Deadly Descent (12 page)

He got up with her, unaffected by her dig about the difference in their ranks.
“Why, what do you need fixed?”

She shot him a haughty glare.
“I can handle it myself, thanks.”

He ignored the dismissal and followed her anyway.
“What’s broken?”

Candace sighed in irritation, her lips pursing.
“My bunk.”

Shoving his hands into his pocket, he couldn’t help himself.
“Why, what’ve you been doing in it?”

Without breaking stride, she threw him a look of total disgust.
“It was broken when I got here.
One of the slats under the mattress is loose, and the frame wobbles.” She lifted a hand and shook her head as she looked up at the ceiling.
“God, why am I even telling you this?”

“I’ll fix it for you if you want.”

Her expression turned wary, as if she was suspicious of his motive.
“Out of the goodness of your heart, no doubt.”

“Hey, I’m not looking for anything in return.
I’m just offering to help.
I’m good with my hands.”

She stopped and folded her arms across her ample chest, and the gesture was so distracting he had trouble maintaining eye contact.
Somehow he managed to keep his eyes on her face.

“I’ll bet.”

He held up his palms.
“That came out wrong.”

“I’m sure it did.” She considered him with those semi-sweet chocolate eyes for a moment before continuing.
“So you’re offering to help me out just to be a nice guy.”

He shrugged.
“I’m pretty handy.
And besides, you’re a friend of Devon’s, and I’d hate for one of our pilots to go without sleep because of something I could have fixed.”

She eyed him suspiciously for another few seconds, then turned and walked away.
“Fine,” she called over her shoulder.
“But don’t talk to me, and don’t walk next to me.”

Jesus, was she uptight or what?
Walking behind her worked fine for him though, because it gave him an awesome view of her shapely ass on the way over to her barracks.
She marched up the wooden steps with her head held high and her bun perfectly in place, and didn’t so much as look back to see whether he’d followed her.
Not that there was any question about that.

The place was empty, and she stood on one side of her bunk, watching him.
The hut was laid out the same as his, but somehow it seemed homier.
Feminine touches were sprinkled throughout the room.
A few framed pictures, what looked like a handmade quilt on one of the bunks, and a lingering scent of some sort of fruity lotion or shampoo hung in the air.
“Tools are over here,” she said, gesturing with a nod to the small toolbox beside her bed.

Next to her bunk he spotted Devon’s cross-stitch bag, and the half-finished PJ emblem she’d been working on before Ty’s funeral.
Didn’t bode well for her being ready to move on with Cam, now did it?

Going down on one knee next to Candace’s bed, he saw the loose slat, and gripped the frame with one hand to give it a shake.
Jesus, it was more than loose.
“You’re lucky this hasn’t collapsed on you.”

She stiffened, and a flush rose to her peaches-and-cream skin.
“Is that your not-so-subtle way of pointing out I’m not a size four?”

“No,” he said quickly, mentally smacking himself on the forehead.
“I’m saying the bed’s not sturdy enough for anyone.
And trust me, there’s
nothing
wrong with the way you’re built.”

The flush deepened, and a small frown creased her forehead.
“Thanks.
I think.”

“You’re welcome.” He might not have Jackson’s gift of understanding a woman’s mind, but he wasn’t stupid.
Underneath all that remote armor she wore, for some fucked-up reason this gorgeous creature was insecure about her body image.
Probably some dipshit in her past had caused that.

Before he could blurt out his suspicion, he grabbed a wrench and tightened the bolt holding the loose slat, but soon saw the real problem.
“See here?
It’s bent.” He moved aside a bit so she could lean down and see for herself.
The scent of strawberries hit him, light, not too strong, and he leaned in a fraction of an inch closer.
The skin on her nape looked smooth and soft beneath the tightly coiled bun.
He almost bent his head to nuzzle her there and pull more of that delicious smell into his lungs.

“It’s really bent.” Her frown deepened.

“Looks like whoever used this bunk before you was having a whole lot more fun in it that you are.”

She pushed to her feet and stepped back, staring at the bed like it was contaminated with some contagious disease.
She eyed him doubtfully.
“Can you still fix it?”

“Yeah.
I’ll just bang it.
Out, that is.”

