Taking Fire

by Radclyffe

  Carmody held all the cards except one—she didn’t care what he did to her. And his brand of power depended on fear.

  The second time he left her alone she’d slept. And the third. That felt like a couple of hours each time. He hadn’t brought her any food, but he’d left a plastic bottle of water on the table, which she drank. She could use another one. She could use two or three cups of coffee and a big meal.

  What she really needed was to see Rachel. Just to know that she was somewhere safe and out of whatever was happening here. When the hunger kept her from sleeping and her mind started to wander a little bit from fatigue and stress and anger, and her tight, iron control started to slip, she thought back to the moments before the Masters at Arms had come for her. Rachel had appeared out of nowhere, standing there on the steps of her CLU, refusing to be turned away or ignored or put off by Max’s wall of silence. Max smiled to herself. Stubborn as she was beautiful. And then somehow, the barriers had crumbled and her resolve had vanished under the soft caress of Rachel’s mouth. She couldn’t push her away, she’d needed her too much. She needed the incredible sensation of being with Rachel—as if they were alone in the universe, standing in a pure mountain glade with the sun shining down and the breeze, so cool, blowing over her skin. As if they had stripped naked and stepped into a crystal lake and the only heat came from Rachel’s skin against her skin, driving the chill away, warming her deep inside. Body to body, she’d run her hands over silky skin and tangled her fingers in thick red-gold hair glowing in the sun. Rachel’s eyes were the color of the evergreens that formed a shield around them. There’d been no death, no dying, no pain. She couldn’t think back to a time when there hadn’t been pain—of rejection, of being on the outside, of never quite being enough to matter. She smiled to herself, thinking of Rachel astride her, wild and free. She’d been enough then. She’d given everything she had and for those few moments, she had been enough.

  The door opened and Carmody walked in. “Something amusing, Commander de Milles?”

  Max slowly opened her eyes and focused on him. He’d shaved and showered and wore a fresh uniform. She could smell the aftershave still wafting from his skin. Ate too, probably, the bastard.

  She said nothing and carefully blanked her mind. She didn’t want him in the room with even the memory of Rachel. He carried a laptop computer that he set on the table between them as he settled into the other chair. He opened it unhurriedly, pushed a few buttons, and turned it toward her.

  “I wonder if you could help me out with this.”

  Max stared at the laptop as a video played. There was no sound and it was very dark—a night scene—and a little bit grainy, but she instantly recognized the base, the landing field, and a line of Black Hawks tethered to the tarmac. Every few seconds a vehicle passed by on an access road and the headlights cut a swath of light through the darkness, illuminating the birds as if a spotlight shone on them. A shadowy figure leaned over or…she squinted…maybe reached under the open bay of one of the birds. The view panned away as the slowly swiveling security camera made its circuits. More vehicles passed, red and white lights flickered in the air from departing and returning aircraft, and then another view of the Black Hawks shot into the foreground. This time the light shone inside one of them from the bird’s interior running lights, and she recognized the figure leaning into the bird. She recognized herself, checking out the med supplies before the mission. The video went on for a few more minutes showing the same sweep, the same random base activity, but this time when it showed the Black Hawk again, the bay was dark and empty. When the image came to an end, Carmody turned the computer around and closed the screen.

  “Would you like to interpret that for me?” he asked.

  Max had no idea if Carmody knew the figure in the second sweep was her or not. If she’d trusted him, she would have told him. She’d had every right to be there and hadn’t been doing anything she hadn’t done a hundred times before. The only one who knew for sure she’d been there was Grif. He might be awake by now, and they could’ve questioned him. He wouldn’t have had any reason not to tell them he’d seen her there. Carmody might already know that was her in the video—but then why was he asking her? If she denied it, she could be walking into a trap. But he didn’t strike her as the subtle type. If he had a weapon, he’d use it. He’d get too much pleasure out of watching the bullet penetrate flesh not to. She said nothing.

