The Taliban Don't Wave (16 page)

“Sir, we're—”

“Just do it!”

Fourneau began blaring our powerful tugboat horn, alerting all and sundry that 72A was en route to save the day.
If only we had external speakers to play
Ride of the Valkyries.
That would shit up Timothy good and proper!

I spoke over the vehicle PRR in my
Starship Troopers
voice: “All right, listen up! We are going in with the first wave—means more bugs for us to kill! You smash the entire area, you kill anything that has more than two legs, Do you get me?!”

Hetsa immediately shouted back “We get you, sir!”

I laughed but then shouted, “Stop, stop!” as a Canadian ran into the middle of the road to try and get us to slow down. But the RG didn't exactly stop on a dime. We skidded and swerved and kicked up enough dust to choke out a village before Fourneau managed to regain control. He let out a deep breath and I said, “Okay, I guess we're here. Warrant, on me! Fourneau, get the HMCS
Tippy Canoe
back on a southern bearing. Ion Control, swing the ‘heavy' around to cover us as we storm the grape hut. Stand by to fire over my shoulder!”

“Aye aye, sir!” Hetsa said, grinning away. I marched to the back of the RG, careful not to stove my head in again, and followed the warrant outside. The heat hit us full in the face as I looked around for the Canadians. I saw two platoons' worth of soldiers milling around outside the obvious grape hut. The warrant and I jogged over to three platoon commanders, Declan, John, and Reg.

I used my best New York cop accent and said, “Captain Semrau, OMLT, fifty-third precinct. Whatcha got?”

“First off,” Declan said, “thanks for coming out. But holy shit, where's the fire?”

“Hey, we're OMLT! We've been runnin' and gunnin' through the streets of Baghdad before
you
left your dad's
bag
! So this is the hut?” I asked, pointing at the one surrounded by a loose cordon. I saw the Florida dog handler and his big German shepherd hiding behind a mud wall near the hut.
I guess that's how they'd tracked the bomb makers.

“Yeah, that's it. If you can get your ANA to do a hard entry, we'll provide the outer cordon.”

“Well, we don't do nothin'
soft
! But for the record, someone please tell me, why is the OMLT taking care of this?” My fellow officers all looked at the ground or off into the distance.

“That's what I thought. All right, let's move 'em out, Warrant!” We quickly walked over to the ANA and, through Ali, briefed them on the plan. We used cover until we were just outside the hut, then the Afghans jogged up to the door.
Holy,
I thought to myself,
they're looking sharp!

The warrant and I slotted ourselves into the column and then stood behind a wall, just outside the door by ourselves as the rest of the ANA marched on either side of the hut, passed it, and then walked over to a wall, about twenty metres away. Clearly, something monumental had been lost in translation.

“No . . . no . . . it's here. Where are you going; what are . . . ?” I asked helplessly as I watched my crack team of Afghan door-kickers march past the door they were
meant
to kick in. “Aw, sonofabitch,” I said. “Well, looks like it's up to us, Warrant.”

“We didn't get all dressed up for nothing, sir. Let's do it!” We both knew what the other guy was thinking. The ANA were about to get seriously perforated if there were any actual bomb makers hiding in the grape hut. There were a thousand missing bricks so the heat could dry and shrivel up the grapes, and any one of those missing bricks in the wall would've made a great firing port. If someone was inside,
and
upset with us, any second now they were going to unload on my mentally challenged Afghans, who were casually marching in front of them.

There's a time to mentor and a time to act! Cry havoc!

I told Ali to stay hidden behind the wall, and then I broke cover and ran up to the door, slamming into the wall next to it. I looked and saw a large lock on it, just like on the farmer's gate the other day.
Damn history
, I thought to myself,
always repeating!

“Crap, it's locked, Warrant!”

Then I was startled to hear Clint Eastwood's voice come out of Warrant Longview's mouth. He had become the man with no name, as his gravelly voice said, “I got the
key
right here!”

Oh
, I thought to myself,
a farmer's turned up with a key again?
I turned around just in time to see the salty warrant racking the pump on a shotgun, loudly chambering a round. “Oh,
that
key,” I said, feeling like a total dickhead.
Wait a minute, where the hell did he get a shotgun?

“Step aside, Hoss,” he growled.

“All right Tex, do your thing,” I said, stepping to the side so he could shoot the lock off, like a man's man. “We're shooting the lock!” I shouted to the battle group soldiers on the periphery, so they wouldn't think it was incoming fire. Many of them were brand new and you could tell some were visibly on edge.
I suppose rockin' up in the
Tippy Canoe
and honking our horn the whole way down the road may not have eased their combat stress.

