Shattered (3 page)

By the time the gun battle was over and the bad guys had been eliminated, bodies were lying all over snow that had turned the color of strawberry margaritas.

Although it was bad, the worst Shane had ever experienced, he had managed to get in some decent shots of his own. And while he might not be as good a shot as Tremayne or Quinn McKade, the SEAL team’s sniper, he’d sent his share of terrorists to paradise, or wherever it was that they went to retrieve those forty virgins they’d been promised.

The sun had risen bloodred and was beginning to move across the sky when Tremayne called McKade and SEAL medic Lucas Chaffee out of the bunker they’d taken and were now huddled in. Tremayne’s excuse was that now that the gunfire had stopped, they could take the opportunity to retrieve some ammunition and other needed supplies from the downed Chinook.

Which made sense.

But Shane hadn’t just fallen off the potato truck. He knew that another reason they’d left the bunker was that they were trying to come up with an evac plan. Because although everyone was continuing to act all business-as-usual, they were sitting ducks for any reinforcements those dead tangos might have called in before being sent to their heavenly reward.

He’d also begun to lose feeling in his left leg. Shane didn’t need to be a medic to know that couldn’t be a good thing.

One of the CIA guys, who’d been studiously avoiding Shane’s eyes, cursed beneath his breath, climbed out of the bunker, and trudged through the thigh-deep snow over to where the three SEALs were holding their confab.

Although it took a major effort, Shane managed to pull himself up onto his good leg so he could watch what looked to be an argument going on.

Tremayne had taken off his black balaclava and looked less than thrilled to see the spook. More words were exchanged. Deciding they were now discussing him, Shane ducked as all four heads turned in the direction of the bunker.

The quick movement put him off balance.

“Shit, shit, shit!” he cursed as he landed on the cold ground in a heap, his wounded leg crumpled beneath him.

He’d just managed to untangle himself when the group returned from their confab.

“Good news,” Tremayne announced with what, even if he hadn’t known him so well, Shane could have recognized as false cheer. “We’re taking you to the hospital and letting some sexy hot-lips nurse kiss your boo-boo.”

“As appealing as that sounds—especially the sexy hot-lips nurse part—I’m fairly familiar with these mountains,” Shane said.

Actually, he’d gone over every square inch of flight charts and topo maps to make sure he didn’t crash into a damn peak some night. Computerized gizmos were cool, but they’d never replace a pilot’s knowledge of the region he was flying over.

“And I sure as hell don’t remember a decent-sized village in this part of the country. Let alone one large enough to have a hospital.”

“There wasn’t until last week,” Tremayne said. “Our resident spook here”—he waved a gloved hand toward the CIA guy—“says that there’s already a relief medical group in the area.” He named a small village Shane had seen on one of the maps.

“That’s across the border,” he felt obliged to point out. Even though the SEALs obviously already knew that.

“And your point is?” McKade asked.

“Not only would we be breaking the rules of engagement, if we go into Pakistan on our own, we’ll be breaking international law.”

Which, despite being a Black-Ops team, there’d be no way they could keep that out of the report. Which meant they could well be looking at headlines, even congressional hearings.

And every man there knew it.

“That’s not your problem,” Tremayne said. “You may call the shots when we’re in the air. But we’re on the ground now, and since we lost the LT, I’m in charge of this mission, as fucked up as it is. And I say we’re going. Now.”

Shane folded his arms. “I’m not letting you guys risk being court-martialed on my account.”

“Bite me,” McKade ground out. He’d no sooner spoken when the Chinook, which had been leaking fuel and smoldering since the crash, blew.

The earth rocked so hard, they could have experienced another earthquake. Blinding flames of red and yellow shot into the sky, and the ammunition the firefight had kept them from being able to offload exploded like Fourth of July fireworks.

“Damn it all to hell.” Shane glared up at the black smoke billowing into the sky. “I loved that bird.” A fury even hotter than the fire burned away his pain as he thought about how a lousy fifty-dollar RPG had managed to destroy a forty-three-million-dollar helo. “Now those bastards are really going to pay.”

