Keeping a Warrior
Page 30
“I will,” Jesse promised. He followed Pietro back the way they’d come, and Pietro left him with a soft arrivederci. Jesse watched him walk away, his body tingling with satiation, before he wandered back in the direction of the others, clutching some wine he’d ducked into a store and bought.
Nobody paid him the least bit of attention. Riley and Carlotta were nowhere in sight, Smitty and Enriquez were boozily dancing with a group of people, so Jesse put the bottle of wine down on the little bistro table and caught a shuttle back to the base.
As he rode, he couldn’t help but fantasize about a different life, one where he’d walk hand in hand with Pietro through the streets, maybe stopping every now and then to steal a kiss. They’d laugh, talk, share a meal together before hurrying home to make love all night long.
And instead of that life, what did he have?
Using someone in an alleyway.
* * *
The Chinook helicopter gave a sickening lurch and dropped into a convection cell, convincing Jesse his stomach was gonna pop right out his throat. He clutched his M4, bracing his feet on the metal floor of the helo, swallowing hard.
Amazingly, some of the men opposite him were sound asleep, their heads lolling, as if they were on a Greyhound bus instead of a combat airship flying with ponderous slowness over the sharp ridges and steep cliffs of the huge dark mountain range that loomed over the Korengal Valley far below.
The terrain looked hostile and unforgiving, and Jesse swallowed again. Valley of Death indeed.
Their two Apache escorts buzzed like wasps next to them, the 30-mm chain gun mounted between the forward landing gear ready to rake the ground below at the first sign of trouble. The Chinook was a little like a Greyhound bus, Jesse thought, lumbering through the sky, full of men, easy pickings for a Taliban surface-to-air missile or rocket-propelled grenade.
The helicopter dropped again as it rounded the mountain peak, and Jesse looked out the window to see a landing zone streaming with red smoke.
“Popping smoke means hot landing, boys!” the pilot called out. “Outpost is taking fire, so you gotta haul ass.”
The bird swooped in and touched down, and amid shouts of “Go, go, go!” Jesse jumped down and ran, right at the guy’s heels in front of him.
Ka-BOOM!
A mortar landed not far away, and Jesse dove for cover behind some HESCOs—wall-sized sandbags lined with moleskin and filled with dirt and rock. He sprawled there in relative safety, clutching his weapon, watching as the Chinook lifted off into the sky and flew away, headed back to Jalalabad.
The beat of the rotor blades faded away, and the mortaring stopped, leaving behind an almost eerie silence before a strange chattering started up from the thick pine trees surrounding the outpost. Jesse half rose, wondering if the base was now being attacked by enemy fighters, a laconic chuckle sounding in his ear.
“Monkeys.”
Jesse swung around, ready to answer to the insult, then realizing the speaker literally meant monkeys. Monkeys in the trees outside the wire, screaming at the Americans to go away. At least that’s what it sounded like.
“How’d you like that Taliban welcome?”
Jesse rose to his feet, along with the rest of the guys in his platoon, and faced the small group of men who had come out of what appeared to be a mechanics’ bay to greet them.
“New units always get mortared. It’s their way of saying ‘hey, how’s it goin’?’”
Jesse didn’t know what to say to that, tilting his head back to stare at the cliffs, wondering if more shells would rain down on them. He felt horribly exposed, and vulnerable. The man who had first spoken to them stuck out his hand.
“John Vance.”
“Jesse Byrne.”
They shook hands before Vance went down the line, introducing himself to everyone in Jesse’s platoon.
“Head up there, and grab a rack,” Vance said, pointing up a steep hill to a ragtag collection of tents sheltering behind some more HESCOs. “Chow’s at 1800. We get one hot meal a day, and this is it.”
Jesse and the rest of the guys shouldered their eighty-plus pounds of gear and trudged up the hill, all of them arriving breathless and sweaty, not used to the heat or the altitude. Jesse claimed one of the lower bunks and dropped his rucksack down on it, lacing his fingers behind his head and trying to get his breathing under control.
“Fucking climb smoked me,” Riley muttered. “And I’ve been hiking mountains my whole life. What the fuck is this place?”
No one answered him, and soon Enriquez and Smitty wandered outside to smoke.
Jesse looked around, taking in the Spartan conditions, the ammo belts hanging from nails pounded into the cheap plywood tent supports, the bikini-clad pinup girls haphazardly tacked up next to them, socks drying on makeshift clotheslines strung throughout.
“Makes our barracks room look like the fucking Hilton, huh, Jess?”
Jesse looked at Riley, answering his rueful grin with one of his own. “Yeah.”
“Hey, Estes! Extra bunk over here, man.”
Riley glanced over his shoulder and back at Jesse before calling out, “Nah, I already got one.” He walked over and tossed his ruck onto the bunk above the one Jesse had taken.
“Roomies again, Riles?” Jesse asked quietly. “You know I’ve missed your dumb ass.”
Riley shrugged. “Eh. You don’t fart in your sleep, so at least I don’t have to worry about you fuming me out from below, right?”
He reached out a fist, and Jesse bumped it lightly with his own, in vast relief.
Truce.
Don’t miss Point of Contact by Melanie Hansen, available wherever Carina Press ebooks are sold.
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Copyright © 2018 by Melanie Hansen
Author’s Note
It’s been called the invisible war. Military sexual trauma, or MST, is the leading cause of post-traumatic stress among women who’ve served. In 2017 alone, there were over four thousand reported instances of sexual assault made by active-duty women. Considering the fact that women in the military number only around two hundred thousand, that’s a staggering statistic. And those are only the reported instances.
In addition, seventy percent of those reporting revealed they faced retaliation for doing so. The military justice system doesn’t work like the civilian one. Reports are made within the chain of command, and those commanders have an unbelievable amount of power. They appoint investigators. They decide whether or not to prosecute. They’re both the judge and jury.
Military victims can’t just quit their jobs. In many cases, they’re forced to live in the same barracks with, and work for, the very ones who’ve assaulted them.
After every major sexual assault scandal (Tailhook, Marines United) there are promises made. There are declarations of “zero tolerance” over and over. Yet reports continue to rise. What are the answers? Better screening of incoming recruits, for one. In one study, over fifteen percent of incoming Navy recruits admitted they’d committed rape or attempted rape before joining the military. Yet they were still allowed to join. For another, removing the power to adjudicate felony-level crimes, such as sexual assault, from commanders and placing it in the hands of trained law enforcement.
Lastly, I’ve focused on women in this story, but thousands of men are MST victims, too.
Something needs to change.
Also available from Melanie Hansen
and Carina Press
Point of Contact
Loving a Warrior
Stay tuned for the next title in the
Loving a Warrior series from Melanie Hansen
coming Fall 2019
Also by Melanie Hansen
Everything Changes
Signs of Life
Unquiet
Pieces of Me
See My Words
About the Author
Melanie Hansen doesn’t get nearly enough sleep. She loves all things coffee-related, including collecti
ng mugs from every place she’s visited. After spending eighteen years as a military spouse, Melanie definitely considers herself a moving expert. She has lived and worked all over the country, and hopes to bring these rich and varied life experiences to the love stories she gets up in the wee hours to write. In her off-time, you can find Melanie watching baseball, reading or spending time with her husband and two teenage sons.
Visit Melanie’s website at melaniehansenbooks.com. Find her on Twitter, @MelJoyAZ. Find her on Facebook as Melanie Hansen: Facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009084006829.
Keep an eye out for the next book by Melanie Hansen:
RESERVED (Loving a Warrior, book three)
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ISBN-13: 9781488036248
Keeping a Warrior
Copyright © 2019 by Melanie Hansen
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