Nine twenty-three. A good time to sleep after a hard day’s work, so why was he wide awake, trying to see in the dark. “You said you’ve been trapped before. How did you know when to wake up?”
“I set an alarm the first night, but by the next morning I realized what a waste of battery that was. After that I just woke when I woke. I discovered my body was used to sleeping a certain number of hours.”
“How many days were you trapped?”
“Eleven.”
“Shit. By yourself or were you with others?” She’d avoided the subject while they dug, so he felt no compunction about asking now.
“I thought we were going to sleep?”
“And I thought you were going to tell me about your last experience while we were digging, but you didn’t.” He’d been well aware that she’d avoided it, but since she’d continued to talk and stay in the present, he’d let it go. But now that she told him she’d been buried alive for eleven days, he had to know more.
Her voice, when it came, was soft. “I was alone. The rest of my comrades had been gunned down before they could escape.”
He’d seen people die in fires. Pulled out more bodies than he’d ever wanted to. But he’d never seen someone shot, and certainly never seen someone he knew be killed by bullet or by flame. “That had to be hard to witness.”
“I was too busy running for my life to mull it over.” There was a tinge of anger in her voice.
“But you must have had too long to think about it later.”
At first, she didn’t answer, but then a small sigh escaped her, the type he’d seen his sister use when she gave into his niece. “Yeah. The shrink said I had survivor’s guilt.”
Now that he knew about. They had been fighting the Mongollon Rim fire when one of the teams lost a man. The whole crew were worthless for months. “How did you get away?”
“You’re not going to tell me not to feel guilty?”
Her question caught him off guard. “Hell no. I’d feel damn guilty, too.”
She must have liked his answer because she continued. “Like I said. I ran. All I had on me was my M9 pistol and M4 carbine. I ran in the only direction that offered any cover. Unfortunately, that meant going up, but the first large boulder I found, I ducked behind and let off a few rounds before continuing to run.”
While he didn’t know anything about Afghanistan’s terrain, he could imagine the scene in the Sonoran Desert. “Did they all follow you or just one?”
She snorted. “Two followed me. The others were busy confiscating our Humvee. That’s how they ambushed us. They’d stolen another US Humvee that made us think they were Afghan soldiers, but as soon as I saw them, I yelled. My driver was shot immediately. They grabbed Shaw but Thammishetti and I split up, literally heading for the hills.”
She paused, but he hoped she’d continue. She did.
“Tham was shot by the time I made my second cover. I tried to pick off his pursuers while holding mine at bay, but one of them must have snuck around when my attention was diverted. I heard him yell before it turned into a gurgle. I knew I was on my own then.”
“What about Shaw?”
“They tried to use him to flush me out when they lost me. In broken English they yelled that if I gave up, they wouldn’t kill him. Before I could make a decision, he told me not to say anything and must have attacked the one holding him because a barrage of bullets went off. I didn’t look. That would make his sacrifice worthless.”
That he’d understood. “How did you get away.” He fervently hoped she escaped capture.
“I found a cave near the top of the mountain and ran inside. It was huge with three tunnels going back into the mountain. I discovered a small hole in one of the walls and once taking off my belt, I was able to squeeze through. It was a small room about the size of the one we found with the old ore car. It was the best I could do with so little time. No sooner had I hunkered down then I heard them in the cave.”
He forced himself to uncurl his fingers from the fists he’d instinctually made, but it wasn’t easy. Just thinking about her alone, scared, and in danger had his protective instincts spiking. He had to remind himself she was a soldier and trained to survive. She did survive, which was proof of her strength. Still, he itched to protect her even though the story was years ago and far away. “I’m guessing they didn’t find you?”
“They came very close, but the man just outside my hole was called back.”
He felt the tension leave his body as relief swept through him.
“I listened as they argued near the mouth of the cave. I couldn’t tell what they said, but the tone was pretty clear. They were obviously arguing about what to do with me. They knew I was in there somewhere.”
His chest tightened as the decision they made jumped to mind. “They trapped you in.”
“Yes.” Her voice softened again, the smugness he’d heard earlier at her escape now gone. “They thought I was a serious threat, and they were right, though I didn’t know that at the time. Turned out they were on a quiet offensive. I think they couldn’t afford to waste time on finding me, so they left. When all was quiet, I shimmied out of my hole and listened. I never trust the enemy to do what I want, and I was right. I don’t think it was more than ten minutes before the ground shook and the cave opening, which had stood at least thirty feet high, collapsed.”
