Chapter 1

The Stowaways

             Bagram fell first. In the rush to abandon the air base, U. S. Force Afghanistan crammed hard discs, thumb drives, laptop computers and laser guided rockets into C5A’s. In the final hours before the last, U.S. cargo jet lifted into Kabul’s dark night, anything that could be mined for USAF Intelligence, or smart weapons that could be used against NATO soldiers were burned or shredded by high explosives. 

            No guards fought for Bagram’s main gate when the Taliban appeared at first light. None challenged the bearded tribesman who seized the abandoned armored vehicles and multibillion dollar detritus. 

            Kabul lasted a month longer. Faced with the Taliban’s relentless spring and summer advance through Sharana, Gardez, Mithraism and Asadabad, President Ashraf Ghani fled the country on August 15th. In the hours that followed, Kabul’s police and Afghanistan’s National Army shed their uniforms and melted into crowds of panicked civilians. During the chaotic days that followed Ghani’s resignation and narrow escape to the United Arab Emirates, virtually all USAFA’s brigades and a majority of ANA officers bulled their way into Hamad Karzai International Airport where they either fled on U.S. Military transports or forced their way onto packed commercial flights.

            On the far side of Hamad Karzai’s International Airport’s Abbey Gate, a US C-17 transport jet began to roll. In a suicidal attempt to force the jet to stop, a hundred young men sprinted in front and next to the jet’s fourteen enormous tires.  

            A U.S. Air Controller advised the pilot that a dozen men were hanging onto his wheel doors and struts. Flanked by a copilot, load master and two observers, if the pilot slowed, he would lose the C-17 to the desperate crowds. During the twenty seconds that followed, he balanced the fate of the men clinging to the belly doors with the lives of two hundred USAFA personnel crowded shoulder to shoulder, chest to back inside the cargo bay. Pushing the throttle yokes forward, he felt the four Pratt & Whitney F117-100’s hundred and sixty thousand pounds of thrust drive the massive jet down the concrete runway.  

            Of the young men who managed to hang onto the C-17s wheel wells, nine quickly lost their grip on the panels. By then the massive jet was traveling at one hundred and thirty miles an hour.  Cartwheeling down the rough runway, none survived.   

            The three men who remained were little more than boys. By force of will and a profound belief in their own immortality, they prayed that the huge jet would not lift off while they clung to the wheel well. In a second, perhaps two, the pilot would throttle back, lower the ramp and allow them to join the crowds on board. And they continued to cling to that hope until the C-17-A lifted away from the thousands of panicked Afghans. By then it was too late. The retracting gear crushed a man who had climbed into the wheel housing. Thirty seconds later the C-17 was five hundred feet above Kabul.  

            Shahzar Sayed had always been lucky. That day, however, exceeded the best in his life. Shahzar Sayed’s house sat two miles from the end of Hamad Karzai’s main runway. During the past decade Shazar learned to recognize the commercial jets and military transports make, model and country of origin simply by the thunderous whine of their engines. Shahzar soon learned that complaints to the proper authorities were a waste of his time and that impotence made him bitter and angry each time one of the departing jets screamed over his compound. 

            On August 18, 2021, Shahzar was in his rooftop garden when the roar of a C-17 made him turn toward Hamad Karzai. Nose high, wheels down, flaps engaged, engines thundering, the massive transport labored to maintain air speed. Surrounded by potted pomegranates and blood orange trees, Shazar saw the three men clinging to the wheel bay doors.  

            One moment his cell phone was pressed in his front pocket, the next it was tracking the C-17. How the cell phone’s short telephoto framed the three teenagers as they clung to the open doors would remain a mystery.  He watched the wheel panels begin to close. Two seconds passed before one figure then another and another tumbled from the jet onto houses in Khairkahana.  

            Shahzar Sayed was not thinking clearly when he uploaded the video to his TikTok and YouTube accounts. For Shahzar, the death of the three boys was simply a sad curiosity, no different really than mass shootings, pandemic deaths or terrorist attacks that filled the daily news on international networks. What he could not predict was how the video would quickly come to define America’s chaotic retreat from Afghanistan. 

            By that evening, sixty million people had watched the men fall into the village. A majority watched more than once. Some a dozen times. From Sayed’s Afghanistan account, the video exploded across YouTube and TikTok. U.S. and international networks, Fox, CNN, ABC, Al Jezzera quickly picked up the feed.

            Another witness filmed the men’s roof top remains. Sitting behind a nondescript desk on Hacker Way in Palo Alto, California, his attention focused a thirty-two inch monitor, a Facebook Editor decided what was left of the men was gripping, but, in light of Mark Zuckerberg’s recent troubles with both Facebook employees and the U.S. Congress, too gruesome to post.  

            No matter. Shahzar Sayed grew rich on the five hundred million clicks. How to spend such treasure was never in doubt. He would buy passage out of Afghanistan for himself, his wife and six children.  

            Shahzar was not an uneducated man. While a student at the University he had spent six months in Switzerland. The total for the five hundred million clicks would buy passports for his family, a three-bedroom apartment above Lake Geneva, and eventually Swiss residency. His family’s future was bright.

            If Shahzar felt any guilt for profiting off the boys deaths, he did not refuse the first million-dollar installment. If not him, then who? Someone would certainly profit from the video and Sayed reminded himself there was no shame in providing for his family.

