Chili ran full-out, gear rattling, for the foot of the mesa and the cave mouth. Knees and arms pumping. The chugga-chugga of AKs reached his ears followed by the flat thud of Woody's Winchester and the staccato thunder of Pig's SAW. He didn't look back. Never look back.

  A rushing noise brushed by him. A trail of smoke crossed close above of his head, filling his lungs with chemical stink. He could feel the furnace heat of its passage. An RPG round went off on the rock face just above the opening to the cave entrance. The concussive wave staggered him backwards and off his feet. A shower of rock chips came down in a torrent. Chili's ears rang. He swore his teeth went loose in his jaws. He rolled away from the blast and came to rest on his back in a shallow trench. A lot of his gear was scattered around him where it had been blown off by the ballistic wind.

  The night sky above him was cut in half by a second RPG snaking in low enough for him to reach out and touch it. The heat and vapor washed over him.

  The second grenade cruised six feet above the ground and entered the cave, where it discharged inside. The muffled whump shook the ground beneath Chili's back.

  Shit. That's all he could think of -- a one word summation of his own personal sit-rep.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  Then the mouth of the cave belched a ball of flame that belled out from the foot of the mesa with an audible whoosh. An awful rumble grew from deep within the rock. Chili could feel it more than hear it.

  A sudden blast pressed the air before it into a rushing mist that lifted Chili bodily from his uncertain shelter in a tsunami of dust and debris.

  His body came to rest in a copse of brittle thorn bushes. Chili was knocked cold and did not witness a broad section of the escarpment collapse and send millions of tons of rock down into the basin to seal the cave mouth for all eternity.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  FUBAR

  An unmanned drone was flying Big Picture at 40,000 feet over the north Samangan region. It was tasked with keeping an eye on any suspicious movement in the environments along Highway One and its service roads.

  The Northrop Grumman Global Hawk was earning its 100 million dollar pricetag. It was cruising at 300mph in the middle of a twenty-four hour tour when it picked up a blast in a mountain pass two miles south of the highway. Its lenses and scanners watched from the sky as a rock face at the narrow end of a pie-slice shaped mesa collapsed on itself. The mesa was designated M-2845-ao-SamanganN. The number was derived from the highest measured point of the formation.

  The UAV relayed GPS, HD video, LADAR, as well as standard radar, thermals and estimated seismic readings (a localized 5.5 Richter) to its controllers at Bagram Air Force base. Then it flew on its way following its pre-programmed course.

  The virtual flyboys at Bagram passed the data down the chain. Fifteen minutes later it reached FOB Iron Man as an emailed update that was lost in the flurry of transmissions coming in to the comm centers for both the 10th Mountain and the agency.

  The ANA limped back into Iron Man, stressed and hurting.

  As each MRAP and Buffalo rolled to stop, hadjis spilled from it and touched their heads to the earth and called out prayers of gratitude. They faced east and west, north and south. Mecca was out there somewhere.

  Daddy Basir was shaking with rage or fear or both as he stormed for the 10th's command center. Captain Dice and Whynot met him halfway.

  "Looks like you got your ass kicked, Colonel," Captain Dice said with exaggerated gravity for Daddy's benefit.

  "Ass is kicked?" Daddy shouted. "Ass is kicked? You meant for this to happen! You make me like a fish! Like...like..."

  "Bait?" Sgt Wynocki said helpfully.

  "Yes! Bait! I am put out on hooks for the Taliban to shoot at! I am nearly dead! My clothes are filthy with blood! I was nearly killed! This is not right! I am not to be used in this way!"

  Captain Dice noted that the Colonel never mentioned the danger to the men under his command. To Daddy, this was strictly personal. The Taliban was shooting at HIM.

  Colonel Basir was seething. His eyes were red and looked like they would boil out of their sockets.

  "We are allies! We are friends! Still you hang my ass out to be kicked in such a manner!"

  Whine to CENTCOMM, bitch, thought Dice. Instead, he said:

  "We're all catching shit tonight, sir. The whole AO is acting up like it's Arab Spring Break. At least your men are blooded now. They've seen combat and come out harder for it."

