October 14th, 1700 hours, 50 miles south southwest of Serai Naurang, Pakistan.

Corporal Darren McGuire had never been so frightened in his life. He thought he'd been as scared as he could get when the helicopter had started vibrating and smoking four days ago. At least he thought it'd been four days. Somewhere in the constant movement from village to village he'd lost track of time. As the aircraft auto-rotated and filled with smoke he'd quietly prayed a litany of half remembered childhood prayers holding on for dear life. But in the crash he'd also been busy, and he admitted to himself, he hadn't been alone. Now he was alone.

Well not alone exactly, and that was probably the most frightening part. He was in a car with four other guys going he knew not where. It was getting dark. No one had spoken to him in three hours, since he'd been grabbed out of the house he shared with the other hostages and been shoved into the back seat of this big old Mercedes.

Hours of driving down unpaved, rutted roads and they never seemed to get to anywhere. No towns, no villages, nothing. Driving endlessly in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Nowhere seemed to describe this whole terrifying country, whatever country he was now in. He had no idea if they were still in Pakistan or if somewhere in their movements they'd traveled into Afghanistan. He was alone, and afraid no one would ever hear of him again. He'd just disappear into the vastness of this awful country and this awful war.

"Hey guys, where are we?" He tried again to get an answer to any question. Establish a relationship with your captors. Great advice if your captors wanted to establish a relationship, pretty hopeless if you didn't speak the language and no one ever spoke to you. No answer. Not that he really expected one by this time.

The two men sitting on either side of him were conferring quietly in some incredibly complicated language of which he didn't recognize a single word. All these guys looked the same to him with their unshaven faces and turbans, their dark eyes and dark clothes. Well except for the guy on his right-he had the strangest colored eyes Darren thought he'd ever seen. He glanced to his right, same unshaven face he saw all around him, but yeah, definitely weird green-amber colored eyes. This guy he would recognize again. The rest of them were just turbans and long shirts and vests to him. Almost dark now, surely they couldn't drive down this hopeless excuse of a road in the dark.

More bone rattling driving and suddenly the early evening darkness was brightened by fire. The car in front of them exploded as an IED blew up underneath it throwing the car up into the air. The man sitting beside him, the one with the weird colored eyes, leaned into the front seat and spoke to the driver who was screaming in panic as he fought with the steering wheel and brakes in an effort to avoid the fire. Apparently getting no response Darren's seat companion suddenly hit the driver hard on the head with the stock of his AK-47. When the other front seat passenger started screaming at the attacker the suddenly berserk back seat passenger grabbed Darren's arm and threw the back door open. The next thing Darren knew he and his seatmate were flying out the back door of the skidding car. Just in time it turned out, as their car came under fire from unseen attackers as the two hit the ground in a mind, numbing thump. Darren had no time to assess his injuries as his crazed companion, still holding on to his arm, began dragging him away from the now stopped car and into the surrounding darkness.

Not knowing what was happening and completely disoriented, Darren made no effort to elude his kidnapper. He allowed himself to be dragged into the darkening night and away from the gunfire. God this just kept getting worse and worse.

"Stay here. Keep down," his kidnapper said in English. Not just English but American. American English. Not a kidnapper? A rescuer? In a moment his companion/kidnapper/rescuer was gone firing his weapon toward the other vehicles as he moved away in the darkness. Darren ducked his head; as yet another explosion lit the scene before him in a surrealistic flash of light. There had been four vehicles he could see now, two of them were on fire. Just as suddenly as he had gone his companion was back.

"Okay, Corporal, stay low and follow me," the voice was calm and low, the touch on his shoulder unbelievably reassuring. Darren dared to believe his nightmare was coming to a close as the two men moved back into the darkness and slipped behind some boulders. Corporal. This man knew who he was. Surely that was good. Surely only someone familiar with his rank would call him Corporal. Surely this was a rescue?

The two men remained hidden for perhaps three minutes until the last of the gunfire fell silent. "Salaam aalaikum." Darren's companion called out softly into the night.

