Wings of Gold Series

by Tappan, Tracy

  He just asked, flat-toned, “Anybody alive?”

  “No.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I checked.” Everybody’s dead, except for me, because of a stupid strap.

  Jason made a face like he’d been punched—the expression there and then gone. “I’m sorry.”

  Because good men had died? Or because Jason hadn’t been able to outfly an RPG—was that even do-able?—and blamed himself for good men dying? Impossible to tell from looking at him. Jason could be birthing a small whale out his chocolate starfish and no one would know.

  Jason fiddled with the comm box. “Are you injured?”

  “No.”

  Standing, Jason tugged some cards off his own knee-board and his dead co-pilot’s, then wormed his tall frame through the small open space dividing the cockpit from the cabin. He hunkered into a crouch at the back of his pilot seat and unhooked a CAR15 rifle, plus a backpack. “Have you got a radio?” he asked. “Cockpit one’s dead, and my portable was snagged by a tango.”

  “No, I’m a breacher, not comms.” Each man in a SEAL task unit was in charge of a different core skill: sniper, medical, navigator, breacher, Explosive Ordnance Disposal, or EOD, communications, and so forth. “That was Six Pack’s job.” Shane climbed over Mac’s body to get to the man who’d been his daily running partner.

  Six Pack was staring with sightless eyes at the roof that had done him in. A thin rivulet of blood trickled from one of Six Pack’s nostrils, looking like no more than a side effect of Afghanistan’s dry climate. The funky thought came that Shane should just shake his buddy, wake him up. Instead, he rolled the man over and checked the radio in the man’s backpack. No surprise that meeting a metal ceiling worked out about as well for electronics as it did for human beings. “It’s broken,” he told Jason.

  “Damn. We’re zero comms.”

  Shane pivoted on his heels. “Did you get off a mayday call before we crashed?”

  “I was sort of busy with other things,” Jason answered with a dry look. “It doesn’t matter—we definitely hit hard enough to set off the ELT,11 so a signal has been sent to the E212 flying above us. They’ll have a bead on our position and will notify X-ray and Baggie back at the J-bad base that our bird is down.”

  “Yeah, but no comms,” Shane pointed out, “means we can’t coordinate a rescue.”

  “We’ll figure that out later. We’ve got three dead tangoes piled up beside this aircraft. We’re going to have more visitors very soon. Getting the hell out of here takes priority.” Jason shoved the knee-board cards inside his backpack. They were the classified intel for the rescue op, holding info on frequencies, drop points, maps, rendezvous locations, times, and more.

  Jason rose to his feet—and grimaced.

  “You injured?” Shane asked.

  “My back isn’t feeling inordinately happy.”

  Shane stood and ducked into his H&K’s strap, settling it back over his shoulder. “Can you E&E with your back fucked up?”

  Jason leveled a look at him, one eyebrow creeping upward.

  Shane felt heat build in the back of his neck. Had he sounded concerned? He’d wash his mouth out with dog turds if he had. He sneered. “Just wondering if I’m going to have to hump you out of here, Vanderby.”

  “Would you even?” Jason flung his bag onto his back. “Last thing you said to me was that you wouldn’t cross the street to piss on me if I was on fire.”

  He remembered that, and… Damn, rage was not his friend. But also, Pretty Boy can go fist himself. It was Jace who’d cut and run, not Shane. “We’re wasting time,” he snapped, stepping over Mac. “Are we blowing up the bird on the way out?” He set a hand on one of the grenades in his utility belt, although the thought of families back home only getting charred SEAL bodies—if anything—to bury turned his jaw into a barbell.

  “No,” Jace said. “An explosion will draw attention to our escape, and I already gathered all the mission intel and zeroed out the classified comm codes.” Jason moved to the open side door, pausing when he came to one of the dead gunners. The corners of his eyes tightened. “Schmidty,” he murmured, “you owed me a burger, you numbskull.” He glanced over his shoulder at Shane. “His wife just had a baby.”

  Shane cemented his teeth together. What did Jason expect him to say to that? Nothing would be enough.

  Jason looked out the side door again, his gaze going distant.

