6
Green Eyes

You Americans cannot survive in these mountains against al Qaeda, just like the Soviets could not survive against us.

—GENERAL HAZRET ALI, DECEMBER 7, 2001

On any battlefield the CIA visits, which is, arguably at least, as many fields as the U.S. military has walked, their operatives bring along large black duffel bags filled with freshly printed hundred-dollar bills, neatly wrapped in cellophane. One of the things the Agency does best is buy friends.

In late November 2001, a week or so before we first arrived at Tora Bora, the CIA had decided to become pals with Hazret Ali, the influential Afghan warlord in the area, and a self-proclaimed general. To secure the friendship, George, the forward director of the small CIA Jawbreaker Juliet team in Jalalabad, brought along millions of U.S. dollars, conveniently packaged in $250,000 bundles.

General Ali, a proud leader in the region, had told George that to muster enough fighters to pursue bin Laden into the Tora Bora Mountains it would cost, oh, say about $250,000.

George looked over at one of his deputies sitting in on the meeting at Ali’s safe house and motioned for him to retrieve the duffel bag. Within a minute, the CIA operative was back and placed a brick of hundred-dollar bills about the size of a small microwave oven on the couch beside the general.

General Ali remained silent and stoic and never touched the money. He ended the meeting moments later and excused himself from his American guests. As soon as he moved out of sight, one of his subordinates entered and retrieved the cube-shaped package, cradling it like a newborn baby, and carried it downstairs to the first floor.

Another Afghan waited there, seated behind a single aged and wooden table with a notepad, a pencil, and a Dollar Store calculator. On his left was a large and faded stack of Pakistani rupees. The courier placed the quartermillion-dollar package on the right side of the table and delicately removed the plastic wrapping, and the moneychanger swapped the American dollars into local currency at a rate that was probably quite favorable to the general. The United States had just bought the services of another warlord.

On the morning of December 7, General Ali sent word over to the safe house to have our Delta party brought to his headquarters. We stood around on the green grass inside the walled compound for an hour or so as Ali’s men prepared the route so the convoy would not have any unpleasant surprises, as had happened with our entry into Jalalabad last night.

As we waited, Manny filled us in on the complex muhj areas of control, both politically and militarily. Picking his brain was time well spent. Word came midmorning for us to head south for the meeting. Empty of the heavy AK-47 crates, our two pickups easily slid into the middle of a muhj escort convoy and the three-hour drive was uneventful. Any doubt that Ali and his men were the law in this town was dispelled.

The sun was high in the sky, with very few clouds, providing a comfortably warm day for the trip, although a chilly wind with a sharp edge blew out of the north. It was impossible not to notice the majestic mountains and the deep, long, and dark shadows of dozens of steep ridgelines and spurs. The breathtaking view of the legendary Hindu Kush seemed endless.

Dark brown contour lines on our U.S.-issued 1:100,000 scale maps showed the steep elevations of the long and wide mountain range that stretched east to west. The eastern end was marked by the Khyber Pass, which had seen an eternity of invading foreign soldiers, from Alexander’s faithful legions and Genghis Khan’s fanatic followers to the red-coated British and the camouflaged Soviets.

The Hindu Kush then extends west into the central part of Afghanistan, and provides natural protection for the frontier with Pakistan. A north-south-running boulder-laden dry streambed snakes to the east, and another deep valley runs north to south before it cuts hard off to the west, nearly clean through our area of interest.

These were centuries-old routes that provided relatively easy access for black marketers, drug smugglers, gun traders, Bedouins, refugees, and fighters wishing to cross back and forth into the Northwest Frontier Province in western Pakistan.

The area visible to my naked eye that day is formally known as the Spin Ghar Mountains, literally “white dust,” most likely named because of the snow that blankets the high peaks throughout the year.

We would be more interested in the Towr Ghar Mountains, the “black dust” altitudes that were fortified and stockpiled in the 1980s and were now occupied by al Qaeda fighters.

