“Nothing. Not even any guards. Weird.”
“All right, hang on.”
I gestured for Smith and Nolan to start planting the
first set of charges, while I crept off farther down the
tunnel, toward the starlight at the end of the jagged
seam in the rock. I paused at the edge and stole a look
214 GH OS T RE CON
into the valley below. Sangsar lay in the distance, a few
lights flickering, the majority of the homes blanketed in
deep shadows.
Warris was down there, somewhere, perhaps in some
dank basement, being questioned, having battery cables
attached to his genitalia, having insects shoved in his
ears. Was he man enough to keep his mouth shut? Was
he willing to die for his country? Had I taught him
enough?
I grinned over a strange thought. Maybe his hatred
for me would help keep him alive. He’d tell himself, I
need to survive this so I can burn the bastard responsible. I
accepted that. And even wondered, were I to rescue
him, if he would change his mind, keep quiet, tell me
that was his thank-you for pulling him out of hell. But
no, the world was hardly that simple, and Warris’s moral
high ground was pretty damned high. Rescue or not,
he’d want to hang me.
“Ghost Lead, this is Blue Six, in position, over.”
“Roger that, Blue Six, stand by,” I told the Bradley
commander. Harruck had come through and our ride
home was waiting.
I slipped just outside the cave and pulled up the satel-
lite imagery in my HUD. The monocle covering one of
my eyes flashed as the data came through.
Glowing yellow lines that represented the series of caves
and tunnels moved through a wireframe image of the
mountain chain. The diamonds indicating Bravo team
flickered on and off, and the signal grew weaker the
deeper they moved. That I even got some signal was
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215
surprising. So far, no red diamonds within the moun-
tain or outside.
Had Zahed just called back all of his guards? Were
they all just tired? Why had they left the tunnels com-
pletely unprotected?
My hackles began to rise, and that smell I detected
was not the dampness of the tunnel but an ambush.
“Ghost Team, this is Ghost Lead. I don’t like this.
No defenses here. Plant your charges and let’s get the
hell 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.
216 GH OS T RE CON
“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 moun-
tains 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 moun-
tains. 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 echo-
ing, 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
CO MB AT O P S
217
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, wav-
ing 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 sec-
onds 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
218 GH OS T RE CON
been knocked to the side of his head, and he was blink-
ing 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 shemaghand shoved it beneath the
web gear and applied pressure. My first instinct was to
get on the Cross-Com and shout, “Nolan, got a man
down!”
“Captain, tell John not to feel bad. Tell ’em we’re
buddies forever. Okay?”