PROLOGUE
Holt Shaw bounced around in the back of the Humvee and knocked shoulders with the guys on either side of him. He tightened the strap on his helmet, blew the dust off his sunglasses, and slipped them on. He stared out the grimy window, but the yellowish-beige dust kicked up by their convoy choked out his view.
Moving through the valley on the way into Sangin was always dangerous. Doing so this time of day was especially dangerous. It was the perfect environment for snipers. The sun was at their back, making it difficult to spot them, and it shone down on the convoy like the world’s largest spotlight. Those sons of bitches could pop up out of nowhere and pick off a half dozen Marines before they ever got a shot off.
The guy manning the .50 caliber machine gun mounted to the roof was super vulnerable. He was surrounded on all sides by steel plates, but his shoulders and head were fully exposed to fire from above. The Marines manning those guns were a special kind of crazy and had balls the size of bowling balls.
Snipers were just one of the many dangers they had to deal with.
“See anything?” Roger Prattney shouted over the roar of the 6.5-liter V8 diesel engine.
Holt shook his head.
“I fuckin’ hate this valley.” Roger Williams rubbed his forearm over the crud on the window behind him in an unsuccessful attempt to increase his visibility.
Prattney and Rogers were both Petty Officers, and Holt was a Staff Sergeant and their team leader. They were Navy explosive ordnance disposal specialists (EOD) out of Little Creek, Virginia, and were embedded with Navy SEAL Team 5 as part of a Marine Expeditionary Force assigned to the Sangin district in the Helmand Province.
Their job was to locate, identify, render safe, and dispose of conventional, nuclear, biological, chemical, and what’s most common during this deployment, improvised explosives. They worked on land and underwater.
As the EOD team leader, Holt’s job was to oversee their operations, was responsible for making the final diagnostic call, and was in charge of directing the disposal plan.
Becoming an EOD tech required extensive training, and they had to be able to work well under intense pressure. But the best way to stay alive was to focus and fall back on the training.
Helmand Province, specifically the Sangin District, was known for being one of the most dangerous hot zones in Afghanistan.
Every road, footpath, and field was carpeted with improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Even doorways in compounds long since abandoned were rigged with explosives. In some sectors of this province, you couldn’t walk fifty feet without coming across one of those deadly fuckers. The enemy used a lot of non-metal landmines and pressure plates, so locating them with the US military’s mine-detectors was a bitch.
Suffice to say, Holt and his guys stayed busy. For eight hours yesterday, they’d methodically searched the valley for IEDs. That included Holt taking what EOD guys referred to as “the long walk.” That’s when the team leader walked ahead, entirely alone, down a cleared path toward what they knew was a live explosive device. Once there, he would disarm it before the convoy could proceed.
He and his boys didn’t get back to the convoy until early this morning, around 0530. They immediately found a patch of shade on the ground next to one of their supply trucks and grabbed some shut-eye until they were rousted awake about an hour later. All three of them grabbed their gear, loaded into the lead Humvee, and they led the convoy into the valley.
They were about two hours out when Holt’s instincts had him stopping the convoy.
“You feelin’ something, Sarge?“ Prattney sat forward, ready to jump into action.
“Yeah, I want to check it out,” he said.
Holt and the other EOD techs climbed out and unloaded the EOD bomb suit. The suit weighed anywhere from seventy-five to eighty-five pounds, and Greg and Roger would need to help him suit up.
It consisted of multiple layers, including Kevlar-plated pants with suspender straps, the suit jacket, also Kevlar-plated, a high-tech helmet, and the final and most important piece was the front plate. It housed most of the protective components, the bulk of the Kevlar, and a large ceramic chest plate.
Once Holt was fully suited up, he tested the headset. “Test. Test.”
Greg and Roger gave him a heads-up. They all knocked knuckles, and Holt started walking down the dirt road.
He was about two hundred feet from the convoy and was about to give up when he spotted a patch of newly turned dirt approximately a foot in diameter. He squatted down to perform a threat assessment.
Whoever placed it must've been in a hurry and did a piss-poor job.
They left a thin yellow wire protruding from the soil about two inches. He recognized it for what it was—the radio relay for remote detonation. This particular type of IED could be detonated using a simple handheld walkie-talkie set to the same frequency.
“Watch the ridge. This thing's got a transmitter.” There was a good chance someone was watching and waiting for an opportunity to detonate it.
That meant Holt had to act quickly. Yet, he’d done this so many times, his heart rate didn’t even change.
“I’m not going to waste time disarming it. I’m just going to blow it in place.” He had to move quickly.
“Confirmed.” The voice of the Marine colonel leading the convoy crackled in Holt’s headset.
Normally, they would send a robot in to do that part of the job, but theirs had been destroyed a few weeks ago, and they were still waiting for a replacement.
Holt prepped a block of C4 and, with great care, gingerly set it close to the area where the IED was located.
“Charge is set.” He backed away, letting out more wire as he went.
