“What does that mean?” Dara asked quietly, moving her one gloved hand around his waist, needing warmth and physical contact from him. He pulled her gently against him, his mouth resting against her damp scarf.
“Can you feel the temperature dropping?” he asked, his lips close to her ear.
Dara nodded.
“A cold front coming through means the rain could last half a day or longer. It’s going to keep up for several more hours.” He motioned with his chin toward the pass. “It means snow up there.” His gaze moved back to her. “We need to get above that pass before the rain turns into a blizzard.”
Dara stared at him, dumbfounded. “A blizzard?”
“Yeah.” He smiled tightly and reached out, caressing her wet cheek. “It’s a thousand-foot climb, not far, but it’s going to be hard climbing, mostly rocks and very little soil. It’s going to get slippery, and maybe icy, as the temperature drops. Are you ready?”
No, she wasn’t, but there was no choice. “Let’s do it,” Dara whispered, strengthened by his quick touch on her cheek. Right now, all she wanted to do was crawl into Matt’s arms and hide from this nightmare. Her jacket was rainproof and kept her dry and warm. She was so glad Matt had urged Callie and her to dress in good winter clothes. And she worried about Callie and Beau.
How were they doing? Had they escaped the Taliban? Dara hated not knowing. Matt gripped her hand and turned sideways, placing her fingers against his belt. It was time to go.
Dara tried to be eyes and ears to Matt as he walked ahead and she trailed behind him, on his left side, moving at a fast walk upward. He chose brush-covered areas whenever possible, and when he crouched, she did, too. He was teaching her how to be an operator, not heard or seen.
Dara had never been a Girl Scout, but Callie had. Now she wished she’d been one because they taught survival techniques in the wild. The difference was, this was Afghanistan, and they were also being hunted by Taliban with rifles who wanted to capture or kill them.
Her boots slipped constantly on the rubble and the slippery ice now coating the sharp, pointed rocks. Each time, Matt would throw out his arm to steady her and slow his pace until she found purchase again. Then they would speed up once more.
Her breath was coming hard and swift, her lungs aching and burning, feeling as if they were on fire. Her calves were cramping and she was trying not to cry out in pain. The rain turned to pelting, noisy sleet as they got within five hundred feet of the pass. Dara strained to see the saddleback shape, a slight dip between two jagged peaks, and spotted a thin trail leading between the scraggly, beat-up pine trees scattered throughout the area. Wind was whipping and wailing through the slot, the gusts feeling like invisible fists pummeling them both.
Dara leaned into the wind whipping angrily around them, tearing at their bodies and slowing them down. She swore the wind speed was at least fifty or sixty miles an hour at this altitude. At times, she was nearly knocked down by the gusts.
Dara had never heard wind shriek the way it did now. It howled across the jagged rocks, which gleamed with a new coat of ice.
Matt continued to skirt the brush, shards of ice striking his face, forcing him to keep his head down. The sleet continued to thicken, and he breathed a sigh of momentary relief, knowing that the Taliban couldn’t spot them in this mini-blizzard. He and Dara picked up speed as they headed for the top of the pass.
He was worried about her as he listened to her raspy breathing. She was slipping on the rocks now, desperate to retain her balance and hang on. God, he hated putting her through this, but they had no choice.
The sleet suddenly turned to thick, fat snowflakes, whipping like razors around them, stinging and burning his face. They lost visibility, the snow closing in and nearly blinding them. Matt moved down a slight incline to the goat path he knew was there, having traversed this area before. It was the only way through the pass.
Slowing, Matt tentatively stepped on the ice-coated rocks, knowing this part was going to be potentially dangerous. He couldn’t afford to fall, nor could Dara. She was being a real trouper, staying close to him when he slowed so his boots would fall on the smoother, less rocky path.
Matt was actually grateful for the snow. It would completely hide them. And the wind would wipe out their tracks immediately. He pictured the area in front of him. He knew there was a cave about two hundred feet off the summit, and he headed in that direction, wanting to get Dara out of this miserable, freezing blizzard.
