by Low, Gennita
Lucas caught his commander’s gaze and gave him a shrug, indicating he had no idea. But this Cortez fellow must trying to sniff out details other than the plight of Pashtun women. He remembered Kit saying something about Minah’s description of a raid during her interview. If Cortez listened to that recording and investigate further, he’d realize the Cob had recently been secretly captured by the US army. He needed to let Hawk know about the interview back at the school.
“Oh, Sean! I totally forgot about him and the others.” Kit turned to Lucas. “You can go back and let him know I’m okay, right? You can take my backpack and the suitcase to him. Tell him the passports and important stuff are in there.”
Lucas frowned. “What are you talking about? You’re coming with me. You can give them to him yourself. I’ve never met the guy.”
Kit gave him an impatient wave and approached Shahrukh. “Mr. Shahrukh, sir, can I ride horseback with you to wherever it is you’re planning to get Minah? I’m so worried about her and besides, the firsthand information will really help the news piece I told you about. We could conduct the interview afterwards too.”
She spoke so earnestly, no one could deny that sweet plea in her voice.
Oh no. Oh hell, no to the nth. Not. Nein. No way.
Lucas took a swift step forward, swept a surprised Kit over one shoulder, glared at Shahrukh, and practically ran toward the chopper. He ignored Kit’s “Hey!” and quick protests. Oh no. She wasn’t going to go anywhere with that commando without him around. He could see she was all smitten with that stupid broad sword and Rambo attitude.
He reached the Chinook and Mink was there. Depositing her in his friend’s arms, he climbed up quickly, pulled her back into his arms, then turned sideways and gagged for a full minute.
“You look like shit,” Mink remarked.
“Long day, dude,” Lucas managed in between gasps of air and coughing.
He kept a firm hold on a very mad Cupcake, then grinned. In his hurry, he’d forgotten to ask permission from his commander to leave. The woman was all sorts of trouble.
He returned her to Mink.
“Don’t let her go. That’s an order,” he said, then jumped off the copter again, gathering all his reserves to make it back to Hawk to stand in attention. His commander and Shahrukh were looking at him like he was an idiot. “Pardon me, sir! That woman is under the illusion she’s an Airborne Ranger, sir!”
“An Airborne Ranger?” Hawk asked, amused, looking back at the Chinook. “She’s cussing you out like she’s one, Cumber.”
“I’d admit she’s been tough. She single-handedly stopped a grenade exploding by accelerating the speed of our vehicle. Said she heard about it from her brother, an Airborne Ranger.”
“Is that what happened? Jazz sent me a picture of that baby stuck in the grill. Damn lucky. Or maybe not, if Miss Kit had planned it.”
“She’s amazing,” Lucas told him proudly, then straightened again, adding firmly, “But she isn’t going anywhere with Shahrukh.”
“I was going to say no,” Shahrukh said, humor in his voice. “But when you lauded her warrior abilities like that, I might need her quick thinking and reckless bravery. After all, I did see her coming to your rescue back there, against those two insurgents.”
“Two insurgents,” Hawk repeated. His gaze turned sharp. “Branson, you shouldn’t have any trouble with two hostiles. What’s the matter?”
Lucas stared straight ahead. He wasn’t going to admit any weaknesses in front of the other man. “Nothing, sir. I was fighting in the dark and got slammed in the head with a weapon. Kit just joined in. She needn’t have. She’s under my charge and I’m determined to return her in one piece back to her friends.”
Hawk studied him for a second. “You’re full of it, Cumber,” he said, softly. “I’ll take her back myself. At ease. Let go. I’ll take care of her, I promise.”
Lucas finally met his commander’s eyes. He’d have argued if he could, but the ground was rocking under his feet as if there was an earthquake in the area. He just wanted to make sure Kit was going to be safe. Hawk would make sure of that.
“Thank you, sir,” he said. He let out a sigh.
Without another word, he pitched forward, watching detachedly as the ground rose up to meet him. Damn, there was something else. But it was too late. Everything went black.
