Taking Fire

by Radclyffe

  The tent flap parted and Amina hurried toward her, a bundle of clothing in her arms. “Thank you so much. It’s so hot inside.”

  Max did a quick scan of their surroundings. Nothing moved. Everything was quiet. “All right. Go ahead.”

  “How long?”

  Behind Max the water came on and she checked her watch. “Two minutes.”

  “Two whole minutes! Oh, it’s so wonderful.”

  After all Rachel and Amina had been through, a few minutes under a stream of tepid water seemed little enough reward. Max was used to going days without a shower, eating and sleeping in the dirt. The first thing she did when she got back to her CLU was take a long hot shower, hoping the steaming water would wash away the blood and mute the screams. It never did. Maybe Amina and Rachel would be luckier. She hoped so.

  The water stopped, the wooden door squeaked opened and thudded shut. Amina’s breath was soft and regular as she moved about. Max was careful not to turn until Amina stepped up beside her, fully dressed. “All set?”

  “Yes. I want to thank you—”

  “No,” Max said. “You don’t need to. You’ve looked after Grif alone in that sweatbox all day. I owe you the thanks.”

  Amina flushed. “Come back now. You need some rest and food.”

  “You go ahead. I want to look around.”

  “Don’t stay out too long or Rachel will insist on joining you again.”

  Max grunted. “And I suppose telling her to stay inside wouldn’t do any good.”

  Amina smiled. “I don’t think so.”

  “Come on. Let me walk you back.” Max escorted Amina to the tent and broke off to circle the perimeter one more time. The sun was down and the light was fading. Time to move the civilians to the bunker. By morning, this would be over.

  *

  The bunker Max had constructed was barely large enough for Rachel and Amina to stand or sit side by side after they piled the extra weapons, ammunition, food, and water at one end. The sky overhead, clear enough for a million stars to shine through the wisps of clouds, helped make the tight space seem less confining. Max had left gaps at irregular intervals in the rice-bag barrier to allow anyone inside to get a 360-degree view of the camp.

  Rachel stood, body pressed against the dirt wall, still warm from the day, and peered out. Shadows played with her perception in the moonlight. The flutter of a tent flap became a man slipping closer, the flicker of starlight off hard-packed sand the glint of a gun barrel. For a moment she was five again, huddled in bed with knees drawn up and arms wrapped around her legs to make herself small, staring into the dark corners of her room where monsters lurked. She’d stopped calling out for her parents to come. They’d told her she was imagining the long fingers and looming forms that glided across the ceiling above her bed.

  Close your eyes and go to sleep, Rachel, her mother had said, there’s nothing there. But she’d known better.

  She didn’t sleep with the light on anymore, but she still distrusted what she couldn’t see. She wouldn’t be sleeping tonight, wouldn’t have slept if a platoon of soldiers stood between her and the jungle. As the dark closed in around her, she would watch for the enemy to slip out of the jungle and creep across the open yard. Max wouldn’t be sleeping, but she couldn’t trust everything to her. She did trust her, totally. Trusted her to stand for her and Amina and Grif, to stand between them and danger, but trusting her to do it all alone wasn’t fair. Then again, none of this was fair. Or rational. Everything about this place was totally insane. If she thought too long about the complete madness of being in the middle of a jungle waiting for someone to shoot at her, to kill her, she would lose her tenuous hold on her own reason.

  “I swear to God you’ll be sorry,” she muttered to the monsters in the dark and gripped the rifle by her side.

  “What is it?” Amina asked.

  Rachel drew in a breath. “Nothing, sorry. Just venting.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” Amina said. “It is better to shout than cry.”

  “You’re right.” Rachel looked out through her portal again. A shadow coalesced into a figure. Her breath stopped and her mind went blank.

  “American friendly,” Max’s voice whispered.

  “God,” Rachel gasped.

  Max leaned over the barrier and handed her a stack of blankets. “On the off chance there’s explosions out here, cover up with these.”