            Face shrouded by a black beard, head covered by a black turban, clothed in faded pants, worn boots and a dusty kamiz shalwar that reeked of dried blood and heavy sweat, Ahmad Ghulam had no fear of death, and little empathy for the living.  

            Ahmad Ghulam Rostislov was twelve when he fought the Russians––in his late forties when he defeated the American Infidel’s traitorous ANA in the villages that ringed Kabul. The endless U.S. war spawned more martyrs than Ahmad could remember. Twenty-four years, half a dozen wounds and the memory of maimed cripples, blessed him with a dark cruelty. 

            Following the United States announced date for withdrawal, Ahmad’s cadres had swept across Afghanistan. Village after village, city after city surrendered to his holy warriors. Afghan National Army soldiers and anyone who collaborated with the U.S. Infidels were shot. Translators were tortured and, while they were still living, bent at the waist and beheaded. Women who were convicted of adultery or blasphemy were stoned. Thieves lost their hands in public amputations.  

            Ahmad Ghulam Rostislov knew who and what Sayed was. Traitor came most easily to his mind. Blasphemer, puppet of the Infidels, profiteer­­––the list fueled the Taliban leader’s desire to avenge the young men’s death. The three were sons of Taliban, as were virtually all teenagers from the hill tribes.  

            Flanked by seven Taliban, Ahmad Ghulam struck Shahzar’s heavy door with his AK-47. Ahmad Ghulam could have traded the AK for one of the ten thousand M4s or M16s abandoned by the fleeing Afghan National Army, but after the thousands of rounds he had shot at the ANA and American Infidels he trusted the assault rifle’s rate of fire and accuracy.  

            He waited a moment then struck the heavy door a second time. Any harder and he would shatter the AK-47’s stock.  

            Ghulam was an impatient man. He waited a few seconds then waved his men behind a concrete wall. Abdul-Azim—Servant of the Most Mighty—shouldered a rocket propelled grenade. The blast would reduce the door to splinters. A second before Abdul-Azim touched the trigger the heavy wooden portal cracked open.  

            “Brother,” Shahzar Sayed managed before two bearded Taliban threw their weight against the weathered wood. The safety chain ripped out and Sayed was thrown backward into the entry.  

            Abdul-Azim grabbed Shahzar’s arm; another gripped his neck.  The two Taliban bent him at the waist before Ahmad Ghulam.  

            Shahzar Sayed barely glimpsed the leader’s face. Neither angry, nor calm Rostislov’s expression was neutral. A second later Shahzar Sayed could not remember a single detail of Rostislov’s face. Not the nose that flared above his thin upper lip, the black wide set irises, the black unwashed curls that hung to his shoulders or the unkept beard that ringed his chin like a black mane.  

            Ahmad Ghulam had judged hundreds of men during the twenty-year holy war with the Americans. And now, as he stood looking down at Shazar Sayed, had no doubts about either the judgement or the sentence. 

            Face down, Shahzar could see little more than Ahmad Ghulam’s dusty boots. Shazar realized then that he should have left Kabul the day before. His chance had now passed.

            “Are you the blasphemer responsible for this desecration?” Ghulam thrust a cell phone in front of Sayed’s face. A loop of the falling teenagers repeated on the screen.          

            Shahzar had watched the video hundreds of times before and now recognized each frame of the boys clinging to the wheel wells, the jet silhouetted against Kabul’s hazy, early afternoon sky, the wind prying at their fingers until almost as skydivers, one after another, they spun away from the closing panels. 

            Shahzar had five seconds to craft an excuse that would calm the Taliban commander. Head down, his focus on the commander’s boots, full panic seconds away, he prayed for an explanation that would spare him the broken bones, joints or the months unable to rise from his bed, walk, feed himself or attend to the most personal of functions.

            Forged from Damascus watered steel, the 17th century Pulwar’s blade was inlayed with Islamic inscriptions. It was a Holy blade that, during the past three centuries, had exacted Sharia justice thousands of times.

         Shahzar heard but did not recognize the “hisp” of the Pulwar being drawn from the leather covered wood scabbard. Hands held tightly behind him, Shahzar had now way of predicting what followed. During the coming seconds, he struggled to convince himself that the Taliban were not animals. “They were religious men who…”  

            At that moment Shazar Sayed’s body spasmed.  

            Shahzar Sayed was right about one thing. His luck lasted until his death. The Pulwar’s blade might have hit bone. Ahmad Ghulam, however, had beheaded two dozen other blasphemers. Experience taught him where to land the razor edge. His stroke was powerful, the placement accurate between the fourth and fifth vertebrae. The Pulwar cut cleanly through muscle, nerves and trachea. 

         Sufficient oxygen remained in Shahzar’s brain to power his mind and eyes. “Why?” he asked himself.  His eyes blinked, once, twice then a third time as he watched his phone frame the jet. As before, he shared the teenager’s terror when their fingers slipped from the C-17 door panels. During his last seconds, Shahzar Sayed watched the boys explode across the distant roofs. 

            Less than a minute after Shahzar opened the front door, his head smashed onto the ancient stone walkway. His body buckled a second later.

         Of all the men and women Ahmad Ghulam beheaded, only a very few lingered long enough to blink. Watching Shahzar Sayed’s corpse convulse before him, he counted the three final blinks as a sign that the execution was ordained.