Strategically, they sat along the forward military crest, roughly halfway between the Spin Ghar peaks and the light brown foothills to the north. From those positions, defenders had significant operational and tactical advantages, including a view all the way to the outskirts of Jalalabad.

Fir trees and sharp, jagged quartz boulders insulated the ridgelines down to the valley floors and connected draws that were filled with large masses of limestone and feldspar. Centuries of rainwater and melted snow had created large cracks and crags in the mountains’ skin and provided numerous tuck-away areas for the fighters. Any student of military tactics would instantly recognize the stronghold’s seemingly insurmountable and impregnable nature. It was becoming easier to understand Mulholland’s meat-grinder analogy.

Should someone want to reach neighboring Pakistan, he would need to climb uphill to clear the 14,000-foot mountain peaks straddling the border. Should he choose to take one of the long, winding valleys, he still would have to negotiate the 9,000-foot passes. I looked at the puffy and snow-filled clouds hiding the highest peaks and had a foreboding feeling about things to come. Visitors beware.

Tora Bora and bin Laden have a long relationship. This place served as bin Laden’s base of operations during the Soviet jihad, where he was on the defending end of numerous attacks. Legend has it the most massive attack involved an estimated two thousand Russians backed by another two thousand Afghan Communists, supported by fifty attack helicopters and MIG fighter jets. They attacked up the mountains for the better part of a week, and bin Laden, then considered only an average guerrilla leader, and his fellow mujahideen were never defeated in the mountains. They never ran.

The local Afghans knew Usama bin Laden well. Indeed, he enjoyed star status within the tribes and clans in the area, for since moving back in after leaving the Sudan in the late 1990s, bin Laden had distributed money to practically every family in Nangarhar Province. For years many an Afghan family named their sons Usama.

After the Soviet withdrawal and the establishment of al Qaeda as a living, breathing, and thinking terrorist organization, a meeting of epic proportions took place among the tall spires. The year was 1996, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed visited the leader of al Qaeda inside one of the hundreds of caves that had been engineered into the ridgelines and mountains of Tora Bora. It was there that Khalid first laid out the ambitious plan to train terrorist pilots to hijack and crash planes into buildings inside the United States.

Now, in December 2001, the backlash of that meeting was becoming apparent. Only a blind man could miss the white parallel contrails of the engine exhausts of American bombers streaking across the blue sky like long fat chalk marks on a lesson board. They were so far up that the engine roar could not be heard, but only a deaf man could miss the thunder of bombs hitting bin Laden’s positions.

The loud drum of war was again banging in Tora Bora.

At midafternoon, we reached General Ali’s makeshift headquarters, located among rolling hills in the beige desert and inside the fork of two deep wadis that ran north and south. We could hear and see the bombs pounding around the peaks only a few miles away.

It once had been a school, and although it had seen better days, the building was modern in comparison to the ancient, mud-walled compounds that pimpled the surrounding area. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees had funded the construction years earlier, and the horseshoe-shaped tan, gray, and light blue slate single-story structure was built on a solid foundation, with nine rooms exiting to the middle of the horseshoe, with a small poured concrete porch that spanned the entire center. It had once been a beacon of learning, but any hope of education for local children was shattered when the Taliban came to power.

Windowpanes that had been carved by hand were splintered, and held little glass. The former classrooms were empty save for the trash and dirt the wind had blown into the corners. Some chalkboards still showed fragments of old lessons in Pashto and Arabic. Outside, the yard was quiet and deserted, like any Western schoolyard in the summertime, but there were no kids.

Oddly, there also were no signs of armed guards for General Ali.

Manny and Adam Khan returned with a large, tall man in an olive green multipocketed vest over a plum-colored, button-down shirt with long sleeves. It was George, the CIA counterpart for whom we had been looking, and we knew from the very first that everything would be okay. He stood roughly two inches over six feet, likely was in his late forties, and his long hair and beard were a combination of brown and gray hair. George carried a natural friendly demeanor, had a great sense of humor, and spoke with a slight Wild West cowboy accent.

