“I’m guessing I have stronger equipment than your cellphone,” I say, shaking my head. “Base, this is Echo One. We’re hearing gunfire about a half mile southeast of our position. What do you see?”
“Echo One. This is Base,” I hear in my earpiece. “The image isn’t crystal clear, but we’re seeing what looks like about a dozen fighting-age males. Looks like they’re armed primarily with rifles. They’re shooting in the direction of a car. Looks like one person down and two returning fire. One is small. Could be female.”
“Roger that. We think it could be our female target and MIA agent. Headed that way.”
Mack is shaking his head at me. His expression is back to deadly. “If she dies, I will fucking kill you.”
I decide to not tell him about the one body down already. “She’s here to find you, chief,” I say, pointing in the direction of the gunfire. “This is all on you.”
“How about both of you shut the fuck up and we go get her?” Chase says, moving to the door. I pull him back and shove him toward Mack.
I look at my team and point in the direction of the gunfire. As we head out the door, I turn around to look at Chase and Mack. “You’re not going anywhere. Stay here.” I look right at Mack. “If you die again, she’ll kill herself. I’m serious. She won’t be able to deal with it. Stay here and stay the fuck alive.”
We make it about a quarter mile when we see the car with a body—thankfully too large to be Millie’s—lying near the front. I finally see Millie—in the same clothes she was wearing when I last saw her—crouched behind the rear tire. She pops up and gets two rounds off toward the three guys closing in on her. One of the guys falls. There’s a man next to her, firing a pistol very poorly. He hasn’t hit anything. My team scatters out behind the houses and walls above their position. I can see about ten other fighters still alive and slowly closing in on them.
“Millie! Get down!” I shout. She lifts her head just enough to see our rifle barrels pointing over the wall. She curls her body up into a ball behind the tire as we start firing. Fortunately, the guys approaching her don’t see us quickly enough to take much cover. We have eight of them down within seconds. JJ fans out to the left as we provide cover fire. He has both of the others down within a minute. We stop firing and it gets quiet.
“Millie!” I yell. “Don’t move. Hold your position.”
I motion my guys out to the flanks. They slowly form a wide circle around her to make sure we’re clear. Bryce and I make a straight path to her—guns high and ready to return fire. We make it to her without receiving any more incoming fire.
“You okay?” I say, sliding down on my knees next to her. I examine her to make sure she’s not hurt. I can’t find any bullet holes.
“They shot my aunt,” she says, pointing toward the body on the ground. Her eyes start to water. “I think she’s dead.”
Bryce is already at the body. He checks for vitals and shakes his head at us. “She’s gone,” he says. Millie closes her eyes as a tear rolls down her cheek.
“Millie. We have to get you out of here. We have helos incoming in fifteen minutes. Let’s get you safe until they get here.”
She nods as she looks over to her aunt. She crawls over and touches Azayiz’s face lightly with her hand. The rest of my team is back from clearing the area. They’re all in a circle around Millie.
“Wait,” she says, looking around quickly. “Where’s Fareed?”
“Who?” I say.
“Fareed Custovic. He was just here with me returning fire. Is he down?”
The guys all look around for another body near the car. There’s no one. They all instinctively drop to a knee—facing out, rifles drawn.
“Base. This is Echo One. We’ve got a potential squirter. You see anyone on the run?” I say.
“Negative. Echo One. The only live bodies we see are yours and three headed your way from north of your position.”
Butch looks up over my shoulder.
“Mase,” he says, nodding his head up the hill.
I turn around to see Chase, Raine, and Mack—armed with rifles—walking toward us. I move in front of Millie and block her view temporarily.
“Keep your eyes peeled for Custovic,” I say to my team. “He could have made it to one of these houses.”
“You want us to clear them?” Hawk says.
“Negative. He’s not our problem. We need to get to the evac site.”
I pull Millie up off the ground, still shielding her from her dad. I get down on her eye level.
“Millie, look at me.” She looks up, her eyes narrowing as she sees the concern on my face. “I just want you to know everything is going to be okay. Whatever happens next, you’re going to be fine.”
She nods and tries to smile. She looks confused. I kiss the top of her head before I step aside. She looks up the hill. I can tell her eyes haven’t focused on who they are yet. I look up the hill, too. I feel her body fall back against mine as they get closer. I’m about to start whispering to her when something catches the sun to the left of where Mack is walking. I see the barrel of a pistol pointed right at Mack. He’s only ten feet away from us now. I throw Millie to Bryce and run toward Mack.
“Nooooooo!” I shout as Fareed Custovic stands up and fires.
I knock Mack out of the way as I feel the bullet enter my neck just above my body armor. As I fall to the ground, I hear Millie scream. She’s on me almost instantly, collapsing down on my chest. I see Mack pulling her off me, just as I fade into blackness.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Millie
Jalalabad, Afghanistan
2020
“Do you think I have to wear black to the funeral?” I’m going through the clothes the agency recovered from our hotel rooms in Islamabad. There’s not much black.