Chapter 2

Abbey Gate

            Aarif Nuristani, his wife Faiza and six-year-old daughter Maimuna waited in the blistering heat between a canal filled with raw sewage and shuttered store fronts. Temperatures in the crowded street exceeded thirty-six degrees Celsius. Parched by the bright August sun, Aarif, Faiza and Maimuna had moved two feet in the last hour.

            “Daddy,” Maimuna tugged at her father’s sleeve. “Can I have a drink?” 

            The liter water bottle in Aarif’s jacket pocket was less than a quarter full. It was, however, not within Aarif to deny his beautiful daughter. Handing her the water, he whispered, “Take no more than a sip to wet your tongue.”

            During the tense weeks of July while cities fell to the Taliban, Aarif secured transfer documents for safe passage out of Kabul. Hamid Karzai Airport offered his family a fleeting last sanctuary. There, Aarif, Faiza and Maimuna would board a flight to Saudi Arabia, Western Europe, or far less likely, Maryland in the United States. Aarif’s documents were now worth ten times what he had been paid to interpret for the U.S. Marines. 

            Twenty meters away, soldiers searched sheaves of paper for proof that the bearer worked for U.S Force Afghanistan. Identification—licenses to travel, work Ids—passports eclipsed the rolls of hidden hundred-dollar bills. Pleas in English bought a few seconds. Native speakers were driven back into the crowd.

            Holding both Faiza’s and Maimuna’s hands Aarif pressed forward. The gate was now nineteen meters away.

            Aarif’s papers were in order. Three passports, four letters from four Marine officers attesting to his character as well as perfect records from his eight years of service­­­­.

            Aarif had heard that USAFA was “considering options" for Afghan nationals who had worked for the Americans. With a mechanical engineering degree from Kabul University Aarif spoke a clear, if faintly accented English. He understood that “considering options” would take time. Eight years of translating for the Marines, however, should have ensured Aarif, Faiza and Maimuna would be passed into the airport. Watching the chaos around him, Aarif had begun to have doubts.

            To the right, and ahead, six Taliban fighters scanned the crowd.  Long beards dyed henna red, stained gray kamiz shalwar, patched pants and worn sandals, they were mountain tribesman—from Kunar, Nuristan, Khost or Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Area.

            Risking a second glance at the Taliban, Aarif wondered if he might have translated for the Marines when they interrogated one of the fierce bearded men. Interrogate was too mild. Aarif could not remember every bruised face or each terrified plea for mercy during the beatings. If the Taliban recognized Aarif before he reached the Abbey Gate, they would drag him out of the crowd. And, when he lacked the strength to resist the beating and confessed, they would kill him. 

            To Aarif’s right and a close to the gate, two Taliban fighters dragged a young man from the crowd. He was at most twenty a student born after America invaded Afghanistan. He might have worked for USAFA or Ghani. His week’s growth and shabby clothes offered a poor disguise. 

            The Taliban seized a young woman who lacked an abaya. Perhaps, in her rush to reach the gate, she had forgotten her head covering at home. Her husband tried to protect her but was clubbed onto the dusty street.   

            Framed by dark, emotionless eyes, Ahmad Ghulam stood apart from his cadre. His face was remarkable only by its lack of memorable detail. A dark beard, streaked with gray, cascaded onto his chest. Black unwashed hair fell to his shoulders, his hands were stained, dirt filled his ragged nails. 

            In the weeks before the Americans abandoned Afghanistan, Ghulam had captured Sohail Pardis who worked as a translator for the Americans. Aarif knew Pardis but they meant nothing to one another and when Pardis failed a polygraph test the Americans could no longer trust him. Aarif was neither happy nor sad when Pardis was stripped of his uniform, denied his last pay and dumped outside Bagram’s main gate.  Pardis should not have lied about what was never discovered. It was enough that the polygraph test said he lied.

            Ahmad Ghulam hated the Afghan National Army soldiers only slightly less than the interpreters. Witnesses reported that Ghulam strafed Pardis’ car until it careened into a ditch. Pardis was still alive when they dragged him from the driver’s seat. Ghulam waited while his men tortured Pardis. When an axe handle and knife no longer elicited a response, Ghulam beheaded the interpreter in a ditch next to the road.  

            If Aarif once trusted the Americans, eight years had taught him that the Americans helicopter gunships did not discriminate between Taliban fighters, women or children. Laser guided missiles, drones and artillery leveled isolated mountain villages. Collateral damage was justified if one Taliban body, or a torso wrapped in gun belts was later dug out of the rubble. 

            Aarif offered a silent prayer that his family would be overlooked by the Taliban tribesman and cleared by the 82nd Airborne. He then prayed his family would board one of the departing military transports to Saudi Arabia, Dubai or a dozen Mideastern airports that offered temporary asylum. Deplaning in Saudi Arabia, they would look to Germany, France the Netherlands—Sweden and Norway—countries that had already accepted refugees from Syria, Iraq and Northern Africa—refugees that were now housed in temporary shelters, struggled with the language and competed for jobs. Aarif dared not wonder where a hundred thousand Afghans would live? Work? Or go to school? And who would pay their expenses? 

            National governments? Nonprofits? Religious charities? It was too late to turn back. Board the flight first and, when the transport was airborne, worry about how they would survive in the west.

Chapter 3

Bomber

            Abdul Rehman Al-Loghri was young, dark haired, anonymous in a sea of Afghans sweating in the hot August sun for a chance to hold their documents out to the U.S. soldiers manning the Abbey Gate. The limited number of seats on military and commercial jets ensured the vast majority of the men, women and children would be turned back.

