by Mel Odom
Bekah swallowed and felt her face heat up. Her problem wasn’t her problem. She’d been trying to walk away from the fight that night. She just hadn’t been allowed to. And she hadn’t scheduled her reactivation either. This wasn’t her fault. She kept her gaze focused on the far wall and squeezed her emotions into a small box at the back of her mind. She thought about Granny and Travis and how the money she was making on this tour would help make their lives easier.
After a moment, the lieutenant continued. “I don’t like to deal with Marines whose personal issues override their ability to be Marines. Is that understood?”
“Crystal, sir.”
“Judging from the report I read, you were arrested for fighting in a bar.”
Bekah’s immediate impulse was to defend herself, but she knew she didn’t have the time before they were supposed to get into the field, and she doubted the lieutenant would care. The man had his own agenda.
“I didn’t get that paper till this morning. If I’d known this yesterday, I would have probably made other arrangements for the leadership positions among the fire teams. But I made the best decisions I could based on the information I had on you people.”
You people. Like they were parts, not human beings. Bekah could feel resentment rising up in her again. Coming from such different backgrounds, she knew there was nothing she would have in common with Lieutenant Heath Bridger.
Still, Bekah couldn’t completely hold her tongue. Not after everything that had happened back home before she’d left. “You made a good decision, sir. I’m a good Marine.”
The lieutenant leaned toward her, invading her personal space just a little, enough to ping her radar. “Good Marines don’t get caught up in bar fights, Lance Corporal.”
Bekah sipped her breath and kept her voice level with effort. She stared at the far wall hard enough to bore holes through it. “Yes sir. You’re right, sir.”
“I am.” The lieutenant held his position for a split second longer, then leaned back. “Up until this point, you’ve had a spotless record. Don’t go off the rails now.”
“No sir. I won’t, sir.”
The lieutenant glanced at Gunney Towers as if to confirm what the big man thought. Then he shifted his attention back to Bekah. “I’ll take care of the paperwork.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“There’s one other thing I want to discuss.” The lieutenant pulled up a file on his iPad. “One of the men assigned to your team could be a problem.” He turned the device around to show her a man who looked a couple years older than her. “His name is Pike Morgan.”
Bekah studied the face. Pike Morgan looked intimidating. His face was broad, and his dark eyes were watchful and predatory. The picture was file stock, a straight-on view that Bekah felt probably didn’t give the man’s true nature. His dark hair was longer than regulation, but that was allowed in some instances in the emerging war zones because the United States military didn’t want its soldiers targeted just by their haircuts.
“Maybe you’re wondering why he could be a problem?” The lieutenant sounded a little put out.
After the warning she’d received, Bekah had determined not to ask questions. Either the lieutenant would tell her what he wanted her to know, or she would find out for herself. Either way would work for her. She just wanted to get away from the lieutenant and get to her team.
Bekah cleared her throat. “Why is this man a problem? Sir.” She put the emphasis on the sir.
“Pike’s been activated more than you have. He’s a true warrior, a guy who can get you there and back again in one piece.” The lieutenant paused. “The downside is that Pike doesn’t much care for authority.”
Then why did you assign him to me? Bekah kept that question to herself with effort.
“Pike was all the way up to sergeant at one point; then he got busted back down to private for fighting with his commanding officer.”
Bekah was pretty sure the commanding officer hadn’t been Lieutenant Heath Bridger. Pike looked like a bruiser. He would have left the lieutenant marked, messed up those metrosexual good looks.
“I served with Pike back in Afghanistan. When I found out he was here, I asked that he be assigned to this unit. The brass was happy to have someone take him off their hands.” The lieutenant put his iPad away. “The man’s good in the streets. Pay attention to him.”
“Yes sir.”
“I put him with you because—until I received notice about this court case—you’ve always gotten good marks from your commanding officers. You have people skills, Lance Corporal, you can get creative within given orders, and you have obviously learned to keep yourself and your people alive in difficult situations. I thought maybe you could make a difference with Pike Morgan.”