  “Thanks.” Rachel didn’t even question the why of it—she was numb to the possibility of one more form of horror. She passed them to Amina and made room for Max to climb in, but Max turned away. “Where are you going?”

  “I can’t leave Grif alone, and I’ll have a better chance of cutting off an attack from out here.”

  Rachel understood the bunker now. Max wanted her and Amina out of the line of fire. She’d never planned to join them. What if there’s too many? What if they— “Max, what if they come in force?”

  “You know what to do.”

  “I’ll help you move Grif. He’ll be safer in here.”

  Max shook her head. “I just checked him. His pressure is low, his heart rate is up. If he bleeds again I’ll lose him.”

  “Then I’m coming with you.” Rachel pushed her feet into the toeholds Max had dug into the side of the bunker and reached up onto the wall to pull herself out.

  “No, you’re not.” Max loomed over her, blocking her way. “You’ll be safer where you are. Out here, I can’t protect you.”

  “I can help.”

  Max squatted and faced her over the barrier. “Listen to me. This isn’t your war. You’re just caught up in the middle of it. You’re not a soldier. You’ve done great today, but this is my job. I won’t have you hurt.”

  Rachel swallowed. Moonlight wreathed Max’s head. The camouflage paint had worn off, and the smudges of dirt disappeared into the velvet sheen of darkness. Her face was as smooth as carved marble. She was very beautiful. “I will be very unhappy if you go and get yourself killed. So be careful not to.”

  Max smiled. “I’ll consider that an order.”

  “See that you do.”

  “Don’t worry. Chances are good we’ll have a quiet night.”

  Rachel wanted to grab Max and pull her to safety, but she could no more do that than she could close her eyes against the monsters. Instead, she reached over the barrier and touched her fingertips to the strong line of Max’s jaw. “Keep your head down, Deuce.”

  “Roger that.” Max pressed her cheek into Rachel’s palm for the briefest of breaths. “See you soon.”

  And then she was gone, a shadow merging into the other shifting shadows. Rachel leaned hard against the wall, bracing herself on folded arms to steady her shaking legs.

  “She came here for you, didn’t she?” Amina murmured.

  “Yes.”

  “We’re fortunate, then.”

  “Yes, we are.” Rachel stared hard, searching for Max, and couldn’t find her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Max flipped down her night-vision goggles, and the world morphed from black to shades of green. The jungle, lush and thick in daylight, flattened into a monochromatic wall several stories tall. Scanning slowly, she let her brain decipher the layers of overlapping images, much as she did when she looked into a wound and found the natural planes buried in debris. Order out of chaos. She steadied her breathing, centered her consciousness, let the night come close. There a flash of moonlight gleamed off a pair of close-set eyes peering from beneath the brush at the edge of the clearing. Hyena, maybe. Branches flickered lazily in an insolent breeze that did nothing but move the still-hot air over her sweat-slicked skin. In another few hours the temperature might drop enough to dry her sweat to a dusty, itchy film, but as with the gnats that clouded around her face and crawled along her lashes and into her ears, the constant physical discomfort had become the norm. Turning in slow increments, she checked for a branch that moved out of sync with its neighbors, the darting shadow of a predator startled from its hiding
place, the coalescence of random forms into a recognizable human shape. She listened for the silence that signaled the ultimate predator was on the prowl, heard only the chittering of insects, the distant roar of a cat, the wild bark of a hyena.

  Satisfied they were alone, she glanced back to check the bunker, not trusting Rachel to stay put as she’d asked. An undercurrent of respect cut through her annoyance. Rachel was as stubborn as she was courageous, which was considerable. That she didn’t fully comprehend the danger didn’t lessen her bravery. If she was captured, as an American—almost certainly one of some kind of notoriety—at best she’d be held for ransom and not killed, but even captivity would not protect her from brutality. She’d very likely become the property of the rebel commander, and abusing and humiliating women was often a show of power. With luck he wouldn’t share her with his top lieutenants, but sometimes passing around a woman was another way of declaring dominance. No matter the outcome, death or debasement, she would be scarred forever.