  “Funny, the timing,” he said conversationally. “I just don’t like coincidences, do you?”

  Max thought about closing her eyes and going back to sleep.

  “Of course, there is another possibility.” He smiled, and if she’d been a dog, her hackles would’ve been up and her teeth would’ve been bared. He’d be the kind of animal to attack from the back, slashing at your hindquarters when you weren’t looking.

  “Someone else did know. I mean, outside of us.”

  Max didn’t like the little bit of triumph in his voice. She kept her hands flat on the table so she wouldn’t clench her fists. She wondered if she could lunge across the table and get her hands around his throat before someone came through the door to restrain her. If she did, she’d probably be looking at a prison cell. That might almost be worth it.

  “It appears Ms. Winslow received a communication the night before the operation was to take place. So there was someone out there who might have”—he waggled his hand—“alerted someone. If she had friends in the area or if her friends had friends.”

  Max took a second for her vision to clear and her temper to edge down a notch. “Seems odd to me, but then, it’s not my job to weave fairy tales. But…I’m not seeing why someone would want to arrange for their own attack.”

  A spark of fire flared in Carmody’s flat, dead eyes, giving Max a little burst of pleasure. He didn’t like being challenged. He probably didn’t like that she wasn’t afraid, either.

  “There’s plenty of places to hide a transponder on a Black Hawk,” Carmody said.

  So that was that his working hypothesis—that the rebels had tracked one of the birds after a sympathizer had put a transponder on one. That might even be true. Thousands of people, troops and civilians, moved about the base every day. Base security was focused on entry points for vehicles that might be carrying bombs and the heavily populated areas that might be a target for suicide attacks. A single unarmed individual walking about was not likely to raise an alarm. Anyone might have put a tracer on the bird, although she still wasn’t buying it. Carmody wanted a scapegoat really badly. She wished she knew why.

  He pushed the laptop to one side and leaned forward, probably thinking he’d appear more intimidating. “Tell me about Rachel Winslow.”

  Two feet between them now. She could almost feel his flesh beneath her fingers, feel her thumbs pressing into his hyoid, hear the satisfying crack of the tiny bone when she squeezed. She leaned forward too, her hands still flat on the table. She looked into his eyes, watched his pupils flare.

  A sharp rap sounded at the door and Carmody’s brows twitched. A muscle in his jaw tightened, and he leaned back in his chair. Max took a deep breath, let the vision of choking him to death slide out of her mind. The door swung open and Captain Pettit walked in.

  “We’re done here,” Pettit said.

  “We’ll talk again,” Carmody said softly. He stood, picked up the laptop, and walked out.

  Max struggled not to slump in her chair. She was a lot more tired than she’d thought. Her arm ached beneath the bandage. Other places ached too. Her rib cage where she’d taken the weight of the SEAL when he’d tackled her at the aid camp, her hip where she’d landed on a rock, her shoulders from digging the foxhole and burying the dead.

  “Let’s go, Commander.”

  Max stood and saluted. “Yes, sir.”

  He returned her salute perfunctorily. “You’ll be escorted back to your CLU. Get some food, get some sleep, get cleaned up. Report to HQ at zero eight hundred in battle BDUs.”

 
; “Yes, sir. May I ask why, sir?”

  “It seems you have friends with interesting connections, Commander.”

  He didn’t look pleased so she didn’t ask anything else. She was just happy to get out of the sweatbox and away from Carmody.

  “And, Commander,” Pettit added as she followed him outside, “you are confined to your quarters until then.”

  “Yes, sir.” Max judged it to be just a little after sundown. She’d been inside all day.

  Pettit vaulted into his vehicle and his Humvee pulled away. A second vehicle idled nearby. Max climbed in and nodded to the ensign, who drove her directly to the DFAC. She filled a tray with mashed potatoes, roast beef, vegetables, and bread and took the tray to a table in the corner. The ensign stood just inside the door at the far end of the room, discreetly watching her. She was too damn tired to run, and besides, where would she go? And why? She hadn’t done anything wrong, and she wasn’t about to let Carmody hang something on her to cover his own ass, which was what she suspected was at stake.

