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  I flop onto my belly, roll against the wall, rise to a crouch, and bring my M4 around. Barrett is up beside me, replacing his magazine and pulling the charging handle. We exchange glances. I nod and move forward as quietly as possible, which is stupid, since the sound of gunfire is loud enough to cover any sounds we might make, but it’s habit at this point. The hill face bends away in a curve, and I crane my neck to see around it. Bingo. I do a quick count, turn back to Barrett, and hold up six fingers. He nods.

  I key my mic and mutter into it. “We’ve made contact. Hold fire.”

  “Holding fire,” Lewis returns. “Make it fast.”

  “Roger that,” I say.

  I suck in a deep breath, hold it, let it out. Shouldering my rifle, I edge forward inch by inch until I can hug the rock face on my left for cover yet still get a bead on the nearest target. Barrett, fearless bastard that he is, kneels on the edge of the lip so he can fire past me to my right.

  Another breath.

  Crackcrackcrack…one down—crackcrackcrack…two down. Barrett is firing beside me, so, so loud. They’re taken completely by surprise, and I hear M4 reports from the other side. Bodies bleed and fall.

  We retreat around the curve, out of sight.

  A heartbeat of silence, and then hell descends upon us.

  Whooooosh…BOOM!

  The Humvee behind which Lewis and the others are hiding detonates in a fiery blast. Black smoke belches, shot through with leaping orange flames. Debris and shrapnel rain down.

  Fuck.

  Barrett and I look at each other. We’re boned, and we know it. Four of us are all that’s left out of fourteen. And the four are split in half, with an unknown number of enemy between us. There’s one intact Humvee, but it’s sandwiched between three hulks of flaming wreckage, and the killzone is pinned down.

  Barrett and I both exchange for fresh magazines.

  “Martinez? Okuzawa?” Barrett mutters into his mic. “You boys alive over there?”

  “Affirmative,” Martinez comes back. “Both of us are intact. You and West?”

  “Copacetic. Except that we’re totally fucked.”

  “Yeah, except that little fact.” This is Okuzawa, with his distinctively smooth, almost musical voice. “Plans, anyone?”

  “We do, technically, have ’em surrounded,” Martinez says. “One side will hit ’em and draw their attention, the other two’ll come up behind and blast ’em.”

  “Sounds good,” I say. “Who’s hitting, who’s drawing?”

  Barrett glances at me, chews his lip, and then nods. “West and I will draw — you two pubes hit ’em. Give us a thirty count from contact. Pick your targets, boys.”

  “Oorah,” I say.

  “Oorah,” the other three men respond in unison.

  Barrett’s hands clench and unclench on his rifle. A bead of sweat drips down his nose, and he wipes it away with a thumb. He draws a deep breath, blinks twice, and then nods at me. Rolls out. Rifle up, tucked against his shoulder, tactical crouch, inch forward on cat-silent feet. Fucker’s always been the quietest of all of us, like some kind of goddamn ninja. I follow on slightly noisier feet. My breathing is slow and deep to combat the raw terror churning in my gut. I try to swallow, but my throat is dry. I blink the stinging sweat out of my eyes.

  Barrett freezes, sinks to one knee, and hesitates with a single hand held up in a fist. Inches forward. Leans out a little. Inches forward. Lifts his hand again, flashes five fingers twice. Ten? Where are all these assholes coming from?

  The answer hits me: from a cave, dumbass. This is Afghanistan.

  I’m trying to contain my fear as Barrett adjusts his stance so he’s hugging the rock face as much as physically possible. You’d think after all these tours, all the combat I’ve seen, that I’d be over the fear of combat, but shit, the fear is always there. You hear an AK go off, you feel your asshole pucker. You hear the whoosh-BOOM of an RPG, you eat dirt and break out in a cold sweat and hope the next one ain’t coming for you. You want to live, don’t you? ’Course you do. So you’re afraid, every single time. If you’re not, you’re either crazy or a liar.

  I’m neither, so I’m fucking terrified. But I know the drill: push it down. Ignore it. Do the job. Stay alive.

  Crackcrackcrack…Barrett’s M4 speaks, and the momentarily quiet air is cut with AK reports, shouts in Pashto or whatever dialect they speak here. There’s a million damn languages in Afghanistan, and I can’t keep ’em straight. Whatever the hell it is they’re saying, they’re plenty pissed, I can tell that much. I hear Martinez and Okuzawa open up, and the angry shouts turn to panic. I tap Barrett on the shoulder; he holds fire, and I leapfrog around him.

