“People talk about the wind howling, but I never really understood what they meant till right then. It was howling like a monster, like it hated us. That’s when we figured out it was a sandstorm. Just before it hit us.”
“We’re swallowed up by it. The light goes out like someone hit a switch. You can see maybe a foot in front of your face, but that’s if you dare open your eyes. As soon as you open them, even a crack, the wind rams sand into your eyeballs, cramming it up under your lids. So you screw your eyes tight shut, but you still can’t breathe. The air’s full of this dust, finer than the sand. It’s like the air is solid: even if you catch some that isn’t sand, it’s this choking, heavy stuff that fills your lungs and turns to mud as soon as it gets wet: you cough on it, gag on it: your mouth is so dry that you can’t talk or swallow.”
“We somehow manage to stagger back to the house. For a while we just shelter there, coughing, eyes streaming. But we can hear the militia calling to each other and it’s getting closer. They’re coming, using the sandstorm as cover. Baker puts his hand on my shoulder and says we have to go back out there.”
“We get scarves tied around our mouths so we can kind of breathe. We don’t have goggles or anything so we can barely open our eyes. But we have to protect the other two. So we go out there, back-to-back, and start shooting at anything that moves. I manage to get three more of them, over the next half hour or so, but I’m almost out of ammo. I turn to Baker to see if he can spare a few rounds... and he’s not there. I look around, but he’s just... gone. I holler for him, but he doesn’t answer, or if he does I can’t hear him over the goddamn wind. I don’t know if he’s lost, or if the militia took him, or if he’s shot and dying. He could be three feet away and I wouldn’t even see him.”
“So I do the only thing I can do. I put my head down and walk, in the last direction I saw him, and pray I’m going the right way. There are no landmarks, nothing, so I could be walking right towards the militia, for all I know. I keep hollering for him: I know it’s going to bring them right to me, but it’s the only thing I can think of. The wind’s getting even stronger, it’s blasting sand at me and it feels like my skin’s being flayed off. I keep staggering forward, hollering, and then—” I sucked in my breath. “One of the militia fighters comes running out of the dust. I don’t see him until he’s right on top of me. I snap my gun up, put one in his chest and then my gun clicks empty. He’s so close, he whacks into me as he falls and takes us both to the ground. I’m lying there under him, trying to roll him off me, and I recognize the gun he’s gripping: it’s one of ours. The bastard’s taken Baker’s gun. I finally manage to get him off me, tear off the scarf that’s over his face. I’m going to ask him where Baker is, before he dies—”
I felt my eyes go hot. My voice fractured. “Only it is Baker.”
Kristina gave a moan of raw horror.
“I lay him on his back and try and find the wound, praying I just clipped him, but—” I shook my head, the bitterness rising in me like vomit. “But it’s a great shot. Best I ever made.” I took a breath, but it turned into a sob. “Right in the heart. And he just lies there, blood soaking through his uniform, looking up at me with... shock. Shock and hurt, that I could have done this to him. And then he dies. Not a hero, not fighting the enemy: shot by his best friend.”
Kristina didn’t make a sound. She just laid her head on my chest, slid her arms as far around my chest as they’d go and hugged herself to me as tight as she possibly could. After several minutes, she spoke, her voice like silken glass, cooling my mind. “Garrett... it wasn’t your fault.”
I’d told myself that a million times, over the years. But you can’t convince yourself of something like that. Someone else has to do it. Someone you trust.
I looked down and she looked up. Her eyes were shining in the moonlight, but her gaze was as steely as if she was commanding her army. I’d always trusted her and I trusted her now.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she repeated.
And for the first time, I believed it. I drew in a breath of cold, clean Lakovian air and it felt like my lungs properly filled, free of dust, for the first time in years.
I wrapped her in my arms and kissed the top of her head, then she tilted her head back and I kissed her long and sweet. I felt... lighter, as if something had been crushing me down all that time. I held her close as I finished my story.
“I grab his body and throw him over my shoulder because no way am I leaving him there. I try to retrace my steps. When I eventually find the house, Martinez is dead. Felton’s trying to hold off the militia on his own, but one of them picks him off just as I get there. Everybody’s dead. Everybody except me.”
“I run into the house and lay Baker’s body down on the table, next to Martinez. The militia are coming through the windows, the door... they’re everywhere. I make it into the back room, which is a dead end. I slam the door behind me but I know they’ll follow me in, any second. There’s no place to hide, all there is is an old stone fireplace, but I hunker down and get inside it. I don’t know why: I’m dead as soon as they come through the door. Instinct, I guess. I’m not thinking straight: all I can see is Baker’s face, over and over again.”
“Seconds go by and nothing happens. I realize they don’t know I’m out of ammo. They think I’m going to shoot them as soon as they come through the door. I can hear them muttering to each other about what to do. Then the door opens for a second and a grenade comes through. I remember closing my eyes and a flash and then... nothing.”
“When I come to, I’m in pain like I’ve never known and I can barely breathe. There’s stuff on me, crushing my chest, and I can’t move. Eventually I manage to get one arm free and dig some of it away from my face.”
