Prologue

Northern Afghanistan

"Break contact," Joe whispered through the interteam radio, and he and the three SEALs in his command stepped off the trail to descend as quietly as possible into the wooded ravine. Wending through the cypress forest that glowed green through his night vision goggles, Joe counted the seconds that elapsed before the staybehind--the claymore that he'd placed on the trail--exploded.

"...nineteen, twenty."

Bang! The loud crack was accompanied by the screams of Taliban insurgents, the same men who'd surprised them four miles up the trail when they swarmed from an underground cave. The SEALs had retreated, taking and returning heavy fire. It was a long way back to the landing zone, made longer still with forty men or more, equipped with night vision capabilities, raining bullets at them in a firestorm that echoed off the surrounding mountains.   

The SEALs had dropped their backpacks on the trail to speed their retreat. And with just six rounds of ammo per man, they were running low on both ammunition and energy by the time the landing zone, or LZ, came into view.

There it was, on a plateau on the adjacent mountain, the side of which had been riddled by aerial cannon fire that had incinerated the scrub brush and cratered the earth. The only way to access the LZ was to pass through a precipitous, wooded ravine and climb the other side.

Now deep within the ravine, the SEALs remained hidden and, for the time being, safe. In the wake of the claymore's destruction, gunfire gave way to moans and shouts. Wind whistled eerily through the boughs of stunted evergreens.

If the SEALs were lucky, the explosion and their subsequent disappearance would send the insurgents back into their caves, away from the LZ.

This reconnaissance mission, thought Joe, darkly, had been cursed from the moment Chief Harlan spiked a high fever, prompting Joe to take his place. The spectre gunship that had swept this mountain an hour prior to their drop off had completely overlooked the presence of unfriendlies on the trail. Worse still, the gunship was nowhere within range of the four SEALs, now. If it were, one simple radio call would bring the AC130 screaming to their rescue like a mother eagle protecting her fledglings. Its mini gun was capable of knocking out the forty or so insurgents with the precision of a surgeon's blade.

Driven into retreat, Joe's squad had only one option remaining: to call for extraction. If the insurgents didn't leave before the helicopter's arrival, and if--god forbid--they were carrying rocket propelled grenades in their arsenal of weapons, then this cursed mission would fall into the classification of a goatfuck.

At the bottom of the ravine, Joe checked his watch. The window was open, the satellite in position, for Curry to get on the SATCOM radio and request a hot extract.

"Bravo, report," he said into his mouthpiece.

"Curry here," whispered the corpsman.

"Smiley," acknowledged their sniper.

"Nikko," said their gunner. "Shit!"

Joe hesitated at the swearword. "What is it?"

"I wondered what the fuck was running down my leg. Oh, shit!"

That didn't sound good. "Rally up," Joe instructed, bringing the squad into a tight perimeter.  

Four shadows drifted together. Nikko was breathing hard. He collapsed next to Curry the corpsman, who kneeled to assess his wound. Joe did the same, taking in the severity of the hit that was illuminated by Curry's penlight. "Shit" was not the expletive that leapt into Joe's mind. Nikko'd taken a bullet in the thigh, close to the femoral artery. Given the gunner's pallor, he'd lost a lot of blood already. Didn't it figure, since they would have to climb with the agility of mountain goats to make it up to the LZ?

They needed to call for extraction immediately, or Nikko was a goner.

With Curry frantically staunching the gunner's wound, Joe took the radio from him, set it up a short distance to one side, and made the call to their task force Commander, Captain Lucas.

"Helo's on the way," Lucas assured him.

"Blackhawk?" Joe requested, praying for a sleek and stealthy craft.

"Can't get one in the air," Lucas admitted grimly. "We're sending in a Chinook."

With a sinking sensation in his gut, Joe dismantled the SATCOM. The thunderous arrival of the Chinook helicopter would not be overlooked by the insurgents they'd left on the trail, who--given the way this mission was going--most certainly carried missiles.

"Let's go," said Joe, infusing optimism into his tone. As the Officer in Charge, his most important job was to keep the squad motivated and functioning smoothly.

The men scurried to obey him. Curry pulled Nikko to his feet and propped him under one arm. Smiley stepped forward and relinquished the gunner of his M-60, which would lighten Curry's load, but the corpsman still faced the daunting task of getting both him and Nikko up to the LZ.  

