Afghan Storm (Nick Woods Book 3) (23 page)

Chapter 64

As Mushahid
and his men dug in on the hill outside the capital, Nick and Marcus made what
preparations they could to help defend Kabul. It was tough to do much since
they had no idea what Rasool Deraz had planned, but neither Nick nor Marcus
believed in sitting on their duffs. Inaction was a sin as far as they were
concerned.

The first
thing they did was request four Afghan police officers be transferred to their
unit. Mr. Smith worked with the American Embassy to find four of the most
trustworthy men that could be found. It required pulling some serious strings
to get the best, but given how much money the Embassy doled out, no one could
pull strings better than them. Well, except for the American military, but
after the recent Apache friendly fire incident, the U.S. generals and senior
officers found their relationships had grown weaker.

Nick and
Marcus wanted the Afghan police officers for two reasons. One, to have local
language skills on each squad -- Lana was the only member on S3 who spoke the
local language. Two, they wanted men with badges and police authority as they
hunted about the capital for clues.

The local
cops also were wired into the Police Department, which meant they were getting
the latest intel filtered up through officer arrests and interrogations. In
addition, they knew who to call if any favors were needed and had a strong
understanding of the key geography and neighborhoods in Kabul.

In addition
to adding the four police officers, S3 leased six light police trucks and six
hardened Humvees from the Afghan government. They promptly put fifty caliber
heavy machine guns on the Humvees, which they felt would be best to stop
vehicle-borne IEDs. (In truth, a Mark 19 40 mm grenade launcher might work
better, but neither Nick nor Marcus wanted the squads shooting a grenade
launcher inside the capital city.)

S3’s
logistics man, Dean, took care of acquiring the six light police trucks and six
hardened Humvees while also outfitting them up and confirming they ran like
new. At the same time, S3’s chief finance officer back in D.C. dealt with the
details of all the leases with the Afghan government. Nick knew it was a
paperwork nightmare since S3 needed additional funds to pull off the unexpected
leases, but the chief finance officer kept Mr. Smith in the loop.

Nick had no
idea whether it was CIA funds or additional State Department funds that were
put into S3 to cover the leases, and he had stopped asking questions about that
months ago. He had given up trying to understand it when at one point Mr. Smith
had informed him that S3 was getting its funding from billing the CIA, the
State Department, the Department of Defense, and the Afghan government.

To Nick, the
funding got murky in a hurry, and he had tried to keep up with it for a while,
but he’d finally given up. He frankly didn’t care anymore about who paid who
and who scratched who's back. He was focused purely on the mission of stopping
the Taliban and putting Deraz into the ground. Errr, bringing him to justice,
he reminded himself.

Chapter 65

Phase two of
the Taliban plan to seize the capital kicked off when Mushahid’s forty fighters
on the hill opened fire on the main highway below with two 12.7 mm heavy
machine guns. Two Afghan police trucks were passing below on the road more than
1,300 yards away when Mushahid signaled his men to fire.

The guns
roared, their massive sounds echoing off the hills. The 12.7’s were comparable
to the Browning .50 caliber machine gun used by the Americans since World War
II. The 12.7’s poured hulking, 700-grain bullets into the trucks. The bullets
shredded the vehicles and nearly tore them in half once the gunners found their
range.

Frantic
police officers leaped from burning vehicles and hurled themselves toward a
nearby ditch. The machine gunners didn’t even bother engaging the men, who were
now firing back up the hill with their AKs. Mushahid had ordered his machine
gunners not to engage single targets. Their ammunition was too valuable, and
the distance too great for the men below to even reach them with their AKs.
Plus, survivors were needed to call out for help from their command in Kabul.

The urgent
call for assistance was made, but like most things with the Afghan government,
the response was slow. At the outset, there was a great discussion about
whether to even respond. The hill and location were known well, and several
officers believed only a few Taliban had climbed it and fired down onto the
road.

“The enemy
won’t even be there by the time we get our troops on location,” one officer had
said.

“It will
take two or three hours to climb to the top. Maybe more,” said another.

But another
ambush from the hill finally forced their hand and ended all discussion.

Four Afghan
army supply trucks were coming down the road toward Kabul. Their drivers were
exhausted after a two-day drive out to resupply a far-flung Afghan base, and
all the men could think about was getting back to base and cleaning up.

One of the
survivors from the two destroyed police trucks tried to stop them. The officers
had walked up the road -- one toward Kabul, the other in the opposite direction
-- to halt traffic and warn them not to drive further.

Many
civilian vehicles had ignored the officers’ admonitions, deciding to risk it.
And since the Taliban usually avoided attacking civilians, these vehicles had
passed safely. In fact, it had been so many hours since the heavy machine guns
on the hill had fired that even the police officers thought the Taliban might
have grown bored and departed.

But without
question, if any target might tempt the gunners on the hill, it was the four practically
defenseless supply trucks. The convoy was already in a difficult situation.
Originally, it had an armored Humvee with an M240 7.62 mm machine gun
protecting it. However, the Humvee had broken down about three miles back, and
the convoy commander had made the decision to leave it with its occupants on
hand to protect it. Leaving it unattended would have resulted in everything
being stripped from it within a couple of hours -- either by the Taliban or
impoverished Afghans looking for weapons, gear, and metal that could be sold
for scrap.

So now the
four defenseless supply trucks sat a mere ten miles from their home base with a
haggard-looking police officer telling them they needed to avoid going any
further forward. The convoy commander huddled with his senior men and quickly
decided to ignore the officer.

Police
officers were rarely under fire, and the soldiers in the convoy felt the man
was exaggerating the threat. The Afghan soldiers had been under fire from the
hills dozens and dozens of times. Most of the time, the fire was inaccurate,
and even when it wasn’t, the rounds from AKs and medium machine guns rarely
caused much harm to their heavy trucks.

