Down Range (Mills & Boon M&B) (Shadow Warriors - Book 2)

by Lindsay McKenna

  Morgan had the M-4, and it was her duty to hang back, provide cover fire for Jake, who only had a pistol and a useless sniper rifle. The trees around them were short and spindly. It was the brush that would give them cover. At the same time, it rendered the sniper rifle useless. A twig could turn a bullet enough to deflect and miss the enemy target. Jake was reduced to just his pistol. That wasn’t good odds for them. Two rifles and one pistol against sixteen AK-47s.

  As Morgan allowed him to move above her, she heard the thunder of approaching horses. Her adrenaline was pumping, burning through her bloodstream. Everything was slowing down; it always did in moments when she could die. She’d been at this point before. But never did she ever feel this kind of overwhelming dread. Death was breathing down their necks. Their number was up.

  Jake managed to climb a thousand feet up into the center of the ravine, finding several large boulders. They could hide and make a stand of sorts. Rocks were better cover than tree limbs and brush. Morgan was laboring upward just as he was. By the time they reached the boulders, Jake heard the screams, shouts and horses below them. They hadn’t fooled the Taliban at all. From his vantage point, Jake could see the horses and riders milling down below the wadi, soldiers excitedly pointing upward, pointing at them, even though they couldn’t see them yet. Khogani knew they were in here. And he was coming after them.

  Morgan sobbed for breath, her lungs burning, as if on fire. Jake grabbed her hand and helped her the last few feet up to the other boulder. Between them, the rocks would act as a shield. They would have minutes to settle their breathing, take their positions and wait.

  “Apaches on station in ten minutes,” Morgan reported, breathless.

  Jake hissed a curse. There was no way for the Apaches to send missiles or Gatling gun bullets into the wadi now. Both the hunter and hunted were mixed together somewhere in the undergrowth. Apaches had infrared ability to see body heat on a human. But they wouldn’t be able to identify which was the enemy and who were the friendlies. His mouth flattened. He knelt, finding as comfortable a position as possible to rest his wrist on a rock to steady the aim of the SIG. He kept his sniper rifle across his back. This was going to come down to an old-fashioned shoot-out. The Apaches would not be able to help them. Son of a bitch!

  The screaming and cries of the Taliban sounded closer and closer. Morgan hunkered down on one knee, resting her right arm against the cold, gray boulder. There was a narrow area that had no brush below them. They would funnel in that way because it was easier than fighting through the thickets. And that was where they had to pick them off, one at a time.

  Breathing hard, sweat trickling down her ribs, her heart feeling as if it would leap out of her chest, Morgan looked behind them. Worried, she continued to search up above the brush. Was it possible that Khogani would send men on either side of the wadi above their position? Or come in from the sides at them? Yes.

  “I’m taking the area above us,” she told him, instinctively reacting to the possibility.

  “Roger that. I’ll take below us.”

  Her chest heaved with exertion. The brush snapped and shattered. The sounds of the approaching soldiers grew louder. The Taliban would appear any second now….

  Jake saw the first soldier pop up into the area. He snapped off a shot. The man screamed, toppled, his AK-47 flying into the air. He spotted a second soldier, but instantly, he moved back into the brush to hide. Jake’s mouth was tight, hands gripped around the SIG, the perspiration running off his face. The light was better, and he could see more deeply into the brush below them.

  Suddenly, he heard a scream. It had come from his left. Surprised, Jake turned, swinging his SIG toward the sound. Out of the brush a soldier came firing at him. The bullets snapped and popped around his head. He fired once, twice, three times. He felt a sudden numbness in his right calf. The soldier’s twisted, angry face suddenly took on a look of surprise. Jake’s third bullet hit him in the chest. The man was jerked backward, off his feet.

  There was a sudden commotion above them. The Taliban had not only paralleled the wadi where they were located, but had climbed above their position! They were firing from the brush, their bullets singing and ricocheting all around the boulders where they were hidden. Morgan had to move. She couldn’t hide behind the boulder because the Taliban were down below, throwing every kind of lead their way they could. The bark of the AK-47s was deafening. She crouched, trying to find the men who were making the noise above them. To her left, she heard more soldiers coming in to get them.

