Kill Bin Laden: a Delta Force Commander's account of the hunt for the world's most wanted man (20 page)

With his usual growl, he and Ironhead and Bryan immediately began swapping yarns from other third world shit holes, European urban sprawls, and the Sudan. Bryan had done some Delta work there in the early 1990s while Billy was undercover for the CIA, snapping photographs of bin Laden’s comings and goings in anticipation that the pictures might come in handy one day.

Luck is Billy’s ally, I thought. Stay close to him.

Inside the guesthouse, the first person I met was Gary Berntsen, the CIA’s point man in Kabul and the instigator of that fateful meeting around the Humvee at Task Force Dagger. On this cold December morning, Gary was upbeat, slapping backs like a proud sandlot football coach, obviously eager to get things moving. He offered us his complete support. “Anything you need,” he said.

Gary shared his own account of the CIA’s mission in Afghanistan and his tough take on the Tora Bora situation. Several years later, Gary got around to publishing his own book,
Jawbreaker
, but, unfortunately, the CIA heavily censored out much of the interesting stuff.

Gary did not have much more information than Gus had given us the night before, but his estimate of enemy manpower matched exactly. “We believe fifteen hundred to as many as three thousand fighters are there,” he said, then added, “Kill them all.”

The CIA nerve center had the look of a spy movie set. Numerous
compartments were abuzz with folks hacking away at laptops, thumbing through stacks of classified documents, talking on cell phones, or conducting secure radio calls. Armed guards seemed to be everywhere. Every box was padlocked and every door was outfitted with a push-button cipher lock.

Out of that crowd emerged Adam Khan, an unlikely but invaluable warrior in this new war on terror.

The Afghan-born American citizen, a former marine with an impressive commanding personality, was standing at Ground Zero the day after 9/11, helping another government agency deal with the aftermath of the terrorist attack. His cell phone rang and some former colleagues were calling. They needed his help. More accurately, they said his nation needed his help and asked if he was interested in inserting into Afghanistan as a liaison officer with Special Ops units. “Do you want to read the news or do you want to make the news?” they asked.

Adam Khan accepted the challenge and was now back in his hometown of Kabul for the first time in twenty years. Danger did not bother him.

He was fluent in numerous dialects of the two key battlefield languages, Pashto and Dari, and although his current orders were only to ferry us safely to General Ali’s headquarters, he was to become much more than just our travel guide. Adam Khan would be the critical nexus between the CIA forward headquarters in Jalalabad, General Hazret Ali’s command, and Delta.

He did whatever it took to help us, including tasting the local food or tea before any American commando dug in to make sure it was not poisoned. I know that sounds a bit Hollywood, but it’s true. Over the next two weeks, many a Delta operator would owe an awful lot, including some lives, to Adam Khan.

We hit it off right away, and I sent up a silent prayer of thanks that this American would be with us.

As Adam Khan tidied up a few things inside the building, the rest of us were outside, shivering and talking smack with Billy while we helped load a few trucks with supplies for the Northern Alliance in the Panjshir Valley. There were crates of new AK-47 rifles, Chinese Communist vests,
bags of blue-dot special tennis shoes, U.S.-issue camouflage winter jackets and crates of 7.62mm ammunition, all paid for by the American taxpayer.

It was our first meeting with the Northern Alliance fighters, and they were of all ages and already dressed in fresh U.S. camouflage shirts and fatigue pants, with many wearing sneakers. Since turbans were the trademark of the oppressive Taliban, they were forbidden to wear them and instead had on a camouflage hat or a traditional Afghan wool hat. Each carried an AK-47 assault rifle and had three thirty-round magazines.

The overloaded trucks struggled to start and then eased into convoy formation and inched out of the parking lot, axles already screaming under the enormous weight of supplies. We wondered if they were mechanically fit enough to make the long trip over uneven rock-strewn riverbeds and torn asphalt.

Not to worry, called out Billy, who was going along on the ride. Just another character-building opportunity. He rode away waving, with a big wide smile on his face. The next time I ran into Sir Billy would be in January 2004, when he was strollin’ and grinnin’ in Baghdad.

Our own convoy loaded up, a couple of large trucks carrying a thousand AK-47s and hundreds of pounds of ammunition, all from the CIA. Our soon-to-be hosts, the Eastern Alliance, were also customers now and wanted their share of supplies. Well, I thought, the more, the merrier. At least our friends would be well armed.

