Cauldron of fire, p.4
Cauldron of Fire, page 4
“Sure thing, Sarge. He’ll get the best.” He looked at the Afghan boy. “One more thing you can do for me.”
“What is that, Eddie?”
“Help me tote this machine gun. It’s heavy.”
They reached the track, and in the light of day they could see there was no ambush waiting for them. A column of vehicles arrived, and when the lead jeep stopped, a familiar figure leapt out. “You guys again, I might have known it. Did we get them all?”
Dan gestured to the lunar-like surface. “If any of them survived that little lot, they deserve to live.”
His eyes widened. “Hot damn, those flyboys gave it a real pasting. Good work, all of you. Where’s your vehicle?”
“The same place as those insurgents, Captain. In hell.”
He smiled. “We’ll get you another. I don’t see Major McNally.”
“He’s dead, Sir. He took a bullet, and we thought he’d be okay, but they hit him again.”
His face was grave. “I’m sorry, he was a good man, although he shouldn’t have been out here. He was an Intelligence officer, not trained for this kind of thing. He was a brave man, coming out here. Maybe we should put him up for a medal.”
“Yessir, maybe we should.”
“Anyone else do especially well?”
Dan looked at Eddie, thought for a moment, and his gaze moved on. “Yessir, a new recruit, he did very well.”
“What’s his name?”
“Ahmad.”
Rogers saw him then and did a double take. “An Afghan?”
“An Afghan, right.”
“Can we give him a medal?”
“Kind of, Sir. But it’s already taken care of.”
The boy wasn’t looking. His eyes were glued to the laptop screen, his hands moving on the keyboard and trackpad like he’d been doing it forever. Dan looked at Eddie. “You gave it to him?”
“He saved our lives, Sarge.”
“He did that. When we get back, the priority is a new one for you. The latest and the best.”
Eddie glanced at Ahmad. “You know what this means? We can go head to head.”
The boy didn’t understand the meaning, except it was something good. Rogers looked puzzled, so he explained. “Better than him shooting at our men, Captain.”
“Right. You did well, Hawkins, getting him on side. But I guess what matters is you had Major McNally leading you until the end.”
“Yessir. Until the end.”
Todd McLeod, Cauldron of Fire