  Jerking a look to her left, she saw Jake go down. For a second, Morgan caught a glimpse of the blood on his lower right leg. No! There was nothing she could do to help him. It sounded as if the rest of the Taliban had climbed far above them and were coming down.

  Morgan shouldered the M-4 and popped off a grenade. It thunked, the heavy, bruising recoil of the stock against her shoulder. It flew into the thick brush. The explosion occurred, the invisible pressure-wave reaction pounding against her body. She fell to her knees, watching the fire and brush, soil and rock erupt. Screams and shrieks pierced the dust-laden air. And then more bullets flew into the position where she was kneeling.

  She heard Jake systematically firing the SIG. They were in a pincers with the Taliban closing in on all sides of them! There was no place to hide. Mouth tightening, sweat running down her temples, Morgan turned and fired a second grenade off to the left of where Jake was located. And then she fired a third one down below where six Taliban struggled to reach them on foot.

  The explosions were loud and concussive. Her ears hurt, and she could barely hear anything afterward. She was firing dangerously close, meaning they could be injured in the grenade explosions, as well. Above the fray, for a second, Morgan could hear the Apache helicopters circling above the wadi. Their rotor blades punctured the air like huge kettle drums being beaten above their heads. The pilots didn’t dare fire into the wadi because it could kill them.

  More movement came from Morgan’s left. Just as she was going to fire a grenade into the side of the wadi, a bullet struck her in the chest. She cried out, thrown back off her feet. Morgan landed hard against the boulder, momentarily stunned. Without thinking, she triggered the grenade into the brush. Burning pain floated up through her chest. Scrambling to her feet, Morgan spotted two more men to her right, aiming at Jake. She fired the last grenade, the M-4 bucking against her shoulder.

  The explosion rocked the area. It was so close to them! Hundreds of pounds of rocks and gravel exploded upward, showering them. Morgan realized she was down to bullets only. The brush moved above her. Jake was down but still firing prone, keeping half the enemy at bay. Gasping for breath, Morgan moved to the left, exposing herself to anyone that might still be below them. Two men were in the brush above her. For a second, she recognized Khogani. Hatred flowed through her. She jammed the M-4 against her shoulder. Morgan wanted that son of a bitch!

  A bullet struck her Kevlar from behind. Morgan was flung forward, off her feet. She gasped in pain. Jake turned, firing the SIG at two men coming up to finish her off from behind. Rolling, she saw the two Taliban above her leap out in front of her. She lifted the M-4, firing multiple times at the first man who charged her.

  Everything slowed down to a crawl. The man’s eyes widened in surprise as her bullets struck him three times in the chest. The AK-47 he was firing arced upward, spewing bullets up past her and into the sky. Then came his scream of rage. But her focus, her entire life, was zeroed in on the man coming right behind him. It was Khogani. Bastard! Morgan’s lips drew away from her clenched teeth. Burning pain consumed her torso where she’d taken a bullet to her Kevlar vest.

  Morgan leaped to her feet, crouched and aimed. Khogani screamed at her, raising his AK-47, firing at her at the same time. Morgan didn’t move. Her whole life was through the scope of the M-4. She had his head in the sights, and she pulled the trigger. As she did, her left leg suddenly became unstable. Surprised, she watched as her bullet we
nt an inch left of the Taliban leader’s head. He was no more than ten feet away when her left leg collapsed beneath her.

  Grunting, the M-4 slamming into the rocks, her hand still gripping it, Morgan saw Khogani suddenly give her a feral grin. He had glee written across his bearded face as he pulled his scimitar from the sheath and held it in his left hand. He was going to decapitate her.

  She’d been hit and hit bad. Her eyesight started graying. Morgan felt herself bleeding out. The last thing she was going to do before she lost consciousness was kill Khogani. He’d killed Mark. He’d murdered Reza’s village of a hundred and fifty Shinwari people.

  Her gaze held his baleful one. He was triumphant now as he slowed down, seeing she was lying on her back, helpless. He didn’t think she had the physical strength to pick up the M-4 lying useless in her right hand. He moved the scimitar, slinging the AK-47 over his shoulder, wrapping his hands around the handle of the curved blade. His eyes gleamed with excitement as he approached her.

