Woo Tang never ventured anywhere without his signature airs of poise, confidence, and strength of being. The former SEAL bore the tenacity of an enraged badger lying in wait even on his worst days, but something was now off about him, too. It was as if both he and Fred knew something terrible was taking shape that hadn’t before.
“Did the blast impair your hearing?” Woo Tang asked Lauren, adding some boost to his voice.
She nodded to him, preparing to verbally respond until Fred chimed in.
“With any luck, it’s temporary.” His impatience on display, Fred beheld Evans, who had a stethoscope pressed to Neo’s bare chest. “Use your words, Private. We got places to be. There’s an entire valley of folks who need checked up on. Is he stable enough to move him?”
Evans wiped sweat from his brow. “I don’t know about stable. His breathing is steady, but his pulse…it’s weak at best.”
Fred rolled his eyes. “Meaning…”
“Meaning he is likely going into shock,” Woo Tang declared.
“Shit. I’ll secure a transport,” Fred said firmly. “Give me two mikes. Private, with me. I could use your assist.”
“On my way,” Evans acknowledged.
Fred turned away in a gallop, pointing back to the group as he ran. “The rest of you should spread yourselves out…makes for a less favorable target.”
Francis looked strangely at him, then his wife. “What’d he say?”
Jean merely shrugged, as if she hadn’t heard or wasn’t paying attention.
Private Evans unfolded a space blanket and went about covering Neo’s frame, tucking the edges beneath him. “Keep him as warm and comfortable as you can. It’s all we can do.” He rose, meeting Lauren’s stare before leaving to catch up with Fred. “Nice job, by the way. He’ll likely pull through this. You did good.”
Lauren forced a bleak grin. “Not as good as he did.”
Chapter 26
Will Sharp was jarred awake by a manifold of burning sensations all over his body. Crying out in pain, he put both hands before him to the well-worn asphalt and shoved his body into a seated position, now able to perceive the sources of his agony. Shards of hot metal and bits and pieces of molten plastic debris had showered him and were sticking to him now, practically head to toe.
Will jumped to his feet and frantically fanned his hands about, brushing off and knocking away as many of the superheated objects as he could, those made of metal giving off mild clangs and clatters as they tumbled to his boots.
Dizzy and incredibly disoriented, he tried remembering what had taken place that had put him here, as he looked all over, around and behind him. His ACUs were covered in a scattering of burn holes and molten fibers. The smell of smoke, brimstone, and spent propellant engulfed the air. Moving in a circular path, he soon found his rifle in the grass several feet away and his ruck not far beyond. After gathering both, he spent a while looking for his portable radio, grasping the imperative need to report this incident to the unit’s local operations net. After a time of doing so and not seeing anyone else up and wandering around, he veered away to investigate the scene and search for survivors, all the while appealing to a God to whom he’d seldom prayed that he wasn’t alone.
The old automobiles parked bumper to bumper to serve as the valley’s northern barricade had been reduced to nothing. A sizable segment of the bridge platform was missing, the surrounding jagged concrete and rebar charred and blackened by whatever frenetic turpitude had unleashed its fury and converted the two antique autos into randomly distributed molten heaps of scrap.
Up until the explosion, Will had been standing yards away from the bridge’s edge, chatting over the day’s search efforts with four of his unit colleagues: Jurgensen, Henry, Thompson and Fischer, all privates, all fellow light infantrymen. But there were no signs of them now. Something had detonated here, yielding enough power to take out the improvised blockade and send all of them elsewhere. Had it been an IED of some variety? Had an enemy of those living in the valley placed it here deliberately?
As his mind raced across possibilities, Will trudged through traces of rubble and, before long, came across the remains of a body. Though as malformed and mutilated as it was, it could have been as many as two bodies. He got low and tried to identify the fallen while fighting the urge to vomit, but it was no use. Will lurched over, and his stomach let loose with a clumpy foulness too insufferable to describe. Dropping his pack to the ground, he freed his canteen, rinsed out his mouth, and discarded the polluted, lukewarm liquid onto the pavement. Then, with the morning’s misfortune weighing heavily on his mind and his frustration festering into outrage, Will rose to resume searching, this time on full alert with his M4’s stock pulled tightly to his cheek.
Catching sight of something smoldering just ahead on the road’s edge, Will went to it, finding the remnants of a laced-up boot. A closer look established that it was still affixed to a leg, one that looked to have been shredded from a fellow serviceman’s outer pelvis consequential to the blast.
Feeling his stomach convulse again, Will turned away and shouted curses at the sky, no longer inclined to assimilate any of this. He stiffened and cringed, fighting every inherent urge to cry over the ruthless deaths of his friends. Then he heard a voice calling to him.
“Sharpie? Hey, Sharp! Is that you, brother?”
“Fischer?” Snapping his head around, Will spotted his fellow infantryman using
