Alessa bit her lip. That’s not how things were supposed to play out. She had carefully calculated the travel times for each mini-team to make sure Luke got there first. “I’m slowing you down. You should go ahead without me.” They were hard words to utter, but she had to be honest. Her pace wasn’t as fast in the burka, they had to make sure she was acting appropriately for an Afghan woman. These were all little things that added up to significant delays. She could wait out the mission by posing as a tourist, then return on a military transport once the guys had Azizi.
“I would’ve made the same time on this route with or without you. We couldn’t help the transportation issues. It’s not the end of the world—the others know what they have to do to set up for the mission. They’ve done it before.”
“Isn’t it a little risky to take this on as your first mission?”
“I don’t have a choice. I’m not sure how long Colonel Blowhard will keep me on as unit commander.”
Alessa sat up straighter. It wasn’t exactly a secret that the colonel was looking for excuses to get rid of Luke, but to hear him say it out loud was something else. Officers were taught to always display confidence to their command. To exude leadership.
“You don’t think you can do the job.” As soon as the statement was out of her mouth, she realized she shouldn’t have said it that way.
“You’re right. I don’t think I can.” His voice dropped so low that despite how close they sat, she could barely hear him. Her heart dropped into her stomach. No commander wanted to hear that his soldiers doubted him. Take it back! But she didn’t want to soothe him with platitudes. Alessa was good at lying to men—had been doing it all her life—but she didn’t want to lie to Luke.
“Ethan and I are identical in looks only. We think and make decisions very differently. Ethan analyzes every decision before he makes a move. I go by my gut, and...”
He didn’t need to say the rest.
“Why don’t you trust it?”
He blinked, then looked away from her. The sun had set while they were talking and the room was blanketed in dusky darkness. A streetlight right outside the window cast shadows on his face. He stood and flipped the light switch by the door. Nothing. There was an oil lantern on the table, and shaking it, Alessa could tell it was half full. It wouldn’t give them a whole night’s worth of light, but it would likely make it a few hours. She lit it with a match and the soft orange light flickered in the room. Her shoulder throbbed and her body was screaming to fall into the bed and close her eyes but she fought the urge. She wanted to resume their conversation, understand who Luke Williams was.
It seemed Luke also didn’t want the conversation to end. “Two years ago my mother committed suicide.”
She knew this already but it didn’t stop her heart from jolting. The raw pain in his voice grated across the table. Once again she remained silent, sensing that he didn’t need her making sounds of sympathy. She hadn’t known his mother, couldn’t say anything that would make it better for him.
He continued. “My mother was an adulterer.”
The words knifed through Alessa. Her heart lodged in her throat.
“For as long as we can remember, Ethan and I covered for her. No matter where we were posted in the world, she somehow found ‘friends’ to help around the house, keep her company. When we were younger, they would stay the night. That stopped when my father came home from deployment early one time. Then she started disappearing in the evenings. I remember one night when a pipe burst in our house and water was dripping into my bedroom. Ethan and I were only eleven and we couldn’t find her but we dared not call anyone. So we kept ladling the water into buckets until she returned early in the morning. The house was a mess.”
“So your father knew?”
His face twisted and Alessa kicked herself for being so insensitive. Once when she was in middle school, she’d caught her mother being friendly with another man. The manager of the local grocery store. Seeing her mother smile genuinely when she interacted with him had made Alessa wish her mother would have an affair with the man and leave her father. It was a secret childhood dream of hers. The flirtation ended as quickly as it had begun but Alessa clung to the fantasy. Even then, she’d known that if her father found out, he’d throw her mother out of the house.
“He did. You know how it is on post. No matter how discreet you are, neighbors keep an eye on when you come and go, people talk. As my father advanced in the ranks, my mother got better at hiding it. But I always knew, and so did Ethan.”
“Your father didn’t care that this was happening?”
“My father couldn’t stop it. He loved my mother and knew that the only way to make it stop was to divorce her or leave the army, and he wasn’t willing to do either.”
“Why didn’t she divorce him?”
He leaned back and placed his hands on the nape of his neck. “Ethan and I talked about it. I think on some level she loved my father but was unhappy with the army life and was looking for a way to get his attention.”
“Or she felt stuck and couldn’t get out.”
He leaned forward so suddenly, the chair scraped on the floor. Shut your motor-mouth, Parrino. What was wrong with her today? She couldn’t seem to filter herself.
“What do you mean?” He pinned her with his dazzling blue eyes.
Swallowing, she continued. “My mom is from an old-school generation of Italian women who believe their role is to take care of the family. She barely has a middle school education and speaks English with a heavy accent. My grandparents didn’t see the point in educating her. So when my parents came to America as a young couple, my father was the king of the household and she had no power over her own life. That dynamic never corrected, and the imbalance grew worse. My father keeps his control over her by convincing her that if she left, she’d have no home, no food, and no way to support herself or her children. When I was a teenager, I tried to explain social services to her, but all she heard was welfare. She’s too proud to accept charity.”
