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  For the Corps

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I started Spirit Mission in 1992 as a second lieutenant in flight school while still digesting my West Point experience. Twenty years later, David Weinstein was the first to read it. He became my first editor, meeting often at a coffee shop to discuss the manuscript.

  I could not have written this book without the help of numerous West Pointers, military veterans, friends, and family: Jeff Weber, Jim Isenhower, Brad Paulsen, Jen Ruiz, Jeff Jack, Doug McCormick, Tom Barnett, Pete Gaudet, Andy Ulrich, Kevin Virgil, Mike Coachys, Dan Ruiz, Matt Smith, John Daniel, Terry Cope, Tim Pierson, Charles Darnell, Kirby Andrews, Jack Kinsler, Jon Henry, Don Thurman, Shawn Botteril, Jason Gettig, Yvette Daniel, Tommy Arnold, Zack Harmon, Greg Horn, Elizabeth Hardaway, Robert Hardaway, Richie Sheridan, Billy Satterwhite, Blake Ray, Mike Russ, and Jean Russ.

  Several others helped me think through some of the tactical aspects of the story. I’m not going to name them. They’re still in Special Operations, where discretion matters.

  Spirit Mission found its way to publication because of Susu and George Johnson. They believed in the manuscript and got it into the hands of Ed Victor, the one man Delta Force of literary agents. I’ll always be grateful.

  Michael Signorelli, my editor at Henry Holt, helped to polish Spirit Mission into a finished and professional novel. I can’t imagine a better partner for an author.

  Finally, and mostly, I am grateful for my wife, Anna, who not only served as a terrific beta reader, but also provided a supportive environment for creativity while dealing with the mood swings of a fledgling author. You’re the best, baby. I love you.

  ONE

  0034 HOURS, 2 AUGUST 2015

  I banked the helicopter slightly to the right to adjust for the crosswind. It was stiffer than forecast, and our ground track was skewing south. As we skimmed above the desert at 120 knots, I checked the navigation display. Forty-three minutes to the landing zone. The terrain-following radar showed nothing significant for as far as it could see. The vacant expanse of northwestern Iraq rose gently in front of us for almost 160 kilometers. The forward-looking infrared imagery was the same, showing only occasional terrified sheepherders in an otherwise empty desert sandscape. There is nothing like a war machine the size of an MH-47G sneaking up and flying over you at less than a hundred feet.

  I looked at the clock: 0035 hours. I hoped we would get there in time.

  “Pete, can you take her for a while?” I asked.

  “Roger that,” Pete said from the left seat. “I have the controls. Heading three one zero, one hundred and twenty knots, one hundred feet.”

  “You have the controls.”

  I leaned back in my seat and tried to relax my lower back. More than twenty years of flying, marching, sleeping on cots, and a couple of hard landings had wrecked it. But it was a different pain that clouded my brain tonight.

  This would be my last flight in a Chinook, my last flight as an army aviator. There was no doubt about that. We were going to be shot down or court-martialed. I flipped my night-vision goggles up and rubbed my eyes.

  I felt the tweak of impending loss worse than before my divorce. The feeling of being past the point of no return, headed directly and irrevocably toward the permanent absence of something good.

  I loved flying Chinooks, but not in the one-dimensional way of a pilot. I loved it in the sick, over-the-top way that special operations army aviators do. Army pilots are not like air force pilots, flying missions and then tossing the keys to the crew chief and taking a golf cart to the O Club. Army pilots live on their airframes, positioned as far forward as possible with the units they support in the desert, jungle, mountains, or wherever they need to be. That has meant a lot of nasty places over the past fourteen years of war.

  Chinooks steal your heart in a way that other army airframes can’t. I had thousands of hours flying them, mostly at night, but I probably had ten times that living in them, eating in them, sleeping in them, shitting in them, planning and briefing missions in them. I knew the inside of a Chinook better than any house I’d lived in. I knew her contours, shapes, hard and soft spots more intimately than I knew my ex-wife’s. I knew the Chinook’s systems in detail and understood how they collaborate to keep two engines turning five transmissions driving two rotor hubs spinning six rotor blades that intermesh like an egg beater. It is a complex and elegant design from the 1950s that somehow yields the best stick-and-rudder flying I have ever experienced. I have told people that their great-great-great-grandchildren will ride to battle in a Zulu model Chinook. And I believe it.

  The special operations variant we flew westward was highly modified. It could penetrate the weather and follow the terrain with its onboard radar. It could see in the dark with its FLIR pod. It could refuel in the air behind a C-130. It carried two 7.62 miniguns and two 7.62 M240s. The digital mission-management system and max gross weight of fifty-four thousand pounds made it Special Operations Command’s long-range insertion/extraction platform of choice. In Afghanistan it was just about the only machine that could carry enough guys and supplies high enough into the mountains to take the fight to the Taliban.

  But as cool as the Golf model Chinook is on its own, its best qualities are the customers it serves: Rangers, SEALs, Delta, and the others, the best warriors the country has to send.

