The Reaper: Autobiography of One of the Deadliest Special Ops Snipers (20 page)

“Do you have your weapon?” I asked, just trying to keep Pemberton talking.

“No. Dropped it. Can’t find it in the water.”

“Are you swimming?”

“Yeah. Treading water. I’m afloat.”

“Do you have your body armor on?” I was trying to think if it would help him float or weigh him down.

He must have read my mind. “It’s keeping me warm. It’s helping me float.”

I thought that he was delusional. I figured all that added weight would have the opposite effect.

“Do you have any weapons?”

“My pistol. Probably doesn’t work. Why?”

I was worried that he might have a concussion or might lose consciousness so that’s why I was peppering him with questions. I didn’t want to irritate him, but I could tell that that was what I was doing.

I looked around. Trambley had taken off to retrieve the rope. I had no idea how heavy those things were, but it was inches thick. I saw him outlined against the night sky as he crested one of those deep ditches and then dropped down again, disappearing from sight. He was putting in an enormous effort. I kept covering him, worried that someone was going to take a crack at him. I kept up a conversation with Mike while keeping an eye on Trambley. He’d begun to slow, and I was torn. I didn’t want to leave Pemberton, fearing that if he passed out in that water he could drown. I didn’t know what hypothermia could do to someone or what its symptoms were, and it was hard to believe that somebody in the middle of Afghanistan in July could be freezing. Sure, it was cold at night, and all, but how the hell could all of this weird stuff be going on?

I knew that Trambley was busting his ass, and I wanted to help him, but then I noticed that he was now making no real progress at all.

“Drop it. Just get back here,” I said to him. Even if he got the rope over to us, I didn’t know how much it was going to help. Was either of us capable of going down there and helping Pemberton back out?

Trambley came back gassed and upset with himself and the situation. Still, he said, “I can’t do it. The frickin’ thing’s too heavy. I need help or we’ve got to get some other guys here…” His voice trailed off.

The other elements of the platoon were conducting the operation, keeping radio silence as best they could. I agreed with Trambley. We needed somebody else to help us out. Trambley took off, not wanting to use the comms to just call in some support. He kept in contact with me, but only when he got to the rally point did he advise the others of what was really going on with our man being down.

I didn’t hear what I wanted. “No go, Irv. We’re about to hit the objective.”

“Roger that.”

I knew we needed to do something, so I contacted Casey. “Sergeant, Pemberton’s down there quite a ways. I’d have to say forty to fifty feet.”

“We’ll get CSAR out here then.”

I’d seen a Discovery Channel special once about the Combat Search and Rescue units. I never thought I’d see them in person. Mostly, the air force used them to get downed pilots back. I wondered if anybody anywhere in the military had any kind of experience rescuing a guy from a hole in the ground. This was the kind of thing a miner might have to do.

I knew that the only thing I needed to do at that point was stick close to Pemberton as best I could. I hunkered down, lying on my side straddling the edge of the concrete and the hole.

“Irv? I’m hearing lots of stuff down here.”

I thought of the fighting tunnels I’d read so much about as a kid. What if during all those years of fighting with the Soviets the Afghan fighters had done the same thing? It seemed plausible. Why would there be a forty- to fifty-foot-deep hole in the middle of this field outside a village?

I knew it could sound bad, but I said to Mike, “If I hear you screaming and anybody else is down there with you, I’m going to pump all twenty rounds down there.”

Nobody wanted to be held captive. We knew what the Taliban and the insurgents in Iraq did to American prisoners, regular military or contract workers. Like IEDs and other aspects of this fighting, we didn’t talk about them much, but we all understood one another.

“Okay, man. That’s cool. I’m really scared right now. I’m freaking out.”

“No worries, dude, I’m here. I’ve got you covered.”

I had images in my mind of some guy screaming something in Pashto and me stepping up and firing into that hole and hearing all those screams. I knew that was what Mike would want me to do, and I knew that if the situation was reversed that was what I’d want him to do. I had asked Mike about his pistol both because I wondered if he’d be able to defend himself or do what he needed to do to not get captured. I knew that I wouldn’t be trying to kill him, just firing those rounds down there to take out the bad guys. I knew he’d be good with however that turned out.

