CHAPTER 11

joint forces convoy jackal one-five

thirty-three miles west of jalalabad

nangarhar province

afghanistan

0945 local time

When it came to convoys, anywhere was better than the middle.

Staff Sergeant Mirin Taylor had learned that the hard way on her two tours in Iraq, when she’d seen more carnage than she cared to contemplate. Her unit had supported both conventional and SOF units with convoy operations—moving fighters and materials all over Anbar Province. The Wild West, they had called it back then, and the euphemism had been accurate. Lawless, dangerous, and dusty . . . yeah, the Wild fucking West indeed.

Over the years, she’d developed a fatalistic view of life. If it was your time, then it was your time. Plain and simple. As one of two combat medics on this convoy, traveling from ISAF headquarters in Kabul to Forward Operating Base Fenty beside Jalalabad Airport, it was Mirin’s job to provide first responder medical support in the event the convoy encountered an IED or was attacked by insurgents. She’d lived through both scenarios multiple times, and she was good at her job. She’d do whatever it took to keep an injured soldier alive, but in her heart, she felt it was fate or God or the universe that made the final call. And yet, despite feeling entirely secure outsourcing her destiny to a higher power, as her Humvee rumbled along the dusty A1, one thought played a loop in her mind . . .

Anywhere is better than the middle.

When a convoy was targeted by insurgents, the middle always took the brunt of the attack. Today she’d avoided the proverbial short straw and was riding in the rear vehicle of their three-vehicle convoy: Humvee, truck, Humvee.

“Whatcha thinkin’ about, Mimi?” a soldier beside her said, using the nickname she hated.

She looked over and shook her head. “Just scan the road, Cortez.” She searched for movement among the boulders littering the rocky hills on both sides of Highway A1. “We’re in Tali country; these guys can climb and blend in like effing mountains goats.”

“Five, it’s One—you there, Mimi?”

“’Sup, LT?” The Mimi handle didn’t bother her from the Lieutenant. Maybe it was because he was an officer. Maybe it was just that he wasn’t trying to get in her pants like these new boys.

“Just got a drone-pass feed—we’re all clear between here and J-bad. Got no one tucked in the hills waiting for us that we can see and no thermals.”

“Good to go, sir,” she replied. Of course, you were never really safe in the ’Stan. Green on blue was the favored method of killing infidels after IEDs, and FOB Felty had been the site of an insider attack a few years earlier. Just because a passing soldier was dressed in an Afghan military uniform, didn’t mean he was friendly.

As the Humvee rattled and shook over the pockmarked dirt road, she thought about the decisions she’d made to wind up in this seat and what her future held . . .

It is what it is, she decided after beating herself up for a good long while. What am I gonna do? Work at Target and drink beer at the VFW? Like they even want women soldiers hanging around in towns like mine.

No. She was career Army now. It was just math. She was already over the hump at twelve years in, and it would be stupid to stop now. She had once thought about going to medical school on the GI Bill, but that window of opportunity was behind her. Best option was to tough it out and retire at twenty.

I’ll still be under forty years old. Just two years of school and I can become a PA.

She knew plenty of medics who had done that.

Seven and a half years . . . plenty of time to get ready for my next—

Something streaked across the sky ahead of them—like a big brightly lit shooting star. At first she thought it was a magnesium flare falling from above, but it was too big.

And it was too fast.

She realized it was a missile just before the world in front of her became a fireball and both of her eardrums burst in pain. Then it was like being under water—hot water—but for some reason she could breathe it in. It hurt, but she could breathe.

She couldn’t see though.

The world had gone bright white. The glare soon began to fade, and she thought she saw shadows moving around her. Her left side hurt and so did her left collarbone. The right side of her face felt tight and numb.

She blinked. Twice more.

She heard a sound like someone shouting from inside a bucket. It sounded a little like “Mimi,” but she wasn’t sure. Hands tugged at her.

Time warped.

She saw light, then black.

Then light again after minutes, maybe hours, or even days.

She blinked, and the world came into slow focus.

She was dangling from the shoulder harness of her seatbelt, and she was sure that her collarbone and several ribs were broken. The Humvee was on its side, and someone was pulling her out of the door, which was above her.

It hurt like hell.

She let herself be lifted, grunting when her knee hit something hard. As other senses returned, she gagged on the overpowering stench of burning fuel. Burning fuel and burning flesh.

It was the same smell as in Fallujah in 2005.

Her face and neck on the right began to burn in pain, and she realized the charred odor was coming from her.

“This one is urgent surgical,” someone said.

She thought of those burned, disfigured bodies she’d treated in Fallujah. She couldn’t tell the men from the women because their hair was gone and only black flesh tinged with red blood remained.

Her stomach heaved, and she tasted blood and bile.

“Who next?” another voice said.

“No one else. Top gunner was cut almost in half when the damn thing flipped. Driver is dead. All the others are crispy critters.”

She let her head loll as she gazed at the charred and bloody bodies, just like those in Fallujah.

Am I one of them? One of the bodies? Just throw me on the pile . . .

The pain was terrible, and she was ready, but there was something she needed to do first. Something she needed to tell them, so they understood what had happened here. She had to tell someone about the missile she’d seen. It took all her strength, all her will, but she forced her head up. Forced her mouth to form words.

“What’s she saying?” a male voice said.

“I don’t know. Take it easy, Staff Sergeant, we got you,” another said.

“Dro . . .” she said, the word little more than a gurgle. With great effort, she pointed at the sky and tried to say the word again.

“I can’t understand her. What’s she—oh shit, I think we’re losing her.”

Suddenly, she couldn’t feel the arms supporting her anymore. She was falling, falling, falling to somewhere. Which was good because the pain was unbearable now. She said a silent prayer to God or the universe or fate that the dark pit she was plunging toward was death.