"Anyone hear me?" Woody made to get on his feet and his vision went red around the fringes.

  A medico with 10th patches on his crisp clean BDUs came into the shed in time to catch Woody before he fell. He helped Woody sit back down on the bunk.

  "Slow down, okay?"

  "Where's my buddy? How'd he do?

  "Sorry," was all the medico said.

  Two days later, Woody was up and around and cleared for light duty within the FOB. The docs told him he'd be pissing blood for a while. If it persisted past a week he was to come see them again. Same for the ringing in his right ear. All SEALs wound up with some degree of hearing loss after a while. Woody figured he was just getting a jump on it. He dropped ibuprofen because the docs told him to stay away from aspirin for a while and as always, stay hydrated.

  A standing order was pinned to his chart to go to the head shed as soon as he was boots on and ambulatory.

  MC Clark was OOD when Woody made it over there across the dark FOB. He'd been out most of the day. It was more than sixty hours from when he and Speed first left the FOB for their unauthorized walk.

  "How's it hanging?" Clark asked him from behind a desk made of discarded ammo containers with a plywood top.

  "I'm fit for duty," Woody said. He was surprised at the MC's attitude. The man seemed almost warmly welcoming. Woody was sure he'd be walking into the ear-fucking of all time for the dickhead play that landed him in a hospital bunk and Speed in a bodybag.

  "You'll write a letter to Speed's folks, right? And a separate one to his sister? Don't let it wait too long. Best to write them now," Clark said.

  "Will do, Master Chief," Woody said.

  "He didn't suffer. Never knew what hit him."

  "He knew before I did, MC."

  "Guess you're right. He saved your life, didn't he?"

  "That's how I remember it."

  "That little bitch was strapped with a bomb vest and a deadman switch. A pro job, and better than anything our EOD guys have ever seen out of the local assholes."

  "Was it a set up from the beginning, MC?"

  "I don't think so. We were at that village at sun up this morning and turned the place upside down. No sign that the hadjis there had that kind of ordnance mojo. And the others in your squad say she followed you straight out of the ville."

  "She wasn't strapped then, MC."

  "No. Somewhere in her adventure she ran across the fuckers operating in this AO. She presented an opportunity to them. They figured on our better nature that some dumbass would come out to give her transport to somewhere else, or even let her into Iron Man."

  "Guilty, Master Chief."

  "It happened, Billings. I could ream you a new asshole over what you did but it's not going to come close to making you feel as much of a turd as you already feel. And it's not going to bring Speed back. You'll carry this. You'll carry it till the day you die and then you'll have to explain it to Jesus. But you can't let it fuck with your time with the SEALs. I will be goddamned if I will let that happen."

  "Thank you, MC. I guess."

  "You're goddamned right ‘thank you.' The best thing for you is to get right back into it. And I will do that very thing for you. You hang loose, then you're going on an op with those pirates from the team with no name."

  Woody had no words for this.

  "That is all."

  Woody turned to go.

  "Except that, if you ever color outside the lines like you did last night -- ever again -- I will fall on you from heaven above and leave nothing but a greasy stain."

  "Yes, MC."

  "Now, get the fuck out of my sight!"

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  BRANDED

  They beat him for cowardice.

  They would have killed him if the American with the soft eyes had not stopped them.

  Kambiz lay in the dust behind the shower hut and hugged his abdomen as Sgt Wynocki broke up the ring of men around him. In broken Dari, theferangi sergeant scolded them as an angry mother scolds a child.

  The American sergeant held out his right hand and Kambiz took it. Kambiz allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. Wynocki threw a protective arm around him and waved the glowering Afghans away.

  "You okay, Harry?" The soft-eyed sergeant did not know the name his father gave him.

  Kambiz understood ‘okay', the most commonly used American word across the planet. Kambiz smiled. There was blood in his teeth. Blood ran from his left ear where the lobe was torn. Wynocki found the boy's eyeglasses in the dust. By some miracle they were unbroken. Kambiz accepted them and held them tight in his fist like the precious prize they were.

