On the other hand, Colonel, I wonder how you’d hold up under torture. Would you beg for mercy? Would you answer questions, give away secrets, betray comrades so you could live? How tough are you, Colonel? You’re quick to make others suffer. You don’t even have the guts to torture them yourself. You make me do it. Most of the time, you can’t even bear to watch. I wonder how you’d behave on the receiving end. I wonder how you’d like it then.

  As the personnel carrier tilted up and down, roaring onward, Kourov realized that this was the first time the colonel had accompanied his troops into battle. How tough would the bastard be? Kourov looked forward to the chance to find out.

  6

  “We’re almost there, sir. Hang on,” Rambo said.

  But the colonel didn’t answer.

  It was early afternoon. The wind had stopped. The group rode quickly up through trees, crossed the field where Rambo had played buzkashi, and reached a higher section of trees. Rambo peered ahead, anxious to glimpse the camp. The farther he rode through the trees, the more uneasy he became.

  I should have seen tents by now, he thought. There should have been riders in the field we just crossed. There ought to be villagers among these trees.

  At once he did see figures. Tents. Movement.

  Relax. You’re so tired you’re paranoid.

  But five seconds later, when he entered the campsite, he braced his shoulders, worried. Most of the tents were gone. The remaining tents were being dismantled and hurriedly packed onto mules. Women and children gathered cooking utensils, looms, and rugs. Warriors checked their weapons.

  “Mousa, find out what’s going on!”

  Rambo jumped from his horse and rushed to carry Trautman toward the infirmary.

  Michelle appeared at the mouth of the cave, saw them coming, threw a cigarette onto the ground, and ran to help.

  In the background, Mousa spoke to a group of warriors and quickly followed Rambo. “They say they feared you not come back. Feared Soviets shot you.”

  Michelle reached Rambo and grabbed Trautman’s legs.

  Mousa continued to follow. “They say they are pleased you survived. Pleased you have your friend.”

  “Tell them I’m grateful.”

  “There is more.”

  Helped by Michelle, Rambo carried Trautman out of the daylight into the cave and set him on a clump of straw.

  Trautman lay back, unconscious. Despite the shadows of the cave, his bruised swollen face was shockingly vivid.

  “His shoulder,” Rambo said.

  “Don’t you think I see that?” Michelle grabbed her doctor’s bag and jerked it open.

  Trautman moaned.

  “There is more,” Mousa repeated. “You must listen.”

  “Not now,” Rambo said.

  “Now! They leave! They are sorry! But they leave!”

  Rambo swung toward him.

  “Yes!” Mousa said. “I try to make you understand!”

  “I’ve got to talk to them! Michelle, do you need my help? Is there anything I can do?”

  “Get out of here! For God’s sake, let me do my work!”

  7

  The chieftains sat in a semicircle, flanked by warriors, their faces grave. Reminded of the council meeting when he’d first come here, Rambo sat with concern across from them and turned to Mousa. “Tell me again.”

  “They leave.”

  “Why?”

  “You force them.”

  “How?”

  “Because of the favor they grant you. They know when you attack fort you make enemy angry.”

  “But they don’t think their attack on the armored column yesterday made the enemy angry?”

  “That was war. Attack on fort is personal.”

  “This is the crazy.”

  “Afghan war.”

  “Crazy.”

  “Holy war. They leave now. Allah wills it.”

  Khalid spoke. “Too many attacks. Too close together. Enemy get furious. Search everywhere. Never stop until they find this camp.”

  Mousa added, “That is part of the favor these people grant you. Not just to help. But to let you go after your friend. After you attack fort, they know they must leave, find other home. But they not try to stop you.”

  Rambo stared at the ground. Despondent, he suddenly realized,Yes, it all made sense now. He’d been so busy worrying about the colonel that he hadn’t understood the sacrifice he forced these people to make. How many homes had they abandoned? How many would they abandon until the war was over? And in the end, would their sacrifices have been in vain?