They reached the cave fifteen minutes later, and Matt guided her to just inside the entrance. He lifted his rifle while quickly scanning the interior. He now needed to explore its depths to be sure no one else was sitting in the cave to wait out the foul weather.
He pushed Dara’s shoulder downward in a silent request for her to sit and be quiet. She obeyed, giving him a questioning, concerned look. Her parka was gleaming wet, her cheeks a brighter red than before. She was gasping for breath, a gloved hand pressed against her chest as she leaned over.
Matt patted her shoulder and silently turned, moving into the depths of the cave. This was a big one, part of a major complex. The floor was mostly composed of white dolomite and lumpy limestone. Fortunately, it was not sharp or jagged. Footprints couldn’t be spotted on its rocky surface, which was a blessing, considering their situation.
The light grew dimmer the farther to the rear he moved, his M4 unsafed and in his gloved hands, ready to fire, if necessary. He had been trained to walk without being heard. Now he moved up a tunnel to the right, where he found a chamber with an opening to the outside. Grayish light drifted down the passage, making it easy for him to see where he was going.
The chamber was empty. Moving swiftly back down to the large main cave, Matt took the tunnel to the left. It led to a series of six small caves, and the darkness closed in on him. He stopped and brought out his infrared goggles, placing them over his eyes. Now everything could be seen once more. These were far more valuable than night-vision goggles. With infrared, he could see any kind of body heat, whether man or animal, and it gave him time to shoot, if necessary.
It took Matt fifteen minutes to clear the entire complex and return to where he’d left Dara. She was eating a protein bar, and he smiled as he crouched down in front of her. “Have you had any water yet?”
“Yes.” She searched his eyes. “Where did you go?”
“I had to clear the complex.” He hitched a thumb across his shoulder. “I needed to be sure there was no one else taking up residence in here besides us. We don’t want any surprises.” Matt looked out the opening at the thickening snow rapidly piling up on the ground, covering their tracks completely, plus the rocks, soil, and trees, with a thick, white mantle. He knew that it would be useless to try to radio Bagram in the middle of a blizzard.
“Hey,” he said, “would you like some hot food to eat?”
“Seriously?” Dara whispered.
“Yeah. In my ruck I’ve got MREs. We can go up to a chamber to the right and sit this weather out. It’s warmer up there, too.” If he’d been alone and was being hunted by the Taliban, Matt would have kept on going. But he could see that Dara had pushed her body as far as it could go. There was no way she could handle the harsh demands like he could.
He stood and held out his hand to her. Instantly, she reached and curved her fingers around his. Matt pulled her gently to her feet, watching the pain in her eyes. What wasn’t Dara sharing with him? He watched her for a moment, still holding her hand, as she moved her knees. She’d fallen many times and had probably scraped them. Her jeans were muddy and he couldn’t see much more than that, though he looked for telltale signs of blood on them. Once he got her to the upper chamber, he’d check them out.
Dara gawked, her mouth dropping open as Matt drew her into the upper chamber. On one side of the curved yellow-ochre rock far above them was a gash in the ceiling. She saw a lot of gold-colored rocks below, where the roof had fallen in. White snowflakes were twisting and dropping thickl
y into the jagged slit. They were protected from the wind, but she could hear it screaming and whistling above them. The gap looked like an earthquake fissure that had been torn apart. There was enough light for Dara to see white and gray limestone walls surrounding them, and a semi-smooth white limestone floor. It was certainly warmer in here, even with that crack present, just as Matt had observed.
Matt shrugged out of his ruck, pulled the Velcro apart, and drew out a sleeping bag, unfolding it and setting it down near one wall. “Have a seat. You need to rest.”
“Oh, Matt, my knees are killing me,” Dara muttered, opening her parka and sitting down with her back against the wall. “This is a godsend. Thank you.”
“It was a hard trip up and over that ridge,” Matt agreed, giving her a sympathetic look. Dara pushed the parka and scarf off her head, getting rid of her soaked leather glove. Her fingers were white, wrinkled, and numb. Wiping the water off her face with the backs of her hands, she watched as Matt knelt over his opened rucksack.