  Fuck, there’s a whole shitload of ’em. Coming down out of that cave like ants swarming out of an ant hill. I don’t bother counting, just pour on the fire, watch one drop, two, three — they’re twisting in place, firing wildly, looking for us, for where the bullets are coming from.

  A whining buzz-snap of a bullet zinging past my head has me ducking involuntarily, backing up, spraying fire in three-round bursts. Barrett takes my place in front, but then swears and shifts backward.

  “They’re coming this way, buddy,” he says.

  “How many?”

  “A fucking lot.” He squeezes off another couple of rounds, then turns and jogs past me. “Go, dumbass! Go!”

  I don’t need to be told twice. Following behind Barrett has my back exposed, which I’m not a huge fan of. I pivot on my heel without breaking pace and walk backward, rifle up and hunting for a target.

  There’s one: crackcrackcrack—a burst of blood from a chest and the body falls, replaced by another. Drop him. Another; dropped. Shit, there’s a lot of ’em. I hold down the trigger for a good dozen rounds, and each one hits a body.

  Clickclickclick. Empty. I slam another magazine home, feel myself jerked to the side. Barrett shoves me against the rock face, leans past me, tosses a grenade.

  CRUMP-BOOM!

  Screams.

  Stench of death, shit from ruptured intestines. Blood. Cordite. Charred flesh.

  Smells that make my stomach clench every time.

  Crackcrackcrack…crackcrack—

  The bark of an M4 is cut off mid-burst.

  “Martinez?” I speak into the mic.

  “He’s down. He’s down. Shit, fuck, he’s dead,” Okuzawa gasps, panicked.

  “You’ll be fine,” I say. “Just keep firing, Okie. I’m coming for you.”

  “You can’t,” he says, and then the line goes quiet.

  I hear his rifle firing, firing, firing.

  “They’re right on top of me….” Okuzawa’s voice is hoarse, low, panting. “Run. Just fucking run.”

  Moments later, I hear a shout, a curse in English, and then a grenade goes off.

  Barrett looks at me, and his eyes are blinking a little too fast. His chest rises and falls too quickly. His jaw grinds. He’s firing, swapping in his last magazine.

  “I think we’re fucked, Tom.” I summon saliva and spit. My stomach is in knots.

  “I think you’re right, Derek.” He nods down the rock face we scaled minutes earlier—minutes that feel like hours. “Get down there. Go. I’ll cover you.”

  “The fuck you will—”

  “I’m not asking, asshole.”

  Bastard.

  I half fall, half slide down the nearly vertical surface. A jut of rock catches on my webbing, holds me up, and knocks the wind out of me. I hear Barrett up above, firing nonstop. I glance up, see him coming down after me. I unhook my gear from the rock and keep sliding.

  Hit ground, stumble, run. The caravan of Humvees crackles in flames. I dart toward them, Barrett behind me, cursing me. I slide to a stop, roll Abraham’s body over, feel guilty for ransacking his corpse for magazines, but I do it anyway. I grab his sidearm, tuck it into my gear.

  Barrett is kneeling in the dirt behind me, and I hand him a magazine. I hear shouts and footsteps in the dirt. Terror churns in my belly.
Seconds stretch out forever. Barrett is just as scared; I can see it in his stoic brown eyes. In the way he clenches and releases the grip of his rifle. In the grind of his jaw.

  “Let’s do this.” He adjusts his stance, crouching to get his feet under him. Racks the charging handle of his rifle.

  “Fuck,” he grates through gritted teeth.

  “Yeah.”

  “Ready?” He’s breathing short and fast. He knows, like I do, that this is it.

  “No.” I brace the toe of my boot in the dirt.

  “Too bad.” Barrett meets my eyes in all the conversation we need. “One…two…three….”

  On “three,” he lunges out, and I’m on his heels. Firing over his shoulder. Bodies drop. Bullets snap and hum and buzz. Kick up dirt. Plink off the Humvees, crack into the rock. They walk toward us.