Her gaze flicked to his, and he winked.
She rolled her eyes.
“Uh-huh.
I can tell you love to bang things, but as long as all you want to bang is my bed frame, go ahead.”

He put a hand to his heart as though she’d wounded him.
“I already told you, I’m being a gentleman.”

“Good, then we won’t have a problem.”

Chuckling, he picked up a hammer and put her blanket between it and the slat to muffle the noise.
It took a while to straighten it out, but finally he was able to get it into proper position and tighten the bolts in place.
He tightened a few on the frame itself, then checked the whole thing over to make sure he hadn’t missed anything.
Tossing the wrench back into the toolbox with a clang, he looked back at her.
“There you go.
Good as new.”

She eyed the bunk with distaste, making him think she was going to douse the works with Lysol before she remade the bed.
“Thanks.”

“Want to test it?”

Her eyes flew to his.
“Pardon?”

She was so much fun to tease.
“Climb on, and see how it does.”

“No thanks.
I’m sure it’s fine.
I appreciate your help.”

“Might as well check it while I’m still here.
Want me to get on?”

“No,” she said with tried patience, “it’ll be fine now.
Thanks.”

Ryan smothered a grin.
He’d pushed her far enough for now.
She intrigued him, though.
There was a lot of heat inside her that she went to every effort to hide.
Her expressive eyes told him that much.
“Let me know if you need any more help,” he said, climbing to his feet and dusting off his hands.

“Thanks, I will.”

He knew she was lying.
At the door, he paused and looked back at her.
She hadn’t moved, just stood in the same spot with her perfect posture and perfectly coiffed hair, her melting eyes meeting his warily.
He shrugged.
“If you change your mind about testing it out…”

He could have sworn those delectable lips twitched for a fraction of a second before they thinned out into a disapproving line.
“I know where to find you,” she finished.
“Thanks again.” As in, ‘
See ya, and don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out’
.

“Anytime.” He flicked her a negligent, two-fingered salute.
“Have a good evening, ma’am.”

Her eyes hardened.
“You too,
Sergeant
.”

“Everyone quiet!”

The sharp whisper silenced all chatter among the ranks.
Heart thudding, Sadiq stopped and raised his AK-47, ready for trouble.
Up ahead General Nasrallah moved out front, his broad shoulders even wider with the heavy coat he wore.

The light wind whistled through the rocks as it blew down the narrow canyon they traveled through.
Despite the chill, his feet grew clammy in his heavy boots.
He kept his eyes on the general, watching for any sign that the enemy might be close by.

“I don’t see anything,” Khalid scoffed behind him in heavily accented English.
He spoke it when he didn’t want anyone but Sadiq to know what he was saying.

“Shut up,” Sadiq snapped.
Idiot could get them killed if an enemy patrol heard him.

“What’s the matter?
Afraid to die, brother?”

I’m not your brother
, he wanted to snarl, but bit his tongue.
If he ignored him long enough, Khalid would eventually lose interest and find someone else to irritate.
Brothers in Islam they might be, but Sadiq didn’t trust him.
There was something almost sinister about him.
A deep seated rage that bordered on maniacal was embedded in his dead eyes.
The topaz color looked unnatural with his dark complexion and black hair, but the emptiness in them was enough to send a shiver of warning up a man’s spine.

“Are you?”

Sadiq’s jaw hardened.
Stupid git wouldn’t leave him alone until he got satisfaction.

The all clear sounded.
Letting out the breath he’d been holding, Sadiq slung his rifle and resumed the march, keeping pace with the man in front of him.
He was near the end of the column, the rear guard in an army of nearly two hundred men.
He’d recruited many of them himself, mostly boys in their mid to late teens from farming villages scattered throughout the valleys near the Pakistan-Afghan border.
All of them uneducated, and all of them itching for the chance to spill American blood.
They wanted the chance to become martyrs for Allah.
Sadiq understood that, but it’s not what he wanted.
If he was going to die, he intended to take as many Americans with him as possible.

“Answer me.”

The menace in the other man’s voice made Sadiq look over his shoulder.
Khalid’s eyes were narrowed, glowing that unearthly shade of yellow that reminded him of a hungry lion.
“Shut up and march,” he snapped.