“I’m in the corner of the room still, but the roof and half the wall has come down on top of me. The stars are out so I know I’ve been unconscious for hours. The militia are gone. I figure they looked at the pile of rubble and thought I must be dead.”
“I almost am dead. Leg’s broken. Ribs feel like a sackful of broken glass and every time I move, my head hurts so bad I almost pass out. But I’m alive. Then I see Baker’s body and I don’t want to be.”
“I sit there for a while trying to figure out what to do. And eventually I just do what I’ve been trained to do. I figure it’s about sixty miles to the border. I gather up what little water, ammo and rations we had left between us, make a splint from a piece of wood and some belts, and I limp out of there. When I put my foot down for the first time, I think I’m going to throw up from the pain. But then I figure, if I don’t make it out of there, there’ll be no one to tell anyone what happened. And I want answers. I want to know why they didn’t come get us.”
“It takes me the best part of three days. By the end of it, I’m sunburned, almost dead from thirst and my leg’s infected. A US patrol finds me just over the border and gets me to a hospital and I spend a few days delirious before anyone can get any sense out of me. Then the brass haul me in. At first, I don’t understand why they’re mad.”
My voice turned bitter. “See, we weren’t supposed to be in Iran. When our plane went over the border, we violated about a thousand international treaties. When we got into a firefight with the militia, it became a political nightmare. The politicians in Washington wouldn’t authorize a rescue op: it would have meant telling the Iranians we were there. Easier—cleaner—to just let us die.”
“And then it gets worse because the military whitewash the whole thing. They get some special ops guys to recover the bodies a few days later, and they burn the wreckage of the plane until there’s no evidence left that it’s American. Then they tell me what the story’s going to be: our plane went down on this side of the border and the others were killed on impact.”
“And then the fuckers discharge me, and make it damn clear that if I say a word to anyone, they’ll say I murdered Baker and put me in a cell. I’m shipped home with my leg still in a cast and my ribs taped
up: no money, no future, no idea what to do.”
I glanced down. Kristina was staring up at me, mouth a gaping black “O.” She understood where my anger came from, now. Understood how I’d lost all faith in being loyal to anything... until she’d given me something to fight for again.
“There’s one thing I have to do,” I told her. “I visit Baker’s widow, look her in the eyes and tell her what happened. I’m ready for her to slap me, to scream at me: hell, there’s a part of me that’s hoping she’ll kill me. But she doesn’t. She just nods and says she understands and that it wasn’t my fault: all the right things. But there’s this look in her eyes, just like Baker got: why? Why would you do this? And I get out of there. She tries to call me back, but I keep walking.”
“I go home to Texas but I don’t know what to do with myself. Ever since school, I always had the military. Always had a mission. Now there’s too much time to think... to remember. And I’ve started having flashbacks.”
“I try to get a job. Go to interview after interview. But as soon as they find out I’m a veteran, they get nervous. They think I’ll get uppity with them because I used to have a rank, and now I’m a civilian.” I gave a bitter laugh. “They don’t get that I followed orders, not gave them. I’m good with following orders.”
Kristina nodded sadly.
“And the flashbacks: that’s even more of a problem. They’re not allowed to ask about PTSD and stuff, but…” I felt the anger rising inside my chest. “But they don’t have to, you know? They just say something like it must have been tough, over there. And they see me go tense and they know. And I want to scream at them, look, it comes back to me sometimes, but most of the time I’m okay! But I can’t tell them what happened. Can’t find the words. So they think I’m some psycho who’s going to bring a gun to work and start shooting. No one’ll hire me.”
“I’m too ashamed to stay at the ranch, with my dad. He was a Marine his entire career. I’ve been discharged and now I can’t even get a job. So I move to LA. Get a job as a doorman in a dive bar. But I’m too... dumb, I guess. Everyone else is on the take, like let one drug dealer in to deal, and stop all the others, in return for a cut. But I didn’t want to do that. Didn’t seem right.” I sighed. “Like I said, dumb.”
“Not dumb,” Kristina said fiercely. “Good. What were you doing in New York?”
“Thought if I could get away from the desert, the flashbacks might stop. They didn’t. So I was heading back to LA... when I met you.”
Her eyes were shining with tears. There was so much I wanted to explain about what she meant to me: how meeting her had changed everything. She’d given me something to be loyal to, something I believed in. She’d made me feel happy for the first time since it all happened. And I loved her like I’d never loved anyone: she was sweet and special and bright and the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. But my words had run out. I gazed at her, shook my head, and just said, “I know I’m not a prince. But you’re right for me.”
And she just nodded and kissed me. She scooched higher up my body, straddling me, and we lay like that in the darkness for a long time, our cheeks pressed together. I felt... lighter. Like something had released, inside me. “It’s the first time I’ve ever told anyone,” I muttered. “I mean, I told the brass how the others died. But not how it felt.”
She nodded and the feel of her silky hair brushing my shoulders calmed the last of the anger inside me. It was weird: I wasn’t used to feeling at peace.
“You know, there are people who can help you with the flashbacks,” she said tentatively.
I shook my head. “Couldn’t,” I mumbled. “Tried it. Couldn’t talk to them. You’re different.”
