Taking Fire

Slipping out of the ruck, she set it quietly on the ground near the mare. Her heart picked up in beat. Was he dead? Injured? Or playing dead? If he was faking it and she came upon him, he could rip her throat out with a KA-BAR knife. SEALs were taught that they were never helpless. If a rifle or pistol wouldn’t do it, a knife sure as hell would.

Approaching cautiously, soundlessly, she had her NVGs on, the grainy green showing there was blood leaking out from beneath his Kevlar helmet and down his bearded cheek. With green filters on, Khat couldn’t see what color his flesh was. His mouth was open. He seemed unconscious. His one arm was hanging down into the wadi. She carefully reached out, placing two fingers on the inside of his thick wrist.

He didn’t move.

She felt his pulse. It was weak and thready.

He really was unconscious. Moving quickly, Khat pulled him into the wadi so no one could see him from the slope. Rolling him over, tipping his head back so he could breathe, she held her ear to his nose. His breath was shallow, but it was there.

Grimly, she realized she’d have to get that heavy ruck off him in order to get him on the horse. Kneeling, she pulled him toward her until his tall, lean body rested mostly against her knees. Pulling the straps apart, making no sound, the ruck slid off his back.

Next, his Kevlar helmet. It had a pair of NVGs on the rail. Fingers moving quickly beneath his chin, she released the strap. His blood was on her hands now. Gently as she could, Khat lifted the helmet away from his head. Grimacing, she saw his temple was nothing more than a huge clot of blood. Grade three concussion, for sure. But how bad? Her mind was already running over medical possibilities. He was out cold. She removed the heavy H-gear harness from around his chest, another thirty pounds of weight.

Khat left him on his back, trotted down the slope and picked up Mina’s reins. Leading the mare up beside the SEAL, she knew there was no way she could lift a hundred and eighty pounds of his dead weight and place him across the saddle.

“Down,” she told the mare, making a signal for the Arabian to lie down.

The mare bent her front knees and then lay down, all four legs beneath her.

“Good girl,” Khat whispered, patting her mare’s sweaty neck.

Now for the hard part. She hooked her hands beneath the SEAL’s armpits and hauled him forward. Grunting, she clenched her teeth, digging in the heels of her boots, inching him forward. Damn, he was heavy! Breathing hard, she got the SEAL close enough.

“Lie down,” she told the horse, giving her another hand signal.

Mina stretched out on her side, laying her head down near Khat’s feet.

Now it was easier hauling the SEAL over the saddle. Khat worried about her mare. She was on an incline, and she would be pulling herself into an upright position. Could she do it with someone this heavy?

“Sit up,” she whispered, signaling the mare. Khat watched the horse heave herself back into a sitting position, her legs beneath her body once more. Relieved, Khat moved quietly around the mare, coming to her head, picking up the reins in one hand and keeping her other hand on the unconscious SEAL’s body. She hoped he didn’t slip off when Mina lurched to her feet.

“Up!” she whispered.

Mina grunted, flinging out her front feet first. She shifted her weight to her rear, the muscles bunching, then shoved her hooves into the dirt and rock in one smooth motion to gain purchase. Khat felt more relief, holding the man in place so he didn’t accidentally slip off. The SEAL lay on his belly across the saddle. It wasn’t great that his injured head was hanging down, but she didn’t have the strength to haul him upright and hold him in the saddle. She hooked his ruck and harness over the horn of the saddle. Nothing could be left behind to indicate an American had been in this wadi.

Leaping up behind the saddle, Khat turned the horse around, and they started back up the goat path in the dark. Only the night winds, cold and howling from the north, were heard. Keeping her hearing keyed, Khat gripped the SEAL’s cammies to keep him from sliding off.

As they rose out of the wadi via the goat path, Khat saw the stars hanging so close she felt like she could reach out and touch them. Halting at the juncture of another goat path, she waited and listened. She hadn’t survived four years in the Hindu Kush by taking chances. Her hearing was extraordinary. No human voices. Chances were, the Taliban retreated back to that rock fort and were making tea and eating. Probably arguing like hell among one another for their major losses this evening. She grinned.

