My pulse raced.

We crouched tight to the wall as the Taliban fighter

278 GH OS T RE CON

reached the top. He was wearing only a loose shirt and

pants, his hair closely cropped, his beard short. He was

eighteen, if that. Tall. Gangly. Big Adam’s apple.

Brown signaled that he had this guy. I wouldn’t

argue. Brown was in fact our resident knife guy and had

saved his own ass more than once with his trusted Night-

wing blade.

I winced over the crunch and crack, the scream muf-

fled by Brown’s gloved hand, and the slight frump and

final exhale as the kid spread across the tunnel floor and

began to bleed out. The diamond black knife now dripped

with blood, which Brown wiped off on his hip.

We examined the kid for any clues, but all he had was

a rifle and the clothes on his back. Brown edged forward

toward the ladder and glowing lanterns below. Then we

all got down on our hands and knees and crawled for-

ward. Once we neared the lip of the hole and the ladder,

we lowered ourselves onto our bellies, and I chanced a

look down.

The chamber was circular and about five meters in

diameter, with piles of rock and dirt along one wall

where, indeed, the collapse had occurred. The opposite

wall was stacked from floor to ceiling with more opium

bricks wrapped in brown paper, and beside those stacks

were cardboard boxes whose labels read MEAL, READY-TO-

EAT, INDIVIDUAL. DO NOT ROUGH HANDLE WHEN FRO-

ZEN. U.S. GOVER NMENT PROPERTY. COMMERCIAL RESALE IS

UNLAWFUL. There had to be fifty or more boxes. We’d

seen MRE trash littering the tunnels earlier, but I’d had

no idea they were smuggling in so much of the high-carb

CO MB AT O P S

279

GI food. I wondered if Bronco was helping these guys

get their hands on this “government” property.

Before we could shift any closer and even descend the

ladder, someone rushed up behind us. We all rolled to

the tunnel walls. Then, just as I was bringing my rifle

around and Brown was switching on his penlight, a Tal-

iban fighter rounded the corner and held up his palm.

“Hold fire!” he stage-whispered.

He pulled down his shemagh. Ramirez.

Brown cursed.

Hume swore.

I’m not sure how many curses I used through my

whisper, but more than four.

We spoke in whispers:

“You didn’t answer my calls,” Ramirez said.

“We’re cut off down here,” I answered, slowly sitting

up as he crossed to me. I put a finger to my lips. “What?”

“The two Bradleys are pulling out of the defile.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. They wouldn’t answer my calls, either.”

“Aw, Simon must’ve woke up,” I said. “Damn it.”

“I contacted the Predator. He’s still got a way better

sat image than we do. He said the guys are moving back

over here. I left Treehorn on the machine gun, but I

figured I’d come down to warn you.”

“Where are Smith and Jenkins?”

“Still outside the entrance.”

“All right, get back out there.”

“Any luck here?”

“Joey, go . . .”

280 GH OS T RE CON

He hesitated, pursed his lips. “Yes, sir.”

Brown looked at me and shook his head. Was this

some kind of lame excuse to get himself back in the

action? We didn’t know. But if he was telling the truth

and the Taliban were shifting back across the mountain,

then the clock was ticking more loudly now.

Hume edged up to me. “I’ll take the ladder.”

I gave him a nod. He descended, then gave us the sig-

nal: All clear for now.

We followed him down to find another tunnel head-

ing straight off then turning sharply to the right.

“Damn, this place is huge,” whispered Hume.

Several small wheelbarrows were lined up near the

stacks of opium, and I got an idea. We piled a few stacks

into one barrow, and then Brown led the way, pushing

the wheelbarrow with Hume and me at his shoulders.

We were happy drug smugglers now, and we’d shout

that we had orders to move the opium.

We reached the turn and nearly ran straight into a

guy heading our way. He started shouting at Brown in

Pashto: “What are you guys doing?”

Well, I thought we’d have time to explain. But I just

shot him in the head. He fell, and Brown got the wheel-

barrow around him while Hume grabbed the guy’s arms

and I took the legs. We carried him quickly back to the

chamber and left him there. Then we hustled back after

Brown and found the tunnel sweeping downward at

about a twenty-degree angle. Brown nearly lost control

of the wheelbarrow until we finally reached the bottom

and began to hear voices. Faint. Pashto.

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281

Maybe it was the adrenaline or the thought that out-

side our guys would soon be confronted, but I shifted

around Brown and ran forward, farther down the tun-

nel, rushing right into another chamber with about ten

sleeping areas arranged on the floor: carpets and heavy

blankets all lined up like a barracks.

I took it all in.

A single lantern burned atop a small wooden crate,

and two Taliban were sitting up in bed and talking

while six or seven others were sleeping.

I shot the first two guys almost immediately, with

Hume and Brown rushing in behind me and opening

fire, the rounds silenced, the killing point-blank, brutal,

and instantaneous.

Killing men while they slept was ugly business, and I

tried not to look too closely. They’d return in my night-

mares anyway, so I focused my attention on a curious

sight near the crate holding the lantern—a pair of mili-

tary boots, the same ones we wore. I picked them up,

placed them near mine to judge the size.

“Warris’s?” Brown whispered to me.

I shrugged. We checked our magazines, then headed

on, still pushing the wheelbarrow.

The next tunnel grew much more narrow, and we

had to turn sideways to pass through one section. As the

rock wall dragged against my shirt, I imagined the tun-

nel tightening like a fist, the air forced from my collaps-

ing lungs, and I began to panic. A quick look to the

right said relief was just ahead.

Brown had to abandon the wheelbarrow, of course,

282 GH OS T RE CON

and once we made it onto the other side, the passage

grew much wider, as revealed by Brown’s light.

My nose crinkled as a nasty odor began clinging to

the air, like a broken sewer pipe, and the others cringed

as well. Our shemaghs did nothing to help. I didn’t want

to believe that the Taliban had created an “outhouse”

inside the cave, but judging from the smell, they might

have resorted to that.

I stifled a cough as we shuffled farther, almost reluc-

tantly now. The odor grew worse. We reached a T-shaped

intersection, where the real stench came from the right,

and I thought my eyes were tearing.

Brown shoved down his shemagh, held his nose, and

indicated that he did not want to go down the right tunnel.