by Zoe Dawson
“Contact, LT! From the left. Left!” Hemingway yelled into his comm.
He heard LT calling for the little birds to focus their fire on the northwest ridge, but missed anything else as a telltale whoosh, a bone-chilling whistling Hemingway knew all too well issued with a hollow pop from the small group. His brain made the immediate identification as any warrior who had encountered what an RPG sounded like when fired would.
RPGs, in general, resembled rockets and were about the size of Hemingway’s forearm. When fired from a tube, it became something like a combination of an immense bullet and an explosive. RPGs were favored by insurgents because they could take down a chopper, stop tanks, and at their worst, shred human bodies.
The casing of the terrible but effective weapon turned into jagged, lethal pieces of metal fragments that could tear through a body with more pain and damage than a bullet.
“Incoming,” he shouted as he and Professor exchanged a glance, making deep, stunned eye contact. The two commandos to the left weren’t moving. They had tunneled on the structure in front of them.
There was a time in combat when he knew the inevitable was near, where life and death hung in the balance. Without hesitating, Hemingway yelled, “Move out of the way,” to the commandos and flung himself to the right, crashing into Professor, his body covering his swim buddy, another close as hell brother who had gotten him through BUD/S training. And, here it was, the point where he was willing to give up his life for Milo “Professor” Prescott.
Shea, I love you, babe.
The RPG exploded milliseconds later, too late for the commandos to realize their plight. The force of the explosion rocked over them, the high-pressure shock wave and blast wind hit him with force.
The explosion was deafening.
Everything went black and white and nearly silent. For a moment, Hemingway retreated deep into himself, hearing only his own breathing, the thumping of his heart. The pause was followed by a high-pitched whine that slowly rose as he revived from the force of the impact and his concussion and became conscious of the world again.
Through the disorientation and haze, his head feeling heavy, there was nothing but the rapid breathing, the increased heartbeats, and an overwhelming fight response that made him itch for his weapon. Adrenaline. It had drop-loaded into his body like a locomotive. He went to move, but the whole left side of his body felt strange. He remembered what it had felt like when he’d pulled a muscle when he’d been playing high school football. The doctor had prescribed a muscle relaxant. Every single time he moved, he anticipated pain but found nothing but an odd numbness.
That’s how he felt now. His whole fucking side.
It sounded like enemy rounds were coming in, but he couldn’t be sure.
“Atty!” Professor called, and Hemingway felt like he was underwater. For a moment he couldn’t answer. Then Professor was moving. Professor shook Hemingway free and started to pull him with a strong grip on his vest.
That’s when the odd numbness dissolved and excruciating pain washed over him from points along his left side, but especially from his upper thigh.
He screamed so loud, his throat hurt.
“What the fuck just happened?” Fast Lane roared over the comm.
“Hemingway’s been hit. Two commandos were…” Professor didn’t know what to say. Obliterated, vaporized. Hemingway had protected him from the fallout of the RPG and the commandos had taken the brunt of the explosion. Professor barely noticed his bloody, superficial wounds.
His focus was on his wounded buddy who had thrown himself across Professor’s body to protect him from the RPG.
“Milo! Incoming!” Hemingway screamed. Insurgents were coming at him and Hemingway from the goat path, but the insurgents didn’t have night vision and couldn’t see them. Seven of the bastards crept toward them in a crouched position dressed in those flowing tops and round hats, unmistakable in the green glow of his NVGs. Professor was flat on his back with Hemingway on top of one of his legs. There was no time for Professor to get to his rifle. From a spread-eagled position, Professor yanked his pistol from his holster at the same time that Hemingway pulled his. Together they rapid fired, point-blank-to-center-mass into the group of men.
Bodies hit the dirt and didn’t move. Professor wasn’t taking any chances. He rose, Hemingway muffling his groaning as he listed to the side, and head shot each one of the downed insurgents. Stunned, he peered into the gloom, waiting for more insurgents. Anyone coming at them was going to get shot.