  She ate methodically until her plate was empty. When she rose, she felt a little stronger, but her head was muzzy with fatigue. The next stop was a shower facility, and as the hot water eased some of the aches in her stiff muscles, she tried to come up with a plan. She needed to talk to Grif and the other team members. She wondered if there was any way to find out about Rachel but knew there wasn’t. Rachel was really gone this time.

  Emptiness hit her harder than a bullet.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  The CLU was empty when Max stumbled in. CC’s half of the unit was neat and tidy as usual. She’d made her bed as she always did, put away her laundry, and neatened up the objects on her storage shelves. Max’s portion looked just like she’d left it—her fatigues were in a pile in the corner, her sheets twisted, and the blankets half off on the floor. About as wrecked as her life.

  Max stripped and fell face down on her rumpled bed. The pillow smelled like Rachel, the faintest hint of almonds and vanilla. Light and sweet. Some of the weight lifted from her heart. How was it that Rachel always brought peace, even in the throes of chaos? Rachel. Fuck. Rachel was gone. Out of habit, she reached over the side of the bed and felt around for the bottle of whiskey. Her fingers closed around the slick glass and her mind clamored for the cool burn and the dull edge of almost-forgetting. She rolled over and left the bottle where it was. She didn’t want to forget. She wanted to remember. She slid her hand under her T-shirt and over the surface of her midsection where Rachel had stroked her. Everywhere Rachel touched had come alive, and even now her skin, her muscles, her very bones tingled with the memory. She pressed her face closer to her pillow, immersing herself in the scent of Rachel, and closed her eyes.

  When she woke, the hazy light filtering through the slatted window of her CLU told her it was morning, just after dawn. She sat up despite her body’s protest. She was stiff and sore everywhere, inside and out. Her stomach was queasy, her head pounding. She hadn’t dreamed, or if she had, she couldn’t remember. She felt drugged although she knew she wasn’t. She wondered what would be waiting for her at HQ. If she’d be facing another day with Carmody or maybe someone else, for some other kind of inquisition. Maybe Ollie and Dan and the others on the team were locked away in another windowless room going through the same thing. Something had gone wrong somewhere, and blaming the troops on the ground was always better than blaming the brass. The fuckups at the detention centers in Iraq had been proof plenty of that.

  Grif ought to be awake by now. If he hadn’t been shipped out to the regional hospital, they might have questioned him. She wasn’t worried. Grif would always have her back. Her stomach twisted—she didn’t want him being browbeaten when he was in no position to defend himself. She checked her watch. Two hours before she needed to report. Time enough to fuel up and check on Grif. Pettit said she was confined to quarters, but unless a Master at Arms stood at her door, she was going to see Grif.

  She pulled on clean BDUs, washed up with water from a bottle of drinking water, and broke out an MRE. She swallowed the ham and egg sandwich in three bites and washed it down with the rest of the water. She peered out through the slats and scanned the road in front of her CLU. No vehicles. No escort she could see. Just to be safe, she found a screwdriver and pried off the plywood square they’d nailed over a ventilation port to prevent light from escaping after dark, removed the screws holding the screen in place, and went out the back window.

  No one paid any attention to her as she strode through the camp to the hospital. She stopped a hundred feet away and watched for a while. Just the usual stream of troops straggling in for morning sick call. At 0700 everyone in the place would be busy dealing with the walk-ins. At 0705 she skirted around the line, nodded briskly to the ensign handling sign-in, and slipped inside. Everyone knew her, and after the usual quick greeting from harried personnel, no one spared her a second glance. She bet Grif was in the step-down unit—semi critical care—and tried there first.

  “Griffin?” she said to the corpsman at the desk.

  “Third bay on the right,” she said without looking up from the morning report.