  A crowded sensation closed off Shane’s chest—like a hand had reached inside him and yanked loose a lot of ugly memories, clogging up his ribcage. Some things a man never forgot, and Jason’s faraway expression was one for him. It’s what happened when Jace went to hateful places, and it used to be Shane’s job to bring his friend back.

  After a couple seconds, Jason shook himself out of it, his eyes squinting. “We’ll head east,” he told Shane in an emotionless voice. “Toward the Mangla Dam. Trees over there will help hide us.”

  Shane just made a rough sound. All this “we” talk was getting more and more fucked to hear. It was like when they were kids, playing war games. We’ll be like the Marines and let nothing divide us. Yeah, that had worked out well, hadn’t it? “Let’s go.” He hard-shouldered past Jason and raced out of the helo, running bent over for the eastern side of the compound, toward a flat-topped building rising up high and citadel-like against the dark sky.

  But even though no fiery ball of a helicopter went up in flames to give them away, he and Jason only made it several hundred feet before a loud shout rang out. A second later several rounds of gunfire exploded in noisy, staccato bursts.

  Dirt geysers chased after Shane’s feet. He sucked air through his teeth and increased his speed, aiming for the alley between the citadel and a shorter building. A string of bullet holes cut a zipper along the whitewashed building on his right. Shit! The hairs on the back of his neck rose with a sense of—Smack! A bullet hammered into his plated vest, the impact of the fast-moving lead ball shoving him forward for several strides, his booted feet seeming to lift off the ground and skim the topsoil. Air huffed out of his lungs.

  Thwack! Thwack!

  “Aaaar!” Two bullets tore into his flesh, one in his left triceps, the other high up on his right shoulder, where it blew off the strap on his vest, sending the plated protection sagging into a drunken diagonal across his front. Pain like what he imagined getting stabbed with hot pokers would feel like burned through his wounds.

  Jason pulled up next to him as they rampaged into the alley. “You good?” he panted.

  Thwack!

  A third burning bullet plowed into Shane’s right ass cheek, and the hard-packed dirt was suddenly rolling beneath him. He bashed his elbow and landed on his stomach. More sewage stink filled his nose—the wonderful aroma of Pakistani piss. He lay on the ground—ouch and fuck—vicious pain spiking from his injuries like molten blades. His heart was pounding so fast, it throbbed into his vision and hosed it up; everything was cut into fourths.

  Dead ahead, Jason slammed to a halt—he’d overrun Shane—skidded around, and raced back. He took up a wide-legged stance over Shane’s body, booted feet set firm to the ground on either side of his legs, and socked the CAR15 back against his shoulder.

  BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM.

  In the closed-in space of the alley, the roar of the rifle was humongous, the flashes from the snout like gouts of flame. Shane ground his teeth, the air-vibrations pulverizing his injuries. It was worse than getting shot in the first place. Stop! shouted through his mind. Or maybe he yelled it out loud. It was too noisy to tell.

  Behind him, bodies fell, screams cut off.

  A hand fisted into the front of his plated vest. He was yanked to his feet and brought nose-to-nose with Jason.

  “Quit getting shot!” Jason growled into his face.

  Blood gorged his cheeks. “Go choke on a cock,” was all he got out before Jason was hauling him forward into a run again.

  A hot rebar pole was shoved deeper into his butt muscle,
and he hissed. But he ran—ran like fuck—because he’d be damned if he was going to let Jace take care of him. The days of Hell Week were long gone.

  They cut into some forested terrain, and blackness swallowed them up. Only the occasional patch of moonlight squeezing through tree branches lit the way. Good: it gave Shane and Jason cover. Also bad: they couldn’t see where they were going and—

  One moment the ground was under his feet, the next, it wasn’t. He was on his tailbone and sliding down a steep slope at high velocity.

  He heard a gritted, “Crap!” and the sound of scrabbling dirt beside him. Jason was on the same treacherous skid down this hill of unknown depth.

  Shane gnashed out a stream of curses. All the bullet holes in his body were just lovin’ this bumpy ride. He dug his fingers into the earth but couldn’t slow himself down for shit. Sand rushed up between his thighs and piled on his lap…it clumped onto his stomach and chest, and pushed him down flat…it rolled all the way up under his armpits and over the tops of his shoulders, collecting around his neck, packing into the back of his ballistic helmet.