“I don’t think it really matters what you wear,” Chase says as he walks over to hug me again.
When the helicopters evacuated us from Pakistan, they dropped us off at the base in Jalalabad for a debrief before they send us back home. I’ve been crying nonstop. Chase has been sleeping on the floor in my room.
“Will you go with me to the funeral?” I take a deep breath as I squeeze his hand to let him know I’m okay.
“Yes, I will. I’ll do anything you ask me to do, but I think you should ask your dad to go with you. Have you talked to him?”
“I’m not ready yet, Chase.”
“Stop punishing him. You know he went into hiding to protect you. He did what he thought was right.”
“I’m not punishing him, but I have to do the best thing for me. I can’t take any more pain right now,” I say, pausing for a second. “Is he feeling better?”
“Yeah. He’s still in the base hospital, but he’ll probably get out today. It’s just pneumonia. Apparently, he’s had it for a while. You know, not a lot of good drugs in that valley. Once they put him on antibiotics, it started to clear. He’s not contagious, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about.”
“He said to tell you thank you for getting his passport reinstated. Neither one of us really knows how you did it. I thought for sure he would at least serve time for deserting. Do you want to fill me in?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t. I’m glad that part is over. I don’t want to talk about it.”
The truth is I made a deal with the agency. I have the tape of Alex confessing to giving up Azayiz. If anyone found out the head of the agency’s Middle Eastern operations gave up its most valuable informant, the agency would never be able to recruit an informant again. Director Ward talked to the navy, and Dad is back in good standing. The official story is that he’s been working undercover for the CIA in Pakistan. I’m not sure how many people will believe that, but that’s the least of my worries right now.
“The agency searched my phone for a copy of a video,” Chase says. “They didn’t find it. It must have been something really good. What was it? Who’d you send it to?”
I avoid his stare by looking in the mirror. My red, swollen eyes look back at me. “They have my phone. They know I sent the video to two people. They found it on Raine’s phone, but they can’t figure out where else I sent it—and they never will. The recipient keeps the battery out of the phone and the phone locked in a bank vault. It’s untraceable.”
I look back at him. He’s smiling at me. “That’s the system Mariel and I used when I got into the SEALs. I’m glad to see she’s still using it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Okay,” he says, laughing. “Just know my wife can’t keep a personal secret for more than two seconds, but she will take professional secrets to the goddamn grave. You’re safe.”
I stare at him for a second and finally crack a little smile. “I’m going for a walk.”
“You want company?”
“Not this time, but thank you.”
As I close the door to the room, I hear Chase say, “Go see your dad, Millie.”
As I walk out of the housing area, I decide to head toward the hospital.
“Hi, I’m Millie Marsh,” I say to the doctor standing outside his room.
“I know who you are,” she says. “He’s sleeping.”
“I can come back later.”
She puts up her hand. “No, not a chance. He would kill me if he found out I shooed you away. Like I think he would literally kill me.”
“I’ll try to be quiet,” I whisper as I walk into the room.
His eyes are closed. It looks like he’s sleeping. I tiptoe to the couch.
“When have you ever been able to sneak into a room without waking me up?” he says.
I freeze like a burglar caught sneaking into a house.
“One of these days it will work, Mason,” I say as I slowly turn around.
He smiles at me. “Never going to happen. Come here.”
I crawl into bed with him like I’ve done every possible second of every day since we got here. He holds up the covers so I can crawl under. He wraps his arms around me as I rest my head on his chest. After enduring twenty-four hours of not knowing if he would live, I like to hear his heart beat as much as I can.
“How are you feeling?”
“I feel great,” he says, kissing the top of my head. “I wish they’d let me leave.”
“Mason, you were unconscious for almost a full day. You lost a lot of blood. You have to be patient.”
“Well, you know patience is one of my many virtues,” he says, sighing. “It’s probably one of my best.”
“Yep. Right after modesty.”
He grabs me under the arms and pulls me up to kiss him.
“Stop! You’re not supposed to use your left arm,” I protest.
“Stop being my nurse. I’m fine.”
He kisses me deeply. I start kissing down his neck until I get to his wound. A round hit him right on top of his body armor. Luckily it hit him in a fleshy area above the clavicle, where there are no major arteries. It probably would have hit Dad in his head if Mason hadn’t jumped in front of him. I put my hand lightly on his bandages.
“It’s fine, Mills,” he whispers as he pulls me back to the other side of his chest. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“If you ever jump in front of another bullet, I will kill you myself.”
“Noted,” he says, stroking my hair. “Are you still going to your aunt’s funeral?”
“Yeah, I asked Chase to go with me. He said he would, but he thinks I should ask my dad to go.”
“Have you talked to your dad yet?”
“No.”
“Mills,” he says gently. “C’mon, babe. You need to talk to him.”
“It’s cute you think someone who jumps in front of bullets gets to question my judgment,” I say, snuggling deeper onto his chest.