“So you think my mom felt she had no other options?”
“I’m not saying anything. I don’t know your mom or your family situation.”
He got the hundred-yard stare again. “My mom came from a good family. She married my father right out of high school, so she didn’t go to college, but she was certainly smart enough to realize she had options in life.”
Alessa kicked herself for saying anything at all. Luke obviously had a narrative he’d told himself about his mother and she was poking holes into it. Her family situation was nothing like his.
“The week before she killed herself, Mom called me and Ethan. She made our favorite dinner, reminisced about the good times we had as little boys, even showed us where she kept all our childhood treasures.”
Alessa’s chest tightened at the crack in his voice.
“She was happier than I’d seen her in years.” He shook his head. “Ethan was worried, though. He was busy with something—I know now it was getting approval for this unit—and he asked me to come stay with Mom. I didn’t listen to him. I thought she was fine, that maybe she’d finally found someone she was happy with.”
Alessa touched his arm. It was an inappropriate contact but they couldn’t have this raw conversation and pretend they were just dots on an army matrix.
Luke hung his head. “If I’d listened to Ethan, maybe I’d have seen the signs. At the time I was so absorbed in myself. I was trying to get out of the army and just didn’t want to be home and around my dad.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. Nothing she could say would make him feel any less guilty, but she didn’t want to make it worse. “I’ve tried to get my mother to leave my father for as long as I can remember. I’ve offered her everything she could ever need, including spending a large chunk of my savings setting her up to go to Italy
. She won’t do it. Her decision is steadfast and maybe your mother’s was as well.”
He grabbed her hand and squeezed it tight, like a man desperate for human contact.
“Maybe. Or maybe she was feeling stuck, like you said. Dad would have fought her on a divorce. She had no money of her own, no house. When we were young, I remember her saying things would be better when we grew up. She was counting on me and Ethan to take care of her. Had I been around, I might have been able to show her a way out. My father has a way of presenting options as black or white. Like when Ethan and I were kids, there was no career path other than the army. My father did a great job convincing us of that. I can only imagine the number he did on her.”
I understand that all too well. She had to constantly remind herself that just because her father believed she’d end up needing a man to take of her didn’t make it true. Alessa had, and would continue to make sure that she was always in control of her destiny.
“You can play the what-if game forever, and all you’ll do is live your life a little less fully.”
He brought her hand to his forehead. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t know what the right call is.”
She wanted nothing more than to run her other hand over his head, to let him know that he wasn’t alone.
Instead, she tugged gently and he let go of her, his eyes shadowing into a dark blue.
“You don’t have to make all the decisions alone. The unit is supposed to be collaborative, remember. Not the army way. Don’t take it all on yourself.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have unloaded on you.”
“I can handle it, Luke.” She needed him to know she was strong and didn’t need him taking care of her.
“I know you can. I don’t worry about you.”
“Right. So then why did you change the mini-team assignments?”
He gave her a crooked smile. “Okay, you got me there. I was worried about you.”
“Do you think this is the first time I’ve had to soldier on after I’ve gotten injured?”
He shifted in his seat, then stilled. “That’s just it. You would’ve continued no matter what. In fact, I fully believe that you will drop dead before you spend a second to take care of yourself. That’s why I changed the assignment.”
“So you could save me from myself.” She didn’t even try to filter the annoyance from her voice. How dare he?
He pushed his chair back and stood, then retrieved the battery pack from his backpack to charge his phone. He busied his hands getting it connected.
“You are a good soldier, Alessa, but as unit command, it’s my job to protect my soldiers and the mission.”
She took a deep breath. So they were back to being commander and soldier. At least, unlike many commanders she’d had, it was obvious that he wasn’t out to get her, to prove that she couldn’t do the job.
He clicked on his phone and frowned.
“What’s the matter?”
“Rodgers and Boots just went dark. They were five clicks away from us not too long ago.”
“You know how it is around here. They may have gone into a zone where someone is jamming satellite signals or coverage is bad.” It was something they expected on this mission, which was why they had multiple rally points in Pakistan in case the safe house didn’t work out and they couldn’t reach each other.
“I need everything to be perfect. Once we return, Colonel McBride will scour the after-action reports and pick apart every aspect of this mission to find a way to remove me as command.”
Which brought up another issue for her. If Luke was removed as command, she was likely out of her posting. Who knew where they would transfer her. Plus with her “logistics” designation, Colonel Black Tag was sure to send her to the remotest corner of the earth to push paper around.
“That’s if I manage not to get myself killed,” he added.
Another cheery thought.
“I thought I was supposed to make sure that doesn’t happen. In my self-serving interest,” she said lightly, eager to break the intense mood. The flickering shadows of the oil lamp didn’t help.