Once more on familiar territory, five miles down the slope, Khat guided her horse into a group of thick bushes and trees. The horse pushed through the vegetation, coming to a halt at the entrance to a large cave. Khat dismounted, walking in front of the mare, her hand on her .45 pistol. This was one of her safe caves, but she never, ever took for granted that the Taliban wouldn’t find it someday. Worse, make camp in it. The mare’s small feet moved through the fine silt dirt on the cave floor.

Turning to the right, Khat walked half a mile, went into another cave and through it. Her NVGs no longer worked when a cave was completely black. She halted, pulled them off her eyes, switched them off and reached into her cammie pocket. Flicking on a laser flashlight, the whole area lit up.

They were safe now, and she breathed a small sigh of relief. Making a few more turns, at least half a mile deep within the mountain, Khat finally came to the pool cave. She heard the musical sounds of the twenty-foot waterfall. Water. Even Mina picked up her pace. She was thirsty. So was Khat.

Once inside the last tunnel, she could see the small pool of water and the waterfall above it. Khat dropped Mina’s reins. Grabbing a kerosene lamp, she picked up a box of matches and lit it. The warm yellow glow highlighted a twenty-foot radius. Moving to the other side of the tunnel, she pulled out a sleeping bag and laid it out on the floor. Grabbing two other blankets, she quickly rolled them up. One for the SEAL’s neck and the other for beneath his knees. She grabbed her paramedic ruck, opening it up and placing it next to the sleeping bag. Pulling out a pair of latex gloves, she also retrieved a bottle of sterilized water.

Moving quickly to the SEAL, he was close enough that if she angled him just right, he might fall directly onto the sleeping bag.

Hooking him beneath the armpits, Khat pulled. He slid off a lot faster than she was prepared for, and she just about had him fall on her. Using her arms, Khat turned him over as his legs slid off the saddle. Breathing hard, she positioned him on the bedroll. By the time she got him on it, Khat was huffing.

For the first time, she got a good look at the SEAL. He had a square face, strong chin and a nose that looked like it had been broken at least once. She liked his mouth. Even unconscious, it was well shaped, the lower lip a little fuller than the upper one. His brows were straight across his well-spaced eyes.

Taking a battle dressing, she wet it and began to blot away the congealed blood at his temple. He had taken a terrific concussion wave from that RPG exploding so close to him.

For fifteen minutes, she cleaned the wound. There was swelling, but not massive, which was good. A cut at least two inches long was the culprit—a scalp wound, and they were notorious for heavy bleeding. In no time, Khat had the cut stitched up and closed. Rubbing antibiotic ointment on the dressing, she gently pressed it against the wound and wrapped gauze firmly around his head to keep it in place as well as clean.

Quickly, she started from his neck down to his feet, feeling, squeezing, gently moving his other joints to see if anything was broken. When she moved her hands to his lower forearm, even in unconsciousness, he jerked. Brows dipping, Khat used scissors to cut open his sleeve. Grimacing, she saw a bone pushing up. It had not come through his sun-darkened skin, but it was a bad break.

Turning to her medical bag, she pulled out a bottle of morphine and a syringe. The only thing to do was give him just enough morphine to dull the bone setting she would have to perform. With head injuries, morphine had to be used very carefully.

Cutting the sleeve to his shoulder, she pulled it open and administered the shot. Watching his face, she saw his features begin to relax as the morphine eased the pain in his arm.

Khat took a deep breath, one hand above the bone, near his elbow, the other below the break. This was going to hurt him like hell. She made two quick motions. He groaned, his brow wrinkling, the corners of his mouth pulling inward with pain.

“Sorry,” she whispered, seeing the bone was set. Beads of sweat formed on his brow. His face was darkly tanned and he had longish black hair. He almost looked Middle Eastern to her.

Shaking her head, Khat was exhausted, sure that her mind was playing tricks on her. Quickly splinting his lower arm, she wrapped it and then made a sling to hold it against his chest. She tied the ends of the cotton sling around his strong, thick neck.

Khat found no other injuries during her thorough examination, except a lot of bruises, swelling and scratches. She pulled off the latex gloves and threw them near the wall. First things first. She had to give him a shot of antibiotics. After giving it to him, she quickly cleaned up and put the medical ruck away.