“Sir, permission to speak freely?”
The lieutenant didn’t hesitate. “Granted.”
“Pike has had higher rank than I now currently possess. Will that be a problem?”
“I don’t know, Lance Corporal. Will it?”
Bekah kept her face unreadable, but she knew he’d deliberately avoided the question.
“My advice to you is, don’t let that history make a difference. The reason Pike fails at command is because he doesn’t function in a group. He’s too much of a loner. You’ve got to find a way to bring him into the fold. Based on your past successes, I thought you might be the person to do that.” The lieutenant paused. “Now I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
Anger and frustration stirred in Bekah, coiling in her stomach and pounding at her temples.
The lieutenant seemed surprised that she didn’t have anything to say. “Any questions, Lance Corporal?”
“No sir.”
“Then you’re dismissed.”
Bekah came to full attention with a snap and brought her hand up to her forehead in a perfectly executed salute. Her speed caught the lieutenant off guard.
The lieutenant brought himself up and returned the salute.
Lifting her foot and pointing her toe, Bekah spun in a tightly controlled 180 and marched out of the room. She shouldered her weapon and pulled on her helmet before she cleared the door.
Heath didn’t speak until Lance Corporal Bekah Shaw exited the room. Then he had only a one-word rejoinder. “Wow.” He turned to Gunney Towers and found the big man grinning. “Think I hit a nerve?”
“That one’s got a lot of sand in her. I saw so this morning. She takes pride in what she does.”
Heath retreated to the desk at the front of the room and picked up the cup of coffee he had waiting there. “Do you know what her story is?”
“Read the same file as you.”
“Yeah, yeah, Gunney.” Heath waved a dismissive hand. “I got the whole small-town, single-mom thing. But I’m talking about the between-the-lines stuff. What makes her tick?”
“I think that’s what does it.” Gunney Towers took a seat across from Heath. The chair teetered precariously under his weight. “My mom raised me and my younger brother by herself since I was seven years old. Takes a special kind of woman to do that.”
“I suppose.” Heath leaned back in his chair and sipped his coffee, which was bad, but it provided a hot wake-up and caffeine. He thought about Bekah Shaw and his preconceived notions of her. As he’d said, her file held several commendations. There was every reason to assign her as a fire team leader.
Until he’d gotten the notice about the legal problem, Heath had felt confident about her posting.
“You’re overthinking it.” Towers’s voice was a deep rumble.
“Overthinking it?”
“The situation with Bekah Shaw.”
“I don’t need a loose cannon heading up one of my fire teams.”
Towers’s lips quirked a little. “She look like a loose cannon to you this morning?”
Heath sighed and worked his shoulders. He was tired from the long flight and from worrying about Darnell Lester and his family. Heath didn’t want the ball to get dro
pped while he was gone, and he had yet to hear from Mark Kluger regarding the motion to commute the death sentence.
Finally, Heath had to admit his thoughts. “No, she doesn’t.”
“Doesn’t to me, either.”
Heath liked working with Towers. They’d met in Afghanistan and had gotten on well together. Heath knew he was fortunate in having a second-in-command with all the experience the gunney had, and he appreciated the fact that Towers was willing to place his life in the hands of such a green unit.
“You took her to breakfast this morning?”
Towers nodded. “I did.”
Heath waited, then realized the gunney wasn’t going to volunteer any further information. Towers had an irritating habit of parceling out what he knew, never giving too much without first being asked. The trait was a good training technique because it forced a new lieutenant to think independently.
“Did the court matter come up?”
“No.”
“So you have no idea what it’s about?”
“Not a clue.”
Heath sipped his coffee again. “Doesn’t it make you curious?”
“Not me.” Towers looked utterly relaxed, not like a man about to go out into a war-torn city.
Heath sighed. “You’re no help.”