  "Stand at attention!" Wynocki said with a growl to the Afghans standing in a loose circle around them. "And stay right here until I've gotten to the bottom of this!" Or words roughly to that affect in a mix of atrocious Dari and Pashtu. He helped Harry Potter to the med center.

  Then Wynocki went and woke up Dick who went and woke up Colonel Basir and the yelling started. The ANA colonel stood outside his private prefab CONEX hooch, tightening the belt of a silk robe about his waist. He tottered as he did so. He'd been into that pint of Jack he'd snaked from that truck.

  Yes, Daddy Basir admitted, he'd ordered the coward beaten. Private Wahidi ran away in the face of the enemy. He would have had him shot but understood that the coalition forces frowned on that expediency.

  "Wahidi? That the kid with the glasses?" Captain Dice said to Wynocki.

  "Yes, sir," Wynocki said.

  "What about the ‘terp?" Dice said. "The interpreter hauled ass too. Did you have him beaten, too?"

  Basir looked away with a twisted frown. He resented being questioned like this by a man who was his inferior in rank but his superior in influence.

  "The ‘terp's father is some kind of politician in Kabul," Wynocki submitted.

  "Mother," Dice spat. "Fucker."

  That's the way it was here. Open corruption based on class and opportunity. Their rules were harsh but they applied them selectively. Tough shit if your papa didn't swing a big dick in the capital.

  "They're your men, Colonel," Dice said at last. "You deal with them as you see fit. But you can only mete out punishments within certain guidelines. No beatings. Nothing physical at all. "

  Basir only nodded. These Americans betrayed their weakness through mercy and generosity. It was their way. For all their power, they were made impotent by their own sympathetic nature. Though they were fearsome in battle, they lacked the heart for what must be done to win in this cruel land.

  "Do we have an understanding, Colonel?"

  "I would ask for your guidance in dealing with this transgression, Captain," Basir said with unmistakable sarcasm. He smirked at his own muddleheaded jest.

  The next morning, Kambiz was ordered to fill a rucksack with rocks and carry it on his back for three circuits of Iron Man's inner perimeter. An ANA corporal chased him into a double time trot for half of the first lap. The corporal tired quickly in the heat and returned to the camp, leaving Kambiz to his punishment detail.

  No one was watching him now but for the Americans manning the Hesco and sandbagged bunkers dotted along interior line of the gambion and wire wall. Even so, Kambiz maintained his steady pace. He accepted his punishment. They would not see him lag. The sharp rocks cut his back through the canvas pack. His ribs were still aching and from the repeated kicks of his brother soldiers. He hooked his thumbs in the shoulder straps and drew them tight so the load would not jump about as much.

  Other than this discomfort, the run itself was easy for one who was raised covering miles and miles of ground over the rough country that surrounded his village in Herat. When he was ten years old he carried a goat with a broken leg for twenty miles down from the high summer range rather than leave it to die.

  Kambiz felt no shame. He had saved his own life. What purpose was served by dying in the blast set off by that silly girl? Allah was not honored by such a useless death. His own, not the girl's. And her sacrifice was meaningless as well, as she could not enter paradise without the permission of a husband or father. And who would give such passage to a whore who fornicated with American soldiers, as Kambiz had heard the girl had done.

  As soon as he drew close enough he recognized her words as a prayer -- a chant of the faithful as familiar to him as the names of his brothers and sisters. He knew what the girl meant to do and ran. He ran because he had made a promise to himself, his older brother, his father and the Lord that he would spill the blood of the Americans, many Americans.

  The ferangi shouted out to him from raised gun positions and bunkered vehicles as he trotted past. Kambiz thought they were mocking him. But after the second circuit he realized that they were calling out words of encouragement. Kambiz had no way of knowing they'd formed a pool on how far along it would be before he collapsed.

  Each bunker was communicating with the others via radio. One wit atop a Hesco redoubt was doing Al Michaels-type color commentary.