Getting off her knees, she walked over to Mina who stood patiently watching, her ears flicking back and forth. Taking the sat phone, Khat had to make a call to J-bad and alert Hutton she had one of the SEALs in her care. She hoped she was in time so that no wife and parents of this man would get a call from a casualty officer, telling them that he was missing in action. Pushing a strand of red hair off her brow, she punched in the numbers.

Hutton came on the other end, and Khat told him what had happened. The best news was the other three SEALs were picked up down at the bottom of the slope an hour later by a Night Stalker helicopter. And Hutton was surprised to hear about her patient. Everyone thought he was missing in action.

“That’s Petty Officer First Class Michael Tarik,” he told her. “He was leading the team.”

“I rescued him out of a wadi. He’s unconscious. I’m hoping he’ll wake up pretty soon.” She chewed on her lower lip, watching him beneath the glow of the lantern. Even now, he looked hard. A warrior.

“Report in tomorrow morning. I hope he makes it. There’s no way we can drop a Medevac in there to pick him up. We just got a drone up, and that mountain you live on is crawling with Taliban. We’ve counted about a hundred so far, so keep a low profile.”

Khat snorted. “Don’t worry, I will. I’ll contact you tomorrow. Out.”

Walking back to her mare, she tucked the sat phone away in the huge leather saddle bag. “Come on, girl, your turn. I’ll bet you’re starving.” Khat led the mare to the other side of the tunnel, about ten feet away from where Tarik lay. She stripped the mare of her saddle, the SEALs gear, brought her a bucket of water, curried her and then retrieved a flake of alfalfa hay from a nearby room. She shut the gate because Mina would wander in there and eat herself into colic. Khat didn’t need one more emergency on her hands right now.

It was her turn. She grabbed her small towel, a washcloth and Afghan lye soap from a hole in the cave wall. She smelled of raw-fear sweat, and she could feel the grit of dirt chafing her flesh. Grabbing the kerosene lamp, some unscented shampoo, a comb and brush, she walked the fifty feet into the waterfall cave. She had fashioned a bench out of rocks with a piece of wooden plank across the top of it a long time ago. Laying her towel over it, she quickly stripped herself of boots and clothes. The water was going to be seventy-five degrees because that was the cave’s temperature.

Stepping into the sandy bottom of the small pool, the coolness felt wonderful against her hot, sweaty body. Closing her eyes for a moment, she pulled the rubber band out of her hair and allowed it to swing free. Soon she would be clean. This was one of the few perks of living in the Hindu Kush that she looked forward to. The light spread out, eventually graying at the edges as she moved into the clear green, waist-deep water beneath the waterfall.

Every once in a while, Khat would look in the direction of the SEAL to see if he was conscious yet or not. She hoped he would awaken. With head wounds, one never knew.

Tipping her head toward the falling water, she groaned with pleasure as the wetness soaked into her long, thick hair. In moments, it would be soaped up, the grit and dirt cleaned from her strands and scalp. This luxury didn’t happen often. Tonight was a special gift to her.

CHAPTER TWO

MIKE TARIK AWOKE SLOWLY, pain throbbing through his head, making him frown. His ears were ringing badly, and he fought to become conscious. What had happened? His mind felt unhinged as he struggled to fight the darkness. There was pain in his head and pain in his left arm. His mind focused on that, and he felt incredibly exhausted, unable to move.

It took him a good ten minutes before he could force open his eyes. A ceiling of what looked like a cave was above him, grayish and deeply shadowed. Licking his lips, dying of thirst, he tried moving his hands and feet to see how badly wounded he was.

The memory of an RPG sailing through the air finally grounded him into reality. Yeah, the ridge. His men? Panic settled in him for a moment. Where was his team? And where the hell was he?

Mike heard water running. The ringing in his ears would lower for a bit and then return to near normal volume. Knowing he’d been close enough to the explosion to pop both his eardrums, he wouldn’t be surprised if they were blown. He felt pain in his ears when he focused his concentration there. Vision blurring, he blinked several times. Wherever he was lying, there was something soft beneath him. He slowly moved his right hand, his dirty, sweaty fingers encountering something soft. Fabric.

Vision blurring again, he shut his eyes, concentrating and trying to figure out where the hell he was. He’d been on a scree slope, nothing but rocks. The RPG had been fired by a Taliban.

