SEAL of My Dreams
Page 11
She took a deep, shaky breath. “My brother’s name is Dr. Jason Danson.”
The name sounded familiar.
“About a year ago, he came to Somalia to provide humanitarian aid to the refugees.”
Nate had a feeling he knew where this was leading, and it wasn’t pretty.
“Yeah. You got it.” She held his gaze. “Jason was with that medical team that was ambushed last month.”
Ah, hell.
“Military personnel came to my parents’ house and told them what had happened. Or should I say they gave Mom and Dad the pat explanation that had been given to the press. The medical team was being escorted from one refugee camp to another when they were ambushed by Mohammed Ahmed’s men. No survivors. No remains.”
That was about it in a nutshell. There was only one piece of info she was missing.
Tearing up, she turned away. He could’ve grabbed her at that point and they could’ve been on their way, but he’d seen what had been left of that medical team after Ahmed’s band of militants had been through with them.
“Something about the explanation didn’t feel right to me,” she went on. “So I did some digging. Every file on Jason’s death was sealed. Classified. I was desperate to find the whole truth for my parents. For myself. No matter what the cost.”
“So you came to Virginia Beach. Were you targeting any SEAL from my team or was I the only lucky son of a bitch?”
She hesitated. “Anyone.”
Unbelievable. He had the worst instincts in the world. “Why didn’t you just tell me this from the beginning?”
“Would it have made a difference?” She blinked away her tears. “Would you have told me about what happened?”
Classified, meant classified. His gaze wavered.
“Orders are orders, right?”
“Is the truth worth your parents losing two children?”
“No, but I won’t be able to face them again after what I’ve discovered.” She paused, swallowed. “While Ahmed’s men held us here, I saw some things. Heard some things. I think part of that medical team might still be alive.”
“No way. I was there. No one survived that massacre.”
“But you weren’t there when they attacked, were you, Nate?”
She knew.
“I saw some of Ahmed’s injured men carried off to the other side of his compound. I heard them talking about a doctor. I think Ahmed’s men needed medical people. I think there’s a possibility they kept Jason alive and brought him back here.”
“A possibility. That’s all you got, Red?”
“For a brother, that’s all I need. And my name isn’t Red.”
“Oh, right. Kaley.”
“My name is Carly.” She held his gaze. “We have twelve hours before we need to be at that extraction point. Help me find out if Jason is still alive.”
As she stood her ground, dawn threatened to expose them to the light of day, and a spark of respect for her flickered to life inside him. But that didn’t change what he had to do, not really. Already, he’d waited too long. He’d have to knock her out. There was no way she’d get in that car still conscious.
Just then the sounds of loud shouts and vehicle engines revving came from the direction of the village square.
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t know, but I need to find out.” With Carly behind him, Nate carefully made his way back to the village square. Like ants moving anthills, men were coming every which way out of buildings carrying crates of weapons and supplies into a caravan of waiting cars and trucks.
“They’re packing up and moving,” she whispered.
“Their location has been compromised, so they’re heading to greener pastures.”
“After Pritchard and his staff were rescued why didn’t our military come and blow the shit out of this place while they had the chance?”
“Because we aren’t supposed to be here. If a village, even a deserted one like this, was suddenly reduced to rubble, the Somali powers that be might just kick all of the humanitarian aid workers out of their country.” And then the U.S. would lose its cover for its covert hunt for Mohammed Ahmed.
“So Ahmed’s men move and get to continue to terrorize the poor people of this country.”
“It’s not our country. Not our rules.”
As the last of the supplies were loaded, Ahmed’s men climbed into the waiting vehicles and the caravan rolled out of town, leaving nothing but a trail of dust in its wake. After the last vehicle had left, Carly shot out of their hiding place and headed straight into the nearest building Ahmed’s men had occupied.
“What are you doing?”
“Maybe they left Jason here.” Frantically, she raced from one building to the next.
From what Nate could see, all Ahmed’s men had left behind was garbage. Realizing there was little he could do except wait for her to run out of steam, he stood in the shade and waited. Each time she came out of a building, her features had grown more and more worry worn. When she came out of one of the last buildings holding something in her hand and with a distinctly different look on her face, he snapped to attention.
“We need to follow that caravan, Nate.”
“What? Why?”
“That building was used as a makeshift hospital,” she said, holding out a handful of empty syringes, discarded rolls of bloodied gauze. “What if they kept Jason alive—kept a couple of nurses alive—to treat their wounded?”
“My orders are to make my way to that alternate extraction point ASAP.”
“Do you have siblings?” she asked.
He didn’t answer, but the images of his two older sisters flashed through his mind.
“What if it was your brother or sister?” she whispered. “What then?”
Chances were this was a wild goose chase, but his gut—his damned gut again—told him she could be right. And what had his gut done for him lately other than to get him into trouble? Still, the facts were that amidst those charred remains, there’d been no way to tell one body from the next.