Originally in Afghanistan as Gary Berntsen’s deputy, it had tickled George to be named the team leader of Jawbreaker Juliet. He wasted little time in telling us that he was pressing General Ali to support our move into the mountains, but the general was proving to be stubborn.

“You ready to meet Ali and make your pitch?” he asked as we shook hands.

Ironhead, Bryan, and I looked at each other with relief. We had been worried that we would have to smooth out some friction or turn a cheek or two to ensure a positive relationship between Delta and the CIA. There had been dark days when the relationship was fragile at best. Half the time it seems that interoperability success depends more on personalities than on shared agendas. George had put us at ease from the start with his genuine welcome.

George had brought to Jalalabad with him four or five other agency professionals and one Special Forces lieutenant colonel who possibly had the most rewarding and intriguing job in the army for someone of that rank. They were a bunch of first-round draft picks, and all would prove equally talented and cool. But CIA guys pestered me all day about my rank of lieutenant colonel, wanting to know what year group I was in and if I knew any of their buddies. I had to guess at what year group a newly promoted fake lieutenant colonel like me should be. Year group 85? Naw, hell, let’s try year group 86. Am I so screwed up already that it’s obvious I’m an imposter? I haven’t done shit yet, so how could they even suspect already that I’m not a lieutenant colonel? Not a good time to start second-guessing myself. But the spooks wouldn’t let up. Jesus Christ! How many of these CIA guys are gonna come in here and ask me about my rank?

We walked a short distance from the old schoolhouse to where a large red carpet had been laid out neatly on the dirt. A few colorful blankets were folded to comfort some, but there were not enough for everyone. The outdoor meeting was to be held within sight of the majestic mountains to the south, our future battle zone.

The general and his young aide, Ghulbihar, slipped off their worn leather sandals and effortlessly flopped down and crossed their legs. Following the lead of both George and Adam Khan in this sudden introduction to still another point of the Afghan culture, I fumbled with my cold-weather boots, trying to remove them without showing discomfort. Am I gonna have to take off these boots every time we talk? This is gonna get old fast!

Ali was facing southeast, oblique to the White Mountains and the glare of the morning sun forced him to squint. George flanked me on the right, closest to Ali, and was trying to sit as comfortably as possible for a big Texan. I had the seat of honor, directly across from the general, and Adam Khan was to my left. Ghulbihar, the general’s translator, was on the warlord’s right.

General Ali did seem tired, but we didn’t mention his press party the night before. He seemed shy and uncomfortable, almost as if the inevitability of the overall military situation had finally caught up with him. More Americans were coming into his land and he knew it. He leaned forward so that his oversized brown coat spread over most of his legs. A small notebook of dirty paper, a short stubby pencil, a handheld two-way radio, and two black cell phones were aligned neatly before him. One of the cell phones was standard CIA issue and the other was a foreign model.

Thirty feet away, just outside of hearing range, stood Ironhead and Bryan. Off to the side, Lieutenant Colonel Al of the CIA leaned comfortably against our red pickup, with an AK-47 slung crossways over his back, and several 7.62mm magazines bulging from his back pockets. I could feel their collective stares on the back of my head and knew they were pulling for me to not screw this up. They were itching to get up into al Qaeda territory but understood the first goal was to secure Ali’s trust and support.

General Ali’s wool muhj hat was propped back like a dog-tired Little League shortstop’s cap after an extra innings game, and his coat had a large black fur collar. He nervously rolled a long strand of pearl prayer beads between his fingers, occasionally switching them from one hand to the other. Ali’s mannerisms gave me every impression that he was a devout Muslim who was visibly uncomfortable with his new status as an American stooge.

George broke the ice and introduced Adam Khan and me. Ghulbihar translated Ali’s opening comments in very rough English, and Ali looked at me through the sun-induced squint. With a slight tilt of the head, he asked Ghulbihar something in a low tone.

The aide turned and asked, “Commandos?”

