The Lion of Sabray Read online

  “I actually knew we were going to crash,” he said. “I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t see. Somehow I was going to let everyone down. Everything was rolling through my head: the mission, my family, my kids, and the most awful sense of grief, because I just felt all was lost.

  “I came here to help Marcus, to get him out, and there’s his family as well. And now I’m going to crash and roll down the mountain.”

  And at that moment, something broke. Through the dust in front of the cockpit, very suddenly there appeared a bush, elevated high, right in front of Spanky’s eyes, its leaves rustling in the ferocious wind from the rotors. It gave him, at last, a fix: a left and a right; an up and a down. He couldn’t see the ground or anything else, but he could see the bush, and it would keep him straight in the sandstorm.

  Not since Moses saw God appear out of the burning bush on Mount Horeb has any shrub, plant, branch, or thicket meant that much to one man. “It saved us,” says Spanky. “It was the only thing I had—the only reference. So long as I stayed steady on those rustling leaves and held us motionless above the ground, we would not die. Even if we drifted, I at last had a fix, and I could correct against it.”

  Very slowly the dust cleared, and when it did, Spanky saw that they were less than two feet from the edge of the cliff. On the other side, the blades were whipping through their enormous circle, slower and then faster, as the beat of the engine rose and fell, thunderous in the night air, probably three feet from the wall.

  “I could see the ground by then, and it looked flat. I lowered the Pave Hawk until the wheels bumped, dead together, and about four of the guys yelled, ‘Touchdown!’

  “There’s a lot of emotion when you cheat death that narrowly,” he said. “All the guys had families and loved ones, and we’d all thought we’d probably die.

  “I almost went into shock when I fully realized how near we were to disaster. I was pretty sure I would not have done this in Tucson during the day; not touching down on a ledge this narrow, with such total catastrophe on either side. It was just too stupid, too big a risk. I would not have done it. I guess I did it for Marcus.”

  Once they were down, things began moving very fast.

  Gulab’s two friends helped Marcus back up and over the stone wall into the opium field where the US helicopter was now stationary, its rotors pounding the air, deafening in the dust. No one really knew what to do. To Gulab, it was like something from outer space; he’d never been in a helicopter.

  The light was bad, and Marcus began to walk forward toward his own people. Gulab later said, “It crossed my mind that if the Americans did not know him personally, they might be confused by this big bearded man in Afghan clothes. I held on to his arm, and we walked forward—now two bearded men in Afghan clothes.

  “I remembered how confusing it had been when we first struggled up those stone steps in the woodland and found ourselves face-to-face with the Rangers. I, of course, had been shouting loudly the code on Marcus’s tattoo: ‘Two-two-eight!’ It worked then, but I had no idea what to shout now.

  “And right then, a big, powerfully built US airman jumped down from the helicopter and walked forward a few paces with his rifle leveled at Marcus’s head.”

  Checky picks up the story:

  There was still one hell of a lot of billowing dust, and nothing was real clear. I could see something coming toward us, very indistinct in the dark. Whatever the hell it was, we did not want it anywhere near us, and definitely nowhere near the helicopter.

  I knew those Taliban would stop at nothing to take out the rescue Pave Hawk. I just hoped the US Air Force had pounded the hell out of them; slowed ’em right down.

  But there were two figures coming toward me. And, of course, none of us knew what Marcus would look like or what he’d be dressed in. I had no idea who these tribesmen were, and a part of my job was to protect the crew at all costs.

  The first one’s a big guy, and I knew he was not an American because he was coming straight to the helicopter. I had no choice. And I drew my weapon, because at this point, from where I stand, he’s a threat. I see the second guy step out behind him—and he’s also wearing the Afghan clothes.

  Right now I’m thinking, Jesus! I’m going to have to shoot both of them. And my finger is on the trigger. I’m one split second from pulling it. But now there’s a third guy, stepping out right behind them. And to my eye, this one was American, US military.