The beating sound of a Chinook’s rotors made me feel better, knowing that I wouldn’t have to be fully responsible for getting Pemberton out of there. That feeling didn’t last very long. In order to find us, they needed to shine their IR (infrared) floodlight to illuminate the area. I still had on my night vision, so I couldn’t see the large beams pooling on the ground. I was lying next to an enormous hole, much, much larger than I had imagined, and much deeper. I was two feet away from its edge, and I tried to crawl away from it. I put my rifle under my stomach and sprawled out once I felt the rotor wash pushing me. I dug my nails deep into the dirt and tried to dig my toes in as well, but I could feel myself sliding closer and closer to that hole.

I thought I was going to die. I thought that that wind was going to lift my 165-pound body up and deposit it down there near Pemberton. I figured the pilot couldn’t see me, and I was also worried about where that helicopter was going to set down. Earlier, we’d been told they couldn’t and now here was somebody about to give it a shot. As I looked over my shoulder from my position on my belly, the however-many-ton Chinook was about to land either on top of me or go crashing into that hole and on top of Pemberton. They hovered about twenty feet above me and then began inching closer and closer toward me.

I lay there wondering how this was all going to end, when I saw the black belly of that bird start to rise again. As soon as it was clear enough for me to stand, I scrambled to my feet and ran and slid down the slight embankment of the ditch. From that position, I could see something being lowered from the Chinook. A moment later, it receded back into the cargo area. A moment after that, the Chinook spun around and retreated.

“Irv. What the hell is going on?”

Pemberton’s desperation tore at me.

“They’re coming back. Don’t worry. They’ll be here again,” I told him, expressing my hope rather than anything I knew to be true.

I contacted our platoon leader, hoping he’d know what was going on.

“The rig wasn’t long enough,” he said. “They brought a forty-footer but said it wasn’t near long enough.”

I couldn’t believe my estimate had been so bad. How far down was Pemberton? Had he slid or had he fallen all the way to the bottom?

“We need you here. You’ve got to cover for us before we go in.”

“Roger that.”

Orders are orders, but I hated the thought of leaving Pemberton there. He seemed to have gotten worse. When I was talking to him, he’d allow a long time before responding, and more and more he was saying things that had nothing to do with what I’d asked him, talking about his car and making other random observations. I wasn’t sure how badly he was hurt, how the water was impacting his situation, and just how long it was going to take for the CSAR guys to finally get to him. I had to refocus though. As I gathered my gear and rekitted, I looked at the wristband I wore. I consulted the maps I kept there like a quarterback consulting his playlist.

Before I set out, I stood at the edge of the hole and shouted down, “Mike, I’ve got go, buddy. You’re good. They’re coming right back. They’ve got you.”

I didn’t want to wait for a response. I figured that if I got out of there, I could tell myself that I hadn’t heard him, that he was still awake and doing okay.

When I got to the rally point I had to answer a bunch of questions that I didn’t want to. Guys were wondering what had happened; some wanted to know what hole I was talking about, how only one guy out of all of us could have fallen in there, how lucky we were that it was only one of us, and more and more things that had nothing to do with what I was concerned about. I didn’t blame the guys, but I just wanted to get on with taking on this objective and get the hell out of there so I could see how Mike was doing.

We set up for an explosive breach to get the door open. I was in position and watching through my sights as they put the C-4 charge in place. My mind was on Mike, but I kept my eyes on the windows, making sure the rooms were clear. Before I knew it, the doors blew open, the flash bangs popped, and out of the smoke and noise two of the guys were leading out the target. As they were doing all that, I spotted a tall building that I knew I’d have to free-climb since Pemberton had the ladder. It gave me a vantage point to overlook almost the entire area, including Pemberton’s location.

