Angie looked at Craig. “How did he do that?” she asked softly.
“He wasn’t just a grunt,” Craig answered with barely any sound. “He was recon.”
We are betting on him, she thought but didn’t say out loud. She didn’t need to panic herself. Craig was looking grim. “And you?” she asked. “He called you soldier.”
“Army,” he confirmed. “But it was decades ago.” He looked at her consideringly, and sighed. “Before you were born.” He shook his head, his eyes still focused on the target. “And I was just a grunt. Cannon fodder who survived it. I never had those kinds of skills.”
She nodded and focused on the woods around the target. If she’d been looking at the target directly, she doubted she would have seen him at all. Mac was crouched down below the normal eye range. She saw him lay down — at least she assumed that was what made him disappear again. And she reminded herself to breathe.
Mac glanced back toward Craig and Angie and the injured man. They were still where he’d left them, and they were quiet. He was relieved. The other man was kneeling down about 10 feet from Craig. He had the compass in his hand. He studied the area around him, looking to see if anyone had remained behind to watch. He didn’t see anyone. Didn’t sense anyone. Good enough.
He looked at the ground in front of him. Someone had set a bear pit. He’d thought as much. He lay flat on the ground and used his elbows to inch his way forward. He watched the ground ahead carefully. He didn’t know where the rim was. Reach out, pat the ground. Inch forward. Reach and pat. It was slow. But he planned to survive this.
He felt the earth give beneath his hand, and he stopped. “Scott,” he called softly. He heard a moan. OK, then, he thought. He unwound the rope, looped it around a sturdy tree, and tested it. And then he backed away from the tree, and felt the earth give beneath his feet. His arms absorbed the shock of his weight. When the earth resettled, he backed up again. And then again. His feet touched something pointed, and he looked down.
Whoever had built the pit had only gone down two feet, and the sticks took up most of that. A layer of some thatching and a pile of dirt. Simple, effective. Deadly if someone wasn’t around to rescue you.
“It’s Mac,” he said quietly. “Scott, can you hear me?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Good,” Mac said. “Can you see me?”
“Your back? Yeah.”
“Can you reach for me? Grab me around my waist?”
“I can’t move, man,” Scott said. “One of the sharps went through my calf. But I’m about 18 inches from being able to reach you.”
“OK,” Mac said trying to project reassurance. He did not want a panicky man grabbing him. “You need to pull the stick out of the ground. Leave it in your leg, you got that? Pull the other end out of the ground.”
Or you’ll bleed out like a stuck pig, he thought but didn’t say. He let out some more rope and backed a bit further toward the voice.
“Fuck,” Scott said. “That hurts!”
Mac closed his eyes. For a moment, he was afraid he’d pulled his leg loose. “Still in your leg, right?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “I know that much.”
“Good,” Mac soothed. “So, can you reach me?”
“Six more inches?”
Mac belayed the rope out a bit more. He wished he had a bit more rope to work with.
“OK,” Scott said. “But I don’t have anything to stand on. I’m going to grab on to your sheath belt, and then I’ll try to leverage myself onto your back as a carry. Can you do that?”
Mac considered it. It only had to be for a few feet. Once he was on solid ground, he could reverse position and get the man under his arm and they could get out of here on three legs. “The leg the only problem?” he asked.
“Scrapes and sore spots,” Scott said, dismissing them.
Mac braced himself. “Do it,” he said.
He felt the pull on his belt, hoped he’d secured it tightly, and he started to work his belay rope to pull himself forward, an inch at a time. Scott was working forward, too; he could feel him. And then Mac felt Scott’s weight on his back and he lurched forward onto solid ground. He fell flat, Scott on top of him, and he gave a sigh of relief when the ground held them both.
“Shit, man,” Scott said. “I thought I was going to die there. I didn’t see how anyone could get me out safely, and figured you all wouldn’t be able to try if that sniper was around.”
Mac just lay there and took gulps of air until his heart stopped its hammering. “Wasn’t sure we could get you out either,” he confessed. “But we had to try. Not in me to leave a man behind.”
“Once a Marine, always a Marine?” Scott said with a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob.
Mac laughed. “Something like that,” he admitted. “Can you roll to one side, carefully? Don’t roll back in OK? And careful of that leg!’
He felt the weight move off his back, and he rolled over and onto his knees. He looked at Scott’s leg and winced. “All right,” Mac said. “I’m going to coil up the rope. Leverage you up. Drape you over a shoulder and we’re going to hobble out of here. Got it?”
Scott was white-faced and in obvious pain. But he nodded.
Mac pulled the rope away from the tree, wound it back around his waist. He squatted down, positioned himself, thought, it’s just a dead carry lift, so lift with the legs, not the back. Scott came up with him as he stood.
“Shit,” Scott said. He swallowed a couple of times, and then he nodded.
“Good man,” Mac said. “We’re in no hurry, now. So easy does it.”
It seemed like it took forever, but Mac figured it
