"Captain, I hear movement in the back room."

The soft voice sounded in Jahni's earpiece, making him turn towards the man ahead of him in the corridor. Jahni raised a hand in acknowledgement and got a wave in return, that he could just see in the dimness.

"Hold position," Jahni said. "Five and six, to me." Through his earpiece he heard Madari, outside on the perimeter, ordering the backup into the house. The team had secured most of the rooms already, capturing four suspects and handing them off to the police outside. But a couple of rooms remained and the police said five suspects were in the house.

Two men, Kadry and Hurun, call signs five and six joined him. Jahni made hand signals to follow him. As they moved down the corridor, he heard the reserve come into the house behind them, taking up secondary positions. Jahni led his team to the door of the room at the back of the house.

They hadn't fired a shot so far in the raid. All the suspects they'd found had surrendered at once. Jahni felt almost disappointed. The same had happened on all the missions the new unit had completed since they started their active service a couple of months ago. No more than minimal resistance. It barely seemed worth them coming to support the police tonight. A village constable could have arrested this lot.

He reminded himself that this meant that so far they'd only gone up against the easily found groups. The loudmouths who drew attention to themselves. You barely needed intel to find those. The day would come, he knew, when they'd be going in after tougher opponents. Meanwhile these raids at least kept them in training.

His team was in position now. The man already at the door spoke softly.

"No voices. I think only one person."

Jahni nodded and motioned him back a short distance down the hall to give them space. Hearing the noises from inside the room, footsteps, he agreed that it sounded like only one man. One man pacing up and down. Scared and knowing they'd be coming for him soon.

Soon was now.

"Going in," he told Madari over the radio.

"Roger."

Jahni kicked in the door. It smashed back and the team piled in. One man, as they thought, staggering to a halt as the three black-clad and heavily armed men stormed into the room.

"Drop your weapons, now!" Jahni yelled at him. "On the floor, on your face, do it now!"

The man didn't drop to the floor as the others had. He didn't even yell for them not to shoot. Although pale and sweating, a strange smile touched his lips. Jahni saw it then. The belt and the wire that ran from that to a switch in his hand.

"Bomb!" Jahni yelled. "Fall back!"

Madari's voice echoed the fall back order to everyone in the house, even before Jahni completed his own order. And another voice overlapped Jahni's own and Madari's. The suspect. He screamed the words.

"God is great!"

Jahni fired a single shot, high, at the man's head, going for the kill. It took the bomber in the forehead, and Jahni was already turning before the man fell. He burst from his position like a sprint champion powering off the starting blocks, in case the bomb still...

