Wings of Gold Series

by Tappan, Tracy

  …bullets zinged.

  “They’re gaining!” Jason snarled.

  “There!” Doc Barr huffed and pointed. “I see a cave opening!”

  They aimed for it and practically dove inside. Without slowing his steady run, Jason whipped his backpack off, then gave over the entirety of Shane’s body weight to Farrin for a quick moment while he unzipped the pack and pulled out a penlight.

  “I know I’m the druggo here,” Shane wheezed—yeah, even though two people were carrying him, he was the one wheezing. “But aren’t we trapping ourselves?” He peered into the darkness, seeing zilch of where the cave headed.

  “Staying outside isn’t an option, either.” Jason clicked his penlight on. “In here, at least we aren’t open targets.”

  “Okay, sure.” Shane licked his lips with a gluey tongue. “Die now, die later.”

  Doc Barr’s eyes darted over. “What?” she panted.

  The muffled sounds of running feet came from outside the cave opening. A bullish voice gave orders in nonsense.

  “Too late to go back now,” Shane mumbled.

  They humped along, the dim flashlight beam bobbing in front of them.

  Need to stop looking at that. It was putting a second round of hurling on the table. Or maybe it was making him imagine shit. Because it kinda sounded like an entire army of squirters was coming down the rocky tunnel behind them. Or maybe that was just the way noises echoed in a cave.

  He glanced over and saw the muscles in Jason’s jaw flexed hard as walnuts.

  Or maybe not. If Jace—the undisputed David Copperfield of disappearing feelings—looked stressed, then there was probably a lot to be stressed about. True, earlier, Jace had taken a short detour to the cuckoo house after his injured pilot got murdered in cold blood, but those kinds of flare-ups were uncommon.

  A rifle spit.

  A bullet ricocheted, skipping back and forth along the cave wall. Stone dust powdered Shane’s face.

  Doc Barr yelped.

  “Are you hit?” Jason demanded around hard breaths.

  “No, I’m just…” She trailed off.

  Scared. Very, very scared. Her voice was raw with it.

  Deeper they went.

  A damp chill seeped down from the walls onto Shane’s skin. The entrance faded into a pinprick behind them, and the blackness became so complete outside their tiny bubble of penlight, it was like the world ceased to exist.

  Jason squeezed Shane’s arm. “You know that firing position you wanted to set up? Looks like we’re going to get our chance. There’s a sharp right-hand turn coming up. See it? As soon as we go around the corner, move in five feet, then stop and take a knee. Anyone who comes around the corner gets lead poisoning. Roger?”

  “Roger.”

  “You sure you can do it?”

  Anything to stop running. “Yeah, I got it.” The thought of shooting squirters actually cleared off some of his glassiness.

  Killing terrorists always gives me off-the-chain wood.

  Yeah, Munster, yeah. I hear you, brother. “Let’s tear it up, Vanderby.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Shane went down on one knee, the rocky cave floor hard, cold, and bumpy beneath his bare knee. He clicked off the safety on his H&K and jacked the weapon against his shoulder.

  “We’re going to have to do this by sound,” Jason whispered as he switched off his penlight.

  The world disappeared into absolute nothingness, the blackness like wearing soaked clothes, darkness clinging to the skin. Shane leaned one shoulder against the rocky wall. To help prop himself up—yeah, he was still dizzy as a duck…not that ducks got dizzy, but it seemed to rhyme—and also to get some solid, actual confirmation that the world existed. If anybody tried to argue there was a darkness darker than cave darkness, the dude would be talking out of his ass.

  He fought to settle his wheezing. Couldn’t shoot well while—

  And right then Doc Barr’s had enough electrodes got zapped, and she made her own trip to the cuckoo house.

  “I need to get out of here!” she said hoarsely.

  “Farrin, stay behind me,” Jason ordered.

  “No. I need to—Let go of me!”

  “Farrin—!”

  Shane crammed his lips together. Not the best timing, Doc. Pounding boots were getting closer and louder. “Cut the noise,” he hissed. He heard the scuffling sounds of a struggle going on. Doc Barr cried out—fucking loud—then her cries became muffled.