  “Tell them I’m sorry. If there’d been another way…” Rambo’s voice was strained with sadness. “I needed to save my friend.”

  Akram spoke.

  “He say they let you save friend because you are their friend,” Mousa said.

  “Thank you.”

  “He say any man who not save friend cannot be their friend.”

  Rambo had trouble speaking. “Tell him, even though we’re different, we’re very much alike. We do what we need to.”

  Akram spoke again.

  “He say you are wrong about differences. You think like Muslim.”

  “What does he mean?”

  “‘We do what we need to.’ He say you believe in destiny.”

  Rambo felt a shock of recognition as he remembered one of the last things Trautman had said to him.

  You’re lost. Because you won’t accept, won’t be what you are.

  Why should I be what I hate?

  It isn’t hate. It’s confusion. Accept your destiny.

  I don’t believe in destiny.

  Yes, and that’s the trouble.

  In torment, Rambo turned toward the cave in which Trautman lay half-dead from blood loss.

  It’s my fault. If I’d done what the colonel asked, if I’d gone with him to Pakistan, he wouldn’t have been captured. He wouldn’t have been tortured. He wouldn’t have been shot. He wouldn’t be in that cave now, fighting for his life.

  Destiny? That’s why this happened. Because I wouldn’t do what I knew in my heart I needed to do.

  He prayed to the God of the Catholics, the Navajos, the Buddhists, and the Muslims, begging for Trautman’s life. Desperate for a reason to hope, he wondered if the Muslims were right that nothing occurred without a purpose, that everything was part of a plan, the will of Allah. Could all that had happened—his search, his ordeals, his attack on the fort, his rescue of Trautman—could all of it have been for a reason?

  But what was the reason? Surely the point would not be that Trautman would die.

  No, Rambo thought. I won’t believe that.

  He turned in distress from the cave and studied the chieftains. “What’s their destiny? Where will they go?”

  “Akram say he move camp to west, go where enemy not expect, continue fighting.”

  Rambo exhaled. The futility of these people’s lives made him despair. “It’s as good a plan as any.”

  Rahim interrupted.

  “He disagree,” Mousa said. “Go north.”

  Khalid interrupted.

  Rambo anticipated Mousa’s translation. “I’ll bet he wants to go in yet another direction.”

  “South.”

  “Why don’t they all head east into Pakistan? They can rest there, get more men and supplies.”

  “No, they say go to Pakistan is to run from war. They stay and fight.”

  “Then why don’t they stick together? The larger their force, the better their chance of beating the Russians.”

  “Remember what I tell you,” Mousa answered. “This is country of tribes. All tribes, all leaders equal. All leaders think their plan is best. All think they know God’s will.”

  “But the attack on the column yesterday shows how effective they can be when they work together.”

  “True. But not Afghan way. They quarrel. They do what Afghans do for a thousand years. Go own way, fight own war.”

  Rambo shook his head in dismay.

  Akram spoke.

  “He asks what you do now,” Mousa said.

  “Hope the colonel gets better. As soon as he can travel, I’ll take him to Pakistan.”

  Akram listened, nodded fatalistically, and spoke.

  Mousa translated, “He say, like chieftains you must do what you think best.”

  “Tell him I’ll always value his friendship.”

  The chieftains stood. What they said next, almost in unison, was one of the few Afghan expressions Rambo knew.

  Rambo repeated it in their language. “Yes, go with God.”

  The chieftains regarded him warmly and walked toward their separate tribes.

  “Now we wait and pray,” Mousa said.

  “We? Are you sure you want to stay? Go with one of the tribes. I won’t think less of you.”

  “I start this with you. I end it with you.”

  “Just so you know you can go if…”

  Mousa looked insulted.

  “Sorry. I’m an ignorant foreigner,” Rambo said. “Forgive me.”

  “You friend. You not find way back to Pakistan without me.”

  “To tell the truth, I’d miss having you around.”

