Operation Dark Heart (22 page)

We had beaten the Taliban in the south before they could retake Kandahar, and we had beaten them badly, but we also knew as long as they had a safe haven they could retreat to in Pakistan, they would regenerate, get stronger, and come back. We had to strike at their heart of darkness. Get them where they live. Take away their security, their ability to plan and conduct operations.

Twenty-four hours later I had a plan. I leaned back in my chair and read it over again.

This just might work. No, it
would
work.

If politics didn’t get in the way.

Dave and I headed out on a convoy for Kabul. Once there, the ***** folks went to do their thing, while Dave and I met Jim Brady ** *** ****** to discuss the operation and get his buy-in before we went to General Vines and pitched it to him.

I’d known Jim for years. He was the single most effective operator Defense HUMINT had. Jim was a close friend that I had known since my days at INSCOM in the late 1980s. He had been a coconspirator on many of my past black operations—official and unofficial ones. He was very good at getting information out of people and somehow did things that didn’t piss off leadership. He got away with shit that I would never get away with.

Also, he was a good friend. The last time I’d seen Jim was on my supposed wedding day three months ago when Rina and I had broken up. He was going to be my best man and had walked into an emotional scene at our house. His magic had worked on me then.

A small room had been set up for the meeting at the ******. In the hotel’s heyday, it was probably the reception area for the second floor of the hotel. High-backed chairs like those in an eighteenth-century English manor were scattered around—a touch of the British colonies that still remained in this wrecked capital. I had spoken to Jim on the phone, pushing a button to get it on the secret level, giving him an idea of what we wanted to talk to him about. He sounded excited about zeroing in on a known center of gravity since they hadn’t made much progress on their own, **** ***** * but he hadn’t heard the details yet.

He was waiting for us. “Hey, brother, good to see you,” he said as we came in, and we gave each other a hug. “I like the goatee.”

“Your face is like a baby’s ass,” I told him. “Where is
your
freakin’ beard?” With hair slicked back and smooth features, he looked like Alec Baldwin from
The Departed,
where Baldwin played a Boston police captain.

“It always comes out like baby fuzz,” he said with a grin.

“Maybe when your testicles drop, the problem will solve itself,” I joked.

“Hey, the last time I saw you, your testicles were pretty far up there.” He laughed.

“You got me there,” I said. “Speaking of testicles, here is Dave Christenson. He is an intelligence officer ** ** ***** ** *** here in country.” Dave shot me an annoyed look as he shook Jim’s hand.

“Tony speaks highly of you,” Dave told Jim.

“Yeah, well, I know where his desk is in Clarendon. He knows I’ll Super Glue everything down if he doesn’t say nice things,” Jim said.

We each grabbed a chair and gathered in a semicircle.

“We’ve got a concept I want to talk to you about,” I told Jim.

“And I want to talk to you about some things we want to do at Bagram that’ll need your approval,” he said.

“OK, you first,” I said.

“We want to get into the BCP,” he said. “We think one of the detainees had access to one of the HVTs we’re after ** **** ***** ***

Since I was head of HUMINT ops in Afghanistan, he had to go through me to get into the BCP.

“I don’t hang out there much, but I can get you access,” I said. “Whatever you need, we’ll get you. What do you have in mind?”

Jim briefed me on a creative concept for gaining intelligence on bad guys. ** ******** ******* ********* *** ****** **** ****** ***************** **** ** ** **** *** *** ** *** *** ***** Almost like counterintelligence operations.

I was impressed. It was sound, and it was legal.

“It’s great,” I said. “I’ll get Lisa, our operator there, to get you in.”

Favor done. Now it was my turn.

“What do you have for me?” he wanted to know.

I leaned back in my chair, hands on the back of my head, and looked him square in the eyes.

“Operation Dark Heart.”

He gave a high-pitched laugh. “Really? Did Jeff Murphy go rogue and create his own army of tribesman? He was going native the last time I saw him.”