I swung my Petzl head-flashlight from the back of my helmet to the front and switched it on to white light. I hadn't received a tac light yet for my rifle, so like a total numpty, this was the best I could do. I knew the shotgun blast would kick up a hellacious amount of dust. Just then I felt something bump into my back. I spun around to see Ali stacked up behind me, like he was door breacher number three.

“Ali, you crazy son of a bitch, what the hell are you doing? Get back behind that wall, it's too dangerous—”

“But, sir, I must go with you, I—”

BOOM!

The warrant's shotgun blasted the lock into a hundred pieces, then he grabbed the door and violently wrenched on it and ripped it right off its hinges, making a hole for me to enter the hut. I ran in with the warrant right behind me, and took two steps to the left as he went to the right. We swung our rifles back and forth, scanning for the bomb makers, as my cheesy headlamp cut through the dust and gloom. We ran through the building, quickly getting to the end of it. Besides some tumbleweeds trapped in the back left corner, it was completely empty. I shouted, “Clear!” and then radioed the battle group so all the Canucks would know it was a goose chase.

“My goodness, Warrant,” I said in a sarcastic tone, “you don't actually think the Taliban have invented a man-portable cloaking device, do you? Have they found a way to teleport? If so, this heralds a frightening new chapter in the war!”

“Mistakes happen, sir,” he said.

“Roger, understood, and I'm not saying my shite smells of red roses, but they had a UAV, Warrant! The proverbial eye in the sky! You know, that thingamabob flying around at ten thousand feet that will relay to the troops on the ground the exact location of the enemy, in real time? That thing we never seem to get for our patrols, but ironically, the very thing we need the most! And somehow they still managed to lose the bomb makers!” The warrant, with all of his experience, knew it was just my adrenalin talking, so he let me vent out loud.

“Better?” he asked, and smiled.

“Much, thanks.”

“You're welcome. Now switch off your night light, you look like an idiot.”

“Right, thanks. Okay, I've seen just about enough. Let's hat up and light out for Swift Current!” I marched out of the building, told the dog handler it was all clear, and walked past my fellow officers, who stared at me in disbelief. “Okay,” I shouted to the Afghans as my arm circled in the air. “LET'S MOUNT UP!” As I approached the Canadians I saw Reg shaking his head at me, as if to say,
What the hell were you doing?

The Canadians watched us as we marched past; the ANA quickly fell in line behind me, eager to get back in time for supper. I sneered and shouted so everyone could hear me, “Seven Two Alpha: cold as ice,
hard
as fuck!”

As per my orders to Fourneau before I led the away team, he had the
Tippy Canoe
turned around and facing back toward Sper. I hopped inside, smacked my head, screamed my usual expletive, and took my seat in the front, putting my headset on over my helmet.

“How'd it go, sir?” the Fornicator asked.

“Same ol', same ol'. Complete cake and ass party! Back to Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru's farm. All ahead full!”

Fourneau gunned the throttle, shooting dust everywhere, as we flew like a land speeder over the Tatooine desert back to Sperwhan.

“Sound the battle horn a few times, for good measure,” I said.

Fourneau did as I asked, and I found out later from my friend Declan that we had made quite an impression on the Canadians who were gathered outside the empty grape hut. I suppose an RG going mach chicken down Route Brown, honking its super loud horn the whole way, then spraying dust as two Canadians dismounted and marched over to the hut, while the Afghans marched
past
the objective and joined the outer cordon to watch the Wizard shoot the lock off, while he, Ali the interpreter, and I ran in to clear the hut, probably scared the hell out of anyone who didn't hear my warning. Then, just as the Canadians were asking what was going on, we quickly marched away and mounted up. The RG blared its horn the whole way back as the Afghans tried to pass us in their Ford Rangers to get to supper first. The whole thing had taken less than fifteen minutes. The Canadians, many of them on their first tour, thought something serious had to be going down because why else would the OMLT and ANA take off in such a terrible rush?

Good times.

Back at the CP, Major Obermann and I had a good laugh when I told him the warrant's classic “I got the key right here!” line. I was proud of Longview; that was the stuff of legend! Real
Boy's Own
material. When I was done, Obermann's 2 I/C, a captain I had never met before, called me into the briefing room for a private word.

“Rob,” he said, very gravely, “I wish you had let the Afghans go in first.”
Was he for real? Was he there, on the ground? Did he even know what had happened and why I had to go in first?

