Black Hawk Down (3 page)

Hovering high over Hawlwadig two blocks north, the Super Six Seven pilot told Eversmann,
"Prepare to throw the ropes.''

Chalk Four was at about seventy feet, higher than they'd ever fast-roped, yet dust from
the street was in the open doors. Waiting for the other five Black Hawks to get in
position, it seemed to Eversmann that they had held their hover for a dangerously long
time. Even over the sound of the rotor and engines the men could hear the pop of gunfire.
A Black Hawk hanging in the sky like that made a big target. The three-inch-thick nylon
ropes were coiled before the doors on both sides. Specialist Dave Diemer was waiting in
the night-side door with Sergeant Casey Joyce. At the head of the line at the left door
was the kid, Blackburn. When they kicked out the ropes, at the pilot's command, one
dropped down on a car. This delayed things further. The Black Hawk jerked forward trying
to drag the rope free.

“We're a little short of our desired position,” the pilot informed Eversmann. They were
going in about a block north of their corner.

“No problem,” he said.

The sergeant felt it would be safer on the ground.

“We're about one hundred meters short,” the pilot warned.

Eversmann gave him a thumbs-up.

Men started leaping. The door gunners shouted, “Go! Go! Go!”

Eversmann would be the last man out. He removed the headphones and was momentarily
deafened by the noise of the helicopter and the explosions and gunfire below. Ordinarily
Eversmann wore earplugs on missions, but he'd left them out today because he knew he'd
have the headphones. He draped them over his canteen and reached for his goggles. Battling
the excitement and confusion, all his movements became deliberate. He would fasten the
goggles over his eyes and then, mindful of the crew chiefs instruction, would set the
headphones on his seat before he left. But the damn strap on his goggles snapped.
Eversmann fiddled with it for a moment as the last of his men leapt out, trying to find a
way to fix them, saw that it was his turn to hit the rope, chucked the goggles, and
jumped, ripping the headset from the ceiling and taking the earphones right out of the
helicopter with him.

He hadn't realized how high up they were. The slide down was far longer than any they'd
done in training. Friction burned through his heavy leather gloves, leaving the palms of
his hands raw, and he felt terribly vulnerable, fully extended on the rope for what felt
like twice the normal time. As he neared the ground, through the swirling dust below his
feet, he saw one of his men stretched out on his back at the bottom of the rope.
Eversmann's heart sank. Somebody's been shot already! He gripped the rope hard to keep
himself from landing right on top of the guy. It was the kid. Eversmann's feet touched the
street next to him, and the crew chiefs above released the ropes. They dropped twisting
and slapped down across the pavement. As the Black Hawk moved away, the noise and dust
began to ease, and the city's musky odor bore in like the smell of something overripe.

Blackburn was bleeding from the nose and ears. Private First Class Mark Good, the medic,
was already at work on him. The kid had one eye shut and the other open. Blood was coming
from his mouth and he was making a gurgling sound. He was unconscious. Good had been
through emergency medical training, but this was beyond him. It was the most severe injury
the task force had seen in Somalia.

Blackburn hadn't been shot, he'd fallen. He'd somehow missed the rope. Seventy feet
straight down to the street. He had just been reassigned as assistant to the chalk's 60
gunner, and he'd been carrying a lot of ammo, so he was heavier than he'd ever been on a
fast rope. That, the excitement, the extreme height of the rope-in. . . for whatever
reason, he hadn't held on. He looked all busted up inside. Eversmann stepped away. He took
a quick count of his chalk.

Hawlwadig was about fifteen yards wide, littered with debris, as was all of Mogadishu. The
dust cloud thinned, and he could see his men had peeled off as planned against the
mud-stained stone walls on either side of the street. That left Eversmann in the middle of
the road with Blackburn and Good. It was hot, and fine sand was caked in his eyes, nose,
and ears. They were taking fire, but it wasn't accurate. Oddly, it hadn't even registered
with the sergeant at first. You would think bullets flying past would command your
attention, but he'd been too preoccupied to notice. Now he did. Passing bullets made a
loud snap, like cracking a stick of dry hickory. Eversmann had never been shot at before.
So this is what it's like. As big a target as be made, he figured he'd better find some
cover. He and Good grabbed Blackburn under the arms and head, trying to keep his neck
straight, and dragged him to the west side of the intersection. There they squatted behind
two parked cars. Eversmann shouted up the street to his radio operator, Private First
Class Jason Moore, and asked him to raise Captain Mike Steele on the company net. Steele
and two lieutenants, Larry Perino and Jim Lechner, had roped down with the rest of Chalk
One at the southeast corner of the target block. Chalk Four was at the northwest corner.
Minutes passed. Moore shouted back down the street to say be couldn't get Steele.