Opening his eyes, his vision cleared. His head throbbed with unremitting agony. It hurt even to blink his eyes. Moving his right hand, Mike encountered his left arm in a sling. A sling? He was in a cave. This wasn’t making sense to him. The sound of rushing water, like a small waterfall, caught his attention again. As much as it caused hellacious pain, he slowly moved his head to the left, toward the sound.

Tarik simply wasn’t prepared for what he saw. He had to be having some kind of hallucination. Or the wound he’d sustained to his head was playing tricks on him. His eyes narrowed. There, maybe fifty feet away, was a tall, naked woman beneath a waterfall. She was washing herself with a cloth, her face tipped up, water splashing around her head and shoulders.

He closed his eyes. No, this was his messed-up head. One didn’t find a naked, beautiful young woman under a waterfall in the Hindu Kush. No way...

His hearing returned briefly, and he heard the water again. Opening his eyes, he was sure the hallucination would be gone.

But it wasn’t. Mike watched, mesmerized as she walked slowly out of the pool, picked up the towel and began to dry her dark, very long hair. What the fuck is going on here? Closing his eyes, frustrated, Mike touched his head, his fingers running into a bandage around it. Exploring further, he felt a heavy dressing where the pain was originating from along his temple. He wasn’t in a Medevac. He wasn’t at Bravo’s dispensary, nor was he at Bagram hospital’s emergency room. He’d been to all those places at one time or another. The trickling sound, the music of water falling, surrounded him. This was all his imagination. His brain was scrambled.

Opening his eyes, he saw her. Again. He watched as she sat on a bench and combed her long, damp hair. Mike could see her very clearly. Her profile looked Afghan, a broad brow, strong nose, full mouth and a stubborn-looking chin. She was probably in her late twenties, maybe.

Every motion she made was graceful. Her skin had a golden sheen to it. The rest of her body was lean, glistening with water as she sat there and allowed the air to dry her. Her breasts were small, her hips flared. It was her long, long legs that caught his attention. Beautiful thighs, curved and firm.

Groaning, Tarik shut his eyes. He had to be hallucinating! That was all there was to it. The pain in his left arm nagged at him when he tried to move it. Not good. Lying there, breathing raggedly, mouth dry, he tried to get a hold on where the hell he was lying.

Opening his eyes, he watched her, finally convinced that she wasn’t an apparition. Or a ghost from his imagination. She was combing her hair, getting out the snarls in the long strands. When she was finished, she took the brush, taming the drying strands. Once, she turned her head away, and he saw her hair was a deep, rich red color. It glinted for just a second in the lamplight.

This was real. Friggin’ real. Mike felt as if he’d stepped into a Tim Burton movie, Alice in Wonderland. There was a sense of calm, of peacefulness where he lay. And then, his ringing ears caught another sound.

Munch, munch, munch.

Mike turned his head very slowly to the right. There, five feet away, was a black horse with a halter, eating alfalfa hay on the cave floor. He could smell the alfalfa, a sweet scent filling his nostrils. One he was very familiar with. But how did alfalfa hay get into the Hindu Kush? The more he saw, the less made sense to him. Alfalfa did not grow in this country.

He slowly turned his head back toward the woman. She had moved her long hair that was nearly halfway down her long back and brought it over her naked right shoulder. His eyes narrowed. What was he seeing on her back as she stood up? He scowled. Her back was heavily scarred. Dark, puckered ridges indicated she’d been whipped with something that had metal on the ends of the tips. He felt himself getting angry. Afghan women were punished with whips like this when they didn’t “behave” properly toward their husband.

The woman shrugged on a muscle shirt of dark olive green. She sat down and pulled on a pair of camouflage cammie trousers. They weren’t SEAL cammies. His memory was barely functioning. Maybe marine? He watched her pull on a set of olive-green wool socks and then a pair of combat boots. She quickly laced them up with her elegant fingers. When she was done, she stood up, used her hands to spread that cloak of red hair about her shoulders, fluffing it in a fully feminine gesture. He saw glinting waves of crimson, burgundy and gold shine beneath the kerosene lamplight.

He was torn. He could pretend he was still unconscious, or he could reveal to her he was awake. As she picked up her toiletry articles in her left hand, Mike decided to let her know he was conscious. Curiosity was burning him alive. He’d seen no weapons around. Just her and the horse, contentedly consuming hay.

