Footfalls resounded up the tunnel, and suddenly through the dust came a figure. I snatched up my rifle, took aim, and held my breath.
“Hold fire!” came a familiar voice. The figure tugged down his shemagh. Ramirez. He glanced over his shoulder. “Come on! We’ve linked up with the Captain!”
As the others rushed up behind him, Hume spotted Nolan lying at my side and rushed to him.
“Alex!”
“He’s gone,” I said evenly.
“Aw, no,” Hume cried. “No, no, no.”
For just a moment — perhaps only three seconds — we all stood there, frozen, staring down at Hume and Nolan, no sound, no movement, just the burning image of our fallen brother, and then—
“Ghost Lead, this is Treehorn, they got RPGs moving in on the Bradley. Permission to open fire!”
I shuddered back to reality. “Negative, hold fire! Do not give up your position.” I switched channels to speak to the Bradley commander. “Blue Six, this is Ghost Lead, over.”
I waited, called again, nothing. Couldn’t even warn the guy and his squad. The vehicle’s big machine gun was already drumming as several more booms struck and silenced it.
“They got the gunner!” shouted Treehorn. “They got the gunner! They’re swarming the Bradley. Swarming it now!”
Two more shells struck the mountain, and the ceiling began to crack right near my head.
“I’m taking him out of here,” said Hume, his eyes already burning.
“You got it,” I answered. “Treehorn? Get set! We’re coming out!”
TWENTY-ONE
Alex Nolan was a smart-aleck kid from the streets of Boston who’d become a senior medical sergeant with the Ghosts. He often looked like a geek, but when he opened his mouth, wow, he was all attitude fueled by an insatiable curiosity and great intellect. He was even a Mensa member. Still, there were times when he could throw a switch and be the most caring and sympathetic operator on our team. The last time we were in Afghanistan, I’d seen him spend hours with sick villagers. He’d always ask the same question: “Are your animals sick, too?” When you operated in third-world countries and people became ill, you could sometimes trace the problem back to their livestock.
With the letter to Matt Beasley’s family still fresh on my mind, I couldn’t believe I had to write another one. I wasn’t used to losing operators, especially two on a single mission.
We’d been all over the world, working on operations far more taxing than this one. And while they kept telling me this situation was complicated, on the surface it seemed much safer when compared to the operation I’d run in China, penetrating deep into the heart of the country to take out a cabal of rogue generals. Hell, we’d had a hundred chances to be captured or killed and had slipped past every one of them.
Now we’d been charged with nabbing one fat-ass terrorist, and I’d already lost two good men, some of the most valuable personnel in the U.S. Army. I was already feeling burned out, like a has-been operator who’d gotten his men killed.
With my own eyes burning, we rushed outside the tunnel and I ordered the guys to set off the charges. Thumbs went down on wireless detonators, and the multiple booms echoed, as though someone were kicking over a massive drum set that clattered and crashed off a giant stage. I could only hope our charges had swallowed some of the insurgents inside.
I led Alpha team along a rocky path that descended sharply to our left. Ramirez and his team would take the path to the right. I didn’t want us together in case the guys on this side of the mountains had mortars, too. And to be perfectly honest, it was convenient to have Ramirez away so I didn’t need to watch my back.
RPG fire arced like fleeing fireflies, and two cone-shaped denotations rose skyward as though the Taliban had ignited a massive bonfire to celebrate their victory over the infidels.
“All right, Treehorn, cut it loose!” I ordered.
The sniper’s gun boomed, and his rounds came down like God’s hammer, decisive, deadly, dismembering all in their path.
But the Taliban were quick to answer.
Gunfire cut a line so close to Hume that he tripped and fell forward with Nolan’s body draped over his back.
We rushed to help him back to his feet, and that was when muzzles flashed from the ridgeline about fifty meters above.
I raised my rifle as the red diamonds appeared in my HUD to help me lock onto the four targets.
The camera automatically zoomed in on one fighter raising a HERF gun toward me — and that was when my HUD went dead.
I might’ve cursed. Either way, the HERF blast was my cue to open fire, and Smith joined me. We drilled those bastards back toward the wall, while Hume got Nolan down onto the lower portion of the path. I wasn’t sure if we’d hit any of them, but we’d bought some time.
Smith ceased fire, tugged free a smoke grenade, then tossed it up there a second before we both double-timed after Hume.
Treehorn’s gun spoke again. And then again. He was the reaper. His words were thunder.
About twenty meters east of the now-burning Bradley, an insurgent lay on his belly, directing machine gun fire up near Treehorn, who returned fire, hitting the guy. The gun went silent — but only for a few seconds as that fighter was replaced by another, who quickly resumed showering Treehorn.
“Cover Hume. Get down the rocks and hold there,” I ordered Smith. He nodded and hustled off.
I jogged back up the path toward Treehorn’s perch much higher along the ridge.
He took one last shot, then bolted up and joined me. I waved him back along the path, and then… off to my left, about twenty meters up… a curious sight: another tunnel entrance. It must’ve been covered up by the Taliban because the rocks nearby appeared freshly shaken free by the mortars and our C-4 charges.
As we came under a vicious wave of gunfire that seemed certain to hit us, I rushed up toward the tunnel and practically threw myself inside.
Treehorn was a second behind me, breathless, cursing, literally foaming at the mouth with exertion.
AK-47 and machine gun fire stitched along the entrance, daring us to sneak back out and return fire. That was one dare I would not take. The machine gunner seemed to be chiseling his initials on the rock face.
I got on the regular radio, found it dead, and realized that maybe this time the HERF gun had managed to fry it, too. But then I also noticed the microphone had taken a hit. I was one lucky man — very close call. That bullet would’ve caught my side, perhaps even penetrated my spine.
Treehorn directed his light to the tunnel behind us. “Whoa…”
His surprise was not unwarranted.
The uneven intestine of rock swept outward and curved slowly down. It appeared to go much longer and deeper than any of the others we’d seen, and I was suddenly torn between venturing down to see where it went and making a break back outside to link up with the others. The machine gun fire had just died off. The second rally point would be just past the Bradley’s position, along an old dried-up riverbed. Everyone knew it. I assumed Ramirez would be taking Bravo team there.
But I’d left Smith to look after Hume, who was carrying Nolan on his back, and those guys would need help.
“What do you want to do, Captain?”
I pulled out a brick of C-4 from my pack. “Man, we need to see where this goes, but we can’t do it right now. Let’s seal it up behind us and get back outside.”
“Wait a second. Listen,” he said.
Faint cries echoed up toward us.
I pricked up my ears again. “Sounds like… a kid…”
“I know. What the hell?”
I remembered the girl we’d found during our first night raid. And though I couldn’t bear the thought of more children being tortured, we had to leave.