Unsurprisingly, nearly everyone wanted in on the adventure, which left Tremayne drawing lots to choose which Rangers and Marines would be coming along and which would stay hunkered down at the site, guarding the dead—which, as they were gathered and laid side by side, boots up, looked eerily like they should’ve been making snow angels—and waiting for nightfall and the exfil copters that would be coming to take them back to camp.

Lucas Chaffee got busy triaging the survivors. Those categorized as “walking wounded”—men unlikely to deteriorate before the exfil copter arrived tonight—were green tagged and would remain behind.

As would those dubbed yellow tags, who, although their injuries could be potentially life threatening, weren’t expected to deteriorate in the next several hours.

That they were risking what could be a deadly climb, along with breaking the rules of engagement, told Shane he fell somewhere between a yellow and a critical red. The good news was the fact that they were taking him to get help revealed that Chaffee thought he had a chance of survival.

At least a lot better than the guy who, even Shane could tell, with his massive open head wound, was probably going to end up a black tag. Nevertheless, Tremayne assigned four Rangers to pull the SKED that would take the Marine with them.

Because you just never knew.

At least the SEALs had their PEPSE—personal environmental protection and survival equipment—consisting of a sleeping bag, sleeping shelter, boots, balaclavas, ground pads, cooking utensils, water bottles, a water-filtration system, a shovel, folding saw, climbing harness, a portable stove, several hats, gloves, mittens, snowshoes, crampons, and folding ski poles. Loaded for bear, they were pretty much set for anything the tangos might throw their way. Shane wouldn’t have been surprised if given twenty-four hours, they could have built an entire village.

Unfortunately, the Rangers dragging the SKED he was strapped onto weren’t SEALs.

It wasn’t easy making their way straight up the steep mountain to the border, especially without snowshoes. Which was why Shane didn’t blame the Ranger who stumbled.

Which immediately caused the other three to lose their grip, and the next thing Shane knew, he was skidding back down the mountainside at what seemed like sixty miles an hour.

At least he was no longer on the verge of passing out, as he’d been only moments earlier. Every nerve ending in his body was on high alert and screaming, Get me the hell off this fucking tobaggon!

Just when he was sure he was about to sail off the mountain into the void, the SKED slammed into a jagged granite boulder with a force that caused his bones to jangle.

It tipped over, burying him in a drift.

Then, hotshot SOAR pilot that he was, Shane checked out.

The men were not going to leave.

Although this was not the first high-risk situation she’d been in, Kirby wasn’t wild about the idea of operating under gunpoint.

For the first five minutes, she expected to be shot any moment. After that she became so focused that a bomb could have exploded right next to her, and as long as it didn’t blow her off her feet, she wouldn’t have noticed.

Although it was not yet noon, black clouds covered the sun, making the inside of the tent as dark as dusk. The lights, run by a sputtering generator, kept blinking off and on.

Although Hasan had tried to leave, the terrorist leader had insisted he remain as translator, which came in handy when Kirby instructed four of the men to beam their flashlights onto the patient’s wounded hand.

Although she could tell they disliked taking orders from a mere woman, the men did as they were told. She suspected their obedience was due more to their fear of failing their leader than any authority they might be willing to grant her. The others sat cross-legged nearby, silently observing every move the women made.

She ended up amputating the three fingers she’d thought would have to go when she’d seen the wound, but managed to save the young insurgent’s thumb by pinning fragments of bone together with syringe needles, which with his index finger would allow some use of his hand.

If he stayed alive long enough for it to heal.

Which, given his occupation, wasn’t all that likely.

Kirby swiped iodine over his hand, wrapped it in gauze, then put a heavier bandage over that, in some slim hope of keeping it clean; then followed up with penicillin and tetanus injections.

“I’ve done all I can,” she informed them as she stripped off the bloody surgical gloves. “He should recover, but I’ll know better in the morning.”

“We are taking him back to camp,” the leader said, over the thud of more mortars hitting somewhere in the distance.

Kirby shook her head. “That’s too dangerous.” If infection didn’t kill him, the mortars and strafing runs well might. “He needs to stay here, so—”

“What he needs is to be with his father.” His tone was clipped. Precise. “Where he will, Inshallah, survive to fight another day.”

Inshallah. God willing.

