Into the Night Read Free Page B

Wildcard was there, thank you, glorious God, keeping the reporter from sprinting farther up the mountainside.
    "Gag and carry her if you have to." Muldoon managed to form words into a direct order to the chief.
    "I've got her, sir."
    "Breathe," Izzy told him. "Just breathe and you'll be all right, Lieutenant. I promise, it'll get better soon."
    Zanella thought he'd gotten whacked in the balls. Muldoon had to laugh. If only...
    "You okay, sir?" Lopez hovered above him anxiously.
    "Yes." Muldoon pushed himself up onto his elbows, up so that he was sitting, up all the way to his feet. Shit, shit, shit, shit. "Yes, I am." He said it again, mostly to convince himself that it was true.
    "Sir," Jenk said. Tick tock.
    "Let's run," Muldoon ordered them, ordered himself. "Come on, let's move out of here. Now."
    He could do this. Down the trail, one step at a time. Eventually he'd reach the helo and someone would give him some ice and the pain would start to recede.
    "Can you really run, Mike?" Wildcard was back beside him then, slowing to Muldoon's pace. It was probably the first time in his life he'd lowered his voice to be discreet.
    "Yes." Muldoon didn't want to talk, not to Wildcard, not to anyone. He needed all of his energy focused on moving forward. But he was in command. He couldn't just disappear. "Where's—"
    "I passed her off to Cosmo," the chief told him, anticipating his question. "I thought maybe after she realizes we really did save her life, she'll be eternally grateful and he'll finally get laid."
    Muldoon had to laugh. "You're a good chief."
    "You bet your ass I am. I take care of my men." He looped Muldoon's arm around his shoulders. "It's the right leg, right, sir?"
    "I'm okay." Muldoon wanted to pull away, but the truth was that putting some of his weight onto Wildcard let him move faster. And the faster he could move, the faster his team would get to safety. A SEAL team was only as fast as its slowest member—which right now was him. Which pissed him off, royally.
    "You're not okay. You said shit," Wildcard pointed out. "Nearly two years in Team Sixteen, and you finally said a four-letter word. In fact, I think it was 'shit, shit, shit, shit.' A quadruple. So what is it? Ankle?"
    "Knee."
    'Twist it?"
    "No. I don't know. I landed on it, and... I'll be fine."
    "Fucking hurts like a bitch, huh?"
    "I'm okay," Muldoon said again. "Let's kick it faster."
    "Aye, aye, sir."
    Wildcard somehow knew to be silent then. And the night became a blur of bombs still falling, of Jenk's reports every thirty seconds of how much time they had left, of his and the chief's ragged breathing, of red-hot, searing pain.
    He heard the helo before he saw it, and then there it was— one of the most beautiful sights he'd ever seen.
    Muldoon counted heads as his men climbed aboard, then the pilot swooped up and into the sky and got them the hell out of there.
    The pain caught up with him as Lopez cut open his pants to look at the watermelon that had once been his knee. He puked quietly into one of the helo crewmember's helmets until, much to his intense embarrassment, his world tunneled, and he fainted.
    He woke up groggy and disoriented as the helo landed. Wildcard was there, and Muldoon grabbed his sleeve.
    "Everyone okay?"
    "Yes, sir. We're safely back on the carrier, Lieutenant. Mission accomplished."
    "Good." His head felt so heavy, but his knee didn't hurt anymore, thank goodness. He tried to sit up, but Wildcard and then Lopez was there, holding him down.
    "Hey, hey, Mikey, where do you think you're going, man?"
    "I'm okay," Muldoon said.
    "He's fucking trying to walk off the helo," Wildcard said over his head to Lopez.
    "Sir, I don't know for sure," Jay Lopez told him, "not until we get you into X ray, but I think you probably fractured your patella."
    "Fractured... what?"
    "Remember the time Captain Muldoon ran down a mountain in Afghanistan with a broken kneecap?" Wildcard said.
    His words didn't make sense. "Meant to tell that