Pieces of hot metal hissed into the snow and ice. Explosions lit up the craggy landscape nearby, but visibility was still limited.
Crocker was high on adrenaline. His mind worked at warp speed, measuring distance, speed, the sequence of information, and making calculations. Something was very wrong.
“Should we return fire, boss?” asked Davis, crouched to his right.
“Negative!” Crocker shouted.
From somewhere behind him Dog muttered, “This situation is double fucked.”
“Double fucked or not, we’ll accomplish the mission.” Then Crocker spoke into his headset: “Hold your fire. We don’t want to give away our position. Pull back to the other side of the ridge.”
He was referring to the one they had recently climbed. On their way up they had followed a snow-covered trail, and now they literally clung to ice-covered rocks as they moved parallel to the ridge. The muscles in their arms and legs burned as they struggled to maintain balance while carrying roughly a hundred pounds of equipment on their backs. Akil led the way, carefully stepping from one toehold to another, in a generally southeastern direction, keeping his head down to avoid the rocks, snow, ice, and hot metal flying past.
“Tango-six-two this is Memphis-five-central. Report your position!” screamed the voice in Crocker’s headset. “Tango-six-two, report!” The fear in it was palpable.
He wished he could tell the major to hold his shit together. Instead he said sternly, “We’re proceeding, Memphis-five-central. Over and out.”
A large explosion shook the top of the mountain, dislodging an icy boulder that tumbled and hit another outcropping of rock with a large smash, splitting the boulder in two. A refrigerator-sized piece spun toward the spot where Dog, Phillips, and Jake were standing.
“Watch out!” Crocker screamed.
The men had little room to maneuver, and there was nothing the other SEALs could do but watch the massive hunk of rock glance off the backs of their three teammates, who had pressed themselves against the snow and ice.
Time slowed down. Jake froze, his legs went limp, and he fell backward. Phillips stretched his arms out and caught him. Dog’s whole body twisted violently to the left. Crocker saw the acute agony on his face, then watched as the MK43 Mod 0 machine gun flew out of his arms and disappeared into the shower of falling snow. He didn’t even hear it land. Could have ended up hundreds or even thousands of feet below.
Gone. Not that Crocker was worried about the weapon as he squeezed past Mancini, Davis, and Chauncey, reaching for the emergency medical pack at the back of his waist and looking down at Jake lying on the narrow ledge, his blue eyes frozen and staring into space as Phillips tried to remove Jake’s backpack.
“Don’t!” Crocker said.
“But-”
“Don’t touch him!”
“Sir, he’s breathing but can’t speak.”
“He’s in shock,” Crocker replied, feeling along Jake’s neck for a pulse and finding it higher than normal. He knelt in the snow and carefully reached under Jake’s backpack to the place below his neck where the rock had struck. There was swelling and loose, dislocated bone under the skin. Damage to some of the vertebrae.
“Tango-six-two this is Memphis-five-central. Report your position!” the army major from OPM screamed in Crocker’s headset.
Ignoring him, Crocker turned to Phillips. “Help me lay Jake on his side and wrap him in some Kevlar blankets,” he said. “He can’t be moved. You hear me? Don’t move him!”
“Yes, sir. You want me to stay with him?”
The major from OPM screeched again, “Tango-six-two this is Memphis-five-central. Do you copy? Report!”
“Yeah, I copy!” Crocker barked into his helmet mike.
Panic was dangerous. Phillips touched Crocker’s arm and whispered, “Sir, you want me to remain with Jake?”
The sounds of combat had moved farther down the mountain to the approximate location of OPM. The Taliban had stopped directing fire at the ridge.
Crocker waved Mancini over and said, “Manny, go back the way we came. First reconnoiter the ridge. If it’s clear, retake it. If there are a number of Taliban there, call and inform me. We can’t let the enemy hold that position.”
“No, boss, we can’t. If we do, I believe the base will be surrounded.”
“Which will make it real tough for us to fight our way in.”
“Roger that.”
“Take three men with you, and let me know.”
“Got it.”
He looked down at Jake again, then watched Phillips carefully slipping a Kevlar blanket under him. A gust of wind rushed up the side of the mountain, creating what sounded like a wolf’s howl.
A voice in his head reminded him that Phillips had previously asked him a question. He squeezed Phillips’s arm and said, “Yes, I want you to stay with him.” Phillips’s long, narrow face reminded Crocker of a marine he had served with in Okinawa, who fell in love with and married a Filipino prostitute-something straight-arrow Phillips would never do.
Phillips looked up with calm, intelligent, light-brown eyes. “You want me to try to monitor his vital signs, sir?”
“Every ten minutes or so, try at least to check his pulse. If it gets below sixty or over a hundred beats a minute, let me know.”
“Will do, chief.”
Crocker scooted over to Dog. Dog was leaning against the side of the mountain holding his left shoulder, which was hanging at an odd angle. A rocket whizzed overhead and Crocker instinctively ducked. For a second he forgot he was in Nuristan Province, Afghanistan-the setting of one of his favorite movies, The Man Who Would Be King, and throughout history a very dangerous place to be.
Who wants to be king now? he asked himself, looking at Dog, whose head was turned away from Crocker. The Tennessean’s stocky body trembled. Crocker whispered his name, and when Dog turned, Crocker saw tears streaming down his freckled face.
“Fucking new-guy bad luck,” Dog snarled through small, gritted teeth. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Crocker asked, inspecting Dog’s shoulder.
“Letting go of the pig.”
“Fuck the pig. Bite into this,” Crocker said, handing Dog a thick square of rubber he kept in a plastic bag in his emergency medical kit.
“Why?”
“Bite on it and tell me something: Who was quarterback at UT when you played there?”
“What-” Dog’s answer was interrupted by an unbelievable jolt of pain as Crocker pulled Dog’s right arm away from his shoulder, then forcefully pushed it up and into the socket with a pop.
“ELI-FUCKING-MANNING!”
Happier tears streamed from Dog’s blue eyes as he lifted his arm and realized that his shoulder worked again and was almost pain free.
“You’re a lucky man,” Crocker said in a low voice.
“Thank you,” Dog responded, removing the piece of rubber from his mouth, wiping it on his sleeve, then handing it back.
“Grab an extra weapon from someone.”
“Right away.”
“Let’s go kill some fucking Taliban.”
Crocker joined Akil at the front of the column. The barrel-chested Egyptian American former marine raised his arm and pointed out a route he had just explored, which he said would take them along the top of the mountain up to the ridge.
That’s when Mancini’s voice came over his headset. “Boss, Mancini. We’ve taken the position. All secure. Advise.”
“Hold, Manny. As well as you can, try to protect the northwest access.”
“Roger.”
“Holler if you see any enemy activity.”
“What’s your location?” Mancini asked.
“We’re proceeding south.”
Crocker and the remaining six crossed three hundred yards until they were directly above OPM. There they assembled behind a low wall blanketed with snow. Since visibility was still terrible, Crocker blew three times into the whistle he kept on a chain around his neck.