The three women exchanged a look. Kirby knew they were all thinking the same thing. That if matters had been left entirely to God, the boy wouldn’t have survived until morning.

“May I at least suggest a compromise?” Kirby asked.

The man lifted a dark brow.

“Give him three hours post-op. That way, I’ll be able to make sure he doesn’t have any reaction to the anesthetic. Then you can take him to his father. It would be tragic if he survived the surgery, only to die because he wasn’t given proper aftercare.”

He stroked the long, unkempt beard favored by jihadists. From his dark frown, she could see that he was imagining breaking that news to his terrorist leader.

“Two hours,” he said finally. “After Dhur.” Which was, Kirby knew, the noon call to prayer.

His steely tone assured her it was his final offer. He turned and left the medical tent, the men carrying her still-unconscious patient behind him.

“Welcome to Wonderland,” Lita murmured.

The description fit, since Kirby felt as if she’d fallen down a very dark hole.

As a steady flow of men, women, and children began flowing down the mountainside toward them, she wondered again, briefly, if that hottie Night Stalker she’d spent so many nights tangling the sheets with in Baghdad was in the midst of the battle obviously being waged.

And prayed that if Shane Garrett was up there in that tracer-lit sky, he’d stay safe.

There had been times when Shane had ragged the SEAL team medic about carrying everything but the hospital sink. Today, he was grateful that Lucas Chaffee believed in the old Spec-Ops axiom “Hope for the best; prepare for the worst.”

Shane didn’t need a medical degree to know that the loss of red blood cells reduced the oxygen-carrying capacity of blood to the brain. Fortunately, Chaffee had dragged some oxygen tanks off the helo before it blew. Better yet, he’d also brought some whole blood along, and when that had run out, he’d hooked Shane up to a bag of Hespan, a plasma volume expander. Which unfortunately ran out, too.

Shane had always prided himself on being at his best when things were the most fucked up. He’d go into what he secretly called his cone of chaos and kept his head cool while others around him might be losing theirs.

Not that he’d ever seen that happen with SEALs, but still . . .

Which was why he absofuckinglutely hated the fact that he was forced to lie useless on this damn SKED while the other guys were plowing through the deep snow, up the steep mountain grade, propelled solely by sheer willpower.

Two FNG (fucking new guy) Rangers, who hadn’t been in the country long enough for their bodies to adjust to the altitude, were suffering from mountain sickness. The base at Bagram was almost a mile high, and at nearly twice that, they stumbled along, lungs searing, stomachs roiling, tossing their cookies along the way.

Except for the panting of labored breaths and the unrelenting whistle of the biting wind, the mountain seemed deceptively calm.

Almost peaceful.

Then suddenly, bang!

They’d come under intense fire.

The first few times it happened, the FNGs, this being their first time in battle, would dive face-first, burying themselves in the snow. The more experienced Rangers, Marines, and SEALs didn’t so much as flinch.

After three gunfights in approximately thirty minutes, the FNGs were quickly becoming seasoned soldiers. Had it not been for the high potential of bleeding wounds and possible death, they could have been playing paintball.

“Thank God for pray and spray,” Tremayne said as one guy madly shot down from above, the bullets hitting harmlessly around them, sending up small geysers of snow.

“Roger that,” McKade said.

He calmly lifted his rifle, put the shooter in the crosshairs of his scope, and effectively took the bad guy out.

Not long after that, they came across a group of stone-and-mud huts set in a small valley on the side of the mountain. Three were standing; the rest appeared to be rubble.

“What do you think?” Tremayne asked, scanning the huts with his field glasses.

McKade eyed them through his rifle scope. “The place looks deserted to me.”

“Either it took a hit from one of our bombers or the quake got them,” Tremayne decided. “Odds are that a refugee camp isn’t going to be overrun with friendlies. Let’s see what we can find.”

They dragged Shane and the unconscious Marine past a dead cow and two goats who’d survived whatever had taken out the huts. Tremayne instructed one of the Rangers to build a fire in one of the hut’s fire pits while the rest went out scavenging.

“We need some local clothing,” he told them. “We’ve already got the Afghani hair-and-beard thing going, but those Ranger high-and-tight haircuts stand out like red flags.”

