FIFTEEN

ROOK’S CHEEK SHOOK as he fired the last three shots in his clip. He jammed in his fourth and final clip and took careful aim. A three-shot burst ripped through the air and into the body of another fleeing soldier. The VPA regular army had been brutalized. At least one hundred of them lay dead and dying on the cleared mountain slope. But they kept on coming, though more slowly and carefully now. Their initial enthusiasm brought on by superior numbers had faded after encountering the Chess Team’s lethal aim and devastating tactics.

The gunfire had died down on both sides to sporadic bursts, allowing the team to talk again.

“Like pigeons in front of a 747,” Rook said, before firing three more shots. “Splat.”

Knight fired a shot. The bullet blasted through the chest of a VPA soldier, splattering those around him in blood. They turned and fled. Others across the field followed suit. Knight pulled away from his sniper scope, which he’d been staring through for the past five minutes. “They’re bugging out.”

They’d succeeded in holding off a small army, but no one hooted a victory cheer. They weren’t done until they were back at Fort Bragg sharing a case of Sam Adams.

“Anybody hit?” King asked.

No one answered.

“I think a mosquito bit me,” Rook said. Then he felt something on his leg, squeezing. He turned and instinctively raised his weapon. He dropped it a second later. “Pawn Two is down!”

He knelt next to Somi. Her eyes were glossy and her lips were purple. But her chest rose and fell. She was alive. Then he saw the knife in her chest. “How did—”

“Bishop, Knight, keep an eye on our friends down there,” King said as he and Queen joined Rook by Somi’s side.

“Cut her shirt off,” Queen said. She shrugged out of her backpack and opened it up. A medical kit sat on top. She removed it and popped it open. She set aside a roll of gauze, two gauze pads, and a package of QuikClot. Then she began assembling a needle and syringe.

Knight untucked Somi’s long-sleeve black shirt. It was like a second skin on her and getting his KA-BAR knife underneath proved a challenge. He didn’t want to stab her again. Once the knife slid in, he moved with confidence, slicing her shirt up the middle. A second slice from her collar to the knife sticking out of her chest freed the shirt, which fell away. Somi’s tattooed stomach and black bra were revealed. The knife stuck out of her chest like a skyscraper in the middle of Arkansas, just to the inside of her right-side shoulder strap.

A near-lethal strike, it had missed her lungs by inches. Instead it had chipped bone and sliced through muscle. Normally, the wound wouldn’t be fatal, but in the field, where operating tables and surgeons were in short order, a variety of wounds could slowly take a life.

Knight fired twice. The blast cut through the momentary silence. “They’re regrouping just out of sight. I’m catching a few stragglers, but they’re up to something.”

“Rook,” King said, “call it in. Get us an armed evac over this clearing. Get it yesterday.”

“You do remember that we’re not supposed to be here, right?” Rook said as he opened his backpack where his secure satellite phone was hidden beneath a cache of equipment. Their orders had been to remain silent and only make contact when they had completed their mission and returned to the designated EZ . . . in Laos. But that plan didn’t include two hostile forces and a reenactment of the Vietnam War.

“Screw it,” King said. “We need to get out of here now. We have what we came for.”

Somi suddenly reached up and grabbed King’s arm. Her lips moved slowly, parting and closing like those of a dying fish. Then her eyes closed and she fell back. Her eyelids twitched. She fought to stay conscious.

Rook shuffled through the backpack in search of the phone. “This was a lot easier with Deep Blue in our ears.”

Queen returned to the scene. Without pausing to explain or give warning she plunged the syringe deep into Somi’s leg. She depressed the stopper, sending the clear liquid into Somi’s leg.

Queen looked into Somi’s eyes. “Morphine. For what comes next.”

Somi nodded and gritted her teeth in determination, though her quivering lips revealed her fear.

Queen waited for a count of five, giving the opium-derived drug time to massage her nervous system, then grasped the knife handle and yanked it out. Somi didn’t scream, but a sound like a tortured rodent squeaked through her clenched teeth. A fresh flow of blood pulsed from the now-open wound on her chest.

“Queen . . . ,” Rook said.

“We don’t have time to be gentle.” Queen ripped open the pack of QuikClot and removed the four-inch pouch filled with 3-mm-diameter zeolite beads that absorb blood and rapidly promote coagulation. “Now hold her wound open.”

Rook abandoned his search for the phone and knelt down. Saving Somi’s life would have to come first. He pried the wound open with his fingers, ignoring the blood flowing over his hands and under his fingernails.

Somi sobbed for a moment, trying to speak, but unable to catch a breath. Unconsciousness loomed.

Using her index finger, Queen shoved the flexible pouch into the wound.

Somi groaned and struggled only for a moment. The morphine was working. “Give me the knife.”

He handed it to her. She looked at its blood-soaked blade then slid it beneath her belt. “Mine now.”

With the wound packed with QuikClot, Rook sat Somi up as Queen wrapped gauze around her chest and shoulder, pulling it tight to keep pressure on the wound. As Somi leaned back in Rook’s arms, feeling a mix of morphine and blood loss pulling her mind away, she reached out for King.

King leaned in close. “You’ll be—”

She grasped his arm. “Th—This is not . . . an object lesson.” She let go and succumbed to the drugs and pain. She slumped in Rook’s arms, unconscious.

King nearly fell over when he spun around. He searched in every direction.

Nothing.

Sara had disappeared right out from under their noses. “No one move!”

King searched the area, taking in every depression in the earth, every disturbed leaf, every hidden clue. He found the flattened area where Sara had been lying. The leaves behind it were disturbed in a four-foot area. King pounded the butt of his M4 on the earth. A dull thud revealed a hollow space beneath.

Rook was by his side, aiming his assault rifle toward the earth. He nodded to King, who dug in, pulled up the hidden hatch, and opened it. Rook swept the area, looking for a target, and found nothing but a dark tunnel descending into the heart of the mountain.

“Knight, get as high as you can,” King said. “If we’re being watched, I want you to find out. Take out anything you see living and breathing that’s not one of us.”

Knight nodded and bolted up the mountainside.

King unslung his backpack and dropped it at his feet. “Queen, you’re with me.”

Queen tied off the gauze. “Try to keep her still,” she said to Rook.

Rook stood up. “Do I look like a nurse to you? I’m coming.”

Bishop fired a ten-second burst down the hill. “Rook.”

Rook pointed his FN SCAR over the wall and fired a grenade. It exploded seconds later, followed by screams. He turned to King for an answer.

King knew that Rook wanted to come because he and Sara had bonded. You didn’t carry someone’s thirty-pound pack for miles and not develop some kind of connection. But there wasn’t time to debate or pull punches. “Sorry, Rook. You’re too big and too slow.”

Bishop fired another volley down the mountainside. “Rook . . .”

“Besides . . .” King clapped him on the shoulder. “It sounds like you’ll be doing more than nursing.”

King jumped into the tunnel and hurried in. Queen followed and pulled the hatch down behind her.

Rook looked down at Somi. Unconscious, she lay still next to her shotgun.

“Rook!” The urgency in Bishop’s voice came through loud and clear. Bishop speaking at all was unusual. Bishop sounding worried was unheard of. Rook looked over the wall. His eyes went wide.

“Holy shit.”