Collateral Damage (2 page)

“They were damn lucky to keep the bird in the air,” Smithers said.

Honor didn’t answer, already busy doing her own inspection of the cockpit. The beam of her flashlight landed on the co-pilot’s seat. She stared at the blood staining it, her mind flashing back to Liam and what he must have had seen and felt when his own bird had been hit last March. He’d stayed at the controls despite his wounds, managed to keep the Chinook in the air and save the lives of everyone on board—his crew, a platoon of SEAL Team Six operators, Honor’s former roommate Maya and her now husband Jackson, and the Secretary of Defense.

She hadn’t found out about Liam until his shot-up bird had arrived from Kandahar the day after rescuing Maya, Jackson and the SecDef from Rahim’s clutches. She’d been in the hangar with another crew working on a hydraulics problem when someone had told her he’d been wounded. The next sixteen hours had gone by in a blur until she’d seen Erin the next day and her friend had reassured her that he was okay, that she’d seen him at the hospital in Kandahar. That was it. No details, no mention of anything else.

SOAR didn’t mess around with OPSEC, and no amount of digging since had clued her in to what had happened.

Switching her focus to the situation at hand, Honor made note of the damage in the cockpit and mentally compiled a list of what needed to be done. They could replace the seat easily enough, but the rest of the repairs to the body would take days, if not weeks.

“God I hate cleaning up blood,” Andrews muttered from behind her. The muttering was nothing new. He made it clear that he hated deployment, hated Bagram even more, and seemed to hate his job most of the time. In this case though, she agreed with him.

“Part of the job, and that’s why they pay us the big bucks,” she said, but she agreed with him. Cleaning up the blood of someone you knew and cared about would be far worse though.

“Wonder who shot them up,” Smithers mused behind her. “Taliban, or that Rahim guy’s followers maybe?”

The mere mention of the name Rahim filled her with anger and loathing. The American-born terrorist mastermind was responsible for what had happened to Maya, for wounding Liam, and for Erin nearly dying in that dirty bomb attack. “Could be either. Or both.” Thankfully he’d died at the hands of Erin’s boyfriend, Wade—who’d been his second-in-command in a deep undercover operation for the CIA—just minutes before the bomb had exploded.

But his followers were still in the area and hungry for revenge. Bagram remained on high alert.

“Hey, Ms. Girard?”

Honor turned around at the sound of Ipman’s voice. As a warrant officer her soldiers either called her Ms. Girard or ma’am. “Yeah?”

“The crew chief’s here.”

Honor stepped out of the cockpit as the man began telling them what happened.

“We were doing a resupply and had just gone into an in-ground hover in a small valley in the tribal region when we started taking fire. At first just a couple shooters, but pretty soon there were a few dozen. Me and the other gunner sprayed their position but he got hit and the co-pilot shortly after. Pilot commander got us up and out of there but we were limping and we knew it. The 60s got there pretty quick and their gunners helped clear off the drop zone, but more tangos were coming out onto the surrounding hills like ants and we had to fly at a reduced altitude all the way back here.”

“Was there a fire on board?” Honor asked, envisioning all of that in her mind. Must have been real tense in here for a while.

“We smelled smoke so we sprayed the interior down and kept our eyes on the fuel lines.”

She nodded. “We’ll make sure we check all that.” From her initial inspection she was almost certain at least one of them had been damaged.

The man lifted a hand and patted the side of the interior, an almost fond expression on his face. “She’s a tough old lady, to get us back here in one piece.”

“She sure is. Go ahead and get your report done up. I know you must be anxious to check on your crew at the hospital after the debriefing.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She set a hand on his shoulder, smiled. “We’ll take it from here. She’s in good hands.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Tell your FE to drop by the hangar when he gets a chance, to address any other concerns he has.” Flight engineers were crucial members of a crew and would have a good handle on all the damage to the aircraft.

“Will do.”

When he left she spoke to her soldiers. “Let’s move this girl into the hangar and get started.”