  Slam into Barrett, twothreefourfive wet crunching impacts on flesh. He’s knocked into me. I stumble backward, grab his webbing, and haul. He’s gasping, kicking. I let him go, kneel in front of him, and unleash hell, a nonstop barrage of bursts. Empty my mag, slam another one in. Fuck, they’re everywhere. Sliding down the rock, running toward me, screaming, firing. Missing, mostly, but the bullets come for me. Heat stings my cheek. I didn’t even hear that one, it was so close.

  Something hot and hard explodes in my left shoulder. I’m knocked backward, another round slamming into the same shoulder, only lower. My rifle goes flying, and I’m on my back beside Barrett, bleeding. I palm my sidearm with my right hand. Lift it and fire blindly.

  Dirt crunches under a black loafer, wildly inappropriate footwear for this terrain. The shoe stops, white pant leg fluttering in a hot breeze. The sun is blinding, right overhead.

  Barely noon, about to die.

  The foot rises, swings back, kicks. My sidearm goes flying.

  A droplet of sweat trickles into my eye, and through all the pain, all the fear, that drop of hot stinging sweat in my eye is all I can fucking feel.

  The body above the foot kneels over me. Dark skin, pearly white teeth, thick black beard. Young, mid-twenties maybe. Black turban wound around his head, the end trailing over his shoulder. He grins. Speaks, but I don’t understand. I can’t hear for some reason. I just see his mouth move. He has an AK in his hand, the butt planted in the ground, fist around the barrel. He leans and stretches, grabs my pistol. Jabs my wounded shoulder with it, hard.

  “You. Prisoner.” He digs the barrel of my pistol into my shoulder again, so hard I cry out. “Fuck American.”

  I’m a goddamn POW. Fuck.

  Nearby, I hear Barrett moan. He’s still alive.

  But for how long?

  CHAPTER 2

  REAGAN

  Outside Houston, Texas, 2007

  Why am I peeling potatoes? I hate peeling potatoes. It’s just me, so there’s no reason to cook anything complicated. But I’ve had oven pizza and microwave meals a thousand times over the last few months, and I need something different. Thus, potatoes au gratin and chicken paprika. Besides, the mind-numbing tedium of peeling potatoes is something to do besides gnaw on the sense of impending doom that’s been plaguing me.

  Or, at least, that was the idea. The reality is that peeling potatoes leaves my brain with nothing to do but spin.

  Something happened. Something happened. Something happened. It’s all I can come up with. I won’t allow myself to conjecture…or imagine. But I can’t ignore this tension, this constant stress and prickling on the back of my neck, the tightness of my shoulder muscles. Something has happened to Tom. I know it.

  The antique grandfather clock in the foyer goes tock…tock…tock. The faucet runs. Something creaks somewhere in the old farmhouse. The AC is out again, so it’s hot as blazes in the Texas summer evening.

  I hate this old house.

  I glance out the window over the sink, and my gut clenches. A dust cloud announces someone coming up the long dirt road leading to the farm. I drop the peeler in the sink. Drop the potato. Turn off the faucet.

  Breathe, Reagan. Breathe.

  The visitor is still half a mile out, but I can’t make myself move, can’t make myself do anything but wait. After an eternity, I finally make out a low black car. An unmarked black sedan. Government.

  No. No.

  I wipe my hands on a towel, make my way on shaky knees to the front door. I shove open the screen.

  Creeeeeeaaaaak…slam. There’s an ancient ceiling fan mounted on the front porch, and it rotates half-heartedly, stirring the thick, hot air. I stand directly beneath it, waiting. Hands clutched together, squeezing.

  The car rolls to a stop, and the engine is turned off. Then it pops and ticks. I forget to breathe again. A car door opens; a tan pant leg descends to the dirt, a shiny black dress shoe. A body follows, tall, slim, straight. Buzzed black hair, mid-forties. Hard eyes. The insignia on the shoulder makes him an officer, but I can’t remember which insignia means which rank. The driver door opens, and another officer steps out. This one is older, salt-and-pepper hair. They approach slowly, hats under their arms.

  The older officer stops with one foot on the lower step of the porch. “Reagan Barrett?”

  I nod. “Yes. I’m Reagan.”

  “I’m Sergeant Major Bradford” —he gestures to the younger man— “and this is Staff Sergeant Oliver. May we come in?”

  I lean against the post, my knees giving out. “What happened to him? What happened to Tom?”