  I could see he was a Ranger, and he indicated not to shoot, pointing out Marcus and then Gulab. That stopped me from opening fire, but I still needed to run my checks, and I had a couple of questions for Marcus which he must answer.

  The first one involved Spiderman. Would you believe? And I called it out to him, “Who’s your favorite superhero?”

  “Huh?” said Marcus, looking at me as if I’d gone out of my mind. But then he clicked onto the identity procedure, forced a grin, and said the correct answer: Spiderman. Identity confirmed.

  The PJ gestured for Marcus and Gulab to move into the helicopter, as everyone could see Marcus needed urgent medical attention. But it was a bit more rushed than that. With sporadic gunfire echoing over the mountain, and Taliban small-arms fire zinging into the opium field from their new position a hundred meters away, Checky just shouted the order “Go! Go! Go!” and Gulab dived into the helo, somehow dragging the wounded Marcus behind him.

  Spanky had the engines screaming, and the rotors were gathering a whipping speed. Checky leaped aboard, slammed the door tightly shut, and Spanky lifted off, drifting right, and then somehow launching the Pave Hawk straight over the cliff—throttles wide open, the blades cutting into the thin mountain air, but lifting them now, up and away from this terrible place, where they’d come as close to death as any of them ever expected to do.

  “For a few seconds I just looked at Marcus,” says Checky. “And in that short time, I could see in his eyes what he’d been through: the blood-soaked saga of the original battle, the lifelong hurt at the deaths of his three close buddies. And that was a hurt which would never go away.

  “I could see the intensity in his eyes. And I understood that for now he was probably unreachable. The key thing was, we had him out of there, and at last he was safe. I just shook his hand warmly and said, ‘Welcome home, brother.’ ”

  Gulab never looked down through the window into the darkness as they flew over his village. He thought it might be the last time he ever saw it. Somewhere down there were his wife and family. Also, it was surrounded by vicious Taliban killers who’d vowed to kill them all.

  The experience of riding in a helicopter was new to him: the noise, the lurching action as they swerved through the mountains. Gulab understood that just above their heads was this massive rotor that somehow kept them high. But the thought of the thousand-foot drop below the aircraft floor was unnerving to him.

  And he quietly prayed for the mercy of Allah; that He would not allow the Taliban to hit the helicopter. However, he could hear bullets hitting the fuselage as they made their escape. He was not overconfident.

  Gulab was clinging to Marcus’s arm, sitting on the floor with the other big American—the one with the machine gun; the one who, a few minutes before, looked like he would shoot them both.

  There was a major celebration going on in the back of the helicopter, guys whooping and shouting at the triumphant rescue of Marcus. Gulab could tell, for the first time, Marcus was relaxed, back among his own people.

  It was quite strange, because he had no idea where they were going. He’d lost all sense of direction, although he did think they were headed south. It was a short ride, but, as ever, he and Marcus were never able to speak, and sign language was impossible in the helicopter. So Gulab didn’t know what was happening.

  About ten minutes into the journey, they started to descend to the small US air base, at Asadabad, some twenty miles from Sabray.

  They came in to land very calmly, with plenty of people awaiting the arrival despite it being the
middle of the night. Gulab had never been to the American base south of the city, not even when it was used by the Russian occupying forces in the 1980s. But he quickly understood where they were.

  Everyone disembarked, and a quick glance around at the distant hills and mountains confirmed it was Asadabad, the capital city of Kunar Province, way over in the east of the country, and only about eight miles from the Pakistan border, which runs through the Hindu Kush.

  In some ways, this is a rather sinister place: a longtime base for smugglers and for insurgents fleeing through the mountains back to Pakistan. It’s always been rumored this was the hub of American military intelligence, with a secret presence of officers and agents from the US Central Intelligence Agency.

  Almost immediately, a large fuel truck came up to refill the helicopter’s tanks, and Marcus was led over to a medical room where a doctor was awaiting his arrival. Despite his terrible wounds and accompanying pain, SEAL 228 insisted on walking. Gulab went with him, and while he waited outside the treatment room, they told him Marcus was flying on to the Bagram base, where he had come from originally.