“What do you mean you can't get him?”

Moore just shrugged. The tobacco-chewing roughneck from Princeton, New Jersey, was
wearing a headset under his helmet that allowed him to talk without tying up his hands.
Before leaving he'd taped the on/off switch for his microphone to his rifle--a nifty
touch, he thought. But as he'd roped in, he'd inadvertently clasped the connecting wire
against the rope. Friction had burned right through it. Moore hadn't noticed it yet,
however, and couldn't figure out why his calls weren't being heard.

Eversmann tried his walkie-talkie. Again Steele didn't answer, but after several tries
Lieutenant Perino came on the line. The sergeant knew this was their first time in combat,
and his first time in charge, so he made a particular effort to speak slowly and clearly.
He explained that Blackburn had fallen and was hurt, badly.

He needed to come out. Eversmann tried to convey urgency without alarm.

-Say again, said Perino.

The sergeant's voice was fading in and out on his radio. Eversmann repeated himself.
There was a delay. Then Perino's voice came back.

-Say all again, over.

Eversmann was shouting now. He repeated, “Man down, WE NEED TO EXTRACT HIM ASAP!”

-Calm down, Perino said.

That really burned Eversmann. This is one hell of a time to start sharp-shooting me.

The radio call brought two Delta medics running up Hawlwadig, Sergeants First Class Kurt
Schmid and Bart Bullock. The more experienced men quickly began assisting Good. Schmid
inserted a tube down Blackburn's throat to help him breathe. Bullock put a needle in the
kid's arm and hooked up an IV.

Fire was growing heavier. To the officers watching on screens in the command center, it
was like they had poked a stick into a hornet's nest. It was an amazing and unnerving
thing, to view a battle in real time. Cameras from high over the fight captured crowds of
Somalis throughout the area erecting barricades and lighting tires to summon help.
Thousands of people were pouring into the streets, many with weapons. They were racing
from all directions toward the Bakara Market, where the mass of helicopters overhead
clearly marked the fight throughout the city. Moving in from more distant parts were
vehicles overflowing with armed men. The largest number appeared to be from the north,
directly toward Eversmann's position that of Chalk Two, which had roped in at the
northeast corner.

Eversmann's men had fanned out and were shooting in every direction except back toward
the target building. Across the street from where the medics were working on Blackburn,
Sergeant Casey Joyce had his M-16 trained on the growing crowd to the north. Somalis
approached in groups of a dozen or more from around corners several blocks up, and others,
closer, darted in and out of alleys taking shots at them. They were wary of the Americans'
guns, but edging in. The Rangers were bound by strict rules of engagement. They were to
shoot only at someone who pointed a weapon at them, but already this was unrealistic. It
was clear they were being shot at, and down the street they could see Somalis with guns.
But those with guns were intermingled with the unarmed, including women and children. The
Somalis were strange that way. Most noncombatants who heard gunshots and explosions would
flee. Whenever there was a disturbance in Mogadishu, people would throng to the spot. Men,
women, children - even the aged and infirm. It was like some national imperative to bear
witness. Rangers peering down their sights silently begged the gawkers to get the hell out
of the way.

Things were not playing out according to the neat script in Eversmann's head. His chalk
was still a block north of their position. He'd figured they could just hoof it down once
they got on the ground, but Blackburn falling and the unexpected volume of gunfire had
ruled that out. Time played tricks. It would be hard to explain to someone who wasn't
there. Events outside him seemed to be happening at a frantic pace, but his own
perceptions had slowed; seconds were like minutes. He had no idea how much time had gone
by. Two minutes? Five? Ten? It was hard to believe things could have gone so much to hell
in such a short time.

He knew the D-boys worked fast. He kept checking behind him to see if the ground convoy
had moved up. It was too early for that, but he looked anyway, wishing, because that would
be a sign that things were wrapping up, He must have looked a dozen times before he saw
the first Humvee round the corner about three blocks down. What a relief! Maybe the D-boys
have finished and we can roll out of here.

