Lone Survivor_ The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 ( PDFDrive )

I’d travel a whole lot farther on the zigzag course I’d have to make up the
mountain.
I began my climb, out there in the dark, by moving directly upward. I
jammed my rifle into my belt so I had two hands to grip, but before I’d made the
first twenty feet going slightly right, I slipped badly, which was a very scary
experience. The gradient was almost sheer, straight down to the valley floor.
In my condition I probably would not have survived the fall, and I somehow
saved myself from falling any more than about ten feet. Then I picked it up
again, clawing my way up, facing the mountain and grabbing hold of anything I
could with a grip like a mechanical digger. You’d have needed a chain saw to pry
me off that cliff face. All I knew was, if I fell, I’d probably plummet several
hundred feet to my death. Which was good for the concentration.
So I kept going, climbing mostly sideways, grabbing rocks, vines, or
branches, anything for a grip. Every now and then I’d dislodge something or
snap a branch that would not bear my weight. And I guess I must have made
more noise than the Taliban army has ever made in mountain maneuvers.
I’d been going for a couple of hours when I sensed I heard something behind
me. I say sensed because when you are operating in absolute darkness, with no
sight at all, everything else is heightened, all of your senses, particularly sound
and smell. Not to mention the sixth one, same one a goat or an antelope or a
zebra has, the one that warns vulnerable grazing animals of the presence of a
predator.
Now, I wasn’t that vulnerable. And I sure as hell wasn’t grazing. But right
then I was in Predator Central. Those cutthroat tribal bastards were all over my
case and, for all I knew, closing in on me.
I lay flat, stock-still on the mountain. And then I heard it again, the distinct
snap of a twig or a branch. I estimated it was maybe two hundred yards behind
me. Right then my hearing was at some kind of a peak in this ultraquiet high
country. I could have picked up the soft fart of a billy goat a mile away.
Then I heard it once more. Not the billy goat, the twig. And I knew for
absolute certain I was being followed. Fuck! There was still no moon, and I
could still see nothing. But that would not be true of the Taliban. They’d been
stealing equipment from the Russians, and then the Americans, for years.
Everything they had was stolen, except for what bin Laden had purchased for
them. And their supplies certainly included a few pairs of NVGs. The Russians
were, after all, pioneers of that particular piece of battle gear, and we knew the
mujahideen had stolen everything from them when the Soviet army finally