I looked him in the eye and didn't hesitate. “Yeah, well, like my life coach always says, ‘Shit in one hand and wish in the other, then tell me which hand fills up first!'”

“You're supposed to be mentoring them Rob, not putting yourself and your warrant at risk, so—”

“Okay,” I cut him off, “just so you know, this isn't my first combat rodeo. In fact, this is my
fourth
combat tour, so don't ever tell me what to do—or judge my actions—when I'm on the ground and you're sitting nice and safe in an air-conditioned office! Secondly, I know damn well when to
act
, and when to
mentor
, and that was most definitely the time to act. By the time I would've got them turned around and stacked up,
if
there actually had been any bombers in there—and I can't remember, so please remind me,
were
there any bomb makers in the hut?” I paused to let that one sink in.
You asked for our help, remember?

He didn't say anything, so I kept rolling. “By the time I would've gotten them in place, they all would've been killed, so thanks anyway, but how about next time you just say ‘good job,' like you should've done in the first place, and leave it at that!”

“Okay, I see your point, but . . . ” The captain's voice trailed off. We just looked at each other. I was soaked in sweat, covered in dust, and filthy, whereas his uniform was immaculate, and his hair actually had
gel
in it!

“Yeah, thanks.” I walked out of the office and back to our shack. The warrant had already gotten some steaks from the cooks and was sizzling them up on the BBQ next to our building.

“Whoa, whoa, Warrant!” I smirked. “Did you get the required BBQ chit from KAF before you fired that thing up? 'Cause we gots rules, ya know?
Et les règles sont très claires!”

“After today, they can poke their rules,” he said as he flipped a big T-bone. “Now shut your blowhole and hand me a paper plate.”

Chapter 8

Captain Shafiq Ullah, the officer commanding the ANA First Company, who so far had been Mr. No-show, finally made a guest appearance on a patrol. Then miracle of miracles, he began patrolling with us almost
once
every few weeks. We had been going out six days a week: on our standard patrol in the morning, and then sometimes again later the same day as a QRF for the battle group. Our only day off was Friday, the Muslim weekly holy day. Besides the odd admin day, we went outside the wire constantly, and it was beginning to wear on us. Guys joked less, got impatient quicker, were constantly tired, and if we could have slept three days straight, we would've still felt exhausted. The terrible heat, constant dust, and lingering fear of death could really start to wear you down. One morning, when I looked in the mirror to shave, I actually flinched when I didn't recognize the guy looking back at me.

Every now and then we'd get woken up at around two or three in the morning to take our place on the berm when the enemy was up to no good right outside our front door. One night in particular, Lieutenants Aziz and Mujahedeen woke me up because they saw movement in the fields to the south. I looked through my night-vision scope and could see some farmers working in their fields.

“What do you think?” I asked them, knowing damn well what
I
thought.

They both looked at me and casually said, “Kill them.”

“But they have red lights on, like we told the farmers to do.”

“Hmm . . . yes. But kill them. They are planting IEDs.”

“What, in the middle of the field?”

“That is not a field—that is a road.”

Now, I knew that was BS. There was no road right there. We had just patrolled that way the other day so I knew I was in the right. I decided to call their bluff and said, “Okay, here; take my rifle. You do it.”

“Um, no . . . that is okay . . . ” Suddenly, when it came time for them to pull the trigger and end someone's life, they weren't so sure. And with that, we went back to bed.

The next morning, I intentionally diverted our patrol more to the south so I could show Lieutenant Aziz that the farmers were indeed working in a field, which was right where I said it was. I drove the point home by asking him where the road was that he was talking about. He became quiet and walked away from Ali and me.

But the one good thing about Captain Shafiq Ullah blessing us with his presence on patrols was that whenever he came out on patrol, nothing ever seemed to happen. He either had a snake charmer's hypnotic effect on the enemy, or it was the fact that he refused to go to the only place we knew the enemy actually hung his hat—behind the mythical 29 Easting on the map, off to the west.

We had been patrolling to the north, east, and south, but had only skirted around to the west, just far enough to get around the base, but still always within shouting distance of it. Clearly, in their handover the ANA had talked about Captain Stephens's patrol (the one where they'd been ambushed and were all lucky to have survived), so the word had spread, and the mythical 29 Easting would be safe from our patrols until the ANA were ordered to go there, or I could somehow
mentor
them over.

The next day we got permission to run a small-arms range at the southwest corner of the base. The ANA would be firing against targets we'd set up against a ten-metre-high sand wall, with both the OMLT artillery and infantry teams acting as the range safety officers. The warrant said we should probably find out now if their weapons would actually fire or not.