  Daddy stood glaring at Dice and Wynocki. His mouth was pressed tight and he breathed heavy through his nostrils. After a moment he turned and stormed away.

  "Nice work, sir," said Whynot. "You used positive reinforcement to assure the Colonel. His men will learn from this experience and be better soldiers for it."

  "Or they'll put a bullet in his head the first chance they get," Captain Dice said to the retreating back of Colonel Basir. He was unaware that he'd just paraphrased Richard Jaekel from The Dirty Dozen.

  The hadji troops had indeed been blooded.

  Six ANA men had to be carried from the transports. The motor jocks of the 10th needed to hose the interiors out before re-positioning them along the defenses.

  Kambiz' uniform was spattered with blood not his own. It smelled. And animal odor. He did not expect it to smell. He wasn't sure why. He had helped his father and brothers bleed out goats since he was a child.

  He stood by the Buffalo and pushed his glasses back up his nose. They kept sliding down on the greasy sweat that bathed him at the first sounds of gunfire down on the roadway. A man by him was struck high on the leg and his blood sprayed everywhere. He was a Pashtun named Tariq. He dreamed of buying a car some day. Nothing special. Just a Hyundai. Red, if they had one in that color. He only joined the ANA and the fight against his own people to make money to that end. Now he was dead and would never drive a car of any color.

  From where he sheltered behind the wheel of a tour bus, Kambiz watched Tariq die. Tariq lay on the road in the open throughout the fight. No one moved to his aid. He called out for his mother as his life pumped out with each beat of his heart. The dark flow slowed to a trickle. Tariq turned as gray as cold ashes. His fingers trembled and were still after a while.

  Those were Taliban out there in the dark and spraying fire into the stalled columns of trucks and busses. They were his brothers in the One Faith. Kambiz realized that he might die here at the hands of his own. He wore the uniform given to him by the infidel. The gunmen were not discriminating in who they killed. They shot down civilians as well as soldiers. Kambiz saw a woman thrown from her feet,trailing ropes of intestines behind her before she fell, unmoving, to the road surface. More civilians screamed from within burning vehicles. He heard a child crying shrilly from somewhere, then growing silent.

  He prayed, not for himself but for his mission. He prayed to the Lord to spare him from this shameful and pointless death. He prayed that he be allowed to live and make good on his promise of war, his vow to bring death to the ferangi. Kambiz whispered an oath to his god and the soul of his slain brother that he would destroy the enemies of his people and of Islam if he were allowed to walk unharmed from this battle.

  "Potter! Out of the way, dude!"

  Kambiz came out of his reverie. A black American soldier shoved him away from the MRAP to climb up to the cab.

  "You wanna get run over, Potter?"

  Kambiz stepped aside as the MRAP roared to life and pulled away in a spray of gravel. He turned away to head for the shower tent to wash the filth of the apostate Tariq from his skin.

  Two privates from the 10th were rolling up the hoses used to wash out the vehicles. Kambiz marched past them with eyes glittering.

  "Harry Potter got his cherry popped," said one to the other.

  "He's got his war face on," said the other.

  Kambiz did wear his war face. His oath was renewed. His promise to eternity was made fresh by the nearness of death down on the highway.

  "Chili! Chili!"

  Someone was calling him. Faint and far, far away.

  "Chili! Wake up!"

  His mom? Was he late for school?

  "Come on, Chili!"

  Hold on. Mom didn't call him Chili. He was Billy Jim to her. Willard James if she was pissed.

  "Goddamn it, Chili! Get off your ass!"

  No way this was his mother. Who was it and why did they sound so far away?

  He opened his eyes when the shaking started. His entire field of vision was filled with Pig's face. Beet red and shouting. Spit flew from his teeth in gobs. He was SCREAMING in Chili's face but sounded like he was whispering from across a room. He gripped Chili by the vest straps. He yanked Chili to a sitting position.

  "You brokedick motherfucker! You get off your ass or you're gonna die!"

