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

And I knew they would not consider that because such a slaughter would surely
end all support from these tribal villages up here in the mountains.
No, they would not do that. They wanted me, but they would never kill
another hundred Afghan people, including women and children, in order to get
me. The Taliban and their al Qaeda cohorts were mercilessly cruel, but this Ben
Sharmak was not stupid.
Besides, I detected no battlefield rhythm to the gunfire. It was not being
conducted with the short, sharp bursts of trained men going for a target. It came
in prolonged volleys, and I listened carefully. There was no obvious return of
fire, and right then I knew what was happening.
These lunatics had come rolling out of the trees into the village, firing
randomly into the air and aiming at nothing, the way they often do, all jumping
up and down and shouting, “Death to the infidel.” Stupid pricks.
Their loose objective is always to frighten the life out of people, and right
now they seemed to be succeeding. I could hear women screaming, children
crying, but no return of fire from the tribesmen of Sabray. I knew precisely what
that would sound like, and I was not hearing it.
I looked at Gulab. He was braced for action, leaning in the window with me,
one eye on the front door. We both clicked our safety catches open.
Up above we could still hear the screaming, but the gunfire subsided. Little
sonsabitches were probably beating up the kids. Which might have inspired me
to get right back up there and take on the whole jihadist army single-handed, but
I held back, held my fire, and waited.
We waited for maybe forty-five minutes and then it was quiet. As if they had
never been here. That unseen village calm had returned, there was no sense of
panic or sign of injured people. I left it to Gulab to call this one. “Taliban gone,”
he said simply.
“What happens now?” I asked him. “Bagram?”
Gulab shook his head. “Bagram,” he said. Then he signaled for the
umpteenth time, “Helicopter will come.”
I rolled my eyes heavenward. I’d heard this helicopter crap before. And I had
news for Gulab. “Helicopter no come,” I told him.
“Helicopter come,” he replied.
As ever, I could not really know what Gulab knew or how he had discovered
what was happening. But right now he believed the Taliban had gone into the
house where I had been staying and found I was missing. No one had betrayed
me, and they had not dared to conduct a house-to-house search for fear of further