“Now my feelings are hurt.”
“I’m sure they are.”
Towers grinned at him.
“Keep an eye on her.”
“I plan to do that for all of them.”
“I know.” Heath tapped the side of his coffee cup with a well-groomed fingernail. “Something happened back home. Something changed. We need to know if it followed her out here and if it’s going to affect our operations.”
Towers nodded. “Putting Pike Morgan with her is gonna be a stressor.”
“I know. We’ll want to keep an eye on that, too. In the meantime, you still have favors you can call in with the satellite communications people?”
“I do. I always keep on the right side of favors.”
“See if one of those computer jockeys can ferret out information about Lance Corporal Bekah Shaw’s legal problems.”
“I can do that.”
20
BEKAH MET HER TEAM in the barracks. They were the only three people left there. The other team leaders had met with their people, checked equipment, and pulled out. Being late made Bekah feel awkward and embarrassed, and it made her more dissatisfied with Lieutenant Heath Bridger. There would have been plenty of other times for him to have talked to her about the court appearance.
Still, she also understood the lieutenant’s reticence about sending her out into the field without getting a feel for her mental state. If she’d been in charge, she would have probably done the same thing. Marines counted on each other for survival. If a Marine couldn’t be counted on, the other Marines deserved to know.
And that line of thinking brought her to Private First Class Pike Morgan. She wanted to know how much trouble the man was going to be, and she had no doubt he was going to be trouble.
The makeshift barracks inside the warehouse reminded Bekah a lot of the war movies she’d sometimes watched with her granddaddy. Everything felt spartan.
“Bekah.” One of the two Marines standing in a huddle in full combat gear looked up at Bekah’s approach.
A smile lit up Bekah’s face when she recognized the woman. Private Trudy Schultz was a year or so younger than Bekah. At five foot four and athletic, Trudy was petite and filled with boundless energy. She wore her blonde hair razored to chin length and always appeared bright and earnest, always peppy. Back in the real world, she lived in Georgia, a schoolteacher. She’d joined the Marine Reserve to help pay her student loans.
“Trudy.” Bekah nodded. “Good to see you.”
Trudy stepped forward and embraced Bekah. Normally Bekah didn’t care to be hugged much. She preferred to keep her distance from everyone but Granny and Travis. But there was something special about Trudy that felt warm and inviting. She returned the embrace, then stepped back. Relationships between fellow Marines tended to be more casual than a lot of civilians thought.
Turning a hand to the other Marine standing nearby, Trudy cleared her throat. “Let me introduce Private First Class Tyler Bowdrie. He’s from Austin, Texas. He’s a carpenter and plays in a band when he’s back home.”
Tyler was a good-looking guy in his early thirties. The haircut looked new because his tan line only crept halfway up his neck. The tan was deep enough to let Bekah know he worked outside. A shade over six feet tall, he was broad-shouldered and ruggedly lean. He wore round-lensed John Lennon glasses and had a shy smile, but his grip was firm from swinging hammers.
“Lance Corporal.” His words sounded musical.
“Call me Bekah.” It was important that the team be relaxed with each other, and having to remember call signs and rank during the heat of battle was hard.
Tyler nodded. “Yes ma’am.”
“Sorry I’m late. I got held up by Lieutenant Bridger. I suppose Private Morgan went on ahead with the others?”
“Actually, he didn’t.” Trudy pointed to a bunk at the end of the long line. “When he saw that you weren’t here, he went back to his bunk.”
Irritation gnawed at Bekah. Lieutenant Bridger should have recognized that holding her up after the meeting would undermine her command right from the start. Pike lay on his back, one hand behind his head and an arm across his eyes. His thick chest rose and fell rhythmically.
“Private Morgan.” Bekah’s voice echoed off the empty interior of the barracks.
“Yeah?”
“Maybe you’d like to join us.”
“We ready to go?”