  "This hadji Cinderella story may end in defeat. He may not go the distance. But no one can deny this kid has heart. This kid has grit. He's around the third turn in fine form. He's really showing us something out here today."

  Kambiz adjusted the straps of his pack once more and pushed on; the hoots and calls of the Americans urged him on. He stumbled back to the ANA sector of the base after completing the ordered circuits for a total jog of over ten miles. Drenched in sweat and vision spinning, he stood dumping the rocks from his pack to the whistles and cheers of a group of ferangi soldiers waiting at an impromptu finish line.

  He smiled his practiced smile and they chanted his name.

  "Potter! Potter! Potter! Potter!"

  They knew him. They liked him. They would call him friend.

  And that would make them all that much easier to kill when the time of his choosing came.

  Cheering loudest was Specialist Danny Rodriguez of the 10th -- and Tempe, Arizona. He was the winner of more than three hundred bucks, as he was the only taker on Harry Potter going all the way.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE BATCAVE

  "What the hell is that?" Chili demanded.

  The team, plus Woody, stood before a big hi-def monitor in the comm center. On the screen was a detailed topographic map with Iron Man marked at its center. All around the symbol of the FOB (represented by the face of the comic book character Iron Man) were thousands of multi-colored dots in indecipherable patterns and clusters.

  "And what are these dots?" Pig asked. "They're all over the place beyond the base's outer wire."

  "That's everywhere you two have fucked up," Heath said.

  "Gentlemen," Bear said as he entered the long steel building. The comm center was packed back to front with radio and sat gear, computer stations and God-knew-what-all agency toys packed away in stacks of hardened cargo cases. Coming in behind him were the two silent agency goons who followed Bear like shadows. Someone on Team 3 named them Cam and Mitch after the gay couple on Modern Family. But no one called them that anywhere near where the two officers might hear.

  "This looks like some spooky shit," Manny said.

  "Take a pew and I'll explain all," Bear said and stepped up to the eighty-inch HD monitor. The team took seats on folding chairs and benches. Cam and Mitch remained standing at the back of the center. Bear picked up a complex remote equipped with a touch screen. He stripped the dots from the region map with a single swipe of a finger.

  Woody couldn't believe he was sitting in on a mission presentation with the most badass unit in all Spec Ops. He felt like an uberfan who'd made it backstage at a concert and it was only a matter of time before someone realized he didn't belong and pitched him out. Or maybe they'd ask him on stage to play. He kept his mouth shut and his ass out of the way and did nothing to draw attention to himself.

  "This is, indeed, some spooky shit, Levitz," Bear said. "Spooky and expensive. You've already recognized this as an overhead of our current Area of Operations. You guys have already walked about half of this. What you didn't know is that you were being watched at all times by friendly eyes."

  Bear swiped the touch screen on the remote and an array of light blue dots appeared on the screen.

  "What you're looking at now are your GPS locations from each time you signaled back to Iron Man. This is one night. See, you followed this valley away from Iron Man, over this dry wadi, then doubled back and made your way up this spur to where it dead-ended. Then you all backtracked along its southern face and home."

  "Two nights ago," Priest said. He remained standing behind the seated SEALs. "No contact."

  Bear nodded and swiped again. Now, in addition to the light blue dots, red dots appeared on the screen. They were sparse, but clustered generally around either side of the path taken by the SEALs as described by the track of light blue dots.

  "And these are bad guys as determined by thermal imaging from a pair of over-watching UMVs."

  "Shit," breathed Chili. "Those fuckers were right on top of us."

  "They were shadowing you most of the time," Bear said and indicated three separate clusters of blood-red dots. "Here, here and here they were within a hundred yards of you. In fact, watching in real time, you can see how they were both tracking you and anticipating your likely route."

  "That's three surefire ambushes right there, there and there," said Heath, standing to stab a hand at three spots on the monitor. "So why not hit us?"