  Max’s jaw throbbed as she gritted her teeth. Rachel and Amina shouldn’t need to know those things, shouldn’t need to think about them, and she didn’t fault Rachel for her reckless fearlessness. But tonight, she needed her to be just a little afraid. Fear bred caution and was nothing to be ashamed of. She was always a little bit afraid, somewhere in the deep recesses of her soul, but she had long ago learned that fear could be turned into a weapon. For her, fear of remaining forever a shadow, invisible to those who should have noticed, had become the driving force to forge a life where she could feel worthwhile, even if she never wholly escaped the shadows. She slipped inside the tent where Grif lay on the litter alone. Here was her worth. A life to protect. She knelt by his side, flipped up her goggles, and focused the lowest beam of the flashlight clipped to her belt onto his leg.

  The dark irregular island in the center of his bandage had not expanded. The bleeding had stopped. She lifted his hand to check his pulse.

  “What the fuck are you doing, Deuce?” Grif rasped in the dark. “Making a pass?”

  She grinned, the sound of his voice easing the band of tension circling her chest just a little. “Dream on, buddy.”

  “Been dreaming, I think,” he muttered. “Weird shit. What—”

  “Shut up a minute.” Max slid her fingers onto his radial pulse and counted silently to herself as she followed the sweep hand on her tactical watch. Still tachy, but regular. She placed his hand gently back on his belly and shifted a little higher so she could look down into his face. In the dark, she could barely see his eyes, but they were open and fixed on her. “You’re looking better. How do you feel?”

  “Like fucking road kill. Where are we?”

  “At the aid camp. You remember the mission?”

  “Yeah. Clusterfuck.” He licked his lips. “Fuck, I’m thirsty.”

  “Here.” She unhooked her canteen, supported his head, and helped him drink.

  When he finished, he sank back, breathing heavily. “What about extraction?”

  “Timing unknown.” Max didn’t need to sugarcoat anything for him, wouldn’t want him to spare her the truth if things were reversed. “The coms are spotty, but they know we’re here.”

  “Casualties?”

  “Three of the Somali security guards are dead. Most of the others were evacuated.” She opened a pack of cookies, held one to his mouth. “Here. You can use the fuel. We took a couple of hits before the birds could get out of here.”

  He grimaced. “Fuck. I remember heading for the bird with—” He tried to sit up.

  “Whoa. You’re not going anywhere. You had a pretty big bleeder in your thigh and I don’t want it opening up again.”

  “What about the objective? Winslow?”

  Max jolted, confused by a millisecond of disconnect. The objective. Winslow. Rachel had stopped being the objective, the goal of a mission, without her realizing it. The hours they’d worked together, clashing wills and revealing long-held secrets, felt like weeks, time compressed by shared horror and danger and moments of naked clarity. “Rachel. She’s still here with Amina, another civilian. I’ve got them in a bunker in the center of the camp.”

  His face clouded. “You expecting company?”

  “Maybe. No sign of any forces nearby, as far as I was able to check, but best to be prepared.” She shrugged. “I figured they’d be better protected and better able to defend themselves if they were dug in.”

  “So what are you doing in here instead of out there with them?”

  She grinned. She’d missed him—missed his counsel and the understanding that required no words. He knew, without her needing to say, what they faced. His courage fed hers, and she hoped she gave a little of that back to him. “I can’t get you down into the bunker without moving your leg more than I want to. You lost a lot of blood but things are stable now.”

  “That must be why I feel about as strong as a gnat.” He raised his head and looked around. “Supply tent?”

  “More or less.”

  “They’ll check it.”

  “Yep.” If they got by her, but he didn’t say it. Didn’t need to. “That’s why I’m about to drag your sorry ass into the back where you won’t be lit up like a neon sign that says shoot me.”

  He nodded. “Give me a gun and as much ammo as you can spare.”

