by Ladew, Lisa
Dani leaned back, a skeptical look on her face. “Are you teasing me?” she finally said, in a voice that JT couldn’t read.
Alarmed, JT stumbled over his words. “Teasing you? No, I’m not teasing you. It really said that.”
“So you’re what, 30 years old? And you never knew you were adopted or had sisters until your mother revealed it to you on her deathbed?” Dani said, crossing her arms over her chest.
JT laughed. “Well if you put it that way, it does sound a bit ridiculous.”
“Yeah, like the premise of a Lifetime movie.”
“Call me a movie star then, because I swear it’s true. I’ll show you the letter when we get back to Kuwait City. Will you come to Camp Patriot with me? It’s in my barracks room there.”
Dani smiled and nodded. “Sure, I love Camp Patriot,” she said. “It’s like a home away from home.”
“You’ve been to Camp Patriot?”
“Yeah, my —” Dani broke off, her lovely face clouding over in an instant and her mouth moving wordlessly. JT shifted on his rock, suddenly feeling like he didn’t want to hear what she was going to say next.
“My father was stationed there 12 years ago, advance party.” Dani finished up, her voice sounding strangely weak to JT.
JT’s mood of foreboding broke. “Your father was in the Army?” he asked, excitement in his voice.
“No he’s retired Marines. He ran the Combat Engineering Battalion that built Camp Patriot.”
JT whistled. “Wow. That’s awesome.”
“My sisters are all in the Marine Corps too.”
“Seriously? How come you didn’t join the Marines? I saw your shooting back there,” he hooked a thumb over his shoulder, back to the middle of the desert where they’d come from.
“Yeah, I was always a good shot. Daddy used to take us all out for shooting practice most every Saturday. But after each of us turned 10, he’d take us hunting individually. It was like a special Daddy-daughter time. My sisters all loved hunting. But the only time he took me out, it didn’t go so well.”
JT tried to read Dani’s face. She looked half-amused and half-ashamed of herself.
“I shot a squirrel. I remember it falling from the tree and Daddy yelling ‘Good shot!’ I saw it hit the ground like a sack of rocks. One minute it had been alive and chattering, and the next it was dead on the ground. And I did it. Daddy wanted to show me how to skin it but I couldn’t stop staring at it. I started crying, and eventually I made him bury it and say a prayer for it, right out there in the woods. And I cried for weeks. And I kept asking Daddy to take me back to the woods where I had shot it so I could take food out there, in case it had babies that were on their own now.”
Dani looked almost shyly at JT through her lashes, as if she were judging her reaction to this. He gave her a gentle smile. He already knew she had a mile-wide sensitive streak. Nothing wrong with that, he thought. Tina had been the same way.
“I felt so bad. So different. My sisters kept teasing me and asking me if I knew where the meat I ate came from and was I going to become a vegetarian, stuff like that. My uncle told me—” Dani’s eyes went wide and her hands floated halfway to her mouth, like she had said something wrong. JT could see her throat working like she was trying to swallow. She looked stricken, and JT again got that sense that he didn’t want to hear what was going to come next. But more than that, he didn’t want Dani to feel bad. Or think that he was going to feel differently about her, or something. Suddenly he felt intensely protective of her.
He opened his mouth, not knowing what he was going to say to make her feel better. “You’re beautiful,” popped out. He was rewarded with a small smile. Her hands floated back down to her lap.
“You already told me that.”
“Oh, sorry. I just keep thinking it.” Her smile grew and the now-familiar blush crept into her face, back dropping her freckles. “Your freckles are gorgeous,” he told her, thinking he should just keep saying what he was thinking. She seemed to like it so far.
Dani raised a hand to her cheek and scrubbed, like she was trying to eliminate the freckles. “My freckles? You like freckles?” She sounded incredulous, like she didn’t believe it was possible.
JT caught her hand in his and stared into her eyes like a lover. “Yes. I have a thing for women with freckles.” But this time it didn’t go over so well. She pulled her hand out of his, and her eyebrows drew together, like he’d said the wrong thing.
