The Taliban Don't Wave (36 page)

I whispered to Max, who whispered my recommendation to Ghias, who thought about something for a moment, and then called his sergeants in for a quick last word. They followed the plan and knew where they had to take their platoons. One platoon was going south to act as a cut-off force (blocking platoon) to stop anyone trying to flee, another platoon would go southwest to carry out the same role, and then Shamsallah would lead his platoon into the village to set up and hide around the mosque itself.

The night before, I had suggested to Ghias that we might want to join Shamsallah as part of the grab team, or be near them at least, since the commander always wanted to be in the best position to influence the battle the most, but nothing doing. Ghias told me we
would
be in the best position—four hundred metres away, safely hidden behind a large wall. His plan called for his HQ element to stay safely in the rear with the gear. So once Shamsallah sprung the trap, the southwest platoon would march north and act as the western cut-off group. Everything was set. Ghias gave the word, and the platoons marched silently off into the early-morning darkness.

I looked at Simmons. We were both really cold. In the dark hours the desert got bitterly cold, and since we'd stopped marching, our sweat was putting off vapour fumes into the cold morning air. I looked toward the east. We'd had to get up early and start marching long before the sun came up, because the mosque would be open an hour before sun-up for the first prayer of the day. Shamsallah and his men had to be hidden around the mosque long before then.

Over the next twenty minutes, Ghias's platoon commanders and Shamsallah radioed in to say they were in position.
The trap's set. Excellent!

Simmons and I joked quietly and waited for the sun to make its first appearance of the day. And slowly, ever so slowly, it began to rise in the east. We felt its warming rays heating us up and it was glorious; we'd been shivering for the last hour.

POK POK POK POK POK POK POK POK POK!

Suddenly we heard AK fire, which sounded like ANA outgoing, from the area of the southern cut-off force. At first I thought it was the usual warning shots, but when I heard ten AKs all firing at the same time, and a couple of rounds snap over our heads, then it officially became a contact. I got on the radio and sent up the initial contact report, but I told Smith to wait before sending it up. I needed Captain Ghias to reach his men on the radio and find out what was happening. He was trying to get a hold of them, but no one was responding.
Did we get set up? Was their spy fooled by a double agent, and now we've walked into a trap?

Soon the southwest platoon was also in contact. His sergeants had finally radioed in and Ghias was able to give me a grid for his platoon's positions. His southernmost platoon was in contact with about five or six Taliban, just a couple hundred metres beneath us, and his other platoon was going to help them out. I radioed Warrant Smith and filled in the missing data from my contact report. I gave him my location and said the HQ element was going firm at my grid. I asked about the UAV and he said, “Wait, out.” Smith would find out soon after he sent up my contact report.

Suddenly my combat antenna started to go off. When the shooting started to our south, we all pressed up against the nearest wall for cover. But now I felt like someone was watching us. I scanned around, and five metres to our west was another wall. Twenty metres behind that one, with a small road in between them, was a tall wall, behind which I had just seen a couple of heads duck down.
Is it Timothy or curious civvies?
I answered my own question:
It's too early for it to be civilians, and besides, civvies wouldn't hide, for fear of getting shot at.

I grabbed Simmons, Ghias and his signaller, and Max, and we jogged over to the west wall, five metres away.
Wait a minute: Simmons, Ghias, signaller, and Max . . . that's it? Where the hell did Ghias's close-protection group go?
A TIC is raging a couple hundred metres to our south, I just caught somebody taking a little too much interest in us, and all we've got for force protection is one, two, three guys, and a terp?

When the platoons had taken off to get set up earlier, we'd had about ten ANA stick with us to watch our backs. Sometime in the last five minutes they'd lit out. I went over and asked Captain Ghias where they'd gone, and he said he'd just launched them as a reserve. But
we
needed the reserve!
Why hadn't he sent Shamsallah as his reserve? Surely the mission was a complete washout by now!
If those heads twenty-five metres away started shooting at us, we'd be in serious trouble.

