by Julie Rowe
Max went into the kitchen and found a bottle of homemade wine on the table. He drank a couple of long swigs, then took the scarf the boy brought him, folded it and tucked it into his pants so it covered the bullet wound, front and back, and applied enough pressure to hopefully stop the bleeding.
He glanced at his two junior team members. “Which direction did the bad man go?”
The boys led him back outside and they walked cautiously down the street. Behind them, the building on fire was collapsing in on itself. The air was cool enough that it didn’t look like the flames would spread to other houses.
There weren’t many people visible, though the sounds of crying and gunshots echoed across the valley as if the dead were fighting to stay with the living.
A familiar shout caught Max’s attention. It came from inside the village, not outside it. He turned to follow the noise and found himself on a narrow street that led to the center of the village.
He pushed the two boys behind him as he hugged houses to keep out of sight. When they got to the last house between them and the spot all the noise was coming from, Max crouched down to talk to his guides.
“I want you two to find a house to hide in. Far away from here.”
They looked at each other, then at him and shook their heads.
“I need your help,” he told them very seriously. “I need bandages and food for the sick and wounded. Can you find some for me?”
Coban studied him with narrowed eyes, then slowly nodded. “When I am older,” he said to Max, “I will come with you to kill the bad men.”
Max smiled sadly. “When you are older, I won’t stop you.”
He nodded, then grabbed his brother’s hand and trotted away down the street.
Max took in a deep breath and inched his way around the house until he could see what was happening in the center square of the village. The home he was using as cover had a low fenced-in area for chickens. He was able to lie prone on the ground and peek through the wood slats.
Akbar paced in front of four people kneeling with their hands behind their heads, yelling in English at another man with what looked like a smartphone. There were seven, no...eight armed men with Akbar, including the one with the phone.
“These four soldiers have been found guilty of attacking innocent civilians and will be executed for their crimes. We will not allow others to come into our land to tell us what to do, attack us or kill us. The time for diplomacy is over. The time for action is now.”
Max could see Alicia, the shortest of the four kneeling, Thompson, Hunt and Jessup, but he couldn’t tell how badly they were injured. Thompson leaned increasingly to one side, as if losing a battle with consciousness.
If he didn’t get them out of there in the next couple of minutes, they might not stay alive at all.
How was he going to get them out?
He wasn’t a good enough shot to use the rifle he’d picked up with any hope of success. He’d either get shot himself if he broke cover, or get captured, if he didn’t hurt himself while attempting to rush Akbar.
How was he going to save Ali and the men of his team?
Max thunked his head on the ground. Idiot. He didn’t have to do the saving. Alicia and the three Special Forces soldiers were more than able to save themselves. Well, maybe not Thompson who was falling over, but...all he had to do was provide them with the opportunity.
That was a job he could do.
So, what was the biggest distraction he could come up with? Something that would keep eight or nine enemy fighters busy...
He needed more than one, and he’d start with something easy.
Nolan had discovered that the bad guys were listening in on the radio. Turnabout was fair play, wasn’t it?
Max worked his way back until he was behind the house, near the back door, then using a gravelly voice, proceeded to inform the medical team—himself—via a radio he’d pick up off a body that a supply drop of medical supplies and food was imminent. He repeated the radio call, then shut off his radio and slid into the house.
Not thirty seconds later three of the armed men ran past the house, heading for the valley. Thanks to all the fighting and subsequent fires, visibility outside the village wasn’t that great. They’d be gone for a while.
That left five goons and Akbar.
He’d need to do something dramatic, loud and noisy this time. Should he follow in Dr. Perry’s footsteps and blow something up?
No, there were too many civilians, plus his own people. He was going to have to think of something quickly, before Akbar killed the hostages he’d taken.
Ali’s words came back to him.
“Think of it like this: you’re not attacking anyone, you’re getting them out of the way, removing them from the possibility of coming to harm.”
If he didn’t remove the danger to Ali and his men, the armed men Akbar commanded were going to kill them.
He couldn’t allow that to happen.
He wouldn’t allow that to happen.
Swallowing hard, Max forced himself to sneak back into the fenced chicken coop. The rifle he’d picked up wasn’t a great weapon, but it was all he had.
Akbar was still ranting and pacing in front of his prisoners, but each kneeling soldier had one of Akbar’s men standing behind them with weapons trained on the back of their heads.
Hands shaking, Max sighted down the barrel of the rifle at the man standing behind Ali.
Fuck. If he didn’t control the shaking, he was going to shoot her instead.
He pulled in a deep breath and focused on her. She was splattered with blood, dirt and soot, her scarf and mask had been torn away, and he could see bruises on her face.
Bruises on her face.
Memory punched through his brain. His mother, bruises and blood on her face, yelling at him to run. But he hadn’t run. He’d tried to fight his father, tried to stop him from hurting his mother. His father punched him so many times he lost count. This was where his memory fragmented. The smell of iron and gunpowder. Disjointed flashes of pain, screaming, gunshots and blood.