“We are.” Bekah refrained from saying anything sharper.
Pike rolled from the rack like a big jungle cat. One minute he was lying down, the next he was walking toward her holding his rifle in one hand and clapping his helmet on with the other. “Glad to see you could make it.”
Bekah made herself ignore the sarcasm. “The lieutenant held me up.”
Pike gave her more attention then and stopped in front of her. “Did he?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Especially to annoy you.”
Pike grinned at that, and the expression seemed more genuine. “I didn’t know he still cared.”
“Next time I see him, I’ll tell him how much you were touched.”
The grin grew bigger. “Where are you from, Lance Corporal Bekah Shaw?”
“A little town you’ve probably never heard of.”
“Try me.”
“Callum’s Creek, Oklahoma.”
Pike nodded. “You’re right. Never heard of it.”
“Where are you from?”
“Lots of places.” Pike looked at the other two Marines, then back at Bekah. “We gonna go out there on this op? Or are we gonna campfire?”
“We’re going.” Bekah turned and headed for the door. Her Marines fell in after her, and her stomach spasmed a little when she thought about what might be waiting for them. The adrenaline pounded through her system and the stink of gunpowder and burned flesh from past engagements filled her nose.
“Do you see the Americans?”
On the third floor of the building, out of the sunlight that gathered at the window, Pabest shifted slightly behind the RPG-7 rocket launcher he held and took better aim at the small group of United States Marines moving stealthily through the street below. “I see them, Ezaan. Do I not have eyes in my head?”
Ezaan slid to the side, changing his angle of view. “If you do not take the shot soon, you will have no shot at all.” Like Pabest, Ezaan was short and angular, carrying no spare flesh on his frame. Both of them wore red-and-white-checked keffiyehs and long jackets. Pabest’s bandolier carried extra magazines for the AK-47 assault rifle that sat canted against the wall. Ezaan held his own weapon, but his hands played nervously over it.
This was Ezaan’s first fight a
gainst the American forces. Until now he’d only raided displaced citizens outside the city to strike fear into their hearts. That was an important job, almost as important as killing the foreign soldiers. The people who sought to turn from God’s will needed to be reminded that they lived in the shadow of God’s wrath and should not consort with the enemy Satans.
“Be quiet, Ezaan.” Pabest took a fresh grip on the rocket launcher to relax his hand. “We must await Sadim’s signal. Or would you rather face Haroun and tell him you ruined his trap for the Americans?”
Ezaan sighed. “No. We will wait.”
Silently, Pabest tracked the Marines as they filed through the alleys and broken buildings below. Haroun had set the trap for the Marines, sending them information about the bomb factory the al-Shabaab no longer used. The place lay in a basement below one of the crumbling buildings. Last year, Pabest had worked there to build bombs. He had gotten quite good at the craft, and he missed the calm focus.
Skulking through the city and in the nearby wilderness was no life. He missed living in Mogadishu, missed the respect and dread the striking keffiyeh caused in the people who lived in the city. God made sure his warriors were recognized and feared.
“How many do you count, Ezaan?”
“Ten. Maybe twelve. It is hard to know for sure when they move so much and take cover.”
“Cover will do them no good. They will all die today.” Pabest prayed that it would be so. Briefly, he tracked one of the female Marines. They were the biggest offense to Pabest, abominations to God’s will who needed to be subjugated or eradicated. He longed to administer such retribution himself. The American women were causing good Muslim women to question God’s plans for them. That could not be tolerated. But there they were, flaunting their bodies, driving trucks that only a man should drive, and carrying weapons like they were warriors.
Pabest followed the woman Marine with his weapon, praying that the order would be given to fire. Instead, two steps farther on, the woman disappeared behind the remnant of a wall. He cursed his ill luck and shifted his aim back to an open area between two other Marines. The warhead would hit the ground and kill or wound anything in any direction for fifteen meters. He smiled in anticipation and stroked the trigger.