            Temperatures in the chaotic street eclipsed the high nineties but Abdul Rehman Al-Loghri wore a Kamiz Shalwar. Over this he wore a long-sleeved, light blue silk Chapan. It was an expensive coat typically worn by the very rich. Abdul Rehman lack of expression served as a warning. One person stepped aside to let him pass, others followed and in the way of a stream moving around a boulder, the crowd parted and closed around him.

            Abdul Rehman Al-Loghri was the son of an Afghan businessman with interests in New Delhi. Born in Lagar Province Abdul was visiting one of his father’s businesses in September of 2017, when India’s Research and Analysis Wing linked him to the Islamic State of Khurasan Province. R&A claimed Abdul Rehman Al-Loghri was plotting to bomb New Delhi. The Indians passed him to the American’s who imprisoned him in Bagram Prison. Following the collapse of Kabul, the Taliban freed Bagram’s prisoners. Some of the thousands freed on August 15, were terrorists. Other, however, were innocent bystanders swept up by American security forces. By the time the Taliban walked unopposed into Bagram Prison, Abdul had four years to plan his revenge. The Taliban offered him the means.

            A CIA officer noted off the record, "America’s disorganized retreat from Afghanistan has led to hundreds of highly competent and highly committed terrorists being set free to rejoin the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups,"

            "Literally a decade’s work on counter-terrorism has been undone by the US’ failure to secure key prisoners in Bagram," he added that the consequences of this failure will be "very far-reaching."

            To the left of the main road, a canal also led to the Abbey Gate. Filled with raw sewage, it tainted the afternoon air with the thick stench of shit and garbage. Half a dozen rotting dogs floated on the fetid water. One young man, who had reason to fear the Taliban realized that the reeking canal offered a detour around the crowded street. Taking a deep breath, he climbed down the rocky bank into the waist deep sewage. Watching him wade past thousands of desperate Afghans three other men slipped into the sewage. They too were quickly joined by fifty others then a hundred more until the canal was choked with men, women and children.

            Abdul Rehman Al-Loghri pressed forward toward the Abbey Gate. Each step brought him closer to the U.S. soldiers. It took him half an hour to reach the gate. During those thirty minutes he blinked twice. 

            Son of Jalaluddin Haqqani, Sirajuddin Haqqani inherited the military leadership of Taliban forces in Afghanistan from his father. Sirajuddin Haqqani reliance on suicide bombers was a major reason USAFA was now abandoning the crumbling country.

            Force Afghanistan’s ten-million-dollar bounty on Sirajuddin Haqqani amplified his caution. No cell phones. No photos, or schedules that could fall into the American’s hands. No garbage of the kind that betrayed Osama Bin Laden in Abbattobad, Pakistan. Sirajuddin Haqqani surrounded himself with bodyguards who would gladly take a bullet in his place. 

            Sirajuddin Haqqani’s “Tulip” bomb maker, had barely escaped USAFA Intelligence into Pakistan. Sirajuddin Haqqani could not afford to waste one of his remaining bombs. Sirajuddin and Abdul Rehman Al-Loghri met shortly after the young engineering student walked out of Bagram Prison. Haqqani sat with Al-Loghri for an hour—long enough to judge whether he was sufficiently devout. By hour’s end, Sirajuddin Haqqani decided that Abdul Rehman Al-Loghri could be trusted. 

            Abdul Rehman Al-Loghri was within three meters of the Abby Gate when a soldier made eye contact.

            The soldier had less than a second to react to Al-Loghri’s blank expression, smile and loose-fitting clothes. By the time the crowd fell back, it was too late. Hidden by his silk Chapan, a multi-pocketed vest was loaded with fifty pounds of ammonal wrapped with ball bearings.

            “BOMB!” The soldier screamed a second, before Abdul Rehman Al-Loghri triggered a dead man’s switch. The explosion approximated a massive, omni-directional shotgun blast.

            Thirteen U.S. soldiers were instantly killed or would die a short time later. Hundreds who surrounded the Abbey gate were shredded by the ball bearings. When the dust cleared, the canal was filled with dead and dying.  

            Aarif Nuristani, his wife Faiza and daughter Maimuna were fifteen meters from the gate when the blast shredded the crowd. Faiza and Maimuna died instantly. Aarif was blown away from the gate onto his back. The blast took his face and both arms. He was blind for the few minutes he had left and thankfully could not see what remained of his wife and daughter. 

            One hundred and sixty-nine died almost instantly. A hundred more were loaded into wheelbarrows to later die at distant hospitals.

            Sirajuddin Haqqani had not watched Abdul Rehman Al-Loghri slip into the explosive vest. He was, however, close enough to hear the blast. Haqqani felt no remorse. Those who died in the blast were guilty of trying to flee the country of where they, their fathers, grandfathers and generations of great, great grandfathers had been born, lived and died. Theirs was a searing betrayal and their deaths were simply one cost of driving the Americans from Afghanistan. 

Chapter 4

Saker

            Not all USAFA soldiers managed to board the C-17’s at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport. A dozen were left behind, forgotten on a red plutonic spine above Afghanistan’s Ganjgal River Valley where they waited in the shadow of western Pakistan’s sheer, forested ridges.  

            During the past six days, blistering desert winds lifted a carborundum of granite sand and crushed obsidian that, given sufficient time, would reduce sheer, thousand-meter cliffs and forged armor to gray dust.