  Pig jerked Chili to his feet. Chili had a floating feeling. Nothing seemed real. His legs and arms tingled. His eyes fought to remain open and focused. He turned his head lazily to take it all in. The world around him and Pig was engulfed in swirling dust. They were both covered in a fine layer of gray powder. Points of light flashed through the enveloping haze. Tracers moving at the speed of fireflies on a summer night. Chili blinked and it took all day.

  "You're gonna make me carry you, aren't you, you redneck son of a bitch?"

  Chili was adrift then, leaving the earth. Pig hoisted him on his shoulders in a fireman's carry and hustled him away. His brother SEAL, his BFF, his best buddy was spitting the kind of continuous stream of scatology that only a true Navy man could come up with. Now other voices came through the all-encompassing cloud of dust. Voices shouting in words that were not English.

  Pig climbed the slope leading from the basin and toward Woody's position. He fought to stay on his feet under the live but hurting burden of Chili. Behind them, the new face of Pumpkin rose above the settling fog of rock dust.

  They'd have to redraw the topo maps to take in the half-moon shaped gully scooped from the west face where the cave entrance collapsed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  THE GRAVE

  The dark was so complete that Heath wasn't sure if his eyes were open or closed.

  He pressed his lids tight together and opened them again.

  Either he was blind or it was that dark.

  He sat up and regretted it. A wave of dizziness washed over him and his gorge rose. He turned to his side and gagged. Nothing came up. His stomach was empty. His throat was dry. His head was pounding. Nauseated and dehydrated.

  Heath ran hands over his torso and legs. All whole. All there. All hurting. He felt like hammered shit. But nothing was broken and he wasn't bleeding from anywhere and he hadn't shit himself. Another great day in the Navy. A layer of fine dust covered him. He swallowed hard and sat up again. The light-headed feeling was still there, but not so bad as before. The dull ache in his head sharpened to a migraine behind his right eye.

  His hearing was overloaded with a susurration of white noise. He strained to hear any kind of sound. Nothing. He either couldn't hear or it was quiet around him.

  Scooting back on his ass he found a rock wall to lean against. He searched his mind for the last thing he could remember. He was in cave. In Afghanistan. That sucked. They were taking fire. Priest had a prisoner. He was telling them they were hauling ass. But Manny was hurting and moving slow. Heath went to help him and-

  That's it. Heath couldn't remember anything else.

  Heath took an inventory of his gear by touch. His helmet was gone and the NDF lenses with it. His Molle cargo vest was still in place and the pouches still Velcroed down. The PRC mike dangled from his strapping but was still intact.

  His M4 was missing. The combat slings were torn out of their toggle snaps. His sidearm, one of his treasured Dan Wesson revolvers, was still strapped securely into his leg holster. If you have your health and a gun, then you have everything.

  No Camelbak and, God, he was dying for a drink of water. Where was it? He recalled now. They left anything not vital to the recon behind, outside the cave.

  He raised his wrist and peeled back his sleeve to reveal his Luminox watch. A sigh of relief. The watch was operational. And he could see the glowing face and digits clearly.

  Oh-four hundred.

  Two and a half hours after they entered the cave.

  He flashed on the date. Same night. He'd been unconscious for two hours and change.

  A sound interrupted the warping hiss in his ears. He quickly recovered the watch face and put a hand to the rubber grip of his Dan Wesson. Using the rock wall to balance himself, Heath rose to his feet. He fought down a new urge to wretch. Revolver in hand, he concentrated his hearing to identify the nature and source of the sound.

  A regular rasping. Someone breathing. Struggling to breathe.

  Heath replaced the Dan in its holster and drew his six-inch combat knife from the scabbard that was jack-ass rigged on his right breast.

  Spread fingers of his left hand outstretched and knife in his right fist held tight to his side, Heath carefully stalked toward the sound. His head grazed a low outcropping of rock and he swallowed a curse. After a guesstimated twenty feet or so his hand touched cloth and the rasping sound stopped as if switched off. His fingers moved gingerly over the fabric until they touched the reinforced seams and straps of a Molle vest.

  "It's Heath," he croaked a whisper.

  "Good answer." Manny's voice. Weak, with an audible wheeze.

