The Summer House

Chapter 96 Afghanistan

I get up, coughing, touch my forehead, pull away my hand, and see bloody fingers. My ears are ringing. The men are shouting. Smoke and clouds of dust are drifting away. Two more explosions — thump, thump — hit the other side of this peak, the ground shaking from the impacts.

I scramble up, cough some more, find my rucksack.

A heavy, thrumming noise bursts out, like a high-speed M134 Minigun, its rotating barrel shooting out thousands of rounds every minute, and I duck and scramble across the rocky surface, thinking, When in the hell did the Taliban get that weapon? as a black Little Bird helicopter roars up into view from a deep ravine, circles, and then flares down to a landing, its engine sounding just like a weapon.

I grab my rucksack, lower my bleeding head, and run as fast and as best as I can to the churning little aircraft that represents my way out of here, my way to get the Rangers free. Dust and gravel roar around me, and the passenger door opens up. Chief Cellucci is leaning across the empty seat. I can’t hear what he’s yelling, but I’m sure it’s Move, move, move!

Unlike before, I have no difficulty getting into the Little Bird. I toss my rucksack into the rear, get into the seat, grab the crash helmet. The next few seconds are a crazed blur as Cellucci lifts the helicopter before I can even get the seat belt and harness fastened. The Little Bird seems to fly up just a score of meters or so, Cellucci wrestling with the controls, before it dives fast and to the right, dipping into the ravine.

I clench my teeth, trying hard not to vomit. The helicopter bounces up and down as we skim over another wide peak, and I get my seat belt and harness fastened, cinching it as tight as possible.

It takes two good tries to get the helmet on, and I fumble with the communications gear before Cellucci’s voice comes through loud and clear.

“Did you get what you needed?” he asks.

“Yes.”

Cellucci swears, hops us up over another rocky ridge. “Good. Because they’re about to get hammered. Saw lots of movement heading their way.”

I say, “How long before we get back to the FOB?”

“Ten, fifteen minutes if I push it,” Cellucci says.

“Push it,” I say. “Can you raise the Ranger detachment there? Major West?”

“I’ll see—”

A flare of light just ahead of us.

Tracer rounds come from a heavy machine gun set in the rocks before us, reaching up and up, wanting to touch us and—

Cellucci swears.

Powers us to the left.

We dive, desperately trying to get ahead of the tracer rounds.

The ground is so close it looks like it can reach up and slap us hard.

Instead the bullets get to us first.

It sounds like a sledgehammer is pounding the metal.

Alarms start sounding from the instrument panel.

Flashing red lights.

Cellucci says, “Brace for—”

We hit, bounce.

Upside down.

Hit again.

Go dark.