by AH Trimble
PART ONE — THE PLAN
– Chapter 3 –
The War That Followed Him Home
2001–2026 | Sam & Vince: Afghanistan, loss, and disillusionment
It was 2009. The night was pitch black, cold was an understatement. Sam was in good shape and easily kept up with the Rangers around him. With his military service, the Rangers accepted him with little reservation. One sergeant in particular took a liking to him and helped him to fit in. Wenner was a good man.
The group of Rangers arrived near a home in the Helmand Province that was nicer than most and well guarded. They held up about an hour before sunrise. Their OPORD was clear…do not approach and begin the operation until sunrise.
Their target was Haji Farid Rahmani, head of a narcotics-trafficking organization with connections extending into Pakistan and beyond. He also reportedly maintained Pakistani connections and operated across the Afghan-Pakistani border, including through Quetta, Pakistan. He was considered a high-value target by any definition.
Dawn was just breaking and the men had been given a five-minute warning to move. The radioman was giving their SITREP to his counterpart at Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force–Afghanistan. Abruptly he was interrupted with a “break – break – break stand-by for FRAGO.” Surprised he motioned for his commanding officer to come to the radio ASAP. First Lieutenant Jason Hansen was not thrilled about being summoned by an RTO. But Specialist Paige was good at his job and a man to be trusted.
Sergeant First Class Wenner stepped up to cover for his Lt at the same time two small beat-up pickup trucks came roaring up to the compound, two men in each, all appeared to be locals. Well armed locals.
Before Lt. Hansen could stop him Sergeant Wenner had the men moving as planned. They were under strict ROE orders to hold fire unless fired upon. Wenner and Hansen both hated those kinds of ROEs…they tended to get men killed.
The Fragmentary Order informed Hansen that US operators would arrive on scene and take charge of the situation. They would be identified by two older-looking pickup trucks with red paint on each door and wearing brown local headdress called a Lungi. They were not to engage the target, his forces, or the men aforementioned.
It was too late.
Sergeant Wenner was leading the frontal assault squad heading directly at the compound’s main gate…M4s up, safeties off, trigger fingers indexed. Hansen started shouting into his radio on the Platoon Net “abort – abort – abort and withdraw!” His well-disciplined men responded immediately and withdrew keeping their eyes set on the compound and fingers close to their triggers.
Fifteen minutes later Lt Hansen and Sgt. Wenner were speaking with a man who only identified himself as Vince. Sam, being the tenacious reporter he was, had invited himself into the conversation. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant one. Hansen wasn’t happy to be pulled off a mission at the last second. Wenner disliked all of these “special operators”…also known as CIA goon squads. Known quietly in some circles as “death squads.” These four were no doubt goons.
No one paid Sam any attention at all, he was a persona non grata to all of them. They shouldn’t have ignored him.
While the heated exchange was taking place in very tense terms, Sam noticed one of the four operators hand a medium-sized aluminum case to Rahmani’s second in command. He opened it. In the dim morning light Sam could just make out the tightly bundled hundred-dollar bills that filled the case.
Vince noticed.
Four minutes later the tense inter-agency conversation was over. Male appendages had been measured. The Rangers had come up lacking. The men turned to leave.
Sam never realized anything until he was slammed up against the metal entrance gate. The man called Vince was staring him directly in the eyes in a way Sam had never felt before. And “felt” was the only word Sam could use later when describing it. Sam knew he was in danger…quite possibly mortal danger.
And then it dawned on him…he had seen this man before…the eyes told it all. Vince, in a low whispering growl told him, “Meet me in Kandahar next week.”
Vince released his grip and turned to leave but heard Sam ask, “Where?”
Without even looking back over his shoulder or even a slowing of his pace, Vince replied, “You’re the hotshot reporter, you figure it out.”
Wenner’s firm grip on Sam’s shoulder gave him no option other than to be pulled along beside the sergeant as he walked back to the squad that had taken up a security posture waiting for further orders.
* * *
The next week found Sam in Kandahar after three hops in Blackhawk helicopters. Twice with badly wounded soldiers. The third was a mail run. But he got to Kandahar. Then the real work started.
