For a moment, I thought the controller had changed his mind or been ordered to abort.

But then, just as my doubts were beginning to take root, twin detonations, somewhat muffled at first, originated from behind us, well off into the basement. Not three heartbeats later came a roar unlike anything I’d ever heard, followed by a massive tremor ripping through the ground.

As the earthquake continued, a wave of intense heat pushed through the tunnel behind me, and I gasped and started dragging Hila higher toward the hole, fearing that all the air would be consumed before we escaped. That I moved farther up was the only thing that saved us from a wave of fire that rushed through the pipe. I kept groaning and dragging her higher, my boots slipping on the dirt, as dozens of smaller explosions began to boom, and I knew that was all the ammunition beginning to cook off. Then came a horrible stench as the opium began to burn. My eyes filled with tears, and for a few seconds I thought I’d pass out before someone grabbed my arm and began pulling me up.

There was screaming, but I couldn’t identify anyone above the cracking and booming from below, as well as more booming from the village as I was suddenly hoisted out of the hole and plopped down in the sand.

I blinked hard, saw Brown and Smith there, with Brown digging back into the hole and pulling out Hila. He was wearing the Cross-Com I’d given to Ramirez.

Behind us, the helicopters were still engaging the Taliban fighters on the ground, but most of them were retreating back toward the walls.

However, at least one machine gunner set up behind a jingle truck opened fire, and we all hit the deck a moment before the Apache gunship whirled around and directed a massive barrage of fire that not only tore through the gunner but began to shred the truck itself.

“I’ve got her,” yelled Smith, scooping up Hila and gesturing toward the mountainside. “The tunnel’s up there! Let’s go!”

Brown pulled me back up. “We locked onto your chip as soon as you got close to the top. You okay?”

“More than okay. I got Zahed.”

Brown was all pearly whites. “Hoo-ah! Mission complete, baby. Let’s roll!”

The three of us ran back toward the hills, with the choppers covering our exit. Brown was in direct contact with them, and he said that he’d sent the others off toward two rifle squads that had come up through the defile. They were bringing back one Bradley to pick up the girls. We took a tunnel I hadn’t seen before, which Brown said led up to one of the mountain passes.

As we neared the exit and emerged onto the dirt road, we looked down toward Senjaray and saw the Bradley pulling away. The girls we’d rescued were, I later learned, safely onboard.

We were almost home.

“Hold up,” I said, as we crossed around some boulders. We squatted down. “We need to get her out of here faster than this.” I looked to Brown. “Can we get a Blackhawk to pick her up?”

“I’m on it. But we’ll still have to get down to the valley over there.”

“All right.” I dug into my pocket, switched on my satellite phone, and saw there was a message from General Keating. I took a deep breath, dialed, and listened.

And my heart sank.

“I repeat, son, we need to pull you off this mission. Abort. Abort. Stand down . . .”

He’d said a lot more than that, but those were the only words that meant anything. Bronco hadn’t been bluffing.

At that moment, though, I was glad I hadn’t heard the message, but I wondered whether I would’ve shot Zahed anyway, despite the order to stand down.

I wondered.

I’d like to think that my experience and honor would’ve led me to make the right decision. But the politics and grim reality were far too powerful to ignore.

“Captain, you don’t look so good,” said Smith.

“The order to stand down came in, but I, uh, I guess I missed it. Zahed’s dead anyway.”

“Good work,” said Brown.

“Ghost Lead, this is Hume, over.”

“Go ahead, John.”

“Jenkins and I got on the Bradley, but we got cut off from Warris and Ramirez in the tunnels. We figured they’d link up with us down here, but they didn’t show up, over.”

“Roger that, we’ll find them.”

“Paul, you get her down there to link up with the chopper?” Brown asked Smith.

“I’m on it.”

“Then I’m with you, Captain, let’s go!”

We rose and jogged off, back into the tunnel, while Smith carried Hila toward the valley.

“I’m afraid of what we’ll find,” said Brown.

We linked up with another section of tunnels, ones we’d already marked with beacons, and we stepped over four or five bodies of Taliban fighters.

Brown and I spent nearly an hour combing the tunnels. No tracker chips were detected during those moments when I’d slip outside to search for a signal, so we had to assume both men were still underground.

