Shock Factor (15 page)

Adam and the other operators on the roof hunkered down as the missile left the F/A-18's hard point and flew toward the enemy at seven hundred miles per hour. It dropped out of the sky, punched into the building's outer wall, penetrated deep inside and exploded. The force of the blast was nothing like a JDAM bomb, and the structure didn't even collapse. Still, the havoc it wrought on the insurgents inside was deadly. The firing from within it stopped, and another lull fell across the embattled neighborhood.

The respite from the incoming small-arms fire gave the Americans the opportunity to break contact and get back to COP Iron. They made hasty plans to depart. The Army squad holding security on the first floor would go first. As they headed into the street, Adam, Dave, and the other SEAL sniper team would cover them. If they evoked no reaction from the Muj, the SEALs would leave next, and the two groups would leapfrog back to COP Iron, covering each other as they went.

The squad from the 1st Armored left the house and rushed into the street. The SEALs stayed on their guns, waiting to see what the enemy would do. A block over, in the other overwatch position, the SEALs there began to exfil as well. It didn't take long for the Muj to notice. These al-Qaida Jihadists had been around long enough to know that the Americans were at their most vulnerable during infils and exfils. They realized they had a final, narrow window of opportunity to hit the Americans one more time.

Like the SEALs, they had been fighting all day in the merciless heat, and had to have been exhausted. They'd taken heavy casualties trying to assault the Camp Lee SEALs, which had to have affected their morale. Nevertheless, the Muj leader rounded up enough men for a final assault.

They began to maneuver forward, hoping to cut off the Americans in the street before they could get back to COP Iron. This time, Fizbo didn't need to give the rest of the team a running commentary on their movements. Assuming all the Americans had pulled out, they flowed into the fields of fire established by the SEAL sniper teams. The Americans opened up on them and caught them completely by surprise. One Muj went down, shot dead in the street a few hundred yards from the hide site.

That broke the enemy's morale. The rest of the assault force scattered and retreated. They'd finally had enough for the day. The SEALs grabbed their gear, slapped home new magazines—they were perilously low on ammo by now—and pulled out. Fizbo kept in touch with the F/A-18, whose pilot scanned the way home with his electronic eyes. No sign of any other Muj elements.

Despite their fatigue, the SEALs were in good spirits. Nothing is better for morale than repeatedly hammering the enemy and stopping their every gambit. A month into their deployment now and this was the first time they'd experienced an insurgent assault. The enemy's tenacity, willingness to take casualties, and determination to close on the overwatch sites impressed the Americans, and reminded them that they faced a far tougher foe than their countrymen back home in the States truly realized. That made kicking their teeth in that much sweeter.

Adam reached the street, the Carl Gustav strapped over his back and his M4 at the ready. Right then, the ground shook violently, and a mushroom cloud of smoke and flame rose above the rooftops to the east.

The Camp Corregidor SEALs had just been hit by the IED placed at the entrance to their overwatch position. The radio filled with reports of casualties and the need for immediate evacuation. The Bradleys reported they were on their way.

In a heartbeat, the light mood the day's victory had inspired was wiped away by a sense of complete helplessness. Two of their own had gone down, and the Camp Lee SEALs were in no position to come to the aid of their stricken brothers. Nearly out of ammo, without vehicles or heavy weapons, all they could do was continue their exfil.

Adam felt sick. He and Dave had been cracking jokes all afternoon, feeling that they'd had the situation well in hand. Their Carl Gustavs had done considerable damage to the enemy, and most of the insurgents who had escaped those weapons had succumbed to 40mm grenades and precision gunfire. Now, as he heard the news about the Jundis, John Francis, and Bill Barnum, a wave of guilt struck him. How could he be so glib with his comrades taking such a hit? Those feelings would linger long after the last rifle report echoed through Ramadi's battle-scarred streets.

The Bradleys from COP Eagle's Nest returned to the fight to extract the last of the Camp Corregidor SEALs. Fortunately, they encountered no roadside bombs and the exfil on that flank of the operation went off without further incident.