He smiled. “It’s not something I should be telling you, but before we left, I sent a file to my father that includes the details of this mission and your role in it. If anything happens to me, you’re protected.”
Oddly, she found she suddenly didn’t care about her promotion. What bothered her more was the idea that Luke could actually get hurt or worse. Before she could ask the obvious question on her lips, he leaned forward.
“Yes, we can trust my father. The man is an army man through and through. He’d never do anything to hurt this country. Even so, the package won’t get to him for a few days.”
“Aren’t you worried about yourself?”
His lips twitched. “Nothing in my life makes sense anymore. I want to find Ethan so I can get back to my life and stop living his.”
“And what does your non-army life look like?”
He met her eyes, his brows knotted. “You know, Parrino, that’s an excellent question.”
He gave her a wide grin and she responded in kind. It was hard not to get taken in by his boyish charm. She wondered how his many girlfriends had reacted to it.
“So what do you want me to do? How can I help?”
He gestured to the bed in the middle of the room. “Right now, I want you to get some shut-eye.”
Alessa turned and eyed the mattress. The sheets were threadbare and had many mysterious stains. Dust clung to the headboard. Yet it was the most inviting sight she’d seen.
“I’ll take the first watch, then we can switch,” Luke said before she had a chance to speak up.
Normally she’d insist on taking the first shift. Luke tilted his head toward the bed, silently pleading with her not to argue. It would be a struggle to keep her eyes open, so why not take advantage of Luke’s offer?
“Ninety minutes, then wake me up.” That would give her one REM cycle. She sat on the bed. The mattress was as ratty as the sheets. As she lay down, the hard wooden slats greeted her back. She didn’t care. It was better than many of the places she’d had to sleep. It didn’t take long for her lids to close as she began to blissfully drift off.
It seemed only a few minutes had passed when Luke shook her awake. She blinked until his face came into focus.
His tone was urgent. “We need to go.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ALESSA SAT UP so suddenly that Luke barely had time to move out of the way. It was pitch dark outside. Grabbing the slightly damp kameez, she stuffed it into her backpack, then pulled on the burka. She checked her watch and was aghast to see that five and a half hours had passed since she’d fallen asleep. But now was not the time to get on Luke about not letting her do her share. He was loosening the bolts on one of the window bars, trying to pry it open. She went to the other side and began pulling to help him.
“I’ll go first,” he said.
She knew from their earlier walk around the perimeter that he would land close to the water pump. It wasn’t a long drop. Once she heard the telltale squelch of his boots on the mud, Alessa wasted no time in getting herself out. The burka made the landing interesting and she found herself on her knees in the mud. Thankfully she managed to protect her right arm and shoulder. Luke was there in a flash, helping her up. She didn’t bother to protest. Time was of the essence.
He held on to her left arm as they navigated the compound spanning several homes and buildings that shared the water pump. Exiting into an alleyway, Luke marched forward at a good clip and Alessa struggled to keep up. The bottom of her burka was wet with mud and clung to her ankles, making it difficult not to trip. For a country where water was scarce, she never understood why the streets were always muddy.
When they got t
o the street, Luke hailed a bicycle rickshaw with a beat-up seat. He instructed the kid to take them to the taxi stand.
When they arrived at the small patch of road with two rusted old cars, Luke paid the rickshaw driver in the local currency and ushered them toward the first taxi. He had to wake up the driver, and though Alessa was standing several feet away, she could smell the alcohol oozing off him. An empty bottle lay on the passenger seat. Luke haggled over the fee to take them to Jalalabad. Not negotiating would have been a red flag.
They entered the taxi and the driver started the clanking engine. It was eighty-five miles to Jalalabad. Back in the States, that was nothing, a two-hour drive at most, but here it would take three to four hours assuming they only made one gas stop and there were no checkpoints or other unexpected delays. The taxi was plan B and in hindsight, might have been better than plan A. On the bus, they could be recognized, identified and targeted by any number of people. Now they only had to deal with the one taxi driver, and he’d probably be stuck in Jalalabad for at least a day trying to find a fare to pay him for the trip back.
They rode in silence. They couldn’t assume that the taxi driver didn’t speak English. She’d met many Afghans who were good at not letting on that they understood. It was a defense mechanism.
Predictably, they had to stop for gas a couple hours into the drive. The driver demanded money from Luke, who once again negotiated how much of the fee he would pay, relying heavily on facial expressions and hand gestures to convey his frustration. Alessa knew Luke couldn’t care less about the price but had to put on a good enough show, particularly with his less-than-passable Pashtun.
While the driver filled the car and took a smoke break, Alessa whispered into the comms system, which they had reconnected. “What’s going on?”
“The truck driver that drove us to Kabul showed up at the guest house and was asking the owner all kinds of questions. He was drunk and belligerent, saying something about how we didn’t pay him. I didn’t catch all of it, but thought we should get out of there before the two of them came barging in on us.”
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