“Oh. So that’s the reason you like me. Because I have freckles and you like freckles.” Her voice was flat, empty. Like she’d been here before and didn’t like how it turned out.
“Well, that’s a reason I was first attracted to you. Your freckles and your gorgeous hair and your brown eyes.” A vertical line grew between her eyebrows. “But now that I know you a little better, I also know you are strong and brave and sensitive. You have a warrior’s spirit and a peacemaker’s heart. I love that about you.”
Dani studied him, the speculative look back in her eyes. “How can you think you know things like that about me? We’ve only just met.” She laughed, a brittle breaking sound. “I can’t even believe we’re having this conversation. It’s so bizarre.”
He nodded. “Ever hear of battlefield friendships? When two people have gone through something like we just went through together, it burns through all the bullshit pretty quickly, know what I mean? In times of extreme stress, the person you really are just shines through, and kindred spirits can pick each other out easily. Me and my buddy Shane were like that. The first time I met him I knew he and I would be tight for life.” JT felt a lump form in his throat and he had to force the last few words out. It still hurt to think about Shane. Dani immediately took his hand. JT pushed the thoughts away. There would be time enough to think about Shane later. For now, it was time to move. The sun had passed the point they had been watching for.
“We better go wake Sara up and start walking,” he told Dani. “Oh!” He slapped a hand to his forehead. “We never cleaned out the wound on her leg!”
“She did it already, didn’t you see the bandage there this morning? She must have done it last night.”
“Oh good. She’s pretty amazing, isn’t she.”
Dani smiled broadly, but JT could see something like relief in that smile. “You already said that too. But she is pretty amazing, I agree. Let’s get her up and get out of this desert.”
Chapter 26
Dani saw the first faint, shimmery light of the small town ahead of them and almost wept with relief. They’d been walking for 13 hours according to Sara’s calculation and she didn’t know how much longer she could hang on. Sara had tried to convince them to stop and rest for a few hours but neither JT nor Dani wanted to, no matter how much walking hurt. Dani desperately wanted this ordeal to be over; to feel safe, and for her parents to know she was OK.
She thought JT was mainly spurred on by the fact that they’d started hearing helicopter patrols behind them almost as soon as they left the safety of the last mountainside. In the open desert, Dani felt much more exposed. If Uncle Kevin somehow did plan on murdering them from the air, they were sitting ducks.
Finally, at almost 3 in the morning, they stumbled into town. We are a ragtag bunch, Dani thought. She knew she was probably faring the best, only suffering from dehydration and normal pains after walking for so long. Sara and JT were both limping badly. JT was actually dragging his entire right foot. Dani felt like crying when she looked at him. The entire right side of his body seem to be rebelling against him. She thought he was only moving forward on pure will and Marine discipline at this point.
The town sat quiet, asleep. As they silently prowled the very outer streets, Dani felt a clear mixture of tired joy and extreme vulnerability. This was not a small American town. This was almost an outlaw town. No police stations, no traffic lights, no signs of American organization and authority that she loved and took for granted. And they stood out painfully in their filthy Western-styl
e clothes and hairstyles.
They followed Sara into the empty marketplace where she tried doors and windows. Some were locked, but most were not. When she found an empty one that contained no chairs or tables or supplies of any kind she motioned for them to follow her inside.
“I have to go to the hotel to find Agent Farmer if he’s still here. I can’t take you with me.” Sara dropped her bag on the ground, rummaged inside, and slid her dirty dress and veil over her head. “You two would raise too many eyebrows and if there is anybody still loyal to Musa-Elbenah in town they might try to challenge us. I want to avoid that at all costs. I don’t know how long I will be. People will start showing up to the market in an hour and a half. This looks like an empty bay though and with any luck you will be OK here till I get back.”
Dani nodded. JT gave Sara a small salute, then backed into the far wall and slid down it into a sitting position. Dani watched Sara go, then slid down the wall next to JT. She glanced at his face. He appeared to already be dozing, pain clearly stamped on his features. She closed her eyes and tried to relax the iron bars that used to be muscles in her legs.
