Wings of Gold Series

by Tappan, Tracy

  “Y-yes, but…”

  Weirdly, understanding words just kept coming out of his mouth. “Terrorists are trained to fit in, Farrin. There was no way you could have—”

  “Hey,” Shane interjected. “Don’t mean to break up the therapy session, but I think I hear someone coming.”

  Jason snapped his focus over to Shane.

  “Direction of the front gate.”

  Jason planted a boot on the bed where the lockbox was and hoisted himself up level with one of a string of windows lining the upper wall of the ward. He hadn’t really expected to see anything when he shoved aside the curtain to verify the security of the front gate, but—

  The gate was wide open, and through it was pouring a boatload of men!

  Holy crap. And all of them were wearing baggy shirts and pants, and black Puma-like sneakers known as Cheetahs. He knew what clothing like that meant—as a SPECOPS pilot, he’d been briefed about men who dressed this way: terrorist fighters.

  But not JEM…

  “Taliban!” he snarled over his shoulder at Shane. “About fifty or sixty men, incoming.”

  “Fuck!” Shane bit out.

  Jason rounded on Farrin. “Is there any other means of communication in this outfit?”

  She paled. “No. Nothing. Just our personal cell phones, and mine isn’t internationally coded. IHMR didn’t pay for that…not when they provided me with a satellite phone.”

  Dammit. “Our cells are equally useless.” Why would either he or Shane need phones with international coverage? Shane worked with a SEAL in charge of comm, and Jason flew with an entire cockpit full of communications equipment plus a radio in his survival vest—now all broken or stolen.

  “We need to set up a firing position,” Shane butted in. “Pick off squirters as they arrive.” He tried to heft himself to a sitting position but didn’t make it.

  “With you still seeing cross-eyed? Negative.” Jason jumped off the bed. “Besides, there are too many tangoes.” Who would cover the space between the front gate and this medical tent in about three minutes. “We need to hide, then get the hell out of here.” As soon as fifty backs are turned.

  He scanned the room for hiding places. His vision fell on a six-foot-tall cabinet pushed against the wall at the end of one row of beds. It was set next to a crude nurse’s station: stacks of gauze pads, capped off hypos, jar of cotton balls, and, for some reason, a hot plate with a large metal cooking pot on it, like the kind used for boiling up large quantities of spaghetti.

  He raced to the cabinet and wrenched open the double doors. Shelves on one side and—yes!—closet space for white lab coats on the other. He pulled three coats off the rod, rolled them around their hangers, then jammed them onto one of the shelves. Hurrying over to Shane, he grabbed two fistfuls of the man’s hospital gown, yanking so hard to get him up, the ties snapped off the back of the gown and the material tore away. Jason stumbled backward, the hospital gown in his hands, leaving a naked and pissed-looking Shane on the gurney.

  If Jason had been a woman, he would’ve been impressed. Your friend is packed with solid muscle. But a quick check of Farrin showed her still pale and distracted.

  He charged back over. “Come on!” Looping one of Shane’s arms over his neck, he hauled him off the gurney.

  Shane’s IV bag tumbled down to his knees, bobbing on its rubber line.

  Jason ripped the needle out of Shane’s wrist while Farrin observed in horror. Sorry, but I don’t have time to follow AMA nursing standards right now. He hustled Shane over to the cabinet and maneuvered him into the coat side. “If it’s me, I’ll knock.” He thrust the H&K 416 into Shane’s hands. “Anybody else opens this door, start firing. And don’t,” he ordered sharply, “pass out while you’re in there.” Sweat beads as big as matchstick heads were already standing out on Shane’s brow.

  Jason shut the door, then rushed back over and hefted the laundryman onto his shoulder. A corpse would, oh, you know, probably alert the Taliban intruders to something being up. “Clean up the blood, Farrin!” He raced for the washroom, time drumming in his head as he ran—an over-loud ticking and tocking that marked the ceaseless countdown toward the Taliban’s arrival. What did he have…thirty more seconds? Forty-five?

  He dumped the dead body into a large laundry hamper and lumped old scrubs on top of the corpse. The rapid beat of his heart was ramming blood into his veins too fast. His legs wanted to stretch out and run again. Everything in him was restless and agitated, too eager to move and never stop.

