by Ronie Kendig
“Look, man,” Hawk said as he shuffled over the tangle of legs and bodies to get to the master sergeant. “I’m not trying to defy you, but—”
“Then don’t.” Stratham’s breathing came in quick, harsh increments. “I don’t know what’s up with you tonight—”
“Think about that, man. I’ve never given you grief. If I’ve got issues, maybe they need to be addressed.”
“Hawk, just hold it together. We’ve had a lot of stress and been under tremendous strain the last two weeks. Don’t let it get to you.”
“Is that what you think this is about? Some stress or shell shock?”
“You’ve seen a lot.”
Hawk jabbed his hands to his helmet.
“As second in command, you need to have it together. The men are watching you, following.” He swung a halfhearted pat against Hawk’s forearm. “Just one hour. Let’s get through it.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do, only I want to go home alive, not with a toe tag in a body bag.”
“Same here.” Stratham rolled back onto his stomach. “Let’s get it done.”
* * *
Snap!
Hand in midair above the gate latch, Abda froze. Warmth spilled down his back. Then a chill. So very cold . . . Had someone followed him? What if . . . what if the fighters he’d spotted before he met Hawk had seen him?
That would be bad. Very bad.
And scary.
He looked back. Shadows loomed along the edges of homes and corners. Light from the homes that stabbed the darkness. A shadow moved.
No! Not a shadow. A shape.
He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Someone was there. Out there, coming closer. The muzzle of an M16 nosed into the open. A fighter! A flicker startled him. The air smelled funny. Air stirred.
Wood spit at him.
He blinked. They’re shooting at me!
Depressing the latch, Abda shoved himself through the gate. He thrust it closed and bolted toward the house.
Shouts trailed him.
He pushed harder. Why did it feel like he couldn’t get there? “Moor!” He gulped air. Choked. Cried, but it was strangled in his throat. “Pla—” His throat clogged. “Plaar, help!”
His feet wouldn’t go fast. But his body did—sprawled headfirst.
Shouts erupted from where the Sand Spider’s cars waited.
Light spilled into the night.
Something caught his arms. Hauled him up.
Abda yelped. “Close the door! Close the door!”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“They’re shooting!”
The heavy blanket covering the front window—Moor had put it up last week when fighters had threatened the family—danced and jerked.
Only at his moor’s scream did Abda realize bullets were flying into the home.
Thud!
The door shut, and the guard holding him spun around, then thrust him into his plaar’s arms. Only as he sailed through the air did Abda realize he’d lost his treasure box.
“Who’s out there?”
“Fighters,” Abda said. “I saw them coming up the valley road.”
The Sand Spider and his men huddled and talked quietly.
“Are you okay?” Plaar asked, smoothing a hand over Abda’s head.
Abda nodded, his heart hiccuping when his plaar saw the wires.
“What’s this—?”
“Najjif, we need you.”
Frowning, his father released the wires and set him on the ground. “We’ll talk later. Go to your moor.”
“The fighters—are you going to stop them?”
“Yes, of course,” the Sand Spider said as he motioned more men out the door.
But did the Sand Spider understand that danger had made it this far? “They were so close.”
“Don’t worry, son,” Plaar said as he waved him off with a hand. “The colonel will take care of this.”
Taking a deep breath, Abda nodded. “Good.”
Hawk and his friends would be safe. And if the Sand Spider was looking for fighters . . .
Oh no! What if they found Hawk?
“Abda,” his moor’s whisper skated down the small hall that led to the back room and bathroom. Head covered, she motioned to him.
He checked to make sure Plaar and the—
The box! It lay against the far wall. Open. The prizes spilled out over the thick carpet his mother beat clean every week. No no no! Sneaking over there, he watched Plaar and the Sand Spider talking with two others guards. Keeping his feet quiet and his movements slow, Abda closed in on his treasure box. Quietly, so thankful to Allah he had not drawn their attention, he knelt. His stomach hurt. His heart raced. Palms slick, he lifted the box and finally tore his gaze from the others.