  Morgan felt her heart pounding in her chest. Felt the warmth of blood spurting out of her thigh. Her fingers closed around the M-4. Khogani was six feet away, smiling down at her, his eyes filled with malice.

  No doubt, he didn’t think she had any fight left in her, and she was counting on this. She used every ounce of her hatred to lift that M-4 and aim it at Khogani. With superhuman effort, black dots dancing across her vision, Morgan hauled the M-4 up, aimed and pulled the trigger. She watched the bullet strike Khogani in the face.

  The Taliban leader was thrown backward six feet. He landed in a heap, the scimitar flying out of his hand, falling on the nearby rocks.

  Gasping for breath, Morgan tried to listen for more Taliban. It was suddenly quiet except for the Apaches thunking heavily overhead, watching through their avionics the carnage and bloodbath below.

  “Jake!” she yelled. “Jake!”

  “I’m here. Where are you?”

  Morgan sank to the ground, breathing hard, feeling pain starting to move up her leg and into her gut. “Eleven o’clock. I’m hit….”

  “Hold on….”

  The M-4 slid uselessly out of Morgan’s fingers. She blinked, trying to hold on to consciousness. Jake appeared, limping badly, his face hard and unreadable. A lot of blood oozed from his lower leg. His eyes widened as he stared down at her. That look told her everything. Morgan suddenly felt very weak, no matter how hard she battled against it.

  Jake fell to her side, holstering his SIG. He ignored the pain of his leg wound and quickly jerked the tourniquet off the position it was held on her left shoulder. Her left leg had been trapped beneath her body.

  He gently moved her so that he could carefully straighten out her leg. It worried him how pasty Morgan’s face was.

  “Lie still, babe,” he rasped, opening the tourniquet and quickly placing it high, around her left thigh.

  Morgan had taken a bullet, and it had not only hit the flesh of her thigh, but it had shattered her femur. The white bone stuck up out of the raw flesh and scared him as little else ever would. Gulping, Jake quickly tightened the tourniquet down so hard that she screamed and lost consciousness. The blood spurting out of the torn area stopped. He called on his radio for medevac. They had to get out of here! A medevac would never be able to land near this ravine.

  Jake looked down at Morgan, her eyes shut, her mouth slack. With shaking fingers, he pressed them against the carotid artery located on the side of her slender neck. There was a pulse. But very weak and slow, indicating just how much blood she’d already lost. The tourniquet would slow down most of the bleeding. Did he have a chance to get her out of here alive or not? He didn’t know.

  Turning, Jake grabbed some green duct tape out of his gear and quickly wrapped it around his lower leg and knee. A bullet had passed through the meat of his calf. If he could just use the duct tape to support that leg, he could carry Morgan out of the wadi and to help. He heard the Apaches circling. They’d heard his desperate request for the medevac to land on the goat path, just clear of the wadi.

  Had they killed all the Taliban soldiers? Jake didn’t know. He thought so, but he couldn’t be sure. It was a terrible risk. Leave Morgan here, alone and unprotected, and go see if there were any more bad guys left alive in the wadi hunting them down, or not?

  His mind moved through how many were killed. Pain was affecting his thought processes. Jake savagely willed himself to think clearly and gut through his pain. Yes, all seventeen were accounted for. There was no one left.

  Jake heaved to his feet, testing the duct tape around his wound. Looking down, he realized he could never put Morgan in a fireman’s carry. Not with the bone of her femur sticking out like that. He’d cause her more injury, probably kill her by ripping another artery open. Breathing hard, shaking with adrenaline from the battle, Jake leaned down, sliding his arms beneath her shoulders and her knees. God, help me get her out of here. Just give me the strength….

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jake shielded Morgan in his arms, turning his back toward the Black Hawk medevac landing on the goat path south of the wadi. Rocks, dirt and dust exploded around him as the rotors tore up the area and the helo landed. He fell to his knees, leaned over as far as he could, pulling Morgan close, trying to protect her from the flying debris kicked up by eighty-miles-an-hour gusts.

  Gasping for breath, Jake wasn’t sure he could rise out of the kneeling position due to loss of blood. The helo was less than a hundred feet away. Every time he looked down at Morgan, her head tipped back, throat exposed and her lips parted, her flesh whitened a little more with every passing minute. Jake desperately willed his life back into hers.