  Gulab had no idea what would happen to him, except that he could not go home. Finally, Marcus came out of the doctor’s office and was led back toward the refueled helicopter. No one seemed to know whether Gulab was staying with him or not, but he was told firmly to stay right where he was, and Marcus got on board.

  Gulab could see him looking through the glass, and he ran toward him, waving and calling his name. But no one took any notice, and the helicopter took off slowly, leaving him behind. “It felt like a knife had gone through my heart,” he says. “For me, it was a separation like no other. My warrior brother, and I might never see him again.”

  Marcus had no idea this was going to happen. He heard the door slam, and he could see the faithful Gulab outside the cockpit, shouting at him.

  “I forced myself up and yelled at the pilot,” he says. “I yelled at anyone who might listen, that Gulab must not be left behind.

  “I understood the pilot could not hear me, and I was banging on the glass windshield of the helicopter ordering them to go back for the Afghani man who had put his life on the line for me more times than I could remember.

  “There was anguish on Gulab’s face. I was close to tears myself. But the US military had made up its mind: Mohammed Gulab was going nowhere. They were flying me to the medical unit in Bagram, and he was not coming with me.

  “It was one of the most heartrending moments of my life. And I thought about it over and over. We never even had time to say a reasonable good-bye; never even a moment for me to assure him I would take care of him.

  “It was devastating for both of us. I never saw Gulab again, for years. And I tortured myself over it. I never stopped thinking about it. How could I? How could anyone?”

  After they landed at the gigantic Afghanistan home base, Marcus was treated for his extensive injuries and partly debriefed. The military wanted as much immediate help as Marcus could offer on where to locate the bodies of Mikey, Axe, and Danny.

  None of that was very easy for any of the SEALs—that final realization that they were gone. There was also the added complication of the missing body of Matthew Gene Axelson. The search guys could not find him despite accurate GPS numbers from Marcus, which pointed out the exact place where the RPG hit and almost blew them both into oblivion.

  Marcus could see on the photographs the place where he had been blasted over the edge and into a hole. But there was, apparently, no sign of Axe.

  The helicopter rescue guys went back up there and recovered the remains of Mikey and Danny, who were still lying where they fell. And when the coffins were brought out for the final good-byes at Bagram, they all struggled through the Ceremony of the Ramp. “I never saw more tears on a SEAL base,” says Marcus.

  The Ramp is the sacred SEAL sacrament, conducted when everyone turns out to pay his last respects to a lost brother, filing through the giant Boeing aircraft, past the coffins draped in the American flag. In this case, past the bodies of two valorous SEALs, Mikey and Danny, the likes of whom Marcus Luttrell did not expect to see again.

  The navy chaplain conducting the short service at the top of the Boeing’s ramp, asked one final favor from God: to let perpetual light shine upon them. Marcus did not think He’d have any problem with that.

  But the problem of the missing Axe remained. And this was a mystery. SEALs never leave anyone alone. At the beginning, and all through BUD/S (basic underwater demotion/SEAL) training, they stay with their swim buddy. They always work as a team.

  Ever since President John F. Kennedy established in 1962 what he called a “small, elite maritime force for unconventional warfare,” they have sought never to leave a man on the battlefield. Alive or dead.

  SPECWARCOM, the national command center of the SEALs, was never going to leave Axe up there. If they had to send five helicopter rescue crews to that mountain every day for a hundred years, they’d do it. They were going to find him.

  It was extremely difficult for Marcus because he knew only the precise spot where they were blasted by the grenade. He survived, but he had not been shot five times, like Axe was. “It was inconceivable that he had escaped,” says Marcus. “And the Taliban do not habitually touch the bodies of infidels. They tend to empty their Kalashnikovs into their faces.”

  Marcus advocated going back to Sabray and consulting the Pashtun villagers. As he’d experienced, they knew everything that happened in those mountains.

