SULAIMAN MOUNTAINS. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.
They continued along a narrow footpath carved right into a vertical section of rock. Gorman didn’t fear heights, but there was something about a thousand-foot drop just an inch from his feet that had a way of screwing with his mind. But at least the path was relatively flat, allowing him to recharge.
Martin was point, followed by Maryam, then Ryan and him. Stark followed a dozen feet back, then Hagen, and Larson at the rear.
The trail widened as it reached the other side of the tight mountain pass. Maryam and Martin paused to inspect a number of broken branches along a rocky track leading into a wooded valley at almost ten thousand feet, surrounded by rising terrain. They had reached a plateau buried deep in the range. Snowcapped ridges rose up beyond the canopy of stone pines, stabbing a layer of gray clouds blowing in from the west.
And that’s when it happened.
Gorman watched Stark and his men suddenly dispersing, as if on cue, though not a word was spoken. One second they stood by him and the next they had vanished. Ryan was already scrambling halfway up a hill, Hagen and Martin rushed for the cover of a cluster of pine trees thirty feet away, and Stark and Larson disappeared behind a clump of boulders twenty feet in the other direction.
What the—
The first shot rang out from across the narrow meadow before he could complete the thought.
Gorman too had reacted, jumping in front of Maryam as the forest exploded in stroboscopic muzzle flashes—as sharp stabs pierced his shoulder and abdomen.
He landed next to her while a barrage of automatic fire mowed down the forest, zooming overhead, shattering bark, ricocheting off rocks, echoing off the surrounding mountains.
Trembling, Gorman put a hand over his vest, feeling the punctures right over the pain on his right shoulder and left abdomen. Bloody fingers confirmed it. The bastards had used a large enough caliber to punch through the Kevlar—
“Bill!”
He looked at Maryam as the world around them seem to catch fire—as explosions shook the ground and the thunder of Larson’s Browning overwhelmed all other reports.
But it was Maryam’s face that filled his world, and it was her hands that he felt on him, unfastening his vest before ripping his shirt with a knife, exposing the wounds.
“Stay with me, Bill!” She rolled him on his side for a moment before opening his individual first aid kit and slapping patches of gauze impregnated with zeolite powder on each wound.
He cringed and then screamed, tensing as the zeolite absorbed the water from the blood flowing out of the bullet holes, bringing platelets and other clotting factors together through an intense exothermic reaction that felt as if he was on fire.
“Suck on this!” she shouted, shoving a fentanyl lollipop from his IFAK into his mouth. In an instant, the blood vessels in his mouth absorbed the powerful opioid, and Gorman felt his body relax as the berry-flavored drug killed the pain.
Grasping the tails of a field dressing, Maryam pressed it against the lower right side of his torso, over the zeolite patch, and wrapped it tightly before applying a second one to his shoulder.
Breathing rapidly, suddenly feeling cold, Gorman rolled on his side and vomited, arms trembling as the firefight raged around them.
His vision rapidly blurring, Gorman saw Maryam reach for her encrypted CIA radio, screaming over the noise of the gunfight a call for a “bloody winch.”