Ted Bell - Warlord

"They'll be back," Hawke said, still firing at the last of the retreating enemy. "They're only nursing their wounds, regathering for the next assault. Pausing to regroup and replenish their ammunition. The commander, Zazi, if he's still alive, is at this moment coming up with a new strategy of attack."

"Well, we can hold them off," Brock said, trying to convince himself.

"I don't think so, Harry. We're still seriously outnumbered. If I were Colonel Zazi, I'd be telling the troops to bunch the horses up flank to flank, charge straight at us, en masse, and simply overrun our position."

"Yeah, that'd probably work."

"Harry, listen up. I don't know how much time we've got before they come back at us. Here's what I want you to do. These radios are useless. You've still got the sat-phone satchel? Tell me it's not all shot up?"

"Right here. Looks intact, I think."

"You need to take it and leave the compound. Right now. Go to the top of that dune, set it up, and try to call in some help. You may not raise anybody, but you've got to try, it's the only chance we've got. The B-52s just across the border in Afghani airspace can't help from that altitude, but if they could send in a nearby AC-130 gunship from over there, we might get through this. You'll get a lot of bureaucratic crap about invading Pakistan airspace. Don't listen. Give them our approximate position and the strength of the enemy and tell them just how bloody serious this is. Tell them we've got our guys dying out here…we need help before we get overwhelmed. Go, Harry, go. Godspeed."

HARRY BROCK, AT THE TOP of the giant sand dune, set the range finder next to the satellite phone in the sand beside him. He pulled out his map and spread it out, using the spidery legs of the sat phone to keep the map from blowing away. Then he looked out across the valley they had passed through. He looked to the mountains on either side, their prominent features, the way they funneled down to their present position, matched that with where they'd built their defensive perimeter. He could still see the old British fort in the hazy distance. He absorbed it all, creating a map in his mind.

Then he looked down at his real map, transposing the features in his mind on to the elevation lines fanned across the paper. He did this many times, looking back and forth between the valley and the map until he located the position on the paper that matched the features he saw with his eyes until he had a fix on their position. He pulled out his small spiral notebook and wrote down the position's grid coordinates. These would be the numbers he would radio up to anyone he could raise and-

He heard a clink of metal and grabbed his weapon. Five armed Taliban fighters were just starting the long climb up the dune.

MINUTES LATER HAWKE HEARD the rattle of heavy automatic weapon fire coming from the direction where Harry had disappeared behind the dune. At least three or four weapons firing simultaneously. Hawke figured Harry had surprised a Taliban squad mounting the back face of the dune on foot. Planning to use the dune's elevation to fire down into the redoubt.

Harry was probably dead.

And no help was on the way.

They'd stand alone.

ONE HOUR LATER THE ENEMY force returned with a vengeance, riding en masse, just the way Hawke had predicted. He'd pulled every man who could still fight to the forward rim of the circle facing the onslaught. Stokely had patched up the wounded militia guys and now, God only knew how, they were back on their feet at the ramparts. They all started firing RPGs the instant the Taliban horsemen got within range, eleven hundred meters. It had some effect, a lot of horses went down, but it was not nearly enough to even slow the charge.

"Full auto," Hawke shouted up and down the line. "Keep pouring fire into them, throw as much lead out there as you possibly can."

And they did, but still the enemy kept coming, and their intentions were clear. They would simply roll right over the flimsy fortification. Then wheel, return, and kill every single one of them with blades or bullets.

Hawke looked over at Sahira, firing her weapon with an intensity he'd never imagined she was capable of. Abdul Dakkon stood beside her, cleanly picking off anyone directing fire in their direction. Hawke called her name and she looked over at him.

He shook his head and mouthed the words, I'm so sorry.

He saw the tears rolling down her cheeks and his heart broke and once again he felt that stabbing-

"Look! The top of the dune!" he heard Stokely shout. "Holy mother of God, will you just take a look at that!"

Hawke whirled just in time to see an armored U.S. Army Humvee come flying over the top of the massive dune and go skidding down the face of it, throwing out waves of sand. It was followed by a second, a third, and then a fourth! The four vehicles immediately whirled toward the enemy, raced across the desert, and inserted themselves directly between Hawke's team and the charging Taliban horsemen.

Hatches flew open in the roof of each vehicle, and soldiers manning M240 7.62mm machine guns opened up on the now-terrified horsemen. The Humvee was also equipped with an MK19 40mm grenade launcher now firing a variety of grenades at an effective range of more than two thousand yards. The Americans were launching them into the enemy at a rate of sixty rounds per minute.

The Taliban force, shocked and disoriented, either died in the saddle or turned and ran. Most of them died. The Humvees charged in pursuit of the retreating enemy, and Hawke knew their fate was sealed.

He looked up into the vast blue sky above and thanked whoever was up there. It was over.

Hawke, deeply moved by the courage he'd just witnessed, went around the little compound with Stokely. While Stoke, who had extensive battlefield medical experience thanks to Vietnam, tended the newly wounded, Hawke embraced each man in turn, saying to each, "Well done. I shall always remember your courage."

When he came to Sahira, he embraced her, too. He whispered into her ear, "I told you we'd be all right."

"I didn't believe you," she said.

"Frankly, I didn't either."

WHEN HE WAS SATISFIED THAT EVERYTHING possible was being done to care for his dead and wounded, Hawke left the compound and headed behind the dune to retrieve the body of Harry Brock.

He found Harry lying spread-eagled on his back, high on the back face of the dune next to his satellite radio and his rifle. Blood was seeping from his multiple wounds into the sand. Below him were five Taliban, sprawled on the back of the dune, dead.

"Hey, chief," Harry said, blinking his eyes in the harsh sunlight and smiling through the pain up at his friend Hawke. Blood was trickling from the corners of his mouth. He seemed to be drifting in and out of consciousness from loss of blood.

"You okay, Harry?"

"Couple of holes, that's all. We beat those bastards?"

"Yeah, we beat 'em, Harry."

"We don't pick fights, we finish 'em. Ain't that right, boss?"

"That's right, Harry."

Hawke knelt in the sand, slid his hands under the man, rose to his feet, and started down the wide face of the dune with Brock in his arms. Harry was clearly in pain and, mercifully, he'd passed out again.

"The cavalry showed up, Harry," Hawke said to his unconscious friend. "You did your duty. I hope to God you make it, old friend."

THEY CLIMBED HIGHER INTO THE MOUNTAINS. Fewer men, fewer horses, fewer supplies. The Rat Patrol they'd called themselves. Now, hair stringy, their beards coarse and foul, they'd been reduced to brushing their teeth with their fingers; all of them had begun to reek. The riding, if you could call it that, was nightmarish on the narrow, icy mountain trails. Snow, wind-whipped off the mountains, made visibility poor to nil. The fact that the horses could even keep their footing was miraculous. The cold at this altitude, nearly ten thousand feet, was deadening. Hawke hadn't felt the reins in his hands in hours.