Time stretched. After what seemed like a few seconds but was probably more like 10 minutes, the small door opened again. Dani’s eyes flew open but it was only Sara. She had 4 small water bottles and a container of food of some kind in her hands.
“Where did you get this?”
“I took it. Well, I left them 200 Egyptian pounds, but I still took it. I know you guys need it.”
“200 Egyptian pounds, for some water and…” Dani prodded the package and determined it was some sort of meat jerky. “And some jerky? This is probably worth 5 Egyptian pounds at the most.” Dani said loudly enough to wake JT.
“I know Dani, but I stole it. I wanted to try to make up for it,” Sara told her quietly.
“Oh.”
Sara gave her a small smile and slipped out the door again. “I’m heading to the hotel now, for real” she whispered on her way out.
Dani opened the bottle of water and handed it to JT. He leaned his head back against the wall but brought the bottle to his lips with his fully-functioning left hand and drank deeply. Dani opened one for herself and finished it in three swallows. Her stomach called eagerly for more so she cracked another bottle and drank it down. JT seemed to have gone back to sleep.
She opened the package that Sara had brought and lifted it to her nose. It smelled okay, mostly like salt. She put some in her mouth and chewed. It tasted heavenly, way better than it smelled.
“JT you need to eat this and drink some more,” she told him. His left hand raised and she put another bottle of water in it. His right hand remained stupid and club-like in his lap. He drank the whole bottle of water in a few swallows. She took it from him and gave him the jerky. He put it in his mouth and chewed mechanically. When it was all gone he slumped back into sleep. Dani’s eyes flew to the bruise on his neck. It seemed bigger, angrier, and more purple to her than it had yesterday, even in the dark of the tiny room. With fear in her heart, she wondered if blunt trauma could keep bleeding.
Dani felt her eyes slipping closed against her will. She reached out and took JT’s hand, wanting the comfort of touching him. He squeezed it, letting her know he was there. She gave up the battle against her eyelids and fell into a light doze in seconds.
A shaking, slamming sound and motion woke her. She had no way of knowing how much time had passed but when she opened her eyes the little room looked different, lighter. She could see the texture of the floor and the ceiling. The wall behind her trembled again and she sat up. The door to the small room opened and two women dressed in veils entered, carrying large soup pots, with cloth bags hung over their shoulders.
Dani watched them, eyes wide, unsure what to do. When the first woman noticed Dani, she gasped and nudged her partner with her elbow. Both women stared openly at them now. Dani looked at JT out of the corner of her eye and saw he was watching them too, his face alert and cautious.
The first woman chattered loudly in a dialect Dani could barely understand. Her tone was angry, accusatory. The other ran to the door and started yelling. Dani could understand most of what she said. The words terrified her: Here! The Americans!
“I think we better get out of here,” Dani whispered to JT. He nodded and climbed to his feet, holding a hand out to her. They pushed past the two women into the narrow corridor of the marketplace, their heads down and their eyes looking for the most likely exit that would lead them to Sara. Every person they passed stared at them openly. One man wearing a deep brown robe and head covering jerked violently in apparent recognition, spilling the pile of fruit he had been stacking. He backed away from them like they were dangerous then turned and ran through an alley Dani hadn’t seen. Dani hoped he wasn’t going to get friends. Or a weapon.
She grabbed JT’s arm and moaned in his ear, “This is bad JT, this is really bad.”
“Don’t worry, we’ve still got our guns. We’ll find Sara and get out of here.”
“We can’t shoot anyone JT, they’ll … they’ll massacre us!” Dani hissed, thinking that she didn’t even know how many bullets she had. Not that it mattered. She didn’t want to shoot anyone. But she didn’t want to be shot either.
JT pulled her left, then right, then left again through the slim aisles now lined with fruits, hanging meats, and the occasional stunned vendor. Dani’s legs now felt like jelly — aching jelly that didn’t want to support her.
