Captured(5)

I don’t need to be told twice. Following behind Barrett has my back exposed, which I’m not a huge fan of. I pivot on my heel without breaking pace and walk backward, rifle up and hunting for a target.

There’s one: crackcrackcrack—a burst of blood from a chest and the body falls, replaced by another. Drop him. Another; dropped. Shit, there’s a lot of ’em. I hold down the trigger for a good dozen rounds, and each one hits a body.

Clickclickclick. Empty. I slam another magazine home, feel myself jerked to the side. Barrett shoves me against the rock face, leans past me, tosses a grenade.

CRUMP-BOOM!

Screams.

Stench of death, shit from ruptured intestines. Blood. Cordite. Charred flesh.

Smells that make my stomach clench every time.

Crackcrackcrack…crackcrack—

The bark of an M4 is cut off mid-burst.

“Martinez?” I speak into the mic.

“He’s down. He’s down. Shit, f*ck, he’s dead,” Okuzawa gasps, panicked.

“You’ll be fine,” I say. “Just keep firing, Okie. I’m coming for you.”

“You can’t,” he says, and then the line goes quiet.

I hear his rifle firing, firing, firing.

“They’re right on top of me….” Okuzawa’s voice is hoarse, low, panting. “Run. Just f*cking run.”

Moments later, I hear a shout, a curse in English, and then a grenade goes off.

Barrett looks at me, and his eyes are blinking a little too fast. His chest rises and falls too quickly. His jaw grinds. He’s firing, swapping in his last magazine.

“I think we’re f*cked, Tom.” I summon saliva and spit. My stomach is in knots.

“I think you’re right, Derek.” He nods down the rock face we scaled minutes earlier—minutes that feel like hours. “Get down there. Go. I’ll cover you.”

“The f*ck you will—”

“I’m not asking, *.”

Bastard.

I half fall, half slide down the nearly vertical surface. A jut of rock catches on my webbing, holds me up, and knocks the wind out of me. I hear Barrett up above, firing nonstop. I glance up, see him coming down after me. I unhook my gear from the rock and keep sliding.

Hit ground, stumble, run. The caravan of Humvees crackles in flames. I dart toward them, Barrett behind me, cursing me. I slide to a stop, roll Abraham’s body over, feel guilty for ransacking his corpse for magazines, but I do it anyway. I grab his sidearm, tuck it into my gear.

Barrett is kneeling in the dirt behind me, and I hand him a magazine. I hear shouts and footsteps in the dirt. Terror churns in my belly. Seconds stretch out forever. Barrett is just as scared; I can see it in his stoic brown eyes. In the way he clenches and releases the grip of his rifle. In the grind of his jaw.

“Let’s do this.” He adjusts his stance, crouching to get his feet under him. Racks the charging handle of his rifle.

“Fuck,” he grates through gritted teeth.

“Yeah.”

“Ready?” He’s breathing short and fast. He knows, like I do, that this is it.

“No.” I brace the toe of my boot in the dirt.

“Too bad.” Barrett meets my eyes in all the conversation we need. “One…two…three….”

On “three,” he lunges out, and I’m on his heels. Firing over his shoulder. Bodies drop. Bullets snap and hum and buzz. Kick up dirt. Plink off the Humvees, crack into the rock. They walk toward us.

Slam into Barrett, twothreefourfive wet crunching impacts on flesh. He’s knocked into me. I stumble backward, grab his webbing, and haul. He’s gasping, kicking. I let him go, kneel in front of him, and unleash hell, a nonstop barrage of bursts. Empty my mag, slam another one in. Fuck, they’re everywhere. Sliding down the rock, running toward me, screaming, firing. Missing, mostly, but the bullets come for me. Heat stings my cheek. I didn’t even hear that one, it was so close.

Something hot and hard explodes in my left shoulder. I’m knocked backward, another round slamming into the same shoulder, only lower. My rifle goes flying, and I’m on my back beside Barrett, bleeding. I palm my sidearm with my right hand. Lift it and fire blindly.

Dirt crunches under a black loafer, wildly inappropriate footwear for this terrain. The shoe stops, white pant leg fluttering in a hot breeze. The sun is blinding, right overhead.

Barely noon, about to die.

The foot rises, swings back, kicks. My sidearm goes flying.

A droplet of sweat trickles into my eye, and through all the pain, all the fear, that drop of hot stinging sweat in my eye is all I can f*cking feel.

The body above the foot kneels over me. Dark skin, pearly white teeth, thick black beard. Young, mid-twenties maybe. Black turban wound around his head, the end trailing over his shoulder. He grins. Speaks, but I don’t understand. I can’t hear for some reason. I just see his mouth move. He has an AK in his hand, the butt planted in the ground, fist around the barrel. He leans and stretches, grabs my pistol. Jabs my wounded shoulder with it, hard.

“You. Prisoner.” He digs the barrel of my pistol into my shoulder again, so hard I cry out. “Fuck American.”

I’m a goddamn POW. Fuck.

Nearby, I hear Barrett moan. He’s still alive.

But for how long?