Tangled Pursuit (26 page)

She nodded. “That’s not a bad change of plans, really. It actually makes sense.”

“I think it’s brilliant,” Wyatt said. “We’ve been blowing these caravans to hell with JDAM bombs dropped from B-52s. And while that works, we’re not identifying the men inside this country linked with al-Qaeda who are making these IEDs. We’ll let them live and then bring them to justice in another way.”

“Did you see Matt at that meeting?”

He heard the worry in her low voice for her younger brother. “No. His team has already been assigned to follow the second camel caravan, if there is one tonight, to its destination villages. But I haven’t seen or talked to him lately.”

“What are they going to do, Wyatt? Send the arrested bomb makers back to Bagram, to the CIA, to be interrogated?”

“That’s the plan. We’ll make examples of them to the rest of the villages with pro-Taliban elements in them. Show them that even though Americans are supposedly out of Afghanistan, the shadow warriors are still here, and we still have a set of teeth in our mouths.”

“Wait . . .”

He felt her tense as she watched intently through the scope of her Win-Mag. The wind stilled for a moment, and he wondered what she’d spotted.

“There’s a caravan coming across. It’s still inside the Pak border, but give it ten minutes,” she told him in a low tone, her hand going to the scope, fine-tuning the magnification as she ranged it. A caravan of double-humped camels loaded down with fertilizer bags slowly approached the border. Their loads were all covered with tarps, but that didn’t matter. After ten years of war and smuggling, everyone knew what they were carrying.

“Give me the GPS once they cross the border,” Wyatt said, slowly getting to his knees and pulling out his own electronic unit to input the numbers. It took another fifteen minutes.

Wyatt enjoyed watching Tal work as she called out the GPS numbers to him.

“I need Jay,” she said. “Can he come back here?”

“Sure.” Wyatt knew that snipers generally stayed two hours on a rifle and then took a break while their partner took another two hours at the scope. She was probably exhausted. It was hard, continuously focused work.

His radio clicked. Turning on his earpiece, he was in immediate contact with the team lead petty officer, or LPO, Jason Drummond. “Yeah?” he spoke quietly into the mic close to his lips.

“We have a medical situation, Chief. Can you get up here right now?”

“What is it?” Wyatt demanded, scowling. He didn’t need a medical emergency right now.
Sonofabitch!

“It’s Sergeant Jay Caldwell. He just went down. You’re our medic and I need you to evaluate him ASAP.”

“Roger. I’ll be there in ten. Out.” He turned and asked Tal, “Does Jay have any medical issues that you know of?”

She pulled her eye away from the scope, startled. “Jay? No. He’s healthy as a horse. Why do you ask?”

“My LPO just called. Jay’s down. I have to get up there and find out what’s going on. As soon as I know, I’ll fill you in by radio.”

He saw her eyes flare with surprise, then quickly fill with worry. He squeezed Tal’s shoulder and headed out.

Tal tried to tamp down her concern about Jay. She was stunned. What the hell had happened? She tried to stay focused on her job, watching the border, keeping a count of every person, truck, and animal that crossed. But she was dying to call Wyatt, and it took everything she had to wait. Jay was her right hand, and she knew without a doubt that if he was in serious medical trouble, she was in trouble, too. She depended on him. And even more important, he was like a brother to her. There was no one who could replace him. It meant an end to her op, because she couldn’t remain alone as a sniper. She had to have a spotter. Her heart sank.

“Captain Culver?”

Tal pulled away from the scope and sat up, dealing with the radio call from Wyatt. She knew he had to speak formally to her because every member of his team was on this same channel. “Yes, Chief?”

“Sergeant Caldwell, from what I can tell after examining him, either is having a gallstone attack or has pancreatitis, but I can’t tell which. He’s in a lot of pain, and we’ve called in a medevac. Two Apaches are coming in to escort it.”

Tal cursed silently. Not only was her mission busted, but her newly moved hide was, too. The snipers across the border would sure as hell hear the helicopter coming in, not to mention the Apaches buzzing around the ridge. Although all the helos would run without lights, the Taliban would hear them, and between that and Sidiq’s being killed, they’d be crawling all over this mountain by morning.

“Does he need surgery?” she demanded, needing to see Jay, to let him know she was there for him, however he needed her—as his superior officer or as his friend. Tal knew gallstone attacks were painful as hell and completely incapacitated a person. Sometimes, if the stone was stuck in the bile duct, immediate surgery had to be performed.