  He’d bet Jason had a hand over her mouth, which was going to earn him a few choice words later. But it wasn’t anything less than Shane would’ve done in—

  He glimpsed a very dim glimmer of yellow light shining around the turn in the cave, almost as if one of the Taliban was carrying a candle. A candle?

  He shut off his brain and honed in on his surroundings. He aimed his rifle for where a man’s chest might be, waited till he caught a whiff of fried onions, then—

  Blam!

  The flash at the end of his H&K’s barrel gave him a split-second of sight. He saw a flower of red spray out from a chest wound—direct hit, center mass! Boo-yah! He also used the split-second to mark where the other squirters were positioned. But then…

  The bad guys were able to get a bead on their threesome, as well.

  Blam! Shane shot again, and in this flash he spotted a squirter zeroing in on Jason.

  “Shit,” Jason cursed. He saw what was happening, too, but there wasn’t much he could do about it, not with both hands occupied in his Doc Barr struggle, one hand shutting her up, the other immobilizing her wrists. Jason’s CAR15 was still slung over his arm instead of up and shouldered, where it would’ve been far more useful in terms of protecting his ass from getting shot up.

  Blam! Shane killed the squirter drawing a bead on Jace. Thank me later, dawg.

  Blam! Blam! Blam…! He kept firing.

  Several squirters returned fire, but their shots went wild.

  Blam! Blam! Blam! When the flashes showed no one else standing, Shane stopped. Keeping his breathing low, he paused to listen. Incoherent murmurings were coming from around the bend, a bunch of what-should-we-do-now? bilge water.

  He stole forward, trailing his fingertips along the cave wall to keep tabs on where he was. His bare ass was just about frozen solid from over-exposure to the chill cave air, except the one square of flesh where the bandage was. When the wall started to curve, he moved into the main tunnel until he bumped into the pile of bodies he’d created. He scaled it, took a knee, and fired again. Blam! Blam! Blam…! “Wolverine! Munster! Farm Boy!” he shouted as he dropped each enemy, once more using the flashes to find targets.

  No one returned fire this time. The bad guys tucked tail and ran, the strobe light effect of Shane’s rifle flashes warping their movements into a bizarre, slow-motion retreat.

  He didn’t let up. He emptied his clip on these fuckers who in some way had played a part in killing his SEAL brothers. “Mac! Moose! Six Pack!”

  Then dead quiet.

  His chest moved, but with muted breaths. Into the abrupt, overpowering silence, water dripped. He climbed off the body mound and went back to a position next to the wall. He pulled in a deep lungful of air, tasting dampness and charred gunpowder. “I think we’re clear,” he said to Jace. “Turn on your penlight.”

  A second later, there was a small cry…then scampering feet…

  In reaching for his penlight, Jason must’ve released his hold on Doc Barr enough for her to escape.

  Expended shell casings tinkled as they were kicked aside…

  The penlight clicked on in time to catch Doc Barr arriving at the corpse blockade. Her shins hit the pile and tipped her face-first into the grisly mess.

  She screamed.

  Jason darted forward as she scrambled over the bloody hill and took off like a bat out of fuck down the tunnel.

  Jason gave chase.

  Shane followed the pair at a slower pace, giving the rebar pole lodged in his butt mu
scle the respect it was yelling for. He saw Jace catch up to Doc Barr and perform a flying football tackle, taking her out at the waist.

  They both slammed down onto the cave floor. Ouch. That had to hurt, although Jason bore most of the impact on his shoulder. The penlight flew out of his hand and came to a rolling stop against one wall, the single beam spraying down the length of tunnel like a motorcycle skidded out on its side at night on a deserted country road. Jason had managed to keep hold of his CAR15, though; the man knew his priorities.

  “Korreh khar,”17 Doc Barr growled, flailing slaps at Jason. “Get off me!”

  He ducked his head.

  “I need to get out of here,” she gritted. “Get off!”

  Setting his rifle aside, Jason climbed up Doc Barr’s body, taking a few hard cracks to his cheeks on the way. He came to lie on top of her, pinning her arms over her head, their legs tangled together.

  Looked like they were in the middle of a rowdy fuck session.