“Report!” Fast Lane growled in Professor’s ear.
“Two commandos KIA. Hemingway is hit!” he shouted, running back to his teammate. Hemingway was clutching his upper thigh, sweating and moaning in agony. “They’re coming up the goat path. We need air support over here!”
“Saint!” Professor shouted into his comm, words edged and fierce with concern.
There was no response, and just then, the fire from the structure resumed. Bullets were pinging off the rocks they were taking cover behind. Fuck them! He couldn’t take the chance on moving Hemingway that far during a firefight. He had to think clearly and concisely. Every decision he made involved Hemingway’s life or death.
“What are his injuries!” Saint asked, his voice sounding distracted.
Professor, protected by the boulder, looked down at his buddy who was writhing in pain. He scanned him from his head to his toes, noting a number of shrapnel wounds peppered down from his shoulder, hip, and along his left leg. The most pressing one was a large, jagged gash on the top of his thigh bleeding profusely where frags had ripped open his combat pants.
“Most are superficial, but a gash is bleeding like hell on his upper thigh.”
There was a heavy pause. “Femoral?”
Professor swallowed hard. The femoral was a major artery in the leg. If Hemingway’s had been severed, he would die in minutes. He reached down and grabbed his teammate’s upper thigh around his crotch and began squeezing.
“Aren’t we going to get dinner first?” Hemingway muttered through clenched teeth.
Professor laughed suddenly, the weight of the battle, the dire situation, and the tension regarding Hemingway’s life melted a bit in the wake of the quip.
“Ah, come on man. You know I’ve always had a thing for you,” Professor said with a sarcastic smile and a wink.
Hemingway huffed out a hard breath. “Don’t make me laugh, you fuck.”
Through the blood and ragged flesh, he saw the artery and it was gloriously intact, but just by a hairsbreadth. If the shrapnel had gone just a half an inch deeper, his friend would be in a bad way. Still, it wasn’t good. His buddy was down and out of the fight. Now was the time to patch him up and get him medevacked off this fucking mountain. He manipulated Hemingway’s thigh. Hemingway dropped his head, his throat working as he held back his screams while Professor examined him. Only soft moans escaped from behind his locked jaw, showing Hemingway was manning up, holding his own.
Professor sighed with relief. “No, the femoral is whole and undamaged, no broken bones that I can tell either.”
“Treat him. I can’t leave Dodger.” There was a grim tone in Saint’s response that made Professor sick to his stomach. Fuck! Fuck! Dodger was in worse shape.
“I got this,” Professor said, both for Saint and Hemingway’s benefit. He looked down at the man who had actively shielded him from an RPG that would have done all kinds of damage to his body. Their gazes held, and Professor felt the deep, unbreakable bond he had forged with Hemingway through the cold, pain, misery, and hardship of BUD/S, a bond that was as powerful back then as it was now and had only deepened over the time he’d proudly served with Atticus Sinclair. He’d learned that BUD/S didn’t make SEALs. The training only validated a man’s dedication to joining them.
He grabbed one of Hemingway’s tourniquets and strapped it around his upper thigh. Hemingway surged up with pain as the band collapsed around the viable flesh, but it did its job. As he tightened it, t
he blood flow decreased.
He remembered one of the instructors from BUD/S. He wasn’t sure if it had been Cheeser or even Mad Max. You’ll be closer to these men around you. Look at them…closer than your friends in high school or college. You’ll live with them on deployment and some of you may even die with them in combat. But never, ever forget your family. Family is just as important as teammates.
“Make sure you stop that bleeding and apply pressure to his thigh to keep it from swelling,” Saint said, knocking him out of his odd thought pattern. “Did you give him antibiotics?”
That fucking guy. Even while he treated a critically wounded Dodger, he still had the mental focus to give Professor directions. That man would make one hell of a doctor.
“No. I’ll do that now,” he said into his comm.