On his knees, he scooted to the side. Lifted the patch. Hunched to the side—checked the grown-ups—his fingers coiled around the piece. And he saw it. Close to the Sand Spider. The gold chain from one of Hawk’s friends. The one with the cross.
That would be . . . very bad. Sinful bad. To be discovered with a cross of the prophet Jesus. A Christian symbol.
Drenched with heat and nerves, Abda eased toward the necklace. Oh, please . . . please don’t let him see me. Hawk and his friends could not get caught. Hawk is my friend. I can’t let them find out about him.
Almost there . . .
If the Sand Spider found out about Hawk and hunted him down, it would be Abda’s fault that Hawk would die.
Oh no no no.
He stretched his hand toward the piece.
“What’s this?” Another hand edged into view.
Abda froze as he recognized the stripes on the sleeve. The colonel!
“A cross—what?” He whipped it toward Abda’s plaar. “What is this, Najjif?”
“I-I-I have no idea!” Plaar jerked toward Abada. “Where did you get this?” His gaze hit the treasure box. “More of your junk?”
“Let me see that, boy,” the Sand Spider said.
No, he couldn’t do that. It’d be bad. Very bad.
Abda darted away.
Hands captured him. Hauled him into the air. Though he held tight to his box, they yanked it out of his grasp. The soldier with the big nose and oily mustache handed it to the Sand Spider, whose mean eyes locked onto Abda.
“Where did you get this Christian necklace, boy?”
“I found it.” He did—it was on the floor just now, and he’d found it.
The colonel dug through the box. He stilled, then yanked out something. Held it up. “And this? Where did you get this?”
“I—”
“I suppose you just found this too?”
Abda nodded as he looked at the patch Hawk’s boss had given him.
The colonel spit. “I should have you arrested.”
Plaar stepped in between them. “What? What is . . . ?”
The colonel turned to his first guard. “Alert everyone. Search the hills for American soldiers.”
12
He couldn’t control what was about to happen to them. He couldn’t control the team leader’s decisions. But he could control one thing—himself. “Switch with me.” Hawk belly-crawled over the others and nudged in beside Stratham.
“Hawk, get back.”
“Move over, Sergeant,” he said with a soft laugh. “Or I’m going to park on top of you.”
“What is your problem?”
“You’ve got the better spot. Mack smells.”
“Heard that,” came the soft voice of McLellan.
Finally Stratham relented so Hawk could wedge in between him and Jensen. “Tell you what, Hawk.” He set up his weapon and returned to an eyes-out position. “You’re heading to the padded office as soon as we get back. Let that shrink examine your head.”
Arm propped beneath his weapon, Hawk trained his scope on the place he remembered the Taliban coming from. Another thing he could control—first response. He’d take the heat for firing first if it meant his team l
ived. Shoot first, explain later. Or never.
Quiet draped the team and the ominous night. The sky, littered with stars, no longer held the veil of Death. Had Constant truly managed to ward off the specter? He burrowed in tighter, more determined to keep Death at bay for as long as he could.
Crazy night. He could only wonder what the others thought of him. He’d normally been the strong one, the quiet one, the one who said little but did a lot. Action. That was his mantra. But tonight, on the second go-round with this awful time, he’d talked like there was no tomorrow.
That couldn’t be a truer phrase. For the men in this hole, that might be a very real scenario.
“Think the kid will talk?”
It didn’t matter who asked the question on everyone’s minds. The possibility existed. More than existed. “Be prepared for it,” Hawk whispered.
“Even if the kid didn’t, those are very powerful people in there. And I don’t think they got there by being stupid,” Jacobie said. “Pretty stupid, handing him pieces of us.”
Someone cursed. Another moaned.
“Quiet,” Stratham said. “Eyes out.”
