PROLOGUE
UNDER A SINGLE LIGHT THAT HUNG ON A CORD from a low ceiling of cedar beams and hardened mud, the U.S. Navy SEAL whom everyone called just “Slab” was leaning on his arms over maps spread out on a table. A good-looking, slim, blond-haired thirty-three-year-old whom strangers often mistook for the hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, Slab was planning how best his sniper reconnaissance team could help regular Army troops who were taking a shellacking from a large al-Qaeda and Taliban force.
The sound of a gas generator blew through a window. It was cold enough for Slab to see his breath in this room of a dilapidated mud fort near the Afghan provincial capital of Gardez. Slab and his team had shuttled down from Bagram Air Base that morning by helicopter to see how they could salvage the largest offensive yet in the war on terrorism—one that had collapsed only ten minutes after it began. Making the debacle doubly painful, Army commanders had initiated Operation Anaconda, as it was called, presumably to recoup the opportunities that were squandered earlier at Tora Bora, where hundreds of al-Qaeda fighters, including Osama bin Laden and possibly his chief lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, had all but waltzed across the border of Afghanistan into the sanctuaries of Pakistan's tribal areas. Many Chechens and Uzbeks among these hardened terrorists later had made their way south to this valley, called the Shah-i-Kot.
The original plan for Anaconda had called for the use of American and friendly Afghan troops to hammer Taliban and al-Qaeda forces, known to have regrouped in the valley in force for the winter, into a steep wall of high mountains. American troops would serve as the blocking anvil against which the routed enemy would be crushed, in theory. But the hammer never swung; it fled from the battlefield under lethal friendly fire from a U.S. gunship, from a shocked reaction to a “softening-up” bombardment that fizzled, and by ferocious mortar attacks by an enemy that was not going to be easily routed anywhere, much to nearly everyone's surprise.
The enemy fighters weren't as much in the valley, as imagined, as they were in the mountains looking down on the Americans through the sights of heavy machine guns and mortars. Making this already bad situation even worse, the highest American commanders had failed to equip elements from the 10th Mountain and 101st Airborne divisions with artillery with which to defend themselves. Bombers and strike aircraft assumed that role, which in turn required hastily placed special “operators”—some, like Slab, on loan from the secret “black” world of the Joint Special Operations Command—to provide aircraft with targets and coordinates.
At the moment, with Slab studying maps, the fight was ragged and tentative, and the Army troops might not be able to hold out. As a sign of the crisis, commanders were even debating whether to pull back and call off the operation altogether.
Slab and his team were only seven men—six SEALs and an Air Force combat controller. It might have seemed preposterous to believe that they alone could change the course of an entire battle involving 1,400 American troops. They couldn't, not alone, but at their fingertips they commanded an endless supply of 2,000-pound high-explosive bombs, guided by tiny navigation systems that could slam targets from on high within yards of where they were intended. All the SEALs required for the job was a radio, a good high site with a view of the valley, and a snug place to hide.
The highest mountain overlooking the valley on the maps was called Takur Ghar, which translated as “Tall Mountain” from Pushto. Takur Ghar was chosen for Slab as an observation post, as one of his commanders told him, “because of its superbly strategic position.” Intelligence reports that he had read informed him that the enemy was being resupplied with munitions and reinforcements down “ratlines” through “the biggest hole in the area of Takur Ghar.”
It dawned on Slab that if Takur Ghar would be advantageous to the Americans, why wouldn't it also be appealing to the enemy fighters? After all, the local Taliban hardly needed satellites and computers to realize the advantages of mountains that they already knew as well as the faces of their children. Slab studied satellite imagery that by now was three days old. No snow showed on the peak in these pictures. He saw an old trench on the mountain peak that he assumed local fighters had occupied at one time, probably long ago. He did not plan to drop right down on the peak, in the unlikely event that an enemy force already occupied it. He'd land on an offset below the summit and then patrol up the steep mountainside. He was aiming that night literally to scope out the peak, which the team would take over once they were reassured of its vacancy through quiet observation. His job was not to make contact with the enemy; it was to stay out of reach and drop massive amounts of ordnance.
All the same, he expected to encounter enemy soldiers crisscrossing a pass under the peak. Slab knew these fighters might be carrying heavy weapons—but not necessarily on Takur Ghar. He figured his chances of running into an enemy were probably “100 percent.” But they would be in “onesies or twosies or a small patrol of four guys.” He weighed the risks, and they seemed reasonable. Besides, he thought at the time, This is not how we work, reducing risk to zero—otherwise, send accountants up there.
He called his team into the light of the fort. He told them, “Look, this is what we're lookin' at doing.” He offered ideas, as usual leading by consensus rather than dictate. They bounced suggestions off one another for twenty minutes, and when they were done, they had a plan. It was standard stuff that they'd practiced a hundred times. Slab had lived with these men for years. He could tell what they were thinking by looking in their faces. They were excited to be getting a piece of the action, expectant and alert, aggressive and ready to knock heads. He trusted them with his life. When they finished, he told them, “OK. We got a timeline to go in. We got aircraft scheduled, so get to your final gear preparation.”
Now Slab's team—called MAKO 30—was waiting for nightfall before it could begin killing in the hope that by their actions the tide of a battle gone seriously wrong would turn.