Lone Survivor_ The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 ( PDFDrive )

to nod off, despite my pounding heart, which I could not slow down.
Around ten minutes more passed. Suddenly I heard Mikey make a familiar
alert sound...Sssst! Sssst! I lifted up my hat and instinctively looked left, over my
portside quarter, to the spot where I knew Axe would be covering our flank. And
he was right there, rigid, in firing position, his rifle aimed straight up the
mountain.
I twisted around to look directly behind me. Mikey was staring wide-eyed up
the hill, calling orders, instructing Danny to call in immediate backup from HQ
if he could make the radio work. He saw I was on the case, looked hard at me,
and pointed straight up the hill, urging me with hand signals to do the same.
I fixed my Mark 12 in firing position, pulled my head back a few inches, and
looked up the hill. Lined along the top were between eighty and a hundred
heavily armed Taliban warriors, each one of them with an AK-47 pointing
downward. Some were carrying rocket-propelled grenades. To the right and to
the left they were starting to move down our flanks. I knew they could see past
me but not at me. They could not have seen Axe or Danny. I was unsure whether
they had seen Mikey.
My heart dropped directly into my stomach. And I cursed those fucking
goatherds to hell, and myself for not executing them when every military
codebook ever written had taught me otherwise. Not to mention my own raging
instincts, which had told me to go with Axe and execute them. And let the
liberals go to hell in a mule cart, and take with them all of their fucking knownothing
rules of etiquette in war and human rights and whatever other bullshit
makes ’em happy. You want to charge us with murder? Well, fucking do it. But
at least we’ll be alive to answer it. This way really sucks.
I pressed back against my tree. I was still sure they had not seen me, but their
intention was to outflank us on both wings. I could see that. I scanned the ground
directly above me. The hilltop still swarmed with armed men. I thought there
were more than before. There was no escape by going straight up, and no
possibility of moving left or right. Essentially they had us trapped, if they had
spotted us. I still was unsure.
And so far not a shot had been fired. I looked up the hill again at one single
tree above and to my left, maybe twenty yards away. And I thought I saw a
movement. Then it was confirmed, first by a turban, then by an AK-47, its barrel
pointed in my general direction though not directly at me.
I tightened my grip on the trusty rifle and moved it slightly in the direction of
the tree. Whoever it was still could not see me because I was in a great spot, well