He was answered with a soft "Waalaikum salaam. Subah?"

Darren's companion replied, "Maghreb." He kept his hand on Darren's shoulder to prevent the other man from moving, as he slowly stood up and called out something else Darren couldn't understand. A few moments later he allowed Darren to rise as two men dressed in black and wearing night vision goggles joined them.

"Darren McGuire I assume," one of the black clad men said to Darren, who nodded vigorously a wide grin on his face.

"Thank you, God, Thank you," Darren said suddenly finding his mouth so dry he could hardly speak.

"Mr. West?" Darren's companion asked the two black clad men.

"That would be me," the shorter of the two men said extending his hand to Darren's rescuer, "nice job back there."

"Thanks. Everyone ok?"

"Yeah. We're all good. Got the other Marine guard and the crew chief back in Sengeray just as you told us. Now we just need to get out of here. Ride is about half a mile north," West said moving away toward the north even as the words were spoken.

Ten minutes later Darren found him self in yet another non-descript sedan, in another convoy of vehicles, driving down the same potted, rutted road but how much finer it all seemed. Almost euphoric in his relief, he listened as his rescuers quietly conversed, one sitting on either side of him in the backseat. "We sent two men to meet with your contact in the hills and got the co-pilot just an hour ago. Your Intel was dead on. He was sold to some Umarzai tribesmen and they were happy to sell him to us."

"Nice job. I need you to let me off outside Jandolar," Darren's rescuer said to West, pulling off his turban and running his hands through his curly, dark hair.

"I was told you were coming out with us?" West said, his tone indicating his uncertainty about his authority.

"No. I'm headed west. Our friend here was a payoff to the Taliban for services rendered. The rest of the hostages are still with Gul Zaman Salarzai."

"Yeah, but aren't they going to know that something isn't kosher as soon as they hear about tonight's little action".

"I'm still good here. Except for the men in this convoy no one knows I was here. I assume they're all accounted for?"

"Yeah, we captured two of them. They'll go back with us."

"Good. I can be in Wana tomorrow and in contact with Gul Zaman by tomorrow night. When you get debriefed tell your boss I'm going to need an extraction team in place north of Wana by the 17th. Tell him to have them meet me after 2300 hours 3 miles east of Dar es Waliba. I'll have my GPS transmitter and I'll stay put and let them come to me. I'm going to need ten new GPS transmitters, the real small ones that look like prayer beads. And obviously don't release this rescue to the media. Tell ONI that the Salarzai tribe has the rest of the hostages but are negotiating to either trade or sell some of them to Al-Qaeda so we need to move on this."

"All right, sir," a touch of uncertainty still evident in the other man's voice. "Can we tell the press about the co-pilot?"

Darren's rescuer ran his hand through his short-cropped hair again and then replaced his turban and said, "Sure… I think that's everything, except you guys got any local currency you can spare? I'm about tapped out." He gave a small chuckle. "Spent all my bus money getting here."

West repeated all of the information back to make sure he had everything correct. Then a quick exchange of currency and the car fell quiet.

"I'm going to get a little sleep before we get there. Been a long few days."

A few minutes later Daren felt his seatmate move further away from him as he slumped into the corner of the car with his head resting against the window. "Wake me when we get about five miles outside of town."

"Sure."

Darren said, "Thanks," to the slumbering figure on his right.

"No problem, Darren, we're glad to have you back," just for a second Darren saw a flash of white teeth in the darkness and then the other man turned away and was quiet. Darren thought he would never make another crack about Navy Seals being a bunch of muscle bound hot heads and he allowed his eyes to close in the darkness. 'Go Navy'. 'No Man Left Behind' was his last thought before he too fell asleep in the lurching, bouncing car.

Darren never felt the car slow to a stop when his rescuer disappeared into the darkness. Three hours later Darren was over the border into Afghanistan and aboard a helicopter and headed back to Bagram Airbase.