MacGyver ran. He didn't know if he was even running in the right direction; he just knew that he had to run. He was trying desperately to get to the Caspian Sea before the captain left without him, and he only had forty-five minutes to do that. But the night was overcast, and he was unfamiliar with any part of the Caspian Hyrcanian forest in Iran.

He could hear them behind him. Men shouting, a gun occasionally going off, dancing lights in the distance as helicopters flew overhead. His body was exhausted. Shrubbery had cut through his skin and clothes. Sweat dripped off every part of him and stung his eyes and wounds. His lungs burned for more oxygen, but he didn't stop running. If the Taliban soldiers caught him, he'd either be shot on sight, hung as a warning to others, or disappear somewhere that even his brilliant mind couldn't get him out.

He tripped on a log and went face-first into a tree, which laid him out on the ground. He scrambled to his feet, sporting a bloody nose, a split lip, and seeing stars. He paused for a moment to catch his breath, waiting for the stars from the hit to stop exploding. A gunshot rang somewhere to his left and up the hill, and motivated him to start running again.

Another tree came out of the darkness as if it was in cahoots with the Taliban soldiers pursuing him. MacGyver face ran into it before the rest of his body. Pain exploded across his body from the sudden stop of inertia. But this time, he wasn't unlucky when he landed on a steep slope. The slope sent him careening down a hill beyond in a gangly roll. MacGyver instinctively tried to grab anything to stop his roll down. But the pain of hitting logs, rocks, unbending bushes, and saplings kept him alternating between muffling his cries of pain and trying to stop his trip of darkness down the hill. His hands snagged onto a low-hanging tree branch as his body shot into the air off a cliff.

For several seconds he wasn't sure he would survive as the tree bent heavily in his direction. The branch crackled loudly under his weight before becoming quiet again. In the darkness, he had no idea if there was anything else he could grab onto or how far off the ground he was.

Hearing running feet approaching, MacGyver became still and silent. He saw the light of a flashlight bouncing in the darkness, coming in his direction. MacGyver kept still despite the pain or the fear of the unknown height below him. The same could not be said about the tree. It began groaning and cracking, and now he could hear the distinct sound of roots slowly being pulled from dirt. There were words for this situation; if Jack were with him, he'd be using all of them.

The flashlight appeared at the cliff's edge a couple of feet to MacGyver's right. Then the flashlight beam found him and started toward him at a jogging pace until it was right over him. For a moment, the person holding the flashlight didn't move. In the distance, men shouted, and dogs barked. The soldiers would be here shortly.

The flashlight turned some – the person was likely looking toward the noise. The flashlight came back toward MacGyver, but he saw it flash across a rifle this time. The person was taking the shoulder strap off. Then the flashlight came closer, over the edge.

"Grab the strap," a voice quietly told him. "Hurry."

MacGyver saw the strap dangling a few inches out of his reach. As quietly, he told the person, "It's too far away. I can't reach it."

"You'll have to pull yourself up. I can't move out any further, or I won't be able to pull you up."

MacGyver closed his eyes, swallowed hard, and pulled himself toward the strap. He was finally within reach of the strap.

"Ready for my weight?" he asked the person.

"Yes. You must hurry."

MacGyver grabbed the strap with one hand, wrapped it around his hand, and then paused.

"Hurry!" the voice urged when they heard more shouting, closer than before.

With an exhale, MacGyver grabbed the strap with his other hand. He felt himself fall a few inches. The person was getting a taste of his weight on the strap.

MacGyver moved to find footholds. He got his left foot on a spot. But everything went to hell when he tried to leverage a foothold near his right foot. The second he put weight on his right ankle, the pain was so excruciating he wanted to scream. The intense pain, however, ripped his breath out before a scream ever came. It made him forget he was holding onto two lifelines: the strap and the tree branch.

"HURRY!" the person told him.

MacGyver looked up into the flashlight and lost consciousness. His hands slid off the strap as he disappeared into the darkness below.