  He hotfooted it back into the ward, grabbing his own rifle and the two packs out from under the gurney. “Sorry about the blood,” he said to Farrin. She’d managed to swipe up most of it, but that was probably the last thing she’d needed to do.

  Foreign voices drawing close…

  They were speaking Pashto, probably, the language of both northern Pakistan and Afghanistan, but who the hell cared? It was foreign, and it was bad. He took Farrin by the arm and urged her, half-running, toward the front of the medical tent—toward the voices, which got his heart into a boxing match with his ribs. But that’s where a very large desk was located, long enough to handle his height, but also with concealing sides stretching all the way to the floor.

  He darted behind the desk and went down on his knees, tugging Farrin down with him.

  The voices were now right outside the door…rapid-fire words…instructions being given by a man in charge…

  “Under!” he hissed, his temples throbbing, his chest on fire with aggression. If he was required to kill again, he couldn’t imagine having a single problem with it.

  Farrin lay down on her back and scooted, sideways-caterpillar-style, under the desk.

  Door hinges creaking open…

  Pulse hammering, he bolted in after her—on her…which was the only place he could fit, and even then, barely. The space between his back and the underside of the desktop was nil, and it squashed him down on her, hip to hip, his knees to the tops of her shins—he was so much taller than she was. A breath emptied out of Farrin; warm air streamed past his ear.

  Feet entered the ward and stomped past the desk. “Kaleem!” was called out.

  Jason could feel Farrin’s heart banging fast and frantic against his own. He stared down at her. There was a little light coming from the chair-side of the desk, and it cast her face in a pattern of dark and white: light skin and dark blood like a Rorschach inkblot. He could see the shadows of her eyes. She was scared as hell.

  The strange urge came again…to take care of her…to wrap his arms around her and pull her closer. A stupid urge. The concept of women needing comfort and protection was an age-old sham. Underneath their fragile exteriors, women really hid the strength and mettle to crush. They were for keeping at a firm arm’s length, not pulling close.

  A terrorist walked too near to the desk… The toe of a sneaker clipped one of the wooden legs.

  Jason stiffened.

  More conversation…

  This was getting painful. His hipbones were jabbing sharply into hers. He was trying to prop his elbows on either side of her to keep his body weight off, but his arms were wedged in tight and not doing the best of jobs. He probably felt like one of the larger variety of livestock on top of her. Yeah…

  A grimace crossed her mouth. She opened her knees to the full allowance of the space to gain some relief. The movement created an opening between her thighs, and zuuuup—he slid right into it. His dick and balls, hanging free in a pair of super-loose pajama pants, not even a pair of underpants—which had disappeared with the rest of his clothes—to offer support, had no other place to go but forward. His whole package snuggled flush against her crotch, and…

  Instant heat flood.

  He parted his lips, a curse forming. He couldn’t imagine worse or more mortifying timing, but he went hard. Just…inflated, as if his dick was attached to a bicycle pump. He clamped his eyes shut, and, behind the backs of his lids, pictured himself leaping out from under the
desk and waving his arms at the tangoes. Hey, here I am. Kill me now. The ensuing execution might be better than this. A bead of sweat crept down his temple. Maybe Farrin would do him a favor and not notice.

  He checked eyes with her, and—Oh, she’d noticed.

  Outside in the ward, bodies were thumped onto beds. Men groaned.

  He gave her a sheepish I’m sorry look, and…

  …by the way, your breasts feel awesome.

  Damn. But, yeah, they did. Very soft and cushiony. Her scrubs had hidden how well-endowed she was…not that he’d noticed. He was paying attention now, close attention—to everything: the width of her pelvic girdle, the supple feel of her inner thighs. And hell if this woman didn’t have the kind of full-figured body that made him want to stick around and find out more. He’d never been particularly attracted to slender women. They were too witchy. Truth: bad witches in children’s fairy tales were never plump. So he supposed full-figured women just seemed more inviting to him, more welcoming. And while Farrin wasn’t necessarily plump, he was definitely getting the sense she was va-voom!

