by TL Schaefer
Crossfire
CASI, Volume 1.5
TL Schaefer
Published by Terri Schaefer, 2017.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
CROSSFIRE
First edition. December 18, 2017.
Copyright © 2017 TL Schaefer.
ISBN: 978-1386954897
Written by TL Schaefer.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
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Also By TL Schaefer
To August, for always being my hero.
Much love and smooches to Jenn for making this story so much better--for making all of them better.
And for Sarah, who always keeps me on my toes and never fails to make me laugh.
Prologue
Senior Airman Asa Dobbs ignored the bead of sweat creeping past the outer edge of his left eye and squinted, concentrating on the camp below him, portrayed in the eerie green of his night vision goggles. There... He tracked the target slowly, cataloging mannerisms, the way the dead man walking moved.
The vision hit him as all the others had, with an abrupt fade of his “here” sight, as it morphed into the “other.” In his mind’s-eye the desert around him disappeared, replaced by the murky interior of a building, cluttered and dirty. In the center of the room sat a card table surrounded by four men, each sweating as they smoked contraband cigarettes. His target gestured angrily, pointing to a map centered atop the table, before driving the tip of his knife into the flimsy paper, leaving the hilt swaying with the force of his blow.
Asa forced his floating body forward, until he stood between two of the insurgents, his target directly across the table. The map showed a deep, dusty valley, surrounded by craggy cliffs.
His vision misted once again, and he “saw” a three-vehicle convoy slowly wind its way up the mountain, keeping to the middle of the road in an attempt to avoid IEDs. He cringed at the images of the carnage the insurgents would wreak, the broken and battered bodies strewn along the road, equipment and weapons and a high-end camera, probably from an embedded reporter.
This was what he’d been meant to see. He withdrew, retreating to the here-and-now. With a sharp blink of his eyes, the vision of the building dissolved, replaced by the reality of Afghanistan.
Asa slithered down the slope and went in search of the one man he could trust. Technical Sergeant David Carmichael.
Carmichael crouched in a shallow ditch, his own NVGs trained on very same camp, a camp where they suspected a driver from a supply convoy was being held. As pararescue, they weren’t usually the first in, but in this case, they’d been the closest unit for recon until regular Army troops arrived.
Asa jumped into the ditch, not surprised when Carmichael didn’t even flinch. His sergeant was made of ice. A very large, very powerful block of ice.
“Speak,” Carmichael said quietly but with such a punch of force, his order was almost a physical thing.
“He’s not in there,” Asa whispered, “but they’re planning a hit a convoy of Green Berets.”
Carmichael swiveled slowly and pushed the NVGs atop his head before giving Asa the fish-eye. “What did you see?”
Asa swallowed past a knot the size of Texas. “They’re on the road now. I don’t know that we can stop it, but we can lessen the damage.” Carmichael hadn’t believed in his visions, not at first, none of them had, but Asa had pulled their bacon out of the fire once too often. Now all of them relied on his gift. Hell, even Roney had finally bought in, but he’d been a hard-assed bastard to convince.
Afghanistan was a hell of a long way from Kansas, and he intended to make it back to Wichita in one piece. And if he had his way, his comrades would be going back to their state of choice right beside him...not in a fucking body bag.
Chapter One
Eight years later...
Two of the tourists in the raft ahead of him were going to drown. The vision came to Asa plain as day, blanking his sight for precious seconds.
He saw the big raft flipping in the air, its occupants soaring, then crashing into the water and onto boulders. A man and a woman, he couldn’t tell who, were sucked down the Colorado River. He heard their bodies pinball off of boulders, felt the break in each bone, suffocated as water filled his lungs. And then they were gone.
When he could see again, he acted on instinct, bulleting his kayak through the rapids until he reached the side of the inflatable.
Freezing water sluiced over the sides of the kayak, shocking against his face and hands, chilly against the rest of his wetsuit-protected body.
He yanked hard on the guide rope, prompting a startled yelp from the tour guide and the woman now directly to his left.
She turned to him with wide eyes, anger beginning to crowd out the surprise in her gaze. Shit. She thought he was trying to accost her.
“Heads down, all of you!”
“What the fuck, man?” the stoner manning the helm glared at him.
“Snag ahead, gonna flip you unless you revector—now.”
The guy’s eyes pivoted forward slowly, much too slowly, so Asa shot ahead even further, nudging the nose of the boat toward shore. Ahead of him he could see the barely exposed roots of a tree reaching out of the rapids with gnarly fingers.
They weren’t going to make it.
The roots caught his kayak broadside, sending him flying, but the extra impetus pushed the raft to the right, out of harm’s way.
As he soared through the air, he wondered for a brief second if it had been his own death he’d foreseen instead of one of the rafters. Then he hit the water and everything went black.
CAM RYDER HAD NEVER seen anything like it. Likely never would. She crouched over the body of the kayaker, ready to breathe into his mouth as Tony, their guide, gave him CPR. She knew it wasn’t the newest or best way to bring someone back to life, but no way in hell was she going to do less and potentially endanger his life. No way in hell. He’d saved their lives today, and she planned on returning the favor.
