant a dozen rebels collapsed, screaming in agony. But its worse effect hit the second wave of men as they inhaled the toxic propylene oxide fumes of the shells’ overlapping fifty-foot kill radius, burning the lining of their lungs.
Still the rebels kept coming, leaping over their fallen comrades while shouting and firing.
Stark quickly did the math and realized that there were just too many hags too damn close for the four of them to keep from being overrun, even with Ryan exploding heads with his rifle and Hagen’s thermobaric shells. It didn’t matter how much his men fired at them, the zealous bastards would not seek shelter, would not stop running, screaming, and firing like a crazed and unstoppable mob.
But just as he was about to give the order to pull back to the rocks, the distinct shape of an A-10 Warthog zoomed overhead, its twin turbofans scorching the air, probably no higher than twenty feet.
A blink of an eye later, as he smelled the burned fuel from its engines, its 30mm Avenger Gatling-type cannon burst into life with the sound of a thousand thunderclaps, vomiting rounds at the incoming threat at the rate of 2,100 per minute.
Even someone as battle hardened as Stark was momentarily taken aback as the enemy, less than two hundred yards away, vanished in a cloud of sand and blood kicked up by the Warthog’s massive display of force. He could feel the ground tremble like an earthquake as the rounds transferred their energy, pounding the ground, drowning out even Larson’s Browning.
And for an instant, as the A-10 dropped over the enemy, decimating it, and Stark prepared to call the marines back to go secure the damn compound, he couldn’t help but wonder how the hell that pilot got there so damn fast, all the way from KAF.