Dead or Alive

Behind him, the rest of the team halted in near unison and crouched down. They were five hundred feet from the valley floor. Another forty minutes, Driscoll estimated, then another two klicks along the valley floor, then head to the LZ, or landing zone. He checked his watch: making good time.

Tait sidled up alongside and offered Driscoll a hunk of jerky. “Prisoners are starting to drag ass a bit.”

“Life’s a bitch.”

“Then you die,” Tait replied.

Handling prisoners was always dicey, and even more so in terrain like this. If one of them snapped an ankle or decided to simply sit down and refuse to get up, you had three choices: leave him behind, haul him, or shoot him. The trick was convincing the prisoners that only one fate-the last one-awaited them. Probably true in any case, Driscoll thought. No way he’d put two gomers back into circulation.

Driscoll said, “Five minutes and we’re moving again. Pass the word.”

The boulder-strewn terrain slowly leveled out and gave way to barrel-sized rocks and gravel. A hundred meters from the valley floor, Driscoll called another halt and checked the way ahead through the night vision. He followed the trail’s zigzagging course to where it bottomed out, pausing at every potential area of concealment until he was certain nothing was moving. The valley was two hundred meters wide and bordered by sheer rock walls. Perfect place for an ambush, Driscoll thought, but then again, the geography of the Hindu Kush made that more the rule than the exception, a lesson that had been passed down through the millennia, starting with Alexander the Great, then the Soviets, and now the U.S. military. Driscoll and their now- leg-broke captain had planned this mission backward and forward, each time looking for a better exfiltration route, but had found no alternatives, at least not within ten klicks, a detour that would have put their extraction into the daylight hours.

Driscoll turned around and did a quick head count: fifteen and two. Coming out with the same he’d taken in, a victory in itself. He signaled to Tait-moving-who passed it down the line. Driscoll stood up and started down the trail. Ten minutes later they were within a stone’s throw of the valley floor. He paused to check that nobody was bunching up, then started out again, then stopped.

Something not right…

It took a moment for Driscoll to nail down the source: One of their prisoners, the one in the number-four position with Peterson, no longer seemed as tired. His posture was stiff, his head swiveling left and right. A worried man. Why? Driscoll called another halt, brought the column into a crouch. Tait was there a few moments later.

“What’s up?”

“Peterson’s gomer is nervous about something.”

Driscoll did a scan ahead with the night vision but saw nothing. The valley floor, level and clear of debris save the occasional boulder, appeared empty. Nothing moving, and no sound except the faint whistling of wind. Still, Driscoll’s gut was talking to him.

Tait asked, “See something?”

“Not a thing, but something’s got what’s-his-face jumpy.”

“Grab Collins, Smith, and Gomez, then backtrack fifty yards and pick your way along the hillside. Tell Peterson and Flaherty to put their prisoners in the dirt and keep them quiet.”

“Roger.”

Tait disappeared back down the trail, pausing to whisper instructions to each man. Through the night vision, Driscoll watched Tait’s progress as he and the other three snaked their way back up the slope, then off the trail, moving from boulder to boulder, paralleling the valley.

Zimmer had moved up the line to Driscoll’s position. “Little voice talking to you, Santa?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

Fifteen minutes passed. In the green, washed-out glow of the NV, Driscoll saw Tait suddenly stop. Over the radio: “Boss, we got an open space ahead of us-a notch in the rock. I can see the peak of a tent.”

Which explains the nervous gomer, Driscoll thought. He knows the camp is there. “Life signs?”

“Muffled voices-five, maybe six.”

“Roger, hold pos-”

To the right, fifty meters up the valley, came a pair of headlights. Driscoll turned to see a UAZ-469 jeep skid around the corner and head in their direction. Throwbacks to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, UAZs were favored among the country’s sundry bad guys. This one was open-topped and equipped with another piece of Soviet Army equipment, a mounted NSV 12.7-millimeter heavy machine gun. Thirteen shots a second, 1,500-meter range, Driscoll thought. Even as he recognized it for what it was, the muzzle began flashing. Bullets thudded into rock and soil, throwing up shards and plumes of dust. Farther down the valley, atop the cliff opposite Tait and the others, muzzles began flashing. Peterson’s prisoner began shouting in Arabic, none of which Driscoll understood, but the tone was unmistakable: encouragement for his compatriots. Peterson popped him behind the ear with the butt of his M4, and the man went limp.

Tait’s team opened up, their M4s cracking and echoing through the valley. Driscoll’s remaining men had found cover and were lighting up the UAZ, which had skidded to a stop twenty meters away, its headlights aimed at the Rangers.

“Tait, put some grenades into those tents!” Driscoll ordered, then ducked left and snapped off two quick bursts at the UAZ.

“On it!” Tait replied.

Up the trail, Barnes had found a niche between some rocks and had his M249 SAW-Squad Automatic Weapon- up on its tripod. The muzzle started flashing. Its windshield spider-webbed, the UAZ started backing up now, the 12.7-millimeter still pumping rounds into the hillside. From Tait’s direction Driscoll heard the crump of a grenade, then another, then two more in quick succession. Now more shouting in Arabic. Screams. It took a half-second for Driscoll to realize the screams were coming from behind. He spun, M4 to his shoulder. Fifteen meters up the trail, Gomez’s prisoner was on his feet, facing the UAZ and shouting. Driscoll caught a snippet-Shoot me… Shoot me…-and then the top of the man’s head exploded and he toppled backward.

“Barnes, get that thing stopped!” Driscoll shouted.

In answer, the SAW’s tracers dropped from the UAZ’s cab and roof to its front grille, which began sparking. Bullets thudded into the engine block, followed seconds later by a geyser of steam. The driver’s-side door opened and a figure staggered out. The SAW cut him down. In the truck’s bed, the NSV went silent, and Driscoll could see a figure scrambling. Reloading. Driscoll turned around and signaled to Peterson and Deacons- grenades-but they were already on their feet, arms cocked. The first grenade went long and right, exploding harmlessly behind the UAZ, but the second landed beside the truck’s rear tire. The explosion lifted the truck’s rear end a few inches off the ground. The gunner in the bed tumbled over the side and lay still.

Driscoll turned back, scanned the far cliff wall through the NV. He counted six gomers, all prone and pouring fire into Tait’s position. “Light those fuckers up!” Driscoll ordered, and eleven guns began hosing down the cliff face. Thirty seconds was all it took. “Cease fire, cease fire!” Driscoll ordered. The gunfire ceased. He got on the radio: “Tait, head count.”

“Still got four. Caught a few rock splinters, but we’re good.”

“Check the tents, mop it up.”

“Roger.”

Driscoll picked his way up the trail, checking each man in turn and finding only minor scrapes and cuts from flying rock. “Barnes, you and Deacons check the-”

“Santa, you’re-”

“What?”

“Your shoulder. Sit down, Sam, sit down! Medic up!”

Now Driscoll could feel the numbness, as though his right arm had fallen asleep from the shoulder down. He let Barnes sit him down on the trail. Collins, the team’s second medic, came running up. He knelt down, and he and Barnes eased Driscoll’s pack off his right shoulder, then the left. Collins clicked on his hooded flashlight and examined Driscoll’s shoulder.