Taking Fire - Lindsay McKenna

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Khat quit firing, the escaping SEALs and the Taliban out of her range. Leaping to her feet, she grabbed the rifle and trotted about a tenth of a mile down a narrow goat path. There, she’d have a better view of the slope down into the wadi. Halting, Khat hefted the rifle to her shoulder, and she looked through the scope, moving it from the top of the wadi, working downward.

      Breathing slowly, she hoped to locate the SEAL. Doubting the man survived, it was her duty to find him, retrieve his body and then make a call to J-bad. Hutton probably couldn’t even cut loose a damned Medevac, he was such stickler for regulations.

       Wait.

      She steadied the scope, holding the rifle still in her arms. There! The body of the SEAL was just at the edge of the wadi. She saw his M-4 nearby. The light was getting bad. He still had his arms and legs. Was he breathing? She didn’t know. Looking up, Khat heard smatterings of fire rising from far below her between the SEALS and the Taliban. There was nothing else she could do to help the SEAL team. She’d done everything possible. But maybe she could rescue this SEAL in the wadi. No way did Khat want his body to fall into Taliban hands.

      Turning, she slid down the hill where her black Arabian mare, Mina, was standing quietly below. Khat had tied her reins to a branch of a tree where she was hidden. The mare wore a Western saddle, something Khat had insisted on when she started working alone out here. She wasn’t about to ride one of those torturous Afghan wooden saddles. The Arabian mare’s fine small ears pricked up, her huge brown eyes watching her progress down the rocky hill.

      “Good girl, Mina,” Khat whispered, leaping off the slope. She quickly slipped the Win Mag into the nylon sheath beneath her left stirrup. Picking up her ruck from beneath the tree, Khat shrugged the sixty-pound pack across her shoulders. She pulled her black baseball cap out of her lower cammie pocket and settled it on her head. Mounting, she urged the small horse into a trot, heading for a goat path that would lead them to the wadi.

      By the time Khat located the SEAL, it was dusk. She had put on her NVGs, night vision goggles, and moved cautiously into the wadi, not wanting to make any noise. She knew Sattar Khogani had more men in the area. Taking no chances with the Hill tribe on patrol like a bunch of angry bees running around on the mountain, she wanted to remain the shadow she was. Her mare carefully picked her way through the trees, winding in and around them, her small hooves delicate and avoiding coming down on branches. If a branch snapped, it could alert the Taliban they were in the wadi.

      Khat spotted the body of the SEAL. Half of him was still on the scree, the other half hanging down into the wadi. She dismounted, dropping the reins. Mina was trained to remain where she was.

      Slipping out of the ruck, she set it quietly on the ground near the mare. Her heart picked up in beat. Was he dead? Injured? Or playing dead? If he was faking it and she came upon him, he could rip her throat out with a KA-BAR knife. SEALs were taught that they were never helpless. If a rifle or pistol wouldn’t do it, a knife sure as hell would.

      Approaching cautiously, soundlessly, she had her NVGs on, the grainy green showing there was blood leaking out from beneath his Kevlar helmet and down his bearded cheek. With green filters on, Khat couldn’t see what color his flesh was. His mouth was open. He seemed unconscious. His one arm was hanging down into the wadi. She carefully reached out, placing two fingers on the inside of his thick wrist.

      He didn’t move.

      She felt his pulse. It was weak and thready.

      He really was unconscious. Moving quickly, Khat pulled him into the wadi so no one could see him from the slope. Rolling him over, tipping his head back so he could breathe, she held her ear to his nose. His breath was shallow, but it was there.

      Grimly, she realized she’d have to get that heavy ruck off him in order to get him on the horse. Kneeling, she pulled him toward her until his tall, lean body rested mostly against her knees. Pulling the straps apart, making no sound, the ruck slid off his back.

      Next, his Kevlar helmet. It had a pair of NVGs on the rail. Fingers moving quickly beneath his chin, she released the strap. His blood was on her hands now. Gently as she could, Khat lifted the helmet away from his head. Grimacing, she saw his temple was nothing more than a huge clot of blood. Grade three concussion, for sure. But how bad? Her mind was already running over medical possibilities. He was out cold. She removed the heavy H-gear harness from around his chest, another thirty pounds of weight.

      Khat left him on his back, trotted down the slope and picked up Mina’s reins. Leading the mare up beside the SEAL, she knew there was no way she could lift a hundred and eighty pounds of his dead weight and place him across the saddle.

      “Down,” she told the mare, making a signal for the Arabian to lie down.

      The mare bent her front knees and then lay down, all four legs beneath her.

      “Good girl,” Khat whispered, patting her mare’s sweaty neck.

      Now for the hard part. She hooked her hands beneath the SEAL’s armpits and hauled him forward. Grunting, she clenched her teeth, digging in the heels of her boots, inching him forward. Damn, he was heavy! Breathing hard, she got the SEAL close enough.

      “Lie down,” she told the horse, giving her another hand signal.

      Mina stretched out on her side, laying her head down near Khat’s feet.

      Now it was easier hauling the SEAL over the saddle. Khat worried about her mare. She was on an incline, and she would be pulling herself into an upright position. Could she do it with someone this heavy?

      “Sit up,” she whispered, signaling the mare. Khat watched the horse heave herself back into a sitting position, her legs beneath her body once more. Relieved, Khat moved quietly around the mare, coming to her head, picking up the reins in one hand and keeping her other hand on the unconscious SEAL’s body. She hoped he didn’t slip off when Mina lurched to her feet.

      “Up!” she whispered.

      Mina grunted, flinging out her front feet first. She shifted her weight to her rear, the muscles bunching, then shoved her hooves into the dirt and rock in one smooth motion to gain purchase. Khat felt more relief, holding the man in place so he didn’t accidentally slip off. The SEAL lay on his belly across the saddle. It wasn’t great that his injured head was hanging down, but she didn’t have the strength to haul him upright and hold him in the saddle. She hooked his ruck and harness over the horn of the saddle. Nothing could be left behind to indicate an American had been in this wadi.

      Leaping up behind the saddle, Khat turned the horse around, and they started back up the goat path in the dark. Only the night winds, cold and howling from the north, were heard. Keeping her hearing keyed, Khat gripped the SEAL’s cammies to keep him from sliding off.

      As they rose out of the wadi via the goat path, Khat saw the stars hanging so close she felt like she could reach out and touch them. Halting at the juncture of another goat path, she waited and listened. She hadn’t survived four years in the Hindu Kush by taking chances. Her hearing was extraordinary. No human voices. Chances were, the Taliban retreated back to that rock fort and were making tea and eating. Probably arguing like hell among one another for their major losses this evening. She grinned.

      Once more on familiar territory, five miles down the slope, Khat guided her horse into a group of thick bushes and trees. The horse pushed through the vegetation, coming to a halt at the entrance to a large cave. Khat dismounted, walking in front of the mare, her hand on her .45 pistol. This was one of her safe caves, but she never, ever took for granted that the Taliban wouldn’t find it someday. Worse, make camp in it. The mare’s small feet moved through the fine silt dirt on the cave floor.

      Turning to the right, Khat walked half a mile, went into another cave and through it. Her NVGs no longer worked when a cave was completely black. She halted, pulled them off her eyes, switched them off and reached into her cammie pocket. Flicking on a laser flashlight, the whole area lit up.

      They were safe now, and she breathed a small sigh of relief. Making a few more turns, at least half a mile deep within the mountain, Khat finally came to the pool cave. She

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