“Okay.” Leah gripped his web belt, standing a little to his left. The ruck he carried was huge and she knew she’d have to be body aware and not run into it and lose her balance. Looking down, Leah saw it was a rocky surface with hardly any soil, composed instead of mostly small stones. She felt Kell move and she did the same. At first, it was tough because she was sometimes stumbling blindly, the toes of her boots hitting rocks she couldn’t see.
Kell stopped. He turned, pulling down his goggles, his lips near her ear. “When you walk,” he advised, “don’t lift your boot, just slide it forward about an inch above the ground. That way, the toe of your boot will encounter the rock and it won’t make you trip and fall.”
Nodding, she got it. Okay, SEAL walk time. Leah often wondered how they were so silent. Kell turned and started to walk forward, a little slower for her so she could try out this new way of moving her feet.
Her breath came in gulps, vapor jetting out of her mouth. It was damn cold! Below freezing. Now Leah wished she’d had a pair of gloves. Her fingers wrapped around Kell’s belt went numb. She was able to stick her fingers of her left hand into her cammie pocket.
Concentrating on her feet, Kell suddenly halted. She slammed into him. He didn’t move. Scared, Leah knew Kell saw or heard something she hadn’t. Desperately, she tried to see into the night, but it was impossible. And then Kell very slowly crouched down. Leah mimicked his unhurried movement. Her pulse quickened. All she could hear was the wind.
She felt Kell’s hand bump into her knee. He pushed down on it. Did he want her flat on the ground? He wasn’t speaking, so it meant someone was nearby. Her pulse leaped with fear. Leah carefully moved, trying not to make a sound as she got down on her belly, the sharp rocks cutting into her thighs and lower legs. Kell followed suit. She was scrunched up beside his long body, watching him peer intently at something she couldn’t see.
He then reached out, his large hand over her boonie cap, gently pushing her head downward, asking her to go to ground. Oh, God, what did he see? What was happening? She pressed her face against the cold rock and soil, barely breathing, heart skittering with fear.
And then, about two minutes later, Leah heard the faint tinkling of bells. Frowning, her face buried in her arms, breathing through her mouth, she thought she was hearing things.
Kell watched the forty goats being herded by a young Afghan kid on a narrow path fifty feet below them. His mind worked swiftly. The kid was about ten years old. He wasn’t looking around, he was just following the bleating goats, wrapped in a dark wool cape, shoulders hunched forward, his small rolled cap over his shaggy black hair.
The lead goat, a nanny, had a damn loud bell around her neck. Kell wondered if it was going to roust out the Taliban early or not. Unable to know, he wanted Leah to lie quiet until the herd passed their location. He could feel her tension, but she’d accurately understood what he’d silently asked of her.
It took ten minutes before Kell was ready to ease to his hands and knees. “Come up slowly,” he told her quietly into his mic against his lips.
Leah wanted to groan under the weight of the ruck bearing down on her, but bit down on her lip, swallowing the urge. She struggled to her hands and knees. To her relief, Kell offered his hand and pulled her up to her feet once more. Leah could barely see gray, hazy light silhouetting the peaks of the Hindu Kush mountains. Her heart was pounding and she felt fearful.
Kell stood and looked around, as if nothing had happened. As if this was a daily nonevent in his life. It sure as hell was an event in hers. Yet, she trusted Kell with her life. He seemed unconcerned as he casually searched the area with his gaze. Leah waited, rubbing her hands together, trying to warm them.
“Here,” he said, taking off his gloves and giving them to her. Why hadn’t he thought of that earlier? Kell had a second pair in his ruck and he’d get them out once they were at their recon-op position.
Leah could barely see Kell’s face. He pulled the NVGs down, hanging them around his corded neck. When one corner of his mouth pulled up into that slow smile, she felt heat rippling through her from her toes to her head. All he had to do was look at her and her body was coming unhinged.
Later, they lay on their bellies just below a ridge line. Kell had his binos—binoculars—and he was doing a slow sweep of the cave openings down below them. He could sometimes smell the spices of cooking wafting on the chilled morning air. Chances were everyone was up, eating and having their morning tea. All was quiet for now. He turned, placing the binos to one side, and reached into one of his cammie pockets. Drawing out two protein bars, he handed one to Leah.
