Page 65 of The Fourth Option
“Go! Go! Go!” he yelled over Staub’s gunfire and Rina’s screams.
Staub ducked back into the vehicle and slammed the door, then threw it into drive and smashed his foot on the accelerator. As the SUV surged forward, he looked back at Walker and past him at the crumpled figure in the road.
“Fuck!”
He turned back to the obstacle ahead, yelling, “Hold on,” and crashed the vehicle through the makeshift barbed-wire gate. The vehicle ripped the gate off a wood pole on one side where it was haphazardly attached and pulled the other pole directly from the ground. The barbed wire wrapped around the front grille of the SUV as it careened down the road, gunfire continuing to erupt behind them.
Walker threw his body over the kids in the back and felt a round impact his rear plate, just as the SUV careened around a bend, putting them out of their enemy’s line of sight.
“We’re clear,” Staub shouted.
Rina continued screaming and moaning in Pashto, reaching back to her daughters, whom Walker was checking for gunshot wounds.
“Kids are okay!” Walker shouted over Rina’s screams as the car bounced over ruts in the unpaved road.
“Give me your rifle,” Walker said.
Staub slipped the sling over his head and handed it back. Walker performed a tac reload to top it off.
Neither of them noticed the plastic yellow water jugs camouflaged on the roadside.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
THE EXPLOSIVE CHARGEdetonated beneath the speeding SUV. Its blast created an inverted cone of gasses and pressure that ripped upward, carrying with it dirt, rocks, IED components, and pieces of the vehicle. The Mitsubishi was thrown onto its side, sliding into a ditch on the far side of the road.
For Walker, it was darkness, followed by pain, and a subsequent intense ringing that sounded like it was coming from the deepest recesses of a cavern.
Is this death?
Walker came to on his back, ears ringing, vision blurred and spotty. He rolled to his side. The world seemed tilted. He noticed the hard dirt of the road seemed to have loosened into sand. He wondered why. The answer came a moment later. Bomb.
When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.
He blinked his eyes, bringing Staub into focus. He was dragging himself through the sunroof and onto the road.
How the fuck did I get here in the middle of the road? Must have been blown through the rear passenger door.
Walker pushed himself to his knees. Where was his rifle?
Staub was shouting something he couldn’t hear. Blood ran down Walker’s temple. His head throbbed. He tasted dirt and blood in his mouth.
The ringing in his ears shifted to an angry hissing. He touched one. His hand came away with blood and mucus.
Gunfire cracked from the ridgeline. A few fighters were shooting at them from behind rocks, but they were still too far out to be effective.
The Montero was on its side, smoke curling from the engine block. One of the girls was screaming.
Walker scrambled to his feet and ran to Staub, taking a knee next to his battered friend.
Staub’s baseball cap had been blown from his head, as had his sunglasses. Blood ran from his nose and ears, mixing with that from the glass shards in his face and neck.
The ringing in Walker’s head became the screaming of one of the children.
