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12
“Two-two-eight! It’s Two-two-eight!”
In her mind, there could be only one possible reason for the call...They’d found my body on the
mountain...A voice came down the line and demanded, “Is the family assembled?”
They were gone for five minutes, and they came back together. Ben Sharmak stood for a few
moments staring at me, and then he climbed away, back to his army. Gulab walked down the hill
to me and tried to explain Sharmak had handed him a note that said,
Either you hand over the
American — or every member of your family will be killed.
Gulab made his familiar dismissive gesture, and we both turned and watched the Taliban leader
walking away through the trees. And the village cop offered me his hand, helped me to my feet,
and once more led me through the forest, half lifting me down the gradients, always considerate
of my shattered left leg, until we reached a dried-up riverbed.
And there we rested. We watched for Taliban sharpshooters, but no one came. All around us in
the trees, their AKs ready, were familiar faces from Sabray ready to defend us.
We waited for at least forty-five minutes. And then, amid the unholy silence of the mountain,
two more guys from my village arrived. It was obvious they were signaling for us to leave, right
now.
Each of them gave me support under my arms and led me up through the trees on the side of this
steep escarpment. I have to admit I no longer knew what was going on, where we were going, or
what I was supposed to be doing. I realized we could not go back to the village, and I really did
not like the tone of that note Gulab had shoved in his pocket.
And here I was, alone with these tribesmen, with no coherent plan. My leg was killing me, I
could hardly put it to the ground, and the two guys carrying me were bearing the whole of my
weight. We came to a little flight of rough rock steps cut into the gradient. They got behind
pushing me up with their shoulders.
I made the top step first, and as I did so, I came face to face with an armed Afghani fighter I had
not seen before. He carried an AK-47, held in the ready-to-fire position, and when he saw me, he
raised it. I looked at his hat, and there was a badge containing the words which almost stopped
my heart — BUSH FOR PRESIDENT!
He was Afghan special forces, and I was seized by panic because I was dressed in the clothes of
an Afghan tribesman, identical to those of the Taliban. But right behind him, bursting through
the undergrowth, came two U.S. Army Rangers in combat uniform, rifles raised, the leader a big
black guy. Behind me, with unbelievable presence of mind, Gulab was roaring out my BUD/S
class numbers he’d seen on my Trident voodoo tattoo:
“Two-two-eight! It’s Two-two-eight!”
The Ranger’s face suddenly lit up with a gigantic smile. He took one look at my six-foot-five-
inch frame and snapped, “American?” I just had time to nod before he let out a yell that ripped
across the mountainside —
“It’s Marcus, guys! We got him — we got him!”
And the Ranger came running toward me and grabbed me in his arms, and I could smell his
sweat and his combat gear and his rifle, the smells of home, the smells I live with. American
smells. I tried to keep steady, not break down, mostly because SEALs would
never
show
weakness in front of a Ranger.
“Hey, bro,” I said. “It’s good to see you.”
By this time there was chaos on the mountain. Army guys were coming out of the forest from all
over the place. I could see they were really beat up, wearing battered combat gear, all of them
with several days’ growth of beard. They were covered in mud, unkempt, and all grinning
broadly. I guessed, correctly as it happened, they’d been out here searching for my team since
early last Wednesday morning. Hell, they’d been out all night in that thunderstorm. No wonder
they looked a bit disheveled.
It was Sunday now. And Jesus, was it great to hear the English language again, just the everyday
words, the diverse American accents, the familiarity. I’m telling you, when you’ve been in a
hostile, foreign environment for a while with no one to whom you can explain anything, being
rescued by your own kind — tough, confident, organized guys, professional, hard-trained, armed
to the teeth, ready for anything, bursting with friendship — well, it’s a feeling of the highest
possible elation. But I wouldn’t recommend the preparation for such a moment.
They moved into action immediately. An army captain ordered a team to get me up out of the
forest, onto higher ground. They carried me up the hill and sat me down next to a goat pen. U.S.
Corpsman Travis instantly set about fixing up my wounds. He removed the old dressings which
Sarawa had given me and applied new antiseptic cream and fresh bandages. He gave me clean
water and antibiotics. By the time he’d finished I felt damn near human.
The atmosphere was unavoidably cheerful, because all the guys felt their mission was
accomplished. All Americans in combat understand that feeling of celebration, reflecting, as we
all do, that so much could have gone wrong, so much we had evaded by our own battlefield
know-how, so many times it could have gone either way.
These Rangers and Green Berets were no different. Somehow, in hundreds of square miles of
mountainous terrain, they’d found me alive. But I knew they did not really understand the
extreme danger we were all in. I explained to them the number of Taliban warriors there were
out here, how many there had been against us on Murphy’s Ridge, the presence of Sharmak and
his entire army, so close, maybe watching us...no, forget that. Most certainly watching us. We
were all together, and we would make a formidable fighting force if attacked, but we would be
badly outnumbered, and we were now all inside a Taliban encirclement. Not just me.
I debriefed them as thoroughly as I could, first of all explaining that my guys were all dead,
Mikey, Axe, and Danny. I found that especially difficult, because I had not told anyone before.
There had been no one for me to report to, definitely no one who would understand what those
guys meant to me and the gaping hollow they would leave in my life for the rest of my days.
I consulted my thighs, where I still had my clear notes of routes, distances, and terrain. I showed
them the areas where I knew the Taliban were encamped, helped them mark up their maps.
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