Pepper had instinctively lowered his rifle and raised his hand.
Struck by a pang of utter helplessness that rendered him like a buck in the headlights, Pepper only had time to gasp and blink — the better part of two seconds –
As the round flashed across the cemetery and hit the minaret, just below the balcony.
He was in denial, he knew, telling himself that the shell had detonated much farther below than it really had, that he was going to be okay now, that the stone floor would not give way beneath his feet –
Until it did.
And he plunged some five meters down on to the crumbling staircase, along with hundreds of pieces of plaster and stone, his boots hitting hard, knees flexing a second before he fell on to his rump, looked up, saw another shower of stone superimposed against a field of stars plunging straight toward him. He rolled on to his side, covering his face with arms, as the rest of the wall began to collapse, shards of rock striking like roundhouses and right hooks into his arms, legs and chest, the minaret still shaking, the dust hissing, another section of wall breaking loose –
And burying him alive.
Ross had held back at the van with Naseem, while 30K had made the demo run, Kozak had engaged in some close quarters recon while providing drone intel, and Pepper had served as sniper and overwatch. They’d parked the van between the mosque and the cemetery, beneath a cluster of trees opposite the main parking lot –
So when that minaret had been struck by mortar fire, Ross knew instantly that Pepper was in trouble.
He screamed in vain over the radio, but Pepper did not reply. ‘30K? Kozak? Rally back on the mosque.’
Naseem threw the van in gear, whirled around, and raced through the parking lot, arriving just outside the minaret, where the dust was still rising from piles of stone that had fallen from the shattered tower and now blocked the main door.
Ross was out of the van before Naseem hit the brakes. He bounded up on to the shards of concrete and carefully picked his way across them, climbing down the other side to reach the wooden door whose knob and lock had been smashed off.
Seizing the door, Ross shoved hard, but it would only open a few inches, shit. It was blocked from the inside by more stone.
Ross cupped his hands around his mouth, pressed his face into the gap between the wall and the door, and cried, ‘Pepper, you hear me? Pepper?’
The voice was faint, distant … but there. ‘I hear you, boss. I can’t move.’
‘Hang on, bro! We’re coming to get you!’ Ross stepped back then threw himself against the door. The son of a bitch still wouldn’t budge.
‘You got any more charges?’ asked Naseem, reaching the top of the stone pile.
‘No, but if I use a grenade, those dismounts will be here in a few seconds.’
Just then Kozak and 30K came charging up. Kozak immediately consulted the drone’s remote while 30K struggled for breath and managed, ‘Dismounts still coming. Don’t think they saw us. Not sure. In the cemetery now.’
‘Pepper’s trapped inside,’ said Ross. ‘Can’t get the door open.’
‘Let me try,’ said 30K, leaning over to pick his way across the mound of rock.
‘It’s blocked from the inside.’
‘Sir?’ called Kozak. ‘Just got word. Those dismounts are Republican Guard.’
‘Then let me talk to them,’ said Naseem. ‘I’ll stall them while you try to free your man.’
‘All right, do it,’ said Ross as 30K hopped down beside him, then gave the door a tentative shove. Like Ross, he stepped back and drove his shoulder into the door, groaning loudly, the effort to no avail.
‘Screw it, we gotta blow it,’ he said.
‘No,’ said Ross. ‘Too loud, and the explosion could shift the rubble and make it worse.’
30K stepped back and glanced up at the minaret, estimating that there were some ten meters to the jagged hole where the mortar had detonated. ‘Maybe we can rig up a hook and some paracord — but if he’s hurt, we gotta get him out through this door.’
‘Gotta be another way in. Maybe through the mosque,’ said Ross.
‘How ’bout you search for that while I rig up a cord?’ 30K suggested.
Ross turned to Kozak. ‘Keep the drone close. Cover us. And I want to know what Naseem is doing.’
‘You got it, Captain.’
Ross teetered across the pile of rubble, then jogged around the minaret toward the main mosque.
It might have been a selfish thought, and his hands trembled in frustration over it, but of the three men in his charge, Ross liked Pepper the best. Sure, that was almost like a father favoring one child over the rest, but he and Pepper had been on the same page from the get-go, and Pepper already had some admiration for Navy SEALs. They were about the same age, same generation, and Pepper was far more patient than the others. They just clicked.
Damn it, Ross would save this man. Or he would die trying.
They were up to their knees in the clear, warm water of Squaw Creek Reservoir, the Texas sun hanging low on the horizon, their shadows long across the riprap lining the shore.
They were exactly as he’d remembered them, dressed in full combat gear and wearing the fatal wounds that had ended their lives — Joe Joe, Tommy, Louis, Big Dan, Howie, Franklin and Radiator. Seven friends who’d all been there with him, bass fishing and beer tasting, brothers in arms enjoying some R & R before they had to leave the world and head back into the shit. And they were calling Pepper home now –
Or at least he was imagining they were, lying there, buried under the rock, feeling sorry for himself, half pissed off and half embarrassed, each breath a little harder than the last, his relationship with God suddenly a little keener, his guilt over being a half-assed Christian sending a shudder up his spine. This was definitely not the way to go, although being killed by a mortar blast sounded infinitely more heroic than being done in by a pizza-induced heart attack.
He’d purchased a small tract of land near the reservoir and had planned to build a retirement cabin there. He’d shown his buddies his dream lot, and they had agreed that this was the life. Or the death, in their case now. They’d taken over his little retirement getaway for some permanent R & R in the afterlife, and the bastards weren’t even paying rent. Now they wanted Pepper to join them. Time for the landlord to come home.
He shifted his right ankle. He could move that. He fought against the pressure on his left arm, and it budged. Well, shit, he was a long way from death, one hundred thousand miles at least, especially if he got the old ticker tuned up. Time to quit feeling sorry for himself.
‘Pepper?’ came 30K’s distant, hollow-sounding voice. ‘I’m coming up to get you, old man. Thirty seconds.’
Pepper closed his eyes and began muttering the lyrics from his favorite Hank Williams, Jr, song, ‘Long Gone Lonesome Blues,’ and by the time he reached the end, he heard two voices much closer now: Ross and 30K.
He was almost home free, and that was good because the pressure on his ribs was unbearable now, his breath growing shorter by the second.
‘Roger that, Kozak,’ said Ross. ‘We’re almost there — and yeah, I know we’re out of time …’
‘Pepper, can you hear me?’ called Kozak.
‘Yeah,’ he said, barely recognizing his own voice. ‘I’m here. Over here.’
‘Captain, I see him,’ called 30K. ‘He’s right down there.’
The whomping of the helicopter came on much too suddenly, and by the time Pepper sensed that 30K was near, the drumming of rotors made the rock vibrate, the wash seeping in through the cracks to blast dust into his eyes.