Taking Fire

by Lindsay McKenna

  It took him a good ten minutes before he could force open his eyes. A ceiling of what looked like a cave was above him, grayish and deeply shadowed. Licking his lips, dying of thirst, he tried moving his hands and feet to see how badly wounded he was.

  The memory of an RPG sailing through the air finally grounded him into reality. Yeah, the ridge. His men? Panic settled in him for a moment. Where was his team? And where the hell was he?

  Mike heard water running. The ringing in his ears would lower for a bit and then return to near normal volume. Knowing he’d been close enough to the explosion to pop both his eardrums, he wouldn’t be surprised if they were blown. He felt pain in his ears when he focused his concentration there. Vision blurring, he blinked several times. Wherever he was lying, there was something soft beneath him. He slowly moved his right hand, his dirty, sweaty fingers encountering something soft. Fabric.

  Vision blurring again, he shut his eyes, concentrating and trying to figure out where the hell he was. He’d been on a scree slope, nothing but rocks. The RPG had been fired by a Taliban.

  Opening his eyes, his vision cleared. His head throbbed with unremitting agony. It hurt even to blink his eyes. Moving his right hand, Mike encountered his left arm in a sling. A sling? He was in a cave. This wasn’t making sense to him. The sound of rushing water, like a small waterfall, caught his attention again. As much as it caused hellacious pain, he slowly moved his head to the left, toward the sound.

  Tarik simply wasn’t prepared for what he saw. He had to be having some kind of hallucination. Or the wound he’d sustained to his head was playing tricks on him. His eyes narrowed. There, maybe fifty feet away, was a tall, naked woman beneath a waterfall. She was washing herself with a cloth, her face tipped up, water splashing around her head and shoulders.

  He closed his eyes. No, this was his messed-up head. One didn’t find a naked, beautiful young woman under a waterfall in the Hindu Kush. No way…

  His hearing returned briefly, and he heard the water again. Opening his eyes, he was sure the hallucination would be gone.

  But it wasn’t. Mike watched, mesmerized as she walked slowly out of the pool, picked up the towel and began to dry her dark, very long hair. What the fuck is going on here? Closing his eyes, frustrated, Mike touched his head, his fingers running into a bandage around it. Exploring further, he felt a heavy dressing where the pain was originating from along his temple. He wasn’t in a Medevac. He wasn’t at Bravo’s dispensary, nor was he at Bagram hospital’s emergency room. He’d been to all those places at one time or another. The trickling sound, the music of water falling, surrounded him. This was all his imagination. His brain was scrambled.

  Opening his eyes, he saw her. Again. He watched as she sat on a bench and combed her long, damp hair. Mike could see her very clearly. Her profile looked Afghan, a broad brow, strong nose, full mouth and a stubborn-looking chin. She was probably in her late twenties, maybe.

  Every motion she made was graceful. Her skin had a golden sheen to it. The rest of her body was lean, glistening with water as she sat there and allowed the air to dry her. Her breasts were small, her hips flared. It was her long, long legs that caught his attention. Beautiful thighs, curved and firm.

  Groaning, Tarik shut his eyes. He had to be hallucinating! That was all there was to it. The pain in his left arm nagged at him when he tried to move it. Not good. Lying there, breathing raggedly, mouth dry, he tried to get a hold on where the hell he was lying.

  Opening his eyes, he watched her, finally convinced that she wasn’t an apparition. Or a ghost from his imagination. She was combing her hair, getting out the snarls in the long strands. When she was finished, she took the brush, taming the drying strands. Once, she turned her head away, and he saw her hair was a deep, rich red color. It glinted for just a second in the lamplight.

  This was real. Friggin’ real. Mike felt as if he’d stepped into a Tim Burton movie, Alice in Wonderland. There was a sense of calm, of peacefulness where he lay. And then, his ringing ears caught another sound.

  Munch, munch, munch.

  Mike turned his head very slowly to the right. There, five feet away, was a black horse with a halter, eating alfalfa hay on the cave floor. He could smell the alfalfa, a sweet scent filling his nostrils. One he was very familiar with. But how did alfalfa hay get into the Hindu Kush? The more he saw, the less made sense to him. Alfalfa did not grow in this country.