Khalid’s mouth curled into a smirk.
“You
are
afraid.”

“The only thing I’m afraid of is you getting us killed before we can attack the enemy.”

Those odd eyes glittered.
“Is that all?
Or perhaps you are uneasy because you know I’m behind you with my weapon.”

Rather than answer, Sadiq picked up his pace and moved closer to the others.
Khalid was a bully that loved picking on individuals he considered weak or beneath him.
That wasn’t the problem between them, because Sadiq was far from weak.
Theirs was more a struggle for authority and power over the other men in the ranks.
While he wasn’t afraid of Khalid, he was smart enough to watch his back.
He made a point of never being alone with him, just in case.

This time, Khalid wouldn’t let it go.
He came up behind him again, close enough for Sadiq to smell his stale body odor and feel the heat of his breath.
“You think you are so much better than the rest of us.
That just because the general trusts you and you have been educated in the west that you are somehow superior to us.
But you’re not.” Sadiq didn’t have to see the expression on the other man’s face to know he was sneering.
“Those expensive clothes and warm boots won’t keep you alive out here, and neither will your useless education.
We
are your only protection now.
Your brothers.
You had best remember that or none of them will follow you anywhere.”

Sadiq ground his back teeth together.
The sodding idiot deserved to be punched in the throat for speaking to him like that, but he would not lower himself to fighting a fellow soldier.
“Then I would urge you,
brother
, to remember that we are fighting the same enemy.
Leave your quarrel with me out of it.”

A sly laugh was the only reply.

Sadiq pulled his woolen scarf around his face to cut the wind.
His hands and toes were numb despite the waterproof Gore-Tex jacket and boots he’d bought back in London.
The other men were in much worse shape.
Most had only wool or cloth wrapped around their feet and hands to protect them from the cold, and some were barefoot in their sandals.
Poor bastards must be freezing already, and the weather was only going to get colder as the days wore on.

He trudged onward through the mountain pass, the temperature dropping as they climbed.
The sun momentarily broke through the thick clouds overhead and reflected off the light skiff of snow covering the ground.
Squinting in the glare, he saw a dark shape circling high above among the clouds.
He paused, trying to make out the shape and decide whether or not it might be a threat.
Was it a bird?
Or an unmanned drone?

Nasrallah called out a halt again.
Everyone hunkered down in position.
Sadiq’s heart beat fast as he stared up into the sky.
The bitterness he carried with him rose up swift and potent.
Those bloody drones killed more innocents than soldiers in these mountains.
They carried infrared cameras linked to satellites and powerful missiles that could blow up an entire village.
He’d seen it happen.

His cherished Quran lay inside his jacket against his chest.
He’d be damned if he died because of some military toy operated by a desk jockey back in the States like a sodding video game.
He wanted to laugh.
No one back in England would recognize him as the mild-mannered student they’d known at Cambridge.
Well, none of them had seen what he had.
The attack had forever changed him into a hardened warrior, prepared to die to defend his people and homeland.
And, if nothing else, avenge his murdered brother.

“Sadiq!”

He glanced up the line at one of the other commanders, who beckoned to him.
When he reached the front of the column to meet with General Nasrallah and the others, he saw the reason for the abrupt halt.

It wasn’t a drone up there.
It was a vulture.
Its next meal lay spread out on the side of the trail ahead.
Two bodies and a donkey carcass were sprawled in the snow a hundred yards or so up the trial.
The men were covered with a light dusting of last night’s snow, but their partially eaten remains suggested they had been dead for a while longer than that.

“Casualties from the fighting here three days ago,” the general told them.
“Americans could be close by.”

“Shall we bury them?” someone asked.

“No.”

The gravity of their situation struck Sadiq.
Leaving the bodies of dead Muslims to the animals instead of burying them went against the teachings of the Quran.

“They could be booby-trapped, and even if they’re not, burying them would take valuable time and make it easier for the enemy to spot us.
We will alert the people at the next village to come out and bury the dead.
For now we must keep moving.”

The men seemed uncomfortable with the decision, but no one argued.
Before he could leave, Nasrallah stopped Sadiq with a hand on his shoulder.
“I understand there is some friction between you and Khalid.”