  “Thanks.” Max checked the hall. No one on guard outside Grif’s cubicle. She hustled inside. Grif was propped up in bed with a steaming Styrofoam cup in the hand that that wasn’t attached to an IV.

  He paused, the cup an inch from his mouth. His eyes glinted. “You look like shit, Deuce.”

  “Then I’m looking twice as good as you.” She couldn’t stop a grin. “How’s the leg?”

  “Hurts like a mother.”

  She reached for the sheet across his lap.

  “Hey—commando here,” he said quickly, covering his groin.

  “Seen it before. Still reeling from amazement.”

  He laughed and she pushed the sheet aside, keeping his most important parts covered with one corner. The dressings had been removed and the incision was covered with a clear plastic adhesive barrier. Looked nice and clean. No signs of infection. She checked the skin temp of his lower thigh. Color and circulation fine. The pulses in his foot were bounding. “How’s the sensation?”

  “There’s a little numbness just above my knee. The foot’s good.”

  “Cutaneous nerves.” She replaced the sheet. “Nothing to worry about.”

  “I owe you,” he said softly. “The surgeon told me he found a major bleeder tied off in the hole in my leg. If you hadn’t gotten it I’d be dead.”

  Max shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, you don’t owe me.” She met his gaze. “You probably saved Rachel Winslow. I owe you for that.”

  His eyebrow twitched. “She’s…interesting.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And hot.”

  Max narrowed her eyes. “Careful.”

  “Huh,” he said thoughtfully. “Like that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Huh.” He handed her the coffee cup and pushed himself up higher. “What the fuck is going on, then?”

  Max set the cup on the table. “No fucking idea. Well, I have some idea, but no facts. Has a guy named Carmody been here?”

  “Midday yesterday. I was still pretty groggy.”

  Carmody must have come over here during one of the times he’d left her alone. Maybe hoping to get some information from Grif to contradict what she had to say. “Then you probably know as much as me.”

  “Why do they think the mission was sabotaged?” Grif asked.

  Max pulled over a chair and sat. “Nobody likes it when a mission objective fails and casualties are involved. You and I had front-row seats to what went on out there—or at least Rachel, Amina, and I did, so they’re focusing on us.”

  “Seems like overkill,” Grif muttered.

  “I think this is more than the usual assigning of blame—but I can’t quite figure out what.”

  Grif gave her a look. “What about Rachel?”

  Max’s jaw tightened. “What about her?”

  “Down, boy—jeez.”
Grif grinned. “Maybe she’s the unknown factor. What do you know about her?”

  Max considered. If she said she knew everything she needed to know that mattered, would he understand? She thought of the photo he carried in his pocket of Laurie and his kids. Yeah, he’d understand.

  “Enough to know she’s not to blame.”

  “Don’t doubt it,” he said instantly. “But she’s in it.”

  “Maybe not. She’s gone.”

  “That doesn’t mean she’s out.”

  *

  Rachel stared into the mirror as she put the finishing touches to her makeup. Her face was a blur and she blinked to clear her vision. How fitting that her own face seemed that of a stranger. The Sheraton was a block from the embassy in Djibouti and a universe away from where she’d been just days before. Last night, she’d slept on clean, crisp, cool white sheets. She’d had clothes and shoes delivered by the hotel concierge from an order she’d phoned down. She’d had dinner and breakfast brought to her on a rolling cart with real dishes and silverware, served by deferential hotel staff. All the comforts of home and she’d never felt so displaced in her life. She felt like an imposter. This was not where she belonged. She should be back in the jungle camp or with Max.

  She was very good at playing a part—she’d been doing it all her life. Dutiful daughter. Willing bed partner. Even selfless activist. She’d gone along with her father’s demands more often than not rather than propagate family unrest. She’d dated women she didn’t love because she knew she never would. And even her aid work was as much about her need for validation as it was to help others. She’d been pretty much a fraud until she’d come face-to-face with death and learned from Max what really mattered. Loyalty, honor, love.