They gave a female captain a scarred, Vietnam-era rifle with a cracked scope to humiliate her, until she unscrewed the optic and chose iron sights.

"What are you doing?" Rourke gasped, watching her unclip the leather sling of the old wooden rifle. "You can't shoot down there! If you hit that shell, you'll kill him!"

"Get back, Caleb," Elena said without looking at him.

"This is madness!" Rourke yelled, his voice bordering on hysteria. "I am relieving you of command! Hayes, help me secure the Captain—"

Before Rourke’s hand could touch Elena’s shoulder, Master Sergeant Rodriguez stepped directly into his chest. The veteran didn't pull rank; he simply placed the heavy barrel of his carbine against Rourke’s breastplate and pushed him back three paces until the young lieutenant tripped over a root and fell into the mud.

"You speak another word, Lieutenant, and I will personally throw you down that ravine," Rodriguez said, his eyes burning with lethal intent. "Sit down, shut up, and let the Captain work."

Elena didn't care about the drama behind her. The world had narrowed down to three elements: the boy, the log, and the rusted steel shell.

The log pinning Miller’s leg was roughly eight inches thick, waterlogged and rotting. It was resting on a fulcrum of loose shale. Every time Miller breathed, the shale shifted, sending tiny pebbles cascading down over the nose of the rusted mortar round. If she tried to climb down there to pull him out, her own weight would cause the entire bank to collapse, detonating the shell.

There was only one way to free him without shifting the bank: she had to sever the rotten log from a distance, releasing the pressure on his leg so he could slide forward away from the ordnance before the mud gave way completely.

To sever a waterlogged eight-inch log with rifle fire required high-caliber, deep-penetrating ammunition. An M4’s 5.56mm rounds would shatter against the wet wood or deflect into the mud. But the M14 fired full-power .308 Winchester—seven-point-six-two millimeter full metal jacket. Heavy. Fast. Destructive.

And she had no scope.

She had to shoot from twenty-five meters above, through the swirling fog, at an angle of forty-five degrees, placing three consecutive heavy rounds into a three-inch sweet spot on the rotting wood—without a single fragment, ricochet, or wood splinter hitting the screaming soldier pinned four inches beneath it.

Elena stepped to the very lip of the muddy drop. She did not lie down; the angle was too steep. She assumed the kneeling position, locking her left elbow securely onto her left knee to create a bone-on-bone shooting platform that did not rely on muscle tension.

She racked the heavy steel charging handle of the M14.

*CLACK-CLACK.*

The sound was thunderous in the quiet ravine. The smell of oil rose to her nostrils.

She looked through the rear aperture. The front sight post settled against the dark, wet grain of the rotten log, exactly two inches above Miller’s pinned shin.

"Miller," Elena said, her voice completely smooth, calm, and steady. "Cover your eyes with your left arm. Do not move."

The boy clamped his arm over his face, sobbing into his sleeve.

Elena took a breath. Cold air filled her lungs. She expelled half of it.

The Carolina fog swirled across her line of sight, momentarily obscuring the log. She didn't panic. She held her breath, waiting for the natural pulse of her heart to settle. In the space between heartbeats, the fog parted.

*BANG.*

The M14 bucked violently against her shoulder. The heavy 7.62 round slammed into the dead wood with the sound of a sledgehammer hitting wet clay. Wood splinters exploded into the air. A clean, two-inch chunk of the rotten core vanished.

The log creaked.

*BANG.*

The second round struck half an inch to the right of the first, fracturing the structural grain of the wood completely. A massive crack propagated through the log with a sharp *SNAP*.

The mud beneath the mortar shell began to slide. A cascade of red clay poured over the rusted fins of the eighty-one-millimeter projectile.

"Now, Miller! CRAWL!" Elena roared.

*BANG.*

The third round severed the remaining hinge of wood. The pressure was released.

With a desperate, animal scream, Miller lunged forward on his belly, using his fingernails to claw through the brambles, dragging his broken leg behind him just as the entire embankment behind him gave way.

Two tons of wet clay, rock, and the severed half of the heavy log collapsed into the bottom of the ravine, burying the mortar shell beneath six feet of earth.