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"Three minutes," said the SAS guy. "Two minutes...30 seconds." Everyone crouched once more against the wall. Again a glistening white arrow screamed down, again the split-second blackout. "One more," said the SAS man.
MONDAY The American and British teams stayed in position overnight. Fighting was constant, red tracers shooting off into Mazar city. Sometime after dark, Dave and the journalists escaped over the north wall. "He just climbed over and hitched a ride into town," a special-operations soldier later explained. "The first thing we have to do now is get our other guy out."
By Monday morning the Alliance had established a new command post at the northeast tower on top of what an American commander described as "10 tons of munitions, rockets, mortars, the works." A tank was driven onto the tower. From his seat on the garrison roof, commander Mohammed Akbar guided mortar and tank fire to Taliban positions in the southwest. "Excellent--right on the nose!" he shouted, as bullets from Taliban snipers whizzed just over his head. Then came the next mistake.
Around 10 a.m. four more special-operations soldiers and eight men from the 10th Mountain Division arrived at a position about 300 yds. outside the fort to the northeast. Inside the fort, bomb spotters were preparing three more strikes. A pilot circled overhead, radioing instructions to the spotters, his voice clearly audible on handsets held by the soldiers posted outside the fort. "Be advised," he said to the soldiers in the fort, "you are dangerously close. You are about a hundred yards away from the target." "I think we're perhaps a little too close," came the spotter's reply. "But we have to be, to get the laser on the target." Pause. Bomb spotter: "We are about ready to pull back." Pilot: "We are about to release." Spotter: "Roger." Spotter: "Be advised we have new coordinates: north 3639996, east 06658866." Pilot: "Good. Copy." Spotter: "Mitch and Siberson are making their run now." Spotter again: "Two minutes."
At 10:53 a.m. the missile slammed into the north wall, perhaps 10 yds. from the Alliance's command center in the northeast tower. Much more powerful than previous strikes, it sent clouds of dust hundreds of feet into the air. "No, no!" Alliance commander Olim Razum yelled at the 10th Mountain soldiers. "This is the wrong place! Tell them to cut it!" A special-operations man glanced up at the cloud and shouted, "Incoming shrapnel--get down!" As the dust cloud cleared, a U-shaped hole the size of a small swimming pool appeared in the wall next to the northeast tower. The tank had flipped onto its back, its gun turret blown off. Alliance soldiers, bleeding, coated in dust, began sliding down the side of the fort and staggering across the surrounding cotton fields. "It missed," said a soldier named Afiz, blood dripping from his eyes and ears. "I don't know where my friends are." From under the fort's entrance arch, SAS and American soldiers emerged choking and spitting. "We have one down, semiconscious, no external bleeding," a radio crackled. "We have men down," a special-operations soldier told TIME. "Get out of here. Please."