SULAIMAN MOUNTAINS. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.
“Find her! Down there!” Pasha shouted, when he connected with Jamil’s men at the next switchback. He had spotted the red smoke in the clearing below as the sound of helicopters echoed in the range.
Jamil’s men shot down the hill with impressive nimbleness, like mountain cats on steroids, careering past trees and rocks, leaping from boulder to boulder with feline agility. Pasha tried to keep up, the Dragunov slung behind his back, his hands clutching a more manageable AK-47, though neither weapon could do much damage against the incoming Americans. The same was true of Jamil’s team, which lacked RPGs.
Their best shot was to locate the pilot and either take her alive or silence her, then retreat before the rescue team arrived.
But to do so they needed to hurry.
By the time he reached the clearing, Jamil had already spread out his men—all fifteen of them—across the long and narrow overhang and had set them to searching the tree line and the edge, some vanishing in the red haze hovering like a bad omen.
“Where are you?” he mumbled under his breath, his eyes searching the clearing before settling on the rocky outcrops at the edge of the gorge, recalling how she had hidden in a similar area two nights ago.