Once the Chinook was safely in the repair hangar, Honor divvied up assignments and the crew got to work. Since it was a big job she put aside her manager’s hat for a few hours and helped out, cleaning the interior then removing the damaged hoses and electrical components.

It took them hours to list the exact extent of the damage and figure out what needed repair versus replacement. Someone brought sandwiches and coffee but it was mid-afternoon before she was able to get all her paperwork filed and check on her other soldiers’ jobs. By then the lack of sleep was starting to catch up with her big time.

She swung by HQ to hand in more paperwork, intending to head from there over to the showers before returning to her B-hut for a bit, but stopped when she saw a man in a flight suit with his left arm bundled up in a sling. The co-pilot from the damaged Chinook.

Giving him a polite smile when he glanced her way, she opened her mouth to ask how he was doing and see if his flight engineer was around, when she saw another man step out of the next door down the hall.

The smile froze in place, every drop of blood draining from her face as she stared at him. Her mouth snapped shut.

Major Liam Magrath.

He stopped just outside the door when he spotted her, his hand still on the knob, paused in the act of shutting the door as he stared back at her with those piercing green eyes.

Everything else funneled away. The other people in the building, their voices, all sound except the painful pounding of her heart in her ears. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.

He lowered his hand from the knob and stood stiffly beside the door, giving her a nod of acknowledgement that did nothing to ease the silent tension infusing the air. His thick, dark brown hair was cut regulation short. She knew how soft it was despite the short length because she’d run her fingers through it more times than she could count.

“Hey,” he said, his deep voice stirring bittersweet memories. It had been so long since she’d heard it.

Honor swallowed hard. “Hey.” The sudden flood of emotion was almost too much. It took everything she had to keep the pain locked inside and not let it show. Liam looked away and shifted his weight as though he was about to turn and leave. A burst of panic exploded inside her. “You hear about the Chinook that came in this morning?” she heard herself blurt out.

He stopped, his gaze coming back to hers, flat and unreadable. “Yeah. Wounded crew are gonna be okay.”

It was the first time she’d seen him in over a year. She was so starved for the sight of him she couldn’t stop her gaze from running over the length of his body. Looking at him now, it was impossible to tell he’d been hurt at all.

He looked as strong as ever, six-feet-one-inch of raw male power housed in a tightly controlled exterior. His jaw was impossibly square, as stubborn and unforgiving as the rest of him. His flight suit covered everything except where he’d rolled his sleeves up to the elbows, exposing tanned, roped forearms. Hard, powerful arms she used to wake up wrapped in whenever they got to spend the night together stateside, feeling safe and secure…

And
loved
. God, no one had ever loved her the way Liam had.

All this time later she still had no idea how she was supposed to live without that—without him. The nightmarish no-win situation she’d been in would’ve had far-reaching consequences no matter what she’d decided, but there wasn’t a day that went by when she didn’t regret her decision.

She’d lost so much already, over the past five months alone; coming to terms with the realization that she’d lost Liam irrevocably despite her efforts at reaching out to him had pretty much shattered her.

Her stomach was a hard knot beneath her ribcage, all her muscles stiff as she struggled to think of what else to say, some part of her unable to let him go just yet. “Are you… How are you?”

Something she couldn’t decipher flickered in his eyes for a second, then his gaze chilled, his expression turning impassive. “Fine. You?” His gaze dropped to the insignia in the middle of her chest that broadcast her recent promotion to warrant officer. “Congrats.”

“Thanks.” She’d applied and been selected for WOCS and had done her training at Fort Rucker, Alabama almost three months ago now, then done a short stint back at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington State before returning to finish her tour here. “But I meant how are you physically these days. I never did find out what—”

“I’m fine.” The last word rang with such finality she felt it resonate in the empty space inside her chest. He glanced at his watch, obviously impatient to leave. “I gotta go.”