  He slowly turned his head back toward the woman. She had moved her long hair that was nearly halfway down her long back and brought it over her naked right shoulder. His eyes narrowed. What was he seeing on her back as she stood up? He scowled. Her back was heavily scarred. Dark, puckered ridges indicated she’d been whipped with something that had metal on the ends of the tips. He felt himself getting angry. Afghan women were punished with whips like this when they didn’t “behave” properly toward their husband.

  The woman shrugged on a muscle shirt of dark olive green. She sat down and pulled on a pair of camouflage cammie trousers. They weren’t SEAL cammies. His memory was barely functioning. Maybe marine? He watched her pull on a set of olive-green wool socks and then a pair of combat boots. She quickly laced them up with her elegant fingers. When she was done, she stood up, used her hands to spread that cloak of red hair about her shoulders, fluffing it in a fully feminine gesture. He saw glinting waves of crimson, burgundy and gold shine beneath the kerosene lamplight.

  He was torn. He could pretend he was still unconscious, or he could reveal to her he was awake. As she picked up her toiletry articles in her left hand, Mike decided to let her know he was conscious. Curiosity was burning him alive. He’d seen no weapons around. Just her and the horse, contentedly consuming hay.

  As she drew near, Mike watched her gaze lock on his. She slowed her pace toward him, wariness coming to her face. She was deeply tanned, face oval and eyes that made him drag in a deep breath. She carried the kerosene lamp in her hand, and the light flashed up for a moment, revealing the most incredible green color to her large intelligent eyes.

  *

  KHAT FELT HER heart wrench in her chest as she drew close to the SEAL. He was awake, looking at her with confusion. His face was dirty, sweaty, but those gold-brown eyes of his were clear and pinned on her.

  What Khat didn’t want was for him to try something stupid, like leap up and grab her or try to find one of her weapons and point it at her. She halted a good ten feet away from the SEAL. “I’m Khat,” she said in a low voice. “You’re safe. I’m your friend.”

  He stared up at her like she was a ghost. Khat was used to that reaction. How many women were riding around a fifty-square-mile area of the Hindu Kush? No one else she knew of.

  He had large eyes, and she could see they were a light brown color. He was intensely assessing her, and she could feel it.

  The SEAL was confused, and Khat didn’t blame him. What she didn’t want was for him to go into defense or attack mode. Because he would. He was completely out of his element. She’d removed his pistol and his knife from him earlier.

  “You’re in a cave,” she explained, keeping it simple. “I saw an RPG explode very close to you. Later, when I found you in the wadi, you were unconscious.”

  She gestured toward his head. “You’ve got a pretty bad concussion, and you have a broken left arm. You need to stay calm and relax.”

  “Are you thirsty, Michael Tarik?” she asked when he didn’t say anything. She put her toiletry items back into the cave wall hole. The damp towel hung on a peg she’d pounded into the walls years earlier. Khat turned and picked up one of the plastic quart bottles from a box filled with them.

  *

  TARIK BLINKED. HER RED HAIR was drying like a cloak around her proud shoulders. Cat? Her name was Cat? Or was it a lie? She looked somewhat bemused by his confusion, that wide, beautiful mouth of hers turned up on one corner. His gaze moved to the water bottle in her slender hand. Immediately recognizing it as SEAL issue, he growled, “Who the hell are y
ou, really? And where am I?”

  The tension rose in him. She stood casually, her green eyes holding his. There was no fear in them. No sense that he was a prisoner, either. His hands were not bound. And then, Mike focused on the leather thong hanging around her neck. His gaze fell to the pendant at the end of it, and he rasped, “That’s a hog’s tooth.” And then he lifted his chin, glaring at her. “Are you a Marine Corps sniper?” It made sense to him. She wore marine cammies. He remembered someone had fired a .300 Win Mag from the ridgeline, alerting them to the Taliban ambush. But a woman marine sniper? He’d never heard of such a thing. Mike tried to figure out just who she was. A hog’s tooth was given to every marine who successfully completed one of the toughest and most vaunted sniper school courses in the world.