Professor had already retrieved Hemingway’s first aid kit. He helped Hemingway swallow the pill pack. Pulling out the other stuff he needed, he applied a hemorrhage-control medication that quickly stopped bleeding. The stuff formed a gel-like clot as the medicine bound to the surface of red blood cells. The powdered substance went to work and did a nice job. Professor released a breath from his compressed chest. He then wrapped Hemingway’s thigh as tight as he could to keep pressure on the area. As soon as he was finished with the most life-threatening wound, he injected him with a dose of morphine to help with the pain.
The constricted look on Hemingway’s face evened out. Professor then checked on the other shrapnel impacts. The metal was still embedded, and the bleeding was minimal, so he left them alone. His main concern was hypothermia. Hemingway was shaking, so that was a good sign. He pulled out Hemingway’s thermal blanket and covered him up from his neck to his feet. That should help until they could get him back to Jalalabad.
Hemingway’s good arm shot out, his hand grasping at Professor’s jacket. “Milo,” he rasped through chattering teeth. “If I don’t make it . . . tell Shea—”
“Tell her yourself.” Professor set his hand on Hemingway’s shoulder to take the sting out of his words. He couldn’t think about his friend and BUD/S swim buddy not making it back. There was no alternative. “You’re going to make it.” He grabbed up his rifle and turned to the building and got back into the action.
He understood they needed to get Hemingway off this mountain now. Who knows what was going on with his thigh? But his LT would soon give the order, he was sure. The way Saint sounded, Dodger was on borrowed time.
9
Saint hated like hell to have to deny Hemingway his expertise. Limbs were especially tricky. Professor could do everything right and Hemingway could still lose his leg. But Dodger was in worse shape. There were two types of casualties in war. Ones that were going to survive with their injury and those who would not without help.
Dodger was going to die if Saint left him even for a minute.
Kneeling by Dodger, he started to examine him. Making sure his airway was clear, he was gratified to see that Dodger was breathing on his own. It was labored, but he was a fighter. He then listened to his heart, the beat slow but steady. Then he focused his attention on the wound in his abdomen. It was bleeding profusely. At that point, Saint began methodically thinking about all the possible scenarios with the wound. That area of the body was a land mine of bleeding potential. He had probably already lost about one or more liters of blood. The human body only carried about five and a half to six liters.
With that calculation, Dodger was already in borderline shock. He was heading toward full-out shock, and the consequences of that were just not acceptable to Saint.
Shock was the lack of sufficient blood flow. It was a straight-out medical emergency as shock could lead to heart attack or organ damage.
Saint rolled Dodger gently and saw that there was no exit wound. HM had explained that the bullet that had struck Dodger had gone through the commando who had been laid not far from them. That was somewhat of a blessing. The high-velocity round would have had much more punch if it hadn’t gone through the commando’s body first. There was a moment of regret for the man’s death, but this was Dodger, his teammate, and his priority would always be his brothers.
The whole time, there was no lull in the action. Bullets were kicking up around them, but Saint was in the zone. He focused on Dodger like a laser beam.
Fast Lane’s terse voice came over comms. “Sitrep?”
“Urgent,” Saint said. By now, he was covered in blood as he tried to stop the flow from Dodger’s gut. “We have to get them off this mountain.”
Fast Lane didn’t address him again, but he heard through his comm. “TOC we need medevac. Three causalities, four KIA.”
He knew what his CO was thinking. None of them wanted to leave and abandon the battle to get Zasha. But this wasn’t about Zasha anymore. They were going to lose teammates if they didn’t call a retreat while they could still get out.
No SEAL wanted that bitter taste of failure in their mouths, but this wasn’t the end. They’d be back to get the bitch.
“Copy. We can’t land a bird. You’ll need to rappel down the cliff face behind you. It’s in a sheltered valley and we can get you out quickly.”
Saint stiffened and looked over to his LT. “There’s no fucking way Dodger can rappel down a fucking cliff,” Saint yelled.
“Hemingway isn’t mobile. Are they crazy?” Professor’s fierce words came over the comm.
