Page 52 of The 9th Man

“Here. Jack Talley.”

The Ranger knelt beside him. “You ordered a pizza?”

Talley laughed. “That’s us.”

“Sorry we’re late. We had a bit of a hike.”

“How many are you?”

“Depleted platoon. About forty.”

“Where the hell did you come from?”

“There’s a narrow path on the back side. Chinook managed to drop us in the draw down below. It’s waiting, if you’re ready to move.”

He didn’t have to be told twice.

“We’ll get your wounded stabilized, then head out,” the Ranger said. “How many bad guys out front?”

“At least two hundred.”

“We’ll see about discouraging them. Mortars up. SAWs up,” the Ranger called.

“Pretty happy to see you guys,” he said. “Our shelf life was another hour, no more.”

“Can’t have that, can we?”

“What’s your name?” he asked the Ranger.

“Luke Daniels.”

22

LUKE LEARNED A LONG TIME AGO THAT THE OLD ADAGE WAS TRUE.

Never, ever look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Good thing you got here,” he said. “Our shelf life was another hour, no more.”

“I see you do remember.”

“Hard to forget Captain Jack Talley.”

Talley drew a knife off his belt, leaned over, and began slicing the tape securing Luke to the board. He then cut the zip ties binding his wrists. Luke stood and removed the rest of the tape as Talley freed Jillian from the bumper. He also used the moment of distraction to scoop up a cell phone that had slipped from Persik’s jacket when he collapsed to the floor, quickly pocketing the unit.

Another gift horse.

“Where do you know this guy from?” Jillian asked.

“Celam Kae, Hill 19,” Talley said.

Luke had not heard that location in many years. “Six days in November, Bravo Squadron. Delta Force went in with twenty-four and came out with—”

“Sixteen,” Talley said. “It would have been a lot less if you guys hadn’t shown up.”

He told her what happened.

Credible intelligence placed a high-level Al Qaeda commander in a compound near Celam Kae. Talley’s assault troop from Delta Force’s Bravo Squadron hiked up into the mountains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border for what was to be a quick snatch-and-grab. Instead, Bravo found itself ambushed by a mixed force of Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Trapped in a hastily fortified position on Hill 19 and cut off from reinforcements by a brutal winter storm, Talley and his team were facing annihilation until a squad of Rangers managed to fight its way up the northeast slope of Hill 19 and rescued the besieged Deltas. They then conducted a fighting retreat to a helicopter extraction zone twelve kilometers away.