            At night the winds reversed. Descending from Kuh-e Shashgal and Kuh-e Tuioksa’s sixty-three-hundred-meter summits, icy gales whipped the abrasive dust across Firebase Saker’s shattered concrete and rock outcrops. Once becalmed in the three-foot depression of what once served as a reinforced concrete bunker, the gray silt drifted onto the marine’s bivy sacks, packs and M4 rifles.

            Saker. Named after Afghanistan’s Peregrine Falcon, United States Forces Afghanistan last manned outpost snagged dawn’s first light. The shadowy edge between dawn and day touched the M2 fifty-caliber machine gun, then crept across concrete rubble and twisted rebar before it finally spilled down the rocky west slope to the valley floor.

            Afghanistan’s high mountains and narrow valleys, vast deserts, and deep gorges, rocks, insects, and thin, weak soil had forged the Taliban into a hard, resourceful force, ready to die for Islam. Lacking airpower or mobile artillery, armed only with light and heavy mortars, rocket propelled grenades, a few inaccurate rockets, small arms, Browning Automatic Rifles, and .50 caliber machine guns, the Moolies had forced the world’s best-equipped army to abandon the besieged outposts. Before a twin rotor Huey dumped the ten marines onto the exposed pinnacle, Saker hadn’t been occupied for the past six years.

            Bending at the waist to avoid being picked off by a Taliban sniper, a private first class dropped into the depression. Five marines looked up from cleaning their weapons into the bright rising sun. The marines put aside their night vision goggles, loaded clips and waited for the Taliban to finish their prayers and open up with mortars, small arms and .50 caliber automatic rifles from the high, surrounding forests.

        A First Sergeant turned toward the distant ridge, listened then forced an oiled patch into his M4. “Brace yourselves.” He nodded to the surrounding men. “The Taliban are wailing to Allah. We’re about to get our asses kicked.”

            Under ideal conditions––no wind, rain or incoming fire––it took three minutes to clean and oil the M4 carbine’s breech, bolt, and magazine. The marines knew if you didn’t keep the M4A1 cleaned and oiled, you were fucked. Fire six clips on full auto and the barrel turned red hot seconds before the slide jammed.

            “Fucking unbelievable,” The First Sergeant said more to himself. “The Moolies fucking walked unopposed into Kabul while we’re fucking pinned down on what’s left of this fucking shithole.”

            The Marines orders were to wait for a LRP, long range patrol.

            “How much longer you figure we’re fucking stuck here?” A corporal’s question stopped short of a demand.

            “Until command sends a ship.” The sergeant squeezed a drop of Hoppes into the breech. No way could they fight their way back to Kabul. It was a Huey or nothing. 

            Back against the far concrete wall, a second private spit onto the dirt floor, jacked a round into his weapon and set the safety. “They’re four days overdue,” he reminded the sergeant.

“Face it, they’re fucking KIAs.” A second corporal said. “And the fucking command in Kabul are fighting over the last seat out. You can forget about evac. We’re fucked.”

            Hidden within the north slope Deodar cedars the local villagers logged for pocket money, the Taliban started to harass Saker. Half a dozen AK-47 rounds splintered against the stone parapets. The marines had burned three quarters of their ammunition in six days. Now they hammered back with the M2 .50 caliber at shadows among the cedars. Returning fire held the insurgents at a distance but burned ammo. It was only a matter of time before the Marines exhausted the last of their ammunition and the Taliban overran Saker’s rock walls.

         A distant muzzle flash summoned a single round from a Corporal’s M4A. No sense wasting ammunition on targets. Straddling a major infiltration route, Saker’s original mission was observe and interdict, not capture and hold. But that was 2018––a year before the firebase was abandoned to the Taliban. Since then the mission had changed, as it had a dozen times since the U.S. blundered into Afghanistan. If USAFA’s original, shining goal was build a modern Afghan Army out of illiterate poppy farmers, eighty-three billion dollars and sixty thousand lives later, the Taliban needed less than three weeks to overrun the northern provinces and capture Kabul.   

         Captain Heinson, Saker’s ranking officer crawled behind the rock parapet, raised his binoculars and scanned the hillside. “See anything?” He asked the corporal manning the machine gun.

            “No sir. Five, maybe six Moolies changed position.” The corporal said.

            “Sir, Comsat is reporting the base and Kabul are gone. Our only exit is Hamid Karzai—that is if the C-17s—”

            “Corporal, can it!” The captain cut him off. “We retreat when the patrol appears.  Not before!”

            The corporal watched the shadows for movement. “Yes sir.  For the record, the Moolies came within twenty meters of our trench last night. My fifty is down to three hundred rounds. One more attack and we’re fucked.”

         “Then ration your ammunition,” Heinson turned from the corporal and dropped into what once served as a concrete bunker. None of Saker’s contingent had bathed or shaved for a week and the strong smell of men forced to live in sweat-stained uniforms filled the broken twelve-by-twelve concrete walls. The captain’s eyes were ringed with dark circles from lack of sleep, his face was dusted with Saker’s gray talc.

            The ranking First Sergeant looked up.

            Nine months of exhausting, dangerous duty followed now by six days huddled behind Saker’s broken concrete and rusted rebar, hourly contact, casualties and the recently elected President’s orders to dump Afghanistan after two decades of dead and wounded American soldiers had destroyed morale. The First Sergeant was well trained, and battle hardened. No way Heinson could hold the shattered ruins without him.