  "What would you have done if it was anyone else?" Heath whispered.

  He felt a pressure in his side. The business end of Manny's Colt automatic.

  The pressure was removed. Heath ran hands over Manny; expertly looking for evidence of bleeds or breaks. Manny flinched away when Heath's fingers pressed on the ribs along his left side. That's where Manny took two rounds in the armor from that bitch's handgun. The ribs there were fractured for sure. Heath hoped they were hairline breaks and there weren't any jagged edges. It was best to leave the vest in place for now. He didn't want to explore the injury any further without sight. It would only cause his SEAL brother more pain.

  Heath leaned close so his mouth was inches from Manny's ear.

  "Where's your helmet?"

  Manny shifted with a grunt and Heath felt the helmet dome pressed against him. He ran hands over it. The NVD was still in place. He placed the helmet on his head and secured it in position with the strap. He dropped the lens array in place and felt along the side for the ‘on' switch.

  The lenses came to life. A man stood not three paces from him and Manny. The man's back was to them. He held a weapon in his hands. Heath went rigid and slid his revolver from the holster. The man turned. The four gleaming lenses mounted before his face gave him an insect look.

  Priest.

  He'd been there the whole time. The scary motherfucker.

  Priest raised a hand to Heath for silence then pointed down at his feet. The prisoner lay on the cave floor, bound, eyes glowing spooky white. There was a cloth stuffed in his mouth and secured in place with flex cuffs around his head. Priest had removed the prisoner's boots and socks.

  Heath returned his gaze to Priest. Priest was gesturing at his own eyes and then down range somewhere. Heath nodded. Priest held up first three fingers, then four, then three again.

  Enemy targets. Three, maybe four.

  Priest raised a clenched fist. Hold here.

  The team was together and still had their prisoner. Good news. The bad news? We are the bad news.

  Heath dropped to a knee with the Dan in one hand, trained down range. With the other hand he swept the area around Manny. His fingers found the barrel shroud on Manny's M4. He lifted it to him and removed the magazine as quietly as he could manage. Heath plucked a fresh mag from the pouch on his Molle and recharged the rifle with 20 rounds of Beowulf mankillers.

  The Dan went back home on his leg and Heath trained the M4 out into the deep, deep dark.

  He studied their current AO. They were somewhere past the radio room which had been the priority target of their attack. A glance back told him that the cave ceiling had collapsed west of their current position. The radio room was crushed under a hill of stones. He could see what was left of the stationary bike protruding from under the heap of rock.

  The front door was shut tight. An acrid ammonia tang in the air told him that it was a blast, rather than an earthquake, which nearly dropped the whole cave on them. He couldn't recall any of that. In his life, Heath had been cold-cocked too many times to count. Most of those times he couldn't recall the minute or so before the lights went out.

  He returned his attention down range. The way ahead was dicey.

  It looked like a forest of natural columns out there. They were hourglass in shape. Heath knew from a cave diving course he took in Kentucky that these formations were created over eons as stalactites on the ceiling joined stalagmites on the floor. It was difficult for Heath to work out any really useful details through the 2D imagery delivered to him through the NVD. He shifted his gaze but it was hopeless. No depth perception. His eyes could not orient the spacing between those stone columns or even how far they stretched before him. He could tell that the floor dropped away abruptly somewhere ahead.

  No movement was discernible. Heath couldn't see the three or four fuckers that Priest saw. They were down there somewhere, under cover and sitting tight.

  Or maybe not.

  The entrance the SEALs came in was an immovable wall of rubble. They had their backs to it. Maybe the bad guys knew another exit. Maybe theyweren't setting up an ambush in the dark. Maybe they were heading for daylight out some back door. He turned to speak to Priest when he saw his brother SEAL stiffen. Priest was pressing his rifle tight to his shoulder.

  Heath sighted to match Priest's view. Something shifted out there. He thought about flipping to thermals when a ghostly figure leapt from cover to cover between columns. Heath took Priest's lead and kept his finger resting on the trigger guard of his M4. Priest wasn't willing to give away their position until it was absolutely necessary. Heath would wait and fire on the other man's cue.