Adam's element bounded back for COP Iron and made it halfway until they were met by a platoon of Bradleys. Thirsty, hungry, covered with smoke, dirt, and grime, the SEALs and Joes piled aboard for the short ride back to the outpost. They made the last leg of the trip in near total silence, everyone's thoughts on John and Bill.

In the aftermath of the day, the SEALs took stock of everything that had happened. They studied how the insurgents had attacked them and discussed ways to counter their new tactics. These after-action discussions sparked a new battlefield evolution. Hopefully, the next time they went out into the city, they'd be able to catch the enemy by surprise with their fresh ideas.

In the meantime, the thought of that single sniper shot stuck with Adam. He replayed the sound of the 7.62 round smacking off the concrete a few inches from his head. The guy on the other side of that scope had been good. He'd given him only a brief opportunity to take the shot, and he'd very nearly put a bullet in the Illinois native's head.

What had happened to him? In the after-action discussions, it became clear that the enemy sniper had not fired again. Had he been killed? Probably not. The bulk of the SEALs firepower had been focused on stopping the Muj assault element. Nobody even knew from where the insurgent sniper had fired. His hide had been somewhere off to Adam's right, that's as specific as the Americans could get.

He had not taken another shot. The discipline that displayed was remarkable. Had he pulled out after nearly killing Adam? Or had he just gone to ground and provided eyes for the assault element?

There was no way to be sure. But one thing was almost certain: he was still out there, hunting Americans.

 

CHAPTER TEN

Under Watchful Eyes

RAMADI

In the wake of the November 19, 2006, engagement, SEAL Team Five's two platoons continued operating at a frenetic pace. Between covering Marine and Army patrols, the frogmen went after more IED makers in direct-action raids. With more Iraqi cops on the street, the flow of information from the citizens of Ramadi increased. This gave the Special Forces teams plenty of targets to go after, and very few resisted when the SEALs came knocking at their door.

There were the occasional exceptions. Adam had long since grown accustomed to switching roles depending on the mission demands. One night, he'd go out with his SR-25 and cover American patrols. Another, he'd be blowing doors for an entry team assigned to a kill or capture mission. Even after the hard fight on November 19, Adam continued to volunteer with both the Blue and Gold Camp Lee elements.

One night, during a kill or capture mission against a particularly ruthless IED maker, Adam set a strip charge on the man's front door, stepped clear, and blew it. At the same time, the IED maker had heard the entry team reach his house and had pushed a couch in front of his door in hopes of slowing them down. As he stood in front of the door, the charge went off. Normally, these are such small explosions that only the door suffers damage. This time, in what had to be a moment of supreme karma, the bomb maker happened to be standing in the most optimal place and distance to the blast to suffer from it.

The SEALs pushed through the door, finding the splintered couch in their way and their target lying toward the back of the room. As part of the team cleared the house, Adam, functioning now as the element's corpsman, crouched next to the wounded insurgent and assessed his condition. The strip charge had blown off three of his fingers and studded his face with wooden splinters from the door (and probably the couch). His legs were torn open and bleeding as well.

Whatever fight he had in him was gone now. The SEALs secured the house and kept the rest of the family safe while Adam worked on the wounded Muj. One of the chiefs with the team that night then had a moment of inspiration. Part of the SEALs role in Ramadi was to help prepare the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police to function independently. They were a long way off from that, but they had made significant progress since the previous spring. To the chief, this seemed like the perfect moment to help mentor the Iraqi medic who had accompanied the Jundi scouts that night.

The Iraqis knelt beside the Muj and as Adam talked them through each treatment step. They applied direct pressure to his worst injuries, then placed a battle dressing on his legs and hand. The Iraqis carried him to a waiting Humvee and evacuated him to the combat support hospital outside the city.

When the team reached the hospital, the Muj was carried inside after being identified to the staff as an enemy combatant. As he was taken into an operating room, an officer assigned to the hospital approached Adam and asked, “Why didn't you just kill him?”

Thoughts of courts-martial, shooter statements, and moments of uncertainty on the battlefield floated through Adam's mind as he struggled to answer that.

Blow me! You think I want to go to prison, asshole?