            All had listened to the real time radio chatter that described how Kabul has fallen. “Any word from command on when we can count on evac?”
             “Same as last time. When the LRP team comes over the wire.” Heinson said.

            “They’re four days overdue.” The sergeant reminded him. “Time’s burning. List them MIA and call in the Huey. Hamad Karzai falls and our exit door slams shut.”

            The Taliban had surrounded the gates to the International Airport. No one was allowed to enter.

            The sergeant released the slide. A round locked in the breech. “After all the motherfucking C-17’s overloaded with dollars for Kabul’s government, the boots who died and the shot to shit amputees defending this piece of shit excuse for a country and President Early Onset Dementia hands it back to those fucks?” His eyes swept the surrounding forests. He set the safety and pointed the M4’s muzzle at the dirt floor.

            Heinson knew that losing more troops to avenge USAF casualties, was neither new, nor specific to Afghanistan.

            “Well said, but totally fucked.” A Lance Corporal said in a dry, barely audible voice.

            The captain wouldn’t disagree. At least not out loud. The oldest of Saker’s defenders was born two decades after the Vietnamese war ended. There was little chance that the First Sergeant had watched videos of the last helivacs from the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. 

            American taxpayers were, at first, angered by hometown boys dying in unpronounceable places. A decade later the country was simply weary. Now twenty years into America’s longest war, a new generation couldn’t place Afghanistan on a map, or name the capital city or, knew who or what the fuck about President Ghani. Abandoning Afghanistan wasn’t Heinson’s choice, but even a hint of disagreement with the President would find a way up the chain of command and his future with the USMC would hit the shitter.

            Colonel Stuart Scheller said what the rank and file were thinking. Scheller was relieved of his command and subsequently resigned his commission. If the Captain had any thoughts about criticizing the President or his Chain of Command, following Scheller’s video, Heinson knew to stuff his opinion.

            “What the fuck?” A second PFC appeared from behind a block of concrete. Rebar spiderwebbed out of the scarred surface. “I say give it back to the Moolies! Let them go at it with our weapons until this mother fucking piece of shit for a country falls apart from neglect.”

            “We didn’t learn a fucking thing,” the sergeant interrupted.

            Heinson glanced at the First Sergeant.

            “The Russians got their asses kicked by the Taliban!”

            “This whole fucking war was totally fucked up from the beginning.” The first PFC said.

            “Early Onset fucked the pooch.” First agreed

            “The President didn’t give Afghanistan back to the Taliban.” The captain needed to silence the bitching before it got out of hand. “The cadres took it.”

            “Captain,” the Corporal manning the .50 caliber interrupted. “There’s something you need to see.”

            Keeping his head down, the captain crawled to the Mark 4 sixty power spotting scope. It was trained on the distant ridge. Adjusting the focus, Heinson watched a figure run down a trail that descended from the pass into the shadowed cedar forests. Still a thousand meters distant, something wasn't right. No rifle, no turban, short hair, a pistol gripped in his right hand. A bright red stain covered his shalwar kameez blouse, torn izar pants. The sound of automatic fire drifted to the firebase.

            The sergeant appeared to the captain’s right. “The Moolies are doing their fucking best to waste him! Wonder what he did?”

            “Held hands with the Mullah’s daughter,” A PFC took a position behind the rock wall.

            “Or fucked her.” Another PFC looked across to the forested hillside. “Sir, we should save them the trouble.” He rested his M4 on the rock wall                

            Watching the Taliban sprint down the trail, the sergeant said, “Private, you couldn’t hit a moving target at that distance with all the ammunition in Afghanistan. Save the round, you’ll need it.”

            Two hundred meters behind the running figure, a dozen men with AK-47s sweated to close the distance. One stopped and raised his rifle. Sharpening the Mark 4’s optics, the captain saw muzzle flashes. The staccato reports of automatic rifle fire floated across the valley to the Firebase.

            The figure continued to run.

            Standing behind Heinson, the sergeant observed with grudging respect.  “That fucking Moolie’s a Marathon Man.” Just short of pulling the trigger, he set the sights ahead and above of the runner’s head. At that distance, a killing shot was luck alone. He held his fire.

            Heinson silently repeated the ancient Arab proverb, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

            The sergeant turned from the sheer, rocky face to the riflemen and ordered, “Fuck all—spread out.” One 82mm Russian mortar would devastate Saker’s defenders. Turning to the Captain he said, “We could drop the 120mm on that first group . . . we’ve plotted the coordinates.”

            “Where?” Heinson searched for the impact zone.

            The sergeant pointed to a glade, nine hundred meters and three quarters of a kilometer up the forested face. “Locate the clearing where the trail crosses!”

            The captain swiveled the scope. The lone figure was still far above Saker, running fast. “How long to target impact?” Moolie or not, the insurgent’s stamina was world class.

            “Fifteen seconds––give or take.”

            “Hold your fire.!” Heinson rapidly calculated the distance between the runner and the pursuing Taliban.

            Two PFCs erected the M252 mortar on a fixed-point concrete slab, dialed the coordinates and glanced at the captain.

            Heinson waited until the running man crossed the clearing, then counted down twenty-five seconds. “Fire!” he ordered.

            The Taliban reached the clearing a second before the mortar rocketed in. Three heard the incoming whistle in time to dive for cover. Six others were a second late. Two bodies tumbled downhill out of the explosion’s gray smoke and disappeared into the dense cedars. The remaining seven were either killed instantly or were mortally wounded. Five would die within minutes.

