Disclaimers: I do not own, nor do I claim to have created, the Numb3rs characters, themes and locations. I am very grateful for their creation—they give me something to play with on long trips.

To all who sent them, thanks for the well wishes. Or as they say in the Army: Hooah!

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His mind returning from its reverie, Colby found himself almost suddenly back in his living room in LA. He glanced around at his co-workers and then down at the beer bottle he still held in his hands. At some point during the narrative, he'd finished drinking the beer and peeled the label into soggy, crumpled strips. He stood, startling his friends. "I need something stronger than beer." He mumbled by way of explanation, then stalked off toward the kitchen.

"Me too," shouted David toward his partner's retreating back. He looked over to the visiting soldier. "Your name's Smith? Why Smitty?"

He shrugged. "It's a big Army. Every unit has a pile of 'Smiths' and a bunch of 'Johnsons.' Somewhere along the line, some of the Smiths become Smittys. Yall don't want to know what the extra Johnsons get called." The group laughed. "We actually had a Smith called 'Smith' in the 'copter with us. She was a doctor or something. She was headed up to the village with us Rangers to do some 'hearts-and-minds' type stuff. You know, heal the kids and the old people, get 'em to love us. Convince 'em to stop shooting at us." He thought for a moment. "That woman had cajones, you know? A doc, no real shoot-em-up Army experience, out there with us...real stones."

Colby returned from the kitchen with a half-full bottle of Johnny Walker and a pile of mismatched glasses. He poured himself a drink before nodding in agreement with Smitty's last comment. "Smith was a PA--Physician's Assistant. She was tough. She'd never fired anything but an M9 before then, I think, but she learned fast when she needed to. And she hung in with you Ranger types like she'd been a snake-eater all her life."

"Are you telling this story or are you getting drunk?" Sniped Smitty, pouring himself a generous dollop of the whiskey.

"Both."

"Well, shut up. You had three years to tell these guys all about our little adventure, and you didn't. So you missed your turn." Smitty reached into his jeans pocket, pulled out a metal disk about the size and shape of a half-dollar coin and waved it at Colby with a smirk. He held out his glass. Colby klinked it with his own. "Kampai." Each took a swallow of the amber liquid. The coin went back in Smitty's pocket.

After a pause to dramatically savor the whiskey, Smitty picked up the story again. "So there we are, on the side of a mountain in God knows where, with no communications, no transportation, and some warlord's f___ing militia trying to turn us into US Army hamburgers. And Specialist F___ing Granger, who's some REMF nobody even knows, is giving orders to a squad of Rangers..."

"You all listened! It's not like you had to..." Colby sounded indignant.

"Hell yeah, we all listened, Hero! You were making sense! Nobody else was giving orders, and there you were like some G__D___ general, barking out orders, and they made sense! So Hell yeah we followed them! Good thing we did, too!"

Colby blushed. He stared into his whiskey, but what he saw was not the alcohol. What he saw was blood. Smitty's blood, he guessed.

Granger finished tying off what was left of the Wounded Ranger's legs with the belts from his own and another soldier's uniforms. The other man wouldn't mind. He'd died in the crash and would never know how his belt was used. Granger couldn't even read the dead soldier's nametape. It was too covered in blood. He heard a sarcastic-sounding yell from outside the 'copter.

"You comin', Hero?" It was one of the Rangers he'd sent outside to cover them--the one whose name he'd never gotten. The man with no legs groaned. Granger looked down at him. The man looked back, groggily coming awake.

"Yeah," Granger hollered back, heaving Smitty over his shoulder and heading for the door. When he got there, Private Jeeter and the other man, Sergeant Osterman according to his uniform, and a tall female Captain with patches indicating she worked in the medical field were gathered in a group. The three lay down protective covering fire while ali five soldiers ran uphill. Granger, unable to shoot, carried a semi-conscious Smitty. About 100 meters up the mountain from the crash site, Rodriguez had found a small hollow in the hillside protected by a natural wall of boulders. She fired crazily down the hill with the .50 cal she'd taken from the helicopter, covering the last of the group's retreat. Without the bolts that normally attached the gun to the helicopter's rear door, her aim was none-too-steady. Rodriguez had rested it in a crevasse between two of the boulders, and fired it somewhat haphazardly over the group's heads. Wild shooting or not, though, few people are dumb enough to come out of cover when a .50 Cal is firing toward them. The men on the mountain below kept their heads down. The Rangers, the doc, and Granger made it to the hollow without getting shot for their trouble.

Specialist Granger wormed his way between two boulders and into the protective circle. He gently lowered the soldier he'd been carrying onto the ground, leaning the man against the base of one of the big rocks. The man groaned, then grabbed Granger's arm with a surprisingly firm grasp.

If he'd been surprised, though, to find Smitty conscious, he was shocked by the man's first words. "Where's my D___ed rifle?"

He was almost as surprised by his own reply. "I'll get it."

Smitty and Colby were dragged back to LA by Don's snort. "Yeah, he sounds like you, Colby. Never mind that you nearly get killed--'Where's my gun?'"

The group in the living room laughed, and Colby joined them, though with a pained expression on his face.

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Military to Civilian Glossary

PA –Physicians' Assistant. Trained to a higher level than a nurse, but not a doctor. Can perform many of the same functions as a doctor.

Coins and the coining tradition will be explained in a later chapter.

REMF: Rear Echelon Mother F___er. I told you soldiers curse a lot. This, along with 'chairborne Ranger,' is the common term for soldiers who never go "outside the wire."

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