“Breakfast,” Kell told her. “Sorry, no coffee.” He saw her smile and nod. It was pure enjoyment watching those tapered fingers of hers gracefully remove the wrapping. He couldn’t help but wonder how her hands would feel against his bare skin. Kell had gotten a taste of it last night as Leah had tentatively laid her hand on his hard belly. Only a thin tan T-shirt had been a barrier between her hand and his taut flesh. Teasing heat had shot downward into his groin from just that light touch of hers.
“What now?” Leah asked in a low voice, hungrily biting into the bar.
“Wait. When they start coming out and mounting up, I want you to start looking at what types of weapons they’re carrying. Count how many RPGs among them. And if you see a Stinger missile, that’s even more important.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ll be looking for Khogani, the leader of this motley crew,” he growled. “He’s my HVT.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
LEAH’S HEAD THROBBED unremittingly as she continued to count the gathering Taliban below. The sun had just risen. She’d heard voices drifting up toward them as all the soldiers turned to the east, laid out their rugs, knelt on them and said their prayers.
Kell had given her his wheel book, something all snipers carried on them, to make notes, drawings and observations. He had a handheld computer between his large hands. She used the spotter scope with a piece of gray cloth across the lens so it wouldn’t reflect the sun’s rays and give away their position.
More and more men filed out, talking in Pashto, leading their newly saddled horses. The milling around of men and animals caused her a lot of problems with her count, but she kept an accurate tally.
Kell panned his Night Force scope slowly over the crowd looking for Farukh Khogani. He was the older brother to Sangar Khogani, who had personally started a tribal war with the Shinwari, their neighbors for thousands of years. Sangar had been killed by a woman Marine Corps sniper who’d worked with a SEAL friend of his, Lieutenant Jake Ramsey, from another platoon. She’d blown his head off. Kell found it amusing, in a sick way, that he was going after another member of the Khogani clan who ruled over the Hill tribe.
They were a murdering sort, a powerful opium-dealing tribe who partially controlled the Khyber Pass leading from Pakistan into Afghanistan. The Shinwari, who also owned part of the Khyber Pass area, had signed papers with the US, promising cooperation in stopping Al-Qaeda and Taliban from using the pass to run fertilizer, ammunition and men into Afghanistan.
And therein lay the seeds of discontent: The Hill tribe wanted the money that came from keeping the pass open. The Shinwari were stopping their destructive goods from going into Pakistan. Sangar Khogani had thought that murdering a village of one hundred and fifty innocent Shinwari would make them back off and open up the pass to their munitions. But it hadn’t. SEAL teams were routinely sent out to hunt the next Khogani leader, thereby slowing the transfer of munitions to the IED bomb makers in Afghanistan.
Kell didn’t want to attempt to take the bastard out right now because it was two hundred against the two of them. He refused to put Leah in such a severely compromised situation. He might have if he’d had his teammate, Brad Doran, whom everyone called Clutch, at his side. As a sniper team, they could gun and run with the best of them. With Leah at his side, they’d never be able to keep the pace he’d have to set in
order to hightail it out once he took down Khogani. No, he’d wait. He had infinite patience when it came to stalking his quarry.
Sure enough, Kell spotted the leader, a man with red hair and a thick, unkempt beard wearing a black roll cap, a black wool cape and trousers. He watched with curiosity as the soldiers surrounded him, cheering, waving their AK-47s in the air, calling his name like he was a minor rock god. Rocks was right, Kell thought, looking through the crosshairs at Khogani’s head.
He rode a white horse, typical of a leader in these parts. White horses were reserved for chieftains only. No one else could afford such an animal in the first place. The horse’s bridle was decked out with red-and-black tassels, and so were the leather reins. This guy really knew how to put on a show.
Kell picked up his camera and made sure the material was over the lens so it wouldn’t flash and alert anyone below. He had a long-range lens on the Canon camera, and he took a number of shots of not only Khogani, but the officer corps who surrounded him. Every piece of information was important. Every identity and picture, vital. Puzzle pieces that eventually would yield a much larger picture to Intel.
