He then turned their MRAP toward Sanchez’s.
“Sanchez,” Bryant said as they neared the disabled vehicle. “We can squeeze you all in here with us.”
“Just go,” Sanchez said. “I’ll get this working.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sanchez said.
“Okay. We’ll watch your back until you’re running again.”
Bryant ordered the remaining four men in his vehicle to check on the soldiers who had been in the two destroyed fuel trucks.
Alex, hyperalert for any sign of danger, kept her gaze moving back and forth across the road as her squad mates climbed out and carefully made their way over to the now useless hulks. She had no doubt this would go down as one of the scariest moments of her army career.
The check was quick and far from satisfactory.
“Dead,” Wilson reported. “All of them. Should we bring the bodies?”
Bryant relayed the information and question to Cooper.
“The birds are on their way. They’ll pick them up,” Cooper said. “Sanchez, status.”
There was a delay, then Sanchez came on the radio. “I think I’ve got…”
With a sudden roar, the engine of the other vehicle came back to life.
“Back in business,” Sanchez said.
“Good! Get a move on,” Cooper ordered. “Both of you.”
For Sanchez to move, Alex’s Cougar had to get out of the way, so Bryant took the lead and headed after the convoy. Alex looked over her shoulder until she was sure Sanchez was following them before she focused back on the road.
That was why she only heard the explosion and didn’t see it.
The impact sent her vehicle flying, until it dropped back down several feet away. She slammed against the gun, her chest screaming in pain from the impact.
“What the hell was that?” Bryant asked.
Wincing, Alex turned and looked behind them. Sanchez’s MRAP was lying on its side, flames engulfing the hood.
“Sanchez is hit!” she said, breathing hard.
Without thinking, she scrambled out of the turret and dropped over the side of the Cougar onto the ground. Ignoring her bruised chest, she raced toward the other vehicle.
“Poe, stop!” Bryant ordered. “Get back here!”
She ripped her radio earpiece out and ran on without hesitating.
The bomb had been waiting on the side of the road, disguised as who knew what at this point — a soda can, a rock, a discarded shoe. The only things Alex knew were that the blast had been more powerful than any of the previous explosions, and that her vehicle had driven right past the device seconds before it went off.
She stopped near the front, out of reach of the flames, and looked through the windshield. She could see only one person — Riggins, crumpled against the passenger side door, at the bottom of the tipped truck. Sanchez had to be in there somewhere, too, but she couldn’t see him.
Using the undercarriage, she climbed up until she was standing on the driver’s side that was now facing the sky. She could feel the heat coming from the flames that still burned across the hood as she sidestepped over to the door and tried to pull it open. But it wouldn’t budge. She got down on all fours, then, cupping her hands at the sides of her face, she looked through the window into the cab.
From her new vantage point, she could see that Riggins’s head was cocked at an impossible angle, his neck broken. She took two quick, deep breaths, feeling them burn in her bruised chest, then looked around for Sanchez, and found him partially strapped in his seat. His face was smashed into the steering wheel, his eyes open and dead.
She took another breath. Riggins and Sanchez were gone, but there were others in the truck who might still need her help. She scrambled back to the ground and sprinted to the rear of the MRAP.
The metal door that would drop down like a ramp when opened was sealed shut. She pounded on it.
“Hey! Hey, open up! It’s me, Poe!”
Nothing happened.
“Can you hear me?”
“Poe?” The voice was muffled and weak.
“Yeah! Yeah! Who is that?”
“Mill…wood,” the man on the other side answered.
“How bad are you hurt?”
A pause. “Bad.”
She cursed under her breath. “What about the others?”
Another pause, this one longer. “Boyd and Drew are dead, I think. Chambers looks like he’s still…breathing.”
“You need to release the door. I can’t get to you otherwise.”
“Don’t know if I…can.”
“Try, goddammit!”
She could hear something clatter against the door, then what sounded like a grunt.
“Millwood! Are you all right?”
A scrape, but no other response.
As she raised her hand to pound against the door again, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. She twisted around, reaching for the gun she wasn’t carrying.
“Dammit, Poe! What do you think you’re doing?”
Cooper.
“Get the hell back to your vehicle,” he ordered. “We’ve got to get out of here!”
“Millwood’s inside. He’s still alive. Chambers, too.”
Before Cooper could reply, automatic gunfire broke out a couple hundred yards away. By the sound of it, they both knew it wasn’t coming from someone in their platoon. Almost instantly an MRAP returned fire.
Cooper lost focus for a moment, frozen in place. He then depressed his transmit button. “Copy that. Get them moving. Bryant, swing around here and pick us up.” He listened for a moment, then said, “Do it.” He focused back on Alex. “You’re sure they’re alive in there?”
“I talked to Millwood just a moment ago.”
He grimaced for half a second, then moved toward the door. “Let’s get this open.”
Together, they tried to pry the door loose as the sound of gunfire grew dangerously closer, but the damn thing wouldn’t budge.
“Millwood! You’ve got to help us,” Alex yelled.
No sound from inside.
“Millwood!”
Bryant’s Cougar barreled around the corner and braked to a hard stop.
“Millwood!”
There was the ping-ping-ping of bullets striking the metal of the downed MRAP. Alex and Cooper ducked.
“Come on,” Cooper said. “We’ve got to go!”
“They’re still in there!”
“We’re dead if we don’t move now!”
He grabbed her by the arms and pulled her toward the other Cougar.
She twisted side to side, trying to get free, but he held on tight.
“No! We can’t leave them!”
More bullets, streaking down the far side of Sanchez’s MRAP.
As Cooper got Alex to the back of Bryant’s vehicle, someone inside lowered the door. The second they were on board, the door shut again.
Ping-ping-ping-ping. This time the shots were hitting their truck.
“Go! Go! Go!” Cooper yelled at Bryant.
The Cougar began moving away quickly. Alex, free now from Cooper’s grasp, pressed herself up against the side window and looked back through the protective slats at Sanchez’s wrecked MRAP.
“Air support is coming,” Cooper said. “They’ll get ’em.”
“Oh, God!” Alex said.
The back of the other MRAP had started to swing open.
“They’re trying to get out! We have to go back!”
Cooper rushed to the window, then yelled to Bryant, “Turn around!”
Bryant had just started to turn the wheel, when a pickup truck with a machine gun mounted on back circled around Sanchez’s vehicle and stopped near the widening rear doorway. The gun swung around and pointed through the opening. Alex and Cooper saw flashes of gunfire as attackers flooded the interior of Sanchez’s vehicle with bullets.