PROLOGUE

OCTOBER 8, 2011 – TANGI VALLEY, WARDAK PROVINCE, AFGHANISTAN

The three-round burst fired from an AK inside the compound slams hard into me – punches me back, spins me around, thumps me off balance like a marionette manipulated by invisible strings. My helmet’s night vision device is knocked out, its comforting green hue extinguished. I shouldn’t have stretched my leg across the gate opening the way I just did. My bell is rung and everything moves in slow motion.

Beside me, Shawn unloads his M4 through the gateway, hammering doors and windows of the target building – brass flips slowly and lazily through the moonlit night while bullets scream angrily downrange toward the compound. Close-quarters battle all around. I hear my guys running to the sound of the guns.

My leg feels like it’s been hit with a sledgehammer. My head is a mess. My wife is gonna kill me.

Training kicks in: apply a tourniquet. I fumble for it in my calf pocket, slide it over my right leg as high as possible, and crank down hard. It hurts like hell; I grit my teeth and I am angry. I don’t know if seconds or minutes have passed but small-arms fire continues to batter the alley and the compound. I think Doc Brent is around. Is he working on me? Garret seems nearby, Cerros crouched by my feet.

I make out Shawn’s muffled warning of “grenade.” I know there isn’t a whole heck of a lot I can do but roll away from it to my left – hope that the explosion will hit my butt, hope for the best. The alleyway erupts; shrapnel promises more pain and death. Moans puncture the night, moans from my guys, my assault squad, my brothers…