Page 116 of Duty Preserved

Two rangers were carrying Andrew across the yard toward the nearest building. He had one arm over each of their shoulders and his feet were barely touching the ground. They propped him against the wall, and one of them knelt to press fresh gauze over the chest seals I’d put on him. His face was the color of old concrete, but he caught my eye and managed to flip me the bird.

I owe that guy big-time.

I began walking around just to try to dump some of the adrenaline still coursing through my system. Sarah would be okay where she was for now, and Andrew was close enough we could monitor him until medics arrived.

Zayn found me behind the third building, away from everyone else. He’d slung his rifle. He had dirt on his face and had sweated through his shirt, but he was beaming with a level of confidence I had never before seen in him.

“How did you find this place?” I asked him.

He looked at me as if the answer should have been obvious.

“You taught us to track.”

I didn’t say anything.

“When you and Andrew left camp, we heard the truck. We all decided we should follow to see what was going on.”

“In the dark.”

“You taught us to read signs at night. We picked up your tire marks off the southern access road and followed them. When the road forked, the tracks told us which way you went.” He adjusted the sling on his shoulder. “We found your truck where you’d left it, and then we followed your tracks through the woods on foot. When we started hearing gunfire, we picked up the pace.”

I leaned my shoulder against the wall. The concrete was still warm.

“Every man came,” Zayn said. “Nobody stayed behind.”

I’d trained these men. Week after week, drill after drill. I’d watched them go from a ragged group of kids who couldn’t field-strip a rifle to a unit that moved and fought and communicated under fire.

I’d been wrong about my own judgment, and I’d been wrong about these men.

They’d tracked me through the dark and run headfirst into a firefight because they chose to. They made the choice themselves.

And they’d been ready for it because somewhere along the way, underneath the doubt and the nightmares and the weight I’d been carrying, I’d done my job.

That was what Owen’s death had taken from me—the willingness to trust that someone I’d trained could make it through to the other side. And these men, every single one of them, had given it back.

Zayn stood beside me. He didn’t ask if I was all right. He just waited.

I put my hand on his shoulder and held it there.

“Well done,” I said.

It wasn’t enough. Nothing I could say would be enough. But his chin lifted and his shoulders squared. He gave me a single nod.

I walked back toward the front of the main building, and that was when I saw Nasser. He was among the captured. Facedown in the dirt with his hands bound, the same as the rest. His bush shirt was torn at the shoulder, the khaki pants smeared with red soil.

Just a man in the dirt with his face turned sideways.

I walked over and crouched down beside him. I grabbed a fistful of his hair and lifted his head until his eyes met mine.

“You never should have mixed business with personal.”

I shoved his face into the ground before he could answer. Then I let go, stood up, and kept walking.

Zayn made the call to KWS. Police and wildlife service arrived at the farmstead within the hour, blue lights bouncing off the walls. They took Nasser and his remaining men on-scene, cuffed them with proper restraints, and loaded them into vehicles.

Officers took statements from the rangers while the rest of the operation was cataloged and secured.

Medical support came with them. The paramedics got to Andrew, replaced the field dressing with real bandaging, started an IV with morphine, and loaded him onto a stretcher. My heart hurt seeing him get shot for helping me.