I nodded, and George interjected. “Yes. Tell the general these are the commandos I have been promising. Many more will come.” George looked over at me as if to ask, “Right? Please tell me it’s not just you five.” I nodded. “They will help us find bin Laden,” George added.

It was my turn, and I glanced at Adam Khan to be certain he was ready to translate. I wanted what I had to say to seem natural, although I had spent much of the night rehearsing in the dark. If I had to repeat myself, I feared that I would lose my place.

I did a quick personal inventory of my heartbeat and started to talk, and Adam Khan easily translated my words. Ali would softly mutter “Wo”—“yes” in Pashto—and scribble on the white pad every so often. The general rocked back and forth and his face betrayed him: He was very distraught at having American fighting men here.

Just as I finished, Ali responded in his language, “Americans should not be on the ridgelines.”

He barely let Adam Khan finish translating before launching into a lengthy lecture. Maybe he had been up last night, too, after hosting the press, and was as worried about this meeting as I.

Having reached a fast speaking rhythm, he seemed to forget that Adam Khan needed time to translate, but it was pretty clear that Ali was putting me on the spot. He looked me dead in the eye for the first time and said we were not up to the task, implying that Delta Force was not tough enough to fight al Qaeda in the mountains.

Adam Khan caught the tempo. “Al Qaeda is dug in with many supplies and weapons. Many fighters willing to die for martyrdom. You Americans cannot survive in these mountains against al Qaeda, just like the Soviets could not survive against us. What makes you think you Americans can do what the Soviets couldn’t do in ten years of fighting?”

Ohhhh. . . Blindsided. I had not expected that response. Think fast, stay cool!

“Adam Khan, please tell the general that the men I bring are America’s finest commandos,” I said. “They are skilled in mountain warfare, and they are hardened and deadly.”

Ali allowed me to continue, just adding a few more Wo’s. When it was obvious that I had finished, he answered.

“I was an engineer when the Soviets were here. I helped build the caves and know all of them. They occupied this same land where we sit; they [the Soviets] never penetrated past the foothills and lost many Russkies. It is too dangerous for you Americans. It will be very bad if one of you is killed.”

So that was it. He was scared about what would happen if an American got killed. “I will be blamed,” he confirmed, and looked at George.

I stayed on course. “Take me and the few men here that arrived with me to the front lines today. Let us show you that we can hold our own. Tomorrow, I will have forty more commandos ready to fight, not drink tea.”

Ali responded, “It is not good to attack right now.” With a shrug, he added, “This place is different than Mazar-i-Sharif.” That was the first Afghan city to fall to the Northern Alliance, with a lot of help from the United States, after 9/11. Ali was obviously among those who, despite the heavy fighting there, considered the victory to have been somewhat of a cakewalk.

The general pressed us hard for more bombing. “The Arabs are going to die in their caves. Many are living in the same trench lines on the mountainsides that were used when we defeated the Russians. My fighters are spread out in the mountains, near the caves. They cannot escape. We have all sides blocked.”

George broke in. “We can’t bomb forever. We have given you money, weapons, and equipment to attack, yet you refuse. Now we are giving you our best fighters. If you don’t begin soon, thousands of American soldiers will be covering this entire area.”

Whooaa. George had put his finger on a sore spot, but he meant business and was running this show.

“The Arabs will fight to the death,” the general responded, trying to sound convincing, “I don’t want to sacrifice all my men to get to them.” Showing a slight frustration, he added, “Ten thousand fighters won’t be enough to get them out of the trenches.” Ali was agonizing over George’s harsh words, which were almost accusing him of either corruption or cowardice.

I threw in a portion of understanding to help take the edge off things. “General, we can bring more bombs here to help, but we must get closer to the enemy to kill more, and to win this battle.” High-level bombing cannot do everything by itself. Boots on the ground can pinpoint the payloads.

Almost conceding the argument, the general said, “My people must be first, in the end.” Hometown pride. He wanted his forces to carry out the first wave of the final assault. That was fine with us.