Tony finished his chest compressions. She leaned in and gave two quick breaths, puffing past frighteningly blue lips. They continued their rhythm for a moment, and then the kayaker’s chest rose on its own, and a moment later he was coughing out river water, his body convulsing with shivers as he heaved.
“Carin, blanket,” she ordered her best friend, the lunatic who’d talked her into going on this trip. She should have taken the damned mule ride back to the rim of the Grand Canyon like she originally wanted to.
The kayaker jackknifed into a sitting position as Carin tucked the space blanket around him, magnifying his body heat within the wetsuit.
He turned bloodshot amber eyes to her and Tony. “Hey,” he croaked.
Now that he wasn’t that unflattering shade of blue, she took a moment to eyeball their savior. Maybe thirty, with dark hair that would probably dry to auburn, if the color of his neatly trimmed goatee was any indication.
His wetsuit left little to the imagination, showing a trim taut body. Thank goodness he’d been in such good shape, had such fast reflexes.
“Dude, you totally saved us all!” Tony was almost crying in gratitude now that their rescuer was once again talking. He leaned forward and gave Kayak Guy a huge hug, his rasta braids swinging wildly.
KG, as she was now beginning to refer to him in her head, gave Tony a one-armed hug then pushed away. For a moment she thought he was going to try to stand, and was getting ready to give him a piece
of her mind, when she realized he was staring into space.
His eyes were vacant, as if he’d suddenly checked out and gone somewhere else.
Oh shit, he’s having a stroke. She’d seen it before—a healthy specimen receives a head trauma, and then that’s all she wrote. Except the time she’d seen it had been in an Afghan village eight years ago, and the healthy specimen had been a Green Beret who’d suffered a traumatic brain injury during an ambush. He hadn’t been shot, but he hadn’t been all right either, not by a long shot.
KG had the same thousand-yard stare now, as if he was far, far away.
ASA SNAPPED BACK TO reality, the woman’s face filling his present and future. He’d saved her today, and if she left the Colorado River without him, unspeakable tragedies would unfold. Tragedies that might very well endanger the world as they knew it.
His utter conviction seemed melodramatic, even to him, but somehow, some way, he needed to keep her close, and not just for today. Because if he didn’t...
He watched her walk away, felt a profound sorrow, then reality melted around him, thrusting him into a war zone unlike any he’d ever experienced or even imagined.
The landscape around him had been reduced to utter devastation. One big smoking crater, with an occasional staircase or fireplace left standing. The burned husks of cars sat in their parking spaces, heat still rising from the skeletal metal frames.
It reminded him of pictures he’d seen after a wildfire, but this felt epically worse, as if every single living creature in a ten-mile radius had been scoured away.
The vision closed, leaving the taste of ash in his mouth, a burning sorrow in his soul. He knew, as if the words had been spoken aloud, that he needed the woman, needed her to save the world. And he needed to be close to do it.
Yeah, the impact was a whopper, and not one bit over-the-top. It was also the first true, visceral premonition he’d had since Carmichael’s death two months ago, and he wasn’t planning on blowing it off.
When he’d seen with the boat capsizing it had been a here-and-now vision. Something he could thrust himself into and potentially fix.
What he’d just seen was exactly the opposite. A future to be avoided at all costs. If he could.
Damned if he wouldn’t try.
He turned his attention back to the woman who’d given him CPR.
For someone with so much power to potentially fuck up the world, she certainly looked ordinary. She was older than him, by maybe a decade or so, attractive even in a setting like this, with a natural beauty that was normally unremarkable in today’s airbrushed world. Her hair was pulled up into a ponytail, half a graceful gray, the rest dark and lustrous. It was striking.
But her eyes, they reminded him of his former life as Air Force pararescue, of someone who’d been downrange one too many times. They were world-weary, just a bit cautious and a lot cynical. The tiny lines fanning from those brown eyes should have made her look even older, but instead they showed she smiled often, in direct contrast to the past traumas he saw when he looked beneath the surface.
It was like looking in a mirror.
She held his gaze steadily. “Are you okay?” Her voice was smoky and rough, as if scarred from a youth of too many cigarettes and too much booze. Something primal skittered down his spine.
“Yeah,” he replied, his voice not any smoother than hers. “Too much water down the pipe. Is everyone safe?”
The rasta guide chose that moment to introduce himself, much to Asa’s relief. The woman was a force to be reckoned with.
“Dude, you were awesome. I’m Tony,” he held his hand out for a shake, which Asa returned.
“I’m Asa,” he replied, “Asa Dobbs. Glad to hear everyone is safe and sound.” He took a deep breath and prepared to stand.
“Hold your horses, Dobbs,” his new partner—whether she realized it or not—said and held up a staying hand. “You took one hell of a knock. Give it a minute.” She made the peace sign. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Two,” he said dryly.