Some of them were carrying the Canadian C7/M-16 rifle, while most still sported something from the Kalashnikov family. As the senior officer there, I was in overall command, and I was bricking it, big time. “Neil Diamonds” (negligent discharges) could happen on Canadian ranges. Accidents happened back home. But here?
What were we thinking? I mean, who actually signs up to get shot?

To say it was a complete and utter gong show would be a gross understatement. Only my fellow Canadians' professionalism and ninja-like reflexes stopped the Afghan soldiers from killing themselves, us, even some camels that came too close to the fence. I had never done drugs, but I felt like I'd just inhaled something hallucinogenic and then sat two inches away from a Salvador Dali mind-bender painting. As we finished up (much sooner than originally planned) and walked the long slope back to our barracks, we swore to each other that we would never discuss it again, nor would we ever sign up to
lead
a range again. You can only tempt fate so many times in a war zone, and our luck couldn't hold out forever.
Point taken. Lesson learned. Never again!

Lieutenant Aziz took us out the next morning, eager to show us that even though Captain Shafiq Ullah was
technically
in command, Aziz was the guy who possessed the skills and drills that paid the bills. He was keen to head back to the small village northwest of our base, where we'd seen the flying kite and rooftop FAMs during our first patrol. I was keen to see it as well, thinking, it may be northwest, but it's still west.

We were on a joint patrol with one of the Canadian platoons, and the plan called for them to set up in a line to our east and provide fire support if necessary. We would patrol in to the village from the north, then march through to the south. We knew where the Canadians were set up, and they knew where we were
supposed
to be, that is, until Aziz developed a “Haley Joel” (a sixth sense) and began to see ghosts.

We had patrolled up to the large village and some of us had crossed over a narrow single-log bridge over a deep stream. I watched as Fourneau and a few of the ANA took a longer route off to the side, for fear of falling in. We then patrolled through some narrow, dusty streets, while I gave the CP and Canadians off on our flank regular sitreps (situation reports). After marching through the top end of the village, we stopped to talk to a large group of villagers who were having a town social. I noticed a young guy, leaning against his motorbike, trying to look cool, hard, and non-Talibanesque, all at the same time.

I asked Aziz if I could give the guy a GSR test and he said, “No, he is not from this village.”
Well,
that's sorta the point, good buddy.
I tried to explain that was all the more reason to do it, but he wasn't having any of it and started patrolling down the middle of the village, heading due south, all by himself until we caught up to him. Aziz could be incredibly petty at times.

We marched for a few minutes and were almost at the end of the village, when he cried out, “Over there!” and took off at the speed of a thousand gazelles. Now, I had never seen an Afghan do that before, so at the time, I thought he'd legitimately seen someone suspicious. All of the Canadians fell in behind him as he gave chase. At one point, I got caught up in the chase and thought I saw a wisp of fabric as someone rounded a corner. We ran into compounds, around houses, through gates, into small alcoves, and down alleyways. The ANA were so far behind that Fourneau and I ended up clearing most of the compounds ourselves. Every compound or street we ran down Aziz was convinced he could make out the guy, just
a bit
ahead of us, but that we'd catch him soon.

“It's Dick, boys! Thar be Moby Dick! Death, death to the white whale!” I cried, laughing away at my own cleverness as I passed Aziz in a dead sprint and rounded a corner. I stopped laughing the moment my face smashed into a mud wall, and then like a bunch of Keystone cops, everyone smacked into the back of me. I spit out blood from my fat lip and started to say, “How could
one
guy get over a wall like—”

Ali cut me off, translating for Aziz who was dictating between ragged breaths, winded from his sprint. “You must smash it down, Captain Rob. We cannot all climb over!”

“How in the hell am I supposed to—”

“You must hurry, Captain Rob. He will escape!”

I wanted to shout, “Who
will escape, you mad bastard? There's no one even there!
” but decided to take it on the chin and do something I'd always wanted to do, namely, kick down a mud wall whilst in hot pursuit of a suspect.

Images of a hundred cop shows and, for some reason,
The Littlest Hobo
flooded my mind. I handed Fourneau my rifle and said, “Don't get all gropey!” as I started delivering vicious front kicks like I'd learned at the Ninja Dojo of Inner Wisdom and Sacred Pain back in Saskatoon many years ago.
If only the Hard and Soft Masters could see me now!

The Canadians and Afghans alike formed a protective half-circle around me, but instead of watching their arcs and scanning for the enemy, everyone was facing in toward me as I really laid into that wall, boot stomping it with everything I had. I began to hum the theme song from
The Littlest Hobo
, or as my wife called him,
le chien qui sauve le monde.
There's a voice, that keeps on callin' me / down the road, that's where I'll always be / every stop I make, I make a new friend
. . .

