Page 76 of Over the Edge

“You’re good. Me?”

“Good to go.”

He nodded. “I’ll take point. And don’t even think about disobeying any instruction I give you out here. I’ll kill you myself if you pull any shit that’ll endanger the mission.” He might have acknowledged her as a SEAL and even admitted he was glad she was here, but that didn’t mean he was over her taking matters into her own hands and sneaking out here.

“You don’t have to be pissy about it,” she muttered. Louder, she said, “Yes sir, Ensign Westbrook, sir.”

He didnotneed any attitude from her.

Irritated as all fuck, he turned and headed toward the top of the ridge and the southern mouth of the long Swat Valley beyond. It didn’t take long in the dry air and high altitude for the hike itself to overtake his annoyance and force him to concentrate on the next step, on paying attention to their silhouettes, and keeping his eyes and ears peeled for any movement around them.

As full night fell, they shifted to NOD’s—night optical devices—that lit up the terrain around them in shades of green. Odd, but even in the NOD’s, nothing out here was moving. No rabbits, no mice, nothing. Usually, there was at least a little wildlife roaming around to keep things interesting. But this place wasdead.

He dropped to his belly to crawl over a ridge. Twisting around to sit on his behind, he slid down the steep slope feet first, digging in his heels to slow his descent.

He heard Anna slipping and sliding on her bum off to his right.

As he looked between his boots at what was coming, he noticed that this scree field ended on its right side in a sheer drop off. It was hard as hell to gauge distance in NOD’s, but he estimated the drop at a good thirty feet. Dammit. That hadn’t been depicted on the map!

Anna needed to correct to the left, and fast, or she was going to slide off the cliff.

Frantically, he rolled to his stomach and, still sliding feet first, pushed over into her path of slide. He dug in his toes with all his strength and snagged her left arm as she shot by him, jerking her into a semi-circle that brought her to a skidding halt just below his boots.

He looked down, and both her feet were hanging off the cliff in mid-air.

“Don’t move fast,” he grunted, holding her body weight and that of all her gear with only his left arm.

Slowly, she bent the arm he had a hold of, doing a partial pull using him as the bar. She managed to grab hold of the sleeve of his shirt in her fist. A little of the pressure eased off his arm as she pulled on his camo shirt. Please God, let the seams hold until they got off this damned mountain.

Slowly, slowly, she rolled over until she lay on her belly. Her feet still hung over the edge of the precipice.

“Can you slide to your right?” he asked.

“I’ll try,” she grunted. He waited, his arm fatiguing more with each passing second as she slowly bent her right knee at a ninety-degree angle and got her boot back on the lip of the rocky outcropping.

Inch by cautious inch, she pushed on her right foot, lifting her body away from the yawning abyss. With each movement, the weight hanging from his arm eased a little. She raised her left foot by slow degrees until she looked like a frog splayed on the slope below him. Gradually, she eased away from the precipice and slid to her right until she lay beside him.

“I’m stable,” she panted. “You can let go.”

He didn’t want to let go of her. Terror that she would pitch over that cliff still paralyzed his fingers.

She asked in quick concern, “Do you need help to move to the left?”

“I’ve got it.”

Nonetheless, it was her turn to grip his elbow and support part of his body weight as he slowly inched back onto the part of the slope that continued harmlessly downhill. She followed suit.

A fall of thirty feet, if she’d landed on her feet, probably wouldn’t have killed her, but it certainly could have hurt her. And an injury was one thing neither of them could afford in the middle of nowhere without any support.

They made it to the bottom of the slope and lay on their sides, breathing hard.

“Well. That was fun,” she panted.

“Speak for yourself.”

“Thanks for catching me. I didn’t see that drop off until I was almost on it. Too late to stop myself.”

“No problem.” It had been a huge problem, but they’d handled it. Thank God she had the upper body strength she did and had been able to hang on to him long enough to get to safety. His arm had been about to give out up there. Hers must have been killing her.

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