Mitchell nodded and, as Ramirez returned to his seat, directed his attention to Rutang, still barely recognizable beneath his swollen face. The medic had been through several lifetimes' worth of combat, and Mitchell had been proud of his comeback after his battle with depression and stress. He'd gotten off the propranolol and was managing to be a good father. Mandy had had that second baby, a boy, who Rutang had said definitely resembled the FedEx guy.

As Mitchell sat there, growing numb from the cold and exhaustion, he wondered what would happen to his friend. Could Rutang bounce back yet again?

The Black Hawk set down on a small, deiced pad on the outskirts of Bagram Airbase in Kabul, Afghanistan. Mitchell asked Diaz if she would stick with Rutang, and they, along with Saenz, Vick, and the door gunner, were transferred to HMMWVs and driven off to the army field hospital. Mitchell took Brown and Ramirez with him to be debriefed by Major Susan Grey and the company commander, Lieutenant Colonel Harold "Buzz" Gordon.

They met inside a drafty, dimly lit Quonset hut used to store aircraft parts and loaned out to the Ghosts by the air force. Grey, bundled up and red-nosed, welcomed them with an uncharacteristically warm smile and led them over to a cluster of desks cast in the burnt orange glow of portable heaters positioned on the floor.

Lieutenant Colonel Gordon was leaning back in a chair, a notebook computer balanced on his lap. He squinted in thought and spoke softly into a boom mike with attached earpiece. He was speaking with the man himself, General Joshua Keating, whose gritty voice crackled all the way back from the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) in Tampa, Florida, and was loud enough for even Mitchell to overhear. Gordon was polite to the general, who was gunning to become commander of all of USSOCOM, but near the end of the conversation, his tone turned a little dark as he said, "Your patience is appreciated, sir."

Mitchell liked Gordon, whose white crew cut was trimmed weekly because being squared away was, in his words, the way God intended him to be. Mitchell appreciated Gordon's old-school tactics and belief that people made the difference. Technology only enhanced their skills.

There were some in the Special Forces community who were beginning to argue that putting boots on the ground had become too risky, too damaging, and too wasteful.

Gordon would refer to them by certain body parts and brush off their further assertions like lint from his sleeve. He was fifty-four years old and liked to say, "I was too old for this crap twenty years ago. You can imagine how much I'm enjoying it now."

The colonel said his good-byes, then suddenly bolted from his seat and shook each of their hands, saying, "Gentlemen, excellent work out there. Excellent. Please, have a seat."

"Sir, if you don't mind, I'll stand," said Mitchell as Brown and Ramirez flumped into chairs.