He was a shadow of the man in the photograph that hung behind the register in Jess’s store. At first glance, he’d thought they’d picked up a Taliban captive. He was dressed like a local, at least eighty pounds lighter than his photo, and sporting a beard that covered half of his face. His cheeks were sunken, his eyes barely slits. And clearly, he was suffering.

Yes, he said to himself. Yes, he’d done the right thing. But Jess… there was no way in the world Jess could be even remotely prepared to see this man who was her husband.

He was not going to be her husband. Not now. Maybe not ever.

“That’s it.” Cooper’s voice carried from the cab to the truck box after attempting to turn over the engine several times. “She’s dead.”

“Everybody out,” Nate ordered. “This is where we make a stand.”

Wincing against the knifing pain in his back, Ty climbed out with the rest of them, ashamed of himself for an instant of hesitation before reaching for Albert’s arm and helping him and the woman and her father out of the truck.

Albert nodded his thanks and leaned heavily against the tailgate.

“You doing OK?” Ty asked. Albert was sheet-white as he slid to the ground.

“Holding up,” Albert said through gritted teeth.

Poor sonofabitch, Ty thought. A stand-up soldier. He was amazed that he’d made it three and a half years with the ISI and come out alive.

“How’s your father doing?” he asked the woman, who had moved beside the old man, her arm linked through his in support.

“He will be fine.”

Ty had to look away then. He couldn’t look at Albert without wishing for something that was no longer his.

He scanned the area. There was minimal cover here. Open ground.

Nate moved up beside them. “What do you think?”

“I think we’d better start digging.”

Ty grabbed a shovel from Taggart’s gear. Neither Taggart nor Green would be digging with those bullet holes in their arms. Instead, the two of them provided cover while the rest of the team started digging shallow Ranger graves.

They had barely enough time to dig a long, shallow trench when a shot rang out, too close for comfort.

“Take cover!” Nate shouted.

Ty helped Nate get the woman and her father away from the truck and into a Ranger grave. Once he had them settled, he went back for Albert, who leaned heavily on him, stumbling across the ground like a drunk. When they reached the small berm, both of them dropped behind it. “Hold on, bud.”

He’d just scrambled in beside him when he caught his brother’s eye.

A mix of pride and sympathy accompanied Mike’s sharp nod.

Ty couldn’t bear looking at him. Couldn’t bear knowing that Mike was wishing the same thing he was. That everyone came out of this alive and got what he wanted.

Right now, Ty figured the best he could hope for was the alive part.

THE TRIP FROM the village to pick up the Reaper squad and run like hell had seemed like an eternity. In fact, it had been all of fifteen minutes. The next thirty minutes, however, as they fought off Taliban and waited for ground support, were among the longest Nate had ever lived. He was down to one magazine for his pistol. His rifle was empty, despite taking ammo from dead Taliban.

Everyone else was in pretty much the same state. They grouped tightly together to provide as much mutually supporting fire as they could, given their ammo situation.

Beside him in the trench, blood trickled down Jones’s temple and splattered Mendoza’s fatigues.

“How bad?” Nate asked.

Mendoza grinned. “Not mine. The big guy here stuck his head in front of a bullet and decided to bleed all over me.”

“Hard as a steel plate,” Jones assured his boss. “Relax. It’s a scratch.”

“Coulter,” Nate called, as AK-47 fire continued to zip around them.

“Right behind you.” Hunkering low, Coulter removed Jones’s helmet and checked out what, fortunately, turned out to be a flesh wound. “You make my life so hard.”

“I make your life complete.” Jones grinned at him. “We all know that.”

“I thought I made your life complete,” Reed protested.

“I know this goes against the grain,” Nate cut in, “but now might be a good time to stay focused.”

Out of the dark, directly in front of them, a horde of Taliban fighters ran screaming toward them with one goal in mind.

This is it, Nate thought, seeing his wife’s face as clearly as if Juliana were beside him. This was where he was going to die.

Then he heard it. The distinct sound of MK19 40mm grenade launchers and Browning M-2 fifty-caliber machine guns bombarding the air.

