that went BOOM!

The XM-25 launcher that Beasley was about to present

to the enemy made one hell of a twenty-five-thousand-

dollar boom, which was the CPU or cost per unit.

CO MB AT O P S

79

“Hey, wait, before he fires, maybe we can call Har-

ruck and ask for mortar support,” said Ramirez, making

a very bad joke.

I snorted and gave Beasley the all clear.

The team sergeant lifted the launcher, which was much

thicker than a conventional rifle and came equipped with

a pyramid-shaped scope.

With smooth, graceful movement, Beasley laser-des-

ignated his target, used the scope to set range, and then

without ceremony fired.

Each twenty-five-millimeter round packed two war-

heads that were more powerful than the conventional

forty-millimeter grenade launchers. Next came the moment

when gun freaks like me got our jollies: The round didn’t

have to burrow through the wall and kill the guy on the

other side, no. The round passed through the open win-

dow and detonated in midair, sending a cloud of fragmen-

tation inside that would shred anyone, most particularly

Taliban fighters attempting to play Whac-A-Mole with

Ghost units.

The moment his first round detonated, Beasley turned

his attention to window number two, got his laser on

target, set his distance for detonation, and boom, by the

time the echo struck the back wall, we were already en

route toward the wooden gate, even as that donkey broke

his straps and clattered past us.

“This one’s a keeper,” Beasley told me, patting the

XM-25 like a puppy.

Before Ramirez could try the lock, Jenkins put his

size thirteen boot to the wooden gate panel and smashed

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it open. We rushed through and ran to the right, work-

ing back along the wall while Treehorn lingered behind,

throwing smoke grenades into the street to create a little

chaos and diversion.

The choppers were still whomping somewhere over

the mountains, out of range now, as we charged toward

the foothills, only drawing fire once we reached the first

ravine. There, we dove for cover, rolled and came back

up, on our bellies, ready to return fire—

But I told everyone to hold. Wait. Keep low. And

watch. Treehorn’s smoke grenades kept hissing and cast-

ing thick clouds over the village.

Many of the Taliban were running from the front gate,

and two went over to the jingle trucks and fired them up.

“They’re going to chase us in those?” Ramirez asked.

“Looks like it,” I said. “Let’s fall back. Up the moun-

tain, back to the pickup trucks.”

We broke from cover and ran, working our way along

the mountainside and keeping as many of the jagged

outcroppings between us and the village as possible. I

wish I could say it was a highly planned and skillful

withdrawal performed by some of the most elite soldiers

in the world.

But all I can really say is . . . we got the hell out of

there.

Up near the mountaintop road, we climbed breath-

lessly into the pickup trucks as down below, headlights

shone across the dirt road. My binoculars showed the pair

of jingle trucks and two more pickups with fifty-caliber

guns mounted on their flatbeds. I breathed a curse.

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81

Since Harruck had already sabotaged my mission, I

decided not to throw any more gasoline on the fire. We

wouldn’t engage those guys unless absolutely necessary.

Treehorn took us down the mountain road at a

breakneck pace, and I was more frightened by his driv-

ing than by the Taliban on our tails. The pickup literally

came up on two wheels as we cut around a narrow cliff

side turn, and that drew swearing from everyone as the

road seemed to give way in at least two spots.

“This thing’s got some power,” Treehorn said evenly.

We came down the last few slopes and turned onto

the dirt road leading up to the bridge. With our head-

lights out, Smith and Brown were watching us with

their NVGs and gave us a flash signal. We found them at

the foot of the bridge, and Brown climbed in the back of

our truck.

“Good to go, Captain,” he said. “Just give me the

word.”

“Soon as we cross,” I told him.

“You don’t want to wait and take them out, too?” he

asked, cocking a thumb over his shoulder.

“Nah, it’s okay. This’ll be enough.”

A double thud worked its way up into the seats, and

we left the bridge and crossed back onto the sand.

“All right,” I cried back to Brown. “Blow that son of

a bitch!”

He worked his remote, and the C-4 that he and Smith

had expertly planted along the bridge’s pylons detonated in

a rapid sequence of thunderclaps that shook both the

ground and the pickups themselves. Magnesium-bright

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flashes came from beneath all that concrete, and just as the

smoke clouds began to rise, the center section of the bridge

simply broke off and belly flopped into the ink-black water,

sending waves rushing toward both shorelines.

The drivers of the jingle trucks must have seen the

explosions and bridge collapse, but the guy in the lead

truck braked too hard, and the truck behind him plowed

into his rear bumper, sending him over the edge where

the concrete had sheared off. He did a swan dive toward

the river, while the second guy attempted to turn away,

but he rolled onto his side and slid off the edge. Three,

two, boom, he hit the water.

Behind them, the two pickups with machine gunners

came to brake-squealing halts and paused at the edge so

that the drivers and gunners could stare down in awe at

the sinking trucks—

As we raced off toward Senjaray in the distance.

EIGHT

While I was blowing up bridges and trying to hunt

down my target, the president of Afghanistan was in the

United States, making speeches about how his govern-

ment and the United States needed to build bridges in

order to unite his people. He argued that not all Taliban

were linked to terrorist groups like al Qaeda and that

many Taliban wanted to lay down their arms and reach

reconciliation with the national government.

That may have been true. But I wanted to know how

you sorted out the friendly Taliban from the ones wiring

themselves with explosives, even as the Afghan president

allied himself with his neighbors: Iran and Pakistan,

nations that served as training grounds and safe havens

for those wanting to destroy the United States.

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Everyone had answers that involved false assump-

tions, sweeping generalizations, and a skewed under-

standing of the complexities, contradictions, and culture

of Afghanistan.

But that was all politics, right? None of my business.