  It was decided to contact Maluk, the village elder, who had walked the message about Marcus being alive to the US base. He was also the elder in two other villages, and the only way to find him was through Gulab.

  Marcus felt a sense of guilt at asking him for yet more favors, in light of the US military’s apparent heartlessness toward him.

  “But I knew the Americans were keeping a close guard on him,” he says, “and that they could find him, wherever he was. So once more, I backed the goodwill of Gulab, and once more he did not let us down.

  “I advised the military that he would lead them to Maluk. And I was certain the great mountain sage would lead our rescuers to the exact right spot.”

  Gulab doubts that any Pashtun field commander and mujahideen veteran has ever found himself in a position quite so awkward as his own during the hours after Marcus was lifted out.

  Within one day, he was requested to find Maluk, the village elder, and persuade him to walk with the SEAL team back to the scene of the June 28 battle for Murfeerij, as well as to accompany Maluk and do what he could to help locate the body of Marcus’s friend, Axe.

  Gulab felt they had been so dismissive of him at the Asadabad base, giving him no time even to say good-bye to the man whose life he had saved, he was tempted to tell them to find their own way.

  However, Gulab knew what the warrior Axe had meant to Marcus, and he understood how upset he was. And he understood the closeness of that family friendship, and that Marcus could not bear the thought of him being left dead on the mountainside, so very far from his home and family.

  So Gulab decided to comply. For Marcus. For no other reason. “I would find Maluk,” he said, “and return with him to the mountain where the battle had been fought and find Marcus’s friend.”

  In fact, Gulab had much more to do with that expedition to find Axe than anyone has ever known. For obvious reasons, he did not tell any local people, and in the absence of Marcus, he kept it all to himself. Maluk gathered a troop of his men around him, and Gulab did the same.

  They walked together from Sabray, each confident of success. There had been much talk of this on the little radios they all had in their homes, and everyone knew where Maluk was going.

  Axe had not been injured in the blast that hit him and Marcus. He had taken the impact head-on, and the violent air had blown him across the clearing, but he had not been hit by shrapnel and rock particles. He did, however, immediately become involved in a gunfight, although the
Taliban moved his body after he died.

  When Maluk led everyone to the correct place, they found that Axe had been buried, at least partially, and there was a rope tied to his foot by which they’d dragged him to his resting place on the mountain.

  It was a difficult search operation. Gulab kept trying to warn the Americans that it was likely the Taliban had buried a booby-trap bomb, either with Axe or near him, and they needed to be very careful. The Americans, however, had a highly sensitive electronic metal detector, and they got in quite close to gather the SEAL up in a body bag while the searchers and guides stayed well back.

  As with the others, the Taliban had mutilated his body, and the military had to use DNA to assist with full military positive identification.

  Axe had fought on to his dying breath. Like Danny. Like Mikey. When they found that third body, they didn’t really need DNA. Axe’s remains were written in blood, honor, and courage.

  “The body could have belonged to no one else except Matthew Gene Axelson,” says Marcus. “But I guess you had to know him personally to understand that fully. My brother Morgan, the toughest man I know, understands. He is unable to hear Axe’s name without quickly leaving the room. Even now, eight years later. It’s often that way with the bravest of men.”

  There was a huge sense of relief after they found him, despite all the sadness and all the regrets. A lot of SEALs would have found sleep almost impossible, just at the thought of their brother, up there in the dark, surrounded by hostiles, thousands of miles from home. By himself.

  - 8 -

  TREAD SOFTLY AS I LEAVE YOU

  It was a relief to Gulab when the last page of the Marcus saga finally ended, but he was now left not just to pick up the pieces but also to make serious moves to protect his family. The constant threats were not to be taken lightly. They were made by ruthless tribesmen who would stop at nothing to get revenge.

  They blamed Gulab squarely for saving the infidel, whom they believed should have been executed. And as a kind of extension, they also blamed him for the dozens of deaths they had suffered in battle. Of course, that had happened before Gulab ever laid eyes on Marcus, but a mere technicality like that did not affect Ahmad Shah and his cutthroats.