  Men tramped out the door. More rapid-fire Pashto, fading off…

  Jason waited, not moving. He really wanted off Farrin, but the coast wasn’t completely clear. He could still hear men moaning in the ward. He shifted, and rolled his eyes when he inadvertently pressed himself even closer to Farrin’s crotch and all the goodness there.

  Her breath puffed out, more warmth to tickle his ear.

  His imagination was starting to go to town…her labored breathing heaving those luscious breasts of hers against his bare chest…her wet heat closing around his rigid arousal…

  It was getting awfully hot under this desk. Wasn’t it? Maybe he should—

  Blam! Blam!

  He nearly sprang out of his skin.

  Blam! Blam! Blam!

  Jesus!

  Then—“Clear,” he heard Shane say.

  He waited one more second, confirming the moaning in the ward had stopped, then backed the hell out. He clipped his head on the bottom edge of the desk as he came tumbling out like Bozo reeling from a clown car, landing on his ass, gulping air. He looked down at his crotch. His pants were tented huge as a big top—to go along with the circus metaphor he’d started. And…hell. He couldn’t remember ever being able to get this large.

  Farrin crawled out, and, still on her hands and knees, didn’t balk at staring directly at the elephant in the room—namely, his mammoth erection. It wasn’t exactly a clinical inspection, either.

  He scrambled to decide if he should feel aroused by her inspecting his dick, or embarrassed. He went with turned on…until she lifted her eyes and met his. Then he blushed through every layer of his skin. “I…” He stopped. He had no explanation. Because there wasn’t one. Who got a boner in circumstances like these?

  She offered him a gift. “It’s the adrenaline,” she said.

  He almost laughed. Yeah, sure it is. Man, he really hadn’t noticed this woman. Fact was, she was beautiful, even with the mask of blood on her face. Not flawlessly beautiful—her nose was off-center, and her dark and very full eyebrows were a little too full—but, hey, even better. Her imperfections added character to her faintly exotic looks. Her skin was what he’d call off-white; clearly not Caucasian, but not very dark, either. Her hair was a stunning, lustrous black, and had to be very full; her braid was thick as a horse’s tail. Her mouth was graceful and generous. The kind of lips he could imagine both kissing the top of a baby’s downy head and giving him an exceptionally satisfying blow job. The kind of lips attached to the type of woman a man married.

  He took a good, solid five seconds to blink over that. What the hell?

  He climbed to his feet. The Pakistani shirt he was wearing was long, and thank God for small mercies. He grabbed the two packs and his CAR 15 rifle, then offered Farrin his hand to help her to her feet.

  She didn’t cower away from him as if he was a circus sideshow—THE AMAZING THREE-LEGGED MAN AND HIS ERECTILE MARVELS!—but put her soft palm in his.

  Maybe he liked her a little for that.

  Maybe he liked her a lot.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The coast recently cleared of squirters in the patient ward by Shane upping his kill total substantially, he, Jace, and Doc Barr were now outside the wire,16 running undetected in a direct route for the concealment of some trees bordering the aid station. Banking on the shots Shane had fired in the hospital ward being heard by the bad guys, the three of them had bugged out immediately after popping from their hideouts. It wouldn’t take long for the bad guys to cover the small compound and arrive at the hospital tent, where they’d find all the wounded men they’d left behind—plus one guard—permanently nodded off. Too bad, so sad. What a fucking pisser for them.

  Doc Barr pulled ahead of Shane, but he was in too much pain to be properly humiliated by that. At this point he could also care less that he was basically doing this run bare-assed in an open-backed hospital gown. He was too busy fantasizing about going back to the last days of Hell Week in BUD/S training when he’d had walking pneumonia. Because moving on liquid muscles, breathing through petroleum, and being dizzy as a dieting ballerina was fucking paradise compared to how he felt now.

  Get your shit together, Shane, and embrace the suck. This crap is nothing. Remember all those times your dad beat your ass. Compared to that, this is a cakewalk.

  Those were the words Jace told Shane to get him through Hell Week. But Jason was wrong. This was the worst Shane had ever felt, or damned close.

