Mikey was still firing, but suddenly I heard him scream my name, the most bone-chilling primeval
scream: “Help me, Marcus! Please help me!” He was my best friend in all the world, but he was thirty
yards up the mountain, and I could not climb to him. I could hardly walk, and if I’d moved two yards
out of my protected position, they would have hit me with a hundred bullets.
Nonetheless, I edged out around the rocks to try to give him covering fire, to force these bastards
back, give him a breather until I could find a way to get up there without getting mowed down.
And all the time, he was screaming, calling out my name, begging me to help him live. And there was
nothing I could do except die with him. Even then, with only a couple of magazines left, I still believed
I could nail these fuckers in the turbans and somehow save him and Axe. I just wanted Mikey to stop
screaming, for his agony to end.