Part 4 (2/2)
The Chinook started falling down the cliff. It hit the ground about 150 feet down and exploded, and then it kept on rolling, clearing all the trees in its path. It finally stopped 150 feet farther down and ignited into a huge fireball.
”Holy s.h.i.+t,” said the pilot of one of the Apaches. ”The Chinook is down.”
At PZ Reds, the troops started yelling into the valley below: ”If you can hear us, we're coming to get you!”
There were secondary explosions as the fire found ammunition and fuel in the belly of the bird.
Sears, Pilozzi, and others from 3-71 Cav began sliding down into the valley. The fire was throwing off so much light that their night-vision goggles were rendered useless.
They could smell flesh burning.
At the Jalalabad operations center, Berkoff had been monitoring mIRC chat, the military's version of Instant Messenger, transmitted over secured networks. In a special Operation Mountain Lion chat room, the words suddenly popped up: ”Chinook Down PZ Reds.”
The message came from the logistics base Timmons had set up at the mouth of the Chowkay. At first Berkoff thought it meant that Fenty's chopper had landed safely on PZ Reds. But then he saw a second message: ”Chinook Down, Chinook Down. Near PZ Reds.” A third one made it clearer still what had happened to the helicopter: ”Crashed near PZ Reds.”
Berkoff got up and rushed out toward the joint operations center in an adjacent room. Before he even entered, from the hallway, he heard Brooks's familiar, high-pitched southern Virginia drawl, delivering garbled status reports over the radio.
”Give us a BDA”-a battle-damage a.s.sessment-”of the crash site,” Major Timmons asked Brooks.
”It's bad,” came the reply. ”There's no way we can even get near the wreckage. It's just too hot down there.”
Other staff officers started weighing in: Did Brooks want a pair of rescue jumpers to look for survivors? Could he use a C-130 plane with a giant spotlight to help in the search? There were other offers made, too, to fight the enemy, since back at Jalalabad they thought the chopper might have been shot down, though Brooks and those who'd been there knew that wasn't the case.
Byers grabbed a radio transmitter. ”Hey, Barbarian-Six,” he said, using Brooks's radio call sign, ”I need you to tell me, no s.h.i.+t here, could anybody have survived?”
Everyone paused.
”No,” Brooks said. ”There's no way anyone could have survived.”
The whole room, filled with some thirty staff officers, fell silent. Everyone knew that Brooks was probably right. No one made eye contact with anyone else. Many officers looked down at the floor.
A few minutes later, Timmons and Berkoff went out into the hallway to get some air and compose themselves.
The brigade chaplain approached them, extending his arms and offering condolences. Berkoff wasn't ready to believe they were all gone. He ran outside to a dark corner of the airfield, dropped to his knees, and wept.
Berkoff thought about one of his last conversations with Fenty. Two days before, he had seen him at Jalalabad, just returning from the field. Fenty had looked spent; his hair was long, he reeked, and a gray film covered his uniform-the result of four straight weeks' worth of perspiration and Afghan dust. Regardless, upon seeing Berkoff, Fenty had immediately wanted to know about the Jewish chaplain he had arranged to bring to Jalalabad for Pa.s.sover. ”Ross, did you ever see that rabbi that I sent here for seder?” he asked. Even with everything that must have been going on in his head-the mission, his month-old baby girl, the killing of some ANA soldiers a few days earlier in an IED attack on a 3-71 Cav convoy-Fenty never missed a chance to inquire about one of his soldiers.
Now Berkoff got angry. He cursed G.o.d.
What the f.u.c.k, is this some sort of sick joke? he thought. The man just had his first baby only four weeks ago, and he's never even met her.
Never would.
CHAPTER 6
Maybe That's Just the Wind Blowing the Door
The wreckage of the helicopter, spread all over the side of an eight-thousand-foot-high mountain, was still smoldering the next morning, when Colonel Nicholson and other members of the brigade and squadron leaders.h.i.+p arrived.
Thermal imaging had measured the temperature of the crash site at more than 5,400 degrees Fahrenheit.