I turned and pointed to the mountains behind me. “We must get on the back side of those ridgelines to see the caves and trench lines, to shoot al Qaeda where they eat, sleep, and hide,” I said. “Give us what we ask for and you will be pleased.” That was it. I ended my side of the conversation.

Ali looked down, shrugged his shoulders again and sighed, ending our meeting. “Momkin,” he said, a Pashto term of indecision, meaning “possible” but always used for “maybe.” It was a frustrating word that we would become very familiar with over the next ten days.

After the little powwow, we learned that the CIA had already bankrolled the general to the tune of several million dollars, money that had been spent to rent his leadership, his men, and his courage. George was irritated that it was not spent to buy equipment.

Ali had feared that when we showed up at his headquarters, we would be accompanied by a massive amount of American tanks, jeeps, and troops. So our discreet arrival pleased him. Both Cobra 25 and the CIA folks wore traditional Afghan clothing and brought nonmilitary style vehicles, and we had followed that lead. Local clothing and vehicles, not American military issue, were the flavors of the day. He had been delighted with our stylish Afghan outfits.

And we had to consider the careful political balancing act he had to perform. If he lost face with the tribal leaders, the Shura, his supporters might think less of him and brand him as unfit and unable to handle the problem by himself. If rival tribes got wind that foreign commandos were being brought in to help his fight in his own backyard, it could prove the end of his reign, if not skillfully handled.

But on the other hand, he knew the muhj advance had stalled completely along the northern foothills, and like it or not, he needed help. Around-the-clock bombing, intermittent foothill skirmishes, and the monitoring of al Qaeda’s unsecured radio calls for a week had convinced him of several things.

First, his enemy was organized and well equipped, having stocked hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition, crates of RPGs, a dozen or so SAMs, piles of foodstuffs, and even enough firewood to last the harsh winter.

Second, because the Russians never conquered these mountains during the Soviet War, Ali now faced a highly motivated foe that had already beaten a superpower. As far as the enemy was concerned, they were invincible soldiers of God, with Allah in their corner.

Finally, and something most troubling to Ali, al Qaeda possessed the ability to reinforce and counterattack any muhj advance. Skirmish after skirmish over the past week had only served to bloody the noses of the muhj and strengthen al Qaeda.

Ali had a lot on his plate, but was smart enough to reach out for help.

How did it go?” Ironhead asked, as if he could feel that the little conference had not proceeded as we had hoped.

“I think he will come around by the time the boys arrive. He’s skeptical. Doesn’t think we can handle this.”

“Well, Dalton, I guess we’ll just have to show him,” Bryan said with a smile.

“Yeah,” added Ironhead, looking up at the mountains. “But we can’t do it from down here.”

Adam Khan came running over to our Toyota. “The general is going to the front. Do you want to go?”

After the tea party on the Afghan rug, our savvy translator had asked General Ali about his forward command. Where was it? Who was in command there? It turned out the man in charge was his brother-in-law, Haji Musa, who also was his cousin, not uncommon within the Afghan culture.

Adam Khan seized the opportunity and immediately pressed the general to get us involved sooner rather than later, reasoning that if his brother-in-law was up there, then it should be safe for us to visit him. Surely, Haji Musa should be able to provide adequate security.

Uncomfortable with such forwardness, the general didn’t have anything to counter the argument, and since he was going to visit Musa in a few minutes anyway, he reluctantly agreed to take us along.

We grabbed our long guns, wrapped our scarves around our faces and blankets around our shoulders. Before the general reached the truck I asked Adam Khan, “Hey, what in the world was General Ali writing on that notepad when you were translating our message?”

“Nothing!” he said.

General Ali jumped in the passenger seat of our red pickup and I drove. A brown leather shoulder harness with a small ivory-handled revolver was half-hidden beneath his brown jacket. In the backseat sat one of Ali’s subordinate commanders, complete with AK-47 and handheld radio. The only way to distinguish a foot soldier from a leader was the radio. And the danger of everyone, friend and foe, dressing alike is that it increases the possibilities of a blue-on-blue engagement, that is, friendly fire. We would really have to be careful once we got into combat.