Sighing in disgust, I told Brown we needed to get back and see if we couldn’t get a search team in the tunnels by morning.

“You think they got captured?”

“I don’t know what to think,” I told him. “But we can’t stay up here all night.”

We hiked down from the mountains and toward the village. The firing had all but stopped, and the gunships had already pulled out and were heading toward Kandahar.

As Brown and I reached the defile, we were met by a horrible sight:

Anderson and Harruck were standing in the smoking ruins of the school, shattered by Taliban mortar fire. The once tall walls of the police station, whose roof was about to be constructed, looked like jagged teeth now, with more smoke coiling up into the night sky.

Anderson was crying. Harruck glared and cried, “Thanks a lot for all your help!”

I was patting my fresh bandage when Brown came running into the hut and cried, “Captain! Get out here! You’re not going to believe this!”

I rushed away from the nurse and made it outside, where Warris was being helped out of a Hummer. He was ragged and filthy and still reeked. His eyes were bloodshot and he just looked at me vaguely as I rushed up to him.

“Fred, where the hell were you?”

It took a few seconds for him to focus on me. “They found me down in the valley.”

“Where’s Ramirez?”

He swallowed. “I, uh, I don’t know.”

I raised my voice. “What do you mean?”

“I MEAN, I DON’T KNOW! NOW GET OUT OF MY GODDAMNED FACE!” He shoved me aside and headed toward the hospital.

I grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. “You’re going to talk right now.”

“I’ll talk, all right. No worries about that!”

“Where’s Ramirez?”

“We got separated. I don’t know what happened. I looked for him, and he was gone. That’s all I know.”

“Where is he?”

He glared at me, then turned and walked away. I started after him, but Brown grabbed my shoulder. “Don’t . . .”

“We’ll see if we can get them to an orphanage,” I said. “The woman who’s in charge of the school project, Anderson? We’ll see if we can get help from her.”

I still vowed to find Shilmani and tell him I had gotten his daughter out of there. I wanted to tell the man how bravely she’d fought and how she’d literally saved my life. I wasn’t sure if that would change anything, but I wanted him to know.

However, the fan was dialed up to ten, and the camel dung was about to hit it and fly for miles.

I was ordered to Harruck’s office before I even returned to my billet.

When he was finished cursing his head off and sucking down his drink, he looked at me and said, “I hope to God you think this was worth it. At least give me that much. At least let me know that you still believe in what you did, because if you don’t . . .”

“Zahed needed to die. I’m sorry about the consequences. He’s dead. Maybe things will change here. Maybe not.”

“Well, I’m done here. I’m out. That’s a change. You win. I lose. We did nothing here. Nothing.”

“I have direct orders from the CO. Your team is confined to the base. You’ll have to take that up with the CO, sir.”

I did. Harruck was sleeping, but the XO spoke to us. “Word came down. There are some boys from Kandahar flying in to talk to you guys.”

“Army Intel?”

He shook his head. “Spooks.”

He and his sidekick had escaped from Sangsar, gotten treated for their gunshot wounds, and linked up with their superiors. The group of four decided they would interrogate the hell out of me all morning. I’d grinned at the crutches both Bronco and Mikey had used to get into the room.

With arms folded over my chest and a bored look on my face, I repeated, “I don’t have to talk to you, and I won’t. So piss off.”

Bronco attempted to describe the length and breadth of their operation, and he leaned forward and told me that I’d ruined years’ worth of work, murdered an unarmed man, and that the agency would see me hang. Blah. Blah. Blah.

I told them all where to go, then stormed out. They couldn’t hold me. They couldn’t do jack. I went back to Harruck and told him I was going to see Shilmani and that if he tried to stop me, I’d have him brought up on charges.

He started laughing and just waved me off. His laughter sounded more unbalanced than cynical.

“Listen to me, please,” I began. “We got Hila. She’s in the hospital. She’s okay.”

He froze at the back of his truck and just stood there a moment, his breathing ragged before he began to cry.

I looked at Brown and turned away. I was choked up myself. I could barely imagine what Shilmani was going through. He had to convince himself that his daughter was dirt now because his culture dictated how he should think. In fact, if we didn’t get the girls to an orphanage and simply call them “war orphans,” they would all be arrested and sentenced to prison. That’s right. The system did not distinguish between victims of rape and those who willingly had relations outside marriage.