With the guy in hand and the area clear, I made my way onto that roof. I looked back toward Pemberton’s position, hoping I could see the progress the CSAR guys were making. The helicopter was coming in and I listened to the live reports over the radios. I turned back away, listening to the action, while overwatching the area with my rifle and making sure to mission focus. A lot of people in the village had come out after all the commotion went down. I lit each of them up with my laser, got a distance on them. I sensed that none of them were hostiles, just a bunch of onlookers. I saw no weapons, no sign of an immediate threat. Being able to spot a potential hostile was an important part of our training. Evaluating a person’s demeanor, watching their eye movements, what they did with their hands and bodies, had all become second nature out there.

I turned back to Pemberton. He’d been extracted, wrapped in heat blankets, but the report wasn’t good. He was in shock, hypothermia had him, and they’d do other evaluations, but for right now they just needed to get him warm. They estimated that he’d fallen some seventy-five to eighty feet. They were sending a diver down to retrieve any sensitive items—his weapon, his laser, and a few other items. Later the diver would say that he’d gone down an additional forty feet below the water and still hadn’t contacted the bottom. At that point, he had to stop his search. No one had any idea how far down that hole went.

As I was on that roof, I heard the muffled sound of a suppressed shot. Perkins and his sniper element had fired on a secondary objective a few hundred meters from our position. Perkins observed a man coming out of his house with an AK-47, and he was headed in the direction of a secondary assault force. He had to take the guy out and he did. I scrambled off the roof and over to that position. Everything was secure, so I headed back toward Pemberton.

The Chinook was hovering about a hundred meters offset from the hole. The ramp was lowered and was balanced on top of that ledge we’d been walking across. The helicopter was angled nose up and the ramp was at about a thirty-degree angle. I knew what the plan was, but I couldn’t believe that these air force guys were going to do it. They had Pemberton on a stretcher, and they were running along at a pretty good pace. Instead of taking that balance beam, they were moving up and down through those ditches and mounds. They were running up and down that roller coaster, one of them in his wet suit and mask. I was impressed. I knew that those CSAR guys had a serious adrenaline overload happening. They didn’t get to have boots on the ground that often. They got to the Chinook and up the ramp they went with Pemberton, handing him off to the crew chiefs and medics who were waiting. A few moments later, they were in the air.

The whole unit was back together near the hole, and of course, the conversation was all about what had happened and how. I knew that Pemberton was going to be okay. He was in great hands and every report said that his vital signs were strong.

We decided that the hole was pretty damn dangerous and we didn’t want to have to deal again with anything like what we’d just gone through. The consensus was that it needed to be blown up. I had no idea how they were going to do it, but I knew what my role had to be. I positioned myself about two hundred meters from the hole and scanned the area, ready to take out anybody who approached. With all the noise we were about to make, I knew that those curious folks were going to get even more curious. I hoped the explosion would discourage them from coming to check things out.

We decided that if we all contributed our hand grenades and tossed them in, that would take care of the hole. Ten guys stood in a semicircle with their grenades. They pulled the pins and dropped the grenades in. Six seconds later a muffled explosive sound came up out of the hole, and some smoke drifted up after that.

“That was stupid.”

“What the hell.”

“There ain’t enough grenades in the province.”

We didn’t know what was at the bottom of that pit. For all we knew it could have been paved or there was concrete down there. Our grenades could have just made the hole deeper, and if there was a system of tunnels, then the whole area could have collapsed like a giant sinkhole. I knew that I didn’t want to be near it with those explosions going off.

Eventually, we got some mortar rounds and an AC-130 dropped a high-explosive 105 howitzer round in there. With all those mortar rounds going off, we figured we’d have to see something happen. Nothing. A guy tossed in a thermobaric grenade. Nothing. Thermobarics are really devastating, and I’ve seen a whole house brought down by one of them. A bunch of fine dirt started falling like snow. Smoke trailed out of that chimneylike hole. I was keeping my distance. No way I was going near there. What if my fear of heights kicked in? Vertigo? Anything.

Finally after all the smoke cleared, everyone agreed that nothing was going to put a dent in that hole, let alone cover it up. Still, we were like guys everywhere. We couldn’t believe that something that simple could be defeating our best efforts and our equipment. A few more howitzer rounds got dropped, but the Pemberton hole would not be defeated.