The explosion picked him up, and bounced him off the door frame, like a football hitting the post, before he spun off and slammed into a wall. He remembered nothing else.

~~~~

"Captain Jahni, report!" Madari stood up again with the noise of the explosion still ringing in his ears. No answer came from Jahni. Other reports did come in, from men at the back of the house, men inside. And then the voice of number five, Hurun.

"Men down! We need medics!"

At Madari's signal, the medics ran across the garden at the front of the house. It glittered with broken glass now, sparkling in the glare from the police floodlights set up on the perimeter. Madari followed them, the glass crunching under his boots as he ran up the path, and through the front door that hung off its hinges now.

"Captain Jahni, report!" Madari demanded again as he ran inside and at once started coughing on the dust in the air.

"Captain Jahni is down." Hurun's voice again. Not yelling now, a little more controlled as the shock of the blast faded. Madari ran on, following the flashlights the medics carried. He passed one man sitting against the wall, awake, talking to a medic. At the end of the corridor he found Jahni. Hurun and two medics bent over him on the floor. Dust and plaster covered Jahni, who lay on his face. The same dust choked Madari and stung his eyes.

"Report," he commanded, though hacking coughs.

Hurun looked up. "He's alive, sir."

Madari couldn't see much blood. Jahni's body armour and helmet would have protected him from shrapnel. The roof and wall had held, so nothing had crushed him. But the blast, the shockwave...

The medics spoke urgently to each other, then one looked up at Madari. "We need the medevac chopper, sir."

Madari nodded, and walked away from them, needing distance to maintain his strength now. He had to do his job. Stepping back outside, he was forced to spit onto the grass to get rid of the dust coating his mouth.

"Get the medevac chopper here fast," he ordered on the radio. It was on standby as always during a mission, no more than ten minutes away. "Clear a landing area on the road. And I want everyone out of the house, now. Call bomb disposal. Why weren't we warned explosives were present?" That last question was aimed at the police commander on the scene. His outraged voice came back.

"We had no reason to suspect."

Madari glanced over towards the vehicles and lights, wondered if the man was glaring at him right now. He couldn't see, looking into the floodlights. A strange sound came from that direction. Chanting? After a second he realised it came from the police van which held the already arrested suspects. Chanting in triumph, while their friend lay dead and Madari's men injured.

"Get the prisoners out of here, now." Madari said it through gritted teeth. "And search them all again."

As the police van roared off, the soldiers still inside the house began to come out and withdraw to the perimeter. A medic and another soldier helped out the man he'd seen sitting against the wall, Kadry. He was dazed, and bandages stood out against his torn sleeves, where shrapnel had peppered his arms. But he stopped as the medics moved him down the path.

"He blew himself up, sir," Kadry said weakly to Madari. "Who would do that? The Captain, he saw it, shot him, but..." He broke off, coughing. Madari touched his shoulder briefly.

"You did well, Kadry. Go. Let the medics take care of you now."

"Sir, the Captain..."

"Will be fine. Go now."

They moved him away, towards one of the waiting ambulances. Madari hoped he hadn't just lied to Kadry about Jahni. He counted the men out until he knew the only ones inside were Hurun, the two medics and Jahni. Reports still flooded into his radio earpiece. The chopper was close now.

He went back inside. Dust still hung in the air, muffling all sounds so he couldn't hear the voices of his people until he almost reached their location. The medics had Jahni on his back now, his helmet off, and a plastic collar protecting his neck. Even Madari couldn't recognise him. Camouflage paint, dust and blood obscured Jahni's features. The floating dust had started to settle on his hair, turning it white.

"Report," Madari snapped at the medics.

"Head trauma," one of them said. "Other minor injuries." He turned to his own radio, speaking to a colleague.

"His helmet's intact," Hurun said, holding it up, his eyes wide in his also blackened face. The un-cracked helmet seemed to carry all his hopes for Jahni. Madari took it from him. It was a good one; his men deserved the best quality. It would have protected Jahni against too bad a trauma surely? His skull wasn't crushed. He didn't even have a bandage around his head.

"Go and wait for the chopper, Sergeant," Madari said to Hurun, handing the helmet back to him. "Take care of that." It had Jahni's name stencilled on the side, and the words "Who dares, wins" in English. The SAS motto. He was so proud of his training. Madari's throat seemed to close off, the dust still choking him. Jahni had barely had a chance to start putting that training to use, and now he lay so still under the hands of the two medics working on him.

Hurun took the helmet and vanished into the dusty haze. A moment later two men arrived with a stretcher.

"Got him on a back board already," one of the first medics said, as his colleagues joined him. "Ready to move." He scowled up at his commander in a way Madari had come to accept from medics, who he gave a certain amount of latitude. "Clear the way," the medic snapped, and Madari reluctantly moved off towards the front door again, giving them room to work.

He stepped outside and the noise of the helicopter coming in filled the world. Its lights stabbed down into the road, the landing zone marked with flares. The clearance was tight, Madari saw. As the helicopter descended its rotor blades were barely two or three meters from the houses on either side. The rushing wind flattened plants in small gardens. A shirt that someone had hung from a window to dry blew loose and danced away in the darkness, like a ghost, running from the monster descending from the sky.

That monster touched down, blades slowing, but not stopping, ready for immediate takeoff. Madari could only follow and watch as the medics carried Jahni aboard. The helicopter's paramedic crew and one of Madari's field medics climbed in after him. The other medic hurried back, taking Madari's arm to pull him away as the helicopter roared to full power again. It rose and the pilot must be sweating, Madari thought, trying to keep the rotor blades from scything into a house. Thank God the street had been evacuated, the sleepy residents taken out hours ago now before the pre-dawn raid began.

When the helicopter cleared the rooftops, Madari breathed a sigh of relief. He watched it bank away, picking up speed and height, and setting out across the suburban streets, towards the heart of Az-Ma'ir. When it vanished into the darkness, Madari looked around to see Hurun at his side. For the first time he noticed the man had bandages of his own.

"Why aren't you in an ambulance?"

"I'm alright, sir."

"You can let the doctors decide that. Get back to barracks and to the infirmary now."

Hurun nodded wearily and left with the remaining medic. The chief police officer on the scene approached Madari.

"Demolitions are on their way. Is the house secure?"

"No, it is not secure!" Madari glared at the man. "But nobody is going back inside until the bomb squad gets here. Understood?"

The officer bristled at the tone. "I'm sorry your man is hurt, but we had no reason to think they had explosives."

"Then you had no reason to call us in at all. If the only weapons you thought they had were a couple of handguns, S.W.A.T. could have handled it."

"Your role includes police support. We were told we could call on you whenever we need."

"Support doesn't extend to hand-holding. What will you have us do next? A school crossing guard?"

This was futile, he realised. He took out his anger and pain on a man he'd have to work with in the future. Useless. They could hash all of this out at a debrief. Now, he had to...

He had to go to the hospital, he had to... And he couldn't, because the scene was not secure and he was still in command. He took a breath and he swallowed it all down. The shock, the pain, the fear. Crushed it all into a ball inside and went back to work.