Next to the commander sat the most valuable player of the tournament so far, Adam Khan. Ironhead and Bryan were perched like locals in the truck bed. Their guns were hidden but ready, and their eyes peered slightly above their colorful kaffiyehs. We headed for the front, and the general seemed to loosen up a bit. Obviously happy to be visiting his men, he commented, “What is mine is yours.” It was an Afghan custom to do what he could for his guests and I liked the sound of it.

The drive to the front was an adventure in itself. Bone-jarring terrain with intermittent but well-placed boulders kept our speed down. We squeezed through mud walls that scraped the side mirrors, dodged donkeys, goats, children, and negotiated two precarious valley walls and a deep dry riverbed. The ride was worse than a roller coaster. Ali was constantly on his radio, and his hands-on command style was impressive. There seemed to be no end to his providing directions and guidance and receiving reports. His complete involvement and total command made me wonder just how fast this whole thing would unravel if he were to buy the farm. The chain of command had General Ali at the top, but was rooted by a flat lateral line of combat field commanders. We had a lot riding on this one man.

After thirty minutes, we rounded a turn and came upon the astonishing place called Press Pool Ridge. Round tents in bright red, green, and orange covered the rocky knoll to our front. The best spots for a long-range camera on a tripod facing the mountains had been staked out long ago. White vans and SUVs were scattered everywhere, and there was a tangled forest of satellite antennas and spotlights, all ready to carry the nightly story to the world.

I put on the brakes. “We can’t go any farther,” I said to Adam Khan, without taking my eyes off the mass of folks only a hundred yards down the road. I asked him to emphasize to the general how important it was that we not to be seen by anyone outside of his fighters—particularly the media.

Ali responded that news reporters were throughout the area toward which we were heading, but he agreed that he also wanted to keep us out of sight. The tinted windows helped. We’re starting to click, I thought, and he said something else.

“General Ali says he needs to go up there to make an appearance,” Adam Khan explained. “The reporters expect it, and he needs to be seen by his men.”

“That’s cool, but we aren’t going with him. I’m not taking this truck up there with my guys in the back,” I responded. “The place is way too crowded.”

After a few seconds of discussion with Adam Khan, the general opened the door, stepped onto the rocky soil, and walked purposefully toward the mass of journalists. Sure enough, a heads-up reporter spotted the general and sounded the alarm. They all swarmed toward him.

We stayed put to watch, intending to wait for Ali’s return to the truck, but one smart reporter had not been fooled. In less than a minute, a white van backed from the line of parked vehicles and turned our way.

Time for some emergency driving, but as I tried to turn the truck around to leave, the white van sped up close to our rear bumper and a small, blond, middle-aged woman dressed in a midlength dark coat with a gray scarf wrapped around her neck jumped out and approached Ironhead and Bryan, whose faces were covered.

“Have you all seen Usama bin Laden?” Well, that isn’t necessarily a surprise question, they thought. But does she realize that we are Americans?

We took off, telling the subordinate commander with us to call General Ali and explain why we had ditched him. He would have to catch another ride.

In the mirror, I saw through our road dust that this reporter was not giving up easily. The van driver was in full pursuit, coming rapidly over the crest of the hill behind us. With Ironhead and Bryan holding on in the bed of the truck, I sped up. This is ridiculous. How are we supposed to fight this war if we have to hide from the damned reporters?

“Adam Khan, screw this. Have your buddy there jump out at the next turn, raise his AK-47 to get their attention, and stop that van! We’ll keep going back to the schoolhouse.”

“Sounds good!” After telling the muhj commander what we needed, Adam Khan gave me a nod and I hit the brakes. The commander dismounted even before the truck came to a halt and stepped into the middle of the road with his AK-47 over his head to bring the pesky press van to a stop. I could hear Ironhead and Bryan let out sighs of relief as we left the reporter, her crew, and the guard to figure things out among themselves.

