out as fast as we can.”
“Roger that,” said Ramirez.
I was beginning to lose my breath. Something was wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I ran down the tunnel, back to where Smith and Nolan were working.
“Are we set?”
Nolan looked up at me. “Remotes good to go. Need to finish up at the entrance where you just were.”
“All right, let’s go,” I said.
“Ghost Lead, this is Ramirez! I just got out of my tunnel. Scanning the village now. They got mortar teams setting up just outside the wall. They got tipped off again!”
Just as we reached our exit, a shell hit the mountain just above us, the roar deafening, a landslide of rock and dirt beginning to plummet. “Back inside! Ghost Team! Fall back! Fall back!”
Two more shells struck the mountainside, the ground quaking beneath our feet, the ceiling cracking here and there. The bastards would seal up the caves for us — but their plan was, of course, to bury us alive.
“Ghost Lead, this is Treehorn! The Bradley has come under attack. I don’t know where they came from! They might’ve been buried in the sand the entire time! They got at least twenty guys down there! More in the mountains coming down. Should I engage?”
“Negative, negative! Don’t give up your position yet!” I cried.
He’d said more were coming down from the mountains. Why hadn’t the satellite picked them up and fed that data into my Cross-Com? Was it just interference from the terrain?
I gritted my teeth and led Nolan and Smith back to the main tunnel and exit. As we neared the intersection where the cave-in had occurred, shouting echoed, and I threw myself against the side wall, with the guys just behind me, then rolled to the left, my rifle at the ready, as two Taliban fighters came through the newly dug passage through the cave-in. I gunned both of them down before I could finish taking a breath.
They hit the ground — and so did a grenade tossed at us from their comrades on the other side.
As I turned back, I raised my palm, screaming for the guys to hit the deck. We all started toward the floor as the grenade exploded behind us, the concussion echoing, and what sounded like a million tiny rock fragments pelted my clothes—
Just as I crashed onto my belly.
The terrible and expected ringing in my ears came on suddenly, and when I looked up, I couldn’t see anything. I lost my breath. I thought maybe I’d died, but then I realized my turban had fallen down across my face. I shoved it up, rose, and found hands pulling me to my feet.
“You okay?” Smith asked, his angular face creased deeply with worry. I couldn’t hear him; I’d just read his lips.
I indicated that my ears were ringing. He nodded and mouthed the same thing. Nolan was next to him, waving us onward as he drew a grenade from the web gear hidden beneath his shirt. He tossed the grenade down the intersecting hall, and we all bolted ahead as the seconds ticked by and the grenade exploded, just as we neared the more narrow exit.
And two Taliban fighters rolled toward us, rushing in from outside.
Nolan was on point and opened up on them, but they’d started firing as well, their rounds ricocheting off the ceiling just past us. Smith and I, caught in the back, had no choice but to drop away. We couldn’t fire with Nolan in our way.
The gunfire was strangely muffled but growing louder as my hearing began to return.
With arms flailing, the two fighters fell on top of each other.
Nolan turned back to me, his eyes wide.
Then he just collapsed himself.
“Cover us!” I shouted to Smith, then rose and rushed to Nolan. I slowly rolled him over onto his back. He looked okay. I began to pull back his shirt, and then I spotted them, one near his shoulder, and one much lower, near his heart. Nolan’s trademark spectacles had been knocked to the side of his head, and he was blinking hard, trying to see.
The blood was gushing now as he struggled for breath, and I struggled to get past his web gear.
“In my pack, I got some big four-by-four gauze,” he said between gasps.
I ripped off my
“Captain, tell John not to feel bad. Tell ’em we’re buddies forever. Okay?”
“I will, Alex,” I said, applying more pressure as he began to shiver violently.
Nolan was referring to John Hume; they’d become best friends, fighting hard and playing hard. Guys would tease them about being “too close,” but they were more like brothers. I knew losing Nolan would crush Hume. Crush him.
Smith, who was up near the exit, suddenly ducked back inside as gunfire ripped across the stone where he’d been standing. “We are so pinned down here.”
I was about to answer when another mortar round struck far down the tunnel, and the ground shook. Somewhere back there, another cave-in was happening, the rocks and dirt streaming and hissing, and not five seconds later a wall of thick dust rolled through the tunnel toward us.
When I looked down again, Nolan was not moving. I checked his neck for a pulse. That round had, indeed, struck his heart, and when I checked the side of his shirt, it was soaked thick with blood.
Footfalls resounded up the tunnel, and suddenly through the dust came a figure. I snatched up my rifle, took aim, and held my breath.
“Hold fire!” came a familiar voice. The figure tugged down his
As the others rushed up behind him, Hume spotted Nolan lying at my side and rushed to him.
“Alex!”
“He’s gone,” I said evenly.
“Aw, no,” Hume cried. “No, no, no.”
For just a moment — perhaps only three seconds — we all stood there, frozen, staring down at Hume and Nolan, no sound, no movement, just the burning image of our fallen brother, and then—
“Ghost Lead, this is Treehorn, they got RPGs moving in on the Bradley. Permission to open fire!”
I shuddered back to reality. “Negative, hold fire! Do not give up your position.” I switched channels to speak to the Bradley commander. “Blue Six, this is Ghost Lead, over.”
I waited, called again, nothing. Couldn’t even warn the guy and his squad. The vehicle’s big machine gun was already drumming as several more booms struck and silenced it.
“They got the gunner!” shouted Treehorn. “They got the gunner! They’re swarming the Bradley. Swarming it now!”
Two more shells struck the mountain, and the ceiling began to crack right near my head.
“I’m taking him out of here,” said Hume, his eyes already burning.
“You got it,” I answered. “Treehorn? Get set! We’re coming out!”
TWENTY-ONE
Alex Nolan was a smart-aleck kid from the streets of Boston who’d become a senior medical sergeant with the Ghosts. He often looked like a geek, but when he opened his mouth, wow, he was all attitude fueled by an insatiable curiosity and great intellect. He was even a Mensa member. Still, there were times when he could throw a switch and be the most caring and sympathetic operator on our team. The last time we were in Afghanistan, I’d seen him spend hours with sick villagers. He’d always ask the same question: “Are your animals sick, too?” When you operated in third-world countries and people became ill, you could sometimes trace the problem back to their livestock.
With the letter to Matt Beasley’s family still fresh on my mind, I couldn’t believe I had to write another one. I wasn’t used to losing operators, especially two on a single mission.
