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the ignition was on – a good sign – but the motor had stalled. I hoped there was no disabling damage. If this thing wouldn’t start, we were screwed. Leaning in below the steering column, I twisted the ignition key off, and then twisted it on. Nothing. It was dead. Shit. Then I noticed the transmission was in drive. I banged it into park, pressed on the brake with my free hand, gave the key another twist and the motor hummed to life.
    I backed out of the vehicle, sprinted to the others, and tapped Detmond on the shoulder.
    ‘Three minutes!’ I yelled, ‘Then you go!’
    I motioned at Fallon to follow me and we ran at a crouch into the smoking dustbowl behind us. Meyers was in here somewhere, lying in the rubble. We found the old woman, her arm protruding from beneath a ton of broken masonry, then encountered a pile of bloody rags that looked like al-Eqbal’s – but no cousin, no girl, and no Meyers.
    Fallon smelled burning American tobacco through the dust haze and followed the scent. The trail led us to Meyers, propped up against a wall beside a bicycle. The guy was pulling hard on a Marlboro, his boots turned at impossible angles on the ends of his shattered legs. The blast had happened minutes ago; he still had some time before his nerve endings started screaming. I hunkered down beside him and hunted through my medical pack for a shot of morphine to see him through.
    ‘I took a second quick scan out the back and al-Eqbal locked me out,’ he said drowsily. ‘What happened?’
    I pictured the girl pregnant with C4 explosives running into the building next door. ‘No birth control in this place,’ I said. She’d probably run into al-Eqbal’s cousin’s building through an adjoining door that Meyers had missed.
    He nodded, finding the crack about birth control perfectly reasonable, which told me he was also in shock. I found the morphine, administered it to his upper thigh, and then checked his limbs. Both femurs had compound fractures, and the wounds were messy. He would need a good surgeon to save them. I used his blood to paint an ‘M’ on his forehead. Fallon took the defensive position and swept the area while I did what I could to control the bleeding. Carrying him between us with those legs in such bad shape was not an option, and one of us would need to provide covering fire if required.
    I handed his weapon to Fallon. Meyers was no lightweight; this was not going to be easy. I took one of his arms and pulled his torso over my shoulder.
    ‘Help me up,’ I grunted at Fallon.
    I could hear the gun battle behind me in the street intensifying.
    I managed to stand with Fallon’s assistance, squatting Meyers’ two-hundred-plus pounds in a fireman’s carry. I remembered doing this very exercise at Fort Benning, running a mile with some guy across my back who was pretending to be a wounded pilot. But that was a long time ago, when I was younger, flitter and stronger, and before several bullets fired at my ass over the years had torn me a new one.
    ‘Jesus,’ I groaned, ‘what the fuck do you weigh?’
    Meyers was singing a Miller Lite commercial.
    ‘Gone to his happy place,’ suggested Fallon.
    ‘Bastard could’a taken us with him,’ I gasped, sucking oxygen and dust.
    I staggered forward then centered the weight. Meyers grunted. The dust was settling. We had to get back to the Landcruiser before we were fully exposed to the Taliban’s fire. I managed to get through the rubble and come up behind the vehicle without tripping or breaking an ankle, and without being fired upon. I laid Meyers on the ground beside Stefanovic, who was up on one knee in the firing position. His condition was deteriorating fast as his blood leaked away, the bandage saturated. His eyelids were heavy, every blink a microsleep; he was having trouble keeping his weapon aimed anywhere but at the ground. Enemy fire was coming in hot and heavy. We couldn’t hold our position much longer. One Landcruiser, eight passengers,