“Don’t know, ma’am. They’ll take him to Bagram’s hospital and give him a complete workup.”

“What’s the ETA on the medevac?” She looked down and pulled the flap from across the radium dials of her watch.

“One hour.”

“Okay, I’m coming up. I want to be with him until you take him out to the LZ, landing zone, to be picked up.”

“Roger that.”

Well, hell!
She flipped the covers down on the scope. Her op was finished here anyway. She called in to Recon HQ, telling them what had happened. Luckily, Major Dickenson was there, and she talked to him directly.

“Major,” she said, “I need your counterorder.” Spring buildup among the military was called the Surge, when thousands of enemy soldiers flooded the Af-Pak border, coming into Afghanistan to fight the Americans. It was a hectic time of year and was the most active for a sniper.

“I’m authorizing you to remain in that area, Captain Culver. Find another new hide and settle in.”

Tal’s brows rose. She had been expecting him to tell her to get on the medevac and come back to Bagram with Jay.

“Sir? I don’t understand. I’m without a spotter.” She knew SEALs often sent out a lone sniper without a spotter. They had their own sniper school and did things differently. The Marine Corps always worked in a team of two: sniper and spotter. What did Dickenson expect? That she’d stay out here alone? She could, but it would be hell on her. It meant getting five-or ten-minute catnaps instead of four hours of solid, unbroken sleep so she could be at her best, for starters. Plus, she wouldn’t have anyone who could be her eyes and ears behind her in the hide. It was a whole different ball game to be out in the badlands without a partner.

“Negative, Captain. I’m assigning you Chief Lockwood instead.”

What???
She nearly gasped but clamped down on the reaction. “But, sir, he’s not sniper trained.”

“Yes, Captain, he is. He went through SEAL sniper school and is qualified. As soon as they get Jay off that mountain and back here, he’s going to join you. Your hide is blown with those birds coming in, so you’ll be in charge, and you’re going to have to find another hide in the area. It’s Surge time. I need every available sniper we have out there on that area. We want you to keep tabs on how many men and camel caravans are coming over the Af-Pak border.”

Her mind spun with shock. “He’s . . . a sniper?” she demanded, her voice shaking with disbelief.

“Yes, he is, Captain.”

Tal knew all these radio transmissions were recorded at Bagram. Tom Dickenson was speaking officially, but she knew he was anxious. He was probably worried that she wouldn’t want to be paired with a SEAL. But his allowing her to stay also meant he needed her out in the field with the Surge going on. She had never worked with a SEAL spotter or sniper. This was an odd-couple pairing, at best.

She rallied, feeling some relief that she’d be able to keep the op active. “Roger that, sir. As soon as I can, once Sergeant Caldwell is picked up, Chief Lockwood and I will leave this hide and search for another one ASAP. Once we find it, I’ll be calling in the GPS.”

“Excellent, Captain.”

She wondered what would happen to the rest of Wyatt’s team. Were they flying back on the medevac, leaving him alone with her? Was their mission busted too? Compressing her lips, she said, “Roger, sir. Out.”

Now was not the time to ask a lot of questions. Tal hurriedly got her ruck on her shoulders, slipped the Win-Mag into its protective nylon sheath, and crept out the rear of the hide. Outdoors, she worked quickly and silently to pull the tarp and drag it with her to the rock overhang. She wanted to leave no hint for the Taliban that they’d been here.

Once near the cliff, she remained on her belly, dragging the tarp toward her, and when it was folded up, she gripped it in her left hand and moved slowly toward the dark maw of the cave.

She entered the cave and called Wyatt on his SEAL radio channel.

“I’m in the cave, Chief. Coming up in about five minutes. Out.”

“Roger. Out.”

She was very worried about Jay. As a paramedic, she was as skilled as any combat corpsman. Hurrying up the tunnel, pushing hard, Tal urgently wanted to see what shape he was in. She needed to sit with him, tell him he’d be okay, and reassure him that it would all turn out fine.

Entering the SEALs’ cave, she saw a small light. Jay was lying down on a blanket provided by one of the SEALs. She saw the sweat on his face, his eyes closed, his knees pulled up to ease the strain against his abdomen. That was a typical position for someone who had gallstone colic.