Ahead of them, a dead end loomed. The corridor just ended, sand-colored walls blocking their way. JT turned to double back and saw two men standing in front of the only way out. Dani clung to JT, her brain spinning. The men had no weapons that she could see. JT pulled her to his other side, away from them, and lowered his shoulder as he charged straight for them, meaning to knock them aside like bowling pins. They scattered, shouting indignantly.
JT chose another path and Dani breathed a sigh of relief when she saw open sand beyond the limits of the market. He’d found the way out! They burst past the last vendor stall. The first rays of sunrise painted the borders of the town, making Dani think things were going to get a lot worse very quickly if they didn’t find Sara soon.
“There!” JT pointed at a large, square, queerly-modern building that didn’t fit in this little desert town. A hotel for sure, built in a Western style so the tourists felt at home. Dani saw cars lining the entrance and even a few people walking around and knew it was their best chance. Sara had been heading to a hotel, and there were only a few in town. They ran for it, hearing angry voices crash and echo behind them.
Dani’s feet slid in the sand-covered ditch. She felt like she could go the rest of her life without ever seeing another grain of sand and die happy. An objection rose up in her mind and she tried to catch it. Running. They shouldn’t be running. They were going to draw more attention to themselves. Negative attention.
“JT,” she panted. “Let’s walk.”
He slowed immediately but glanced behind them. “I don’t know how you feel about old movie clichés, but we’ve got company. If they run, we’ll need to run too. Unless you want to have a showdown in the middle of the street.”
Dani looked. Three local men, and one of them had something in his hands. “Is he carrying what I think he’s carrying?” she asked JT, whispering, although she wasn’t sure why.
“Yep. An RPG. But don’t worry, there’s no rocket in the tube. Besides, it would be stupid to shoot us with an RPG.”
Dani looked again and saw JT was right. So it was probably just for show. But that didn’t make Dani feel any better. They could have guns. And they almost certainly had knives. Maybe machetes. And if just one of them got a little bit brave, it wouldn’t matter. Mob mentality would take over and they would pick up rocks on the streets and pull bricks out of walls. Dani had seen it happen. Had reported on it. Americans were never safe in the Middle East.
Dani felt JT reach under his shirt. He pulled the gun Sara had left with
him out of its holster and turned around to walk backwards. He didn’t point it at anyone, but the effect was immediate. The three men scattered. JT faced forward and put the gun back in the holster under his shirt.
Dani tried to look every direction at once, to make sure no one was trying to ambush them as they crossed the narrow streets, still heading towards the hotel. She’d read somewhere that dawn was the worst time to try to defend against an assault. Something about the quality of the new light made it harder to see. Dawn and dusk, her reporter brain recalled. They were the worst times to defend against an assault, and the best times to execute one.
“There, the stairwell.”
Dani looked up. It was an open air stairwell leading into the hotel. They could hide in it on the top floor and watch for Sara. It had to be better than just running around in the open. She nodded and started running again, just a little, in spite of herself.
They were 20 feet from the hotel, run-walking, still hand in hand, passing the many small brick buildings that lined the street. Pain speared through Dani’s head and she lurched to the right, her hand pulling out of JT’s. She had time to think I didn’t fall why am I falling, before something hard slammed into her ribs. Agony cascaded in a vice grip around her middle. She cried out and grabbed at her side, pulling away from whatever had jabbed her. Smooth metal slipped under her fingers and the pain followed her.
“Put your hands up or I gut shoot her right here,” she heard a familiar voice say, deadly intent obvious in the tone.
Uncle Kevin, no, she thought. How could you?
Chapter 27
Sara cautiously approached the smaller St. Marin Inn where she had left Agent Farmer. It didn’t look right. All the lights in the hotel, including the lobby were off and there were no cars out front in the small, circular drive. As she got closer, she could see the front doors were locked and bolted shut, and signs declared the hotel closed until further notice. But that wasn’t what disturbed her the most. The boarded up windows, the shards of broken glass, and the abandoned sticks and rocks that littered the front pathway drew her eye and made her heart beat faster. The hotel had born some sort of an attack. From the citizenry? But why? Because the hotel was American friendly? Were things that bad in this tiny town?