aboard.
âLetâs go!â DeWitt yelled, holding his microphone to his lips, making a circling motion with his free hand. âAll aboard! Haul ass!â
With a roar, the Sea Stallion lifted into the night sky, turning toward the west. As Roselli stared out the still-open rear doors, he watched the C-130 parked in front of the Shuaba terminal, kept watching as the Hercules crumpled, an orange flower blossoming from the root of its port wing. Then the fuel tanks touched off, and in seconds the UN C-130 was a single sheet of flame, its fuselage and wings a wire-work skeleton half glimpsed through the raging, hungry blaze. Smaller explosions took out the two Land Rovers an instant later, tearing out their guts and scattering smoking bits of engine across the runway. When the Iraqis returned with the dawn to reclaim their airport, they would find not one vehicle, not one piece of American equipment left behind intact for them to claim as spoils of war. With a whine, the ramp slid up and the rear doors clamped shut, cutting off Roselliâs view of Shuaba.
He turned back to Ellsworth, who was still working on the L-T. The Stokes was lying in the center of the chopperâs cargo deck, and a clear plastic oxygen mask had been strapped over Cotterâs paint-blacked face. There were bubbles of blood clustered around the Lieutenantâs nostrils, and more blood at the corner of his mouth. His breathing beneath the mask was rasping and labored, audible even over the roar of the Sea Stallionâs rotors. MacKenzie was kneeling beside the Stokes, holding a plastic bottle filled with clear liquid aloft as the Doc threaded a thick needle into a vein in Cotterâs left inside elbow. The other SEALs of Third Platoon, along with the heloâs Marine crew chief, watched from a circle about the tableau, impassive. They all knew that if Doc couldnât save the Skipper, nobody could.
âShit,â Doc said, rocking back on his heels. His arms were bloody, clear to his elbows. He pried up one of Cotterâs eyelids, staring at the pupil. âHow long to Kuwait?â
âItâs almost a hundred miles to Kuwait City,â the Marine crew chief said. âCall it thirty minutes.â
âShit, shit, shit !â Doc started unzipping and unhooking the L-Tâs combat gear and discarding it on the heloâs deck, using a pair of blunt-tipped bandage scissors to cut away his fatigue shirt. Roselli helped, as MacKenzie continued to hold the IV bottle in the air. By the light of the heloâs battle lanterns, the L-Tâs skin looked death-pale where it wasnât crusted with blood.
Roselli felt a creeping, nightmare presentiment. Heâd seen death before.
Heâd had been in the Navy for twelve years and in the Teams for seven. His first time under fire had been in Panama, where heâd been wounded in the assault at Paitilla Airfield. Four of his squad mates had been the very first American fatalities of Operation Just Cause, four good friends killed in a clusterfuck where elite SEALs had been thrown like cannon fodder against barricaded defenders with machine guns, then ordered to hold the position all night for reinforcements that were late in arriving.
The bond between members of a SEAL platoon is close, closer than any other human relationship Roselli could imagine. Though he wasnât married, he knew SEALs who were . . . and to a man they seemed to value the camaraderie of their fellow SEALs and swim buddies more than they did their own wives.
Thinking of wives reminded Roselli of Donna, Cotterâs wife. And they had a kid. Oh, damn . . . damn!
0305 hours (Zulu +3) Helo Cowboy One
Cotter awoke, aware of faces bending over him, fuzzy against the glare of lights. Pain . . . he felt pain . . . but it wasnât as bad as heâd thought it would be. Funny, he couldnât feel a thing below his diaphragm.
âWhere? . . .â
Was that Docâs face peering
âLetâs go!â DeWitt yelled, holding his microphone to his lips, making a circling motion with his free hand. âAll aboard! Haul ass!â
With a roar, the Sea Stallion lifted into the night sky, turning toward the west. As Roselli stared out the still-open rear doors, he watched the C-130 parked in front of the Shuaba terminal, kept watching as the Hercules crumpled, an orange flower blossoming from the root of its port wing. Then the fuel tanks touched off, and in seconds the UN C-130 was a single sheet of flame, its fuselage and wings a wire-work skeleton half glimpsed through the raging, hungry blaze. Smaller explosions took out the two Land Rovers an instant later, tearing out their guts and scattering smoking bits of engine across the runway. When the Iraqis returned with the dawn to reclaim their airport, they would find not one vehicle, not one piece of American equipment left behind intact for them to claim as spoils of war. With a whine, the ramp slid up and the rear doors clamped shut, cutting off Roselliâs view of Shuaba.
He turned back to Ellsworth, who was still working on the L-T. The Stokes was lying in the center of the chopperâs cargo deck, and a clear plastic oxygen mask had been strapped over Cotterâs paint-blacked face. There were bubbles of blood clustered around the Lieutenantâs nostrils, and more blood at the corner of his mouth. His breathing beneath the mask was rasping and labored, audible even over the roar of the Sea Stallionâs rotors. MacKenzie was kneeling beside the Stokes, holding a plastic bottle filled with clear liquid aloft as the Doc threaded a thick needle into a vein in Cotterâs left inside elbow. The other SEALs of Third Platoon, along with the heloâs Marine crew chief, watched from a circle about the tableau, impassive. They all knew that if Doc couldnât save the Skipper, nobody could.
âShit,â Doc said, rocking back on his heels. His arms were bloody, clear to his elbows. He pried up one of Cotterâs eyelids, staring at the pupil. âHow long to Kuwait?â
âItâs almost a hundred miles to Kuwait City,â the Marine crew chief said. âCall it thirty minutes.â
âShit, shit, shit !â Doc started unzipping and unhooking the L-Tâs combat gear and discarding it on the heloâs deck, using a pair of blunt-tipped bandage scissors to cut away his fatigue shirt. Roselli helped, as MacKenzie continued to hold the IV bottle in the air. By the light of the heloâs battle lanterns, the L-Tâs skin looked death-pale where it wasnât crusted with blood.
Roselli felt a creeping, nightmare presentiment. Heâd seen death before.
Heâd had been in the Navy for twelve years and in the Teams for seven. His first time under fire had been in Panama, where heâd been wounded in the assault at Paitilla Airfield. Four of his squad mates had been the very first American fatalities of Operation Just Cause, four good friends killed in a clusterfuck where elite SEALs had been thrown like cannon fodder against barricaded defenders with machine guns, then ordered to hold the position all night for reinforcements that were late in arriving.
The bond between members of a SEAL platoon is close, closer than any other human relationship Roselli could imagine. Though he wasnât married, he knew SEALs who were . . . and to a man they seemed to value the camaraderie of their fellow SEALs and swim buddies more than they did their own wives.
Thinking of wives reminded Roselli of Donna, Cotterâs wife. And they had a kid. Oh, damn . . . damn!
0305 hours (Zulu +3) Helo Cowboy One
Cotter awoke, aware of faces bending over him, fuzzy against the glare of lights. Pain . . . he felt pain . . . but it wasnât as bad as heâd thought it would be. Funny, he couldnât feel a thing below his diaphragm.
âWhere? . . .â
Was that Docâs face peering
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