Well, that trip sure went less than well: The press is closer to the front line than we are. We abandoned our general and got chased away by a blonde in a TV truck. Some warriors we are.

That night we gathered in the CIA’s corner room of the schoolhouse. Sergeant Major Ironhead, Bryan, and I sat with a few CIA officers, while Adam Khan, Ali, and the aide-translator Ghulbihar were on a tightly woven green and white Afghan carpet. On any battlefield, you can bet the CIA has the best accommodations available. On another carpet, in the center of the group, were several small green-tinted teacups. A steaming kettle and basket of nuts followed moments later.

The carpet and place servings were in stark contradiction to the techno spreads of the CIA military and civilian gear hugging the walls. Black and silver radios and antennas, various equipment stored in black boxes, night vision goggles, satellite phones, and extra AK-47 magazines were carefully positioned for quick use.

After dispensing with the pleasantries, Ali reiterated his desire to end this battle as soon as possible and committed to doing whatever it took. But he also warned that some local tribes claiming loyalty to him could easily be bought off and change allegiances.

George immediately brought up the increasing crowd of journalists and asked what the general planned to do about them. Ali answered that he had assigned an individual escort to every journalist to take charge of them while they were here. “I also have ordered more checkpoints to control the reporters and keep them away from here,” he said with confidence. My thoughts flashed back to the aggressive TV van that had been on our tail, and I believed the general might be overestimating his ability to control the ever-persistent press. The answer sounded rehearsed, too good to be true, and it was.

During the meeting, one of Ali’s frontline commanders was ushered in. He rendered all the courtesies toward the general before sitting down. Ali introduced him as the commander of the fedayeen—men of sacrifice—who were Ali’s best troops, some eighty of them. He had just returned from an hour-long skirmish with al Qaeda fighters just above the foothills.

He said the fedayeen attacked just before nightfall, and that they were successful in seizing three caves and killing several enemy fighters, but an unknown number escaped. Surprisingly, the commander’s impromptu after-action review also highlighted what his men had done wrong.

He spoke of how al Qaeda counterattacked while his men were clearing the second of the three caves. His muhj were freezing in the hills, and always took plenty of time for freebooting and securing the spoils of war, particularly anything to keep them warm. After sustaining eight wounded and three men killed in action, the commander decided to give up the hard-earned caves and retreat for the evening.

Someone asked him to describe the al Qaeda fighters. “All black, from head to toe, with hoods masking their light-skinned faces,” he responded enthusiastically, as if trying to convince us of his sincerity.

We were aware that the preferred Taliban dress was black on black, a semiuniform so distinctive that it was added to the rules of engagement early in the war: All black equaled Taliban or al Qaeda, which equaled threat, which equaled authorization of lethal force.

“Why did you retreat and give up the hard-earned caves and trenches?” I asked the fedayeen commander.

“It is too dark and dangerous at night,” he stated, with a sheepish glance at General Ali. “We must rest at night and partake of food and drink.”

The common daily itinerary for a Muslim fighter during the holy month of Ramadan required fasting from sunup to sundown for thirty consecutive days. Throughout this oncoming battle, that ancient Islamic tradition proved to serve as a consistent default for inaction by the muhj. Apparently the Muslim enemy also respected the same Quranic tradition.

In other words, everyone typically took a breather from the fighting at night in order to get some chow, grab some sleep, regroup, and maneuver forces into position for the next day’s skirmishes. We thought that this particular fight that had been so carefully described by the fedayeen commander seemed to have been possibly staged for our benefit.

Ali and George began to bicker, with the big Texan pressing the general about supporting our move into the mountains with his fighters, and goading him about his lack of aggressiveness during the last couple of days.

Ali jabbed back at the CIA, arguing that Tora Bora was not his only area of concern. He had two thousand fighters at Tora Bora, but his other four thousand men were needed to run the everyday policing of Jalalabad and the outlying areas of the big and troublesome city. It might be possible to bring a few thousand more fighters, if only he had weapons to give them. That meant more money.