It took Sam four days of hard investigative work to find out which base and then which compound on the base housed these men. Well, four days, two bottles of bourbon, and an “interview” with a desk jockey…an interview that would never see any print anywhere. But the egotistical butter-bar lieutenant didn’t know that.
At the ominous gate of a compound that looked more like a field prison it took Sam almost ten minutes of deep pleading and begging. The guard, a man in blue jeans, baseball cap, and an M4 that looked like it had been through five years of war without being cleaned, wasn’t hearing it at all. About the time Sam was ready to give up another man, almost a carbon copy of the guard, came out of a hut-looking building made out of plywood.
“Follow me,” was all that he said.
Another man in civilian clothes, obviously the boss, informed Sam that no one by that name worked or lived there. No one there knew anyone by that name. And he would be escorted back to the gate and not to return…ever.
As the gate guard was opening the gate for Sam, without even looking up, he whispered, “Safi Guesthouse cafe, this afternoon 1400 hours.”
Sam had learned well. Without any acknowledgment other than an almost imperceptible nod, Sam walked away.
* * *
The cafe was small, pretty dingy but well-shaded, and remote, well off the beaten path. Sam had been there an hour sipping sweet Afghan tea entirely by himself. Finally an old Afghan came in and handed him a beat-up newspaper with an address in faded ink.
Sam memorized the address, spilled the rest of his tea on the newspaper and watched the address fade away.
A ten-minute cab ride and Sam was standing in front of a small newspaper and smoke shop in a run-down part of Kandahar. He was more than just a little worried about this sketchy area. He remembered that he had seen a case full of money change hands between a known drug lord and who he assumed were CIA ground unit members. He wondered if all the rumors about the CIA death squads would be proved true today.
He never saw the bag coming or the man who threw it over his head. He was brutally pushed through a doorway and into a chair. Zip ties around his wrists and elbows binding him to the chair. The Zip ties at his elbows told him he was dealing with a professional. Sam was in deep trouble.
When the hood was removed the man he knew as Vince stood before him, “I know you and you recognized me. That is not a healthy thing for either of us. Now I ask questions and you give me answers. If I don’t like the answers, your body is never found. But my friend, the pain will be a lasting memory till your lights go out. Okay? Let’s start…”
Two hours later Vince and Sam shook hands. A very strange ending to a meeting that had a terrifying beginning. They weren’t friends; each saw the other as useful. They would work together on a single task.
Vince had decided to retire after this deployment that was up in two weeks. His body was still functional although somewhat damaged. But Vince knew it was his mind that was the most damaged and his soul was almost dead. He had to leave, he had to retire. He had to. But “retiring” was uncertain in this line of work. The CIA was well-known to be picky about who retired on a government pension and whose survivors received a death benefit check. He was still questioning which would be his.
Sam had agreed to write and get the story published. Vince had agreed to provide the information that he could without incriminating himself or his teammates. Vince wasn’t worried about legal problems…he was worried about his superiors not enjoying the spotlight of their operations in Afghanistan.
Vince had seen the photographs. He’d read the field reports. He knew the names of two CIA operatives who had arranged for adolescent Bacha Boys to be delivered to Afghan commanders in exchange for intelligence and cooperation. Worse, he’d confronted his station chief about it and been ordered to forget what he’d seen. Later he learned that CIA contractors had taken over those kinds of activities.
PBS FRONTLINE would release The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan in 2010 partially due to information that Vince had supplied. But the world would still do nothing to stop it…and the CIA would never be held accountable.
Vince had enough…his soul could take no more. Vince was one of the few in the CIA who could even claim he had a soul, little of it left as it was. The others simply couldn’t care less. The CIA was never known for morals or souls…cold-blooded, remorseless killers would be a better fit. Odd that much of America saw them as heroes of sorts. What a sick nation. What a great propaganda machine.
Book Chapters –
© 2026 A.H. Trimble. All Rights Reserved.
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WORK OF FICTION
This is a work of fiction. Although it draws on actual historical events and refers to real people, organizations, and places, the characters, conversations, motives, and covert activities depicted in the story are fictionalized or invented for dramatic purposes. They should not be understood as factual allegations about any real person or organization.
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