PART 6
The next twelve minutes became math, smoke, and heartbeat.
Not the kind of math you teach.
The kind you survive.
I cut off the mortar teams first.
Then the ridge spotters.
Then the machine-gun nest pinning the medics behind the lead truck.
Every time the enemy tried to adjust, I was already waiting.
The men in the canyon stopped dying long enough to start fighting back.
Hayes took control of the ground.
“Bravo, cover left. Rangers, peel the wounded. Walsh, get your head down unless you want the cook to save you twice.”
Walsh did not answer.
He was too busy dragging a medic behind cover.
Good.
Maybe fear had finally become useful.
Then I saw the real trap.
A truck hidden under camouflage netting near the southern choke point.
Not fighters.
Explosives.
Enough to collapse the canyon wall and bury everyone inside.
The driver climbed in.
My stomach went cold.
“Miller,” I said into the radio, “VBIED at south choke point. If that truck moves, the canyon becomes a grave.”
Miller’s voice came back sharp.
“Can you stop it?”
I watched the truck roll forward.
I thought of Yemen.
A school courtyard full of dust.
A little boy holding a red backpack.
A blast that had stolen my sleep for years.
My finger settled.
“Yes,” I said.
The shot hit.
The truck veered, struck rock, and died before it reached the choke point.
The explosion still came.
But it bloomed short, slamming fire into empty stone instead of four hundred trapped men.
For one awful second, smoke swallowed everything.
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Then Hayes’ voice came through.
“We’re alive. God help me, we’re alive.”