It took fifteen minutes to round up what they needed. Including some thick wool blankets.

“So long as you don’t mind the fleas, they’ll help keep you warm,” McKade said, piling three on top of Shane just before they took off again.

And walked straight into a wasps’ nest of machine-gun fire and mortars.

“Goddamn it!” Tremayne shouted as they all ducked behind a fortuitously close outcropping of rocks surrounded by trees. Momentarily ignoring the risk, he yanked off his helmet and threw it on the ground. “I am starting to get fucking tired of these guys!”

“At least now we know where all the people from the village went,” McKade said with his usual calm.

“I don’t suppose you can get around behind them, like you did at the crash site?” Tremayne asked.

The sniper looked out from behind the rocks, immediately drawing another burst of gunfire. Fortunately, these tangos’ aim turned out just as bad as the earlier ones; a grenade, obviously shot from a launcher, hit about twenty feet away, creating a small avalanche.

“The problem is, they’re shooting from what appears to be a fortified location from up above,” McKade said. “My guess is that it was built back during their fight with the Russians. Or, hell, maybe it goes all the way back to the days of British occupation. Without some heavy air support, I can’t see any easy way to get past them.”

“The only easy day was yesterday,” Tremayne reminded him of the SEAL axiom.

“True. Though some days are tougher than others. And despite our well-deserved reputation for chewing nails and spitting out bullets, getting blown away by tangos isn’t exactly going to be completing our mission.”

“How far away would you say they are?” Tremayne asked, looking through his binoculars toward the fortification.

McKade shot the distance with his sniper scope.

“Three hundred and fifty yards.”

Tremayne turned to Dallas O’Halloran, an Air Force combat controller who’d been on the mission and had come with them. Geniuses when it came to coordinating weapon-laden aircraft, because the selection process was nearly as daunting as it was to become a SEAL, CCTs fit in well with both SEALs and Delta Forces on the ground.

“Well?” he asked.

“I could call in and see if we could get us an F-15E Strike Eagle,” O’Halloran said. “But I gotta warn you, Chief, it’s awful close. If one of those five-hundred pounders hits the wrong coordinates, we could end up nothing but boots and mangled guns.”

Everyone was looking at Tremayne, obviously waiting for an answer.

“Damn,” he said, as another round of gunfire split a tree behind them. “We sure as hell can’t stay here. On the other hand, having my ticket punched by friendly fire isn’t exactly my favorite way to spend a snow day.”

He rubbed his chin.

Everyone waited.

SEALs were known for their ability to improvise. And Zachariah Tremayne was one of the best Shane had ever worked with.

“What we need is a Reaper,” he decided.

The upgraded version of the pilotless Predator was the military’s hottest new toy. Able to fly three times as fast as its predecessor, it was also capable of carrying eight times more weaponry. Including HELLFIRE missiles.

“I’ll see what I can do,” O’Halloran said.

He dug into his rucksack and pulled out a radio with a whip-thin antenna, which he’d already explained he’d learned about from a female sailor he’d met while on shore leave in the Green Zone. Unlike many military radios, it allowed him to talk to anyone in the joint services, whatever the frequency.

After making the connection, he handed the radio to Tremayne, who explained their current condition and their coordinates. His expression, while he listened to command, gave nothing away.

“Yessir,” he finally said. “Roger and out, sir.”

He handed the radio back to the CCT.

“Well?” McKade asked.

“It’s on its way.”

Rousing cheers drew another round of attack from the bad guys. This time the grenade landed closer, but exploded in a puff of snow.

Within minutes, the propeller-driven unmanned drone came flying over the mountain peaks. Every eye in the group was on it as it fluttered into position, using the target coordinates Tremayne had given command.

The first missile hit ten yards from the stone bunker, causing a wild round of fire into the sky from the enemy, who didn’t seem all that happy about the change in tactics.

McKade re-marked the target, adjusting for the wind speed; Tremayne called it in.

The Reaper circled back. Fired again, this time blasting the bunker.

Once.

Twice.

A third time.

A cloud of snow filled the air as another small avalanche came roaring down from what had once been the bunker, just missing the copse of trees.

Then the mountain went still as everyone waited to see if the tactic had worked.