Nate glanced toward the quickly dwindling trail of dust left my Ahmed’s caravan and knew he didn’t have a choice. He may have been following orders when he and the other SEALs had left that medical team minimally guarded to go hunt down Ahmed’s second in command, but he still felt responsible for what had happened in his absence. Besides, there was only one road from here to Mogadishu, so he’d still be, in effect, following orders by following Ahmed’s men.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” he said. “We’ll follow them. For now. If we run out of time or Ahmed’s men veer too far from the extraction point and we’ve seen neither hide nor hair of your brother or any other Americans—”
“Then I’ll go with you. No questions asked.”
No questions asked. Sure. But at least he’d be doing what he could to help and wouldn’t feel the slightest bit of remorse when he eventually threw her over his shoulder and hauled her away. “Okay, Red. Let’s get on that trail of dust before it drifts out of sight.”
Chapter Four
“Have you seen anything?” Carly asked hopefully.
“You mean in the five minutes since the last time you asked?” Nate didn’t even glance up from his binoculars. In fact, he’d barely moved in the almost four hours since they’d followed Ahmed’s men from that deserted village into this rundown section of suburban Mogadishu.
She had no clue how he could be so patient. “I hate this place. This country. This city.” She dragged her booted toe over the dusty floorboard. “Everywhere I turn, there’s this fine layer of dirt.”
“Why don’t you sit down and relax? You’re making me antsy.”
Him antsy? As if that was possible. Since agreeing to help find Jason, Nate had moved quickly and quite calmly. He’d not only followed Ahmed’s men all the way to the gates of their walled compound without being noticed, he’d also located this building on his GPS and found an unoccupied apartment on the top floor with a rel
atively unobstructed view of the compound. Regardless of how this all turned out, she wasn’t sure how she’d be able to thank him.
She could start, she supposed, by burying the hatchet. Plopping down, she sighed deeply. “Thank you for doing this.”
“I haven’t done anything. Yet. And I’m still not convinced I won’t be dragging you off to our extraction point when the time comes.”
His surly tone cut to the bone, but what bothered her most was that he had every right to be angry at her. If not for her, he would’ve never missed that Humvee. “Thank you for saving my life. Back at that village. If you hadn’t . . . killed those guards, I don’t even want to think about what would’ve happened to me.”
“Just doing my job.”
“But I wasn’t part of your job, remember? I wasn’t on your list.”
He didn’t turn. Didn’t say a word.
But there was something more personal for which she had to atone. Walking out on him in Virginia Beach. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, the words coming from deep inside. “No goodbye. No explanations. What I did to you wasn’t right.”
Silent. Again.
“I never meant to hurt you, Nate. I didn’t think three weeks with me . . . would . . . ”
“Mean anything to me?” He turned then, but his gaze had softened. “You telling me that it didn’t mean anything to you?”
“That’s not what I said.” The time she’d spent with Nate had been nothing short of magical for her. He’d distracted her so much that she’d almost forgotten her ultimate goal had been to find out what had happened to Jason’s medical team.
“Yeah, well,” he said, turning back to his binoculars. “I might’ve done the same thing if I’d been in your situation. He’s your brother. You were desperate.”
She’d been desperate for answers, all right. She still felt desperate. What if Jason was really dead? What then? She glanced at the back of Nate’s head, down his tanned neck, his broad shoulders, remembering what it had felt like to be held by him, wanting to be held by him now. Holding back an unexpected rush of tears, Carly looked away.
“Hey.” Nate’s warm hand settled on her shoulder. “Just because I haven’t seen anything out this window, doesn’t mean they don’t still have hostages. It just means that if they are holding anyone, they’re smart enough to keep them out of sight.”
“But if you don’t see anything—”
“We’ll cross that bridge when—if—we come to it. Okay?” He went back to looking through his binoculars. Suddenly, he went very still and whispered, “Hold everything. We got action.”
“What?” She jumped up and glanced over his shoulders, but the compound was too far away to make heads or tails out of any of the movement with the naked eye. “What’s happening?”
“Two trucks just raced through the gate.” He shook his head. “They pulled up into the courtyard.”
“And?”
“Mr. Cigarette is back. One of the guards I recognize from where you were being held. They’re carrying something—someone—out of the back of one of the trucks. He looks hurt. There are two more coming out of the other truck bed.” Nate adjusted the focus. “I’ll be damned. That’s it.”
“What? What’s it?”
“You could be right, Red. They just might have set up a makeshift hospital.”
“What about Jason? Did you see him?”
“No. But I can’t see the entire area. Looks like they might be taking the wounded to that small building near the main house. If Jason’s in that compound, that’s where they’d be holding—wait a minute. There. That man’s not a Somali. Look. Quick.” He thrust the binoculars into her hands. “Just this side of the main building. See the two vehicles? Is that man Jason?”
“He looks American,” she whispered, her hope dwindling. “But he’s not Jason.”
“You sure?”
“Positive. Jason’s hair is as red as mine.” She handed him back his binoculars and started packing things up. “But we have to get that man out of there. Whoever he is. Maybe he knows something about my brother.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down, Red. We can’t head in there in broad daylight. Too many guards.”