The words started to form, but Adam managed to hold them in check. His outspokenness within the platoon had already caused some to label him a problem child, and picking a fight with a REMF—a rear echelon motherfucker—would only make things harder on him.

He toned his response down a notch, “Well, I didn't really want to be court-martialed.”

The officer thought this over, then asked, “How'd it happen?”

“He got hit on a breach.”

The officer nodded. “Okay, is the breacher here?”

“Also me” was Adam's curt reply.

The officer grew agitated. “And you didn't clean up your own mess?”

Adam's temper flared. The son of a bitch was getting on his case for not killing an unarmed man because it meant more work for him. From a rear-echelon type, this was insufferable.

“Look, we didn't use anything unusual. Just a strip of C-two. He was trying to barricade the door. We had no idea he was on the other side when I clacked off the charge.”

The officer scowled, then vanished into the hospital's interior. The Muj lived, but he damn sure never made a bomb again.

Such moments were a reminder that as chaotic as combat could be, the politics and consequences of every decision and action would be scrutinized by a lot of Monday-morning quarterbacks. That scrutiny made each decision in the field harder to make. At times, the Muj capitalized on those moments.

Not long after the November 19 firefight, Blue Element from Camp Lee sortied into the city again to conduct another overwatch operation. They returned to the neighborhood of grenade-pitchers, where the Corregidor SEALs had been hit in November and Mike Monsoor had been killed the previous summer. This place was guaranteed action—nobody had any illusions otherwise.

They went in as stealthy as possible. Departing from COP Eagle's Nest, they patrolled toward their target building in the darkness, using no white light at all. They kept noise to a minimum and relied on their night vision to see the way ahead.

When they reached the house they wanted, the front gate was locked. This neighborhood was like a fortress. Reinforced, nine-foot walls surrounded every compound, including this one. The gate off the street was wide enough to allow entry to a car or small pickup truck. One of the Blue Element SEALs carried a lock pick set, and he stepped forward to use it. A moment later, the gate swung open.

Silently, the team flowed into the compound past laundry hung and fluttering in the soft night breeze. A small stand-alone garage stood nearby, a sedan parked inside. The Americans reached the front door. In Ramadi, the SEALs never knew who would be on the other side of the door. Taking a soft approach and knocking could be an invite to a hail of bullets from some die-hard zealot hiding inside. Conversely, blowing the door risked hurting the very people the Americans were here to protect.

It was a devil's choice.

The SEALs knocked. A moment later, a sleepy-eyed middle-aged man opened the door and greeted the men coldly. The team's commander and interpreter explained the situation. The SEALs needed their house for a few hours. The family would be free to go about their day inside, but they would not be able to leave until the SEALs exfilled. If any part of their property was damaged, the U.S. government would compensate them.

The head of the Iraqi family reluctantly allowed the SEALs to enter his house. The women and children stayed close to him, but their fear and uncertainty was palpable. The fact was, no matter where their loyalties lay, the arrival of the Americans now made their home a target for al-Qaida.

And in Ramadi, there were eyes everywhere, watching.

The SEALs had tried to get into the house as quietly as possible. They'd encountered no opposition, seen no enemy during the infil. Whatever little noise they had generated during their patrol in was most likely masked by the sound of gunfire and explosions in nearby neighborhoods.

Yet on every mission they'd always been compromised. Kids working for al-Qaida kept watch from alleys. Jihadist snipers lay in urban hides observing critical areas. Ordinary citizens revealed what they'd seen in hopes of sparing their families and themselves from al-Qaida's wrath.

As Adam recalled later, “No matter how low our signature, they always knew where we were.”

This time the SEALs were determined to surprise the enemy. So far, so good. The team secured the house and set up shop. Some of the operators stayed downstairs to pull security and keep an eye on the family. Meanwhile, the Blue Element snipers climbed onto the roof to establish hide sites along with two machine gunners. The gunners set up to the north, keeping the rear of the compound under surveillance so the enemy could not sneak up on the SEALs from that direction. Adam and his spotter went to the southeast corner of the roof. The other sniper and his spotter took station on the southwest corner. Altogether, six of the thirteen-man element occupied the rooftop.