Armed with Nikko's gun, Smiley, took point. Lean and agile, the twenty-year-old darted out of the cover of trees to tackle the near-vertical incline. Ascending fifty meters, he ducked behind a boulder and shouldered his rifle, covering Nikko and Curry, who hobbled painstakingly after him, leapfrogging his position and pausing farther up the ridge.

Then it was Joe's turn. Physically, he was as fit and robust as the younger men, but the soil slipped beneath his boots. His raw-boned body strained for speed as he dug his toes in, scrambling hand over hand to reach his destination, an outcropping of stone that resembled a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Over the pounding of his heart, he heard the whop-whop of the approaching helo.

No doubt the insurgents could hear it, too. Come on, he urged both the helo and his men. It wouldn't take the enemy long to spy the four SEALs clambering up the opposite mountain, not with a 4-ton helicopter landing at its height. To make matters worse, the first hint of dawn was silvering the sky.

It was Smiley's turn to take off. He pushed to his feet and bounded up the incline, seemingly unhindered by the weight of Nikko's M-60. At the same time, the Chinook surged closer, its blades chopping the air like the wings of a thousand angels. Any minute now its shape would materialize out of the charcoal canopy above.

Yet Nikko and Curry struggled now to make their ascent. Joe was about to abandon his position to give Curry a hand, when both men slipped and took a tumble that had Joe scrambling after them in consternation.

The Chinook thundered into view, yet they were no where near the LZ yet.  

"Curry, Nikko!" Joe called, reaching them, at last.

"I couldn't hold him, sir," Curry explained. Nikko had passed out.

"Get his feet," Joe urged. Together they heaved and struggled to carry Nikko uphill.

But then half-a-dozen missiles streaked overhead. "Son of a bitch!" He and Curry threw themselves on top of Nikko. Grenades punctured the very earth around them, sending up spumes of rock that peppered their backsides as they succumbed to gravity.

Finding himself in tact, Joe peeked up at the helo. It was still awaiting them, rotors whirring impatiently. "Let's go!" he yelled, preparing to haul Nikko, without stop, to the ridge.  

Neither Nikko nor Curry made reply. Joe nudged aside his NVG's. "Curry!" he cried in disbelief. Curry's skull had been crushed, presumably by falling rock.  

He thumbed his mike. "Smiley," get down here. "Both men are down."

He glanced up again, praying the Chinook would linger and not leave them. Smiley's shadow made a quick and steady descent, as four more missiles sizzled across the ravine at them.

Joe gritted his teeth and ducked, bracing himself. Boom, boom, boom, boom! The mountainside trembled. It vomited rock and dirt, all of which fell in a merciless rain on Joe's back. When he looked up, Smiley was gone. Joe groped for his NVGs, but they were gone, too.

His last hope was the Chinook. Its ramp was down, with reinforcements pouring out, bearing grenade launchers. Joe pushed to his knees and waved them down. He needed hands to pull his men up, get them into the belly of the Chinook, and bear them home again--dead or alive.

But it wasn't to be.

Another missile shot across the ravine like a falling star. And there wasn't even time to make a wish.

In the next instant, the helicopter exploded into a giant fireball that mushroomed outward, blasting Joe with heat and flaming shrapnel. The force of the explosion thrust him backward, tearing him away from Nikko and Curry.  

He felt himself falling.

He hit the ground and rolled. The earth beneath him was vertical. He grappled to slow his descent, but he was moving too quickly, glancing over rock and shrub. He tucked and rolled, protecting his head and extremities. He crashed through the bows of an evergreen, struck the base of a tree, bounced off of it, and rolled again.

He dropped, hit the ground, and spun around, sliding on a carpet of foliage.    

At last, he skidded to a stop.

Cracking an eye, he found himself peering through evergreen boughs to see the flames dancing from the remains of the Chinook. Spumes of smoke darkened the brightening sky. Joe sucked a slow and painful breath into his lungs. The stench of burnt flesh made him cringe.  

Jubilant cheers floated over the ravine followed by volleys of gunfire as the guerillas sounded their victory.

Oh, Jesus. Oh, God.

Not a soul aboard or near the Chinook could have survived that explosion. His men were either dead or dying.

So this is defeat, Joe thought, losing consciousness. It was worse than anything he'd imagined.

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