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Then nothing but the soft rain of sand and debris

Jim came back to consciousness soainst the stone wall, knocking hi by how stiff he was, he could have been out for a while

After a coupleif anything was broken-

Across the way, there was a pile of rags where Matthias had once been

"Jesus Christ" Jiles and retrieved his weapons, then crawled through the sand to his boss

"Matthias oh, fking A"

Thelooked like a root that had been torn up out of the ground, the lied stump that was shredded at the end And there were patches of darkness on his fatigues that had to be blood

Jim checked the pulse at the neck There was one, but it was faint and uneven

Unbuckling and shucking his belt, he cranked the leather around Matthias's upper calf and pulled hard, torniqueting the limb Then he quickly searched for other inj-

Shit When Matthias had been tossed back, he'd fallen onto a wooden spike The da in a blanket

Jim pretzeled up and tried to see whether it could stay in place to get Matthias out of here

It appeared to be freestanding Good

" Dan ny boy"

Jim frowned and looked at his boss "What?"

Matthias's eyes opened like his lids were steel shutters he could barely raise "Leave me"

"You're blown to shit-"

"Leave me-"

"Fuck that" Jim reached for his transistor and prayed that Isaac, not that freak second in command, answered "Come on come on"

"What y'all needin'?" The soft Southern drawl coood news

Thank God for Isaac "Matthias is down Boet practice as we come into camp"

"How bad?"

"Bad"

"Where y'all at? I'll get a Land Rover and pick you up"

"We're forty-six degrees n-"

The gun went off across the way, a bullet slicing through the air right next to Jim's ear-to the point where he assuister As he braced himself on one palm, Matthias let his SIG fall to the side but what do you know, Jim did not fall over thanks to so shot, evidently

His boss's one working eye shone with unholy light "Get yourself out alive"

Before Jim could tell Matthias to shut the fk up, he beca into the hand he'd put out Lifting the thing up, he found part of the bomb's detonator

Turning it over and over, at first he didn't understand what he was looking at

And then he knew all too hat it was

Narrowing his eyes on Matthias, he put the fragment in his front pocket and crawled over to his boss

"You're not playingway"

Matthias started to babble just as squawking curses cah the earpiece

"I' back for camp Make sure we're not shot as we approach"