“Come up here where I am,” he said. “Watch your step, and don’t put your weight on that slab there.” He tipped his chin toward a wall-size section of concrete; with his hands on the DeWALT saw, he could not point. “Somebody’s under it.”
Gold climbed what amounted to a slag pile. Bricks and debris shifted under her boots and caused her ankle to twist. She regained her balance and tested with her heel for better footing. When she reached Reyes, she saw a hole that revealed the head and torso of an elderly man. The half-cut wooden beam loomed above him. Dust covered his gray hair and beard. His cheeks looked like wrinkled, dirty leather. He gazed up at Gold and Reyes with pleading eyes.
“Kum zai de dard kawee?” Gold asked. Where are you hurt?
“Laingai,” he said.
“He says his leg is hurt,” Gold said.
“I gotta cut this lumber out of the way before I can even get to him,” Reyes said. “I think part of the ceiling fell across his legs. Tell him to turn his face down. I don’t want to get sawdust in his eyes.”
Gold explained in Pashto, and the man said, “Do not let that piece of wood fall on me.”
“We will catch it when we cut it,” Gold said.
“Allah’s blessings upon you.”
The saw roared. Gold noticed Parson talking with the satphone in his right ear. He put his finger over his left ear and turned away from the noise.
The blade cut deeper into the wood, and sawdust settled into the rubble like snow. Gold adjusted her rifle sling over her shoulder. Then she took gloves from her pocket, put them on, and grabbed the end of the beam. She saw Fatima watching it all from just a few feet away.
“It’ll be heavy when it comes loose,” Reyes said. “Their masonry is shit, but that’s good lumber.”
“I got it,” Gold said.
Parson turned off the satphone and put it back in its case. Gold hadn’t heard the conversation, but from the look on Parson’s face, it hadn’t gone well. He climbed the rubble and took hold of the crossbeam with Gold.
“Get ready,” Reyes said as the saw bit down to the last inch. The severed section splintered away, and Gold and Parson held it suspended over the trapped man. Despite Reyes’s warning, it was heavier than Gold expected. Newly sawn edges dug into her palms. She and Parson shuffled down the debris pile and dropped the beam. As it tumbled among the bricks, Gold slipped and fell.
Her wrists stung as she caught herself with the heels of her hands. Shifting stones pinched her fingers. The stock of her M4 dug into her side.
“You all right?” Parson asked. He extended a hand and helped her get to her feet.
“I think so.”
Gold felt a flush of anxiety she could not explain. The villagers seemed harmless, or at least not openly threatening. They kept glancing up at her as they pulled at masonry and hauled debris, but the stares could have come from curiosity alone. I’m just tired, she thought. My body clock hasn’t adjusted to crossing all those time zones.
She forced her mind back to the job. “So what did you learn in your phone call?” she asked.
“There aren’t any more pararescue guys available. They’re all tied up in other places. The aftershock hit Mirdshi real bad, and a lot of Kariz is on fire.”
Reyes sighed. “We’ll just deal with it, then,” he said. Then he called out, “Hey, Burlingame. Let’s try the spreader to get this slab of ceiling off this guy’s legs.”
“I’ll set it up,” Burlingame said. He left the patient he’d been helping and lifted a gasoline-powered pump from the REDS case. Then he hooked up lines leading to a tool that appeared vaguely like a tremendous set of shears with the blades closed.
Burlingame yanked a cord to crank the pump engine as if he were starting an old lawn mower. The pump coughed, belched blue smoke, and then settled into a steady hum. The noise bothered Gold, and she hoped they wouldn’t need to run the equipment for long.
“Okay,” Burlingame said over the engine’s racket, “we got pressure.”
Reyes took the spreader and groped his way into the crevice where the old man lay trapped. The man’s eyes widened, and he demanded to know what the pararescueman planned to do.
“He’s worried you’re going to cut him with that thing,” Gold said.
“I’m going to pry the concrete off him,” Reyes said.
Gold explained in Pashto. The man stopped talking, but he still looked scared. Reyes jammed the spreader underneath the slab and twisted the tool clockwise.
“Ma’am,” he said, “tell him to let us know if this hurts.”
Gold spoke to the man, and he replied, “It already hurts, my daughter.”
“Tell us if it gets worse,” Gold said.
She was starting to like the old man. Some Afghan clerics considered her very existence a blasphemy. Gold remembered one in particular, the mullah she and Parson had dragged through a winter storm. But this imam didn’t seem to despise Americans, and he had called her daughter. Not words you’d expect from a hate-monger, even one in need.
“All right,” Reyes said, “here goes.” He adjusted something on the spreader tool, and its jaws began to move apart. The slab over the man’s legs shifted. He cried out.
“My foot,” he said in Pashto.
“Watch out for his foot,” Gold explained in English.
“I can’t see his feet,” Reyes said. “Can he move at all now?”
Gold asked the imam if he could try to pull out his legs. He twisted his mouth as if in intense concentration. Veins emerged under the skin of his neck, and he groaned through gritted teeth.
“No, my daughter.”
“He still can’t move,” Gold said.
“Let me see if I can help brace him,” Parson said. Parson slid down into the crevice where the old man lay. He held the imam by the shoulders.
“Thank you, my son,” the old man said in Pashto.
“We’ll probably have to do him a little more damage just to get him out,” Burlingame said.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Reyes said.
“Can I get down there and help you?” Burlingame asked.
“There’s no more room,” Parson said. “Go see who we need to work on next.”
“Yes, sir.” Burlingame began searching the debris, looking where the locals pointed.
Down in the hole, the imam stared at the spreader with an apparent mixture of fear and fascination. Looked up at Gold, then at Parson and Reyes.
“Tell him to hold on,” Reyes said to Gold. “I’ll have him out in a minute.”
The spreader jaws separated farther, and the slab moved. The old man screamed. Blood ran from underneath his legs and dripped from stone to stone. When the blood flowed through dirt, it separated into rolling, burgundy beads.
The sight of blood never used to disturb Gold, but it did now. She began to sweat. Saliva flooded the back of her mouth like she was about to throw up.
She looked away, tried to regain her composure. Her eyes focused on small details within the scene of destruction: A comb missing half its teeth. A toy car without wheels. No telling how those things came to be in a mosque.
Reyes put down the spreader, and Parson heaved the man up by his arms. Reyes helped pull the imam from the hole in the debris, and they laid him down in the flattest spot they could find. Blood had soaked his clothing from the thighs down. One foot was mangled, and the other had twisted around nearly backward. Gold figured he’d probably lose both of them.
“I’ll see if I can stop this bleeding,” Reyes said. He turned off the pump and went for his medical ruck.
With the rattle of the small engine hushed, Gold could hear the imam praying. She kneeled beside him, and when he finished, she said, “You are in good hands. We will get you to a hospital.”