George didn’t blink. He reiterated that he would provide everything Ali needed to accomplish the mission of killing bin Laden. I figured another black duffel bag of cash was about to be opened.

But the good news was that Ali had agreed, if only halfheartedly, to Dailey’s three requirements, and that was the affirmation we needed before our boss would agree to do much more than sit around the schoolhouse waiting for a bin Laden sighting. Ali promised to provide us with guides to navigate the mountain trails, and also granted Bryan’s request for pack mules to help move our equipment up the mountains. And he would position our forces with his.

He further pledged to do what he could to help if we ran into significant trouble in the mountains, essentially signing up to provide us with a QRF, should we get into a mess. We doubted the “quick” part of any Afghan QRF. One simple look at the daunting mountains was enough to convey that we would have to hold on for a good while before any of Ali’s men could reach us. It would take them hours, possibly days, to move up the mountains and flush out the al Qaeda fighters.

Throw in the complications that we like to fight at night, while the muhj prefer to sleep, and that we were in the middle of Ramadan, which had its own time limitations. Our chances of being able to depend on any of Ali’s men coming to help us were slim to none, but beggars couldn’t be too choosy. The nearest American QRF was two and a half hours away by helicopter. Those birds would have to land in the foothills to offload because of the SAM and RPG threats and the lack of suitable landing zones or fast-rope points in the mountains. So any Ranger QRF would have to start from the same spot as the muhj.

Nonetheless, Ali had taken the moral high ground and we left it at that. I took him at his word and believed he would send help.

After the meeting broke up, I went back into our room and disconnected my night vision goggles from my helmet, then walked the halfdozen yards over to General Ali’s quarters. His trusty aide Ghulbihar was already dutifully stooped outside the door to await any of his general’s wishes. I explained that I wanted to show Ali something important, how well we can see at night. To reach a boss, you first have to go through the receptionist, so I took time to demonstrate the NVGs for Ghulbihar. It helped persuade him.

Ali was tired but, ever the gracious host, acceded to my bothersome meddling. He was already in bed, but sat up. I knelt next to him.

First, I placed the goggles in front of my own eyes while Ghulbihar explained what I was doing. The slight flicker of a single gas lantern sitting in the far corner illuminated the general’s all-white pajamas and made me wonder if I should have removed my boots before entering and stepping on the carpet. I turned the goggles around and carefully placed them in front of his eyes. Ali leaned toward them with both eyes wide open. The green glow from the NVGs greatly amplified the light of that gas lantern and highlighted his deep facial wrinkles.

I spoke to Ali directly, as if he understood English. “General, with these green eyes, we can hunt for bin Laden at night and see al Qaeda, but not be seen.”

After Ghulbihar translated, the general sighed deeply, then tilted the goggles toward the window, which offered a view of the ongoing bombing of the distant mountains. I told him that the NVGs give a clear view in the dark at ranges in excess of three hundred meters on a starry night. He wasn’t sold on the magic. “Maybe you can see at night, but al Qaeda does not sleep,” he said. “They have brothers guarding every path and trail.”

I couldn’t resist a quick lesson on tactics, waiting patiently while Ghulbihar translated each sentence. “We need to get in and among al Qaeda to defeat them. We can kill those guards. You need to keep the terrain that your fighters capture, and not retreat at sundown. We will go with your men. You have my word,” I told Ali. “Once my men get close enough to see the enemy, they will make the bombs much more effective, killing more enemy faster and ending the fight sooner.”

Ali handed back the NVGs. He looked at me, rubbed his beads in his left hand, and mumbled something. “The general wishes to sleep. He asks you do the same,” Ghulbihar politely translated.

Good enough. Let the guy sleep on it. I don’t need an answer right now anyway. The boys are still two days away. I nodded to the general, smiled as if to say we are gonna have some fun here, then took my toy back to my own room.