  "These are different animals," Bear said. "They're playing a long game. Could be they're not even interested in Iron Man or our maneuvers here. We have reports from an OP to the north of here that a Ranger had contact with a unit that moved on them within a tightly coordinated action with small units covering one another in close support. Not the usual jihadi yahoos known to prowl this area."

  "The Dude," Manny said. "This Chechen you told us about."

  This was the first Woody heard of any of this. The Dude? This is what the Team With No Name was at Iron Man to deal with? These were the guys who took down Bin Laden. This Chechen must be a big gun.

  "Has to be him," Bear said. "Even the best Taliban units don't show this kind of restraint."

  "We can't count on that forever," Priest said. "Eventually they'll jump us."

  "That's why we're going to jump them first," Bear said, and swiped his remote to expand the map on the screen so it covered a larger area of the province. He switched to satellite mode. Five hundred square miles of saw-tooth mountain peaks and deep dark valleys jumped into crystal clarity. Another swipe and the screen was overlaid with thousands upon thousands of red pinpoints.

  "See the patterns?" Bear said.

  "What's the time frame we're looking at?" Heath said.

  "This is three months of surveillance. We filtered out civilian traffic as much as we could and eliminated goats from the profile. You will never believe how many fucking goats there are in this map area."

  "How the hell did you manage that?" Manny said. "How'd you separate a goat's thermal from human?"

  "Goat's body temperature is higher than ours," Chili said, eyes on the big screen. "One-oh-two or more."

  "I'm not sure I want to know how you know that," Pig said.

  "Fuck you," Chili said and reached out to swat Pig across the back of the head.

  "Goatfucker," Pig said, ducking.

  "The man wins Final Jeopardy," Bear said. "So, filtering out critters and locals leaves us with these patterns of movement. What we're looking at are their patrol patterns and lines of communication. Most probably their supply chain as well. See these tracks that lead out to the highway from these rifts?"

  "And they seem to cluster here more often than anywhere else," Priest stepped up to point a finger at the foot of a high mesa roughly the shape of a pie slice and little more than ten klicks from Iron Man, as the crow flies. Trails of red dots crisscrossed and intersected there in dense packs.

  "We think that's our target," Bear said. "Hadjitown."

  Bear swiped and the monitor filled with the pie-slice mesa. The face where the dots clustered thick was deeply shadowed and riven with vertical clefts thousands of feet in length.

  "Best guess is this is where the Dude calls home. Whatever he has planned will be staged from here. You can bet your favorite ball that there're caves here and they're loaded with ordnance."

  "His Batcave," Woody said and instantly regretted it.

  "Yeah, it's where he keeps all his wonderful toys," Bear said. "And we need eyes on it."

  "Our eyes," Manny clarified.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  OPERATION BROKE GOPHER

  Four MRAPs pulled out from Iron Man and made their way for a crossroads east of the FOB.

  It was getting on noon, and late in the day for the start of a motorized mission. The vehicles were manned by 10th Mountain only. No ANA on this trip. The only exceptions were the six SEALs, spread two each over three trucks and dressed in MultiCam BDUs to match their Army brothers. The convoy kept tight and rumbled onto an unpaved road that looped roughly north and east away from Iron Man. The trucks raised a cloud of ochre dust and were lost from sight by the sentries in the towers at Iron Man.

  Other eyes watched from the surrounding hills. Hostile eyes. A boy of thirteen lay in a shallow wadi and watched the trucks roll past. He keyed an ancient Soviet-era field radio four times. Four vehicles moving north by my position. He received two squelches in response. Message acknowledged.

  Heath and Woody were paired up in the sweltering rear interior of the last MRAP. A gunner from the 10th stood at a grenade launcher in the open turret. He wore doubled up body armor and was exposed to the noise and dust of the convoy's progress. The two SEAL passengers were, for all purposes, alone.

  Woody sat fussing with his equipment. Heath sat across from him, munching one of the Paydays from Flame's gift package.

  "Your first deployment, right?" Heath said.

  "It show that much?" Woody said.

  "That's the third time you checked your fire select," Heath shrugged.

  "So much to remember."