  Khat shrugged. “I’m many things, Michael Tarik. What you need to know is that I’m on your side, and that I saved your sorry ass earlier this afternoon.” She leaned down, offering him the bottle of water. “You need to stay hydrated. You were in a really bad firefight earlier.”

  He took the bottle, their fingertips meeting. She had a placid expression, her voice husky and smoky. Damn, he was dying of thirst. He set the bottle down and tried to push himself up into a sitting position. Grunting, he struggled, angry he was so damned weak.

  *

  KHAT SAW THE FRUSTRATION on his face with his helplessness. SEALs hated feeling that way. Beads of sweat popped out on his bleached-out flesh. “Stop. I’ll help you sit as long as you don’t try CQD on me.”

  Freezing, Tarik looked up at her, breathing hard. He was a damn rag doll, and he hated feeling weak. She was watching him, her hands relaxed at her sides. How did she know about CQD, close quarters defense? SEALs were taught how to hold or kill a person very quickly with a sharp, quick movement.

  Wiping his face with his right hand, he muttered defiantly, “How do you know my name?” The bottled water looked so damned good to him, but he couldn’t even twist the lid off it to drink from it.

  Khat came within six feet of him, crouching down on her haunches, her elbows resting on her thighs, hands hanging relaxed loose between them. “I called someone to find out who you were. I wanted to let them know I’d rescued you, gave them your medical condition and serial number on your dog tags.” Her thin brows moved downward. “I didn’t want your wife or parents to be called and be told you were missing in action.”

  Her husky voice riffled across him, tamping down his anger. The look in her eyes was sad. For him? Mike’s nostrils flared, the pain in his head increasing. “You must have contacted someone in the SEAL HQ, then,” he growled. He saw neither confirmation nor rejection of his statement. She just crouched there, that incredibly beautiful red hair around her shoulders, framing her Middle Eastern face.

  “What’s important,” Khat told him seriously, “is that the right people know I have you, and the Taliban doesn’t. Your team is safe. They were picked up about three hours ago by a Night Stalker. They were flown back to Camp Bravo. None were wounded, except for you.”

  His eyes rounded. “And you know this how?”

  “That’s something I can’t tell you.”

  *

  “YOU’RE AN OPERATOR.”

  The frustration in the SEAL’s voice was real. Khat understood why. He was in a crazy situation, something completely out of his league of reality. She remained patient, wanting to get him up and over his bristling defenses and earn his trust so she could give him the water.

  “I told you. I’m many things.” She gestured toward the bottle. “You need to drink a lot of water. I’ll come over and help get you into a sitting position, but I don’t want you locking my head and neck and snapping it.” She allowed a hint of a smile. “I’m going to die, but I don’t want to die that way.”

  All his anger dissolved as Mike heard the gutting sadness in her voice. Worse, he saw it in her gleaming green eyes. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he muttered.

  “Your word?”

  His mouth quirked. “Yeah, my word. I need the water.”

  Khat nodded and said softly, “I know you do.” She stood and knelt at his right side, sliding her arm beneath his sweaty neck. He grunted as she brought him up into a sitting position. His mouth went flat from pain.

  “I’ll give you some morphine as soon as I can get you settled against the wall. Can you scoot back for me?”

  It took him more minutes than he cared to think about, but Mike finally had the wall at his back. She was so close. He could smell her, the lye soap she’d used, the clean scent of a woman. When she leaned down to pick up the bottle, the veil of red hair covered her profile. She screwed off the lid of the bottle and looked up at him.

  His eyes were feral looking, not quite trusting her, but there was something else that Khat couldn’t decipher. Tarik was ruggedly handsome, and she felt herself being pulled into his lion-gold eyes. She placed the bottle in his right hand. “Here.”

  Mike watched her as he drank down the quart of water. Nothing had ever tasted as good as water out in this mountainous desert region.

  He watched as she stood, moving like a graceful gazelle. She walked over to the other tunnel where there was a huge stack of water bottles in cardboard cases. They were American. Was she an operator? CIA? He was sure she was Middle Eastern. Her green eyes held a slight tilt to them, giving her face an exotic look.