“Do you want to see her?” I asked.

“I can’t.”

“You would have been so proud. She fought at my side. And she saved my life.”

“Scott, don’t tell me any more. Please . . .”

“Why don’t you take your family and get the hell out of here? There’s got to be a way out.”

He finally looked at me, backhanded away the tears, and said, “This is my life.”

“Mitchell, you make it damn near impossible for me to get your back when you play it this close to the vest. If the president weren’t distracted by twenty other problems, I’d be pulling KP in the White House mess.”

“I understand, sir. And I’ve been running an obstacle course here myself.”

Okay, I was speaking through my teeth, and though I highly respected the man, I wanted to unload on him, too. He’d had no idea what I’d just gone through, but I wasn’t about to cry on his shoulder.

“I’m pulling you back to Fort Bragg. I’d advise you to lay low but I know you don’t work that way, so once you’re back home you’ll be confined to quarters. We’ll put on a show until JAG takes its best shot or you’re last month’s news.”

“Sir, Joey Ramirez is still MIA.”

“I know that, son, and the search will continue. But we’ve got Warris running off at the mouth and trying to ruin your career. I want you out of there.”

“Warris is an asshole. Sir. He’d bitch if you hanged him with a new rope. It’s my word against his.”

“For now, he doesn’t need witnesses, Mitchell. Because I believe him.”

“Sir?”

“Easy, son. I agree. He’s a fool. But I know he’s telling the truth—because I know you. And your men. But between him and the CIA, they’re not going to back off. I’ve got to deal with it.”

“Where does all this leave me, sir?”

“From where I’m sitting, this operation has become a perfect storm of botched communications. And because of the political ramifications in Kabul, as well as here, higher’s out for blood. It’s why they have officers, son. Someone’s got to fall on his sword. Someone will take the fall for this mess.”

“And blood flows downhill . . .”

“It’s Newton’s law, Scott. Simple as that.”

I closed my eyes and massaged them. “I understand, sir. For the good of the service . . .”

“That bastard Zahed needed killing, and you gave it to him. You did a fine job, soldier, no matter what you hear, no matter what they say.”

“But you still don’t have my back, do you, sir?”

He took a deep breath, looked torn—

And broke the connection.

They’d refused to allow us to participate in the tunnel search, but before we left, Harruck sent a man out to fetch me. The guy led me to a small tent behind the hospital, the makeshift morgue, where Ramirez lay across a folding table.

He’d been shot in the head. Point-blank.

“Oh, dear God,” I said aloud.

“Any other wounds?” I asked one of the other soldiers there.

“Nope. Must’ve caught him by surprise.”

I cursed and rushed out of there.

And all I could see was Warris raising a rifle to Ramirez’s head and pulling the trigger.

I found the punk lying in his bunk, staring at the ceiling. He had no time to get up. I leaned over him and screamed, “YOU KILLED HIM, YOU RAT BASTARD, DIDN’T YOU? YOU KILLED HIM! YOU KILLED HIM!”

I guess Brown had seen me running toward Warris’s quarters and had come after me because he burst through the door and rushed over, believing I was going to strike Warris. He grabbed my wrist and hung on.

Warris started cursing and told me I’d lost my mind and why the hell would he kill Ramirez?

“Because he knew you were going to blow the whistle on all of us. And he probably threatened you, didn’t he? He told you if you talked, he’d kill you, right?”

A guilty expression came over Warris, and he tried to hide it by tightening his lips.

“You killed him!” I repeated.

“Your career is over, Mitchell. It’s all over now. You’re old news. Even the Ghosts are a waste. Every other agency, State, DoD—the entire alphabet tribe—undermines what we do. We’re history.”

“No, you’re history. Count on it!”

I shoved Brown aside and hustled out of the room. I stormed back to the billet, wrenched up my duffel, and lifted my voice to the men. “Let’s get the hell out of here!”

But we didn’t leave right away. The guys wanted to pay their last respects to Ramirez, and they all went over to the hospital and did that. I waited by the Hummer and found myself in an awkward conversation with Dr. Anderson.

“So now you go home, and the next Zahed takes over? We have to start from scratch.”

“I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Don’t you even care?”

“I care too much. That’s what’s killing me. That’s what’s killing us all.”