Disappointment ran high.
“Why aren’t we coming up behind those bastards? Fucking them hard in the ass?”
“We’re the closest unit, Captain. It doesn’t make any sense.”
I picked up my gun and got to my feet. “Like I said, gentlemen. Ours is not to reason why…”
At least four or five of them finished off the quote for me, groaning out the words, “Ours is but to do and die.”
Hours whipped by fast enough for the sun to climb over the lip of the horizon. The ruined city’s buildings were a rats’ nest of Taliban fighters and families supporting the fighters, hiding them from us, hiding their guns and their food, and any other supplies they could stockpile. We hammered on doors, and kicked over rocks. Anyone who resisted or looked suspicious had their wrists zip tied behind their backs and were escorted back to the base in the back of a Humvee.
The gunfire never ceased. The ground continued to shake.
Must have been sometime after seven when the news was radioed through: the three units stuck inside the old, bombed out hospital were safe. Not a man had been lost. Rogers seemed almost disappointed.
“Captain! Captain Fletcher!” Out of the smoke and the dust choking the early morning air, a young private emerged like a ghost, his rifle, slung over his shoulder, bouncing up and down as he ran through the stacks of rubble and twisted prongs of steel. “Captain Fletcher, sir, you’re needed.” He was panting, gasping for breath. “It’s…it’s your brother, sir. The other Captain Fletcher.”
A lead weight dropped through me, pulling at my insides, making my head reel. Fuck. Ronan. Ronan was hurt. Ronan was dead. Ronan had been captured, and was about to be executed on national television. A thousand gut-churning possibilities raced through me simultaneously. “What is it? What’s happened, Private? Spit it out, for fuck’s sake.” I was close to slapping him.
“He’s sick, sir. Or at least we think he is.”
“How? How is he sick?”
“He’s just sitting on the floor. He won’t get up. It’s like…like he can’t hear us or something. We took the building back. We killed nearly every single one of those bastards. We were celebrating, cheering and whatever, and that’s when Simmons saw Captain Fletcher fall. He thought he’d been shot, but…there’s nothing wrong with him as far as we can see. He’s just…lying there.”
“Have you radioed it in?”
The private shook his head. “No, sir. We knew you were on mission. We thought we’d better, y’know…come find you first.”
“Right. Thank you.” Definitely not the protocol Ronan’s unit should have followed, but I was glad they hadn’t called in medics. The reason they’d held off was obvious; Ronan was in shock. Shock was one of those things. You could snap out of it in a heartbeat, like nothing had ever happened, or it could cripple you for the rest of your life. Either way, there was nothing a medic could do that I couldn’t at the moment. “Take me to him.” And then, to my own men, I said, “Head back to base. Go eat. I’ll be back in a moment. If anyone asks, I came back with you, okay?” As one, the guys all nodded. Even Rogers.
Fifteen minutes later, my shirt pulled up over my mouth to filter out the dust as I ran, the private led me to Ronan. He was sitting up, back leaned against the skeleton of a burned-out Jeep, and his face was splattered with blood. Hands, too. Uniform soaked. It was everywhere. He looked like some crazed serial killer, drunk from the high of the kill.
I sank down into a crouch in front of him, placing my hands on his shoulders. “Jesus, man. You’re a mess.” I tried to smile, but it felt wrong, like I was probably grimacing instead.
Somewhere, someone said, “Holy shit. I heard he had a twin, but that shit is bonafide crazy.”
Ronan blinked; his eyelashes were clumped, dried blood caking them together. “Hey,” he said. He was dazed, his pupils unfocused. “Heard you were out tonight, too.”
“Yeah, man. Doing clearance. No drama on our end. What’s the deal with you, though? You taking a moment to get your shit together?” I laughed, trying to make light of the fact that it looked like Ronan was seriously fucked up.
“Yeah. Yeah, I just need a minute is all. You think…you think you could…?” Glancing around, he gestured toward his men.
“Of course. Of course. You stay here, okay. I’ll be right back.”
I rallied his guys quickly, ordering them back to base with the few prisoners who remained alive. None of them seemed like they wanted to leave Ronan, but they did as they were told, anyway. We weren’t alone. There was still plenty of military personnel knocking around, sifting through the rubble, looking for survivors or escaped fighters. It was safe for the moment, or as safe as Afghanistan ever got, anyway.