“And now?”
“Still two.” He gave her a look that would have made most men back off, but she stood her ground, so he gave in with a tiny sigh. He needed a way to insert himself into her life before they either continued down the river or found a way out of the canyon. He had to.
Since he needed her cooperation, he might as well get started now.
“I don’t have a concussion, Miss...?” He ended on a question.
“Cam Ryder,” she said, and it was as if lightning had struck.
He knew exactly who she was, just hadn’t recognized her out of battle rattle.
“Your kayak is trashed,” she informed him matter-of-factly. “Like we all would have been if you hadn’t intervened.” She shot Tony a sardonic side look, as if she didn’t really expect more from their guide.
Jesus. Cam Ryder. She’d been the most trusted journalist in the United states, hell, in the world. Had been embedded with units like the Green Berets, and there was a rumor she’d actually gone out with Delta, just without her camera. She was a legend.
He racked his brain, but couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her on television. He’d been so busy with his day job at Global Dynamics he didn’t spend much time in his condo. It was a place to crash, shower and refuel, then hit it again.
His lack of a personal life, along with the stark vision he’d had two days after Carmichael’s death—of him drunk, eating his own handgun—had made it very easy to leave Washington DC, or at least take a leave of absence from GD.
Cam Ryder. He was pretty sure he’d met her, briefly, eight or ten years ago, when they’d done an extraction of a unit of Green Berets who’d been ambushed.
He’d seen the attack. Had convinced Carmichael to warn them. They hadn’t saved everyone. There’d been too may KIAs that day, but he and the other PJs had pulled a few through. Enough that they’d felt like they’d made a difference.
What in the holy hell was she doing here? As far away from war zones as humanly possible.
As the thoughts ran through his head, he was struck by the concept she might be doing the very same thing he was. Getting away from the world.
Then he honed in on her words. His kayak was trashed. He was in the middle of the Colorado River, with no way out. Unless they had room on their raft. He wondered how much of his gear had made it.
He stood, this time unprotested by the reporter. His kayak was indeed trashed, a gaping hole in the bow. He could see some of his clothing sticking out, and it looked like most of the supplies in the forward compartment were at the bottom of the river, or on their way to Hoover Dam. He had some stuff in the back that would still be dry, so he limped over, the aches and pains in his body making themselves felt for the first time. He really hoped the Motrin had made it.
He stood over the kayak, hands on his hips, while Cam and Tony joined him. The other four people on the raft still looked a bit shellshocked, and he realized he hadn’t been unconscious all that long.
He began pulling what he could salvage from the craft, putting it in neat piles.
“So, Tony, got room for one more?”
NOW THAT ASA WAS UP and about, Cam realized that the thousand-yard stare wasn’t all that off. The man was, without question, a warrior. Not one overly long out of the field, either, if she had to guess.
He also knew who she was. Which wasn’t that much of a surprise, even if she had been out of the public eye for awhile now.
She left Mr. Dobbs to his excavation and concentrated on getting the rest of their expedition taken care of, since Tony certainly wasn’t up to the task. Carin had already soothed the other three passengers to the extent they were willing to be soothed.
All of them were shooting grateful looks toward Dobbs, and baleful glances at Tony. She was pretty sure Mr. Pederson had almost emptied the flask he thought he’d so carefully hidden.
The young married couple had already begun to bounce back, were usi
ng the mishap as an excuse to cling to each other. She watched them curiously. While she certainly wasn’t against the institution, she’d never really understood shackling herself to one person when there were so many out there, with interesting stories, interesting bodies, interesting techniques.
But to each his—or her—own.
She turned to Tony, who’d finally remembered he had passengers to take care of. “How far are we from our first campsite?”
He scratched his scraggly chinhair. “Probably two hours. Enough time for us to set up camp.” Then he displayed knowledge and common sense she hadn’t yet seen. “We could stay here, but the spot itself is bogus. To close to the water. Even in the dry season we need to worry about flash flooding. Having Asa with us won’t slow us down since the raft is built for eight. But we should get going soon, so we can set up before the sun goes down. It gets cold here fast after twilight.” He moved away with a purpose that momentarily left Cam with her mouth open. It was the most words he’d spoken, and the most cogently strung together.
She and her fellow travelers readied themselves for the rest of the trip, and then waited until Tony and Dobbs walked over, gear in hand. Tony repeated what he’d told Cam, they climbed into the raft and pushed off, carefully avoiding the area that had almost caused so much havoc.
She saw Dobbs cast a longing look at his red kayak as they prepared to round the bend, and realized what he might have given up in order to save them. “Thank you,” she said, and jerked her head toward the ruined boat.
He dipped his head in a slow nod, his eyes focused on her like she was the most important thing in the world. It was distinctly unnerving. She broke away from their staring contest—a first—to find Carin watching her with knowing eyes.
It sucked having a friend who’d known you since childhood, warts and all. There was no way Carin was going to let her forget this little moment. She braced herself for the coming needling.