ing something out there, don’t you?”
“I know they are.”
“I’m surprised Captain Harruck didn’t ask us to
sweep it.”
“That hottie Anderson is keeping him real busy
now,” I said.
“Oh, yeah, she’s hot.”
“Australian accent. What an ass on her, too.”
I was talking his talk. He wriggled his brows. “Tell you
what, we’ll give it a quick look. I’m sure the CO would
126 GH OS T RE CON
make us check it out eventually.” He threw his truck in
reverse, backed out, and started away from the gate.
Damn, I thought. I didn’t think he’d go for it. Now I
was committed to the plan.
I watched them leave, then hurried back to our billet,
where inside, the guys were doing the usuaclass="underline" reading,
playing computer games on their iPods, cleaning weap-
ons, and/or creating battle profiles for our Cross-Coms,
something Nolan truly enjoyed. We always killed more
time than enemy insurgents. So it was in the Army. Hurry
up and wait.
Ramirez and Warris were seated at the small confer-
ence table near the door, and Ramirez gave me a sour
look as I entered. “What’s up?”
“Sir, just had a nice, long talk with Captain Warris.
Seems he’s in charge now.”
“Say again?”
“That’s not exactly true,” said Warris.
I quickly said, “Gordon told me you’re our new—”
“Liaison officer?” Warris finished. “Yeah, well, that
was the initial thought. They say they won’t relieve you
of command, Mitchell, but I’ve been told that anything
and everything you do must be screened through me
first, and at that point I’ll bring it up with Harruck. I’m
sorry. I know how this is. But they were emphatic.”
“Outside,” I snapped.
“Excuse me?”
“I said, out. . . side. . . do you read me?”
“Whoa. You’d better check the registry.”
“Not now, son.”
CO MB AT O P S
127
I opened the door and waited for the punk I had
trained, the punk who thought he was replacing me, to
head outside, where we could talk away from my boys.
So I’d just learned that my father was in a coma, that
my chances of capturing my target were next to nil, and
that some kid with barely two combat tours under his
belt was going to “oversee” my operation. I guess I’m
trying to rationalize or justify what I did next.
Sure, my hand itched with the desire to reach for my
pistol and put it to Warris’s head—just to teach the
cocky bastard a lesson. And my other hand shook with
the desire to strangle him until he was blue and his eyes
rolled back in his head.
Wasn’t it just yesterday that I was standing there with
Warris as his evaluator during the training exercise we’d
just completed?
I’d been playing the role of a tribal chief and he’d
misjudged my character and how I might behave in the
heat of battle. Sure, I threw him a few surprises, but he
should have been ready for them, and he was not.
Indeed, he’d screwed up big-time and I’d chewed
him out, but he’d been humble and had never ques-
tioned my authority. I hadn’t known his true feelings
about that experience and the aftermath . . . until now.
“Mitchell, don’t think you can throw your weight
around like you did back at the school. Those days are
over,” he began. “You were the wise old man back there,
but over here, it’s a whole different ball of wax. Old
school doesn’t work anymore. We might be Ghosts, but
we still have to learn, adapt, and overcome.”
128 GH OS T RE CON
I smiled. “So you’re an asshole, too?”
His eyes widened. “I could write you up for that.”
My grin darkened. “Listen, kid, if you think I’m
going to ask your permission for anything I do here—”
The explosion came from the other side of the wall,
and I knew in the next breath who was involved: the
mine-sweeping team. Had they found a mine? Were they
under attack?
My imagination raced through fragmented images of
blood-filled sand fountaining into the air and human
appendages tumbling end over end . . .
I pointed a finger at Warris, about to say something,
then just sprinted away toward the rear wall, where a
ladder would take me up to the machine gun nest. From
there I’d have a clear view of the field.
The report of automatic weapons echoed the first
boom immediately, and it sounded like an all-out gun
battle by the time I mounted the ladder.
By the time I neared the gunner’s nest, the two guys
there were already firing, one on the fifty, the other on
his rifle. Two trucks had driven out to the field to join
the minesweepers’ Hummer, and about twenty Taliban
thugs had jumped out and were firing from behind their
vehicles.
Still more guys were firing from the foothills, at least
six more strung out along a broad reef of stone, muzzles
flashing.
There were only five guys out there, huddled around
their Hummer and being surrounded by four times as
many Taliban.
CO MB AT O P S
129
An RPG whooshed from behind one of the Taliban
trucks and struck the Hummer, exploding inside the cab
and sending the fireball skyward.
“Get off that gun,” I screamed to the kid manning the
fifty. I shoved him out of the way and began directing fire
myself, first on one Taliban truck, then on the other. My
bead drove the Taliban away toward a ditch behind their
trucks, tracers gleaming, big rounds thumping hard into
steel, glass, plastic, and sending sparks and then gasoline
pouring onto the sand.
Within another two heartbeats, both trucks caught fire,
and the Taliban now ran toward the foothills. Between me
and the guy on his rifle, we cut down five guys making
their break.
Someone was shouting my name, and when I glanced
below, I saw Ramirez in a Hummer with the rest of the
team, including Warris, whose expression seemed neu-
tral. I came back down the ladder and hopped in the
flatbed. Ramirez floored it, and we rushed past the open
main gate and hightailed it toward the field, along with
two other Hummers carrying a pair of rifle squads.
We took sporadic small-arms fire from the hills for a
minute, but the rifle squads returned fire and suppressed
those guys. We parked behind the burning trucks for
cover, then charged out and raced toward the mine-
sweeping team.
Six guys were there, every one of them on the ground.
I rushed over to the lieutenant I’d spoken to at the gate.
He’d been shot in the neck and the arm and was bleed-
ing badly. “Nolan!” I screamed.
130 GH OS T RE CON
The medic rushed over while guys from the rifle
squads went to assist the other fallen sweepers.
“It’s right next to our truck.” The lieutenant gasped.
“Right there.”
“GET BACK! GET BACK!” Ramirez screamed.
I turned my head.