  “Without saying.” She crab-walked around to the head of the litter, gripped the wooden poles that supported the canvas bed, and slowly pulled him backward across the dirt floor into the far reaches of the tent, to where anyone casually checking from the doorway might miss him. She knelt beside him again, took his automatic from her belt along with an ammo clip, and put it all next to his right hand. “You probably won’t need to use this, but it’s got a full clip and there’s a spare there.”

  “What are you gonna do?”

  “Hunker down outside and shoot any fuckers that get close.”

  He laughed. “You should’ve been a SEAL, Deuce.”

  “Wrong equipment.”

  “Yeah,” he grunted. “I’m pretty fond of mine, but maybe it’s overrated sometimes.”

  “Different strokes. Besides, I’d rather patch holes than make ’em, but you do what you have to, right?”

  “True.” His mouth twisted and he exhaled sharply. “Listen, if things go sideways, tell Laurie it was quick. I don’t want her picturing all kinds of shit.”

  “We’ll be okay.” She squeezed his arm. “I’ll be back soon.”

  “Keep your head down, Deuce.”

  Max smiled, remembering Rachel’s fierce whisper. “Planning on it.”

  She left him because she had no choice, just as she had left Rachel and Amina. She’d rather be beside them, her body a shield, but she couldn’t protect them all. She picked a position on the far side of the camp where she had a clear view of the spot where the rebels had emerged from the jungle earlier. Chances were if they came back, they’d return the same way. She crouched and watched and waited, listening for a change in the night sounds with half a mind, the other half-tuned for a burst of static on the radio that would tell her help was on the way. When the first explosive rumble shook the air, close enough for her to feel the vibrations through her knees where she knelt on the ground, her pulse leapt. Adrenaline surged, the call to action overpowering fear. Finally, it had begun.

  *

  Thunder broke the silence with a crash that shook Rachel to the core. Stunned, heart frozen in her chest, she stared above the canopy as fireworks lit up the sky. Breathtaking tails of brilliant red and orange slashed heavenward. Sunbursts of bright yellow umbrellas floated across the inky backdrop, a staccato light show that would have been beautiful if it hadn’t been so terrifying. Rachel pulled her dazzled gaze away from the sky and stared through the gap in the barrier toward the jungle, waiting for the phantom forms, nightmare images dragged from her subconscious, to take shape and race toward her. She steadied the rifle on top of the mound of rice bags, her finger trembling on the trigger. Where was Max?
Her mind screamed for her to press the trigger, to fire into the shadows, to shoot at every flickering finger of darkness that reached toward her.

  “Max, damn it,” she whispered. “Where are you?”

  “Are they coming?” Amina said, crowding close to Rachel in the small space.

  “I don’t know. Do you see anything?”

  “No, but I think I’m too frightened to see.”

  Rachel was more worried her own fear would make her see things that weren’t there. Reminding herself she’d taught herself never to trust what she couldn’t see clearly, she forced herself to breathe, just breathe, and concentrated on the dark, sorting shadows into recognizable shapes. There a tree, over there a log, there a trick of light turning a tatter of canvas into a skulking man. “Max is out there somewhere. We don’t shoot unless she does. Wait for Max.”

  “Yes.” Amina’s voice was steadier. “Max will come.”

  “She will.” Rachel was absurdly pleased that her voice did not tremble. “Remember. Don’t shoot until she gets here.”

  “How long do we wait? If…”

  Rachel swallowed. She didn’t know. Couldn’t think beyond Max returning. Couldn’t let herself picture anything else. “We’ll know when. Keep watch while I check behind us.”

  “All right.”

  Rachel half turned to scan around the camp the way Max had taught her. Only the shadows looked back. “I don’t see—”

  Amina screamed. A shape catapulted over the rice bags and into the foxhole. Rachel’s heart rocketed into her throat and she raised the rifle.

  “Friendly.” Max crouched beside them. Her face was partially obscured by the protruding night goggles. Her body was nearly shapeless in the half dark beneath layers of armor and camo. She could have been anyone, except for the distinctive line of her jaw and the slight squareness of her chin and the incongruous fullness of lips far too sensuous for her usual stern expression.