Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

The sergeant was the first to react. “Explosion! Come on, guys, come on!”

All the Marines pelted down the long alley toward Abbey Gate, John on their heels.

“Sir!” the sergeant shouted at John over a shoulder. “You shouldn’t come, sir! You don’t have a weapon or—” The sergeant fell silent, held up a hand, and said, “Hear that? Not the people, that other?—”

“I hear it.” A distant pop-pop-pop-pop . Someone was shooting, but whether that was their troops or the Taliban at the checkpoint or someone else was impossible to know.

“We got to keep going!” John actually pushed the sergeant and pointed in the direction of the explosion. “God knows how many casualties there are. I’ve got my pack. You’ve got emergency medical supplies, right? Then, let’s go! Others will be on the way. There’s an ambulance already there.” What a single ambulance could do was obscure, but there would also be personnel and more supplies. “I’ll take my chances,” he said to the sergeant, “but I need your help! I need hands. I need your guys., Let’s go; just go!”

“Hey, hey, hold up!” Another Marine, at the head of the group spoke, and then the man cursed. “They’re breaking through, the people outside. They’re breaking through !”

The sergeant cursed. “Must’ve knocked down the Marines on the gate!”

Hell. Ahead, a flood of civilians flowing through into the alley. Some were simply running; others supported people who couldn’t run for themselves. Spotting a Marine staggering toward them, John darted forward to drape the man’s arm around his shoulders as a second Marine did the same on the opposite side. Together, they hustled the man to relative safety against the concrete wall that lined this side of the alley.

Squatting before the soldier, John said, “You hurt? You hit?”

“Wuh?” The Marine only shook his head in a wobbly to-and-fro. “Huh?”

Come on, kid. Pulling off the man’s wraparounds, he held the soldier’s head between his hands. “Look at me, buddy! Are you hurt?”

“Wuuuh?” Dazed, the Marine hooked a hand onto John’s right wrist and gave a weak tug. “Just...” He slicked his lips. “Can’t hear... ”

“Is he okay?” The sergeant crouched to John’s right. “Hey, buddy, you okay?”

“Probably concussive injury.” No blood, nothing obvious. Nearby, another Marine, who’d come reeling back from the mouth of the alley, was retching. Long ropes of spittle hung from his mouth. John shouted to a nearby Marine, “Someone, get that guy some water! Make him lie down!” Craning a look to his right, John spotted medical personnel hustling their way. Good, cavalry on the way. Which meant he and the sergeant and a few of his men could leave. John knew where the worst casualties would be.

“Hold up! Wait a minute!” Raising a hand, the sergeant cocked his head. “I don’t hear any more shooting.”

“Might be all we’re going to get.” John pushed to his feet. After a cursory glance at both the soldiers and civilians streaming down the alley—no blood, nothing active, no one screaming in agony—John turned to the sergeant. “Listen, for all the people we see here, there have got to be dozens more who are down. They need help yesterday , which means we got to move as fast as we can to get that to them.”

He was certain emergency medical crews were on the way while personnel back at the med tent hustled out every civilian who could walk to free up space for casualties. The hospital across the airport must be scrambling, too, setting up for what were bound to be tricky, emergency surgeries. For a split second, he thought that maybe he ought to hoof it back as fast as he could there . He was a surgeon, after all, and there were going to be plenty of trauma victims arriving at the hospital across the airport. Any minute now, his mike was going to squawk, and he’d have no choice but to return.

But not quite yet. Because he also couldn’t shake what the tech had said about Roni heading for the Gate over an hour ago.

“I have to go,” he said to the sergeant. “There’s something I have to check out. I get that you need to maintain crowd control this far back, but I have to get to the Gate.”

The sergeant hesitated for less than a nanosecond. “You’re the boss, sir,” he said. “Let’s go.”