“Fire a few rounds at them,” Tremayne instructed the Rangers, who were more than happy to take a break from dragging the SKEDs.

They shot off their M16s.

Then waited.

Again, nothing.

There were more “hooahs” from the Rangers, who were definitely feeling their oats.

Although their luck had momentarily changed, as they continued their trek up the mountainside, Shane, who’d seen things get a lot worse before they got better, wasn’t prepared to celebrate yet.

The sun, which had caused several of the guys to toss aside their body armor earlier, disappeared behind black anvil-shaped clouds, causing the temperature to plummet. The sweat that had soaked their clothing froze to ice.

Despite the blankets, the same thing was happening to Shane, but instead of sweat, it was the blood from his leg freezing and stiffening his pants.

Now he couldn’t just not feel his wounded leg; he couldn’t feel either of his feet.

And he figured he must have kept passing out, because every so often he’d wake up from some dark place to McKade throwing snowballs down at him.

“You guys oughta just leave me here,” he argued between clenched teeth as Chaffee stuffed more and more of the cottonlike Curlex into his wounded leg. If someone had given him a bullet to chew on, he would’ve gnawed it in half hours ago, but at least thanks to the cool-headed medic, he wasn’t bleeding out. At least not yet. “Before you all get killed.”

“What?” Tremayne turned on him. “You think you SOAR guys are tougher than a SEAL?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You implied it.”

McKade stood over him, arms crossed, huge in the too-small white tunic and billowy pants that had him looking like an oversized Frosty the Snowman. Not that Shane would ever dare accuse the sniper of that out loud.

“Whatever happened to that Night Stalker Creed y’all make such a fucking deal about?” Tremayne demanded. “The part about about never surrendering? Or never leaving a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy? That you’d rather fucking die than quit?”

“No way would I fucking surrender!” It took more energy than Shane wanted to expend to shout it, but he wasn’t allowing that accusation to go unchallenged. “Just give me my rifle, set me up against a damn rock, and give command my coordinates so a bird can pick me up tonight.”

“That’s the stupidest fucking idea I ever heard,” McKade ground out.

Of all the SEALs Shane had worked with, Quinn McKade was the least likely to lose his temper. But right now his jaw was clenched so hard Shane wouldn’t have been surprised if his teeth shattered.

“It also pisses me off that you’d even suggest that any of us, but most of all us SEALs, would leave any man behind,” McKade continued. “There is no fucking way that’s ever going to fucking happen!”

He knelt down in the snow. At six-feet-five, even on his knees, he towered over the SKED, so he bent down until they were nose to nose. “You fucking get that?”

Shane set his own jaw and glared up at the man who’d become as close to him as a brother. “It would be a little hard not to,” he yelled back, the effort causing the icy air to knife his lungs. “Since you’re fucking yelling in my fucking face!”

“Well, you fucking deserved it.” McKade stood back up again, huge hands braced on his hips.

“At least unfasten the straps,” Shane said, his own hot flare of temper cooling. “If we come under really heavy fire and things go south, I don’t want to be tied down.”

McKade stared at him hard. And long.

All around them men were holding their breath.

Finally, the SEAL sniper crouched down and sliced through the straps with his KA-BAR. “You fall off this thing, you’re going to have to crawl your skinny butt back on by yourself,” he warned.

“Roger that,” Shane shot back.

“Coffee break’s over, ladies,” Tremayne called out to the others who’d been watching the conflict. “Let’s get humping.”

There was not a single muttered word of complaint. Shane wasn’t sure whether that was because they totally agreed with the SEALs, or they were afraid if anyone opened their piehole to say anything negative, McKade would shoot them.

Chaffee walked alongside the SKED as they continued on up the mountainside. “You want some morphine?” he asked.

The offer wasn’t real encouraging, given that he’d already told Shane that since morphine lowered the heart rate, it would be risky to give it to him at this altitude. He wondered if the medic’s change of heart meant he was already close to dying, like the Marine who hadn’t even stirred during any of the firefights.

Besides, if he’d really wanted morphine, he could’ve used his own; no SOAR pilot or crew member ever went on a mission without a morphine Tubex tucked in their first-aid pocket. Just in case.