I pointed the wall out to Simmons, told him what had just happened, and ordered him to keep eyes on. Just then, Warrant Smith spoke over the net and said the UAV was finally en route.
It's late, but who cares?
It could use its high-powered optics to tell me who was peeking at us on the other side of that wall. I got out my map and GPS and reconfirmed my grid, then sent it to the warrant and told him to get the UAV over my grid, ASAP.

“Mushan, roger. Wait, out,” he replied.

I peeked over the wall. Nothing. Dead quiet, in that direction anyway. To our south the war was still raging on. But it sounded like the ANA had the best of it. The odd angry shot continued to whang over our heads, but the gunfire had lessened considerably. Just then Simmons and I turned to the sound of a high-powered skidoo shooting through the sky, coming closer to us, about four hundred metres up.

WEEEEEEEEEEE!

We called it the UAV “skidoo,” for the obvious resemblance its low-powered propeller motor had to that of an actual SkiDoo. But as far as it being a
highly covert observation platform
, the only people who couldn't hear it as it flew “covertly” overtop were the deaf. The Americans had a twenty-million-dollar UAV that flew silently through the ionosphere and could shoot laser-guided Hellfire missiles from space, while we had a kid's remote-controlled plane with a camcorder taped to the bottom of it. We looked up into the cloudless sky and could actually see it coming toward us. I started to chide myself:
Don't be an ingrate, Rob; just be happy you've finally got one!

Then, for reasons completely unknown to the boots on the ground, the UAV turned sharply, about three hundred metres shy of us, and started to fly south on a new heading.
An entirely useless heading!
After a minute, we couldn't hear its little motor straining any longer. It was gone, into the sprawling Registan Desert.
Huh. Not exactly where I needed it to be. . . .

I got on the net and asked the warrant to confirm the grid he had sent up for my location, the spot I wanted the UAV to hover over us. He sent me the ten-figure grid back and it was correct. Then I asked the warrant to please retransmit it to Sperwhan, so they could resend it to the UAV operator, because I didn't need the UAV to commence patrolling the Registan Desert on counter-narcotics operations, I freaking needed it over
me
, at the grid we just gave the operator!

“Mushan, roger. Wait, out,” he replied.

“I got movement,” Simmons whispered next to me. I peeked over the wall and could see it too, a couple of heads moving suspiciously behind the far wall.
Damn it, where's that UAV?

“Mushan, 72C. Still waiting for that UAV to come to
my
grid, over.”

“Mushan, roger. Wait, out.”

“Stay frosty Simmons, and maybe put your earplugs in.” Simmons glanced over at me. I'd already put mine in, but kept the right one partially out, so I could still hear a bit.

“Seven Two Charlie, Mushan. They say the UAV is currently over your position now, over.”

“Charlie, no; it is most certainly
not
over my position! You can hear it a mile away, and we could hear it
and
see it as it stopped short of us, turned south, and flew into the desert! Tell them to pull their heads out, and get it sent back to me, now, over!”

“Mushan, roger. Wait, out.”

Aw, what the hell? Seriously, is it that hard? Doesn't the operator just punch the grid into his computer, send it to the UAV's GPS, and the UAV flies itself right to the grid?

Wait a minute—is that it?
Simmons and I looked up as we heard the skidoo coming out of the desert and back on-mission.
Okay, accidents happen, it's not too late. We're not dead—yet! It can still use its optics to see what's going on over at the other wall. C'mon, skidoo!
It was perfectly in line with us, travelling slowly through the air, but in a few seconds, it would be right where I needed it.

WEEEE-OOOOOOO-ooooooooooo. . . .

Simmons and I stared in sheer disbelief as the UAV flew right over us—and then kept right on flying, far away into the north, the Doppler Effect from its little motor fading into the distance. It just kept right on flying as it crossed the Arghandab River, making its way to Uzbekistan.

