Isn’t someone from my team going to come back and help me?
He ran through the broom bushes that had scratched him before, but now he didn’t feel their thorns. He recognized the dirt road they’d crossed before—a couple more klicks to the vehicles. He hurried across the road, but twenty-five meters to the north, a black-hooded figure walked toward him carrying an AK. So close to government troops, Chris could only guess the Black Hood was with the anti-government forces, possibly al Qaeda. Black Hood noticed Chris and pulled up his rifle to take aim. Chris fired the first shot, rushing it. He missed, but Black Hood lowered his weapon and ran away.
Must’ve scared him off.
Two more Black Hoods reared their heads and blasted in Chris’s direction. Chris reined in his runaway breathing and heartbeat. He took an extra moment to aim at the right hood before squeezing the trigger. Pop. The man twitched once before thudding to the earth. The other Black Hood switched to full auto and sprayed his AK at Chris. Amid the terrifying noise, Chris’s left thigh was hit. Caught off balance, he fell. I’m shot! He shot me in the leg! The enemy was down, too, but he wasn’t dead. Chris would be dead if he didn’t do something soon. Ignoring the excruciating pain in his leg, he brought his pistol up and skipped the easier upper torso shot in favor of a more difficult shot — head. Pop. Black Hood ate dirt. His body went into what looked like an epileptic seizure before becoming still. Pain-filled panic punched through him.
As Chris turned to take a look at his own injury, he spotted an odd assortment of electronics on the ground. He checked his thigh for blood but only discovered electronics spilling out of it. For a moment, he felt like a wounded cyborg until he realized that the AK round had struck the cell phone in his thigh pocket. Some pieces of phone were sticking out of his leg, but the phone had deflected the bullet. Luckiest man in the world—or so he thought, until the woods rustled to the north with more Black Hoods, and the woods to the south chattered with advancing Syrian soldiers.
Chris crawled between the white flowering myrtle bushes. One piece of phone was particularly painful, and he pulled it out so he could move without being stabbed by it. The sounds of angry men intensified. He glanced to the south where six soldiers broke through the forest. Men’s voices chattered from the north — seven more Black Hoods. He had become an ass sandwich.
For the first time in years, he was afraid — an emotion he’d known intimately. It was okay to be afraid, that was human, but it wasn’t okay to let the fear take control of him; he had to control the fear.
Breathe. Respiration was one of the most basic elements to human functioning, and through it, he controlled the fear. He formed his lips into a tight circle to direct the flow of oxygen straight to his lungs and slowly inhaled as much air as his lungs could hold. Then he slowly released it all. He breathed with the rhythm of swimming long distance; it was his rhythm. With each breath, his pulse rate slowed and his body temperature became normal. Although he’d controlled the fear, he was no match for the superior enemy forces still closing in. Then he remembered his training as a minister at Harvard and the mentorship of Reverend Luther. He remembered God. And he prayed.
The bushes wouldn’t protect him from bullets, but they might conceal him from enemy eyes. Shots were fired from the south, then the west. Chris’s heart picked up speed again as the firepower increased in volume and intensity. He suddenly realized they weren’t shooting at him. The soldiers and Black Hoods are shooting at each other!
He crawled through the bushes until he reached the long grass and wildflowers. If I can just make it to the SUV, I’ll have mobility. And the HK416’s salvo.
Chris moved forward and winced. One of the pieces of electronics worked its way out of his leg, but another seemed to be digging in deeper. Sweat stung his eyes, and tree roots and rocks bruised his knees. He pulled the last bloody piece of cell phone out of his leg before he finally neared the SUV. His spirits rose — until he realized he wasn’t the only one who’d reached it. He fell flat as three Syrian soldiers approached the vehicle on foot.
His muscles tensed, and he tasted the salt of his sweat. Can I take them? Armed only with a pistol, it would be risky. Maybe I should wait them out. But more soldiers were likely to arrive soon. If they search the area, I’m done for. It would be better to fight them when there were only three than when there was a whole platoon. Now I have surprise on my side — later, I may not. He quietly ejected the partially spent magazine from his Glock and replaced it with a full magazine — fifteen rounds. He aimed at the head of the soldier nearing the SUV. Chris exhaled, waiting for his lungs to expel all the air, waiting for the motionless pause of his upper body before inhaling. As he neared the right moment, his finger slowly drew the slack out of the trigger. In his peripheral vision, he saw the soldier reach for the SUV door handle. Chris’s lungs had deflated. He squeezed the trigger, trying not to anticipate the loud report, trying to let the shot surprise him.
BOOM!
The suddenness of the explosion jolted even Chris. It took out the Syrian soldier and his buddies, and a hunk of metal whizzed by, nicking Chris’s shoulder. The heat burned hot enough to nearly singe his eye-lashes, and the earth shook. What happened? He glanced at the sky for an aircraft that could’ve fired a missile — nothing. Suicide bomber? It was a possibility. But the timing… The soldier had been just about to unlatch the door…
Victor. Chris’s surprise turned to the urge to shoot Victor for trying to kill him. But he wasn’t sure Victor was the culprit, and killing him in anger would be akin to murder — especially for a minister.
Now that the explosion had been heard for miles around, there was no need to be quiet. Chris rose to his feet and quickly limped past the smoking twisted metal and dismembered bodies. Half of a soldier, stinking of burned flesh, hung suspended from a tree. It was disgusting to look at but mesmerizingly morbid at the same time. He forced his head to turn away out of respect for the dead soldier.
The blood rushed to his head, and his nostrils flared as he descended the mountain.
That explosion was meant for Hannah and me.
11
Chris activated the compass of his Pathfinder watch. He briefly pressed the light button while cupping the watch face with his hand to limit the amount of light that escaped. He wanted to bandage his wound, but he wanted to put distance between himself and the enemy forces behind him.
For several hours, he persevered down the mountain. He hoped Hannah and Jim Bob were okay, but he couldn’t muster the same hope for Victor.
A wave of weariness swept over him. As a child prisoner, his body had become weak, and his time in the Teams had torn him down frequently, but he’d forgotten all that. He’d forgotten what it was like to be exhausted in his bones. Since leaving the Navy, he’d kept himself fit, but now he felt physically unprepared for the rigors of combat. Even so, he knew the power of his mind, and he willed himself to press on.
Finally, he made it to the bottom of the mountain. A sting in his thigh reminded him of his wound. He found some cover behind a thick tree, leaned against it, and examined his wound. There wasn’t a lot of blood, but he had a Moby Dick-sized bruise that was swollen and tender, so he bandaged his leg with a simple first aid packet from his pocket.