The Way Home (30 page)

They had come for him. He would now go home.

For him, she felt happy. For herself, in the aftermath of the terror when they had burst in with guns and bound their hands and placed hoods over their heads, she felt a numb sense of loss.

He was leaving. Just when she had convinced herself that
somehow he would stay. It had been a foolish notion, she knew that. But the grief she felt at the thought of losing him seemed as huge as the night that swallowed the world in shadows.

In the dark, in the silence, as the Americans watched for resistance, she felt Jeffery’s hand seek hers. She clung and tried desperately not to cry.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry I brought this to your door.”

“This is not your doing. This is Allah’s will. You were destined to leave here.”

“Come with me,” he whispered urgently. “Rabia . . . you can come with me. Your father, too. ”

The tears did come then. For the hope in his voice and the impossibility of it all. “I cannot go with you any more than you can stay.”

He said nothing. Because he knew the truth as surely as she did.

If they all got out of here alive, she and her father would go to their family in Kabul, as Jeffery had wanted. They would be safe there. She would return to teaching.

And there she would be alone, surrounded by family and friends.

She listened to the night, the cadence of breathing of the armed men guarding them. And she thought of the roof and wished with all her heart that they could have had one more night together beneath the stars.

T
Y CAME TO
slowly. Pain throbbed through his head and back. And his arms—what the hell? It felt as if a pair of vise grips had clamped around his biceps. That’s when he realized he was being dragged.

Fight-or-flight instincts kicked in, and he started flailing. He’d be damned if he’d let some Taliban jihadist take him alive.

“Easy, bro. I’ve got you.”

Mike. Thank God
. “What happened?”

“Remind me never to get into a helicopter with you again, Crash.”

Right
. They’d taken a hit. Which would explain why his back was killing him. Now that he was marginally with the program, he could see the smoking wreckage of the bird Mike had dragged him away from.

“You OK? Waldrop? Where’s Waldrop?”

“We’re fine. Both of us. Waldrop’s setting charges to blow the chopper. Sit tight.”

Mike pulled a radio from his vest pocket. “Lead, this is Reaper. We are down, minor wounded, but are functional. Chopper is toast. Awaiting orders.”

“No shit, you’re down,” Nate replied, sounding uncharacteristically rattled but clearly relieved. “Damn happy to hear your voice. But you’ve got a bigger problem than a broken bird. Base advises numerous subjects approaching your position—assume they are enemy. Multiple dismounts, and a couple of trucks have joined in. Take cover and defend. We’ll be there as soon as we can to extract.”

“What about Albert?”

“We got him.”

Mike glanced at Ty and nodded, letting him know they’d found Albert.

If Ty had known what to say, he would have, but he didn’t have a clue. If they lived through this, life for him had changed irrevocably, no matter what.

Waldrop sprinted up beside them right then and pointed down the road. “Company. Coming full steam.”

“Crystal still have that Predator circling overhead?” Mike asked Nate.

“Roger that.”

“Yeah, well, we’ve got a truck zeroing in, and I don’t think it’s pizza delivery. Be real neighborly like if you could do something about it.”

“Charlie copies direct.”

“Bless you, Crystal, darling.” Mike breathed a sigh of relief when he heard Crystal’s voice, clearly happy as hell that she’d been monitoring their commo. “Party’s about to start, sweetheart—now would be a really great time for the punch to arrive.”

“Ask and ye shall receive. Shot out,” Crystal advised urgently. “Duck and cover. Duck and—”

A fireball streaked across the sky, then exploded with a loud boom, drowning out the rest of her commo. The missile smashed into the Taliban truck, lighting it up like an oil-rig fire. Bodies spilled out onto the road. Men climbed from the wreck and scrambled into the shadows.

“Nice shot, babe!” Mike crowed.

Crystal’s relieved breath preceded her voice. “Roger that, flyboy.”

“Can you walk?” Mike asked Ty as he handed him an M-4 and a bandolier of loaded magazines.

Ty wasn’t even sure if he could crawl, but his brother didn’t need to know that. “Hell, yeah, but I’d rather run.” He checked to see that the M-4 was loaded, that the magazine was fully seated, and then, gritting through the pain, he trotted after his brother and Waldrop to a low berm, where they hunkered down and waited for the bad guys.

N
ate was still digesting the
news that the helicopter crew was safe but the chopper was out of commission when Cooper and Santos pulled up in front of the house in a “jingle truck,” a garishly painted pickup about the size of a U-Haul.

He stepped outside.

