fingers. On three, two, one—
We rolled away from the wall and rushed inside, him dropping to one knee to shoot low, me on my feet, standing tall to strike high.
And there, standing before us, like a lost puppy, was Warris’s private, the kid who’d driven him up to the mountain. He clutched his pistol and just looked at us, trembling. He had to be just eighteen, and thinking about buying his first shaving kit…
“Dude, what the hell are you doing here?” asked Ramirez.
He lowered his weapon. “I heard the shooting. I came up to help.”
“You had orders to stay there,” I said.
“Didn’t seem like anybody was obeying orders.”
I snickered. “What’s your name?”
“It’s right here on my uniform.”
I ripped off the Velcro-attached name patch and read the word: Hendrickson, then shoved the patch back at him. “All right, junior, you just got promoted to Special Forces. Did you see Captain Warris on your way in here?”
“No, sir.”
I cursed. “But this tunnel cuts through the mountain?”
“It does, sir.”
“Any bad guys in there?”
He almost laughed. “Not when I came through, sir.”
“All right.” I was about to turn back to Ramirez when a series of explosions rocked the mountain, and just a few seconds later the rest of the team came sprinting up toward the entrance.
A breathless Nolan reported, “RPGs. They’re moving in fast. We need to move now! Got twenty or thirty coming up. It’s going to get hairy, boss.”
“Gotcha. Everybody? This is Private Hendrickson. He’s in charge. Where do we go to get out of here, Private?”
The kid looked around and nearly passed out from the weight I’d just dumped on his shoulders. After blinking hard he finally said, “Follow me.”
We dropped in behind him, as the shouts of the Taliban rose behind us. Ramirez set two more CS canisters just outside the entrance to delay them, while Brown and Smith hung back to plant a small amount of C-4 on a remote detonator, which they confirmed still worked.
Once they rejoined us about fifty meters down the tunnel, they detonated the charges. Twin thunderclaps shook the walls around us, and I imagined a cave-in that would help in our escape.
We came around another long curve and reached an intersecting tunnel. “You go down there?” I asked Ghost Leader Hendrickson.
“No, sir.”
“Ramirez?” I called. “The rest of you hold here.”
We hustled down the intersecting tunnel, which grew so narrow at one point that we had to turn sideways just to pass through. Then it opened back up and filtered into a broad chamber. To our left was a pile of rocks and dirt — the cave-in where Warris had been. We were on the other side now. No sign of him. My light played over the floor. Nothing. No evidence.
“Well, he ain’t here,” groaned Ramirez.
I tried calling Warris on the radio again. No answer.
Consequently, I stood there, wiping dirt off my nose and cheeks. “How am I going to explain this shit?”
“When we get out, we need to get on the same page,” Ramirez said. “And we need to buy the kid.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“He overheard everything. He’s a problem.”
“Whoa, Joey.”
“Scott, Harruck wants to burn you. Warris is MIA. This is way out of control.”
“I know. Let’s just get out of here, then we’ll talk to the kid.”
“All right, but what happens if he decides to burn us, too?”
“We’re not going to do anything to him. Don’t even imply that, all right?”
“If you say so…”
We returned to the intersection, where Treehorn told me he’d heard voices from the tunnel behind us. The C-4 had not sealed up the tunnel, damn it. The Taliban were climbing over the debris and coming.
“Get some more ready,” I told him. “We’ll blow the exit.”
The group charged forward, with the kid leading the way. He burst through the exit and quickly turned left, coming along a very steep ridge, where he almost lost his balance and tumbled down the mountainside. For a dark moment, I wished he had.
Treehorn and Brown planted the charges. We rushed along the ridge and ducked behind a jagged section of rock that shielded us up to our shoulders.
“Just wait for the first guy because you know the rest are right behind him,” I said.
Too late. Three guys came bursting out of the entrance, and while Ramirez and Nolan took them out, Brown triggered the explosives. A chute of rock-filled smoke lifted as the deep boom resounded, the vibration working its way into my boots.
“Aw, hell,” said Smith, pointing up at the ridge lines high above the cave.
At least twenty or more fighters had already cleared the summit and were coming down. They obviously knew a shortcut to get up there, and as they ascended they opened fire on us, the incoming dropping like hail and forcing us tight against the rocks.
About fifteen meters to my left were Ramirez and the kid, huddled against the rock. And I’ll never forget how it all looked—
The silhouettes of my two men as Ramirez popped up from behind cover and cut loose with two salvos from his own AK-47…
The lightning-bug flashes of muzzles drawing a jagged line across the mountain…
And the next moment, as I blinked and looked again at Ramirez, who pulled back from the rock, fired up at the Taliban again, then turned his rifle on Private Hendrickson.
My mouth opened.
I thought for a second that Ramirez had seen me. Everyone else was engaging the enemy now, complete chaos all around us, with only me, the conscience of our team, shouldering the stone and watching as Ramirez pulled the trigger and put three rounds in the private’s back, dropping him instantly.
He immediately huddled to the rock and screamed, “He’s hit! Hendrickson is down! Nolan! I need a medic! Medic right now!”
I dodged over to Ramirez’s position and rolled the kid onto his side. He didn’t move. I checked for a carotid pulse. No, he was dead.
“I’m sorry. I tried to cover him.”
I was beginning to lose my breath.
My men were fiercely loyal, all right.
Agonizingly loyal.
Another spate of incoming drove both of us to the rock, and Ramirez faced me with a blank stare.
SIXTEEN
I thought I knew everything about Master Sergeant Joe Ramirez. His parents had emigrated from Mexico and had held fast to the old ways. They’d raised him in North Hollywood, California, and had kept him on the straight and narrow path. He was a devout Catholic, an altar boy, a Boy Scout.
In his teenaged years he’d become a computer hacker and had almost gotten busted for identity theft, but he’d been taken under the wing of a detective who’d persuaded him to join the Army. His older brother Enrique had