I pounded my fist impotently into the mud wall, “Aw, damn it, damn it, damn it!” It took all of my self-discipline to
not
rip off my helmet, throw it against the wall, and start screaming complete gibberish as I jumped up and down like a tantrum-throwing toddler.

Warrant Smith spoke calmly on the net. “Seven Two Charlie, Mushan. They say the UAV is currently over your position now, over.”

GAAHAAAA!

Rage . . . rage . . . RAGE!
My eyes involuntarily clenched shut as my head began throbbing mercilessly. All of the frustrations and anger I'd been carrying around with me since I'd first gotten to this effing hellhole threatened to consume me in one massive ball of hate. I could hear the evil Emperor from the
Star Wars
movies, giggling with delight in my head,
“Good—use your aggressive feelings, boy! Let the HATE flow through you!”

“Seven Two Charlie, Mushan. Confirm the UAV is over your position, over.”

Breathe, Rob, breathe. Don't give way to the anger, to the hate!

I felt myself gain some internal composure as I breathed in deeply and said, “Mushan, 72C. Prepare to copy, over.”

“Mushan, send over.”

“Charlie, please tell Sperwhan that the UAV is not, I say again, is
not
currently over my position. It flew up to us and is now about seven klicks away, north of the Arghandab, over.”

“Mushan, um, did you just say ‘north of the Arghandab'? Over.”

“Charlie, that's a big rog. UAV currently north of the Arghandab, over.”

“Mushan, roger. Wait, out,” he replied.

“Simmons, me ol' scrote,” I said to my fire-team partner. “I'm not making that up, am I? The UAV really flew over us, didn't it?”

“Hell yeah, sir, it flew up to us and then kept right on going! It's
way
north of the Arghandab now!” He pointed to the north, helping me in case I wasn't sure which direction north was.

The firing had completely died down and then stopped. We continued to watch the wall, but no one made a move. Slowly, the ANA platoons started to rejoin us behind our wall. I scanned around but couldn't see anything suspicious.
I guess the UAV scared off whoever was hiding behind the other wall. Good for something, I guess.

Every now and then I got whispers of conversation from Sperwhan. My MBITR would pick up parts of what they were saying to the warrant. Smith was arguing back and forth with them, graciously, mercifully saving me from their inane efforts at persuasion.

Something caught my eye off to the southeast. It looked like . . .
oh crap
. . . about a klick and a half away a Taliban recoilless rifle team was manoeuvring a Spig 9 rocket launcher on a rooftop, pointing it toward Mushan.

“Break break break!” I shouted into the radio, cutting off the warrant and Sperwhan in mid-argument. “Mushan Mushan, take cover take cover, you've got incoming you've got incoming!” The Taliban rocket team was too far away, out of rifle range, so I had been watching helplessly at the Spig 9 on the rooftop when suddenly a huge plume of smoke billowed out its end as it fired. A second later I could hear the kerbaammm! echo across the empty fields between us. Something wasn't right, though; the rocket seemed to be flying high into the sky.
Their barrel, it's pointed too high, it's at too high of an angle.
Like the stoned Afghan border cop in Helmand, they had just launched their rocket harmlessly into space.
Well, it's going to come down somewhere, but nowhere near Mushan.

I looked at the Taliban, who were quickly packing up their recoilless and vamoosing off the roof. I didn't have too much hope, but I thought I'd ask Captain Ghias if he wanted to go after the shooters.

“No, we are good,” he replied.
Yep, figured you'd say that. But I gotta ask.

We collected the ANA platoons and patrolled back to Mushan without further incident. When we got in I thanked Stamps for covering us with the Coral Sea and the .50-cal. I entered the CP where the warrant told me that when he received my warning message on the net, he involuntarily turned sideways, as though he would present a thinner profile for the rocket. We had a good laugh and I told him about the time I slowly slunk down into cover at Sperwhan, when rounds were cracking right next to my head. Sometimes your body just does strange things. When you get shot at, the
normal
human reaction is to duck involuntarily, not slowly slink down. And when a rocket's fired at your base, turning sideways isn't
really
going to help. . . .