~~~~

It was an hour before he could leave the scene. The bomb squad had arrived and were making a thorough search for more explosives. Madari dismissed his unit to return to barracks, with the promise he would update them as soon as he could on Jahni's condition. He took his leave from the police chief, in a cold exchange, and got into his staff car.

"The hospital, sir?" Sergeant Sijad, his driver, said.

"You know which one they took him to?"

"Of course, sir."

Of course he knew which hospital. Madari had been careful not only in his selection of the men to train as Special Forces soldiers, but also for all of the support positions of the unit. From medics to drivers to supply officers, he wanted the best.

Sijad was not only the best driver in the Royal Guard; he had the kind of initiative Madari had become used to back in his days as a guerrilla. He didn't wait around for the officers to do his thinking for him.

Sijad drove away from the command post, past the police barriers at the end of the street and put his foot down. They flew through the early morning streets and Madari realised Sijad had already worked out the shortest route while waiting for him to leave. He smiled. The best.

~~~~

And his best soldier lay in a hospital bed now.

Best soldier. Friend. So much more, which he tried to stop himself thinking about. He stood over the bed while nurses monitored the unconscious Jahni. He'd been cleaned up now, his face washed, his clothes cut from him. Madari had been here before, looking down at Jahni in a hospital bed and had hoped he'd never find himself here again.

"Ah, Lieutenant-Colonel Madari, is it?" A white coated doctor came in, a plump middle-aged man, some younger doctors following him. "I'm Doctor Choudhary, I'm a neurologist. The emergency room doctors called me in at once. Excuse me. I will speak to you in a moment." He hurried over to check the machines and speak to the nurses.

Madari stood back a little, as much as he could bring himself to. Must let the doctors do their jobs.

"Seventeen point six?" Choudhary said. One of the nurses nodded and the doctor shook his head. He spoke to the other doctors who'd followed him in. "The Mannitol is not relieving the inter-cranial pressure fast enough. Organise a move to ICU, we will induce coma immediately."

He came back to Madari as the young doctors hurried to do his bidding.

"Sir, your officer has swelling of his brain. We've done tests, and can find no bleeding, so no surgical intervention is indicated yet, but his brain is under pressure and the drugs we have used so far have not relieved that."

"You said... a coma."

"We're going to induce a coma with barbiturates. We may have to keep him that way for several days."

"And that cures the swelling?"

"It should. He was brought here quickly, so we've been able to intervene before the pressure rise got too high. It's serious, but I am confident."

"I see. Thank you."

The doctor turned away then, to start supervising the nurses as they prepared to move Jahni. A sound from Jahni made him look up and frown. Madari, already looking at Jahni, frustrated at not being able to get closer, saw Jahni's eyes open, and heard his soft moan.

Madari's heart leapt for joy. Moving, eyes open, he really is alive he really is...

Then Jahni didn't just moan, he yelled, a cry of shock, and lashed out towards the nurses, who caught his arms. He yelled again, but words this time, words that shocked Madari, profanities in Arabic and English and threats towards the nurses holding him down

He thinks he's under attack, Madari realised, he's confused. Choudhary filled a syringe and hurried to the IV stand. Jahni went on fighting the nurses, too weak to break free of them, but still yelling threats. The other doctors came piling into the room.

"Captain!" Madari tried the command voice, something Jahni normally obeyed instinctively, hoped it would calm him. "Stand down. Stop fighting."

Jahni turned to look at him, looking past the nurses, looking into Madari's eyes. Then he looked away. The sedative Choudhary had injected into the IV took effect and Jahni flopped back onto the pillow. The nurses held him until he lay quietly and Choudhary started to give them orders.

Madari could only barely hear the doctor's voice. He staggered back until he bumped into the wall, ears buzzing, knees shaking.

One instant in time played over and over in his mind. Jahni had looked at him. Had looked right into his eyes. And his eyes had held not the slightest sign of recognition.