Wyatt was kneeling nearby, taking Jay’s blood pressure, the cuff around his upper right arm. Jay lifted his head, sensing her, and Tal tried to get a handle on her emotions.

The SEALs looked at her as she came in but remained where they were, standing guard, their M4s in chest harnesses.

Tal’s focus was on Jay. She dropped the tarp near the wall and shrugged carefully out of her ruck, the Win-Mag Velcroed to the rear of it. Setting it gently on the rocky surface, she quickly walked over to Jay’s left side and knelt by him. His breathing was fast and shallow, and she reached out, closing her hand over his, which was fisted in pain.

Jay instantly opened his eyes, and she was rocked by the level of pain she saw in them. His face was white, his mouth drawn down. He seemed to have aged twenty years in just an hour.

“I just gave him some morphine,” Wyatt told her in a low tone. He took the cuff off Jay, wrapping it back up and stowing it in the medical ruck nearby. He placed his hand on Jay’s shoulder. “In about a minute, you should be getting some relief, buddy.”

“Oh, God,” Jay gasped, wiping his arm across his furrowed brow. “I need it!”

“Do you have a history of gallstones?” Tal asked him, giving him a sympathetic look.

“No, but my dad does. He’s always getting attacks. Jesus, this is friggin’ painful,” Jay grunted.

Wyatt lifted his head, holding her gaze. “Jay said his grandfather on his father’s side had them, too.”

Tal grimaced. She squeezed Jay’s hand and released it, then went on one knee next to him. She touched his shoulder, wanting to somehow make him feel better. “Tough break about that DNA, buddy. But you’re in good hands. You’ll be fine, like the trouper you are.”

“I’m sorry, Tal, I really am. I know how much this op meant to you,” Jay gasped between clenching his teeth. Sweat popped out on his brow and he groaned, slowly rolling to his side, pulling his legs tightly up toward his body.

Tal saw Wyatt draw a blanket over Jay, and she was grateful for Wyatt’s nurturing nature. He was a good medic, keeping his full focus on Jay, who was having another attack. She had an awful feeling a stone was lodged in his bile duct, which would mean immediate surgery, and worried that Linda might miscarry if she got the news. Someone would have to gently tell her what had happened to her husband and that, hopefully, he would be fine.

The LPO, Drummond, came over, his gaze on Lockwood. “Chief, another five minutes and we’re going to have to take him down to that LZ.”

Wyatt nodded and stood. He glanced over at Tal. “Can you stay with him for a moment?”

She nodded, her hand resting lightly on Jay’s hunched shoulder.

Getting up, Wyatt pulled out the folded stretcher he always carried on the outside of his medical ruck. He and Drummond quickly unsnapped it and placed it on the floor next to Jay. It was a good, strong stretcher. Wyatt stood and gestured to the LPO to follow him out of earshot of Tal and Jay.

Tal saw the concern on the other SEALs’ faces as Jay went from bad to worse, panting for breath from the pain. She wished that morphine would take hold! She saw Wyatt talking with his LPO and suddenly realized that the same care and consideration Wyatt had bestowed upon her was now being given to Jay.

She saw the trust and respect his men had for him, just from reading their faces. Now getting Jay medical help was everyone’s focus. She glanced down and saw the morphine was beginning to kick in. Jay was no longer breathing as hard and was starting to relax a little out of his tight fetal position. She ran her hand gently down his shoulder, wishing she could do more for him.

She saw Wyatt turn, his face unreadable, and Tal told Jay, “They’re going to get you on the stretcher now. We’ll make sure you’re kept warm.”

He barely nodded. “W-what about my ruck?”

Wyatt heard him and knelt opposite Tal. “No worries, Jay, we’ve got your back.” He looked at Tal. “My team’s taking him down and they’ll take his ruck, too. The LPO will now be the leader of this op for us. I’ll be staying here to assist you.”

“Good,” she said.

Jay frowned, slowly rolling onto his back, pulling the blanket up to his chest. “Aren’t you coming back with me, Tal?”

She saw the pain receding in his darkened eyes. “No. I’m staying here.”

“She’s got me taking your place,” Wyatt teased him with a drawl, smiling.

Jay gave them a confused look.

Tal moved her hand across his sweaty brow. “Jay, stop worrying about it, okay? Just focus on getting better, not on me. Not this op. I’ll be fine with Chief Lockwood as my spotter. He’s a trained SEAL sniper, so no worries. Okay?” She smiled gently down at him.