  He’d take walking pneumonia, or one of his dad’s backhands—even one where all four of Hank’s Tungsten knuckles connected—any day over having a burning rebar pole stabbed two feet deep into his ass, not to mention other various tools of torture stabbed into his shoulder and triceps. He might not be the smartest kid in class, but it didn’t take much brain power to figure that the dude who invented surgery drugs hadn’t intended for whoever was on the receiving end of them to be in a hard run within half hour of waking up. With every step Shane took, barfing was moving higher and higher up on his action plan. He probably would’ve done the Technicolor yawn already if there was anything in his stomach to ralph. But last he’d eaten was back at the J-bad base before the rescue mission launch, and that’d been…how many hours ago? A lot. He also—AH!

  Liquid the texture of a runny omelet began to jettison from his nose. Fuck! He was upchucking. The burning eruption forced his jaws apart and made him bend over at the waist. He tried to keep running, but his shuddering shoulders and drunken legs slowed him to a stagger…and with less than fifty yards left to the tree line, too.

  Jason sprinted over to him. “On my back!” he ordered.

  “I’m fine.” The ground made a liar out of him when it reached up and socked him a good one.

  Jace’s face floated above him, his eyebrows narrowing in on each other.

  Shane groaned. Where was he? Right. On his back on the ground, his bare ass getting friendly with dirt.

  Shouting men and gunfire erupted.

  “We’ve been spotted,” Jason growled. Without taking any more opinion polls about it, Jason heaved Shane off the ground and hiked him up into a piggyback ride.

  Not a very military-like position, but it was the best for allowing Shane to grip his rifle with one hand—not that he could hit the broad side of a barn right now—while holding onto Jason with the other.

  “You are a moose,” Jason grunted as he took off. “And don’t spew on me.”

  Doc Barr gasped. “The Taliban are getting in jeeps.”

  Shane heard engines fire up. “BOHICA,” he said next to Jace’s ear. Bend Over, Here It Comes Again.

  Jason increased his speed for the tree line.

  Greenery whipped around them, then the landscape suddenly angled upward. The aid station was built in a gully between two ranges of uneven rock. Which meant to get out, they had to go up.

  Jason’s breathing got louder, and their forwa
rd speed slowed by a sizeable margin. “This isn’t working,” he panted. “We’re going too slow.” He dropped Shane to his feet, but kept a steadying hold on his arm. Jason asked Doc Barr, “Do you know anything about this terrain? Is there a place we can hide?”

  She thought about it, her eyebrows pressed together, her own chest heaving. “I’ve heard there are caves up there.”

  “Okay. Good. Do you have any idea where?”

  “No. I’m sorry.”

  Tires skidded to a halt at the base of the tree line.

  “Uh-oh.” Shane burped, which highlighted the fact that the inside of his mouth tasted like rotting ass. “More con-fuck-ulated shit. Let’s frag ’em out, Jace.” He slapped his waist for a grenade. Where…?

  The doc grabbed one of Shane’s arms and draped it over her shoulder. “I’ll take one side,” she barked at Jason, “you take the other.”

  They broke into a run again, Shane sandwiched between them like he was a fucking kindergartener. Hold on to both Mommy and Daddy, little guy. This time he did take the time to feel properly humiliated. Although the dual assistance did help him get his legs moving under him into a sort of bogus, air-cycling run. Whoa, he was weightless now. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee…light-headed, too…

  He’s running across the grassy field to get to the forest bordering the stables where Jason’s mom keeps her horses. Jason’s brother, Danny, is with them, and all three of them have long sticks. Rifles! When they get into the forest, they’ll divide up, one will be a Nazi, two others, the US Marines, hunting the bad guy. War is their favorite game. This is awesome! Jason and Danny have been gone all summer at their aunt and uncle’s, and Shane has missed playing with them a lot. At first he hated it when his best friend would leave for so many months, but then he saw how Jason was when he got back from his aunt’s. Not as stressed. Kind of happy, even. For the first year that Shane knew Jason, he didn’t understand why those visits were so important. Or also why Jason needed his two dogs to be his pals so much. Jason is a rich kid. What problems can he have? It’s only later that he finds out…