“Something like that,” I said, leaving the joke about Murphy—one of my favorite colonels—alone for now. “You familiar with Wana?”

“My guys have been through it. Not a pleasant place.”

“We need to go back there.” I briefed him on the intel, then on the concept of operations.

Jim leaned forward, hands on knees, and listened intently. When I finished, he thought for a moment.
Here goes,
I thought.
Our first hurdle
.

“Excellent,” he said finally. “We’re on board. This’ll give us access to the HVTs that we want to get. Even if our specific guys aren’t in Wana, it’s a promising start to gain insight into their comings and goings.”

This was a win-win for both of us. It was a win *** **** ***** * because it gave them a path to exchanging information on the HVTs as well as a viable shot at killing or capturing them, and it gave **** ***** *** a real opportunity to reduce the effectiveness of the safe havens to regenerate forces and plan operations. It got to the very heart of both issues.

Jim promised to dispatch one of his teams within twenty-four hours to do an initial recon of Wana, and he recommended we get together at the Safe House in Kabul for a briefing on what they found and to discuss the way ahead.

“Jim, I’ll leave this intel for you to study,” Dave said as he handed over a package of paper—copies of the key information.

“Good luck with that.” I looked at Dave. “He’ll have to learn to read first.”

“Hey, there are pictures in there, too,” Jim said, leafing through the packet. “I’ll figure it out.” He suggested that we both brief Randy “Big Red” Hoover on the concept, and I agreed. Hoover was chief of the DIA *********** detachment in Kabul and ran the Safe House there. It also gave us an opportunity to watch cable TV and sleep—at least for one night—in real beds.

Jim dispatched his guy to rent a room in Wana with a visual line of site of the Al Qaeda Hotel. Within ten days, we had a detailed report on the first recon.

This was gonna be a complicated, multifaceted operation. We would be using imagery from the National Imagery and Mapping Agency. ** ***** *** ***** ************ ** *** ** ***** ******* *** ******* ** ***** **** ** ************ ******* **** ******** ********* *** ***** ******* ** **** **** ****** ** **** *** ** ***********

The recon, to determine operational feasibility, would go on for thirty days. So far, it looked good, but we still had to get operational approval ultimately from General Vines, the commander of Joint Task Force 180.

** ***** **** ** ********* * ********** ****** ******** * **** ** * ******** ***** ** *** ****** *** ***** **** ***** **** ** *** *** ********* **** ** ********** ********** **** **** ******* ** *** ******* *** ***** ** ****** ** *** ***** *** *** ***** ***** ** **** ** *** ********* ** *** *** ************ ** ** ***** ***** ** * ********* ****** **** ** ********* * ***** ** **** *** **** ****** **** ***** ****** **** *** ************ ***** ********** * *** **** ** * ***** **************** ** **** ** ********** ** ******* ******* ** *********** **** **** ******

I was drawing on my experience in running a black DoD special-mission unit that involved offensive operations aimed at strategic targets, such as certain countries, as well as transnational targets like al Qaeda. Some of these operations were so sensitive and successful, and the intelligence take so unique, that we could not put it into any database or transmit it electronically. I had briefed CIA Director George Tenet about them. The first time, he was in shock. He looked over at my bosses—Lt. Gen. Pat Hughes, director of DIA, and DIA director for operations Maj. Gen. Bob Harding—and said, “Holy shit. You guys are doing
this
?”

They grinned their asses off. It isn’t every day you catch the DCI off guard—in a good way.

Then again, that was all half a world away and many years past.

After our meeting, Randy and a two-vehicle convoy showed up in front ** *** ******. He would take us to the Safe House. Dave and I put on our “Hajji hats”—flat-topped Afghan hats worn by the local men—so we could look, in profile, like any other van loaded with locals.

DIA operators conducted *********** operations the old-fashioned way. They fanned out over Afghanistan building up Afghan spy networks that provided us with crucial intel on the movements of the Taliban and al Qaeda. They were presided over by Lt. Col. Randy “Big Red” Hoover.