“D’ja hear the boy tell Hawk to have a son like him?” Jensen snickered.
“Yeah, can anyone see Hawk with kids?”
A few chuckles.
“Hey,” Hawk said with a smile as he peered down the sights. “I do all right.”
“Think he was just trying to soften you up?”
“I’d expect no less. That’s what I was doing to him.”
“Think he knew?”
Probably. Which is why the kid told his parents.
“Hey, Sarge?”
“Yeah.”
“I . . . uh,” Jacobie muttered. “Um, I think we might have a problem. The guys are going ape down there by the boy’s house.”
Hawk swept his weapon toward the main street structure.
“Look alive,” Stratham ordered over the din of muttered comments and questions.
“They’re heading into the hills.”
“Right at us.”
“Think the kid did this?”
“Who else?”
“Stupid kid.”
“Should’ve killed him.”
“Know better next time.”
Hawk felt those words rebound off his Interceptor vest. He’d thought and voiced those very words in the original strain. And he’d been given the opportunity for a do-over, which resulted in one thing: eating said words.
“Stay calm,” Stratham said. “We’re dug in good. Don’t fire unless you have to.”
Hawk grimaced. This would definitely come down to a “have to” night and a firefight. The men swarming the hills were on a hunt. And they had the scent of American blood as the only remedy for their blood thirst. “Call it in,” he thought aloud.
“Agreed,” Stratham said. “Jacobie—”
“On it.”
“Fifty yards,” Mack said.
Hawk realigned his sights. Coiled his finger around the trigger well. And for some really strange reason—he was in the middle of war for cryin’ out loud—he thought of Ashley. Marry her . . . Shoulder tucked around the stock of the M4, Hawk toyed with the thought. He hadn’t really thought along those lines before. They’d just been dating for a couple of years.
Why had she hung around? He was loud, arrogant, cocky . . .
Then for thirty-two years he was quiet, grumpy, and angry.
She still hadn’t left. In all those years. She’d stuck it out. Told him he couldn’t scare her away.
Really screwed that one up.
“Forty . . . they’re coming right at us.” Warning coated Mack’s words.
“Like maggots to dead meat.”
Do something; do something. But he’d tried. To change the past. To sway Stratham to break orders. To con the boy into keeping quiet. Nothing—nothing!—had worked. Desperation clung to him like the heavy air that bore the portent of doom.
Oh, brother. Now waxing poetic?
“Quiet,” Stratham ordered.
Maybe you did the right thing. . . .
Was he seriously supposed to accept that? Accept the death of his team? His friends?
Alarm spiraled through him. He knew what was going to happen and hadn’t been able to stop it. How was that possible? It was like he did one thing, messed up another.
You’re playing in the garden of Time.
God, seriously . . . do something here. Don’t let this happen. Not again. Please.
“Target sighted.”
13
Vision blurred by tears, Abda fought against his moor as she pulled him toward the back room, away from the fire in his plaar’s eyes, away from the shouting and cursing Sand Spider. “Moor, please, don’t let them go.”
“Abda, hush.”
“I can’t let him hurt them. They are good. Hawk will die.” Eyes squeezed, he swiped at the hot tears coursing down his face. “He’s my friend! Friends don’t kill friends!”
Gripping his shoulders tight, his moor shook him. “Abda, quiet!”
“No!” He straightened and held his back as straight as the gate post. “The colonel is a bad man, and he’s killing good men who want to help us—”
Eyes big and round, his moor gasped. “Abda!”
“It’s true.”
“Listen to me.” Her eyebrows frowned the way they had when he’d been caught with the last piece of cake. “At once.” She shut the door.
He blinked, his vision still shadowed by the tears brimming. “Please . . .”
Her shoulders went down, and she slumped to the floor on her knees in front of him. “You saw them, the American soldiers?”
Abda dared not speak. Dared not get Hawk in trouble—well, more than what the Sand Spider would cause . . . that is, if he found them.