“Then will you at least let me share something with you? Something that worked for me, after the war?”
Just the reminder that she’d suffered made my arms tightened protectively around her. I wanted to kill every one of the bastards who’d imprisoned her. “Go on.”
“I still get the flashbacks, sometimes. When it’s really dark, or I’m alone. Sometimes they come as nightmares and those I can’t stop...until I met you.” She ran her hand over my chest. “But the flashbacks... my therapist taught me how to beat those. Maybe it’ll work for you, too.”
I nodded, but half-heartedly. “They’re so real,” I said. “And so big. And... heavy.” I shook my head. “I know that doesn’t make sense. It’s just a memory. But—”
“But it feels like it’s solid, like it weighs a thousand tons,” she said.
I blinked at her, surprised. “Yeah. Like a freight train coming at me. I can’t stop it.”
She raised herself up on her arms so that she could look down at me. Her hair hung down, brushing my chest and, if I glanced down, I knew I’d see her breasts, pale in the moonlight. But I was so focused on what she was saying, I managed not to look. “That’s because you’re so big and stubborn,” she said, mock-sternly. “You’re trying to fight it.”
I scrunched up my brow. “What the hell else am I supposed to do?”
She put those cooling, calming hands on my biceps. “You let it come, but you get out of its way. Like you’re sidestepping.”
“Sidestepping?”
“You don’t have to move much. Just enough that it misses you. Just think really hard about somewhere you really like. A place you’d like to be, with a person you’d like to be with. You’re there. And then the flashback still comes, but you’re not in it. You’re just watching it, like it’s on TV.”
I stared at her. If it had come straight from a therapist, I would have written it off as a load of horseshit. But I trusted her. Hell, there was no one I trusted more. “Somewhere I’d like to be?” I said slowly. Texas. “And someone I’d like to be with.” I looked right at her, and she flushed, then cuddled down on my chest again.
I lay there feeling even better than before. I didn’t know if it would work: it didn’t seem like much of a weapon, given how powerful the flashbacks were. But just having something, after all these years... that helped.
There was a sound outside the window, very faint. I could barely hear it, but Kristina jerked to attention and listened and so I did, too. It sounded like bells.
“It’s the clock tower in the city,” she said at last. Her body had gone tense. “Midnight. Ten hours until the bombers launch.”
“You did everything you could,” I said. “Garmania started this. They pushed you and pushed you. They tried to kill you over and over again. And your dad. And planted bombs and—”
“I know. I just... I don’t feel that it’s true. I can’t believe they want to go back to war with us. Not in my gut.” She sighed and let herself flop on top of me. “I suppose I just don’t want to believe it.”
She lay there on my chest, defeated. And I frowned up at the ceiling. She’d done so much to help me. I wanted to help her. But I didn’t know anything about politics, or being a leader.
So, I just told her what I did know. “Your instincts are good,” I said.
She jerked up, startled. “What?”
“You were right about Emerik and Jakov. And Caroline, too. None of them were traitors. And you’re smart. You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met. If you say Garmania doesn’t want war, I believe you.”
She shook her head. “But they’re behind everything! It all points to them!”
“OK, but....” I sat up, carrying her up with me until we were upright. She crossed her legs and sat on my thighs, our faces only a foot apart. “What if they’re not?”
She shook her head. “Nothing else makes sense!”
I scrunched up my brow. This wasn’t what I was good at. But this was what she needed me to do. So I thought. “The weapons the assassins used,” I said at last. “All Garmanian. So if Garmania isn’t supplying them, who is? Are there any other countries Garmania sells its stuff to?”
“No. They’re highly secretive about their weapons tech. They’re proud that only they have it.” She shrugged. “Maybe th
e assassins bought it on the black market? There were lots of guns in circulation after the war.”
I frowned again, thinking back to Texas. “I can believe that for rifles, maybe even the explosives. But not the mortar they used to attack the ranch. You can’t buy that in the back room of a bar.”
“So it is Garmania behind it all,” she sighed and hung her head. “It has to be.”
“No!” I tipped her chin up to look at me. We were onto something, now. I could feel it. The wheels in my head might turn slowly, but once they started....”Think! There must be someone else who has Garmanian weapons. Some other country, an ally….”
“There isn’t! The only people who have their weapons are Garmania and—” She broke off and stared at me.
Even in the darkened room, I could see how pale her face had gone. “Who?” But she just looked ill. Something had occurred to her, something so horrible she didn’t dare touch it again. “Who?”
She swallowed. “Us.”
56
Kristina
The words came haltingly. It felt as if I was lying on fragile ice above a deep, black lake and every word was another blow with a hammer. “We captured lots of Garmanian weapons when we won the war,” I said. “But…” I shook my head. It couldn’t be true. If it was true, that meant…. “No,” I said. “No.”
Garrett and I stared at each other, the implications running through our heads. Then, very slowly, Garrett picked up the phone and passed it to me. “Call the military,” he said in that deep, Texas rumble. “Find out where they store captured weapons.”
My whole body had gone cold, my skin clammy with fear. I didn’t want to follow this idea any further. But….
Saving the Princess Page 24