*
Kit couldn’t believe it. Did he just caveman her? She glared after his broad back as he walked to his commander and Shahrukh. She twisted and turned but Mink refused to loosen his hold. She called him a few choice names.
“Sorry, Kit. I’m on orders to keep you with me,” he told her, flashing his trademark grin at her.
“Lucas! I’m so going to…dammit, let me go! Mink, I’m going to hurt you so…Lucas!” Kit let out a small gasp when she saw Lucas falling forward and both his commander and Mr. Shahrukh hurrying forward to catch him. “Lucas! Mink, you have to let me go. Lucas needs help!”
“Damn. What’s going on?” Mink put her down on her feet. “Come on.”
They both ran toward the group, followed closely by Dirk. When she got to him, Lucas was out cold. Mr. Shahrukh was checking his pulse.
“Lucas!” She knelt down beside him. “He told me he had food poisoning. He’s been coughing and vomiting the last few hours. He passed out once already.”
“Food poisoning?” Hawk asked.
She nodded. “Some bad breakfast, he said. I kept giving him water to stay hydrated but I could tell he wasn’t feeling well. He panted a lot and was too quiet when we were hiking through the brush. I knew something was wrong because he even let me lead the way a time or two, until he realized it, then he would take the lead again.”
“Couldn’t be breakfast,” Mink said. “Dirk and I ate the same stuff and we’re fine.”
“Fine! I hate that word! That’s what he would say every time I asked him. ‘I’m fine, don’t worry,’ ‘It’s just some bad food, I’m fine, Cupcake,’” she mimicked Lucas’ deep voice in disgust. “I knew he was lying. Knew it.”
“He just wanted to get you to safety,” Hawk said. He glanced at Mr. Shahrukh. “What you said last night about his wound. He went through tests but the results didn’t show anything.”
“Herbal poisoning is hard to detect,” Shahrukh murmured, kneeling down beside Kit.
Wound? Poison? Kit grabbed Shahrukh’s sleeve. “What are you talking about? He told me he had a little cut.” She frowned, remembering. “He kept grabbing his side. And it was bleeding again for a while but he assured me it was because the stitches broke.”
She started pulling up Lucas’ shirt. Shahrukh helped her, parting the material. The sight of the “cut” made her gag.
There was an open wound, like sliced raw meat, at the side of Lucas’ body, just on the inside of his hips. A huge bruise surrounded the crater, which was oozing blackish looking liquid. There were nasty white blisters forming like little islands inside the bloody mess. It didn’t look like a regular wound at all.
“Fuck,” Mink said quietly. “It was just a mere puncture wound when I sewed it. Let me get the first-aid kit.”
As he ran back to the helicopter, Kit pulled off her backpack and rummaged through it. She found what she was looking for—rubbing alcohol and some wads of cotton. Shahrukh took the bottle from her and undoing the cap, he poured it liberally on the wound.
“The poison worked its way into his system, first infesting the wound and then infecting his blood,” he said, carefully examining the open wound, his fingers prodding the flesh here and there. “That’s why he was vomiting. Without the blade that cut him, I won’t know what poisoned him.”
Mink came back with a box. Dirk was with him and gave Kit a grin of acknowledgment. He leaned over to look and shook his head in disbelief.
“I saw him with it this morning,” he said. “Check his side pockets. He might have stuck it in one of them,”
“Iodine?” Mink asked, pulling out medication and a needle. �
��Would an anti-fungal shot help?”
“Mr. Shahrukh’s men patted him down and took all his weapons,” Kit said. “I don’t remember a blade.”
“Try his ankles,” Mink suggested. “Cumber would have made sure to have a hidden weapon.”
Hawk, who was kneeling at the far end of Lucas, rolled up the pant leg. A handle of a small knife in a soft leather holster stuck out from the top of his sock. Pulling it out, he handed it to Shahrukh.
“It wasn’t all embedded into him or anything,” Dirk supplied the information. “It went through his belt. That’s why he wasn’t too worried.”