  And this was the last time I would be on board one. I would miss the hell out of it, but I was okay with that, because after fourteen years of war without victory, this was the best mission I’d ever go on, the purest I’d ever fly, and the most illegal. That night my Chinook truly was a divine wind, a platform of salvation with a dozen trained killers in back speeding at over 135 miles an hour across the desert, weapons at the ready, seeking our friend. I wished every mission could have been like this one, like I had imagined they would be when I was a cadet.

  The radio interrupted my thoughts.

  “Bulldog 71, this is Thunder 06. If you’re hearing this transmission, I’m ordering you to return to base immediately.”

  “He sounds pissed,” said Zack, leaning into the cockpit.

  “Yep. He is.” I leaned forward and turned off the UHF radio. We had needed it during the earlier mission, but now I didn’t want to deal with the enraged voice of the task force commander, Rear Admiral Brick. He was a good guy, and I was not looking forward to the next time I’d see him. I would do so gladly if we were able to return successfully, though at this point I didn’t want the distraction.

  We flew in silence for a few minutes. Silence is a relative term in a Chinook, of course. Sitting under the forward transmission and rotor hub puts you in a cone of noise that sounds like a fight between a freight train and a hurricane. Gears rotate madly only a couple feet from your head, and thousands of pounds of hydraulic pressure articulate the entire flight-control system a couple feet behind you. Without a flight helmet and noise-canceling earplugs, your ears would probably
dissolve.

  The satcom radio crackled. “Bulldog, this is Elvis.”

  “Go ahead, Elvis.”

  “Sitrep follows. Single individual left the target house. He walked a couple of blocks south, got in a vehicle, and departed north. We kept eyes on as long as possible. He just left our field of view.”

  “Roger, Elvis.”

  “I hope he’s not going to get any friends,” I said to Zack.

  “Me, too. How far out are we?”

  “About forty minutes.”

  “Relax, Sam,” said Zack, putting his hand on my shoulder. “This is going to be a piece of cake.” As always, his cavalier attitude drove me crazy. I shrugged his hand off.

  “You’ve got a strange definition of ‘cake.’”

  “You are still such a pussy.”

  Zack shook his head and looked at Pete, saying, “Chief, I can’t believe you guys let him call himself a Night Stalker.” He unhooked his headset and went aft.

  “I thought you said you guys were friends,” Pete commented.

  “We are.”

  “You guys are weird.”

  “You have no idea.”

  The word “friends” didn’t cover it; we had endured West Point together. We were Beast roommates together, were tested for four years together, and, though we were not the best cadets to ever wear dress gray, we graduated together. And then we went to serve. We followed different paths as officers. He, infantry. Me, aviation. But the arcs of our service intersected again that night, long after graduation and far away from where it started. Giving us the opportunity for a common end point: to complete our final spirit mission together. And, like our last spirit mission as cadets, we knew that if we somehow succeeded, people were going to talk about this one for a long time.

  TWO

  JUNE 1987

  West Point is fastened to a mountain that has nudged the Hudson River from her desired course for millions of years. Because of its location on the west bank of the Hudson almost sixty miles north of New York City, it played a critical role during the Revolutionary War. It has since become the longest continuously occupied military post in the United States and the home of the United States Military Academy.

  America never wanted a military academy. So recently unfettered from England, she was afraid of a military elite. But finding herself in possession of a foreboding and vast natural wealth, America needed sons who could build railroads, dam rivers, oversee the construction of her cities, and win her occasional wars. There was so much resistance to the idea of a standing military academy that even George Washington could not get it done. Washington’s first secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson, opposed the idea. Yet it was he, as the third U.S. president, who, in 1802, finally signed the law that created West Point. It was the reluctant act of a nation that felt it needed engineers so badly it would tolerate professional warriors.

  On the last day of June 1987, our train punched its way out of Manhattan and rolled up the east bank of the Hudson toward fortress West Point. It might as well have been carrying me to the moon. Every railroad tie that fell behind us was a small measure of the extent to which I was leaving what little I knew.

  As is the case for the vast majority of my generation of Americans, the last person in my family to serve in the military was my grandfather, in World War II. He never talked about it. Growing up in the suburbs of Charlotte, North Carolina, afforded me zero interaction with the military. I didn’t know a single person in uniform as I came of age in the shiny, happy eighties.

  The truth was, I was bored. Uninspired. The prospect of college dismayed me; it all looked the same: insipid paths to a bland life in the merchant class. Of no service. Without consequence. I thought of myself as tough, honest, and good. In short, I deemed myself worthy of a quest; I thought I deserved it. When I learned about West Point during the rising martial tide and national spirit of Reagan’s tenure, my imagination was captured. My fate was sealed. It was the only college I applied to.

  So the train carried me north toward one of the nodes of American history, a place that had forged men who had cast long shadows. I was going to offer myself up to that forge. I would do whatever they told me to do; I wanted only to measure up, to be accepted, and to make it.