His father had shot every member of the family, then himself. Max had survived. The shot to his chest had gone wide enough that it cracked two of his ribs, but did little other damage.
Handling a gun or rifle had been impossible after that. Just the metallic smell of one made his hands shake.
He hadn’t been able to save his mother and sisters.
He was going to do everything necessary to give Ali and the rest of the team the opportunity to help themselves.
He’d gone through the worst kind of trauma a child could go through, but he wasn’t going to let it define him anymore, not even a little bit.
Ali’s voice echoed through his head. “Focus on your target, compensate for distance and wind, breathe in, then out and...shoot.”
Max pulled in a breath, sighted down the barrel of his weapon at the man whose rifle was pointed at Ali’s head, and let the breath out. He fired one shot. Without hesitation, he turned the weapon toward the cameraman recording Akbar and fired again.
The extremist went down.
Chaos erupted.
Ali and two of the American soldiers were on their feet and moving.
Akbar was yelling and running around, his arms flailing around like a windmill.
Two of the remaining militants began firing their weapons, but one of them was tackled by an American soldier and they went down in a tangle of arms and legs.
Max had to search for Alicia, and finally found her as she flipped a militant over onto his back, ripping his weapon out of his grasp at the same time. She turned the weapon around and shot him, then searched for her next target.
She didn’t see Akbar moving toward her at a dead run. Not until it was too late.
> Max fired, but the shot missed.
Akbar plowed into her, knocking her off her feet and sending her flying. She lay on the ground, stunned.
Max got to his feet and sprinted toward them, but Akbar was up and striding toward her, menace written in every muscle of his body.
Max was going to be too late.
Just as Akbar reached for Ali, she threw something at him and he froze.
Max ran into him from the side in a move that would have looked right at home in a professional hockey game. The chemist crumpled to the ground and didn’t get up.
Ali rolled to her feet and began shooting past Max’s shoulder.
He got out of the way, letting her help Hunt and Jessup subdue the last of the armed militants.
As quickly as it started, the fight was over.
As he looked at the carnage he’d instigated, he shook his head. No, his fight was really just beginning.
“Max?” Ali said carefully. “Are you okay?”
“Probably not, but since I’m conscious and on my feet, I’m okay enough.” He looked her over, but saw no injuries that would require his attention. “What about you?”
“I’m all right. Thompson needs medical attention, though.”
“I’ll take care of him,” Max said. He should move, get right to that, but he found he couldn’t take a single step away from her. He needed... Fuck it.
He closed the distance between them and pulled her into his arms for a tight, fast hug. “Are you hurt?”
“Only a few bruises, I promise.”
He nodded and released her. “Okay, now I can go to work.” He released her and moved to examine Thompson. “The three guys who went to watch for the airdrop will be back at some point,” he said, tossing the words over his shoulder. “Someone is going to have to disarm them, and I don’t know if there are any other armed militants wandering around. I had trouble focusing...before.”
“That wound on your head—” Ali began.
“Is a surface wound, nothing more,” he interrupted. “I need some first aid supplies and a radio.” He stopped and looked around for two seconds. “We need...” He stared at Alicia.
Wait a minute.
His head and side hurt, his whole body felt like a giant bruise, but no cough. No fever.
She wasn’t coughing either.
“How do you feel?”
Chapter Thirty-One
Alicia wasn’t sure if Max was having an epiphany or an aneurysm.
“How do you feel?” he asked again.
She’d been trying not to think about how she felt.
“You’re not coughing.”
She frowned. “No, I’m not. I don’t think I have a fever either. I hurt everywhere, but I’m not sick.”
They stared at each other until Thompson groaned.
Max looked at the soldier, who was slowly regaining consciousness.
“It’s too soon to know,” Max said, answering the unasked question hanging between them. He turned back to Thompson, his voice low as he asked the soldier about his injuries.
Ali made eye contact with the other two men, Hunt and Jessup. “We need to clear the area, hunt down those three that took off after Max’s distraction and get in touch with our brass. I think Max is going to want more supplies dropped ASAP.”
“There are dead bodies all over the place, Stone,” Hunt said. “We need a fucking brigade in here to clean this shit up.”
“Yeah, we aren’t getting any sleep anytime soon. I’ll stay with Max. Can you two take care of our rabbit problem?”
“Yeah, we’re on it.” They waved and moved off at a walk rather than a run.
Ali didn’t blame them. She moved over to begin checking the bodies for weapons and made a pile near where Max was helping Thompson get his clothes out of the way so he could check the man for broken bones.
“Max, we need help,” Ali said to him.
“I heard and agree. I used a radio I picked up off one of the dead extremists, but it’s no good for contacting our people. My sat phone got destroyed.”
“Akbar took mine.” Along with most of her weapons, knives and guns. “I’ll get it.”
