Grogan fired a grenade at the boat less than fifty yards away. It exploded a second later, turning the boat into a fiery mess. Two surviving soldiers, one covered in burning fuel, tried to escape into the water, but Hamilton mercilessly shot them both down.
Seeing the boat burst into flames gave Kristen a renewed sense of hope. The helicopter had fled and the boat was gone, too. Once more she dared to hope the worst was behind them, and they might actually make it. But then Grogan spun and went down in the surf, grimacing in pain. Kristen saw him go down and leapt into the surf to help him, her diving equipment still not completely on. “Chief!” she shouted to be heard over the din. She grabbed him and saw blood pouring freely from a wound on his upper arm in the shoulder area.
“Leave me dammit, get your gear on and get out!” Grogan ordered. She ducked her head down instinctively as more bullets swept over the rocks. Grogan, despite his wound, shoved a fresh magazine into his weapon. Kristen, without conscious thought, found a battle dressing in her first aid kit and tore it open. Grogan aimed in on the men coming from the road as Kristen slapped the battle dressing over his bleeding arm and began tying it off.
Hamilton reappeared, firing his own M4 carbine. He’d swum back to within a few feet of her and Grogan. His machine gun was gone, and Kristen assumed he’d run out of ammunition for it so discarded it in the surf.
“How bad’s Alvarez?” Grogan demanded as he donned his gear while Kristen tried to get a battle dressing on his shoulder.
“He’s gone,” Hamilton replied with a surprisingly calm voice. Kristen couldn’t help but wonder what it was about this man who could stay so calm in the middle of the maelstrom.
Grogan ejected another magazine and reloaded as chunks of rock tore through the air around them. The hailstorm of bullets seemed to be increasing as more trucks appeared on the road. Kristen cinched down the battle dressing tight, and Grogan pushed her back into the small horseshoe-shaped crevice where she resumed pulling her gear on.
The two SEALs were burning through their magazines despite their short controlled bursts. Kristen finished getting her gear on, feeling something sting her cheek followed by something like a bee sting hit her arm. But, before she could check herself, Grogan grabbed her unceremoniously, and pulled her into the water behind him. Hamilton was reloading as she crouched down next to him.
“Covering fire!” Grogan snapped as he laid out in the narrow horseshoe depression and finished pulling on his gear.
“What?” Kristen asked.
“Covering fire!” Hamilton roared as he crouched down after emptying another magazine and reloaded.
Oh, shit! Oh, shit! Oh, shit!
Kristen fumbled with the rifle at her side. She lifted the weapon and pointed it in the general direction of the road and pulled the trigger. But nothing happened. She jerked the trigger again, and still nothing happened. She ducked down, her mind going numb with fear. The weapon was foreign in her hands. But then she remembered the selector lever and flipped it from safe to automatic.
She then came up, no longer hearing the crack and pop of bullets all around her, nor noticing the rocks shattering from multiple impacts just a few feet from her. She pointed the carbine back toward the road, not even looking through the sights, and pulled the trigger. The kick of the small weapon wasn’t as bad as she’d feared it might be. But, in what felt like less than a second, the weapon was empty.
She ducked down as bullets cracked by all around them. But the rocky beach they were hiding behind continued to provide them excellent cover. Hamilton, now beside her, pushed her down further. “Reload,” he told her in a voice that was unnervingly calm. “And next time you fire, try keeping your eyes open.”
“How far are they, Trip?” Grogan shouted as he worked on his gear.
“Thirty meters!” Hamilton replied as Kristen felt the sting of more rock fragments hit her. She was still fumbling with her gear and trying to get a magazine out, but her hands felt as useless as fence posts.
Then she saw Grogan grab a firing detonator for the first claymore mine he’d set up in front of them. “Fire in the hole!” he shouted.
“What?” Kristen managed to ask before Hamilton thrust her underwater. Kristen hadn’t expected the sudden immersion and swallowed a mouthful of seawater as the first claymore mine erupted, spitting out seven hundred buckshot size pellets into the mass of Korean security troops swarming toward them.
Kristen came back up, choking and gagging. Off to the left, a North Korean machine gun raked their position as the burning remains of the patrol boat drifted by behind them. Grogan was still donning his gear and motioned toward the water. “Move out, Trip,” he ordered and reached for his weapon as he finished donning his gear.
Hamilton grabbed her and pulled her through the surf as she scrambled to roll over and move on her own. “I can handle it,” she told him as he dragged her into deeper water, where they found Alvarez’s lifeless body floating face up. Part of his face was gone. “What do we do with him?” she asked in the chaos.
“He’s dead!” Hamilton replied. “Keep moving.” It was cold. It was heartless. But it was the practical math of combat. There was nothing they could do for their dead comrade, and if they didn’t get away soon, they would all be joining him.
Hoover was still firing his own weapon and trying to protect Choi. They reached the Korean who was in waist-deep water. Kristen began explaining to him what was going to happen as she positioned his full face mask in place. Hoover pulled his mask on, then raised his rifle and resumed firing at multiple targets.
Flares illuminated them, and Kristen crouched down in the water, holding the doctor down. She saw bullets hitting the water around them as Grogan came off the rocks and headed for deeper water while Hoover covered him. Hamilton was firing his weapon, and Kristen found her own rifle in her left hand and a full magazine in her right.
“Oh, shit! Oh, shit! Oh, shit!”
Kristen was barely conscious of her movements as she rammed the magazine into the weapon and chambered a round. Then, before she could fire her weapon, Grogan disappeared into the surf. Hamilton moved forward immediately, apparently oblivious to tracer rounds zipping past him or thinking he was somehow impervious to them.
Kristen thought he was insane, but at the same time she was mentally questioning Hamilton’s sanity, she found herself moving forward to help Grogan as well. Everything around her seemed to be happening in slow motion. She could see the Korean soldiers with their determined faces illuminated by their muzzle flashes barely thirty yards away. Water was kicking up from bullet impacts all around her. Over her head she could hear tracer rounds snapping by like fireflies.
It was surreal.
Kristen fired her weapon in the general direction of the North Koreans as she fought her way through the waist deep water back to Grogan who was down, but still moving, waving for them to keep moving. “Go! Go! Go!” the Chief tried to shout, but Kristen saw the blood on his lips.
She reached him as Hamilton pulled the wounded SEAL back under cover. Hamilton immediately resumed firing. Kristen didn’t see any fresh wounds in Grogan, but in the darkness and confusion, she wasn’t certain of anything anymore.
“Go,” he whispered, as more blood appeared at his mouth and poured out onto his cheek.
“Where are you hit?” she demanded, thinking about her rudimentary first aid training.