            The captain’s scope traced the trail uphill to the pass. Twenty Taliban scrambled across a shale slope above the green cedars. Roughly fifty more cleared the ridge and took a higher more direct trail that led down through the cedars and into the narrow valley. During the next minute the captain watched a hundred and fifty men cross the pass.

            The sergeant held a radio to his right ear. “Sir, Control says we’re on our own.”

            “Keep them advised of our situation.”

            From a thousand meters away, the scope magnified major details: beards, caps, the color of a disdasha, AK47s, mortars, and RPGs. The running man sprinted through clearings and slowed when the shadowy cedars closed across the trail. The captain watched him stop, turn, take aim with the pistol, and fire. The distance to the Taliban was far beyond the pistol’s maximum accurate range. Watching through the scope, the captain judged it was a wasted round. Then, the lead pursuer suddenly staggered off the narrow path. His gray turban spun away. Gathering speed, it launched off a cliff and disappeared onto a shadowed scree slope.

            The captain could only guess at the lone runner’s crime.

            Following four decades of war, the Moolies had refined guerilla tactics to fine art. When confronted by overwhelming firepower, they never exposed themselves in large numbers. An attack averaged less than a dozen men. Even then, the insurgents maintained their spacing. Ten years combating the Russians and now twice that fighting the Americans taught them that a carrier based F-35 wouldn’t waste a fourteen-thousand-dollar cluster bomb on one man.

            “Captain,” the sergeant appeared behind and to his left. Lowering the radio he said, “The Moolies are within five hundred meters. What’s up with the Marathon Man?”

            “Hard to know.” The captain looked away from the scope.

            “He could be a suicide bomber.  We’re fucked if the Moolies close with us. We need to take him out.”

            The rules governing CAS, Close Air Support, were modified after four Canadian Light Infantry were killed and eight wounded by a friendly-fire laser-guided bomb. Even if Heinson could call in an F-35, the captain was well aware of the minimum distance required before a pilot could drop. No close-in bombing runs were authorized, no matter how loudly boots were screaming for help.

            “Sir, we’ve got maybe twelve minutes before Marathon Man reaches us. Another three or four before the Moolies hit us with everything they’ve got.”

            “He might have Intel.”

            “For all the fucking good Intel will do us now!” The sergeant watched the running figure. “I say he’s a Taliban decoy wrapped in C4 and ball bearings. Sir, we need to order up the strike.”

            The captain returned to the scope. Marathon Man was tiring. The Taliban were closing the distance. Seventy meters now separated him from the pursuers. The sound of automatic rifle bursts reached the Firebase. The Marathon Man turned, fired one shot, and instantly returned to full stride. A second pursuer crumpled.

            “Fuck!” the captain whispered.

            “Sir?”

            “Can you to light up that pursuing group without killing the Marathon Man?”

            Nine automatic rifles and the .50 caliber machine gun raked the pursuers. The captain turned to the sergeant. “Can you reach them with the M107?”.

            “Sir, it’s a kick in the ass to shoot but worse than inaccurate on moving targets.”

            “Then use the M252.”  The mortar team waited until the Marathon Man cleared a second coordinate, waited then sent the rocket. The detonation killed three of the pursuing group. The survivors dove for cover among rock outcrops and rotting cedar logs. The mortar bought enough time for Marathon Man to reach the rocky slope that rose a half mile from Saker. Descending through the loose shale in long windmill strides, he fell once, rolled, and was on his feet, running across the dry, flat valley to the Firebase.

            Puffs of dust on the valley floor marked the AK rounds. Saker’s combined force took cover behind the trench walls. Ten M4s returned fire with a steady, sharp chatter. Two more Taliban crumpled. Distracted by the incoming small arms fire, thirty Taliban switched their fire to Saker. AK rounds rang off the FOB’s mangle armor plate, chipped at the rock walls and thudded in the remaining concrete foundations. An incoming mortar lifted a fountain of broken rock and dust above the riflemen. The next would fall six meters short. The third would explode among the marines.

            “Take out that mortar,” the captain yelled.

            The mortar team rapidly swiveled the 81mm and fired. The explosion was long. Still, it was close enough to send the Taliban mortar team scrambling for cover. The second rocket landed closer. The Moolies’ fire faltered.

            The Marathon Man reached Saker’s slope transition. Rising one hundred and fifty vertical meters above the dusty plane, on a good day, it was a hard climb. Using the terrain for cover, he sprinted up a rocky trail that clung to the shadows, away from the incoming small arms fire. The slope turned vertical, and the figure slowed to a walk. Exposed on the sheer face, the next mortar could take him out. The captain had invested too much in the Marathon Man to let him die on the lee slope. He turned to the marines manning the wall. “I need two volunteers to bring that man in!”

            “Sir?” The PFCs wouldn’t hesitate to rescue a wounded, or even dead marine. But risk their lives for a Moolie?

            When none volunteered, Heinson picked two PFCs. “Ramirez and Dill, bring him in.”

            “Sir, he could be packing!” Ramirez noted for the record.

            Heinson watched the runner falter. “Take water! He’ll need it!”

            Dill glanced at the other then dodged between the bunkers and slipped onto the exposed slope. Running downhill, the marines reached the man who was on his hands and knees, his head down, touching the shale. The marines patted him down. No suicide vest. He was clean.