  8

  Rambo’s eyes adjusted to the shadows of the cave as he walked toward Trautman. The colonel’s raw swollen face made him sick.

  “How is he?”

  Michelle had cut Trautman’s shirt across his left shoulder. She didn’t look up from disinfecting the wound. “The bullet went through him. It struck high enough to miss his heart and lung. That’s the good news.”

  “What’s the bad?”

  “He’s been beaten so severely, he’s lost so much blood, I’m not sure he’s strong enough to—”

  “Give him blood.”

  “If I had some, I would.”

  “Give him mine.”

  She glanced up sharply. “I don’t have the equipment to test if your blood type’s the same.”

  “We’re both A-positive.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “The colonel once gave blood to me.”

  “No. You look terrible. You haven’t slept in thirty-six hours. God knows when you ate last. You’re covered with blood. I can’t tell how much is your friend’s and how much is yours. You’re in no shape to give a transfusion.”

  “Set it up, or I’ll do it myself.”

  Michelle studied him. “Yes, I believe you would. You’d be putting yourself at risk.”

  “Set it up.”

  “Take off your shirt. Wash your hands. Put disinfectant on your left arm. I don’t want the blood to be contaminated.”

  She cleaned the inside of Trautman’s right arm.

  “That table beside him. Lie on it. I need you above him. A gravity feed.”

  Rambo quickly obeyed. Michelle removed sterilized IV needles and tubing from plastic bags. She attached the tube to the needles, fixed a clamp to the tube, and inserted a needle into the crook of Rambo’s left arm. The other needle went into Trautman’s right arm. She opened the clamp.

  As blood flowed from Rambo’s arm into Trautman’s, she pivoted toward Mousa. “Bring him water. Get him something to eat. He needs to keep his strength up. The last thing I want is another patient.”

  She sutured the entrance and exit wounds on Trautman’s shoulder. She dressed and bandaged them. She injected Trautman with antibiotics.

  “There’s nothing more I can do,” she told Rambo. “The injections I gave him were the last medications I had. It’s up to your friend now. If I don’t take that IV out, you’ll be the one who needs a transfusion.” She closed the clamp on the tube and removed the needles. “Bend your arm.”

  Since Trautman was unconscious, she bent his arm for him, closing the hole in his vein.

  Rambo drank from a canteen of water Mousa brought. He ate a peach and a bowl of cold rice flecked with gristly meat. The meat tasted bitter. He didn’t ask what kind it was.

  “Do me a favor,” Michelle said.

  “Anything.”

  “It makes me sick to look at you. Wash that grease and sand off your face.”

  Rambo couldn’t help laughing.

  “Here’s the last clean shirt I can find,” Michelle said. “After this, you’ll need to wallow in your filth. What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing. It felt good to laugh. I’d forgotten.”

  “So have I. It’s been a long time.” Michelle shook her head. “I think I’m ready to go home.”

  Rebels came in and helped patients to their feet.

  “What are they doing?” Rambo asked.

  “Evacuating all their people.”

  “But some patients aren’t fit to be moved.”

  “Tell me about it. Akram says the patients will die if the Russians find this cave. On the other hand, he says there’s a chance they’ll live if they’re moved to another camp.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “The truth? I’ve seen so much death I’m too numb to feel anything.” Michelle’s hands shook as she lit a cigarette. “Yes, I think it’s time I went home.”

  As Rambo stood, she warned, “Be careful. Any dizziness?”

  “No.”

  It was a lie. When the swirling stopped, Rambo knelt beside Trautman, whose swollen face resembled wax. He studied the gradual rise and fall of Trautman’s chest. “Will he live?”

  Michelle didn’t answer.

  “Tell me. What are his chances?”

  Frightened voices interrupted him.

  9

  Rambo ran from the cave.

  Rebels scurried toward their horses. Women rushed to finish packing. Children urged goats and sheep away from the campsite. Everyone shouted, their voices frantic.