Shahrukh examined the knife and sniffed at where the handle and blade met. He nodded. “I can smell it. Sweet clover and castor oil. Give him that anti-fungal injection, it can’t hurt, but you’ll need my antidote. I have a salve but that’s just external. In his condition, you’ll need to wake him up and feed him the antidote every hour for the next six. I can’t be there with him, so I’m leaving that one of your responsibilities.” He gave them all a swift encompassing glance. “If you leave him in the care of the medics on base while all of you go off on mission, there is no guarantee they’ll follow my instructions because it’s not hospital medication.”
“We don’t have time to go back to base,” Hawk said. “Our plan was to meet you up there with the help of our river crew. No Chinook. They’ll just shoot us down. We’ll strike when you give the signal.”
“But what about Lucas?” Kit asked. She was beginning to feel afraid for him.
“We’ll have to take a chance and leave him in the Chinook if he doesn’t wake up.”
“I hope you’re aware that castor oil is one of the ingredients in ricin,” Shahrukh said, “He needs my antidote hourly or he’ll go into kidney failure. And he needs to be awake to drink it.”
Kit could feel her anger reaching boiling point. The big lug. The macho idiot. She took out her camera and snapped photos of the horrible looking wound.
“What’s that for?” Mink asked.
“Hey, he’s got to see this so he won’t ever lie to me again when I ask him whether he’s all right. I’ll just whip this pic out and show him the last time he thought he was fine!” Kit told him. Also, it would be part of her news item about warriors in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. She glared down at Lucas, put her face right next to his and busted out her Sergeant voice. Hands on hip, she yelled out, “Cu-Cum-Ber! You lazy sod of a Navy SEAL, if you don’t get up and take these meds like a man, I’ll start singing Airborne Ranger cadences at your funeral and make you squirm in that fucking casket. Come on! Get. Up! I wanna be an Airborne Ranger!”
She didn’t pay attention to the stunned men around her as she coaxed her guy to wake up. If he didn’t, he was going to die.
What was that song he’d been singing to her? “We wanna be tough like Mad Dog Madison! How tough is Mad Dog Madison? Come on, Cucumber! How tough is Mad Dog Madison?”
A groan escaped Lucas’ lips. His eyes still shut, he slowly turned and started to get on his knees.
“He eats lightning and craps thunder,” he mumbled.
“I. Can’t. Hear. You!” Kit shouted. “What do we want to do?”
Lucas stood up straight and stood at attention. His eyes were half-opened. “We wanna eat lightning and crap thunder!” His voice came out in a growl. Then his eyes snapped wide open and he sang, “Just like Mad Dog Madison!”
Another moment of stunned silence.
“Hawk, sir, we have to hire her,” Dirk said in admiration. “She can wake and command an army of Zombie Cumbers.”
Chapter Fourteen
‡
Shahrukh nudged his horse forward. The last glow of daylight played an eerie dusty trail across the sky. It was a photogenic shot, the kind one would see in a magazine, with the majestic backdrop of craggy mountains and lush green valleys. A world the people here claimed as the real location of the Garden of Eden.
He enjoyed the magnificent sight for a moment. It wouldn’t be long before such peace was shattered by another world, one created by humans, as they’d done for thousands of years over this piece of land. A world where the ancient warfare of horse and swords met with the high-tech wizardry of machine gun and satellite communications.
The tribal wars here were mostly ignored by the authorities from both sides. The prevailing wisdom was a “let them kill each other” attitude. It was also a strange combination of clan loyalty since both Afghanistan and Pakistan had Pashtun and other ethnic heritage and they understood the long history of the tribal traditions.
Pashtunwali, the code of honor by which all Pashtuns lived. Shahrukh turned his animal around and waited for his men bringing the prisoner. Well, prisoner was too strong a word. Perhaps, temporary guest, since he was given no choice for this meeting.
“I’m honored to have a chance to talk to one of the elder of the jirga,” he told the older man in perfect Pashto. His kind had mingled in these parts long enough to be assimilated into the culture. “I apologize in the manner you were brought here but this is an urgent matter that will affect the lives of those in your clan and I have no wish to start a war with yours.”