******** ** ******* *** *** **** ***** *** * ******* ********** **** *** ***** *** **** *** ****** ***** ** **** *** *** ********* ******************* ******* ****** ******* ** ***** ******** ***** ******** ***** ***** *** ***** ****** **** ***** ****** ****** ****** ***** * *********** *** ******* ** *** *** ******** *** **** **** ** ******* ********* *** ** *** ********* ** **** * **** *** ****** *** ******* **** ******* ** * *** **** ** ******* **** ******** *** *** **** ******* ***** ** *** * *********** ****** ** *** ** *** **** ******** ****** ** **** *** *** **** *** ***** ********

Bill Wilson said he’d gotten word that DIA wanted me kept away from the house. There was always this fear by DIA leadership that I would somehow “take charge” and go off in my own direction if given half a chance. Or something like that. Rich and Randy totally disagreed, and I had an open invitation to visit whenever.

** *** **** ****** ** *** **** ** *** **** ****** * ***** **** ** *** ******** **** *** *** ********** ***** ****** ** *** ****** ******* *********** ***** **** ****** *** * ****** ** ****** *** ****** **** ** *** **** ***** ** ******* ******** *** *** ** ** ************ *** ** ***** ** ** ******** ********** *** **** ****** ** *** ** ***** ********* ** ******* *** ****

There was a debate over whether the Safe House ** **** ***** * would do the ***** ****** operation—and how long we could keep this from the CIA, because they couldn’t be trusted not to pass the intel along to their sources in Pakistan since the CIA considered the country their personal territory. We were going to do this as a Title 10 operation, which legally did not require CIA coordination, but, as a courtesy, we’d have to notify them at some point. Randy happened to be meeting with station chief Jacob Walker every day.

“I’m going to have trouble keeping this from him,” Randy said.

“How much do you think we can get away with without telling him?” I asked him.

“The moment we start coordinating with ***, he’s going to find out and ask some hard questions.”

“OK, I can keep it under wraps until we get close to execution,” I reassured him. “Dave can keep this off ***** radar.”

Because of our success in Mountain Viper, Randy told me, Jacob Walker had done a request to Langley to put all of Defense HUMINT under his control.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. I could only interpret the move as professional jealousy.

“Nope,” he said. “Jacob has sent a request to Langley, arguing that it would present a better integration of in-country collection efforts.”

“They haven’t been very successful, and I think I know why,” Randy said.

“I think it’s because they’re arrogant and tone deaf,” I said, “but do you have specifics?”

***** ** **** ******** ** ******* *** **** ** **** **** ******* ** ** *** **** *** ***** ******** **** ****** *** ** *** *********** *** *** **** *** **** ******

“Tradecraft 101,” I said. “What are you telling me?”

“Yeah, that’s the way I do business with my team,” Jim added.

**** ****** ** ******* *** *** *** ******* ***** ***** ***** ******* ***** ********* ****** ********* ********* **** *** ****** **** ** ********** **********

Jim and I looked at each other.

“What?”
I said.

“I kid you not,” said Randy. “When Jacob sends his guys out, they go in three trucks—two trucks with security and one truck with case officers. They’re more worried about protecting the case officers than they are in getting intel.”

“That explains a lot,” I said. “Essentially, they want us because we’re doing the work and they want the credit.”

“That’s my view of it,” said Randy.

“Have you talked to Padro Vario (DIA director of operations in the United States) about CIA wanting to take over DIA HUMINT operations?”

“Yeah, Padro knows it’s coming, but at least he is prepared.”

“Well,” I said, reaching for a bottle of water, “the way they want to play this, based on the CIA’s chumminess with the ISI, we don’t want them anywhere around us.”

With that, I walked Randy through the basic concept of the operations. ***** **** *** ********* * ******* ******* **** * *** **** ***** ******* **** He got it at once. He broke into a big grin and flashed me a thumbs up.

“This is great,” he said. “I’m on board. Let me know what we can do.” Then he looked at me warningly. “The problem is going to be Peter.”