You’re out.”

He told the private to hold his position and wait for us.

Ramirez whispered to me, “The hell with it. Let him

come. We can babysit. He could get hurt . . .”

I lay there, panting. If I abandoned the mission, I’d

still go home to be hung. So the hell with it. We were

going.

Biting back a curse, I got to my feet. “Guys, you will

ignore any and all commands from Captain Warris.

Moving up. Let’s roll.”

CO MB AT O P S

153

I looked at Warris. “What’re you going to do now,

Freddy? Phone a friend?”

“No, I’m still coming along. I’ll document all this

insubordination, and by the time I’m done, you and this

entire team will go down.”

Then he told me to fuck myself and broke off with Jen-

kins, Hume, and Brown, our Bravo team. I took Ramirez,

Nolan, Smith, and Treehorn. I put Treehorn on point.

Bravo shifted off to the north side. I told them to activate

their Cross-Coms and to watch what they said—we were

being recorded.

Ramirez looked back at me, as if to say: Oh my God,

what’s happening now . . .

I just steeled my gaze and got back on the horn.

“Brown, this is Ghost Lead, over.”

“Here, Ghost Lead,” he said, as I patched into his

Cross-Com’s camera and watched them scurrying along

the foothill, climbing higher along a lip of gravel and dirt.

“Stay in touch.”

“Roger that.”

Warris didn’t know it, but Brown was in command of

that team. He would be reporting to me, and I knew

that Hume and Smith would fall in line.

Ramirez hadn’t lied. The military might have been

full of backstabbers and ass-kissers, but my men were

fiercely loyal—every last one of them. They would do

anything for me. I mean anything.

I kept close to Treehorn as we ascended, hunched over,

our computers scanning the mountainside for enemies.

154 GH OS T RE CON

Clear so far. We climbed for another fifteen minutes, mak-

ing good progress, when Treehorn called for a halt, and I

zoomed in with my camera to see the ragged depression in

the mountain, like a bruise against the stone.

“Cave entrance, right there,” reported Treehorn.

“We got one, too,” said Brown.

“I’ll report that,” cried Warris. “We’ve got a tunnel

entrance. Can’t get a good read on it, but I’m guessing

it runs deep. Could connect to your entrance, over.”

“Roger that. If we get in too deep, we might lose

contact with the satellite.”

“Understood. Recording. Let’s do it.”

I hadn’t mentioned anything to Warris about our

Cross-Coms’ being knocked out during our first night

raid, but I’d assumed he’d read it in my report. I won-

dered if being inside the tunnel would protect the gear

from whatever the Taliban was using against us.

The answer would come shortly.

As in the second we entered the caves.

It all went dead. Again. Everything. High-tech gear

reduced to crap.

We’d taken along some old MBITR radios, standard-

issue stuff as backup, and strangely enough they still

worked. Maybe they had thicker casings and were better

shielded from EMP waves or other countermeasures.

We had penlights taped to our rifles. Even as I turned

mine on, the first wave of gunfire stitched across the

mountain. They were coming at us from outside, from

above the entrance.

CO MB AT O P S

155

“Move, move, move!” I screamed, driving the group

into the tunnel.

Treehorn rushed forward. He hadn’t taken along his

sniper’s rifle; instead he had a terrifically loud shotgun,

and when it boomed, sending pellets into the face of the

Taliban guy rushing toward us, I dropped to one knee

and crouched tight to the dusty rock wall at my shoulder.

“Ghost Lead, this is Brown! We are taking fire inside

and out, over!”

“Roger that,” I said. “Move in. Flush them out!”

“He’s right,” said Warris. “Let’s move in!”

Like I needed his confirmation.

The tunnel was barely two meters high, about three

meters wide, but it grew more narrow as we stepped over

the guy Treehorn had shot.

Pops and booms echoed from somewhere deep in the

tunnel, telling me that yes, Bravo team’s tunnel was, in

fact, connected to ours.

“Look at this,” said Ramirez, crouching down beside

the dead guy. In the dirt lay an odd-looking rifle with a

funnel-like barrel.

“I know what that is,” said Nolan. “HER F gun for

sure. Like EMP. High-energy radio frequency. Just what

I thought. Works better in close quarters. They must’ve

been very close when they zapped us the first time.”

“But look at this thing. Seems homemade,” said

Ramirez, lifting the gun up to his penlight.

“They didn’t make ’em up here, or even in the town,”

I said. “Somebody’s supplying them—somebody who

156 GH OS T RE CON

knows they’d need them. Like the CIA. Pack up that

gun. Let’s go!”

Ramirez shoved the gun in his backpack, and we

began to work our way along a curve that dropped

sharply. I had to hang on to the wall to prevent sliding

forward for a few meters.

Ramirez was pulling up the rear now, keeping his rifle

pointed back while shuffling to keep up with us, the thin

beams of our penlights playing like lasers over the walls.

Treehorn remained up front, ready to blast the hell

out of anyone who tried to confront us. He stole a quick

glance back at me, and I’d never seen his eyes as wide.

The sergeant was wired to the moment, and I had every

confidence in him.

“Mitchell, this is Warris. We dropped two tangos.

Picked up a gun of some sort. EMP, over.”

“Same here,” I answered. “Keep moving in, but call

out if you see our lights.”

“Roger that.”

I noticed how Warris wouldn’t refer to me as “Ghost

Lead.” What a fool . . . I wondered why he hadn’t called

Harruck to “tell on me” yet. Then I thought, he’s just a

kid and wants a little action, that’s why he’s delaying the

call. What a bigger fool!

And then, before he could say contemplate anything

else, Ramirez opened fire behind us. We hit the dirt, and I

whirled back, along with Nolan, to add our fire and drive

back a pair of fighters who vanished behind the curve.

“Keep moving!” I ordered.

“They’re still back there,” warned Ramirez.

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157

“That’s why you keep watching,” I said.

The air grew dank as we descended even farther.

Trash appeared along the walls—discarded wrappers,

even some bottles of soda, along with MREs, which had

obviously been stolen from U.S. and coalition forces.

“Looks like an intersection coming up,” said Tree-

horn. “Two tunnels.”

“Warris, do you see us?”

“Not yet.”

“Do you see an intersection?”

“Yeah, we do.”

“All right, we’re coming at you. Hold fire.”

I think we got another ten meters, maybe fifteen