  Huh. Shane drew his mouth down. And here he was just watching.

  “I will get you out of here,” Jason told her in a firm tone. “Right now, Farrin. I promise. You’ll stay by my side.” He stood and brought her up with him. “And we’ll go—listen to me!”

  She was trying to wrench her arm free from Jason’s grasp. There were shiny tears on her face.

  “We’ll go together, Farrin, slowly and quietly, in case there are terrorists waiting for us outside this cave.” Jason took her by both shoulders and forced her to look at him.

  With the penlight aimed the opposite direction down the tunnel, their features were mostly hidden in shadows, but Shane supposed they could see each other. They were standing very close.

  “I need to make sure you’ve heard me,” Jason persisted. “If you run headlong out of this cave, you’ll be shot or captured. I need you not to do that. Do you understand me?”

  She nodded. “I-I want to go.”

  Fuck, but it was a pain when a woman’s voice got all shaky. Hard for a man to concentrate on necessary shit when he heard that.

  “Then let’s go.” Jason bent to collect his rifle, then aimed his shadowy face at Shane. “Can you take point, Mad Dog?”

  He was pumped to the gunwales with adrenaline, so, “Yeah. But first I need another clip.” He hit the magazine release on his H&K, then chucked the empty clip to Jason.

  Jason dug into Shane’s pack for a new one and tossed it over.

  Shane rammed the full clip in place. He moved forward, weaving between dead bodies laid out in an odd-angled maze pattern. He didn’t have time to add them up, but it could be said without counting that his kill total was now astronomical. He picked up the penlight, then led the way to the cave opening. He spotted it much later than expected. Dusk was falling, and so Pakistan’s scorching sunlight wasn’t broadcasting the exit.

  He held out a staying hand to Jace and the doc as he turned off the penlight and closed the last few feet to the opening. He quick-checked outside. No one. He edged forward another few steps and made a wider sweep of the area. “Clear.”

  Jason arrived at his side, still with a firm grasp on Doc Barr’s arm. He surveyed the area himself. “What’s the likelihood that all the tangoes have just gone home for their nightly hummus?”

  Shane grunted. The obvious answer didn’t require out-loud speech. The likelihood was that reinforcements would be coming soon. “Let’s haul ass outta here,” he said.

  Although hauling an ass with a hot rebar pole stabbed into it turned out to be fubar.18 By the time he reached the top of the gully, the last of the adrenaline had fled his system, and burning metal poles were in all three of his wounds, jammed very, very deep. He was also sweat-drenched, and, to his horror, weak as a newborn guppy.

  Jason sliced a sideways glance at him. “We can’t keep traveling on foot.”

  Shane braced a palm on a tree, and—the hell with it—just sank down and leaned back against the trunk, his ass now getting friendly with dirt and roots. He very much missed pants.

  “Let’s regroup.” Jason gestured the doc over to the tree with Shane.

  She sat down, too, and propped her back against the trunk, same as Shane. Her braid was a tousled wreck, pieces of hair sticking out of it like a fraying rope.

  Jason crouched down in front of them and opened his backpack, pulling out a map and an MRE. He held the food out to Shane. “I think you should eat while I go over the plan.”

  He was hungry, but when he saw Beef Stew written across the Military Ready-Meal, his belly backed away. “Don’t think I can stomach the Navy’s version of beef right now, Vanderby.”

  “Shane shouldn’t be eating solid foods, anyway.” Doc took off her backpack, too. Before they’d bugged out, Jason had given her all of the amount of time it took Shane to jam his feet into a pair of boots for her to collect whatever she needed. With a sweep of her arm, she’d brushed the contents of an entire cupboard shelf into her backpack: scrubs, a blanket, snack bars, medicine and bandages…probably other stuff Shane hadn’t seen.

  “Just liquids,” she added.

  Yeah, well, there were a lot of things he should have been doing. His body was a bawling advertisement for all the medical rules he was breaking.

  “But since that isn’t feasible right now, and Shane’s expended a lot of calories, try this.” The doc pulled out a snack bar wrapped in plain silver from her pack. Her eyes were dull, but whether it was an aftereffect of her earlier freak-out or a trick of the purplish twilight, only she would know. “It’s a whole grain fruit bar, naturally sweetened with fruit juice.”

