“They’re not sure, but Mattox Drummond, Charlie’s team leader, told me that it looks like he’s dragging a leg, and the sniper hide he was in had blood smears,” Foster explained with his chin tucked.
The man’s body was nearly vibrating. If he was feeling anything close to what I was, anger, frustration, and disbelief—not to mention fear—were battling it out inside him.
I glanced around the aircraft as Foster buckled up beside me. “When?”
Foster huffed. “According to Mattox and Mercer, Adam held off an assault on his sniper hole for close to two hours.”
“When, goddammit?” I yelled. “Where was his QRF? Where was Charlie?”
Adam shouldn’t have had to be out there injured, fighting on his own.
“They overtook him about thirty minutes ago. As for QRF, they weren’t deployed for a couple of reasons. As the admiral said, a larger unit wasn’t sent out earlier because they didn’t want to draw attention to Adam’s escape, but also because of how hot the area was. When Adam dug in and made a stand, Charlie was already en route, so they sent the QRF to aid the Army, who were in a firefight with insurgents. But when Charlie got there, Adam’s hole was dry. ISR was providing support to firefight and QRF.”
“Then how the fuck do they know how long he held them off?”
Not a shittin’ bit of this was adding up. Adam had been left out there like a goddamn sitting duck.
The pilot alerted us to buckle in for landing.
Foster and I sat down, and he said, “They were on him when the firefight started, but since his comms weren’t working and they had troops in contact, they switched. Once all the Army boys were rounded up and headed back to base, they moved back to Adam. He was still fighting them off. Mattox said he was armed to the teeth, but a sustained fight on his own? Well, you know how that goes.”
Yeah, I did. You went down, or the enemy did, but eventually, someone ran out of ammo. If Adam was injured, switching to hand-to-hand wasn’t a possibility.
“So, we go in?” I asked.
Please, God, say yes.
Foster stared at me. “Fuck yes, we’re going in. I’m over waitin’.”
I braced myself for landing.
Hang on, Adam. I’m coming.
When we touched down, Commander Mercer met us at the airstrip. “Charlie is sitting on the sniper hole. ISR has tracked him to a compound. Gear up. You’ll rendezvous with Charlie and then go get our man.”
It’s about fucking time.
It took us several hours, but when we pulled up to the rally point. Mattox and the vast majority of his team were sitting on Adam’s sniper hole when we arrived.
“Where’s the rest of your team?” Foster asked.
“I sent a couple of the guys to do some recon on the location where Adam is being held. According to Davis and Nichols, Adam was alive, but in rough shape, the last time they laid eyes on him.” Mattox pointed off toward the horizon. “There’s a compound, most likely a prison of sorts, just shy of two hundred klicks that direction. Considering Adam’s injured and dragging a leg, the fact he made it close to a hundred miles in about thirty hours is impressive.”
I stared at him.
Impressive?
“I think holding off the Taliban on his own for over two hours is much more impressive, especially considering Adam finished BUD/S with a hairline fracture to his femur.”
Before Mattox or his guys could say anything else to piss me off, I stalked over to the outcropping where Adam had hidden. I hunkered down, sifting through the space. As I moved some brush and flipped a rock, I found Adam’s pack.
The sight of Adam’s blood and gear gutted me like a kick to the nuts. I picked up Adam’s pack and in it, I found all the things you’d expect, but I also found something I’d never seen before. A keychain with washers on it. Washers with dates on them. Dates no one would recognize but Adam and I.
I clutched the keepsake tightly. The metal bit into my palm. Tears prickled the backs of my closed eyelids. All these months, I’d thought he didn’t give a fuck. That all he wanted was a convenient fuck buddy. That he didn’t love me as much as I loved him.
I clipped the memento onto my dog tags, zipped up Adam’s pack, and climbed back out of the hole. “Let’s go. He’s suffered long enough.”
We moved out, meeting up with Charlie Team’s two guys. I knew Evan Davis and Peter Nichols. They were good SEALs. Both were newer guys, but they had decent instincts. I appreciated them being here, but to voice that would call attention to shit better left unsaid.
