Dropping his rifle, Coleman sprinted for the pool of water. The second head popped above the surface again, but the man slipped below much sooner than the first time. The swimmer, Rapp, redoubled his efforts, but it wasn’t going to be enough.
The drowning man was fading.
“Chaos Main, this is Ghost 7,” Coleman said after triggering the transmit button. “Fire for effect on target reference point Alpha 7. I say again, fire for effect on Alpha 7, over.”
“Ghost 7, this is—”
Coleman dove into the pool while Captain Jancosko was still midsentence. Call-for-fire protocol dictated that the fire support officer receive a final confirmation before he sent artillery rounds streaking toward their target, but Coleman was hoping the Marine was intuitive enough to know when to break the rules.
If not, this might be Coleman’s final swim.
While the jihadis guarding the exit to the cave complex might not have seen three bodies tumble from the aqueduct, there was no way they could miss Coleman’s mad sprint from the underbrush. Either Jancosko obscured Coleman’s rescue with some well-placed Willie Pete, or the tranquil pool was about to become a shooting gallery.
Either way, this was no longer Coleman’s concern.
The entirety of his being was now focused on the patch of water he’d mentally marked as his target. The patch where he’d seen the struggling man slide beneath the surface.
Coleman was no stranger to rescuing unresponsive swimmers.
During BUD/S, or Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training, Coleman had been a victim of a shallow-water blackout. One minute he’d been wrestling with his dive gear, trying to unknot the rat’s nest the instructor had made of his regulator hose, and the next he’d found himself on the concrete pool deck as a medic berated him for forgetting to breathe. Just because a struggling swimmer was underwater did not mean he was unsavable.
But that equation changed rapidly the longer his brain went without oxygen.
Filling his air with lungs, Coleman dove beneath the water to the sound of AK-47s firing. As the water closed in around him, Coleman came face-to-face with the enormity of his task. SEALs were trained to conduct underwater grid searches, but without air to breathe, a light source, or even a dive mask, Coleman was at a huge disadvantage. He wasn’t exactly swimming in the crystal waters of the Bahamas, and the faint moonlight wasn’t penetrating the river’s murky depths.
Coleman swam deeper, scissoring his legs while spreading his arms wide in the hopes of enlarging his search. For the first time, Coleman was forced to consider that he might not find the Ranger. That after all the effort Rapp and the entire CIA/JSOC team had expended on this rescue, they could still come out short. The anger that accompanied the disheartening thought gave renewed effort to Coleman’s strokes. He kicked like a sprinter, determined to cover as much ground as possible before his dwindling air supply forced him to the surface. His outstretched fingers bumped the rocky bottom and Coleman adjusted his dive angle, skimming along the riverbed in an attempt to locate a prone form.
Nothing.
With his chest on fire, Coleman stroked upward. Ignoring the urge to rocket toward the surface to fill his quivering lungs with oxygen, Coleman slowed his ascent to minimize the ripples when he surfaced.
He needn’t have bothered.
One moment, Coleman was stroking through darkness.
The next, it was as if the Almighty had said, Let there be light.
The ridgeline overlooking the pool erupted in flame as a sheath of white phosphorus shells detonated. Sheets of fire spilled down the rock, accompanied by dense, choking white smoke. If the jihadis had still been firing their rifles at Coleman, they weren’t any longer. But safety from the gunmen was only half of the reason why Coleman found himself smiling.
The other half was flailing his arms just a body length away.
“Easy, now,” Coleman said, reaching for the floundering man. “I’ve got you.”
Coleman slid his arm around the man’s neck in a modified rescue hold and was pleasantly surprised to feel the swimmer relax rather than fight his efforts.
“Who are you?” the man sputtered.
“The guy that’s gonna get you out of here,” Coleman said.
“That’s what the first guy said right after he pissed on me.”
Definitely Rapp.
“I told you that wasn’t personal.”
Coleman suppressed a chuckle as Rapp swam over, seemingly no worse for the wear. “Glad to see you,” Coleman said. “The natives were getting restless.”
“You don’t say,” Rapp said. “Need a hand?”
“Nah, I’ve got him. Head to shore and link up with Charlie. Tell him to call Will forward so we can get the hell out of here.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Rapp said.
Rapp scythed through the water with an efficiency of motion that made Coleman jealous. Even years after giving up competitive racing, Rapp could still move out. Coleman gave his friend a several-second head start and then began sidestroking for shore with the Ranger in tow.
“Just tell me one thing,” Saxton said. “Are you a SEAL?”
“Yep,” Coleman said.
“Then let me drown.”
In spite of everything, Coleman found himself chuckling.
“Don’t sweat it, kid,” Coleman said. “Even Rangers need heroes.”
CHAPTER 45
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN
