But McBride wasn’t stupid. While Luke hadn’t shared his suspicions about Ethan being alive with anyone except Alessa, it didn’t take a genius to surmise that Luke would want to know why his brother’s mission had failed. Luke had struggled with the decision to go back to Pakistan, but his position as unit command was just too tenuous to risk doing another mission first. Ultimately, he’d gone with his instincts. The same instincts that had told him to kiss Alessa.
He was beginning to seriously doubt whether he should trust those instincts.
He activated his comms system. “Check in.”
One by one, each of his men let him know they were fine.
After what seemed like an interminable wait but was actually just another half hour, they heard the cargo doors open. Several minutes later, a forklift connected to the box, which tipped Luke backward as the machine lifted it off the plane. Alessa hung on to her side of the crate, but gravity eventually pulled her toward him. She used her arms to keep her body off his, but there was only so much space in the crate and once again they were face-to-face, their noses a hair’s width apart.
Daylight streamed through the slats of the crate coloring her eyes with soft hues of brown. Up close, he could see the light golden freckles on her nose and an image of a little girl with freckles on her cheeks filled his mind. Their girl. With Alessa’s dark hair and brown eyes. What are you thinking? He had never considered marriage and children. Not as long as he stayed in the army. He’d seen what army life had done to his mother, and he had no desire to do that to a woman, or to himself. If he ever married, he wanted to spend his life with his partner, play ball with his children—not be out fighting wars in foreign lands.
The crate shifted again and Alessa rested her forehead on his. Is it her shoulder? He realized with a pang that she must be putting a lot of pressure on it to hold herself up.
He put his hands on her waist to steady her and she jolted, lifting herself away from him and settling back into her corner of the crate that had now been set down. She tried to hide it, but he saw the pain on her face. He had caused her injury because he’d let himself get distracted by her. It was time to focus on the mission, before something else went wrong.
Thump!
He and Alessa looked up. Another crate had been placed on top of theirs, boxing them in.
Luke muttered an expletive. They had clearly marked the box so it would be placed on the top of a stack to avoid this situation. He pushed against the top of the box but it wouldn’t budge. He opened his backpack and extracted a small axe, then whacked at the top, but it was no use. He managed to decimate a board but the box on top of theirs was too heavy to move. Alessa sat in her corner calmly watching him, that infuriatingly blank expression on her face.
“Any more ideas?” she asked.
He scrunched back into his corner. “The team will have to move it.”
Alessa nodded. There were no sounds coming from the outside, so it was fair to assume that they were in the holding bay where the crates would stay until they were processed at Bagram. She took out a pipe camera from her backpack and snaked it through, looking at the visual on her smartphone. She gave him a thumbs-up. Coast was clear; it was time to exit.
“Check in.” Luke said into the comms system. The team members acknowledged that they were also out of the aircraft and were working on getting out of their crates. Alessa had nailed them shut using short nails, just enough to secure the lid but not so tight that they couldn’t push them out. Luke went back to trying to muscle the box on top of them, but Alessa tapped him on the shoulder and motioned for him to sit down. He stared at her for a beat, then did as she asked. She snaked the camera out again, then took a small hammer out of her backpack. She used the claw to pull nails out of one side of their box. When she’d loosened a number of nails, she curled up, then kicked the side, which fell outward. She looked at him with a smirk and all he wanted to do was take her in his arms and kiss her. Instead, he smiled back at her and nodded.
“Well done.”
“It’s all up here,” she said tapping her head.
He laughed, then gestured for her to crawl out of the box first. He followed. They were in an airplane hangar, a cavernous gray space with concrete floors, gray walls and a dark ceiling Luke guessed to be at least ten stories high. The hangar was full of random noises. They crouched down low behind some boxes peering around to see if there was anyone nearby.
There were personnel of all sorts in the hangar; forklifts whizzed about, soldiers and men and women dressed in maintenance coveralls walked purposefully about. The key was to blend in, to make it seemed like they belonged and hadn’t just materialized out of a crate.
When no one seemed within their direct line of sight, they stood and brushed off their clothes. Alessa lifted her backpack off the floor and he noticed her eyes scrunch as she swung it onto her right shoulder. She saw him staring and smiled. Made of steel. Unlike any woman he’d ever met.
Not that there weren’t women out there he admired. Kat Driscoll-Santiago was one of them. The congresswoman and soon-to-be senator from Virginia was a close personal friend. Another was Doctor Anna Atao, who he had encountered in Guam when he was helping Kat do a good deed.
Kat and Anna had given him hope that there was a woman out there who was, for lack of a better term, army strong. A woman who wouldn’t waste away under the shadow of army life. Who could handle the burden of marrying a soldier. Alessa could take care of herself. He’d seen ice in her eyes when she described how her father had stopped hitting when she lashed back. She hadn’t waited for someone to come rescue her, hadn’t blamed her life or circumstances; she’d taken control. It was something he wished with all his heart his mother had done.
Despite her strength, Luke wondered whether he’d made the right call letting Alessa come on the mission. If she separated her shoulder, she might suffer enough nerve damage to become disabled. Especially if they couldn’t get quick or specialized care here in Pakistan. All his life, Luke had done what he felt was right. He and Ethan had often disagreed about decisions that affected both their lives or the well-being of their family, and Luke had always gone with what felt right to him. But the last time he hadn’t listened to Ethan, their mother had died. His instinct had failed him, and his mother. What if I made the wrong call with Alessa?
“We have a problem.” Rodgers’s voice cracked through the comms system. “Dan got made. There’s a sour-looking Afghan talking to him.”
Luke pressed his lips. Bagram had recently been on lockdown because of a suicide bomb attack that killed a couple of soldiers. Security had been tightened. As a NATO base, Bagram housed forces from around the world plus Afghani contractors who provided everything from food rations and basic human services to security. Luke had to make a decision; try to extricate Dan and possibly make the team’s presence known or leave him. Dan would be detained and he’d create a distraction to give the team a chance to get away. Eventually Colonel McBride would rescue him, but Luke would lose him on the mission.
“Make like you belong and go get him.” Alessa said.
Luke didn’t hesitate. He asked for Dan’s exact location, then strode over like he owned the place. “There you are. Have you found my boxes? I expected you back an hour ago.” Luke nodded to the Afghan dismissively. Dan raised an eyebrow but knew how to play along. “I’m sorry, sir, I was detained.” He looked accusingly at the man who was eyeing Luke’s ACU. Luke glared at him, then pivoted dramatically and walked toward the exit. He heard Dan follow. The Afghan let them go. Luke heard the team chuckle in the comms system and give him verbal high fives. He smiled. Alessa has good instincts.
“Okay, everyone, let’s gather at the PX.” The Post Exchange was the army’s version of a mega store. One could buy everything from a tomato to a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. There was even an Afghan market with local merchants selling the usu
al wares; rugs, jewelry, artisan crafts and the occasional black market items they’d managed to sneak past the guards. There was a chain burger joint and Afghan restaurants to give soldiers ethnic fare.
Luke blinked in the sunshine. The one thing that always hit him when he came to this part of the world was the dust. Taking a deep breath felt gritty, like the air was infused with sand. He took a second to orient himself and Dan stepped up beside him. It had been five years since Luke had been on Bagram and the base looked totally different. Over the last several years, they’d been demolishing buildings that had housed troops. Concrete barriers that once created a perimeter were gone from several sections, reducing the footprint of the base. It took Luke a moment to figure out where they were.
Alessa had downloaded a map of the base with the current demolition. The old, crumbling, Soviet-era buildings were still there, as if marking time. Luke wondered if they’d been left standing as warning to the next force to use the base.
The rest of the team had almost reached the PX, so Luke walked faster. He needed to be quicker on his feet. Even a second’s hesitation could get them killed. He was a good soldier; that fact he didn’t question. But he’d never been a good leader, and as important as it was for him to find Ethan, was it really worth the lives of his team? Was it worth Alessa’s life?
It was well past the lunch hour, but the PX was busy as usual. The smells of fried meat floated through the hot, dusty air. Luke decided to go for a popular fast food chain; it had the shortest line. The unit gathered at a communal table. Bagram was a big enough place that a group of army soldiers would not get noticed.
Everyone scarfed down their food. The faster they got off Bagram, the lower their chance of discovery.
“Change of plan,” Luke said. Everyone froze midchew. “Rodgers, you’ll go with Boots and be the new mini-team Delta and I’ll go with Parrino and be the new mini-team Alpha. We’ll coordinate in Pakistan.” Luke knew he was throwing a grenade onto the lunch table. They’d discussed these plans several times and he’d had plenty of opportunity to bring this up. Right or wrong, he was going with his gut and he sensed that he needed to be close to Alessa; to keep an eye on her and make sure she was okay. He should never have let her come on the mission, but now it was his responsibility to keep her safe.
“Luke...” Alessa’s voice was tentative. “Cell signals are spotty near the border. We might not be able to communicate with the others. If I don’t go with Rodgers, he won’t have a plausible cover.”
It was a good argument. One for which Luke had no answer. “He’ll improvise,” he said shortly.
“But...” Alessa wasn’t going to let up, and he wasn’t in the mood to argue.
“We don’t have time, so this is not up for discussion. Now let’s go.”
Luke didn’t miss the knowing glances Boots and Rodgers gave each other. Under normal circumstances, he’d have asked them what their problem was, but he knew exactly what they’d say. It wasn’t the right decision. Parrino was just another team member. If Boots or Rodgers had been hurt, Luke wouldn’t be changing plans like this. So why was he giving Parrino her special treatment? Maybe it was because he was responsible for her shoulder, and for bringing her on this mission against his better judgement. He needed to be the one to take care of her.
Besides, it wasn’t just that she was hurt. Keeping her close to him would make it easier for them to work on finding Ethan. He knew the team didn’t like what he was doing but the one good thing about the army way was battlefield orders were obeyed, even if a soldier disagreed with them. Rodgers and Boots walked off and Luke waited a minute to let them exit before he and Alessa strolled nonchalantly through Bagram as if they belonged there.
