neck, watching how quickly the white of the clean battle dressing darkened.
“D-dan...listen...” Ben whispered. He tried to raise his hand, but failed. “Listen...”
“No!” Dan snarled. “You’re going to make it, Ben! Just let me keep the pressure on it! Don’t talk!” His throat ached with pain, a lump so large, he thought he was going to choke on it. Dan saw Ben give him that look. He’d seen it hundreds of times since they’d joined the Army at age eighteen. It was that amused look, that patience he had by the truckload, as if he was a father putting up with a petulant child. In this case, him.
“Listen...” Ben whispered, forcing his fingers around Dan’s wrist. “Cait...”
Dan squeezed his eyes shut, his head falling downward toward his chest. Ben’s voice was thin...weak... God, Ben was bleeding out and he couldn’t stop it from happening. Another sob of desperation tore out of Dan and he stared through his tears at his friend. He seemed at peace now. There was no more terror in his eyes, the fight bled out of him.
“W-what?” Dan rasped, watching the clean, white edges of the now-slippery battle dressing disappear as Ben’s blood soaked through.
“T-take care of Cait for me? Don’t let her marry a military guy. Protect her? She needs your help, Dan. Be there for her—” Ben’s fingers weakened on Dan’s wrist “—b-because...I won’t be able to...”
Dan saw the life flicker out of Ben’s staring eyes. He sobbed, throwing the battle dressing away, dragging Ben into his arms, holding him, cradling him in the middle of the firefight. Dan couldn’t stop crying and calling out his best friend’s name. Ben was dead. Oh, God...Cait...Ben’s younger sister...they were so close...so close... His heart felt as though it was being torn into bleeding pieces within his chest.
He dragged Ben’s lifeless body back against the wall of the partially destroyed house. Somehow, and Dan didn’t know how, he managed to get Ben wedged in between the two broken mud walls in order to protect his body. A team left no man behind. Hearing shouts in Urdu coming toward him, he turned, grabbing his M-4 out of the fine grit and dirt, swinging it around. Rage filled him.
He screamed into his mic to Franklin that Ben was dead. Bled out. In two and half minutes a fine, damn brave man—his best friend—was gone.
Shadowy figures moved around other destroyed mud houses toward his position. All Taliban. Above him, he heard the thick whumping sounds of two Apache combat helicopters swiftly racing toward them. They were the team’s only hope of getting out of this alive.
Dan wasn’t going to leave Ben’s side. He’d make his stand here. He’d fight to keep his best friend from being taken by the Taliban. They’d strip his body, hack him up and then behead him. It wasn’t going to happen. Kneeling near where Ben lay, Dan raised his M-4 and sighted. Sweat stung his eyes, his heart torn apart by grief and adrenaline. They could all die here. The M-4 jerked heavily against his shoulder. The acrid, burning smell filled his flared nostrils.
He saw a shadow fall to the ground, screaming, his AK-47 flying out of his hands. Teeth clenched, snarling a curse, Dan partially hid between the thick mud walls, holding his M-4 steady, taking out one, two, three more Taliban troops out of the firefight.
His team was getting overwhelmed. Dan had no idea the size of the force they were facing, but it wasn’t small. His earpiece was exploding with screams, orders and calls from his brother operators. They had been ambushed! This was supposed to be a quiet night, moving along in their two Humvees and a supply truck. But it had turned into a nightmare and they were now fighting for their lives.
Dan had no idea how many others were dead or wounded. He could pick out other M-4 rifles being fired at different points around the small village. They had spread out into a diamond formation, protecting their flanks, not able to move from their positions without opening up a flank the Taliban could pour into and kill all of them.
The sawlike growl of the Gatling gun being fired from beneath the Apaches began. The rounds were dangerously close! Dan ducked, watching the .50-caliber rounds chunking through the empty mud homes, dirt and rocks flying into the air in all directions, now shrapnel. He heard the screams of the Taliban troops struck by them. Satisfaction soared through him.
And then Dan caught movement near the house where he knelt. The next thing he knew his right leg was collapsing beneath him. Shocked, he twisted around, lifting his weapon, firing at the enemy soldier who had fired at him. Son of a bitch! The soldier was slammed backward by the bullet from Dan’s M-4.
Dan watched the man fall like a puppet into a heap. The vibration of the Apaches told him they were immediately above him. His whole body vibrated with the sound of the combat helicopter drifting overhead, hunting the enemy. The Gatling guns on the two stalker helos were pointed away from them. The pilots had the Special Forces team identified on their TV monitor, and they now had a bead on the enemy, cutting them down like a scythe slicing through a field of ripe wheat. Dan now noticed that his leg was numb. Lowering his M-4, he slid his left hand across to his right thigh. Blood met his exposed fingers. He’d been hit!
The vibrations of the Apache’s blades pummeled his entire body like invisible fists. Dan leaned back into the wall. How bad was it? His mind swung between shock and watching for enemy. The combat helicopters were rapacious predators, hunting down the enemy with onboard infrared, sighting and killing them.
I’m bleeding out.
Dan almost laughed. Hysteria jammed into his throat. He grabbed for the tourniquet on the left epaulet of his cammies, jerking it free. He had to get it around his right thigh, above the bleed. It was an inky-black night except for flashes of light from above like bolts of lightning spewed from beneath the bellies of the hunting Apaches. Dan saw the bleed. It, like Ben’s, was spurting out like a geyser. There was no pain. Cursing, he dropped his M-4 beside him and yanked the tourniquet around his leg. They’d all been taught how to apply a tourniquet to a bleeding limb, tightening the strap enough to stop the flow.
Dan called Morales, the other combat medic, letting him know he was hit and had a tourniquet in place. He didn’t know if Morales was alive or not. Every Special Forces A team had two 18-Delta combat medics. Ben was dead. He called hoarsely for Franklin, giving him his location, the type of wound he had and his present condition.
Dan jerked the tourniquet tight. His teeth clenched as the pain ripped up into his thigh and raced raggedly into his torso. The bleed was lessening. He tightened the tourniquet more, the strap in his dirty, grimy gloved fists, slick with Ben’s blood and his own. Tighter! Tighter! Or he’d bleed out just like Ben.
And then who would take care of Cait? For a moment dizziness assailed Dan. He blinked through the sweat that leaked into his eyes, his breath raspy, black dots dancing before his eyes. No! He couldn’t faint! Not now!
The spurting had stopped.
Dan felt momentary relief. He slumped against the mud wall with Ben nearby. Keeping his gaze roving around him, he saw no more enemy in the area. The Apaches were hovering above their diamond pattern, invisible watchdogs in the black sky above them, loud, the thumping vibration continued to rhythmically beat against his body. They’d stopped firing. The powerful vibration jammed like fists through him, and was all Dan could hear and feel.
He called hoarsely for Morales once again.
No answer.
How many of his team were left alive? Were they all wounded? How many had died?
The pain drifting up his leg became nearly overwhelming. Dan closed his eyes for a second. He saw Cait’s face, her shoulder-length red hair, that riot of freckles across her nose and cheeks.
He had met her when he was eighteen years old—he’d come to Hawaii for training. She and her brother, Ben, had seen him on the beach where he was learning to surf. They’d struck up a conversation and, for Dan, it was like meeting old friends once more. He couldn’t admit it to Ben, who was six feet tall like himself, but he was drawn to Cait’s clean, natural beauty, her wide green eyes,