The crew chief pulled a Stokes stretcher off the bulkhead, a lightweight, open coffin-shape of wire mesh and white canvas straps used for transporting wounded. Roselli carried it back to Ellsworth on the double, then helped the corpsman gently lift Cotter into the basket.

"He took a round right through the armhole in his vest," Ellsworth said as they strapped him down securely. He spoke rapidly, and Roselli had the impression that he wasn't even speaking directly to him. "Collapsed his right lung and I think it went out through his spine! Damned, damned bad luck the Kevlar didn't catch it! Shit! Shit! Friggin' blood loss. Did it nick the post-caval? Gotta get him BVES, stat." Doc looked up at Roselli suddenly. "C'mon! Help me with him. Easy now."

Wildly, fragments of first-aid training flitted through Roselli's mind, Don't move a victim with a back injury! Except when leaving him where he was would be more dangerous.

The second Sea Stallion was loading now, the rescued UN inspectors and Hercules crewmen filing aboard between two SEALs standing guard. Among them, Roselli glimpsed the man Cotter had saved, marked by the white bandages on his arm, his briefcase clutched to his chest like a shield. Good riddance to the bastard. If the L-T hadn't been trying to save his ass...

Commands crackled over Roselli's radio, but none included his call sign and he ignored them. The SEAL platoon was starting to pull back from the airport buildings. The Sea Stallion was loaded, its ramp closing like the jaw of some gape-mouthed fish. The helo rose from the tarmac in a whirlwind of noise and dust, then swung low across the runway, angling toward the west and vanishing into night. One of the SuperCobras paced it.

Ellsworth and Roselli positioned themselves on either side of Cotter's Stokes, grabbed the carry straps, and lugged him toward the LZ where the third transport chopper was just touching down. Together, with an assist from the Marine crew chief, they hoisted him onto the Sea Stallion before the rear ramp was all the way down, then scrambled aboard themselves. Two by two, the rest of the SEALs followed. Three savage explosions ripped through the night as the trucks parked next to the terminal exploded one after the other. Garcia and Frazier, Gold Squad's demo man, had been busy setting charges while the rest of the SEALs covered the perimeter.

That perimeter was shrinking now as more and more of the SEALs climbed up the Sea Stallion's ramp. MacKenzie and Lieutenant j.g. DeWitt were the last two men aboard.

"Let's go!" DeWitt yelled, holding his microphone to his lips, making a circling motion with his free hand. "All aboard! Haul ass!"

With a roar, the Sea Stallion lifted into the night sky, turning toward the west. As Roselli stared out the still-open rear doors, he watched the C-130 parked in front of the Shuaba terminal, kept watching as the Hercules crumpled, an orange flower blossoming from the root of its port wing. Then the fuel tanks touched off, and in seconds the UN C-130 was a single sheet of flame, its fuselage and wings a wire-work skeleton half glimpsed through the raging, hungry blaze. Smaller explosions took out the two Land Rovers an instant later, tearing out their guts and scattering smoking bits of engine across the runway. When the Iraqis returned with the dawn to reclaim their airport, they would find not one vehicle, not one piece of American equipment left behind intact for them to claim as spoils of war. With a whine, the ramp slid up and the rear doors clamped shut, cutting off Roselli's view of Shuaba.

He turned back to Ellsworth, who was still working on the L-T. The Stokes was lying in the center of the chopper's cargo deck, and a clear plastic oxygen mask had been strapped over Cotter's paint-blacked face. There were bubbles of blood clustered around the Lieutenant's nostrils, and more blood at the corner of his mouth. His breathing beneath the mask was rasping and labored, audible even over the roar of the Sea Stallion's rotors. MacKenzie was kneeling beside the Stokes, holding a plastic bottle filled with clear liquid aloft as the Doc threaded a thick needle into a vein in Cotter's left inside elbow. The other SEALs of Third Platoon, along with the helo's Marine crew chief, watched from a circle about the tableau, impassive. They all knew that if Doc couldn't save the Skipper, nobody could.

"Shit," Doc said, rocking back on his heels. His arms were bloody, clear to his elbows. He pried up one of Cotter's eyelids, staring at the pupil. "How long to Kuwait?"

"It's almost a hundred miles to Kuwait City," the Marine crew chief said. "Call it thirty minutes."

"Shit, shit, shit!" Doc started unzipping and unhooking the L-T's combat gear and discarding it on the helo's deck, using a pair of blunt-tipped bandage scissors to cut away his fatigue shirt. Roselli helped, as MacKenzie continued to hold the IV bottle in the air. By the light of the helo's battle lanterns, the L-T's skin looked death-pale where it wasn't crusted with blood.

Roselli felt a creeping, nightmare presentiment. He'd seen death before. He had been in the Navy for twelve years and in the Teams for seven. His first time under fire had been in Panama, where he'd been wounded in the assault at Paitilla Airfield. Four of his squad mates had been the very first American fatalities of Operation Just Cause, four good friends killed in a clusterfuck where elite SEALs had been thrown like cannon fodder against barricaded defenders with machine guns, then ordered to hold the position all night for reinforcements that were late in arriving.

The bond between members of a SEAL platoon is close, closer than any other human relationship Roselli could imagine. Though he wasn't married, he knew SEALs who were... and to a man they seemed to value the camaraderie of their fellow SEALs and swim buddies more than they did their own wives.

Thinking of wives reminded Roselli of Donna, Cotter's wife. And they had a kid. Oh, damn... damn!

0305 hours (Zulu +3)

Helo Cowboy One

Cotter awoke, aware of faces bending over him, fuzzy against the glare of lights. Pain... he felt pain... but it wasn't as bad as he'd thought it would be. Funny, he couldn't feel a thing below his diaphragm.

"Where?"

Was that Doc's face peering down into his? Hard to tell. "We're aboard the helo, L-T," Doc's voice said. "You just rest easy."

"The men?" It was hard to speak, hard to make himself heard. Each breath was a small agony, and he wasn't sure Doc could hear above the background roar of the rotors.

Doc's face dipped lower, turning. "What was that, Sir?"

"The... the men. Get them... out."

"Everybody got out, Skipper. You're the only one who stopped a bullet. Why the friggin' hell didn't you duck?" Doc's voice was light, bantering, but Cotter could hear the tightness behind the words. "Damn it, what kind of example is that for you to set for your men?"

"Mission?.."

"All three helos made it out, Skipper. Everybody made it out. Mission complete. Now shut the hell up and let me work. You've got a hole in your side and you're losing blood. Understand me? Skipper? Do you hear me?"

Cotter heard, though the faces and lights had blurred to a soft and indistinguishable white haze. Was he dying? His thoughts touched lightly on Donna and Vickie, but they slipped away. Somehow, he couldn't hold onto the memory of their faces, and that raised a small stab of guilt. He tried to draw a breath, bracing against the pain... but nothing would come. He tasted blood, hot and thick and choking, weighing down his throat and chest. Couldn't breathe.

His boys were out safe. That was good. And the mission a success... what had it been? He tried to think, couldn't remember. Oh, yeah. Training mission, working with the Marines at Vieques, the big island east of Puerto Rico. It was nice there, a tropical paradise. Sunny beaches. Warm water. He loved Puerto Rico. Training session. How had he been hurt? Accidents happened, even in training... especially in SEAL training.