The Secret Gate: A True Story of Courage and Sacrifice During the Collapse of Afghanistan by Mitchell Zuckoff

Author:Mitchell Zuckoff [Zuckoff, Mitchell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, World, Middle Eastern, Biography & Autobiography, Cultural; Ethnic & Regional, Arab & Middle Eastern, Geopolitics
ISBN: 9780593594841
Google: dSSFEAAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0593594843
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2023-04-25T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

—

When Ebad tossed Sam his spare cellphone, he said his younger brother was waiting nearby. Sam decided Ebad’s brother would be their new test case.

Sam texted Ebad from his personal phone, with a deadline: “Call me directly. If he’s here in the next ten minutes, I can snatch him, or send me your brother’s phone number immediately. I have a ten-minute window to make this happen.”

With Asad translating, Sam spoke with Ebad’s teenage brother and pinpointed his location near the Panjshir Pump. Sam asked him to text a photo of himself as confirmation and to help Asad identify him. When the photo arrived, Sam thought the young man with a trimmed mustache and beard looked older than seventeen. Sam hesitated, then decided to trust Ebad as an embassy employee. The security contractor protecting Sam didn’t care one way or another, as long as Sam didn’t personally go into Tajikan Road to snatch anyone.

Sam gave Ebad’s brother a code word Asad suggested: “devils.” Asad chose the password because he thought it sounded like something from a movie. Sam told Ebad’s brother to say it without calling attention to himself when approached at the gas station by a young Afghan man in body armor.

Before Asad left his side, Sam explained the plan to Omar, the surly American overseer of Glory Gate. Either Omar was bored of standing around, or Sam’s initiative impressed him enough to set aside his macho indifference.

On Omar’s signal, the Afghan paramilitary guards who roamed Tajikan Road created a distraction by firing their weapons over the heads of pedestrians. At a break in traffic, Asad sprinted from the service road entrance into Tajikan Road. He cut through an opening in a median strip, crossed to the far side, and wove through the anxious crowd east toward the gas station.

A lone, unarmed man in American body armor on Tajikan Road could become an easy target for thugs or opportunists, or for Taliban or ISIS-K fighters. That would be doubly true for an American, but even a native Afghan like Asad needed to stay alert. Asad moved fast enough to be efficient but not so fast as to draw unwanted attention. He also had an emergency plan in mind.

Days earlier, Asad saw Zero Unit guards being fired on by an unknown sniper at North Gate, an incident that left one Afghan soldier dead. Based on that attack and his two years of battlefield experience among the U.S. Special Forces, Asad assumed the Afghan paramilitary guards would be the primary targets if the Taliban or ISIS-K showed up near Glory Gate and started shooting. Asad resolved to run toward any Zero Unit guard who was killed or wounded, take his weapon, find hard cover, and shoot back until he could retreat.

Asad’s motivation was straightforward. Risking his life for Ebad’s brother might eventually enable him to do the same for his sister’s family. “I’m going to do whatever it takes to help them,” Asad told himself. “If there is a chance I’m going to take it.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.