“The
alternate route, if we turn around, will take six or seven hours,” said the
senior sergeant, weariness and frustration clear in his expression.

“No,” said
the convoy commander to his men, “we’ll hit it with speed and be showered and
cleaned up just a couple of hours from now.”

Chapter 66

The trucks
miscalculated. Mushahid ordered his two machine gunners to hold fire until the
first truck was deep into the kill zone, and then both gunners opened up.

The four
trucks were roaring down the road, doing nearly forty miles per hour, but it
didn’t matter. The two machine guns concentrated their fire on the first truck,
and after a few missed bursts, corrected their aim to hit the speeding truck.
The heavy weapons pulverized their target. Bullets knifed through the engine
blocks, axle, and wheels. Tires exploded on impact. The first truck shuddered
and rocked as the tremendous impacts slammed into it.

Truck number
two heard the heavy thunder from the two machine guns, but its drivers knew it
was already too far into the kill zone to try to stop and escape back from
whence they came. The two Afghan soldiers on the bench seat realized death was
almost certain, but the only hand they had to play was to follow through and
hope that luck -- or divine intervention, depending on what you believed --
would save their lives.

The driver
floored the truck and its heavy diesel belched out a blast of smoke as it
accelerated down the road. The front truck, its driver having taken a round
through the shoulder, veered off the road, careened into a ditch, and flipped
twice once its bumper hit solid ground.

The second
truck driver worried about the occupants in the front truck, but also felt
grateful that the road was now clear. He willed the truck onward as the first
burst began impacting around him. The Taliban gunners had their range down and
were in the zone, so rounds started striking home almost immediately.

The driver
felt the impacts through the truck and heard the heavy snapping of rounds that
passed by as near misses. The truck’s engine took three hits and it screamed as
metal chewed into metal, and the cylinders began tearing themselves apart. The
engine exploded and ground to a halt.

“Don’t hit
the brakes,” screamed the passenger, grabbing the driver’s arm and trying to
make himself heard over the din of all the incoming fire. “Let it coast
through!”

That was the
driver’s plan, but the Taliban gunners had no way to know they had felled the
still rolling beast. They picked up their fire and one round tore through the
side window, passed through the driver, and exploded through the passenger with
barely a pause. Twelve thousand foot-pounds of energy from the 700-grain bullet
eviscerated them both instantly.

Truck two
also left the road, slamming into a boulder at fifty miles per hour and
flipping end-over-end -- a nearly unimaginable feat for such a large truck.

The
passenger in the third truck screamed into the radio for the fourth truck to go
back, emphasizing the danger of driving ahead. Truck three bounced and
screeched atop the blacktop as its driver attempted to stop the
twenty-thousand-pound vehicle before it was too late. The M939, universally
known as a “5 ton” to every ground pounder in the American military, wasn’t
designed for hard stops. Nor does it do well in reverse.

But the
experienced Afghan driver managed to stop it and get it going backward before
the Taliban gunners aimed in on it. He screamed in terror as bullets ripped
into the street and air as they adjusted their aim. He had the advantage of
being two hundred yards further back, the trucks having practiced great
dispersion.

But with
each burst, even at well over fifteen hundred yards, the heavy machine guns
managed to send one or two rounds home. The bolt-like slugs clanged and thudded
into the truck while the driver tried not to panic and drive the truck off the
road. Driving this fast in reverse with such crappy mirrors took every bit of
skill he had, but their luck held as bullets hit high and low into
non-essential parts, corners, and glass.

Their truck
exited the beaten zone worse for wear, but with its occupants still in one
piece.

Chapter 67

When the
second ambush took place on the supply convoy, the Afghan army knew it had to
act. Perhaps the Taliban would run before the troops arrived, but the army
leadership could no longer ignore the problem. Four men had been killed in two
different ambushes, several more had been wounded, and the main road into the
capital city had been closed, preventing Afghan forces from using it.

The
government was losing face with every minute the highway remained blocked.
Thus, they finally deployed one of their battalions from the 201st Corps.
Unfortunately for the Taliban, they were a battalion from the 3rd Brigade of
the 201st Corps. And that fact might not mean anything to hardly anyone outside
of Afghanistan, but the 3rd Brigade was one of the Afghan government’s premier
units.

They were
the first full battalion to graduate from their training and begin operating
without the need of American advisors. They were also the battalion regularly
posted at the presidential palace. In short, they were the best trained and
equipped soldiers the Afghan government had, not counting its special forces.

They carried
the latest weapons -- modern M4s from the Americans. They carried loads of
pride. And they carried a thirst for action because none had seen any real
combat for months.

The
presidential duty had grown old, and an infantry battalion can only stand post
at police checkpoints and respond to IED attacks so many times until they need
to be left off their leash. The battalion had felt helpless for too long, and
they were eager to release some vengeance.

The
battalion estimated from reports coming in that at most a squad or perhaps a
platoon of Taliban were on the hill firing onto the road. Thus, the battalion
commander only deployed a single company of just over one hundred men to deal
with the threat.

Every
soldier in the company from its highest officer to its lowest private assumed
the Taliban would either run once they arrived, or already be gone. This was
the pattern the Taliban had used from its earliest days since being driven from
power. Their fighters were elusive and not known for hanging around, fighting
pitched battles.

The company
loaded up into MRAPs -- nothing but the best for the soldiers of the 201st,
after all -- and rolled toward the hills that towered over Kabul. The massive
trucks fought the same traffic that every vehicle fights along the crazed
streets of the capital but picked up speed as they departed city limits. The
men laughed and joked in the trucks. None expected a serious fight.

Unfortunately
for them, they were making a mistake that many an army has made, dating all the
way back to Rome and Sparta.