“Cut the chatter. You’re a smart guy, Professor. Make it happen. Get your asses over here. Now!” Fast Lane growled. “All of you start heading to the back of the structure. QRF in One-Five Mike.” Indicating they had fifteen minutes to get Dodger from here to the cliff and down to the bottom.
Before Saint could protest again, Max appeared in a crouching position over Saint, careful not to expose himself to gunfire. “I’ll take him. I have Jugs’s harness. We can do a military seat with ropes to support him, bind his feet around my waist and clip him to my chest. I’ll get him down safely.”
Saint realized there was no choice. At this point, HM had relayed the information to the commandos, and they were racing to the top of the cliff.
They were bugging out and this was Dodger’s chance to live. For all of them to escape this clusterfuck. Let’s get him packaged to go,” Saint said. He couldn’t help remembering how at odds Dodger and Mad Max had been. They were so fragmented back then, but Max had somehow found his center and changed. He channeled all that formidable aggression into his job now that he had Renata to come home to. And he and Dodger? Neither one would admit it, but the big man cared for his now brother-in-law.
Saint pulled out some duct tape and attached the IV to Dodger’s shoulder, so the bag hung down. Max was already tying ropes and creating a makeshift harness to support Dodger’s limp body down a fucking one-hundred-foot cliff.
Men were walking by. Dragon and his two commandos passed, Dragon hesitating as he glanced down at Dodger. There was a lethal, angry cast to his face. Then he was gone, disappearing into the darkness along with the rest of the Afghanis who were still alive. They hadn’t wanted to leave their dead behind, but there was no choice. HM had assured them the military would come back for their fallen.
Then Professor appeared, Hemingway slung across his shoulders. Hemingway was in pain, soft sounds held between his clenched teeth. Saint wanted so desperately to check him over, but there was no time. “How are you going to get him down?”
“He’s rappelling on his own.”
“Hemingway—”
“I can do it, Saint. Don’t worry. Professor patched me up like a pro.”
“That so?” Saint asked. “You gunning for my job?”
Professor laughed softly. “As if, man.” He met Saint’s gaze. “Don’t worry. I’ll get him down.”
Saint nodded. “Who has Pitbull?”
“You do,” Pit said as he knelt next to Saint. He briefly set his hand against Dodger’s shoulder, then looked up at Max. Wordlessly, they exchanged support.
“You need to watc
h those ribs as you descend.”
“Yes, mommy.”
“I hate to break up this lovefest, but is he ready?” Max interrupted.
Just then, there was a close explosion, and Mad Max threw his body over Dodger. The concussion washed over them, but not enough to do any permanent damage. He knew what kinds of horrific things that could happen to a body from that kind of weapon.
“As ready as he will be. Let’s move him.” There were so many things that could go wrong and with the way this mission had gone, Saint didn’t want to think about it.
Dragon tossed a smoke grenade to help obscure the enemy’s aim, and with a gentle look on his hardened face, Max squatted down. Gathering Dodger up in his arms, he turned and headed toward the cliff.
“You look ready to kill,” her copilot WO3 James “Flack” Jackson said with a smile in his voice.
Solace didn’t even glance at him. She was too busy piloting this hunk of lethal machinery that she’d only flown in training. The assault chopper called Shadowhawk was so new that no one, not the public, not the other SOAR members, or even military leaders had heard about it.
With Zasha Vasiliev’s fondness for ambushing the Navy’s operators, the CIA and the big brass, namely the Secretary of the Navy, had grown tired of her and her threats. They wanted her dead or captured. No quarter.
They also wanted Muhammad Angar Said before they had another 9/11 on their hands. The terrorist leader was a huge threat to America and its allies.
This was a stealth bird, highly classified and hidden from everyone on this mission except Rose Sinema, her copilot, Flack, and her. She had been introduced to this beauty in a hangar right before the mission to kill or capture Zasha had commenced. It was a sleek black bird of prey with no mistaking that it was built for speed, stealth, and death.