Honor floundered for something else to say, something that would keep him here long enough to make him look at her,
really
look at her instead of acting like she was a near stranger and drop that awful, distant mask he wore. But nothing she said or did would ever make that happen.

He was a field grade officer eight ranks above her. Even with her new rank and their different chains of command making a romantic relationship between them
technically
within regulations if it was handled properly, that was a non-issue now. As far as he was concerned, they were done and had been for over a year and a half. He’d been hers and she’d blown it. Apologies meant nothing to him, no matter how sincere and heartfelt, and God knew she’d given several of them. He wasn’t the type to forgive and forget. Not with the way she’d hurt him.

You lost him a long time ago, and you know it. You have to let him go.
Honor swallowed, struggled to keep her voice even as she said the only thing she could to save her dignity. “Okay. Take care.”

“You too.” He walked away without a backward glance, left her standing there devastated all over again. Her heart ached even more when she saw the slight hitch in his strong, confident gait. Liam moved like he owned the ground he walked on, something she’d always found sexy. Whatever other wounds he’d sustained on that mission last spring, his left leg had definitely been injured.

Honor hated that she didn’t know what happened or that she hadn’t been able to be there for him, but he’d made it abundantly clear even back then that he wanted nothing to do with her. And if this sickening sensation in her stomach at the sight of him was any indication, maybe it was a blessing that they never ran into each other.

The far door shut as Liam stepped out into the brilliant sunshine. Realizing she was still standing there staring after him like a lovesick idiot, Honor pivoted and headed back the way she’d come. Forget the shower, all she wanted was her bunk so she could pull the covers over her head and nurse her battered heart in private. They’d only bumped into each other a handful of times since they’d broken up, and every damn time she laid eyes on him her heart broke all over again.

As she walked away from the building, she couldn’t help thinking about the stark contrast between now and the first time they’d seen each other in-country, when he’d kissed her that first time. A little under two years ago now, mere months before her entire world had come crumbling down around her.

Kandahar

Twenty-three months earlier

Six days in-country and finally her internal clock was getting with the program. Honor stepped out of the hot, dry morning air and into the relative cool of the shaded hangar. By noon it would be stifling even in here, far hotter than it ever got back at her home base in Washington State. This was the new norm, however, and with a long summer stretching ahead of her, she’d better get used to it.

Her crew was hard at work on a UH-60L Black Hawk they’d brought in to have its rotor blades replaced. Last night the pilot had hit some sort of debris while flying and made an emergency landing fifteen miles away. Honor’s crew had been tapped to retrieve it. They’d gone out in a convoy of armored vehicles in a flatbed to load the helo up and bring it back to base. Far more exciting than the average day as a maintenance tech.

“Brought you guys some water,” she said as she approached the Black Hawk’s belly. Two guys were perched on top of the machine, taking the blade pins out of the rotor grips that attached the blades to the rotor hub assembly. Three others stood on the ground nearby, ready with straps and pulleys in a trapeze configuration to take the load off the end of the rotors so they would release once the bases were freed from the main grips.

She hopped onto its deck and stretched up on her toes to hand two bottles to the private and corporal up top. She’d be checking the engines next, to ensure nothing had been damaged during or after the debris strike. As she was settling back onto her feet on the deck, someone called out behind her.

“Sarn’t Girard.”

She turned around to find an unfamiliar corporal standing in the hangar doorway. “Yes?”

“Some guy’s looking for you, ma’am.”

Frowning, she bent to set the other two bottles of water on the deck and stepped down to walk toward him. “Who and where?” A reporter maybe? One of her commanders had mentioned someone being interested in interviewing her for an article about female soldiers serving here at Kandahar.

The corporal shrugged. “Didn’t tell me his name but he asked me to find you and said he’d wait for you by Green Beans. Big guy, dressed in civvies.”

“Okay, thanks.” She had no idea who it could be, but if he’d asked for her by name then he must know her. She swung her head around and located her staff sergeant over by one of the equipment lockers. “Sarn’t, there’s—”