Schmid, the Delta medic, had examined Blackburn more closely, and was alarmed. The kid
had a severe head injury at a minimum, and there was a big lump on the back of his neck.
It might be a break. He looked up at Eversmann. “He's litter urgent. Sergeant. We need to
extract him right now or he's gonna die.”

Eversmann called Perino again.

“Listen, we really need to move this guy or he's gonna die. Can't you send somebody up
the street?”

No, the Humvees could not move up. Eversmann relayed this news to the Delta medic.

“Listen, Sergeant, we've got to get him out,” said Schmid.

So Eversmann summoned two of the sergeants in his chalk, Casey Joyce and Jeff McLaughlin,
who came running. He addressed the more senior of the two, McLaughlin, shouting over the
escalating noise of the fight.

“You need to move Blackburn down to those Humvees, toward the target.”

They unfolded a compact litter and placed Blackburn on it. Five men took off with him,
Joyce and McLaughlin in front, Bullock and Schmid in back, with Good running alongside
holding up the IV bag connected to the kid's arm. They ran stooped. McLaughlin didn't
think Blackburn was going to make it. On the litter he was deadweight, still bleeding from
nose and mouth. They were all yelling at him, “Hang on! Hang on!” but, by the look of him,
-he had already let go.

They had to keep setting down the litter to return fire. They would run a few steps, set
Blackburn down, shoot, then pick him up and carry him a few more steps, then put him down
again

“We've got to get those Humvees to come to us,” said Schmid. “We keep picking him up and
putting him down like this and we're going to kill him.”

Joyce volunteered to fetch a Humvee. He took off running on his own.

-3-

On the screens and from the speakers in the JOC, everything appeared to be going smoothly.
The command center was a whitewashed two-story structure adjacent to the hangar at Task
Force Ranger's airport hasp. A mortar round had fallen on it at some point, and the roof
was caved in on one side. It bristled with so antennae and wires that the men called it
the Porcupine. On the first floor, off a long corridor, there were three rooms where
senior officers sat wearing headphones and watching TV screens. General Garrison sat in
the back of the operations room, chewing his cigar and taking it all in. Color images of
the fight were coming from cameras in the Orion spy plane and the observation helicopters,
and there were five or six radio frequencies buzzing. Garrison and his staff probably had
more instant information about this battle than any commanders in history, but there
wasn't much they could do but watch and listen. So long as things stayed on course, any
decisions would be made by the men in the fight. The general's job was to stay on top of
the situation and try to think one or two steps ahead. In the event things went wrong he
could call across the city to the UN compound, where troops from the 10th Mountain
Division waited, three regular army companies in varying degrees of readiness. So far
there was no need. Other than the one injured Ranger, the mission was clean. At about the
same time they learned of Blackburn's fall, the D-boys inside the target building radioed
that they'd found the men they were looking for. This was going to be a success.

It had been risky, going into Aidid's Black Sea neighborhood in daylight. The nearby
Bakers Market was the center of the Habr Gidr world. Dropping in next door was a thumb in
the warlord's eye. The UN forces stationed in Mog, most of them Pakistanis since the U.S.
Marines had pulled out in May, wouldn't go near that part of town. It was the one place in
the city where Aidid's forces could mount a serious fight on short notice, and Garrison
knew the dangers of slugging it out there. Washington's commitment to Somalia wouldn't
withstand many American losses He had warned in a memo just weeks before:

“If we go into the vicinity of the Bakara Market. there's no question we'll win the
gunfight, but we might lose the war.”

The timing was also risky. Garrison's task force preferred to work at night. Their
helicopters were flown by the crack pilots of the 160th SOAR, who dubbed themselves the
Night Stalkers. They were expert at flying totally black with night-vision devices, they
could move around on a moonless night like it was midday. The unit's pilots had been
involved in almost every U.S. ground combat operation since Vietnam: When they weren't
fighting they were practicing, and their skills were simply amazing. These pilots were
fearless, and could fly helicopters in and out of spaces where it would be hard to insert
them with a crane. Darkness made the speed and precision of the D-boys and Rangers that
much more deadly. Night afforded still another advantage. Many Somali men, particularly
the young men who cruised' around Mog on “technicals,” vehicles with .50-caliber machine
guns bolted in back, were addicted to khat, a mild amphetamine that looks like watercress.
Midafternoon was the height of the daily cycle. Most started chewing at about noon, and by
late afternoon were wired, jumpy, and raring to go. Late at night it was just the opposite.