In about an hour, as the midmorning sun ducked behind dark clouds, we drove through the guarded gate of the CIA house and slipped into eastbound traffic, heading for Jalalabad.

We passed through two Northern Alliance checkpoints without incident, reached the edge of Kabul, and got onto the main highway to Jalalabad. First would come twenty miles of deeply potholed and uneven
road, and it was hard to imagine how the road could get any worse. Then it did. After the pavement gave out, the next seventy miles would be rocky and rutted, hardened, dusty ground that kept our pace to a tortuous average of only ten to fifteen miles per hour.

The route was what happens to a road in twenty years of thundering Communist tank treads, exploding land mines, and Soviet artillery shelling, the fighting of the Taliban, the muhj and our warplanes. Beyond the damaged hardball, the road was light brown dirt covered by three or four inches of dust as fine as talcum powder. In the wake of every passing vehicle, the dust rose up and then settled again over the latest tire tread marks.

Every mile demonstrated that Afghanistan was truly a war-torn country. We drove by old Taliban outposts, empty barracks, and onetime motor pools that were littered with dozens of banged-up tanks and vehicles. American airpower had ensured they never made it out of the starting blocks. Soviet War–era armored vehicles differed from more recently destroyed Taliban armored vehicles only in the amount of rust on the hulls and carriages, and all of them were now derelicts.

We had not slept well before leaving Bagram, and though Ironhead was still driving our Toyota truck, even he would need to be spelled out at some point on this hellish road. I popped two speed pills to help stay alert.

A few hours east of Kabul, we stopped before reaching the chokepoint village of Sorubi. Adam Khan said it was planned that we meet a second Afghan security force there, which would safeguard the convoy through what he termed “the lawless land from Sorubi to Jalalabad.” Bands of thieves and bandits have raided that highway for centuries. We were not afraid of them, but staying in any one place too long while carrying valuable cargo invited unwanted trouble, and our mission was to go meet General Ali, not fight crooks along this sad stretch of road. The Afghan force didn’t show, and we pressed on without them.

Sorubi was a small village straight out of the Wild West. Fighters loyal to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the former prime minister and mujahideen commander, had controlled passage through the village for the previous decade. Everywhere we looked stood an armed man of fighting age, deeply tanned and curious, with piercing eyes that warned all strangers. When we came upon a half-dozen armed men on the road who were carrying four or five RPGs and assorted rifles, they looked us square in the eyes. Our presence
didn’t bother them, and once we had passed, they began to climb a rocky outcrop, likely to one of the many ambush positions that had been successfully used by men just like them against the Soviets. After seeing this tough bunch, we not only wondered who they planned to ambush, but how in the world we would ever be able to distinguish friend from foe in this strange land.

We had just cleared the village when one of the large trucks in our convoy, which was hauling the heavy AK-47 crates, blew an axle. It was no surprise. Adam Khan took the initiative and directed an Afghan leader to commandeer an approaching large and brightly painted truck. An Eastern Alliance fighter yanked the driver from his seat and pulled him to the roadside, where Adam Khan stepped in and gave the man a wad of cash for his troubles.

With a dozen or so muhj, we went to work cross-loading the one hundred crates, each of which contained ten rifles, and several more large cardboard boxes holding load-bearing equipment, into the newly purchased vehicle. The Afghan convoy leader happened to finally notice that nobody was standing guard! He barked orders and waved his hands wildly until several young fighters obediently moved away and took up security positions by squatting down, placing the butts of their rifles on the ground between their legs, and staring out into the vast countryside.

The longer it took to cross-load the equipment, the more attention we drew from locals, who drifted out of the village to see what all the fuss was about. Some were allowed to approach and cautiously moved around, eyeballing us out of curiosity. Some were brave enough to shake hands. None accepted my offer of Redman chewing tobacco.

There was little danger, and no doubt existed about who was in charge. The Afghans in their new U.S. camouflage with their AK-47s had things well under control. After throwing the last few crates into the back of our Toyota and into Adam Khan’s pickup truck, we were back on the road again, heading into the “lawless land.”

For another seven hours or so, the convoy gained and lost thousands of feet in altitude. High in one mountain pass, a little boy with dirty feet and disheveled hair heard us coming before he saw us, and had already jumped into action. He scooped a small makeshift shovel’s worth of dirt and poured it into one of the hundreds of small potholes that characterized
every turn of the switchback road. I am sure he thought himself to be a road repairman, and waited for passing vehicles in hopes of securing a small reward for saving the occupants from the heavy jolt of another reverse speed bump.