off again!”

Just as we reached our exit, a shell hit the mountain

just above us, the roar deafening, a landslide of rock and

dirt beginning to plummet. “Back inside! Ghost Team!

Fall back! Fall back!”

Two more shells struck the mountainside, the ground

quaking beneath our feet, the ceiling cracking here and

there. The bastards would seal up the caves for us—but

their plan was, of course, to bury us alive.

216 GH OS T RE CON

“Ghost Lead, this is Treehorn! The Bradley has come

under attack. I don’t know where they came from! They

might’ve been buried in the sand the entire time! They

got at least twenty guys down there! More in the moun-

tains coming down. Should I engage?”

“Negative, negative! Don’t give up your position yet!”

I cried.

He’d said more were coming down from the moun-

tains. Why hadn’t the satellite picked them up and fed

that data into my Cross-Com? Was it just interference

from the terrain?

I gritted my teeth and led Nolan and Smith back to

the main tunnel and exit. As we neared the intersection

where the cave-in had occurred, shouting echoed, and I

threw myself against the side wall, with the guys just

behind me, then rolled to the left, my rifle at the ready,

as two Taliban fighters came through the newly dug

passage through the cave-in. I gunned both of them

down before I could finish taking a breath.

They hit the ground—and so did a grenade tossed at

us from their comrades on the other side.

As I turned back, I raised my palm, screaming for the

guys to hit the deck. We all started toward the floor as

the grenade exploded behind us, the concussion echo-

ing, and what sounded like a million tiny rock fragments

pelted my clothes—

Just as I crashed onto my belly.

The terrible and expected ringing in my ears came on

suddenly, and when I looked up, I couldn’t see anything.

I lost my breath. I thought maybe I’d died, but then I

CO MB AT O P S

217

realized my turban had fallen down across my face. I

shoved it up, rose, and found hands pulling me to

my feet.

“You okay?” Smith asked, his angular face creased deeply

with worry. I couldn’t hear him; I’d just read his lips.

I indicated that my ears were ringing. He nodded and

mouthed the same thing. Nolan was next to him, wav-

ing us onward as he drew a grenade from the web gear

hidden beneath his shirt. He tossed the grenade down

the intersecting hall, and we all bolted ahead as the sec-

onds ticked by and the grenade exploded, just as we

neared the more narrow exit.

And two Taliban fighters rolled toward us, rushing in

from outside.

Nolan was on point and opened up on them, but

they’d started firing as well, their rounds ricocheting off

the ceiling just past us. Smith and I, caught in the back,

had no choice but to drop away. We couldn’t fire with

Nolan in our way.

The gunfire was strangely muffled but growing

louder as my hearing began to return.

With arms flailing, the two fighters fell on top of each

other.

Nolan turned back to me, his eyes wide.

Then he just collapsed himself.

“Cover us!” I shouted to Smith, then rose and rushed

to Nolan. I slowly rolled him over onto his back. He

looked okay. I began to pull back his shirt, and then I

spotted them, one near his shoulder, and one much

lower, near his heart. Nolan’s trademark spectacles had

218 GH OS T RE CON

been knocked to the side of his head, and he was blink-

ing hard, trying to see.

The blood was gushing now as he struggled for

breath, and I struggled to get past his web gear.

“In my pack, I got some big four-by-four gauze,” he

said between gasps.

I ripped off my shemagh and shoved it beneath the

web gear and applied pressure. My first instinct was to

get on the Cross-Com and shout, “Nolan, got a man

down!”

“Captain, tell John not to feel bad. Tell ’em we’re

buddies forever. Okay?”

“I will, Alex,” I said, applying more pressure as he

began to shiver violently.

Nolan was referring to John Hume; they’d become

best friends, fighting hard and playing hard. Guys would

tease them about being “too close,” but they were more

like brothers. I knew losing Nolan would crush Hume.

Crush him.

Smith, who was up near the exit, suddenly ducked

back inside as gunfire ripped across the stone where he’d

been standing. “We are so pinned down here.”

I was about to answer when another mortar round

struck far down the tunnel, and the ground shook.

Somewhere back there, another cave-in was happening,

the rocks and dirt streaming and hissing, and not five

seconds later a wall of thick dust rolled through the tun-

nel toward us.

When I looked down again, Nolan was not moving. I

checked his neck for a pulse. That round had, indeed,

CO MB AT O P S

219

struck his heart, and when I checked the side of his

shirt, it was soaked thick with blood.

Footfalls resounded up the tunnel, and suddenly

through the dust came a figure. I snatched up my rifle,

took aim, and held my breath.

“Hold fire!” came a familiar voice. The figure tugged

down his shemagh. Ramirez. He glanced over his shoul-

der. “Come on! We’ve linked up with the Captain!”

As the others rushed up behind him, Hume spotted

Nolan lying at my side and rushed to him.

“Alex!”

“He’s gone,” I said evenly.

“Aw, no,” Hume cried. “No, no, no.”

For just a moment—perhaps only three seconds—we

all stood there, frozen, staring down at Hume and

Nolan, no sound, no movement, just the burning image

of our fallen brother, and then—

“Ghost Lead, this is Treehorn, they got RPGs mov-

ing in on the Bradley. Permission to open fire!”

I shuddered back to reality. “Negative, hold fire! Do

not give up your position.” I switched channels to speak

to the Bradley commander. “Blue Six, this is Ghost

Lead, over.”

I waited, called again, nothing. Couldn’t even warn

the guy and his squad. The vehicle’s big machine gun

was already drumming as several more booms struck

and silenced it.

“They got the gunner!” shouted Treehorn. “They

got the gunner! They’re swarming the Bradley. Swarm-

ing it now!”

220 GH OS T RE CON

Two more shells struck the mountain, and the ceiling

began to crack right near my head.

“I’m taking him out of here,” said Hume, his eyes

already burning.

“You got it,” I answered. “Treehorn? Get set! We’re

coming out!”

T WENTY-ONE

Alex Nolan was a smart-aleck kid from the streets of

Boston who’d become a senior medical sergeant with

the Ghosts. He often looked like a geek, but when he