Sadiq scowled.
He would not be intimidated by a bully who should be with the Taliban.
He couldn’t figure out why Khalid hadn’t joined up with them already.
The scary bastard would get off beating women and old men that refused to obey the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Shari ‘a law.
“There is no problem, sir.
We just don’t like each other.”

The older man’s eyes crinkled.
“I know how he is.
But he is a good fighter.” He switched to English so no one overhearing them would understand.
“Beggars can’t be choosers, my son.
Keep clear of him if you can.”

Everyone got back into line and moved out.

Eyeing the decomposing remains as they passed, Sadiq said a prayer for their souls and repressed a shiver.
The thought of Americans in the area put him on edge.
What really made him nervous was the knowledge that Special Forces were in these mountains waiting for nightfall to begin their hunt.

With no hope of seeing Cam, Devon turned down a seat in a poker game and headed back to her barracks for the night.
Slipping inside the hut, the strong smell of lemon disinfectant hit her.
Somebody had given the place a good scrubbing while she was out.

She spotted Maya sound asleep in her bunk against the far wall, but the other beds were empty.
Candace would be at a briefing or out on the flight line getting ready for her night’s mission, Honor was probably taking care of the helos in the hangar, and Erin had to be at the hospital.
Maybe she knew how the children were doing, because when Devon had checked at the hospital one last time, nobody would tell her anything.

As for Cam…he’d be either waiting to deploy with the Quick Reaction Force, or onboard an outgoing Chinook for an infil or extraction with a Special Ops group.

Slipping under the covers still dressed in her pants and T-shirt, she said a silent prayer for him and the children, then closed her eyes and let herself drift off.

It seemed like she’d barely shut her eyes when a loud explosion jolted her from sleep.
Sitting bolt upright, she barely heard Maya’s low curse over the sound of her heart thundering in her ears.
“What was that?” Devon demanded, gaze swinging around the darkened room, all her muscles tensed.

“Dunno.
Rocket attack, maybe,” Maya replied, scrambling out of her bunk.

Rocket attack?
Throwing back the covers, Devon shoved her feet into her boots, grabbed a jacket and followed Maya out the door.
The outside lights illuminated the M-4 held in her roomie’s hands.
Well Jesus, you should have a weapon, too, since the freaking
base
might be under attack.
Without a word she darted back inside to grab her sidearm.

Following Maya, she ran to the end of the row of B-huts.
As she cleared the last one, a faint whiff of jet fuel carried on the wind hit her nostrils.
People shouted in the distance, running around in the semi-darkness.
Amidst the confusion, she looked toward the airstrip and let out a gasp.
A few hundred meters short of the runway, a wall of flame shot into the night sky, rising from the wreckage of an aircraft lying stricken on the ground.

“Shit,” Maya said, running toward the scene.
“I think it’s a Spectre.”

Oh my God, it was.
Devon recognized the distinctive shape of the nose and the four propellers.
Her heart was in her throat as she kept pace with Maya.
Please don’t let it be Ace.
Please God, not Ace.

Crews were already on scene battling the fire, and a group of men were hauling two stretchers away from the wreckage, running flat out to a waiting vehicle.
The smell of the smoke and burning jet fuel was suffocating.
The sharpness stung her nostrils and made her eyes water.

“What the hell happened?” she shouted to one of the bystanders when she reached the fence.
She clutched the chain link with white-knuckled fingers.
It couldn’t be Candace.
Just couldn’t.

“Don’t know,” he answered, shaking his head as he stared at the spectacle.
“I was in the hangar when I heard a bang.
I ran outside and next thing I knew the plane was on fire.
It tried to make an emergency landing, but didn’t make it.”

Devon put her hands over her mouth.
Christ.
The aircraft held a crew of eleven plus two pilots.
She dropped her arms, wrapping them around her waist.
“Anybody else get out besides the two crewmen?”

“Don’t think so.”

With the raging heat hitting her this far away from the runway, she knew nobody could survive the fire and suffocating smoke.

She was still staring in horror when Maya walked up, her pretty face grim in the orange wash of light from the flames.
“Some guys I talked to think it took a direct hit from an RPG.”