He pulls me closer and kisses the top of my head again. “How long are you going to use that against me?”
“You jumped in front of a bullet. I get to use that for the rest of our lives.”
“I did it because I knew you couldn’t survive watching him die. After all those years—the nightmares. No way you would have survived that.”
“I wouldn’t have survived you dying, either.”
He hugs me tighter. “I didn’t die. Somehow we’re all fine. Please just go talk to him.”
“Can we please quit talking about it? This is the only place I’ve been able to get any sleep since we got here. Can we take a nap?”
“Yeah, babe. You know that’s allowed in the bubble.”
I laugh as he pulls the blankets tighter around me.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Mason
Jalalabad, Afghanistan
2020
After Millie left me a few hours ago, my doctor came in and did every test in the book on me. She can’t believe how quickly I’ve recovered. I think she’s kind of pissed about it, actually. I nagged her for a few minutes before she finally agreed to discharge me early. I text Chase to see where Millie’s room is and to make sure he’s not there when I arrive. I knock on her door.
“What are you doing here?” she says, throwing herself into my outstretched arms.
I squeeze her tighter than I ever have, bury my face in her hair, and take a deep breath. She tries to pull back, but I won’t let her.
“Mason,” she asks against my chest, “did you break out of the hospital?”
“Yes. And I left a wake of destruction in my path. Anything to get to you.”
“Mason.”
“I didn’t break out.” I say, laughing. “They discharged me a few minutes ago.”
I lean down and kiss her softly. The minute she starts sliding her hands up my chest, my lower body springs to life. I push her into the room and kick the door closed with my foot. I back her up until she’s pressed against the wall.
“Mason.” She pulls back a little. “Are you sure this is okay?”
“I promise you’re not taking advantage of me,” I say as I pull her T-shirt over her head. “Just be gentle.”
“Mason.” She pushes at my chest. “I’m being serious. Do you have permission from your doctor to do this?”
I run my hands down her shoulders—sliding her bra straps down. I gently cradle her breasts in my hands as my thumbs start rubbing her nipples. She makes a little sound as her body starts to squirm.
“My doctor said I am fully cleared for all physical duties I might have to perform. I think she was specifically talking about military duties, but I know she would agree this is much more important.” I take a step back and pull my T-shirt over my head. I unbuckle my pants and let them drop to the ground.
She looks down at me—fully erect and pointing right at her. She smiles up at me. “Well, if the doctors gave you permission . . .”
“Millie. Really. If you can sex me to death, I am willing to die.” I take her by the hand and lead her over to the bed. “Come here,” I say, pulling her down on top of me.
***
It’s well after midnight, and neither of us can sleep. We’ve been talking and making out for hours.
“I think I remember seeing your dad pull you off me just before I blacked out,” I say, squinting to try to help bring that picture back in my mind. “Didn’t you guys talk in the helo on the way over here?”
“Oh yeah. We had a great conversation while I watched my boyfriend almost bleed out two feet away from me.”
“I didn’t almost bleed out. I’m sure Ty had a bag hooked up to me before we even made it to the evac site.”
“Yeah. By the way, who knew y’all carried bags of blood on you?”
“Well I did, for one,” I say, laughing. “And we don’t all carry them—only the medics.”
“Is that why you felt it was a good idea to jump in front of a bullet?”
“Mills. Enough,” I say, rubbing her back. “So what happened when we landed here? Did you not talk to him at all?”
“I really don’t remember anything that happened after you got shot until I was sitting by your bed in recovery.”
“Okay,” I say softly. I know she’s not telling me the truth, but I’m sensing it wasn’t her finest hour. I’m going to let her keep that one to herself.
Her tears start coming again. I reach down to wipe them away.
“I seriously can’t believe I have any tears left in my body after the last week,” she says quietly. “I’m so mad at him.”
“Then be mad at him. You have every right to be. But you do need to talk to him. Not for him. For yourself. It’s the only way you’re going to get any peace.”
She nods silently against my chest.
“Don’t ever leave me, okay?” she says, burrowing deeper into my body.
“I will never leave you, babe. Never.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Millie
Jalalabad, Afghanistan
2020
“Dad? Where are you?”
We just landed in San Diego a few hours ago, and we’ve already looked at three houses. We’re on our fourth house now—a cute little bungalow near Pacific Beach. We’re moving here soon, and Dad told me I get to choose the house. I’m standing in the street looking at the front. Dad disappeared inside somewhere.
“Millie. I’m here, sweetie. I’m inside. Come and find me.”
I look down at my feet as they start moving toward the house. Wait. This isn’t right. Why are they moving? I thought they were stuck.
I walk carefully into the house and see Dad standing in the kitchen.
“Hey, sweetie. This house is kind of beaten up, but I think we can make it work. I’ll fix it up. What do you think?”
The Only Reason: A Novel (Trident Trilogy: Book Two) Page 18