Luke had served in Iraq and Afghanistan and he’d led units through countless patrols and missions yet never had he felt his stomach twist and knot the way it did now. A few minutes ago it had felt like the right decision to make but now, walking alone with Alessa, he wasn’t so sure.
Alessa grabbed his arm. “Why did you change the orders?” She whispered even though the sounds of moving machinery and equipment were so loud that he could scream at the top of his lungs and not attract any attention.
“I think your shoulder is hurting more than you let on and I want to keep an eye on you.”
She shook her head. “I’m fine!”
“Let’s go. We have a long way to go.” Once again he thought of Ethan’s brilliance in designing the test procedure for the unit. They had already been traveling for sixteen hours and easily had a twelve-to twenty-hour journey ahead of them. The assessment weeded out soldiers who wouldn’t have that kind of endurance. That was Ethan; he planned things to perfection. Unlike Luke, who flew by the seat of his pants.
Under normal army procedures they would have arranged for transportation to a forward operating base on the border. That’s how Ethan’s missions had been run. But Alessa had taken the mandate not to use army resources pretty seriously. They all had to do several miles of walking to cross the border. Originally, he and Boots were supposed to find local transportation—which was a nice way of saying a rickshaw, donkey cart or anything with wheels—to Kabul, then take a bus to Jalalabad, then more local transportation until they got close enough to illegally cross the Khyber Pass. Now he’d be doing that with Alessa.
As they continued toward the edge of the base, Alessa stumbled. Luke grabbed her arm to steady her. Alessa shook him off. “I’m fine!”
“Are you sure?”
“I tripped on a paver, that’s all.”
“Khyber is dangerous, Parrino. It’s not the place to be trekking through if you’re less than a hundred percent.” He knew he was belaboring the issue, but the way her forehead creased and the obvious frustration in her voice told him something was wrong. The woman was usually a brick wall when it came to showing emotion, so reserved that she was impossible to read. Even the guys joked that they weren’t inviting her to the poker party.
“Every way is dangerous. There is no safe path across unless we go with an army transport.”
That wasn’t exactly true. He’d noticed this when he’d studied the mini-team routes. Alessa had chosen the hardest one for herself and Rodgers. Their route had the most walking and open exposure. That was another reason why he’d switched her to his team. He had the easiest route. He’d tried not to read too much into it other than the fact that it was also the fastest, which made sense for the team lead.
She stepped up to him and lowered her voice. “I’m okay. Really. Can we drop it and focus on the mission?”
What would Ethan do? He would tell Luke that Alessa had performed better in the unit entrance test than all his other men. The woman could handle this; that’s why he’d hired her.
“Fine, let’s keep moving.”
It wasn’t as hard to leave Bagram Airfield as it was to get in. The perimeter security was focused on keeping suicide bombers and other riffraff out. Luke and Alessa managed to sneak through without incident, taking advantage of the busy afternoon when the guards were busy with truck deliveries.
Bagram was located in a relatively rural area, though there was never a shortage of people milling about right outside the base. Some were there to gawk, some to see if someone would give them money or work. The lookie-loos stared at him and Parrino. To her credit, she didn’t flinch and walked along as if this were a perfectly routine patrol.
The landscape around Bagram was mountainous with little vegetation. It took them a few minutes to find a relatively secluded area amongst some brush. They shed their ACUs and pulled cloth knapsacks from their army-issued backpacks. Underneath their ACUs, they were wearing the loose cotton pants and tunic known locally as salwar kameez. Alessa threw a powder blue burka on top of hers, covering her entire body, including her face. He could barely see her eyes through the mesh covering. Once they got into Pakistan, she could tak
e the burka off and wrap a scarf around her head, but in the rural parts of Afghanistan, the burka was still prevalent and a man and woman walking together would attract a lot less attention if the woman was covered.
Stuffing their ACUs into a bag, they went in search of a fire pit. These were pretty common as the nights were about as cold as the days were hot, and they found one within fifteen minutes. After making sure no one was paying them any attention, they threw in the uniforms with their army backpacks, added some lighter fluid and lit a match. They waited until nothing was left but ashes before silently continuing their journey.
For most soldiers, burning a uniform was a deeply unpatriotic and disrespectful act. But they didn’t have a choice. They had to travel light and in the event they were caught, having uniforms on them could blow their cover, or worse, terrorists could steal the ACUs and use them to get an edge in an attack. All of the unit men had protested at the necessity of this action but had ultimately seen Alessa’s point and conceded it.
“I think that might have been the worst thing I’ve ever done.” Alessa’s voice was so quiet in the comms system that Luke almost missed it.
He stopped and turned but she kept on walking and he had to hurry to get a few steps ahead of her. Women here were expected to walk behind men, and as much as he despised the practice, the whole idea was not to attract attention.
“Why was it so hard for you?” he asked softly.
The whole thing had been her idea and despite the men’s objections, she had held fast to the recommendation that they burn their uniforms for safety reasons.
“I am a soldier who just burned her uniform.”
“Not as an act of defiance but out of necessity to protect the uniform, to make sure it isn’t used against us.”
“I know,” she said in a small voice. He could tell she was conflicted, that it wasn’t sitting well with her.
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