  The two combat medics leaped out of the helo, running hard down the goat path toward them. The aircrew chief, Jackson, a man in his forties, looked grimly down at her wounded leg. The white femur stuck out of Morgan’s bloodied trousers, stark and jolting.

  “We got her,” he yelled to Jake over the roar of the rotor wash. Jackson gripped Jake’s shoulder and then barked orders over at the younger combat medic, Tennison.

  “She’s critical, a nine liner!” Jake yelled, his voice cracking. He looked up into the man’s eyes. Jake knew what he knew: Morgan could die in transit. His mind whirled, he felt dizzy, and he held on tightly to her limp body.

  “Let her go,” Jackson ordered, gripping his hand and prying Jake’s fingers away from beneath her bloodied thigh.

  “He’s wounded, too,” Tennison called, spotting blood on the SEAL’s lower leg.

  “Goddammit!” Jake yelled at the younger blond medic. “You take care of her!”

  In moments, the medics had lifted Morgan carefully between them. Jake fell to his hands and knees, gasping for air. He wasn’t sure he could make that torturous climb out of the wadi. His legs felt like jelly. Even as toughened as he was as a SEAL, he’d pushed far beyond his own physical limits. Terrified for Morgan, he gritted his teeth, pushed up to his knees and, somehow, staggered to his feet.

  Jake picked up the M-4 and his ruck that had the sniper rifle strapped to the back of it. Turning, he forced his cramping legs to move into a trot. Ahead, the rotor wash violently buffeted him, flinging up dirt and pebbles. Jake shielded his eyes with one hand and bowed his head against his chest, weaving at a run toward the opened door of the Black Hawk.

  It was Tennison who hauled him on board, gripping his shoulder, helping him in the rest of the way. Jake spun down past the medics, avoiding the litter strapped to the deck where Jackson was feverishly working over Morgan.

  Sinking to his knees, Jake twisted around and shrugged off his ruck. He brought the two weapons down between him and the wall of the chopper. He squeezed into a corner, sitting down and drawing up his legs against his body so both medics had as much room as they needed in order to help Morgan.

  The Black Hawk spooled up, broke earth, the thunking blades pulling strongly, heading straight up. Jake felt woozy but shook it off. He watched as Tennison fitted an oxygen mask over Morgan’s fa
ce. Jackson ripped open several packages of Celox, a blood coagulant, and poured it into her torn thigh to stop all the bleeding. He quickly cut off the left sleeve around Morgan’s arm, inserted an IV. The other medic pulled out the whole blood from a nearby cooler, handing it to Jackson. The life-giving blood would flood her cardiovascular system. It would start to make up for the loss of blood, and it could make a difference by getting enough fluids into her body. It would stop her heart from going into cardiac arrest.

  Jake felt helpless. All he could do was sit there as a witness. The medics quickly placed a large field dressing over her leg, carefully covering the exposed bone. And then they drew on a set of trauma pants. The LSP air trauma trousers fitted from her ankles to halfway up Morgan’s torso. They pumped air into the pants to force blood from her lower extremities back into the center of her body so her heart had enough blood to keep it working. The pants would also stabilize the open fracture and slow down the shock eating away at her.

  Jackson was pushing one syringe after another of drugs into the IV line, dropping them wherever they landed around him on the deck. He was snapping orders to Tennison, who appeared shaken. His eyes had gone huge when he’d realized Morgan was a woman, not a man.

  Pushing the sweat out of his eyes, Jake saw a nearby crew helmet, grabbed it and pulled it on. Above his head, he inserted the jack into an outlet that would allow him to hear inter-cabin communications.

  “Lieutenant,” Jackson snapped, looking up toward the cockpit, “you get this bird red lined. This patient isn’t gonna make it. Fly straight to Bagram. I want to be switched over to the E.R. trauma surgery channel at the hospital, stat.”

  Jake’s heart raced with dread. The older combat medic’s mouth was flattened, his eyes narrowed and focused solely on Morgan. Pulling the mic closer to his lips, Jake said, “She’s type O positive blood. She’s lost close to two and a half pints from what I can estimate.”