As she drew near, Mike watched her gaze lock on his. She slowed her pace toward him, wariness coming to her face. She was deeply tanned, face oval and eyes that made him drag in a deep breath. She carried the kerosene lamp in her hand, and the light flashed up for a moment, revealing the most incredible green color to her large intelligent eyes.

* * *

KHAT FELT HER heart wrench in her chest as she drew close to the SEAL. He was awake, looking at her with confusion. His face was dirty, sweaty, but those gold-brown eyes of his were clear and pinned on her.

What Khat didn’t want was for him to try something stupid, like leap up and grab her or try to find one of her weapons and point it at her. She halted a good ten feet away from the SEAL. “I’m Khat,” she said in a low voice. “You’re safe. I’m your friend.”

He stared up at her like she was a ghost. Khat was used to that reaction. How many women were riding around a fifty-square-mile area of the Hindu Kush? No one else she knew of.

He had large eyes, and she could see they were a light brown color. He was intensely assessing her, and she could feel it.

The SEAL was confused, and Khat didn’t blame him. What she didn’t want was for him to go into defense or attack mode. Because he would. He was completely out of his element. She’d removed his pistol and his knife from him earlier.

“You’re in a cave,” she explained, keeping it simple. “I saw an RPG explode very close to you. Later, when I found you in the wadi, you were unconscious.”

She gestured toward his head. “You’ve got a pretty bad concussion, and you have a broken left arm. You need to stay calm and relax.”

“Are you thirsty, Michael Tarik?” she asked when he didn’t say anything. She put her toiletry items back into the cave wall hole. The damp towel hung on a peg she’d pounded into the walls years earlier. Khat turned and picked up one of the plastic quart bottles from a box filled with them.

* * *

TARIK BLINKED. HER RED HAIR was drying like a cloak around her proud shoulders. Cat? Her name was Cat? Or was it a lie? She looked somewhat bemused by his confusion, that wide, beautiful mouth of hers turned up on one corner. His gaze moved to the water bottle in her slender hand. Immediately recognizing it as SEAL issue, he growled, “Who the hell are you, really? And where am I?”

The tension rose in him. She stood casually, her green eyes holding his. There was no fear in them. No sense that he was a prisoner, either. His hands were not bound. And then, Mike focused on the leather thong hanging around her neck. His gaze fell to the pendant at the end of it, and he rasped, “That’s a hog’s tooth.” And then he lifted his chin, glaring at her. “Are you a Marine Corps sniper?” It made sense to him. She wore marine cammies. He remembered someone had fired a .300 Win Mag from the ridgeline, alerting them to the Taliban ambush. But a woman marine sniper? He’d never heard of such a thing. Mike tried to figure out just who she was. A hog’s tooth was given to every marine who successfully completed one of the toughest and most vaunted sniper school courses in the world.

Khat shrugged. “I’m many things, Michael Tarik. What you need to know is that I’m on your side, and that I saved your sorry ass earlier this afternoon.” She leaned down, offering him the bottle of water. “You need to stay hydrated. You were in a really bad firefight earlier.”

He took the bottle, their fingertips meeting. She had a placid expression, her voice husky and smoky. Damn, he was dying of thirst. He set the bottle down and tried to push himself up into a sitting position. Grunting, he struggled, angry he was so damned weak.

* * *

KHAT SAW THE FRUSTRATION on his face with his helplessness. SEALs hated feeling that way. Beads of sweat popped out on his bleached-out flesh. “Stop. I’ll help you sit as long as you don’t try CQD on me.”

Freezing, Tarik looked up at her, breathing hard. He was a damn rag doll, and he hated feeling weak. She was watching him, her hands relaxed at her sides. How did she know about CQD, close quarters defense? SEALs were taught how to hold or kill a person very quickly with a sharp, quick movement.

Wiping his face with his right hand, he muttered defiantly, “How do you know my name?” The bottled water looked so damned good to him, but he couldn’t even twist the lid off it to drink from it.

Khat came within six feet of him, crouching down on her haunches, her elbows resting on her thighs, hands hanging relaxed loose between them. “I called someone to find out who you were. I wanted to let them know I’d rescued you, gave them your medical condition and serial number on your dog tags.” Her thin brows moved downward. “I didn’t want your wife or parents to be called and be told you were missing in action.”