As he catalogued everything, he said, “We’ll keep an eye out for Suarez. Your comms work?”
“What fucking comms? I lost everything except for my pistol.”
“What’d we hit?”
“The fuck if I know. Don’t think it was a mine, because I didn’t hear an explosion.”
“Me neither.” Crocker unfolded the blankets. “Let’s get these around Sam and Dawkins. Then we’ve got to ditch the wreckage and find a place to hide.”
“Sure, boss.”
“We drifted northwest. Looks like the Koreans are searching south.”
“I believe we’re on the southeastern tip of the Hamgyong Peninsula. Maybe half a mile from Ung-do,” added Akil.
“You’re the navigator.” At the bottom of the pack Crocker located an Emerson GPS distress marker, which was the size of an iPhone and usually worn in a holder on the operator’s wrist.
“Good. We’ve got a distress marker. The batteries seem weak, but it works. Probably should wait a night or two to use it. Find a place where the guys from the Carl Vinson can land. Once we got that sorted out, we’ll signal them and catch a ride out of here. Meanwhile, let’s keep looking for Suarez, Naylor, and Hutchins.”
“You make it sound easy, boss. You sure you’re okay?”
“Fuck, yeah.”
Dense shivers ran up Crocker’s legs and arms as he and Akil carried Sam on the heavy plastic-and-Styrofoam panel. Akil, who appeared to be in the best shape of the four, led the way, with Dawkins stumbling beside them, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, mumbling to himself. Crocker suspected that he and Dawkins were both suffering from stage two hypothermia.
But he couldn’t worry about that now, or the numbness in his toes, or the pain throughout his body. They were moving inland to find a place to rest and build a fire pit, heal, and regroup. Even as he was drifting in and out of awareness, he managed to place one foot in front of the other down a slight incline, albeit slower than he would have liked.
Something rustled to his right, and he saw a flash of silver and fluorescent orange. Thought he might be having a stroke, then realized it was Dawkins rolling in the Kevlar blanket until he hit the base of a tree and stopped. Crocker had lowered the makeshift stretcher to the ground and was bending over Dawkins and offering him a hand up before he realized what he was doing. Through the dim light he saw dirt and leaves matted on Dawkins’s hair and face. His eyes shone, but his voice was shredded with exhaustion.
He said, “Leave me. I’ll die here. Thank you for what you did. It was…good.” This came out in one continuous stream, as though he was expending his last bit of energy.
Crocker wasn’t about to accept it. “No. Not happening.”
“No, no, it’s okay. I’ll die here…Just get a message to my wife.”
“Get the fuck up!”
Crocker pulled him to his feet, stood him up, leaned him against a tree, and peeled the wet leaves off his face.
Dawkins shuddered and started to weep. He said, “I told you…I can’t do this.”
“You have no idea what you’re capable of, Dawkins. No fucking idea. We’re going to get through this together.”
“No…”
“Hold on to my hand.”
The warmth felt good. Crocker was sitting before a fire. Holly handed him a cup of tomato soup with big brown croutons floating in it. He leaned forward to sip it, and stumbled. He quickly caught himself before he let go of the makeshift stretcher.
“Boss!”
He thought he saw Cyndi lying on it, naked, a red hibiscus blossom behind her ear.
“Boss, this okay?”
He saw Akil looking back at him, his eyes bigger and darker than usual. They were standing in a little oval clearing in a dense stand of trees.
“Boss, you all right?”
“Yeah. Yeah, this is good. Thanks.”
He let go of Dawkins and lowered the stretcher to the ground, then stood there trying to think what to do next.
“Lie next to Sam,” he said to Dawkins. “Wrap the blankets around yourselves. I’m gonna build a fire.”
A massive shiver ran from Crocker’s feet all the way to his head, snapping his teeth together.
“I’m gonna start collecting wood,” he said to Akil. “I want you to surveil the area. See if there’s anyone in the vicinity.”
“I’m going to look for a hotel with a pool. Take a swim, then catch a movie.”
“You’re funny.”
“What’s the plan? Stay here tonight and look for an exfil site in the a.m.?”
Crocker was finding it hard to think that far ahead. “Something like that…”
Next thing he remembered, he was searching through the pack for the med kit and locating a thermometer, which he placed in Dawkins’s mouth. The little LED screen read 93.5 degrees Fahrenheit.
“I feel sick,” Dawkins moaned, his skin pale and lips still blue.
“Stay under the blankets. I’ll get you warmed up.”
Definitely stage two hypothermia, he said to himself.
Chapter Twenty
Some of you young men think that war is all glamour and glory, but let me tell you, boys, it is all hell.
– General William T. Sherman
He was on his hands and knees, using the lid of the PRS kit to dig a hole about a foot away from a modest-sized tree, which would help to disperse the smoke. A gust of wind blew up his back and he shivered. Akil sat six feet away, gently rubbing blood into Dawkins’s arm. He saw Crocker staring at him and stopped.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You hear something, boss?”
“No. Did you?”
He couldn’t remember what he had determined about their present location, but he thought it must have been acceptable, because they were still there, and he was digging.
He’d constructed so many Dakota fire pits that he could make one in his sleep, which was essentially what he was doing now. He saw Jenny at two and a half, standing in a wading pool in the backyard holding her arms out to him. He tossed a beach ball, which sailed between her outstretched arms and bounced off her nose.
He started laughing.
“What’s so funny, boss?” Akil asked.
“I was remembering something.”
He blinked and looked down, and was surprised as how much progress he’d made. The main hole was about fourteen inches deep and eight inches wide. He’d already completed a narrower outlet hole at a slight angle on the windward side that intersected with the bottom of the pit. This would provide the fire with oxygen and keep it burning. Now all he had to do was fill the pit with the kindling he’d gathered and light it.
Which he did now, using the ferrocerium rod and rubbing his knife into it at a thirty-degree angle. The spark produced by the metal lit one of the open packets of treated cotton tinder. He tossed it into the pit and covered it with kindling, then set progressively larger sticks over the little flames.
They grew larger. The hotter the fire got, the more oxygen it sucked into the tunnel.
“You can laugh to yourself all you want, as long as you get shit done,” Akil remarked.
“Thanks, douchebag.”
Together they carried Sam closer and huddled around the fire. Akil cleaned the metal PRS kit holder in a nearby stream and filled it with fresh water. Crocker heated it over the fire, poured some into the lid, and passed it to Dawkins, who sipped some, then passed it to Sam.
“You’re a fucking genius,” Akil said as he refilled the lid and passed it to Crocker.
The water warmed Crocker’s insides. “No, I’m a frogman.”
“Same thing, only different.”