“Some of my people are still inside,” he said.
“We will do all we can.”
Gold looked around for Fatima; she worried about the girl seeing blood. But the child had disappeared.
In the meantime, Burlingame apparently found someone else alive and trapped. He repositioned the pump and spreader tool, and he started the engine again. That’s when Gold noticed three men on the hill beyond the mosque. They wore black turbans, and they seemed to be the only people not doing anything. All three stood watching, and the sight of them made Gold’s skin grow clammy. They did not speak. Their eyes conveyed nothing but maledictions. Their inactivity seemed even more hostile than their cold expressions.
Parson had known people who couldn’t stop talking when they were drunk. Apparently, morphine had the same effect on the imam. He kept yammering away with Gold. Parson almost wished they’d shut up. But he knew nothing could help the cause more than a chatty cleric who had bonded with Sophia. He’d seen her have that effect on people. Most of the Afghans she met wanted to tell her their life stories—unless they were trying to kill her. He figured the talking would do Gold good, too. She seemed a little rattled.
Reyes and Burlingame loaded the old man into the helicopter. He lay on the floor of the Mi-17, still speaking with Gold. His face bore scars that looked like he’d been burned by grease splashed from a frying pan. Parson had wondered why so many Afghans suffered kitchen accidents. But then he learned the disfigurement came from leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease spread by the bite of a sand fly.
The PJs put nine other patients on the aircraft, even though the helicopter’s cargo compartment was not configured for a medical flight. It carried no stanchions for mounting stretchers, but at least it had plenty of room: The passenger version of the Mi-17 seated twenty-eight people. Reyes and Burlingame spread their patients on the floor and tried to make them as comfortable as possible. In all, they’d pulled six from the ruined mosque and treated a dozen other villagers for contusions and broken bones. Ten needed a doctor, so Parson decided to fly them back to Mazar.
He suspected a lot of other chopper crews were making the same decision, and he hoped the MASF wouldn’t be overwhelmed. Nothing he could do about that, though.
The setting sun glowed a burnt orange just above a distant ridge. Dying light deepened the reddish tint of mineral deposits along the slopes. The air grew chillier by the minute; coolness at dusk marked the hinge of seasons. And though the village seemed relatively safe, Parson did not want to remain here after dark.
Rashid stood outside the front of his aircraft, smoking. The crew chief and flight engineer waded through the carostan grass, looking up and inspecting the rotor blades. The copilot studied a chart.
“Let’s get the hell out of Dodge, Rashid,” Parson said. He’d used that Americanism often enough that the Afghan officer understood it.
Rashid flicked the cigarette butt with his thumb and middle finger. It arced away like a tracer round. Rashid put on his helmet, and with a vertical index finger, he made a rotary motion to signal his men. A good sign, Parson noted. When guys could communicate without talking, they were becoming a tight crew.
Gold strapped in beside Parson as the igniters started clicking inside the APU. It lit off with a turbine howl, and its exhaust wafted into the chopper.
“So what did you two find so much to talk about?” Parson shouted over the noise.
“He says he hates the Taliban,” Gold said.
“I bet they all say that when we save their asses.”
“Well, he says he hates the Taliban because they made him stop raising pigeons.”
“A man’s gotta have his pigeons,” Parson said. Then he put a gloved hand over hers for just a second, and he said, “Hey, are you all right?”
Gold pursed her lips and nodded her head. Parson didn’t buy it, but he chose not to press her further. Yelling in a helicopter probably wasn’t the way to have a conversation about post-traumatic stress. He wouldn’t have wanted careless questions about his own issues: Hey, flyboy, still seeing your loadmaster with his head cut off?
The main rotor began turning. Parson noted the rotor’s shadow moving across the ground just outside: one blade, two, three.
Suddenly:
“RPG!” Reyes shouted.
Parson felt a cracking boom. The blast seemed to crush his eardrums. Something knocked away his headset.
The world went white.
Stings nettled the back of Parson’s neck. The helicopter bounced, rocked. For a moment he heard nothing. But he knew there had been an explosion.
In blurred images, he saw the crew chief depress the trigger on his door gun. A cascade of brass rattled from the automatic weapon. The Afghan patients screamed and called to Allah.
Gold snapped open the clasp of her seat belt buckle. In a single motion, she brought up her M4 and clicked the fire mode selector. She jumped out the door without touching the three steps of the boarding ladder. Reyes and Burlingame leaped from the aircraft with their own rifles.
Parson’s bearings came back like gyroscopes reinitializing after a power loss. He unbuckled, drew his Beretta. Pops of gunfire sounded far, then near. Attackers shooting, the PJs returning fire.
He scrambled for the door. Something soft under his boots; he’d stepped on a patient. He ducked through the doorway and stumbled outside into the grass. He kneeled among the blades of carostan, tried to make himself invisible.
Rashid remained inside the cockpit, shouting orders in Pashto. Through the glass, Parson saw the crew struggling out of their harnesses. A bullet punched through the center windscreen. Minute cracks instantly spread outward from the hole, and the crazed glass went cloudy. Blood streaked across the inside of the windscreen. The flight engineer slumped forward.
Gold, Reyes, and Burlingame lay prone, firing. The carostan concealed them well. Parson saw little of Gold except her boot heels, her rifle muzzle bouncing with each round, and her ejected cartridges spinning end over end.
“Cover the other side of the helo,” Reyes told Burlingame. As Reyes spoke, he fired two rounds at a turbaned figure running toward the helicopter with an AK. The man went down.
Burlingame rose and dashed around the aircraft. Parson followed. The PJ dropped into the grass and did not fire. Blood spurted from an exit wound at the back of his thigh.
Not this again, Parson thought. Dear God, not again. He pressed himself as low against the ground as he could, scanned for the enemy. A man with a grenade launcher kneeled in the grass down the hill. Maybe forty yards away. Long shot for a handgun.
Parson fired three rounds from his pistol. Pulled the trigger a fourth time. Nothing happened. Jammed.
The jihadist with the grenade launcher was down in the grass. Hit, maybe. Parson struggled to clear his weapon. Slapped the bottom of the magazine. Racked the slide. Fired again.
Rounds whacked into the side of the Mi-17. From where, Parson couldn’t tell.
Grenade guy raised up on unsteady knees. Still not disabled, then. Parson dropped his Beretta, reached for Burlingame’s M4. The jihadist leveled the grenade launcher.
Parson opened up with the rifle. The terrorist in his sights crumpled, fired the grenade launcher. Smoke wisped from the launcher’s breech as the man fell. The grenade flew wild, arced over the helicopter, and exploded behind it.
Rashid appeared under the tail boom. He shot at two insurgents approaching from the rear of the Mi-17. One dropped. The other turned back.
The shooting died down. Parson held his breath, kept his weapon raised, waited for another attack. None came. But under the whine of the APU, Parson heard screams from within the town. One shot echoed from among the houses. A moment later, two more.