Gold drew another breath, spat blood and saliva. “Give me my radio,” she said. “The MBITR.” The sound of her own words scared her. Like she’d choked them out through gravel in her throat.
“Just rest and—”
“Now, Sergeant!”
She tried to rise up on her elbow. Cords of reddened mucus dangled from her nose and mouth. Reyes looked worried, but he stopped arguing. He put the MBITR in her hand, moved her boom mike back into place over her lips. She pressed the transmit button.
“They’re sending—they’re sending out three kids in suicide vests,” Gold said. Inhaled again. It felt like breathing fire, but she was breathing, nonetheless. “They told them to come out”—another burning breath—“with their hands up.”
Gold released the button. She heard Blount respond with one word, devoid of emotion: “Copy.”
The PKM’s bolt latched open. That told Parson he’d fired the last 7.62-millimeter round in the ammunition belt. The weapon smoked in his hands. He’d emptied the machine gun on the insurgents who were firing up at Gold’s position on the knoll. Now, no more muzzle flashes came from those bastards. Parson put down the PKM and drew his handgun. The team had to clear the cave eventually, and his Beretta made a good close-quarters weapon.
Blount rose from the stone ruins just yards from Parson. Moved closer to the cave entrance. He spoke into his microphone, but Parson could not hear the words.
Three figures stepped out of the cave together. In the dark, Parson couldn’t see them well, but they were not tall enough to be adults. All the children had their arms raised. Good. Maybe this thing was ending.
“Zaai peh zaai wudregah,” Blount shouted. Parson remembered that phrase; it was one of the few things he knew in Pashto. Stay where you are. Gold had taught Parson a few useful words in recent days. Someone had taught Blount, as well.
The kids continued toward him. “Zaai peh zaai wudregah,” he repeated. “Stop! Now!”
Blount backed up several steps. Why was he being so cautious? Of course these kids would come toward their rescuers.
“Wudregah,” he called. “Please!”
Blount shouldered his weapon. With quick semiauto shots, he cut down all three children.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Parson shouted. He pointed his Beretta at Blount, who had apparently lost his mind.
Before Blount could speak, one of the small figures on the ground turned into a geyser of orange flame.
Heat, noise, and debris hit Parson. Flying grit stung his face, lashed his arms. The blast so overwhelmed his ears that their membranes transmitted not sound but pain. Parson’s mind seemed to lock up and cage like a navigational instrument getting bad data: Marines don’t shoot children. And children don’t become pillars of fire.
He flattened himself, waited for another explosion. Nothing. As the smoke and dust cleared, in the moonlight he saw two of the kids on the ground. The other had simply disappeared as if vaporized. The two that remained wore bulky vests. Suicide bombers.
Somehow Blount had known. And maybe he’d saved Parson and the Marines behind him. Blount had been even closer to the explosion. Now he lay on the ground, supported himself with one hand. His cheek bled from a deep gash. Tears and sweat mingled with the blood. He pushed himself into a kneeling position, shouldered his weapon, and fired more rounds into the two boys who had not detonated themselves. They were probably already dead, Parson realized, but Blount had to make sure.
Three of his men emerged from the darkness. “I think we got the hill secure, Gunny,” one of them said. “Are you hurt?”
“I don’t think so,” Blount said. “We still gotta take the inside.”
“What’s in there?”
“No telling,” Blount said. “Just stragglers, I hope. We caught a lot of them outside.”
“Only one way to find out,” another Marine said.
Blount leaned on his rifle for a moment, steadied himself. Then he stood up and took a flash-bang grenade from his tactical vest.
“God only knows what we’ll find,” Blount said. “If it’s kids, let’s try not to kill any more of ’em.”
The gunnery sergeant made his way to the cave entrance, stepped over the broken bodies of the two boys. Pulled the pin on a flash-bang. Threw it inside.
The flash-bang made a weak pop compared to the suicide detonation moments ago. The Marines activated the rail-mounted lights on their weapons, charged into the cave bunker. Parson was not as well equipped. He found his SureFire in a leg pocket, turned it on, and used both hands to hold it next to his Beretta. He still felt stunned from the suicide blast, and his head hurt like hell. Parson just hoped he could see, think, and move fast enough for whatever waited inside that cave.
As soon as he stepped inside, two quick shots rang from up ahead. He rounded a dogleg entrance and saw the Marines crouching. Dim light bathed them from an electric lamp mounted on the cave wall, perhaps powered by a generator tucked away in some stone recess. A flashlight beam illuminated a fallen insurgent, facedown, AK-47 in the dirt beside him.
“Look alive,” Blount called. “There might be more.” He rose from his crouch and led on, taking half steps through the dark. At another bend he froze, raised his fist. The other Marines stopped. Parson held his breath, waited. Blount swept with his rifle, searched with the light beam. Fired two shots.
The team held their positions, listened. Parson heard nothing but a single moan. When they moved forward, he stepped past a dead insurgent slumped against the cave wall as if in repose. White beard and tunic. Camo field jacket. Radio in one pocket.
Parson realized neither of the dead insurgents looked like Chaaku. That meant little, though. The Black Crescent leader could have died in the firefight outside, or fled. The thought of that lowlife getting away infuriated Parson. It was time for a reckoning, one way or another.
Beyond the glow of the wall-mounted lamp, pure blackness loomed. The Marines’ flashlights probed the cave bunker like the beams of divers exploring a deep shipwreck. Brickwork reinforced the walls in places. A conduit carried wires along the ceiling. Powdery dirt made up the floor, soil so dry it retained only vague hints of the Marines’ boot prints.
“Preston,” Blount called, “keep a watch behind us. Shirer, you watch up ahead.”
“Aye, aye, Gunny.”
“Will do, boss.”
A few steps deeper into the cave, they came to a metal door. Parson guessed that it opened into a side room dug out of the rock. The cave’s natural passage continued past the door into darkness. Blount tried the rusty lever. Locked.
“Shotgun man,” he ordered. “Get up here and breach it.”
One of the Marines carried an M1014, a twelve-gauge semiauto. He placed the weapon’s muzzle to the latch.
“Watch your eyes,” shotgun man said. Turned his head to the side and pulled the trigger.
In the confines of the cave, the blast hurt Parson’s ears nearly as much as the bomb detonation earlier. From the other side of the door came the screams of children. Parson shuddered. What kind of misanthrope would lock kids in such a dungeon? Blount tried the lever once more. The door still wouldn’t open.
“Hit it one more time,” Blount said. “Be real careful. Y’all be careful when it opens, too. They could have more suicide vests for all we know.”
Shotgun man positioned his weapon at an angle so that any buckshot penetrating the door would slam into the ground. Parson turned away to shield his face and eyes from metal shards. Held his pistol in one hand, pressed the other hand over his ear.
Since he was ready for it this time, the shotgun’s report sounded more like a loud thump. Sparks danced off the metal, burned out in an instant. Blount kicked the door. It clanged open.