  To the right, men crouched on a wooded bluff from which they could see the foothills and valley. They cursed and fled toward their horses.

  Rambo passed them, hurrying toward the bluff. It wouldn’t have mattered how loud their commotion was—he still would have heard what frightened them. Although far away, the sound was too powerful. He couldn’t possibly not have heard it.

  He reached the trees.

  Stooped.

  Crouched.

  And crawled. At the rim of the bluff, he stared down toward the foothills. The air reverberated with distant thunder, with rumbling whump-whump-whumping roars from as many gunships as Rambo had ever seen at one time. His heart pounded. Even far away, the winged silhouettes of the MI-24s looked monstrous. Ten. Fifteen. He stopped counting at twenty. Below him, they sped toward the foothills in a gigantic V formation, then spread out, veering right and left.

  They’re going to swoop across every hollow and ridge, every clearing and thicket, Rambo thought. They’ll each have a grid. They’ll search methodically back and forth. They’ll work up through the foothills. They’ll scan the mountains. They’ll double-check anything that looks suspicious. They’ll blow apart anything that moves.

  The nose of a distant gunship flickered with what seemed sparks. Rambo heard the stutter of machine-gun fire. Dust rose from a wooded slope.

  He squirmed back from the bluff and ran through the trees toward what had been the camp. Most of the rebels were on the move, Khalid’s group heading one way, Rahim’s another. Akram gave final instructions to his group and mounted his horse, He noticed Rambo and shouted, pointing at the cave.

  Rambo didn’t understand. “Mousa, what’s he saying?”

  Mousa’s eyes looked stark as he turned from the gunships’ roar in the valley. More machine guns fired. A distant rocket exploded. “He say gunships shoot everything. See cave, get suspicious, fire missile. If you stay, you die. He want you come with him.”

  “I can’t!”

  Akram kept shouting.

  “He say gunships come from west. He cannot go there now. He go east. Toward Pakistan. Come with him. His people protect you.”

  “I can’t leave the colonel!”

  “Bring colonel with you.”

  Rambo stared toward the wounded rebels that the Afghans had helped and in some cases carried from the cave, putting them on horses. Some of the wounded were able to stay on a saddle, unaided. But several were so weak that they needed a man behind them to hold them on.

  Just as Rambo had held Trautman through the long ride back here. If I put him through that stress again, Rambo thought, his sutures’ll open up. He’ll start bleeding again. He’ll die.

  “My friend’s in no shape to ride a horse!”

  Far below in the foothills, the gunships kept roaring. Machine guns continued to fire. Another rocket exploded.

  “We’d hold you back,” Rambo said. “We’d get all of your people killed just to try to save my friend. No. Leave without us. Hurry.”

  Akram’s dark eyes glinted in frustration. He seemed about to continue arguing, but another rocket exploded in the foothills below, and he nodded. He swung his horse around to lead his people away. They headed to the right. Khalid’s tribe had already disappeared in that direction, fleeing south. To the left, Rahim’s tribe had vanished into the forest, taking the only other escape route, rushing north.

  The clearing was unnaturally silent. At once more machine guns clattered in the foothills. Cannons boomed. Rambo scrambled into motion, reaching Michelle at the mouth of the cave.

  “Don’t stay,” he told her. “Take my horse. You can still catch up to Akram.”

  “I won’t leave the only patient I still have.”

  “You’ve done enough. I’ve had medical training. I’ll take care of him now.”

  “And who’ll take care of you if you get wounded? How can you fight and still watch your friend? I’m staying.”

  “But—”

  “I won’t desert a patient!” Michaelle’s eyes were as blue as steel, her voice as sharp as Rambo’s knife. “I won’t leave Afghanistan a coward!”

  The air pulsed from the far-away roar of the gunships. More cannons boomed in the foothills.

  “Akram was right,” Mousa said. “Gunships shoot anything they think suspicious.”