his own neck. Ben was moaning.
“Ah, God,” Ben rasped. “I’m hit...bad...Dan...bad...”
“Get your hands away from it!” Dan pleaded hoarsely, leaning close, trying to stop the artery from bleeding out. “Don’t move! Dammit, don’t move! Ben! Let me try to stop it!”
The burping ring of AK-47s filled the night air around them amid the deeper, more resonant sounds of the M-4 rifles used by the A team. Dan saw Ben beginning to lose energy, his eyes growing hooded, his hands dropping listlessly into the dirt. The human body contained approximately eight pints of blood. A wound like this could bleed a person out in two or three minutes if it couldn’t be stopped.
“Hang on, hang on!” Dan cried hoarsely. He called Captain Jamie Curtis, but he didn’t answer. Was he hit, too? Dan tried Warrant Officer Carter Jackson. No answer. Half their team was down and wounded. Help was on the way—two Apaches were thundering toward their compromised position. Would they get here in time?
Dan screamed to the comms sergeant, Franklin, to get two medevacs in here. Frantically, Dan tried to pull a battle dressing from his cargo pants pocket while holding his other hand tight against Ben’s neck. Son of a bitch! He yanked it free. Terror worked through him. The flashes from other RPGs fired in their direction made Dan feel helpless. It wasn’t something he felt often, and he hated the sensation. Ben’s blue eyes, now cloudy and less focused, met his, almost imploring. “D-dan...”
“Shut up, Ben! Save your strength! Fight! Stay with me!” he rasped, quickly fitting the thick battle dressing against his neck. If Dan put too much pressure on the wound, he’d choke Ben to death. Pressure on a wound was always what stopped the bleeding, but the neck was the most vulnerable part of a human’s body. There was no way Dan could put a tourniquet around Ben’s thick neck—he’d asphyxiate him. Dammit! Tears blurred Dan’s vision as he placed both hands around Ben’s 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
