PART 3
After the convoy left, the base became too quiet.
I washed pans in brown water and listened to the generators hum.
My hands moved on habit.
My ears did not.
Training does not disappear because the government gives you an apron.
At 0917, I carried a coffee carafe into the Tactical Operations Center.
Captain Miller stood over the main screen, jaw locked.
He was the only man on that base who knew exactly what I was.
Then the radio exploded.
“Contact! Contact! Heavy incoming!”
Walsh’s voice ripped through the speakers.
Gunfire cracked behind him.
Someone screamed for a medic.
Miller grabbed the handset.
“Walsh, give me position.”
“We’re in the wadi!” Walsh shouted. “They knew the route. They knew every turn. East and west ridges are hot. We are boxed in.”
I set the coffee down slowly.
On the screen, blue icons clustered in the canyon like coins in a drain.
Red markers blinked on three sides.
An ambush.
Not sloppy.
Designed.
Miller barked, “Get fast air.”
The comms sergeant shook his head.
“Sandstorm swallowed the corridor, sir. Zero visibility. No A-10s. No Apaches. No medevac.”
Then Hayes came over the net.
“Captain, sniper high on Ankle Breaker Ridge. Heavy caliber. He already took both our marksmen. We expose heads, we lose heads. We stay down, mortars walk in.”
Miller looked at the map.
Then at me.
For one second, the whole room narrowed.
He did not order me.
He couldn’t.
If I burned my cover, every syndicate hunter in the region would know the Ghost of Yemen was alive inside FOB Griffin.
Then Walsh’s voice cracked over the radio.
May you like
“We’re not getting out of here, are we?”
I turned and walked out.
