T WENTY-SIX

For me anyway, there’s a delayed emotional reaction

after killing a man. Like most combatants, I’ve trained

myself to go numb during the act and let muscle mem-

ory take over. I think only of the moment, of removing

the obstacle while reminding myself that this man I’m

about to kill wants to kill me just as badly. So, I reason,

I’m only defending myself. They are targets, a means to

an end, and the fragility of the human body helps expe-

dite the process.

That all sounds very clinical, and it should. It helps to

think about it in terms of cold hard numbers.

I once had a guy at the JFK School ask me how many

people I’d killed. I lied to him. I told him if you kept count

you’d go insane. But I had a pretty good approximation of

274 GH OS T RE CON

the number. I once got on a city bus, glanced at all the

people, and thought, I’ve killed all of you. And all the rest

who are going to get on and get off . . . all day . . .

Strangely enough, months after a mission, without

any obvious trigger, the moment would return to me in

a dream or at the most bizarre or mundane time, and I

would suddenly hate myself for killing a father, a hus-

band, a brother, an uncle . . . I think about all the fami-

lies who’ve suffered because of me. And then I just force

myself to go on, to forget about that, to just say I was

doing my job and that the guys I’d killed had made their

choices and had paid for them with their lives.

I would be just fine.

Until the next kill. The next nightmare. The next

guilt trip. And the cycle would repeat.

The all-American hero has dirt under his nails and

blood splattered across his face . . .

And so it was with that thought—the thought that I

would suffer the guilt later—that I raised my silenced

pistol and shot the first guard in the head.

A perfect shot, as assisted by my Cross-Com.

I had but another second to take out the other guy,

who, of course reacted to his buddy falling to the ground

and to the blood now spraying over his face.

He swung his rifle toward me, opened his mouth,

and I put two bullets in his forehead before he could

scream. His head snapped back and he dropped heavily

to his rump, then rolled onto his side, twitching invol-

untarily.

A slight thumping resounded behind us. One. Two.

CO MB AT O P S

275

Treehorn reported in. Guards at the heavy gun were

dead. “Roger that. You man that gun now, got it?”

“I’m on it,” he answered. “Big bad bullets at your

command!”

I waited outside the entrance while Smith and Jen-

kins dragged the bodies back up the path and tucked

them into a depression in the mountainside.

By the time they returned, Ramirez and his group

were coming down to join us. I held up an index finger:

Wait.

“Predator Control, this is Ghost Lead, over.”

“Ghost Lead, this is Predator Control, go ahead.”

“Do you see any other tangos near our position, over?”

“We do see some, Ghost Lead, but they’re on the

other side of the mountain, moving toward the Brad-

leys. You look clear right now, over.”

“Roger that. Ghost Lead, out.”

Now I would piss off Ramirez. I looked at him. “You,

Jenkins, and Smith head back up. Man the same posi-

tions as the guards you killed.”

“What? That wasn’t part of the plan,” Ramirez said,

drawing his brows together.

“It is now. Let ’em think nothing’s wrong. Brown?

Hume? You guys are with me. Let’s go.”

I left Ramirez standing there, dumbfounded. No, he

wouldn’t get his chance to get near Warris, and I’d just

told him in so many words, No, I don’t trust you.

Brown took point with a penlight fixed to the end

of his silenced rifle. I forgot to mention earlier that none

of us liked the limited peripheral vision offered by

276 GH OS T RE CON

night-vision goggles—especially in closed quarters—so

we’d long since abandoned them during tunnel and cave

ops. Moreover, if we were spotted, the bad guys wouldn’t

think twice about shooting a guy wearing NVGs because

he was obviously not one of them. It was pretty rare for

the Taliban to get their hands on a pair of expensive

goggles, though not completely unheard of. As it was,

we’d offer them at least a moment’s pause—a moment

we’d use to kill them.

The tunnel was similar to all the others we’d encoun-

tered, about a meter wide and two meters tall, part of it

naturally formed, but as we ventured deeper we saw it’d

been dug or blasted out in various sections, the walls

clearly scarred by shovels and pickaxes. Soon, we shifted

along a curving wall to the left, and Brown called for a

halt. He placed a small beacon about the size of a quarter

on the floor near his boot. My Cross-Com immediately

picked up the signal, but even if we lost our Cross-Coms,

dropping bread crumbs was a good idea in this particular

network. We all had a sense that these tunnels were some

of the most extensive and vast in the entire country, and

finding our way back out would pose a serious challenge.

Brown looked back at me, gave a hand signal. We

started up again.

In less than thirty seconds we reached a fork in the

tunnel, with a broader one branching off to our right.

Brown placed another beacon on the floor. I took a deep

breath, the air cooler and damper.

“Man, I got the willies,” whispered Hume.

“You and me both,” Brown said.

CO MB AT O P S

277

After aiming his penlight down the more narrow

tunnel, Brown studied the footprints in the sand and

rock. Both paths were well-worn. No clues there.

I pointed to the right.

Brown looked at me, as if to say, Are you sure?

I wasn’t. But I was emphatic. I wouldn’t split us up,

not three guys.

Dark stains appeared on the floor as we crossed

deeper into the broader tunnel. Brown slowed and

aimed his penlight at one wider stain. Dried blood.

And then, just a little farther down the hall, shell cas-

ings that’d been booted off to the sides of the path

gleamed in Brown’s light.

We shifted another twenty meters or so, when Brown

called for another halt and switched off his light. If you

want to experience utter darkness, then go spelunking.

There is nothing darker. I’d lost the satellite signal for

the Cross-Com, so I just blinked hard and let my eyes

adjust. Brown moved a few steps farther and then a pale

yellow glow appeared on the ceiling about five meters

ahead, the light flickering slightly. My eyes further

adjusted, and Brown led us another ten or so steps and

stopped. He pointed.

A huge section of the floor looked as though it’d col-

lapsed, and the rough-hewn top of a homemade ladder

jutted from the hole. The light came from kerosene lan-

terns, I guessed, and suddenly the ladder shifted and

creaked.