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“Hill, watch the entrance,” I ordered, and he shook his head at me as he fought to catch his breath. I held up a hand. I wasn’t in a mood to tolerate his pushback. “You don’t want to be here, no one’s stopping you.” I inclined my head at the opening to the cave. He glanced at Rivera, who looked away.Good.Brown got down on his belly and crawled to the opening.
“That was close.” Moore puffed his cheeks at me and blew out hard. The adrenaline still rushed through our veins. “I can still taste gunpowder.” He flapped his arms to relieve the stress.
Rivera butted in. “Maybe if we hadn’t sat like ducks on low ground, we would’ve been better prepared.”
I tuned them out while I tried my radio. It crackled with static, and I strained to hear around it. The reception was terrible here. Two different tones could be heard, so my guess was that Captain Flex was radioing in at the same time.
“You were the one on watch,” Moore shouted, and Rivera rose to match his stance. “Maybe we should be pointing fingers at you. You were probably asleep!”
“Enough.” I was tired of their shit. “We’ll spend a few minutes here to rest, but they aren’t far behind, and we need to keep moving. So shut up and take a break.” I moved to the opening and relieved Brown. I needed to get away from all the friggin’ bickering. I knew we should stay on the move, but we also needed clear heads, and the proof was in their tempers. We needed rest. We’d only had about three hours of solid sleep in the past ten days, and now that we’d been outed, they were gunnin’ for us hard.
My team had been a well-oiled machine, but when we collided with the other team a few days back and got split up, tension built. I found a space to tuck myself into that still allowed a panoramic view of the hillside below. I needed to watch for any possible unwanted company.
Shots could still be heard, but it seemed like they were on the other side of the mountain. Where we were seemed relatively safe for the moment. I took a minute to admire the stars that shone brightly above me while I rested my body. My mind remained alert for any sound.
I’d spent just over eight years in this country, in a continuous battle with faceless men. I’d seen women and children treated like animals by their own kind. The idea of freedom was merely fiction to those who lived in this place. Hope for some kind of life might still be there, but it was buried deep with fear.
When I was ordered to return with my team to base camp, I wasn’t sure what it was all about. When we were told we were going home, part of me was confused. The fight wasn’t over. These people still needed our help. Then, while I attempted to get my head around it, my commanding officer pulled me aside and explained that one of our officers had been taken and we needed to get him back. He had some crucial information that we couldn’t let the Taliban have knowledge of. I knew they were experts at interrogation. Though it was proposed as a voluntary mission, we really didn’t have a choice. I stepped up quickly. I wasn’t ready to go back to the kind of normal I knew I’d face back home, anyway. Of course, my team followed my lead. Since Flex had been in the room with the rest of us at the time, he not so willingly spoke up for his team, too.
It was important for us to remember that some of the locals were willing to put themselves out there and offer us supplies and help if need be. The citizens of Afghanistan had asked for our help, and I’d done everything in my power to do what I could. That was why I struggled hard when I watched our troops being loaded onto a plane. They were about to leave a war that wasn’t even close to being over.
“You good, Beckett?” Moore slumped down next to me with a sigh.
“Yeah,” was all I offered. He listened to the bullets hit randomly on the back side of the hill, higher up, and allowed himself to relax for a second.
“I’m nervous if Hill and Rivera meet up with Flex, I don’t trust they won’t mess with some Taliban and get us in trouble before the chopper arrives. They’re reckless. We shouldn’t separate again.”
“Yeah, agreed.” I closed my eyes with a nod and hated that I couldn’t trust their motives.
“Listen,” he cleared his throat, “I’m really worried about Brown.”
“I’m watching him,” I assured him, and he let it go, but I shared his concern. Brown showed some serious signs of mental wear. On a few occasions, he’d wasted ammo when he thought he saw things or reported to me on events that had happened years ago. As a Captain, I was taught to watch for these signs, and I definitely saw them in Brown. But, I reasoned internally, we were only a few days away from our return to the United States. I hoped he could hold it together just a little longer.
“Remember when Brown soaked Jamie’s boots in cat pee, and for the rest of the summer we called him catpiss?” Moore chuckled.
“You can’t mess with Brown.” I smirked as I remembered how he was always the fun one. Practical jokes were taken to a whole new level if anyone dared to mess with him, or us too, for that matter.
“I had so much fun watching him fuck with people.” He rubbed his face. “I miss that Brown.”
“Yeah, me too.” I nodded. I knew we were close to losing our lifelong brother mentally if we didn’t get him some help soon. “We should get moving.” I pulled back and struggled to my feet then called to the rest of the men.
It didn’t take long to understand why the Taliban had pushed us in the direction they had. We soon found we could no longer go any higher. We were now forced to head back down; it was the only way we could go. After a long struggle through thick, low scrub brush that tripped you up and only provided about an inch of ledge for your boot to hold onto, we found ourselves at the top of a twenty-foot slope that went straight down into dark water. Dark water that held God only knew what.
“Shit.” Moore struggled to keep his footing as he peered down. “Beckett, please don’t tell me we’re going for another dip.”
“Shh,” I held up a hand and slipped my night-vision goggles on to scan around us, “we have five coming over the east ridge.”
“Have we been spotted?”
“I don’t think.” I ducked low, careful to balance my weight on my toes, and the others followed suit. The men threaded their guns over their shoulders and started to make their way toward us. I searched for options, but the only one that would save our asses was below us. The water.
“Rope,” I whispered to Brown through the radio. He made quick work of removing it from his rucksack. I did the same and tied a knot in the ends to make it longer then made a loop. “Moore, you’re up first,” I ordered, mainly because he was right beside me. He wrapped it around his waist. “We don’t have much time, so this’ll be fast,” I warned him.
“Brown, tell me when to stop.” He flipped down his night goggles and gave me a thumbs up. With our heels planted, we lowered him quickly, and at a signal from Brown, we stopped him right above the water. Moore slipped the loop up over his head and let it go as he slipped into the water without a sound.
We repeated the action until only I was left. Using a root that was sticking out of the ground, I made a pulley and hoped to hell it would hold my weight. I tested it, and it felt solid. At a sound above me, I froze, and I heard them walk right over my head. Dirt hit my shoulder as I flattened to the side of the rock. I prayed the guys were out of sight in the water below. I inched my blade out of its sheath and steadied my breathing. If I was going to have to kill, it was going to need to be silent. Tonight, we were the prey, and one hell of a bounty was sure to be on our heads. One wrong move and it would be over.
I heard voices, and they seemed to be arguing. I knew they were close and only needed to go a few more yards before they would get to the spot where we’d been earlier, and then they’d soon be right on me. I had a very short window to get out of there. I moved carefully and eased my weight out and over the side then rappelled quietly down the mountain, staying as close as I could to the rock face.