  Sergeant Major Bradford’s eyes soften ever so slightly as he ascends the steps. He taps the rim of his hat with a forefinger. “I think maybe we should speak inside, Mrs. Barrett.”

  I summon a breath, let it out. I step away from the post and turn toward the door, but my legs wobble, and I stumble. A hard but gentle hand supports my elbow, steadies me. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t ask if I’m all right — he’s here; therefore, I’m not all right. I steel myself, palm flat on my stomach as if to hold myself upright. I lead them inside to the formal sitting room just off the foyer.

  “Would you care for some iced tea?” I ask.

  “Sure, that would be nice,” Sergeant Bradford says. “It’s hot out there.”

  I pour three glasses and set them on a silver service tray.

  It feels like I’m performing some kind of tradition.

  Ice clinks, coasters are placed just so. Hats are set aside. I smooth my dress over my thighs. I wait.

  “As I said earlier, my name is Sergeant Major Adam Bradford, and this is Staff Sergeant Travis Oliver. We’re from Camp Lejeune.” He clears his throat. “You are the wife of Lance Corporal Thomas Barrett?”

  I nod. “Yes.”

  He verifies Tom’s Social Security number, and then pauses to let out a small breath. “I’ll get right to it, Miss Barrett. Your husband has been officially declared DUSTWUN, or ‘duty station whereabouts unknown.’ Which is military speak for—”

  “Missing in action,” I interrupted.

  Bradford nodded. “Your husband was with his unit, traveling as part of a convoy assigned to investigate reports of Taliban activity in the eastern region of Afghanistan. The convoy was ambushed in the mountains.” He pauses, blinks, looks down. This is hard, even for him. “When the convoy failed to report in or answer their radios, a small search force was sent after them. The—the remains of the convoy was located. There were sixteen men in that convoy, Miss Barrett. Fourteen bodies were located.”

  I begin to sob uncontrollably. “Stop…please stop.”

  “I’m so sorry, ma’am. I hate delivering this news. This is—this is one of the worst losses of American military personnel in a very long time. I had friends in that convoy. Close friends.” He pauses again, as if to gather strength. “There is still a chance your husband and Corporal West will be found. Search parties are out in force as we speak, and, given the number of lives lost, I know the units sent to find Corporals West and Barrett are doing so with extreme prejudice.”

  “Corporal West?” I ask, my voice faint. “You mean Derek?�
�

  Bradford nods. “Yes. Derek.”

  I try to smile. “Those two were always causing trouble together.”

  He gives me the same effort in return. Neither of us are entirely successful.

  “Yeah, they’re troublemakers, that’s for sure. They…it looks from the reports on the battle that I’ve seen that Derek and Tom—they…acquitted themselves well.”

  I sigh. “If you know Tom and Derek, then you know that’s not a surprise.”

  Bradford bobs his head. “That’s the damned truth.” He ducks his head, breathes deeply, and then meets my eyes once more, steel in his gaze. “We’ll find them, ma’am. One way or another, we’ll find them and bring them home.”

  “Dead—dead or alive…you mean.” My voice breaks.

  He doesn’t need to agree. “And we’ll get the bastards who took ’em. You have my personal guarantee, Mrs. Barrett.”

  “I know, Sergeant Bradford. I know. But revenge won’t keep my husband alive, and it won’t bring him home.”

  The younger man speaks up. Oliver, I think his name is. “I know I don’t have to say this to you, ma’am, but if the media should contact you, it’s vital to the investigation efforts that you don’t comment.”

  Bradford gives the younger officer a brief but scathing glare, then returns his attention to me. “We’ll be in touch, Miss Barrett. When we find out anything, we’ll call you, no matter what time it is.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant Bradford.” I offer a small, faint smile to the other man. “And you, too, Sergeant Oliver. I know this wasn’t an easy visit to make.”

  Bradford shakes his head. “It’s always hard to make these visits, but I know Tom and Derek personally, and I was—I grew up with their lieutenant, Jonathan Lewis. We joined the Corps together after 9-11, and we fought in Desert Storm together. He was—he was like a brother to me.” He blinks hard several times, squeezes his eyes shut, and then opens them again. They shimmer with emotion. “His wife lives in Dallas. I’m heading there next. That visit—that’ll be hard.”