SMASH! SMASH! I was making some progress, but in the heat, I was really starting to feel it too. Sweat was pouring off my face by the time I finally got the wall kicked down to where it was only four feet high. I grabbed my lead chucker back from Fourneau, shouted, “Follow me—I'm bulletproof!” and leaped over the smashed blocks, eager to win my Roman legion its first c
orona muralis
for being the first soldier over an enemy wall. I had always been a big history buff, and sometimes the oddest thoughts would pop into my head. I immediately scanned left and right, my weapon tracking everywhere I looked, just like I'd been taught.

I shouted “Clear!” when I realized I was alone in a courtyard. I quickly told the guys over the PRR the layout of the fields, but I hadn't cleared
them
yet, and so far there was no activity.
Don't really like being alone.
. . . I looked back at Fourneau, who was struggling to get over the four-foot wall. I was on my own until he came over, but I couldn't just sit around and wait.
Timothy was getting away!

We were in a farmer's field surrounded by high walls, so I immediately began scanning down each row until I had made it to the end. The ghost we'd been chasing was nowhere in sight. I ran up to a shoulder-high block of mud and hopped up onto it, slung my rifle, then jumped up another couple of feet and gripped the edge of the wall and pulled myself up, until my chin was peeking over the edge.

I saw some fields and more huts, but no one running for his life, nor any civilians, period, so with a grunt I pulled myself all the way up and threw a leg over each side of the high wall. I thought everyone must be at the town meeting at the north end of the village.

Aziz ran over and jumped up next to me. He was surprisingly agile. That, plus he had about eighty pounds
less
gear on him. Fourneau was next and quietly said, “I'll never make that, sir.”

“Sure you will. Jump with everything you've got, and I'll muckle onto you and pull you up!”

“Sir, I don't think—”

“Get the fuck up there, Fourneau,
right now
!” The warrant shouted at the back of Fourneau's head, startling him in his moment of self-doubt. The Wizard had jacked up Fourneau a few days ago for not being able to follow me over a wall, and now it was happening all over again.

Fourneau leapt and floundered, but I had a death grip on his tac vest shoulder, and no power on earth could make me let go. “I'm not . . . going to . . . let you fall.” I said, remembering
Cliffhanger
, one of Stallone's seminal movies.

The warrant got beneath him and gave a healthy shove and that was all I needed to hoist my fire team partner up beside me. I looked at Fourneau and smiled. “Told ya. Now you get scanning, I gots to do the occifer thing!” I quickly checked my GPS and sent up a locstat and sitrep. I asked the Canucks to our east if they'd seen anything, but they had zero activity to their front.
Aziz really
was
seeing ghosts.

I helped get everyone up and over, and then slowly slid down the wall, careful not to land with too much of a thump. Just letting yourself fall to the other side was a quick way to make the front page of
Safety Digest
(the CF's magazine dedicated to tales of admonishment), so I tried to hug the wall and slide down, but it didn't matter. I landed with a good, hard
thud.
When you wear that much kit, you're going to land heavy, and like my Brit Para instructors always said, “Sometimes you just got to take it. Nuffin' ye can do!” I knew to breathe out, though, so at least I wouldn't wind myself.

I scanned around but there was no one to be seen, although Aziz had seen another ghost and took off again at a dead sprint.

The warrant shouted behind me as I gave chase. “Enough's enough!” He was right. It was easy for the ANA to sprint around; they were carrying two mags each and that was it—no body armour, maybe a helmet, maybe not.

I jogged up next to Aziz as Ali struggled to keep up with us. We came to an intersection, and I guess we chased the ghosts to the
other side
, because Lieutenant Aziz was finally satisfied. Our exorcism was a success. He collected his men and marched us to the southwest of the ville, where we entered into the deep grape-field trenches.

I got on the net, thanked the Canadians for their patience and for coming out to play, and said the ANA were satisfied and now heading back to Sper. The Canadian platoon gave me
roger
and made their way to the road to head back in, probably to check the culverts at the same time.

I heard some choppers in the air to our north, and radioed the command post to find out what was going on. The CP sergeant said, “American general's ground convoy. Heading to Masum.”

We were cutting through the grape fields when Ali ran up to me and said, “Sir, they are talking to each other on Icom, and one of them asked the other if the ANA searched him or his motorbike, and he said, ‘No, they only talked to me, and then let me go!'”