Which begged the question Crocker had been asking himself for hours: what the fuck was OPM doing there in the first place? Someone in Jalalabad had told him that a general had it built to monitor traffic along one of the most important access roads to Kabul. Another person had told him that Iranians had been seen in the area.
Was OPM monitoring the movement of arms, heroin, Taliban fighters? Where was that general now? Sitting in some warm room with his feet up watching college football?
Crocker stopped himself. It didn’t matter now. All he cared about were the lives of the SEALs and other soldiers trapped at OPM, and helping to fight back the Taliban assault until the storm abated and rescue helicopters could pull them out.
Judging from the unrelenting ferocity of the storm, that might be a while.
Crocker held up his right fist, indicating to the men that he wanted them to huddle around him. Facing him were twelve grizzled faces caked with ice and snow. Aside from his core five, which included Davis (commo), Ritchie (demolitions), Mancini (equipment and weapons), Cal (sniper), and Akil (maps and logistics), there were machine gunners Dog and Yale, Gabe, Langer, Jake, Chauncey, and Phillips.
“How you doing, Dog?” Crocker asked over the muffled sounds of warfare echoing up from the other side of the mountain.
“Hurtin’ a little and embarrassed, but ready to kick some ass.”
“I like that attitude.”
As long as Dog was physically and mentally strong enough to set up and operate the twenty-pound, gas-operated, belt-fed, air-cooled killing machine (capable of firing as many as fourteen 7.62 caliber rounds per second) he cradled in his arms, Crocker didn’t care how much discomfort he was in. To his mind, pain was weakness leaving the body.
“Refuel. Rehydrate,” Crocker barked. “In a few minutes we’re gonna reach the top of this ice cube and enter the shit. I want us all to stick together until I say otherwise. Maintain three-sixty security. Visibility is terrible. I don’t want us shooting at one another. Any questions? Any problems?”
Several of the SEALs shook their heads.
Cal, the sniper, spoke up. “This peashooter ain’t gonna do a whole lot of good in this weather, boss,” he said, slapping the MK11 Mod 0 sniper weapons system he carried slung across his back.
“Manny’s got an extra MP7. He’ll lend it to you. Right, Manny?”
“A round of beers at the Guadalajara when we get back,” Mancini said. The Guadalajara was a popular watering hole close to the SEAL base in Virginia Beach.
“With nachos,” Ritchie added.
Crocker said, “Davis, call the post commander. Tell him we’re approaching from the northwest ridge.”
A marine corporal back at Jalalabad had explained to him that the only possible land approach to OPM was along the northwest ridge, then down rope ladders that had been rigged along the rocks that formed the back wall of the base.
“Roger, boss,” Davis responded.
Guys squeezed energy gel into their mouths, wolfed down energy bars, and gulped water from their CamelBaks. Crocker checked his Garmin 450t GPS with a preloaded 3-D map of the area and confirmed that they were within four hundred yards of the observation post. Visibility was so bad he couldn’t see more than four feet ahead.
Davis pointed at him, and seconds later a transmission from the marine major in charge of OPM blared through the F3 radio transmitter in Crocker’s helmet.
“Tango-six-two, this is Memphis-five-central. I thank the Holy Father for your assistance. Condition double-red here. Need medevac, immediate support. Taking heavy casualties. Two of our guard stations have already been overrun!”
Crocker thought it was both strange and alarming that Neal Stafford was at the post. Last time he had seen him he was halfway around the world, tossing a miniature football to his two young sons on the front lawn of his house in Virginia. Now, as he considered how Neal’s safety might affect Neal’s family and the tender network of relationships and emotions that connected Neal’s life to his own, he felt a responsibility to get him out of OPM unharmed.
“Memphis-five-central, we’ll soon be approaching along the northwest ridge,” Crocker responded. “Alert your perimeter. Is the path clear? Over.” He’d been trained to compartmentalize his feelings in order to effectively do this job.
“Tango-six-two, we’re under attack from the east and the south. Keep following the ridge. I’ll send two men out to meet you. They’ll disarm the alarms and show you the way down. Do you copy?”
“Copy, Memphis. Have them whistle. Three short blasts in succession, so we know it’s them.”
“Three short whistles. Copy, Tango. Welcome and Godspeed. Over and out.”