  At last, about fifteen to twenty feet down, the ride ran out of gas and he stopped.

  He blinked dirt-caked lashes. Jesus. That had been ten pounds of shit in a five-pound bag. He tried to move his tongue around. Couldn’t. His mouth was full of dirt. He spat.

  Jason shushed him.

  He glanced over. Jason was buried up to his chin in sand, same as Shane, his eyes extra-bright against a face that looked like it’d taken a direct hit from a mud pie.

  If they were still best friends—and anywhere else but here—Shane would’ve laughed. And Jason wouldn’t have socked him in the arm for laughing, either, or told him to shut his trap. He would’ve laughed along with him.

  Shane set his sore jaw, an emotion spearing through him that he couldn’t name. He sure as hell knew what followed it: fury. Renewed rage at Jason for depriving him of such a friend.

  Without speaking, Jason pointed his chin up, indicating the lip of the hill.

  Shane edged his focus up and saw why Jason had shushed him. Men were gathered above, a dark jumble of shadows.

  Voices tumbled down, then the beam of a flashlight sliced out.

  Shane went death-still.

  So did Jason.

  The beam of light zigged and zagged, revealing the dammit-to-fuck sight of high sand walls all around them.

  He and Jason had fallen into a deep, enclosing ditch.

  The incomprehensible chatter above turned harsh.

  Acid crept into the pit of Shane’s belly while a rising-river foreboding flooded his chest. Adrenaline was still coursing through his veins by the tankful, twitching his muscles beyond his control. A couple of times the flashlight slashed across Jason, and Shane readied himself to get waylaid, tension simmering.

  Even braced, Shane almost jumped out of his socks when gunfire from what had to be an AK spat out a few random barrages. Bapbapbap… Bapbap…

  He cursed behind his teeth when sand puffed up right beside his left ear. The near-hit was a lucky shot. Turned out he and Jason, dressed in desert-colored gear and buried up to their necks in dirt, were invisible, especially at night.

  A few more bullets peppered the ditch in a haphazard pattern.

  Then nothing.

  Silence.

  He didn’t move.

  Jason didn’t move.

  They waited for what seemed like the length of a Catholic mass. The silence stretched, became unbearable. He couldn’t read it. Were the squirters gone or not? He risked movement, dropping the NVG tubes on his helmet down. Pea soup colored the surroundings, but a glowing green, like the soup was radioactive. He didn’t see anyone up on the lip. “No one,” he whispered.

  Jason gave a bare grunt of acknowledgement.

  They gave it more time, just lying there.

  Desert noises crept in, the flesh-rippling sound of creepy-crawlers scurrying about, cockroaches and spiders and probably the odd mantis. Afghanistan was also known for its scorpions. Shane fought the urge to squirm. As adrenaline abandoned his bloodstream, pop-rockets of pain were snapping apart all over his body.

  Chirping crickets brought Jason sitting up at last, sand avalanching down his chest. “Looks like they’re gone,” he said in an undertone. He kicked the rest of the way out of his grave, then helped Shane sit up. “How many times were you hit?”

  “Three.” His voice sounded like he’d eaten some garage tools. “Left triceps, right shoulder, and right ass cheek.”

  Jason swung his backpack off with a lean of his shoulders.

  “You?” he asked.

  “Nothing.” Jace pulled a first aid kit out of his bag. “Not bad for the non-Meat Eater13 of this pair.” There was a challenging edge in Jason’s tone, like just because Shane had stayed with the teams didn’t make him any better.

  Shane picked up the challenge. “How many squirters did you take out in the alley?”

  “I don’t know.” Jason helped Shane get out of the plated vest. “About six or seven.”

  “Plus the three you shot at the helo, makes nine or ten altogether.” Pisser. He’s even with my kill total.

  “Helmet off,” Jason instructed.

  Shane hooked his thumbs in the sides of his helmet and wedged it off. Sand pebbled over his ears and shoulders.

  Jason peeled back the bloody fabric of Shane’s shirt from his right shoulder and squinted at the injury. “I can’t see anything.”

  “Here.” Shane pulled the red-lens flashlight out of the E&E kit in his left thigh pocket and gave it to Jason.