Soon, they all rode off to the south. When they were out of sight, Kell rose up and moved stiffly.
“We’re safe,” he told Leah. “They’re gone.”
Leah nodded, folding up his wheel book and handing it over to him. She’d been lying on her belly for three hours. The stiffness from the helicopter crash made her move slowly. She finally sat up, crossing her legs after making sure her head wasn’t above the ridge. Otherwise, she’d be a target for a passing Taliban sniper. No place was really safe.
“How are you doing?” Kell asked, noting she looked pale.
“Headache is all.”
Nodding, Kell took off his ruck, opened it, found the Motrin and handed her two tablets. “It’s going to come and go for a week or so,” he warned her.
“Thanks.” She took her CamelBak hose and turned it on, sucking water into her mouth. She’d been unable to drink while taking observations of the Taliban below. Popping down the Motrin, she drank even more water.
Kell reached into his ruck and pulled out the sat phone, making a call to Master Chief Axton. Taking the notes that Leah had made in his wheel book, plus what he’d placed on his handheld computer, he called in his report on the weapons—number, type and make—to his boss.
“Good intel,” Ax congratulated him. “How’s Chief Mackenzie doing?”
“Improving,” Kell answered, not willing to tell Ax that she had been on this mission with him. He’d have a bird and a half. Plus, he’d chew his ass out.
“Look, I’m getting hell rained down on me from this asshole, a Major Hayden Grant. Did you know Mackenzie is his ex-wife?”
“Yes, I knew that.”
“Well, he’s demanding she get picked up like yesterday. I told him no. And now, he’s got the commander of the 80th on the horn with our LT Dragon, ripping him a new asshole. Can you tell me if there’s any way we can exfil her today? Tomorrow?”
Kell scowled. He felt protective of Leah. She didn’t like her ex and even though he didn’t know why, it didn’t matter. “No way. We just gave you figures on two hundred Taliban right under our noses. You want to send a Shadow helo into this kind of moving mess?” Kell knew Ax wouldn’t.
Axton breathed hard and cursed. “You know I don’t.”
“We’ve already lost three crewmen and a bird trying to pick up two of our brothers a few days ago,” Kell said. “Have you picked them up yet?”
“Hell no. Things are too hot out there and there’s just too much activity.”
“Then tell that major to shut the fuck up.” Kell felt strongly that Leah was getting manipulated. Why, he didn’t know, but his thoughts went dark when Ax mentioned Grant’s name to him.
Ax laughed. “Yeah, I’ll do that. I’ll let LT Dragon know, and the ball’s in his court.”
“If you want more proof, park a satellite over this area. Head counts don’t lie.”
“We got drones up and they’re showing us what you’re telling us. The place is unsafe as hell. Are you all right where you are?”
“We’re okay. And until I can get Chief Mackenzie safely exfilled out of here, I’m not going to actively pursue hunting Khogani. Are you okay with that?”
“Fine. Just keep to your little spot in paradise, do your day ops and hide at night. That’s as good as it gets for right now.”
“Roger. Out.” Kell shut off the phone and noticed Leah staring at him. She’d heard the whole conversation. And she looked upset. He wanted to know why. He pulled out a bag of M&M’s and offered her some.
“Dessert for a job well-done,” he told her.
Leah dug in and got some. “Thanks.”
He munched on a few of them, savoring the sugar shot. He told her about the conversation. He watched her closely as he covered the fact that Major Grant had gotten her father involved in trying to exfil her—she paled. “Care to tell me what’s going on here?”
Leah felt her stomach turn. Kell’s voice was low with carefully veiled feelings. She sensed his guard-dog-like sense of protectiveness was up and in place for her. And she’d heard his voice grow utterly cold on that call. “My ex-husband thinks he can control me, my life and anything else he damn well wants to,” she muttered angrily.
“He’s dragged your father into it,” Kell said evenly, popping a few more M&M’s into his mouth. “Does Grant have him wrapped around his finger, too?”
Snorting, Leah stared down at the ground, getting a grip on her emotions. “Hayden is a sociopath,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “A manipulator when it comes to what he wants.” Her.