“All the comforts of home,” she observed, smiling a little. His hair was twisted around his neck, the parka pushed off his head. Matt had to be feeling as cold and stiff and sore as she did.
“Just about,” he murmured, tossing an MRE in her direction. It landed next to her. “Breakfast.” He pulled out half a gallon of water and handed the plastic container to her. “Drink up.”
Shedding his gear, Matt kept the M4 nearby so he could reach it. He sat down close to her, legs crossed, picked up her MRE, tore it open, and said, “Guess what this is.”
“You got me,” Dara admitted.
“This is an omelet. It’ll taste pretty bland unless you put that hot sauce on it,” he suggested, handing her a small green plastic bottle. “Also, eat more salt. You’ll sweat out your electrolytes on a hike like this.”
Dara nodded and compressed her lips, slowly allowing her legs to stretch out in front of her. Her jeans were soaked and clung to her skin. She couldn’t feel her flesh because it was numb, but she could feel her aching knees. “How safe are we here, Matt?”
He looked up as he heated her omelet in the bag. “As safe as it gets,” he assured her. Pointing toward the gash, he said, “As long as there’s a blizzard over this area, the Taliban are going to stop and camp. No one tries to fight through a blizzard at nine thousand feet. They’re smarter than that. They’ll try to pick up our trail after the blizzard, but that’s going to be hours away. And our trail is already wiped out by the snow covering our tracks. They aren’t going to know where we’re at, and that’s a good thing.”
She inhaled the smell of the food, her mouth watering. Dara hadn’t realized how hungry she really was until right now. “Is there any way to get in touch with Beau and Callie yet?”
He frowned, handing over a packet of utensils to her. “No. Radios don’t work well in storms like this.” Matt heard the fear and the worry in her voice. He gave her a tender look. “I’m sorry, Dara. We’re in some of the most inhospitable places on earth, and radio transmissions aren’t easy to come by normally. Sometimes, like now, it’s impossible. Don’t worry, Beau’s the best. I’m sure Callie will be fine with him.”
“I’ve lived such a sheltered life,” Dara admitted, exhausted, as she gazed around the quiet cavern. “And I’m sure I’m a huge liability to you. I don’t have your endurance, your experience—”
“The most important thing you have, Dara, is heart. You’re gutting it out. You don’t complain. You don’t quit. You’re a fighter.” He moved his thumb across the slope of her cheek. “You’re very brave in my eyes and heart. So quit cutting yourself down. Okay? I know you’re doing the best you can, and that’s good enough for me.”
Dara felt tears spring to her eyes and she fought them back. Just his callused hand, rough and warm on her cheek, made her want to break down and let go of all her terror, worry, and fear. “Your men must love you,” she whispered unsteadily as he removed his hand.
Matt snorted softly and handed her the bag with the omelet steaming inside it. “Oh, I don’t think they see me as a warm, fuzzy leader, sweetheart.”
Dara warmed instantly to his endearment, desperately needing whatever Matt could give her to feed her shredded emotional state. “You’re not yelling at me. You’re not cursing me out for being slow or klutzy.” She saw one corner of his chiseled mouth draw into a sour smile as he heated up his MRE. His hair was ropy as it dried. Dara found herself wishing she had a comb so she could slide her fingers through that thick gold-and-brown mass once again. Matt’s hair was like him: strong and unbreakable.
“I don’t yell at people,” he said, quickly heating his omelet. “Because it doesn’t get you anywhere. We all make mistakes every day of our lives, Dara. Every one of us. I don’t want to get yelled at because I screwed up. I didn’t do it on purpose. I was giving it my best, and it wasn’t good enough.”
“I agree with you. Yelling gets you nowhere.” She hungrily savored the eggs. Matt was right: they desperately needed some seasoning, so she opened the little green plastic bottle of Tabasco sauce, spreading it liberally into the bag holding the omelet. Matt had already poured his sauce into the eggs, plus a ton of salt and pepper. The man liked his spices, but then, he was part Turkish and part Greek: two great cultures that knew how to use an array of them. Why not?
