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He ripped his helmet off, then bent over to see what had him

The tree lih just above his pelvis, where his upper body arently unstrapped his body arh him, and he had to pause He tossed the armor aside and pulled his undershirt back

The limb was just a few inches frootten his liver

He gritted his teeth and methodically drew the wooden shard out, as if he were aan arrow from his side

He inspected the wound He was bleeding, but he would be all right Right now he had bigger problems to deal with

Even in the night sky, he could see three colu above the trees, the re

Ceuta had no air support—it had all been deployed to southern Spain, but whoever had taken the base obviously had plenty of ground troops Would they send them?

He got to his feet

Screarabbed his hele

The helicopter had set fire to the forest and it burned violently, a wall of flarew louder, but Dorian couldn’t make out the words

He donned the body armor, then the hel for a way through On the other side, the fire wasn’t as thick, but he still had no clear line of sight to the helicopter He thought he could h

He drew his sidearazines He also placed his satellite phone on the ground He tucked his hands in the are of the blaze The boots, suit, and helmet were fire-resistant, but there were limits to how much heat they could take, and then there were the parts of his body that the armor didn’t cover

He drew a deep breath and raced into the fire His feet pounded the ground The burn was overwhelh the fire, into a s Dorian saw it now: three of the helicopters had gone down close to each other and their fires had joined, creating the ring Each of the helicopters was in full blaze Dorian wouldn’t get anything from them, and the screams hadn’t come from anyone inside

Another wave of screams erupted Dorian spun and found their source The pilot’s black Iainst the dark earth and pitch-black night, even through the light of the fires

Dorian ran to hile and there was a deep cut up the side The h, and that had saved his life, but Dorian wasn’t sure that was good news Thehelicopter, but he couldn’t run, or so much as stand

“Help!” he screamed

“Shut up,” Dorian said mechanically from behind his dark helmet What to do? The man had lost too much blood already, and there were no medical supplies Dorian automatically reached for his sidearm, then remembered he had left it beyond the fire Put him out of histhe area He’ll get you killed But Dorian couldn’t do it, couldn’t bring himself to leave the man, to leave one of his own soldiers to the fire He bent and took the man’s arm

“Thank you, sir,” the pilot said, panting

Dorian paused for a moment, then stood from the man, walked over to his helh the fire”

Dorian braced himself for the pain as he hoisted thehi apart