Kell looked at Leah sharply. “Are you just throwing that word around?” He saw Leah lift her head, her eyes bleak. What the hell had Grant done to her?
“He’s never been seen by a shrink, but he should be.” She’d needed two years of psychiatric counseling to get her head out of the hole she’d allowed Hayden to bury it in. “My…counselor. She said he was a borderline-sociopathic personality,” she muttered, shame riffling through her. She couldn’t stand the sharpened look in Kell’s gray eyes. There was rage in them. Not at her, she hoped. Maybe at Hayden?
Leah knew Kell had put some of it together. And just now, he’d argued for her to stay with him. Here, she felt safe. Even out in the middle of the badlands with Taliban surrounding them, Leah felt safer than she would if Hayden flew into Camp Bravo to confront her about the loss of the helicopter. She never wanted to see him again. Not ever.
Kell saw the way her full lips tucked in at the corners. Yeah, she was hiding a hell of a lot of secrets. Why? He could see disgust in her eyes toward her ex-husband. And banked rage. What did he have on her, if anything? Did she have something on him? Was she hiding a secret? What was it?
“Why does your ex want you back to Bravo so damned bad?”
“He probably wants to pin the crash of the helo on me.”
“You were copilot. You said Captain Larsen was at the controls when the RPGs were thrown at you.”
Shrugging, Leah said, “He was.” She picked up a small rock between her hands and rolled it around for a moment. “Hayden wants to destroy me any way he can. He’s afraid I’ll talk. And if I do, I could bring down his career and his dreams of being the next commander of the 80th.”
Scowling, Kell heard the carefully veiled terror in her voice. “Talk about what?”
Leah dropped the rock near her boots. Emotion welled up through her. Maybe the shock from the crash was still working out of her. Maybe she saw the sincere care and worry burning in Kell’s eyes; she didn’t know. But it made her speak up. “I’ve never told anyone this, Kell. Just my psychiatrist, Judy Fontana,” she admitted. “Hayden doesn’t know about my two years of therapy to get my head screwed on straight after he divorced me, either. I got as far away from him as I could. I had my father transfer me to another battalion. I told him I never wanted to be anywhere near Hayd
en again.”
Kell’s mouth quirked. They were out in the open, it was daylight and this wasn’t the place to continue such a serious conversation. “Look, let’s get back to the cave. We can talk about it there, later.”
Leah shrugged. “Yeah, fine.” She moved, her knees feeling like they were eighty years old. She’d hit them egressing out of the cockpit window. They were bruised and swollen. Kell picked up her ruck and held it open for her to slide her arms through the straps. He was so damned thoughtful.
“Follow me,” Kell said. And then he softened his voice because it was still hard with anger. “You don’t need to hold on to my belt this time.” He saw Leah rally over his teasing tone. She was still pale, her eyes dark and wounded looking.
“Even out here in the middle of one of the most godforsaken, lonely places on earth, my ex is still after me,” she rasped. “He will haunt me until the day I die.” Tears burned in her eyes and Leah angrily swallowed them. “Let’s just get out of here.” Her emotions were getting the best of her; unusual because she could normally control them. Kell would probably tell her it was shock making her more vulnerable than usual, less able to put those walls up. Medically, shock unraveled a person, dismantled them mentally and emotionally. Yeah, she was feeling dismantled, all right. She could mentally feel Hayden begin to tear down her protective walls.
“Wait a minute,” Kell growled, gripping her gently by the shoulders, halting her. “Those are pretty strong words, Leah.” He searched her moist eyes, saw her lower lip quiver. Ah, hell, he was a goner. Without a word, he swept her into his arms. Not very close with all their gear on, but he could feel her flying apart inwardly. Now, Kell was sorry as hell he’d made that sat phone call in front of her. But how could he have known Leah would have a violent reaction to it? Kell wouldn’t do that again.
He pressed a kiss to her hair after he removed her hat, his hand moving across her cheek. “Look, you’re safe with me, Leah. You understand that? And whatever the hell is going on with this ex-husband of yours, I’ll make damn sure it’s handled when we get back to Bravo.”
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