He glanced over his shoulder. Three Stryker armored fighting vehicles rolled to a stop directly behind them, their big guns blazing.

Beside him, his men let out a whoop, and faced with the intimidating guns mounted on the Strykers, the Taliban fighters who were still alive turned and ran in the other direction.

The cavalry had indeed arrived.

Chapter 27

JEFF WAS ALONE IN THE hospital room when he woke up the second time. A machine blipped softly in the background. He lifted his arm, let it fall. A plastic tube ran into an IV port inserted into the back of his hand. A cuff on his arm tightened, measuring his blood pressure and pulse. The plastic clip on his finger measured his blood-oxygen levels.

He vaguely remembered someone telling him they were treating him with IV fluids that dripped from a bag hanging somewhere behind him.

He specifically remembered Nate Black assuring him that they’d made it. That he was safe. Once again, he didn’t remember everything that had happened to him. He remembered that the rough, hot, dizzying ride inside the belly of the Stryker had kicked up the vertigo with a vengeance. He’d puked his guts out and then gotten the dry heaves. Long before they’d made base, he’d been barely conscious despite the team medic—Coulter—hanging an IV to rehydrate him.

He didn’t remember much after that, including the flight to the AFB or his admission into the hospital.

“The NATO-run hospital at the Kandahar Air Force Base is a forty-plus-million-dollar facility,” Black had assured him, as he’d helped him into the ambulance that had met their air transport from FOB Shaker. “The medical staff will do everything humanly possible to get you squared away again.”

Everything but one. They hadn’t let him see Rabia.

“Rabia.” He could barely speak, his throat and mouth were so dry. He didn’t know how long he’d been out this time, but he was frantic to know what was happening with her. “Rabia.” He tried again. Her name came out as a hoarse croak.

“Well, hello, soldier. Welcome back to the land of the living. How you feeling?”

He opened his eyes. A tidy Air Force nurse in a prim white uniform stood by the side of the bed.

“Rabia,” he croaked again.

“I’m sorry. I can’t understand you.” She turned away, then came back with a wet sponge swab that she gently wiped over his lips. “See if this helps.”

He sucked on the swab like a man dying of thirst.

“Better? How about an ice chip? It’s not much, I know, but we don’t want to overdo it.”

He nodded, then regretted it as the room began to spin.

“The vertigo should settle down a bit for you soon.” She laid a sympathetic hand on his arm. “Doctor prescribed both antinausea and antivertigo meds. That’s why you conked out on us again. Stuff makes you sleepy, but I guess you already figured that out. We’re pumping fluids to get you rehydrated. In the meantime, try to stay still and let the meds do their work. If you continue to progress, I wouldn’t be surprised if they authorize a flight home to a hospital in the States tomorrow.”

She went on, checking his IV bag, then fluffing his pillow, “Normally, they would ship you to Ramstein AFB in Germany, but since you’re a special case, you’re going straight home.”

He was a special case, all right. He still didn’t know where home was. He had so many questions. No one had come up with any answers.

He opened his mouth for the ice chip, let it melt, then reached out and grabbed her wrist. “Where. Is. Rabia?”

“Rabia? Is that the Pashtun woman who came in with you?”

“Yes. Where is she?”

“She’s down the hall.”

“I want to see her.”

She carefully removed his hand from her arm and laid it on top of the pristine white sheets. “Let me go see what I can find out, OK?”

He closed his eyes, afraid to feel too much relief. “Thank you.”

“I’ll be right back. You rest.”

NATE ADDRESSED THE team once Albert had been turned over to the medical staff. “It goes without saying, we need to keep the mission and Sergeant Albert’s rescue quiet, for national security reasons and for Albert’s privacy. The last thing the guy needs is for his story to blow wide open on an international scale. He’d be bombarded by the press. Hell, his story has blockbuster movie written all over it. But for now, he has a lot of recovery ahead of him. A lot of healing physically and emotionally. A lot of adjusting to do.”

For that reason, Nate asked for a volunteer to stand guard outside Albert’s hospital room.