  He should’ve laughed that bar right back into her pack. A Navy SEAL eating a whole grain fruit bar. The razzing he’d get from any nearby military man would be endless. But since Jace looked like he just wanted to get everyone back on the road, Shane took the bar. A hateful thing to admit, but it did sound like something he could eat.

  “It shouldn’t hit your belly like a cane ball,” she assured him.

  He nodded his thanks and did her a further solid by not correcting her. She’d probably meant cannon ball. The doc then became his new best friend when she next pulled out a pair of scrubs from her pack and handed them to him.

  “Tan-colored orderly scrubs,” she explained. “Better than blue.”

  Shane stood and dressed, then balled up his hospital gown, and sat back down. While he ripped open the bar and took a bite, Jason unfolded the map he’d pulled out of his pack.

  “All right,” he said, studying it. “Topmost on our list—we need to acquire transportation.”

  “What about comms?” Shane asked, swallowing another bite. The fruit bar was going down okay, who woulda thought it? Maybe he should ask Doc for the brand name. ’Course, then he’d have to admit to ball shrinkage, or come up with another explanation for the loss in testosterone leading to such a pansy-ass question.

  “Finding a comm device in flea-bitten northern Pakistan strong enough to call in an extraction to J-bad isn’t going to happen.” Jason angled the map into a different aspect. “Besides, I’m reassessing the plan.” He glanced at Doc Barr. “You were right about anyone associated with the American military being Public Enemy Number One. I think it’ll be too much of a political hot potato for Baggie and X-ray to try and reach us here. We need to get someplace more accessible.”

  Shane leaned toward the map. “There’s a small combat outpost on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan that SEALs work out of. Here—” He pointed to it. “In the Kunar Province of eastern Afghanistan.” One of the most kinetic19 areas of Afghanistan, but it was the only accessible spot he could think of.

  “An American military outpost?” Jason nodded. “Even better.”

  Doc Barr frowned. “How far away is it?”

  Shane finished off the fruit bar. “I’d say three hundred miles or more.” He jerked his chin at the map. “That about right?”

  “Looks like it,” Jason agreed.

  “Three hundred miles?!” she exclaimed
. “How in the world are we going to manage such a distance, especially without getting caught?”

  “We need a vehicle,” Jason repeated, pinching his eyes shut with his thumb and forefinger.

  His exasperation, frustration, or whatever ball-up was going on inside him was understandable. As leader of their scruffy band, Jason carried the entire weight of responsibility for an injured soldier and a non-combat-trained woman on his shoulders. How to get two such people across three hundred miles of territory, where the enemy—both terrorist fuckers and probably Pakistani regulars—lurked everywhere? Yeah, Shane wouldn’t want to be the one in charge of that job, either.

  Opening his eyes, Jason glanced down at the map again. “There’s a small town about a klick and a half from here. Let’s go there and see what we can find.” He asked Shane directly, “Do you think you can make a mile?”

  He sweated more just thinking about it. “I can do a mile.” Somehow, he was going to have to make it not a lie and avoid looking like a hobbling old crone while doing it. No prob. He had an entire fruit bar to pump him up, didn’t he?

  The so-called small town turned out to be a dinky slap-together in East Butt-Fuck: cracked plaster and faded or flaky paint on every building, weedy overgrowth, everything dusted over with a thick layer of sand.

  And not a single motorized vehicle.

  Through the moonlight, Shane spotted a large, lopsided, barn-like wooden structure, and, sure as shit. When the three of them crept close and hunkered down at an outer corral, they saw four horses sleep-standing around. The animals were pitiful. Then again Shane had only known Mrs. Vanderby’s champion horses, so maybe in comparison these four looked extra-mangy. Not that it mattered. Four legs and a beating heart equaled transportation.

  Shane set a hand on one of the rails. “There’s our ride, Vanderby.”

  No answer.

  He glanced over.

  Jason was slouched back on his heels with his spine sunk against a fence post, his forearms sagging over the tops of his knees. He was staring across the shadowy desert plain, his eyes blank and distant. “I hate horses,” he said flatly.