Even without telling her, she seemed to understand that he had seen them. “It will be our secret, Abda.” She nodded and sighed. “Shall I tell you one of my secrets?”
“You have secrets?” But she was just his moor. She took care of his baby sisters.
“Most are small,” she said, dragging off the scarf and smiling at him. But it wasn’t a happy smile. This was a smile like the time she told him that her plaar had died. “But I have one big one.” She peeked up at him. “You keep good secrets, yes?”
“I try.” He felt so small, so bad for dropping the box. “If I had not lost my treasures, the Americans—”
A finger pressed over his lips. “Shh.” She smiled again; this time it was not sad. “My secret . . . I know there are soldiers in the valley.”
In the valley? But that’s not where Hawk was.
“Listen.” She pushed to her feet, lifted Afsoon from the floor, and moved to the mattress, where she lifted the corner that rested against the wall. Picking something up, Moor slowly turned and held it out to him. “See?”
He stood slowly, feeling like the thing in her hand was very special. Very. “What is it?”
“The soldiers can hear with it.” She pressed a finger to her lips in a shh symbol, replaced it, then came back to him and knelt. She leaned in closer and pressed her lips to his ears. After a brief kiss, she said, “There are Navy SEALs in the valley, secretly listening to Plaar—who is helping them—and Colonel Tarazai.”
Abda drew in a quiet, quick breath. He looked into her brown eyes, so big and happy. “Really? Plaar is helping the Americans?”
Another shh sign; then she tousled his hair. “Your plaar will take care of things, yes?”
Abda nodded, then remembered. . . . “The valley. You said they’re in the valley?”
“Yes, why?”
Stabbed with panic, he heard a strange noise explode out of his throat. “But my friend Hawk is not in the valley!” That meant he wouldn’t have help. The SEALs were in the wrong place. They couldn’t help Hawk and the others.
He lunged over the mattress and snatched at the device. “Help! You have to help Hawk. He’s in the hills. He’s American—li
ke you.” More tears. He must be stronger. He smeared them away. “Help Hawk and the others. Please . . .” The tears came faster. “Don’t let him die. Please—the fighters are going after them.”
* * *
The first Taliban fighter raised his head above the hill.
Hawk applied pressure to the trigger.
“Hold,” Stratham hissed, the word barely a whisper in the wind.
Was it possible these guys would overlook them? Not in this trench. They’d fall right into their laps. Literally.
Two more appeared. Armed. Weapons at the ready.
If he shot them there, their buddies would see them fall. Then it’d be on.
He willed the terrorists closer.
The air crackled with pent-up tension. Ready and anxious, the team said nothing. Didn’t move. They waited.
For Death.
Crack!
Tat-a-tat!
Hawk jerked at the sound of an M4.
“Taking fire!” someone behind him called.
About to pull the trigger at the two in his sights, Hawk saw them drop to the ground. But not out of range. He eased back the trigger. The weapon vibrated in his hand as it spent a dozen rounds. So familiar. Like a seriously bad case of déjà vu. No mistakes had been made. Or were they simply different mistakes?
Hollowed out of time itself, the events unfolded. Hawk knew what was coming. He swept his reticle over the area, looking for more targets. Eerie didn’t come close to describing this. Knowing he had no power to stop it. God, have mercy on us! Heart thrumming, he sent up several more frantic prayers.
A lone fighter rose up.
Hawk took aim, hating the familiarity. His split-second analysis replayed what was coming. The guy would tumble forward—check—then there’d be a short interval—yep—and then another fighter!
Augh! If only he could change something. But the plays, the strategies were right. He’d done everything right.
The target tumbled forward.
Huh. Someone else nailed him. Hawk didn’t remember that happening. Then again, he was in a slightly different position. He scanned right—another.
The man slumped to the side.
Okay, that’s new.
14
“Base, this is ODA 375. We are under attack and request immediate backup and extraction.”