“Is he still alive?” Max asked.
“No, I sort of killed him with a knife through the eye.”
“Sort of?”
She walked over to the chemist. “Fine. He’s all the way dead.” She rolled the body over, pulled out her knife and began patting him down. She’d seen him stick her satellite phone inside his jacket.
She opened his coat, began patting and searching pockets. A puff of powder hit her in the face. It shocked her enough that she sucked in a breath.
She immediately began to cough convulsively.
“Ali?” Max called to her, his voice rising. “Alicia?” He got to his feet.
She put her hand out to stop him from coming closer. “Don’t.” She continued to cough convulsively. “Whatever it is, it’s still in the air.”
Max swore long and loudly as she reached back into the pocket, pulled out her sat phone and punched in some numbers.
“I’m calling my dad,” she told Max, then had to yell, “Stop!” when he took a few steps toward her.
He halted, his hands clenched into fists.
“Ali?” Her father’s voice barked at her from the phone.
“Dad?” she said. “We need...help.”
“Report, soldier!” Her father’s disciplined bark offered a comfort she’d never expected.
“Akbar is dead,” she said, coughing and wheezing into the phone. “There are still armed militants not in custody. This place is ground zero for a deadly flu, so we’ve got sick and dead bodies all over the place.” She had to stop to try to catch her breath.
“What else?”
How did he know there was more to her report?
“When I searched Akbar’s body, I triggered a booby trap and got hit in the face with some kind of powdery substance.”
The silence from the phone was louder than a death knell. Finally, General Stone asked, “What do you need?”
She almost laughed. Nothing could help her now. “A full brigade of soldiers, a combat support hospital and a fucking miracle.”
“Tell him,” Max yelled as he helped Thompson to his feet and began guiding the man farther away from Ali and Akbar’s body, “to put all personnel into biohazard suits. We’ll need that antibiotic cocktail I developed for Akbar’s anthrax strain and enough medical and food supplies to support several hundred.”
She relayed all that.
“Tell him to get the antibiotics here as fast as he can.” Max’s voice broke and he fell silent.
She relayed that too.
There was some noise coming over the phone, voices, yelling and a door slamming shut.
“Ali, everything is on its way. The antibiotics are going to be dropped first via drone.”
“Thanks, Dad. I don’t think it’s going to get here in time, though.”
“Are you sure the powder was anthrax?” her father asked in a subdued tone she rarely heard from him.
“Don’t know,” she said, coughing. “Whatever it was is making it hard to...” She stopped talking to cough and cough and cough. “Breathe,” she finally got out.
“Support is on its way. Hang on, soldier.”
“I will, sir.” She ended the call, not wanting to make her father listen while she slowly died.
“Ali, move so you’re sitting up against the well,” Max ordered, his voice still broken.
“Yes, sir, Colonel, sir,” she said, crawling over to the stone-and-wood well housing. “Any other orders?”
“Yes, an extra-large pepperoni with mushrooms.”
“Ha, ha.”
&nb
sp; She heard footsteps. When had she closed her eyes?
Max was walking toward her, a determined expression on his face.
“Oh no you don’t, Doctor,” she said, pointing at him. “One of us dying of this shit is enough.”
“I can’t just stand by and watch you—”
“You’re not standing and watching at all,” she said between coughs. They weren’t as body racking as they’d been a couple of minutes ago. Or maybe it was because she was so damned tired. “You need to make sure those armed men are secure and then prepare for that air drop.” She smiled at him and patted the ground beneath her. “I’ll be right here if you need me.”
Gunfire in the distance helped to emphasize her point.
“Give me a weapon,” Thompson said from where he was sitting on the ground in front of a house. “I’ll keep an eye on things here.”
Max rolled his eyes. She could almost hear what he was thinking... Goddamned Special Forces soldiers.
“Fine. Stay here and don’t get up, either of you.”
“It’s just cracked ribs,” Thompson complained.
“It’s not just anything,” Max snapped. “You have a concussion and several deep tissue bruises.” He whipped around to stare at her. “And you,” he said in a tone that allowed for no argument. “No dying while I’m gone.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, sir.”
He stared at her, his face a mask of anger, frustration and hopelessness. Seeing him this way hurt worse than the pain in her body. “Good,” he said, but the word was almost unintelligible.
That’s when she saw the tears on his face.
Her ultra-competent doctor was coming apart at his emotional seams. Before she could think of something comforting to say, he nodded at her, turned, then marched toward the valley.
“He’s totally in love with you,” Thompson said to her after about ten seconds.
“Don’t make me shoot you, asshole,” she replied. “I don’t have time to hide your body before someone comes back.”
“Just sayin’.”
“Don’t. Don’t say it. He’s doing a job no one else can do and he doesn’t need schoolyard gossip fucking him over.”
Thompson was silent for all of two seconds. “Does he know you’re in love with him too?”
