Chapter 3 - The Ghost of Korengal
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A collective gasp rippled through the dining room as Richard spoke those words.
The affluent dinner guests, who moments ago were whispering gossip, now leaned forward with wide, astonished eyes.
Brenda scoffed loudly, attempting to mask her sudden embarrassment with open mockery.
"Oh, please! You’re getting senile in your old age, Richard," Brenda said, waving a dismissive hand.
"Sarah worked in an office filing paperwork and typing memos," she scoffed, glaring at me with supreme condescension.
"She told us herself she was just support staff, not some Hollywood hero!" Brenda declared triumphantly.
Richard ignored his wife completely, picking up the heavy coin with trembling, reverent fingers.
"October 4, 2011," Richard recited, his voice thick with the memory of gunfire and smoke.
"My reconnaissance patrol was pinned down in a narrow dry creek bed outside Asadabad," he continued, staring into the middle distance.
"Taliban fighters held the high ground on three sides, raining machine-gun fire and RPGs down on our positions for four hours," Richard explained, his chest heaving.
"Our forward air controller took a round through the throat in the opening thirty seconds," he said, swallowing hard against a dry throat.
"We were out of ammunition, bleeding out, and our brigade commander ordered us to destroy our radios and prepare to be overrun," Richard remembered grimly.
The dining room was so quiet you could hear the soft flicker of the scented candles burning in the center of the table.
"Then, the radio crackled," Richard whispered, his eyes locking back onto mine with staggering intensity.
"A female voice came over our secure channel, speaking with the calm precision of an executioner," Richard said softly.
"She told us command had denied air support due to zero visibility, but she had overridden the satellite overrides manually," he recounted.
"She took command of two Apache gunships without authorization, guiding them through a mountain pass so narrow the rotors nearly scraped the cliffs," Richard said, his voice trembling.
"She walked 30-millimeter cannon fire within fifteen meters of our heads, wiping out three enemy mortar teams in ninety seconds flat," he said, wiping a tear from his cheek.
"She pulled eleven men out of the jaws of death, and when our choppers landed at Bagram, she vanished," Richard continued.
"All we were ever told was her tactical callsign: Valkyrie," he stated, holding the coin high in the air.
Brenda shifted uncomfortably, her smug expression beginning to crack around the edges.
"That doesn't prove anything, Richard! Anyone could have bought that at a military surplus store!" Brenda protested frantically.
I closed my eyes for a single heartbeat, feeling the familiar chill of the Tactical Operations Center wrap around my spine.
"Ironclad Six, this is Valkyrie," I said quietly, my voice dropping into the cool, authoritative frequency of a combat controller.
"Grid coordinate Four-Two-Victor-Kilo, eight-niner-four, three-two-one," I recited without hesitation.
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"You had a compound fracture on your left forearm, Sergeant Major, and you refused morphine so you could keep firing your sidearm."
Richard’s knees gave out, and he collapsed back into his chair, covering his face with both hands.