“Did we deliver or what?” Cooper grinned, reached out the driver’s-side window, and patted the door panel as if it was a prize bull at a county fair.

“Nice score,” Nate said. They might fit everyone onto it.

His radio crackled. “Charlie to Lead. I’ve got an AC-130U gunship locked and loaded and in the air. All we need are coordinates, and we can handle some of that ground resistance for you and Reaper. Over.”

Oorah!
He was going to owe Crystal, B.J., and the Specter pilot flying the gunship a steak dinner with all the trimmings if they got out of this. The AC-130U gunship was basically a cargo plane stuffed full of guns, including—
Lord have mercy
—a
105mm howitzer plus 25mm and 40mm cannons. This ship was the closest equivalent of the hand of God, carrying ordnance capable of smashing things to pieces in seconds. And thanks to Crystal and B.J., it was five minutes away.

“Roger that, Charlie, and please know that if I didn’t love my wife, I’d run away with both of you. As soon as I figure out what we need, you’ll be the first to know. Stand by.”

It had been a while since Nate had called in an air strike, but he’d done it enough that he could rely on muscle memory. Once he knew exactly where the bad guys and the good guys were, it was a matter of pointing them out and letting them loose.

He called the team and the evacuees out of the house and over to the hood of the truck. After laying the map out, he gave a quick briefing. Although everyone knew the details of the backup plan, there was little harm in reaffirming it.

“Cooper, you good behind the wheel?”

“As gold, sir.”

He looked at Rabia. “Can you navigate for us?”

She glanced at the map. “Yes. But my father,” she added hesitantly. “He is not well.”

Nate understood. “We’ll take care of him. He can ride in back with the team. He’ll be protected.” He turned to Albert. “You ready?”

“I am.”

Nate watched with interest as the SF sergeant limped heavily, favoring his left leg, then eased carefully up into the truck bed.

“How bad is he?” Nate asked Rabia in an aside.

“It is the vertigo,” Rabia said. “From a head injury. Movement often makes him violently ill.”

This was going to be a tough ride for Albert.

“You going to be all right back there, Albert? I can make room for you in the cab.”

“I’m good,” Albert insisted, but even in the moonlight, Nate could see he’d turned gray around the edges.

When everyone was onboard, Nate climbed into the shotgun seat. “Let’s move out. Ma’am, you keep down. Way down.”

Cooper ground the gears, and they made their way down the road toward the edge of the village.

Nate keyed his radio. “Reaper, we’re heading your way.” He heard gunfire in the background.

“Roger that. I was just telling the boys how much I missed your ugly faces. Sir,” Mike added as an afterthought.

“Any cover you can give us will be appreciated.”

“Taking heavy fire here, sir. Got all we can handle.”

“Roger that. Hang on. We’re on the way.”

N
ATE HEARD THE
gun fight over the radio, confirming that Reaper was under attack. Here on the road as they rolled toward them, it was surprisingly quiet. A sure sign that all hell was about to break loose.

They made it about a hundred more yards before it did.

Tracers suddenly flew at them from all directions; bullets cracked and whined around their heads as Tangos shouting “Allahu Akbar!” charged out of the ditches at the truck.

Ten M-4s fired at will, shooting at anything that moved. Cooper jammed on the brakes, almost throwing them from the back as an RPG rocketed past the front of the truck. Nate shot a suicide gunner and beaded in on other targets.

In the midst of the melee, he heard the smack of a bullet striking flesh. He jerked his head around and watched Green
drop. He would have rolled out the back of the truck if Albert hadn’t grabbed him.

“How bad?” Nate yelled.

In answer, Green got back onto his feet and, shouldering his rifle with one hand, shot a charging Taliban fighter.

“Got it covered.” Coulter knelt beside Green, quickly opened his medical field kit, poured some QuikClot on Green’s wound, and wrapped it tight.

About that time, Cooper gunned it, and the truck started rolling again. Faster this time. Speed was their only ally. If they could make it to Reaper, they could hope to consolidate their position and call in that air strike.

Gunfire, screams, and the roaring of the truck engine were all that Nate could hear as his senses threatened to overload. Through it all, he shot, reloaded, and shot again, as his team did the same. Another smacking sound of a bullet hitting flesh had Taggart clutching his arm. He swore before shouldering his rifle again, pain and determination etched on his face.

Nate leaned around the woman and yelled at Cooper as they ran the gauntlet of enemy fire. “Blow the cobs out of this bitch!”

“H
OW’S YOUR AMMO
?”
Ty asked Mike. Ty was down to three loaded rounds and one more mag.