Once he was a safe distance away, he stood behind a giant boulder and warned the colonel.
“Fire in the hole.” He pressed a button on the small transmitter and two seconds later, there was a blast that shot a cloud of rocks and dirt thirty to forty feet into the air.
He surveyed the area one more time to see if there were any others.
“All clear.” He hurried back to the convoy.
Greg lifted the helmet off and stowed it in the molded hard-shell protective case.
“Not much of a blast.” Roger pulled off the front plate of the suit and set it in the transport bag.
“It was a pretty sloppy job.” Holt drew in a deep breath, grabbed his canteen, and took a long swallow of lukewarm water. He’d sweat through his battle dress uniform. “Whoever put it there was in a hurry.”
“We cleared this area last night.” Greg helped Roger remove the jacket and pants.
“They must have come in behind us.” Holt poured water over his face.
They stowed the suit in the transport bag and secured it and the helmet case in the cargo area at the rear of the vehicle.
“Load up!” the colonel shouted.
Ten minutes later, they were on the move and heading toward Sangin.
The place was a viper’s nest of Taliban who had a sort of “Last Stand” mentality. Unlike other less fanatical insurgents who would retreat at the first sign of outside aggression, the Taliban in Sangin would dig in and fight to the death. They knew that losing control of that district meant they would lose their iron-fisted financial and logistical grip on the entire Helmand Province.
Fortunately, Holt and his guys were on their last month of a sixteen-month deployment. They were counting the days until they were back home in Virginia.
About five months after they deployed, Prattney’s wife gave birth to their first child. His son was almost a year old now, and he was excited about seeing him in person and not just via a video call.
Rogers found out two months ago that his dad had terminal cancer and was only given about six months to live. Holt had offered to have the Red Cross airlift him out and get him home, but Rog’s dad told him what they were doing there was too important. Suffice to say, his buddy was desperate to get back to the States.
Holt didn’t have a wife and kids waiting for him back home, and his girlfriend had gotten tired of his long deployments and broke up with him via email. A modern version of a Dear John letter. But his best friend, Caine Bennett, was recently shot while protecting the president.
They’d been friends since they were kids and had always had each other’s back. Not being there when he was going through something like that felt like a weird kind of betrayal.
The Humvee hit a pothole and they were all jostled around.
Holt smiled as Greg and Roger gave the driver shit about his knack for hitting every rut and pothole in the road.
He’d worked with a lot of EOD techs, but these two guys were the best of the best—a dream team of EOD knowledge and experience. The three of them had become great friends, bonding over the fragility of life, and hung out together during their down time back home. After his son was born, Greg and his wife had even begun referring to Holt as Uncle Holt.
BOOM!
An explosion ripped through the bottom of the Humvee, lifted it completely off the ground, and sent it tumbling side over side.
Holt and his teammates were tossed around like bingo balls in a basket until the Humvee settled onto its roof, rocked a few times, then became still. He was disoriented and couldn’t get his bearings—everything kept going in and out of focus.
Other than a high-pitched ringing sound, he couldn’t hear anything else.
Smoke and dust filled the space.
He coughed and, in an instant, all his senses rushed back with a whoosh.
Horrific screams from the men around him drowned out the high-pitched ringing.
Holt’s back was wet, and the odor of diesel fuel dripping from somewhere was strong enough to gag him.
Where there is fuel and heat, there is fire. But his brain was too rattled to process what that meant.
The young gunner on the roof was crushed, his unmoving legs still inside the vehicle.
Through the dense smoke, he saw the driver. He’d been thrown through the windshield head-first and his lower body was trapped beneath the steering wheel. The young Marine who’d been sitting next to him was wedged beneath the caved-in roof and cried out for his mom.
Holt couldn’t see Rogers.
He coughed and fanned his hand through the air to clear the smoke. That’s when he saw Roger shoved up against the back door. A steel rod from the seat frame had been knocked loose and impaled him through his midsection.
“Roger!” He managed to sit up and tried to get to him.
“Holt.” Roger coughed and spat blood. “Tell her … I … I love her.”
“You can tell her when you get home.”
Holt watched in horror as the life left his friend’s eyes and his head dropped forward.
BOOM!
Another explosion ripped through their convoy, right next to them.
“Shit!” There was a bright flash of light.
He turned away, and the powerful force of the blast slammed into him.
He was thrown against the partially open side door of the Humvee, flipped around, and landed face down on the ground.
Fire rolled over him like a wave of lava, and a searing heat burned Holt’s back.
He lay on the ground, unable to move, unable to breathe, and stared across the barren landscape. Several pairs of tan tactical boots ran toward him.
Nearby, he heard the colonel barking orders and the gut-wrenching screams of the men he served with.
He tried to push himself up, but the message got lost somewhere between his head and his arms.
His vision began to blur, and the screams slowly faded.
I failed. This is my fault.
Holt was tormented by that final thought as the pain finally became too much, and he slipped into the cold arms of darkness.
