Into Darkness by Richard Fox

smacked a palm against Ritter’s helmet. “I said, are you hurt? Focus, damn you!”
    Ritter looked at Shelton. He thought he’d see the angry face of a commander, struggling to manage chaos. Instead, he saw his friend. His friend who was just as scared and hurt as he was. Ritter put a hand on Shelton’s shoulder.
    “I’m all right. Fine, fine…I’ll be fine,” Ritter said.
    “Fuck you—you’re all right,” Shelton said.
    Ritter tightened his grip on Shelton; he suddenly needed help standing up. His vision swam as his words slurred. “Told you…I’m…” His knees buckled as he stumbled into Shelton. Shelton hooked an arm under Ritter to keep him on his feet.
    “Medic!” Shelton shouted.
     
     
    “Do you think the commander was near that?” Nesbitt said in a whisper. Channing shrugged in response as he switched his radio between channels, scanning for news or orders.
    “Nesbitt, if you don’t shut your goddamn mouth, I will shoot you in your tiny dick,” Kilo said. He was prone behind his sniper rifle, scanning the power plant through his high-powered scope. Kovalenko knelt beside him, binoculars glued to his face.
    The explosion had sent a ripple of overpressure through the date palm trees, loosening overripe dates from their bulbous cradles. Dates sprinkled into the dirt, landing with the sound of muffled footsteps.
    Sergeant First Class Young rushed from a knot of bushes to Kovalenko’s side. “Anything?” he asked.
    “Nothing on the company frequency,” Kovalenko said.
    “Should we move in?” Young asked with no pretext.
    Kovalenko rapped the top of the binoculars with a forefinger, a nervous tick he chastised himself for. He knew the only thing worse than an idiot lieutenant was a lieutenant who couldn’t make a decision. His orders were to stop the enemy from escaping through his little piece of the battlefield, not race face-first into danger. How many Soldiers had been hurt in that explosion? Did they need his help?
    This is lose-lose, he thought. “Here’s what we’ll do—”
    “Contact,” Kilo hissed. Kovalenko froze, then slowly lowered himself to the ground.
    “Three dismounts. Ten o’clock. Warehouse with the black roof,” Kilo said.
     
     
    Abu Ahmet crouched next to Samir as the bomb maker spliced two electric cords together. He adjusted his black ski mask for the hundredth time, trying to breathe through any part that didn’t stink from the previous wearer’s halitosis. He vowed to burn all their masks when they made it home. He and his three men wore the masks to protect themselves from recognition by al-Qaeda’s men and the Americans. Trust wasn’t something Abu Ahmet extended beyond his tribe.
    Samir rolled his mask up over his eyes and mumbled, “Now I know why Mukhtar’s bomb maker died. He had no idea what he was doing.” He stripped the plastic from a wire with his teeth.
    Theeb pulled a hand mirror from his back pocket, careful to keep the reflective side against his body. “Samir, tell me when you’re done so I can send the signal,” he said.
    “Why is this connection outside where we can get shot? Why didn’t you run it into the building where we can work in the shade?”
    “Samir…”
    “Why not run another meter of wire? Or put the connection box closer to this side of the building?”
    “Samir!” Theeb yelled.
    Samir shook an impatient hand at Theeb, then gave the exposed copper strands a final twist. Samir’s eyes followed the wire up the side of the warehouse and across the narrow road behind the warehouse. The wire went straight to Mukhtar’s perch, deep inside the ruined power plant. “It should work now, inshallah. ” God willing.
    A door leading into the warehouse burst open; Khalil came in, holding an AK in each hand. He handed one to Abu Ahmet and kept the other. Theeb held up the mirror, bouncing the sun’s rays toward the distant superstructure.
    “Get ready. We run, and we don’t stop until we get to our truck,” Abu