  Jason clicked it on. He grunted. “Not exactly hygienic, but at least the bleeding has stopped.”

  Shane glanced at the wound. It was packed with sand.

  Jason inspected Shane’s other injuries, and they were the same. “At the risk of stating the obvious, you need a doctor.” Jason stuffed the first aid kit back in his bag. “I think we should return to the aid station we landed at earlier. It’s a good twenty to thirty miles from here by foot, but I don’t see any other option for—”

  “I can do it,” Shane barged in, making his voice sound testy to cover the bummage he was experiencing on the inside. They’d be hiking all night to cover thirty miles of ground before dawn. And here he was, already all about taking a very un-SEAL-like nap in the middle of the field of battle.

  Obviously picking up on this, Jason gave him a thorough—and doubtful—once-over.

  Shane sneered. “I made it through Hell Week with walking pneumonia, Vanderby.”

  “Yeah, I remember,” Jason said, quieter than before.

  Back when we were brothers…

  Even in the dim moonlight, Shane could see darkness cloud Jason’s expression.

  Shane knotted his jaw. It didn’t matter that Jason was the rich kid, and Shane from the wrong side of town. It didn’t matter that Jason was smart and college-educated, and Shane had managed no better than C grades throughout high school. It didn’t matter that Jason wore a movie star face, and Shane the kind of mug that’d made him grateful for every day he got to spend with Kitty Hart. None of those differences mattered, because Shane and Jace were the same when it came to how much they hated that such an essential bond was gone.

  A distant look closed off Jason’s gaze, the look that always managed to scrape sandpaper over Shane’s flesh, to tangle and twist him out of the man he was—someone who relied on no one but himself—into someone who wanted and needed people.

  “What about the rescue op?” Shane asked, getting back to business. “The E2 has a bead on our position here.”

  “It’s too dangerous to stay here,” Jason returned. “The place is crawling with tangoes. Once we get you patched up, we’ll put in a call to J-bad from the aid station with their comms.” He pushed to his feet and shined the red-lens flashlight all around, confirming that they were, yes, for real, in a damned ditch. “All right, Mad Dog, you ready to scale this bitch?” Clamping the flashlight between
his teeth, Jason shrugged out of his flak jacket and tossed it aside. As good as the vest was at stopping bullets, the added weight would be a pain in the ass to carry on a long trip. Shane was definitely yippee to be rid of his plated vest.

  Jason offered Shane a hand.

  He took it, letting Jason haul him to his feet. Now was not the time to refuse help. Not when he needed to conserve energy for thirty fucking miles. He squinted up the steep sides of the ditch. “It’s gonna be one helluva climb.”

  Turned out to be an impossible climb.

  The two of them scrambled and clawed, fingers digging, steel-toed boots jabbing in, but no matter what they did, the sand kept landsliding away beneath them. They kept slipping down, losing any ground gained, becoming a couple of hamsters running in a wheel, going nowhere.

  They stopped.

  Shane dropped down on his ass—sideways, to avoid his bullet wound—huffing and puffing, already way too out of breath. Pain was a fine-toothed animal, making a meal out of him.

  Lungs also heaving, Jason stood next to Shane, his hands on his hips. He peered up at the night sky, no doubt wondering the same thing Shane was.

  How long did they have until sunrise?

  Because dawn would bring the bad guys back, and in the bright light of day, killing two Americans down in a ditch would be about as easy as a turkey shoot.

  Jason shoved his fingers through his hair. “Dammit,” he said. “We’re in deep shit, Mad Dog.”

  Chapter Eight

  Nasrin Farrin Behzadi pretends to study the disturbing photos of poison gas victims from the Iran-Iraq War. She’s in the Tehran Peace Museum. As instructed. She’s wearing a light blue hijab—as instructed—beige slacks, and a navy blue manto, the long, thin coat flowing down to her knees. She doesn’t stand out in any way—her clothing adheres to Islamic law to cover her body’s shape—but still… Why not just twirl circles in the middle of the Grand Bazaar naked? That’s how exposed she feels.

  IS she exposed?

  That man doesn’t look like he’s in the CIA, as he’s supposed to be. Not a bit.