The man had his poker face on, merely lifting his white brows slightly. “I’m not a guest. I’m here without being asked. How is that a good start to anything?”
Shahrukh bowed his head slightly. Being a guest in pashtunwali had many meanings. “My apologies again. I don’t have time on my side. Your clan has an ongoing badal with Yakob’s people. He has had a few of your own family murdered. You have also done likewise to some of his clan. Yet, you’ve ordered a young girl from your side named Minah to be given to Yakob, as swara, to end the badal. I know she ran away and one of your relatives caught and returned her to Yakob’s side. Yakob isn’t with them any more. As you are aware, he has been kidnapped by the Americans.”
“So many kidnappings. What is it to you?”
“His clan isn’t happy about this and suspects a betrayal on your side about his presence at the ceremonial home the other night. They plan to continue the badal, even though they now have Minah.” Shahrukh pointed in the direction of the other man’s tribal stronghold. “Even as I speak, they are planning to burn down some of your homes.”
The other many visibly stiffened. “I see. And why are you telling me this?”
“Yakob has used me and my good will. After procuring weapons from me, he betrayed me. I intend to exact my own revenge for the dishonor he’s caused. I need you to facilitate the delivery of these weapons as part of your exchange to end the badal between your people and his clan. Once my men have entered, you may leave and not look back. Your badal ends there. As a further show of my gratitude of your helping me restore my honor, I’ll pay for the restoration of your burnt homes and will send a year’s worth of food for your immediate family.”
The last bit was important. Food was a much needed item in many of the mountain villages.
If the old elder agreed, once his side had delivered the weapons, the US troops would have a reason to attack that stronghold. It would be his chance to enter into the fray and find Minah. He already knew where she was probably kept. A swara marriage, the bride given away as a replacement, meant she was no higher than a yard animal. Her new family would not be treating her well. The poor girl would be kept in the barn, just as her marriage had been conducted outside one. In pashtunwali, one member must bear all the honor and the other must bear all the shame. It didn’t matter if the latter was an innocent party.
The elder looked up thoughtfully into the sky. “I agree,” he finally said. “If you see my granddaughter, kill her. If she runs back home, she would start another round of violence. I have told her this but she’s obstinate, that one.”
Shahrukh thought of the young girl who had so bravely trusted his advice that night not so long ago. The desperation in her eyes had made his heart hurt. She was too young to understand her ties with her family were gone, yet already old enough to know if she didn’
t take a chance then, she’d be forever shackled as an animal.
“Consider her dead,” he grimly told the elder.
*
Lucas swallowed down the vile potion Kit handed him. He didn’t need to say a word. Her eyes told him if he didn’t do exactly that, she would think of a way to make him comply. Besides, his team was on her side. Somehow, within the short span of meeting them, she’d gained their admiration.
“Don’t look so smug,” he told her. “They’re just in awe of the goodies in your backpack.”
It was true. Inside the Chinook, they’d gathered around while she pulled out some of her loot. Camera, guns, knives, spray paint, small medical kit, mini tablet laptop, utensils, shoelaces, yarn, notebook, mini recorder, chocolate, energy bars, deodorant, socks…the list went on. Lucas had explained how she’d used the yarn and Mink had told him they’d seen her spray paint on the scarf waving like a flag over the top of the tree. She had also added a large frog, with four legs spread out, so there was no mistaking it was a message to “froggers.” That was what finally persuaded them to take the risk and go to the nearest caves.
“Damn clever, Kit,” Mink said, with a smile.
“Isn’t she?” Lucas said, proudly.
They met the rest of the team waiting with the gunboat crew. From the quick briefing given by Hawk, he understood there was no time to waste. They needed to speed off to the best possible vantage point, where Amber had mapped out from this morning, for this second mission. It was now obvious to those who had questioned about her being on their boat now recognized her importance. Through her CIA channels, she’d pinpointed which tribal lookout point belonged to the Taliban and which one would look the other way if necessary because of age old enmity and power struggles. Tonight, they needed one of those lookout points because of the large collection of men and weapons being confiscated from Point B to Point A.
