The LZ was a dried-up riverbed outside the village of Ganjgal. Intel said it was a staging point for a major Taliban offensive. Hatch’s team, ‘Outlaw 2-1,’ was the anvil. The hammer was a company of Afghan Commandos moving in from the south. The plan was simple: drive the insurgents into the kill zone.

The world dissolved.

The click of metal on rails was louder than the gunfire for a single, surreal second.

Hatch walked back to his SAW. He picked it up, the barrel still shimmering with heat.

“Go! Go! Go!”

“Miller! RPG!” someone shouted.

Delgado’s radio crackled. “Outlaw 2-1, we see your tracers. But we have a company-strength element between us. We cannot reach you. CAS is ten minutes out.”