“So there’s nothing we can do but wait?”
“After dark we make our move.” He went through his plan. “You’re going to wait by the car. If anything goes wrong.” He pulled out a handgun and prepped her on using it. “Don’t worry about where you hit your target. Just hit him. Anywhere.”
She nodded. “When do we leave?”
He glanced at his watch and then into the sky. Already the sun was dipping toward the horizon. “Two, maybe three more hours.”
“And in the meantime? What if they hurt that man?”
“They won’t. They need him.”
She rubbed her arms at a sudden chill in the air.
He dug into his pack and held out some supplies, a canteen and some foil packages. “Drink some water. Eat. You need to keep up your strength.”
The fact that he opened the package before handing it to her might’ve seemed ridiculous in other circumstances, but not now. At this moment, she was supremely grateful for Nate Griggs. “What about you? Aren’t you hungry?”
“I’m fine.” He went back to staring through his binoculars.
“Do you think they’re feeding him?”
“Yeah. Like I said, they need him alive.”
Carly broke off a chunk and tossed it in her mouth. Either the bar was grainy and tasteless, or she simply didn’t have an appetite. She swallowed as a tear slipped down her cheek. “The last time I talked to Jason, we fought. I told him he was being selfish for coming here. For risking his life in joining that humanitarian medical team.”
“This country needs help.”
Everywhere she’d looked since coming here, there’d been starving men, women and children. People beaten and harassed by Mohammed Ahmed’s men. Injured people needing medical care. “I just want the chance to tell Jason I’m sorry.”
Nate smiled gently. “If he’s there, Carly, I’ll get him out.”
She could fall for this man. Hard. It was too bad she’d screwed things up between them. Regret hung over her like a heavy, damp cloud. Suddenly, she was cold, oh so cold. As if the events of the last couple of days had finally caught up with her, she shivered, thought she could even hear her teeth chatter.
Before she comprehended he was moving, Nate was at her side, rubbing her bare arms. “You’re as cold as the trout stream by my cabin.”
“Bet you say that to all the girls.” She tried to smile, but her mouth felt frozen.
“Come here.” As if she were no heavier than his pack, he lifted her between his spread legs and wrapped his arms around her.
She was too tired to fight. In truth, she didn’t want to fight. The warmth of his body was so inviting, she found herself curling into him. “Just for a few minutes,” she whispered.
For several long, quiet moments she held completely still in his arms. A few minutes turned into ten. Fifteen. Suddenly, his embraced tightened, as if he was preparing her for something. “I think you should know,” he said softly. “There’s no big secret about your brother’s medical team getting ambushed and killed. What happened is classified, but there’s no big conspiracy.”
She held her breath, hoping he’d continue.
“Our SEAL team was assisting in transporting the doctors, nurses and a truckload of supplies from one refugee camp to another when we got news that Mohammed Ahmed’s second in command was nearby. At the time, it seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up. We left behind what we thought was adequate protection for the civilians, but we were wrong. Ahmed’s men wanted those medical supplies. The four marines and two SEALs we’d left behind didn’t stand a chance.”
“Did you get Ahmed’s man?”
“Yeah,” he said, regret filling the tone of his voice. “But if I had to do it over again, I would’ve stayed behind.”
She ran her ha
nd over his chest, hoping to comfort him some small amount. “Thank you for telling me.”
“So you were wasting your time in Virginia Beach.”
“No, I wasn’t, and there’s one thing I’ll never be sorry for.”
“What’s that?”
“Kissing you.” There’d been nothing fake or pretend about how much she’d wanted him then, how much she wanted him now. “For your sake, for both of us, I had to leave before either of us had gotten in too deep.”
“Well, you were about two weeks and six days too late for that, Red. I was in too deep the first night I met you.” His eyes darkened as he reached out to cup her cheek and run the pad of his thumb over her upper lip.
“That makes two of us.” She closed her eyes and kissed the palm of his hand.
He groaned. “Virginia Beach was almost perfect.”
“Almost?”
He tilted her head back and looked into her eyes. “I wish I’d made love to you.”
What if neither of them made out of Mogadishu alive? Could she leave this world without regrets? No. Not yet. There was one thing she still needed to do. Wrapping her arms around Nate’s neck, she pulled him toward her and kissed him, whispering, “Better late than never.”
Chapter Five
He was in too deep, all right.
Nate studied every line, every pore, of Carly’s sleeping face. Making love with her just now had been as perfect as perfect got, better than he’d dreamt it would be. Damned if his heart was ever going to recover from the likes of Carly Danson.
As soon as they were done here, as soon as her brother was safe, she’d have no more use for him. No doubt she’d walk off into the sunset with his heart in her hand. Whoever the hell had said better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all was full of shit. Might as well get the pain over with sooner rather than later.
Gently, he nudged her. “Carly.” While she’d been sleeping, he’d left to secure a more reliable vehicle with a full tank of gas. The rest of the time, he’d been watching the rebel compound. Everyone but five night watch guards were buttoned down for the night. “Wake up. It’s time to move.”