  Khat brought two more bottles, opened them and placed them beside him. She retrieved her medical ruck and knelt at his left side. She watched as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “How much pain are you in?” she asked, opening her case.

  “Enough that I can’t get up,” he growled unhappily. Mike watched her pull on a pair of latex gloves, pick up a syringe and place the needle on the end of it. “What are you doing?”

  “Giving you some pain relief,” she murmured, picking up the bottle of morphine. “You’ll heal faster if you’re not in pain.”

  Mike watched Khat pull a very small dose into the syringe. “Are you sure that isn’t a truth drug of some sort?”

  She smiled. Taking an alcohol swab, she pulled the flap of his sleeve aside on his upper arm. “Positive.”

  Fascinated, he watched her give him the shot of morphine. Or at least, he hoped it was. Every move she made was graceful, and he found himself absolutely mesmerized with Khat. As she put the needle into a sharps container, he asked, “You’re black ops?”

  “Don’t try to figure me out, Michael Tarik.” She pulled off the gloves and threw them where the other pair was. Closing the ruck, she looked deep into his eyes. He was wary, and she couldn’t blame him. “I need to examine you.” She pulled a small flashlight from her pocket, slid her hand beneath his chin. His flesh tingled. “I’m going to shine the light in your eyes. I need to see if your pupils are equal and responsive or not. Just look straight ahead at me?”

  She was so damned close to him. Her touch was firm but gentle. Her breasts beneath that muscle shirt were inches away from his chest as she slowly moved the light from one eye to the other, and then back again. She smelled of fresh air, sunshine and her own unique woman’s scent. He dragged it into his lungs, feeling his entire body respond.

  Khat eased away from him. She placed the light in the bag and then pulled out her stethoscope. “I’m going to listen to your lungs and heart now.”

  She opened his blouse, exposing his chest covered with a tan T-shirt. When she placed the stethoscope against his heart, his muscles tightened beneath it. Strands of her hair tickled his nose and cheek. Her hand lay lightly upon his left shoulder.

  When Khat straightened, she picked up a small notebook and wrote down the information. He rasped, “Are you a physician?”

  “No. I’m a paramedic.” She placed the stethoscope into the bag. “Last but not least, your pulse.” And she stood up and walked around to his right side.

  Khat knelt and placed his hand against the curve of her thigh, two tapered fingers coming to rest upon the inside of his wrist. Mike felt t
he coolness of her fingertips. She looked at the Rolex on her right wrist, following the second hand’s movement. Her touch was electric. He was so damned hot and sweaty, her fingers soothing. He stared at the scars he saw across her shoulders just barely exposed beneath her shirt. They were deep. Ridged. What the hell had happened to her? It angered him on another level that she was beautiful, young and yet someone had either beaten or tortured her. The ridges were white, indicating there were probably four or five years old. Damn, he had a helluva lot of questions for her.

  “Good,” Khat murmured, pleased. Removing her fingers, she picked up his hand and placed it against his belly. “You’re stabilizing.”

  Mike watched her. She put the medical ruck away. And then she walked down the tunnel, past the horse to where he saw a Western saddle sitting balanced on a gate of some kind. She pulled out a sat phone from the nearest saddlebag. Only operators got them. He had one himself and it had a bullet hole in it. His ruck was nowhere in sight.

  Khat walked out into the other cave, and she made a call. She reported Michael Tarik’s medical condition to her handler, Hutton. She knew it would be passed on to Bagram. There, someone would decide when he should be picked up.

  Right now Khat said he couldn’t ride ten miles down the mountain on a horse to reach a Medevac. He couldn’t even sit up on his own.

  Mike heard the entire conversation. She wasn’t hiding it from him. He watched her return and put the sat phone away.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “No. Just thirsty.”

  Nodding, Khat knelt beside him and handed him the opened second bottle of water. It wasn’t uncommon on a long SEAL patrol for a man to go through two gallons of water. When she placed the bottle into his hand, she felt small, electric sensations move through her fingers. He was watching her. But it wasn’t an uncomfortable feeling. She sat down, bringing up one of her knees, her hands wrapped just below it. Khat watched him chug down the water. He was sweating freely, dirty and still pale beneath his tan.