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The three of us ran back toward the hills, with the
choppers covering our exit. Brown was in direct contact
with them, and he said that he’d sent the others off
toward two rifle squads that had come up through the
defile. They were bringing back one Bradley to pick up
the girls. We took a tu
Brown said led up to one of the mountain passes.
As we neared the exit and emerged onto the dirt road,
we looked down toward Senjaray and saw the Bradley
pulling away. The girls we’d rescued were, I later learned,
safely onboard.
We were almost home.
“Hold up,” I said, as we crossed around some boul-
ders. We squatted down. “We need to get her out of here
faster than this.” I looked to Brown. “Can we get a
Blackhawk to pick her up?”
“I’m on it. But we’ll still have to get down to the val-
ley over there.”
“All right.” I dug into my pocket, switched on my
satellite phone, and saw there was a message from Gen-
eral Keating. I took a deep breath, dialed, and listened.
And my heart sank.
“I repeat, son, we need to pull you off this mission.
Abort. Abort. Stand down . . .”
He’d said a lot more than that, but those were the
only words that meant anything. Bronco hadn’t been
bluffing.
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At that moment, though, I was glad I hadn’t heard
the message, but I wondered whether I would’ve shot
Zahed anyway, despite the order to stand down.
I wondered.
I’d like to think that my experience and honor
would’ve led me to make the right decision. But the
politics and grim reality were far too powerful to ignore.
“Captain, you don’t look so good,” said Smith.
“The order to stand down came in, but I, uh, I guess
I missed it. Zahed’s dead anyway.”
“Good work,” said Brown.
“Ghost Lead, this is Hume, over.”
“Go ahead, John.”
“Jenkins and I got on the Bradley, but we got cut off
from Warris and Ramirez in the tu
they’d link up with us down here, but they didn’t show
up, over.”
“Roger that, we’ll find them.”
“Paul, you get her down there to link up with the
chopper?” Brown asked Smith.
“I’m on it.”
“Then I’m with you, Captain, let’s go!”
We rose and jogged off, back into the tu
Smith carried Hila toward the valley.
“I’m afraid of what we’ll find,” said Brown.
We linked up with another section of tu
we’d already marked with beacons, and we stepped over
four or five bodies of Taliban fighters.
Brown and I spent nearly an hour combing the tu
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No tracker chips were detected during those moments
when I’d slip outside to search for a signal, so we had to
assume both men were still underground.
Sighing in disgust, I told Brown we needed to get
back and see if we couldn’t get a search team in the tun-
nels by morning.
“You think they got captured?”
“I don’t know what to think,” I told him. “But we
can’t stay up here all night.”
We hiked down from the mountains and toward the vil-
lage. The firing had all but stopped, and the gunships had
already pulled out and were heading toward Kandahar.
As Brown and I reached the defile, we were met by a
horrible sight:
Anderson and Harruck were standing in the smoking
ruins of the school, shattered by Taliban mortar fire.
The once tall walls of the police station, whose roof was
about to be constructed, looked like jagged teeth now,
with more smoke coiling up into the night sky.
Anderson was crying. Harruck glared and cried,
“Thanks a lot for all your help!”
Fifteen minutes later I was getting my gunshot wound
treated. All the girls had been taken back to the hospital
as well, and they were all staring at me, as if to say thank
you. Hila had been rushed into surgery.
I was patting my fresh bandage when Brown came
ru
You’re not going to believe this!”
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I rushed away from the nurse and made it outside,
where Warris was being helped out of a Hummer. He was
ragged and filthy and still reeked. His eyes were bloodshot
and he just looked at me vaguely as I rushed up to him.
“Fred, where the hell were you?”
It took a few seconds for him to focus on me. “They
found me down in the valley.”
“Where’s Ramirez?”
He swallowed. “I, uh, I don’t know.”
I raised my voice. “What do you mean?”
“I MEAN, I DON’T KNOW! NOW GET OUT OF
MY GODDAMNED FACE!” He shoved me aside and
headed toward the hospital.
I grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around.
“You’re going to talk right now.”
“I’ll talk, all right. No worries about that!”
“Where’s Ramirez?”
“We got separated. I don’t know what happened. I
looked for him, and he was gone. That’s all I know.”
“Where is he?”
He glared at me, then turned and walked away. I started
after him, but Brown grabbed my shoulder. “Don’t . . .”
I talked to one of the doctors, who told me Hila would
pull through just fine. They’d removed the bullet. The
doc did take me aside and tell me she’d found evidence
of rape on all the girls. I explained the situation, and she
said, as I already knew, that none of the families would
want these girls back, and if we revealed what had
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happened to them, their fates could take an even sharper
turn for the worse.
“We’ll see if we can get them to an orphanage,” I
said. “The woman who’s in charge of the school project,
Anderson? We’ll see if we can get help from her.”
I still vowed to find Shilmani and tell him I had got-
ten his daughter out of there. I wanted to tell the man
how bravely she’d fought and how she’d literally saved
my life. I wasn’t sure if that would change anything, but
I wanted him to know.
However, the fan was dialed up to ten, and the camel
dung was about to hit it and fly for miles.
I was ordered to Harruck’s office before I even returned
to my billet.
When he was finished cursing his head off and suck-
ing down his drink, he looked at me and said, “I hope to
God you think this was worth it. At least give me that
much. At least let me know that you still believe in what
you did, because if you don’t . . .”
“Zahed needed to die. I’m sorry about the conse-
quences. He’s dead. Maybe things will change here.
Maybe not.”
“Well, I’m done here. I’m out. That’s a change. You
win. I lose. We did nothing here. Nothing.”
I might’ve stolen two hours of sleep before I dragged
myself back up and fought with the guards at the gate,
who wouldn’t let me and Brown leave the base.
“I have direct orders from the CO. Your team is
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