  The next day, my parents and I and thousands of other people gathered at the sports complex. Once we were all seated inside the immense basketball arena, a senior cadet stepped up to the microphone in the center of the court.

  “Good morning, parents and candidates,” he began. “In a few moments we will begin the in-processing for the candidates and orientation for the parents. The day will conclude with the swearing-in ceremony on the Plain. At this time, please take a moment to say your good-byes.” He stepped away from the microphone. Everyone in the stands looked around for a minute before we realized that he was serious.

  Soon hundreds of weeping mothers and fathers clung to their embarrassed sons and daughters. I stood up, grabbed my duffel bag, and turned to give my mom a hug. She was crying but managing not to sob. I shook my dad’s hand and walked away.

  We filed out of the stands and toward a door on the other side of the gym. Our parents remained behind. Standing next to the door, waving us through, was another senior cadet. I was struck by his magnificent appearance. His form-fitting uniform was set off by numerous silver and brass insignias. A straight silver saber hung at his side. I could not take my eyes off it as I walked by. Noticing my gaze, he stepped forward to cut me off. He leaned down next to my ear and said softly, “Take your beady eyes off my saber and keep them fixed to your front. You don’t want me to smoke you in front of Mommy and Daddy, do you?” I must have looked ridiculous as I stammered and continued out through the doorway.

  “Head and eyes to the front! Welcome to Cadet Basic Training, cadet candidates!” shouted a first classman who had been waiting on the other side. “Pick a spot on the back of the head in front of you and bore a hole in it with your eyes!” We filed out of the huge sports complex into a large parking lot, where streams of confused candidates were directed by shouting first classmen into small groups and herded onto buses.

  After a short, angst-ridden trip down the mountain, the bus stopped and we poured out like a litter of scared puppies, into a large rectangular area bounded by sinister, gray stone buildings on all sides. They looked like old castles. A drum team pounded out a marching cadence from the center of the area.

  “Move out!”

  They marched us quickly into a tunnel and then down a dark hallway into what looked like a big locker room. “Males this way. Females that way!” directed a cadre member. Soon there were about fifty of us in a room with several tables against the wall. On the tables were neatly folded stacks of dark socks, shorts, and athletic shirts. “At this time you will file through the clothing station and receive a gym alpha uniform. You will also be given a duffel bag. You will change into the gym alpha uniform and place your civilian clothes in the duffel bag.”

  There was a flurry of activity. The uniform was a ridiculous combination of black shorts, white T-shirt, and knee-high dress socks with black leather shoes. We each had a large tag hanging from our waistband. The uniforms heightened my feeling of threatened self-consciousness. I felt silly next to the regal-looking cadre members.

  “Move, move, move!” boomed the cadre. We snaked quickly through a few short hallways and rejoined the main tunnel. The drums grew louder as the tunnel got lighter. We flew up a short flight of steps and burst into the daylight.

  The drums were loud and had an eerie potency. The concussions rebounded off the towering gray stone walls that surrounded us.

  Suddenly we stood shoulder to shoulder as the cadre divided our long column into rows of ten stacked one in front of another. We faced the center of the large area, our backs to the barracks.

  A giant cadet stood in front of us. Unlike the other upperclassmen, he wore a large red sash around his waist. Next to him on a tripod stand stood a status board.

&nb
sp; “Don’t move a muscle!” yelled an upperclassman stalking back and forth behind us. “Backs straight, head and eyes to the front, hands cupped and held behind the seam of your pants! This is called the position of attention. For the next year, if you are not in your barracks room or some other place in which you are authorized to fall out, you will be at the position of attention … unless, of course, you are pinging, which is to move at a minimum of one hundred and twenty steps per minute, arms locked, head and eyes always to the front. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Another cadet walked up to our formation. “At this time you will report to the cadet in the red sash and will be given instructions on what to do next. You will follow his instructions precisely.” The cadet looked us over as he walked down our file.

  I was the right-most cadet candidate in my row and first up. “Cadet candidate, step up to my line,” the cadet in the red sash growled.

  He was a massive, intimidating figure. The black brim of his white hat covered his eyes. His block nose and square jaw angled down at me from atop broad and muscular shoulders.

  When I moved toward the line he shouted, “Eyes off the ground! You will keep your head and eyes to the front. You will not gaze around at the ground, or the sky, or anywhere else. Try again!”

  I tried again. This time I kept my eyes focused straight ahead in the direction of the cadet in the red sash. I walked up to him and saluted. “Sir, Cadet Candidate—”

  “Stop!” he yelled. “Look down at your feet, cadet candidate.”

  I looked at my feet. One of them rested on the tape line.

  “I said step up to my line, not step on my line or short of my line or next to my line. Do you understand, cadet candidate?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Try it again.”

  After a few more iterations of this process, the summer sun and my own panic had drenched me in sweat, but I was standing in front of the cadet in the red sash, having finally placed my feet in an acceptable spot. He was tall, and my eyes were on about the same level as his chin. I was able to read his name tag: Wilcox.