Nicholson looked at his men, tirelessly combing over the hillside. They were filthy from weeks of combat and hours of rooting around in the residue of a burnt Chinook, covered with dirt and ash and the stink of aviation fuel, their eyes bloodshot, the black grime on their faces carved with streaks of sweat and tears.
It took hours before all ten body bags were laid out on the side of the hill, holding the remains of Joe Fenty, Brian Moquin, Jr., Justin O'Donohoe, and David Timmons, Jr., from 3-71 Cav, and Eric Totten, Christopher Donaldson, Christopher Howick, Bryan Brewster, John Griffith, and Jeffery Wiekamp from Task Force Centaur.
”Which one is Joe?” Nicholson asked.
Someone pointed to his friend. Nicholson put his hand on Fenty's body, prayed, and cried.
From a nearby mountaintop, Timmons phoned his wife, Gretchen, on his Iridium satellite phone. He was choking up. Nicholson had given him permission to violate protocol and tell Gretchen about Joe Fenty's death in order to get her to Kristen Fenty's side as soon as possible. Military spouses were required to fill out ”Family Readiness Group” forms on which they listed their closest friends. Gretchen Timmons, Andrea Bushey, and Christina Cavoli-the wife of the 1-32 Infantry commander-were Kristen's contacts.
”We've had a terrible accident,” Timmons informed his wife, through tears. ”Joe's dead.” He told her that he needed her to be strong. He needed her help.
Gretchen was staying with their two small children at Timmons's parents' house in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania; they had just returned from Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. It was the middle of the night.
Timmons told his wife that she needed get back home to Fort Drum as soon as possible. She had to be there for Kristen.
Early the next morning, Gretchen jumped into her car with her kids and her mother-in-law and drove the five hours to Fort Drum. After dropping off her family at home, she headed over to the Fentys'. She was shaking as she rang the doorbell.
Kristen answered the door cheerily, holding her month-old baby girl, Lauren. She was surprised to see Gretchen there; she knew she was supposed to be helping her in-laws with a yard sale in Pennsylvania, and then going to a wedding.
”What's up?” Kristen asked, friendly, happy.
Gretchen was stunned: Kristen didn't know.
”Um... I don't know, hey,” Gretchen fumbled.
They were close friends, so Gretchen made up an excuse about needing to have some time away from her family after their vacation, and the two women spent the rest of the day together. Kristen was putting together care packages for her husband, placing toiletries, snacks, and some athletic gear-elbow pads and jockstraps-in boxes that would never reach their intended recipient.
Gretchen seemed distracted. She wouldn't look Kristen in the eye. She picked up a pen and doodled on a notepad. At one point, Gretchen herself began to wonder if that conversation with her husband the night before had really happened or if she had just dreamt it.
They took care of the baby, talked about their families, and drank some wine. No one came to the door to tell Kristen what Gretchen couldn't tell her, the information that it would be a violation of military protocol for her to share with her friend.
They watched cable news. A helicopter had gone down in Afghanistan, and all ten soldiers aboard had been killed. A U.S. military spokesman said that the crash had not been the result of an enemy attack. Gretchen kept her mouth shut.
Kristen began to suspect something. She called the rear-detachment commander, Captain Al Goetz, to find out more about the helicopter crash. Goetz's wife answered; she seemed hesitant to talk, but Kristen still wouldn't let herself make the leap.
Around midnight, Gretchen left Kristen's house, drove home, and woke up her mother-in-law. ”She still doesn't know,” she told her.
Gretchen Timmons got up early the next morning-before seven-and went over to Kristen's again. Kristen was in her pajamas, holding Lauren, when she answered the door. She still didn't know.
”Hey! How're you doing? I got biscotti, but I don't have any coffee,” Gretchen explained.
For Kristen, that didn't add up: Gretchen never forgot anything. And while having coffee with a friend before seven wasn't that unusual for military wives, Gretchen always. .h.i.t the gym first thing in the morning. But again Kristen pushed her suspicions away, figuring her friend was nervous about the news of the crash. She let her in; a pot was already brewing.
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