He lay on his back, mouth hanging open. He might have been twenty years old. That thick beard was probably his proudest possession. He reached a hand to his chest. It came away bloody. He looked at Luke, mouthed something, and then died.

Luke picked up the man’s rifle. It was an old AK-47. He checked the magazine. Loaded. That was a bit of a gift. The kid should have fired instead of charging like that. Luke shook his head. His loss.

Anyway, Luke was back in business.

“Elizabeth, I need to move you. I’m going to hide you somewhere.”

She shook her head. “No. I’m not going anywhere. I should stay here with you.”

“There’s going to be shooting here any minute, and if that happens, you’re going to get shot. Not once, but a lot of times. I need to move you somewhere safe, so I can fight to protect you. It will be easier for me to do that, and much safer for you, if you are nowhere near me.”

She stared at him with big eyes. “Where will I go?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. We’ll find a place.”

Somewhere to his left, Ed launched another round from the M-79.

Doonk!

Luke checked his watch. 7:35 p.m.

It had been a long day. It was going to be a long night.

BOOOM!

Ed’s grenade hit somewhere behind Luke.

A man started shrieking. He sounded almost like a siren.

There was a fire off to Luke’s left, where the chopper must have crashed. He didn’t want to think about that right now.

He held a hand out to Elizabeth. She took it and he pulled her to her feet.

Luke had an idea. He walked Elizabeth to the cliffs. They were only another fifty yards further on. Sometimes cliffs were totally sheer, sometimes they weren’t. He looked over the edge. It was a long way down.

But just below, maybe four feet down and to the left, there was a narrow ledge several feet long. A stunted tree stuck out from the wall there. Its root system was exposed, thick and gnarled.

“Elizabeth, I’m going to need you to be brave. You’ve been very brave so far, but you’re going to have to be even more brave, as brave as you’ve ever been. Can you do that for me?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “What do I need to do?”

“You need to slide down to that ledge, get a good strong grip on that tree trunk, and wait. I will help you get down there.”

Elizabeth gazed down at the ledge. Luke could see what she was looking at. Just behind the ledge, the cliffs fell away from a dizzying height. It was dark now, but the truth was clear enough. The fall from here would be endless.

“Oh my God,” Elizabeth said.

* * *