Disclaimer: I do not own Numb3rs. I wish I did. But I don't. Thanks to those who do.
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Smitty looked offended at Don's comment. "I'm no where near as crazy as this guy is. And I'll prove it right now."
Colby made a final attempt to stop his friend's rendition of a story he'd tried to forget. "Smitty, I was just, you know, hyped up on adrenaline and not thinking straight. I didn't…They don't want to hear all this."
David studied his partner, trying to see the sign that said Colby was not up to hearing any more. "You OK man? We can talk about something else if you really don't want to…"
Smitty cut David off. Refilling Colby's glass, he pushed it toward his old friend and looked stern. "Not talking about it doesn't help. Gotta tell someone."
"Didn't you once say something like that to me?" asked Charlie.
"Huh." Colby grunted, taking a swallow from his cup. "Guess I did."
"'Cause it's good advice." Decreed Smitty. "Now where was I? Oh, yeah. Here's where Hero plays the part of 'Craziest Guy on Planet Earth.'"
Specialist Granger took a quick look around the hollow, assessing the situation. Catching the female Captain by her sleeve, he said "Smith—you're a doctor?"
She nodded the affirmative, looking worriedly at the badly wounded soldier at Colby's feet. "I'm a PA, but I can't do much for him here. And even if I could do something useful without a hospital, my med bag is still back in the helicopter."
"OK. We'll have to get that too." He listened for a moment to the gunfire still coming in from down the mountain and to its staccato response from Rodriguez, Jeeter and Osterman. "And some ammo."
"Theoretically, now," Smitty informed his listeners, "Hero here was low man on our particular totem pole. Three of us outranked him, and the doctor was an officer, and besides, we were F__ing Rangers. But Hero here ignores all that. He reaches over to Sgt Osterman and just tells him he and Jeeter are going back to the 'copter. And Osterman's so surprised that he just lets him do it!"
"Wait," said Charlie. "You went back to the helicopter? That is crazy."
"Told you," replied Smitty smugly. " This guy is MUCH crazier than me."
Granger waved his hands, denying the charge. "OK, like I said, I really wasn't thinking straight. I had a lot of adrenaline racing through my bloodstream. And remember, it wasn't just that we needed to get the ammo and stuff. That Captain with the head injury was still down there in the 'copter and, as far as we knew, still alive. Not like we could have left him to the Talibs."
'and that,' thought Don 'is why he's on our team.' He said nothing.
Without the weight of a wounded soldier on his shoulders, the second trip Specialist Granger made between the hollow and the helicopter was faster than the first. He and Jeeter waited for a pause in the gunfire coming from down the hill before jumping the boulders and sprinting flat out for the 'copter. Specialist Roderiguez fired her big gun off to their left, carefully avoiding Granger and Jeeter but encouraging their adversaries to keep down. The soldiers raced down the mountain to the defunct 'copter-- "Looked like Swiss cheese by that point," supplied Colby--and ducked inside. The wounded Captain, whose name turned out to be Lerg, was awake and standing upright in the crumpled 'copter. He looked curiously at his visitors' hasty entry.
"Was goin' on?" he asked groggily.
Jeeter looked at the man; his commander. "Um sir—you need to sit down, OK?" He helped the man to the floor and looked to Granger. "You think he can run with us back up to the rocks?"
Granger considered the wounded Captain. "He's going to have to. We'll have our hands full. I don't think we should give him a weapon, though." Jeeter nodded doubtfully and Granger continued, "Grab all the ammo you can find. And the med kit." He reached down to pick up a rifle on the floor—maybe Smitty's, maybe not—and winced as he tried to grip the weapon. Holding out his arms, he told the other man "might as well load me up. I can't shoot like this, but I can still carry stuff." Jeter piled Granger's arms full and then filled his own. In addition to ammo and the medical kit, they took as many MRE's as they could. Both were pretty sure they'd need the food. As they were preparing to return to the hollow, a sudden, deafening silence fell. The .50 Cal had run out of ammunition.
Jeeter looked at Granger. "That's not good. What now Hero?"
"Now we run." He pushed Cpt. Lerg out of the helicopter and before him as he fit actions to words.
That third trip across no-man's-land was when the world finally slowed down in Colby's mind. To this day, he could remember, clearly, every footfall; every 'ping' of a bullet off the rocks at their feet. He herded Cpt Lerg, encouraging the wounded man to run, but Lerg managed little more than a lurching trot. It was the very first time in Granger's life when he thought he might actually die. He finally leapt the rocks into the hollow, dropped his arm load of equipment and pulled Lerg in after himself.
Again, Colby's reverie was broken; this time by Smitty's laughter. "You guys would never believe the look on this guy's face when he came over those rocks into our little haven. Like all the hounds of Hell were two inches behind him. Ammo 'n stuff flying out of his arms, falling in the hollow, all over the rocks…I swear he cleared the boulder by about three feet in one jump." The ex-soldier was laughing so hard he had to pause to catch his breath. After a moment he continued, "and then he walks over, hands me a rifle and says 'here.' Just 'here.' Like, 'oh, by the way, I found your rifle for you.'"
By this time, Colby was just lubricated enough to laugh along. A guffaw escaped his mouth as he imagined for the first time what he must have looked like at that moment.
Nikki shook her head in bewilderment. "I can't see how that could possibly be funny to you. Either of you."
Colby considered that statement as rationally as his inebriated state would allow. He finally decided that there was no way he'd ever be able to explain this joke to any civilian—even these men and women who'd seen everything an FBI agent sees in a city like LA. "I bet Edgerton'd laugh," he finally grumbled grumpily.
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Military to Civilian Glossary:
MRE: Meal, Ready to Eat—a filling, though not altogether tasty, meal in a bag. It includes an entrée, a few side dishes, a packet of stuff like toilet paper and condiments, and about 2,000 calories. There's even this little disk that heats up when it gets wet, thereby allowing you to have a warm entrée.
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