“Well, you should try your hand at being a resident at a teaching hospital after getting out of medical school. You’re always getting embarrassed by the teacher on rounds. Some make fun of you. Some get angry at you. And you just have to stand there and take it.”
Matt lifted a brow, slanting a glance over at her. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t have taken that kind of teaching too well. There are other ways to get the best out of people than by humiliating them.”
Silence fell around them. Dara was afraid their voices would carry, so she followed Matt’s lead and spoke in a low tone that only they could hear.
“What’s the plan after we eat?” she asked.
He pointed to her jeans. “Get you out of these. I need your body to loosen up, to get you warm and put that blood out into your white fingers.”
Dara grimaced. “Good idea.”
“I have a small blanket in my ruck. I want to get you into that sleeping bag, which is dry, so you can lie down and use it as a pillow.”
“And what are you going to do?”
“Keep watch. Prowl around here and there.”
Dara frowned. “Matt? What would they do to you if they caught us?”
He kept on eating, as if starved. Then, because he didn’t want to scare the hell out of her with his answer, he simply said, “I’m not going there with you, Dara. Right now, I want you to focus on resting. I’ll look at your knees as soon as we pull those wet jeans off your legs and if they need some medical attention, we’ll give it to them.” He lifted his chin, his eyes shadowed. “You’re a natural worrywart, and you’ve had enough trauma for one day. You don’t need more. Okay?” And then he grinned. “Ask me this question once I get us back to Bagram. Fair enough?”
She could feel his powerful protective instincts enveloping her once more. “Okay,” she agreed quietly.
“Come on, eat, sweetheart. I need to get some protein into you.”
Before long, they were finished, and Matt put the emptied MREs back into his ruck. He told her they could leave nothing behind that would reveal they’d been here.
She felt herself reverting to childhood and ached to be held by him. But she knew Matt had enough on his mind without having to coddle her even more than he already had. Stuffing her emotional reactions, Dara knew she had to keep up a strong front. She was hampering Matt enough without letting him know how she felt right now.
He stood up and motioned toward her waist. “Want to unsnap them? I’ll help pull them off.”
The jeans were wet and sticking to her legs. She quickly opened and unzipped them, moving from side to side, pulling them down over her hips until they were scrunched around her thighs. Matt
then tugged firmly on the end of each pant leg and finally the jeans began to move and came off, revealing her knees.
“Damn,” Matt muttered, halting and looking at them. “They’re really swollen.”
Dara nodded. Both knees had several cuts, and were bruised black and blue and swollen. “Now I know why they were feeling stiff,” she said, meeting his gaze.
“Black humor. I like a woman with that quality.” Matt chuckled. He walked over to an outcrop and hung the jeans up to dry.
Dara sat up, leaving her legs stretched out. Matt came over and folded the sleeping bag up over her feet and lower legs. He then picked up the other blanket and placed it across her waist to her thighs, leaving both knees exposed. “I don’t have any medical supplies on me,” she said glumly.
Matt knelt down on the bag, dragging his ruck over and opening it. “I do.” He gave her a warm look. “I’m trained in combat trauma medicine. Let me check out your knees. I know you’re a doctor, but let me examine them anyway.”
“Go for it,” she said. The moment Matt lightly brushed her left knee, she saw a deep gash just below it, and she knew it had to be stitched up. Did he know how to do that? The joint was now the size of a large orange.
“You really fell on this one,” he muttered darkly, his fingers carefully probing and then slowly moving her joint to see if it caused her pain.
“Yes,” she said wryly. “Not once, but at least five times. Did I tell you that I flunked the physical education courses in high school? I was the gawky, uncoordinated one that tripped over her own feet.”
He cradled her knee between his large hands. “No, but I don’t believe it. You’ve been dealing with some of the roughest landscape in this country and you’re doing fine.” Studying the bruising, he said, “No torn ligament, no torn meniscus, and with the exception of that slice, this knee is workable. Would you agree, doc?”
Forged in Fire (Delos Series Book 3) Page 17