            Ramirez reached for Marathon Man’s pistol. His grip tightened and a dry, barely audible voice issued from the dusty face. “Negative,” it croaked. In the second before the shock wore off, the exhausted Moolie identified himself: “Major Jack Hull, USMC . . .” He stated his serial number, then grabbed the water and emptied the bottle in hurried, desperate gulps. His breathing slowed as the strength returned to his arms and legs.

            Two Taliban had worked into a position that offered a clear shot. Rounds cracked off the surrounding rocks. Major Hull’s voice was clearer now. Staggering to his feet he ordered, “Move!”

            Ducking the incoming rounds, the marines exchanged a single, amazed glance, and started to climb.

            The captain was huddled against the bunker when Hull and the two marines dived over Saker’s shattered west wall. Hull’s eyes were bloodshot; his face and hands were blistered: his manjammies were filthy and stank of sweat, urine and death. Catching his breath, he identified himself.

            The captain straightened. “Major Hull? Where’s your uniform? What happened to the rest of your patrol?”

            Hull shook his head. “No unit. My spotter’s dead,” his breath came in deep, distorted gasps.

            Small arms fire was increasing. A mortar landed twenty meters below the rock outcrop. When the dust cleared, Hull crossed to the parapet and reached for the Barrett M107.

         The sergeant moved to stop him.

         The command clear in his voice, Hull ordered, “Sergeant, stand aside!”

         Captain Heinson’s glance served in place of a direct order.

         Hull shifted the .50 caliber LRSR to a sandbag on the parapet wall. Placing the stock against his shoulder and opening his eye to the scope, he asked, “Sergeant, are you worth a shit as a spotter?”

            “Fair . . . sir.” The sergeant reached for a loaded clip.          

            Watching Hull search the distant hillside for a target, one of the marines whispered, “Fuck, that’s Jack Hull!”

            “The Sniper?” Another ducked as a fresh burst of small arms fire raked the bunker. “He’s real? Fuck! I thought he was a character in Mortal Kombat!”

            Small arms fire intensified as the Taliban registered the distance. Focusing the spotting scope, the sergeant said, “You’ve got a mortar eleven o’clock, four degrees, nine hundred meters!”

            Hull opened both eyes, stared into the scope, exhaled and squeezed the trigger. The white puff of a shattering .50 caliber round appeared below the mortar.

            “Twelve up, six left!” the sergeant relayed the coordinates.

            Hull spun twelve clicks of elevation into the scope and six clicks of left windage. The next shot cut the loader in half. Hull was waiting when the panicked aimer tried to run. Traveling at 1900 feet per second, the heavy 709-grain ball split his upper body in two. The sergeant watched as the aimer’s chest came apart, his head disappeared in a puff of red and gray vapor as his arms spun away in opposite directions.

            “Sergeant! This is a target-rich environment!” Hull locked a new clip into the M107. “You’re falling behind!”

            The scope swept the steep rock face. “Two RPGs, eight o’clock, eight hundred meters, five degrees!” the sergeant reported. The thirteen-kilo M107 swung smoothly to the left, hesitated and then recoiled. Hull found the next target, hesitated, and squeezed again.

            “Seven o’clock six hundred meters––” the .50 caliber’s thunderous report cut him off.

            Hull’s next round hit a man sprinting across a shale slide. Two Taliban tried and failed to improve their firing position. A new mortar position opened up, an RPG flew from a cedar grove. The heavy caliber replied with a diesel’s heavy, steady rhythm. Shot followed shot, followed shot. Each shot, unhurried, exact––mortal.

            For all the expression that crossed his face, Hull might have been a competitive skeet shooter breaking clay pigeons. A tribal sense of purpose filled the defenders of Firebase Saker. The marines rapidly loaded the massive .50 caliber brass into the steel clips then handed them to Hull, who shoved the heavy boxes home, racked the slide, and selected a target. Fighting for the field glasses they watched the attacking Taliban fall. A dozen crumpled before the survivors searched for cover on the surrounding hillsides. When the M107 continued to decimate their ranks they started to retreat. At first in singles, then pairs and finally, as the heavy slugs sucked them out from behind rocks, cut through cedar trunks, and picked off exposed legs, arms, chests or heads, the reluctant retreat turned to a rout.

            None of the Taliban survived the .50-caliber. Hull was still swinging on figures struggling toward the pass when the LRSR jammed. He squeezed the trigger then racked the bolt. Again he squeezed the trigger and yanked the slide. And he continued to cycle through the loading and firing sequence until the sergeant emptied his water bottle onto the breech. Steam flashed off the black metal. “Sir, it’s overheated. A round jammed!”

            Hull jerked the slide again and then again, before he looked up with a dazed expression. Staring toward the rocky pass, he took a deep breath and struggled to gather himself. Thirty seconds passed before he nodded and slowly released the M107.

            Few men could shoot more than a dozen rounds through the massive rifle. The ground around his feet now glistened with a two-inch deep layer of brass casings. The butt of the M107 was tinted red. The heavy recoil had bludgeoned his right shoulder. Hull could not feel his right arm.

            Saker’s riflemen lowered their rifles. To a man they recognized the difference between a trained sniper and one bred to the profession.

            “Captain,” the sergeant held the radio to his ear. “I have air control…

            Heinson looked away from Hull’s bloodied Afghan shirt.

            “Sir?”

            The captain turned to face the sergeant, “Tell them to send the Huey.”

            “Yes sir.”