The Ides of Matt 2017

by M. L. Buchman

  A shining beacon in the distance. A tiny flashing light.

  Attached to a man plunging down a wave face easily five stories tall.

  As he swam in her direction.

  A rescue swimmer? Already?

  No!

  Leaving the chill that had threatened to encase her behind a solid wall, she dug into the waves, speeding toward Silvan.

  Chapter Ten

  Both cold, gasping for breath from the hard swim necessary to fight their way together, and lost in the North Sea—the first thing they had done was kiss.

  It had been sloppy, hurried, freezing, and in moments they were battered apart except for the death grip on the front ring of each others’ vests.

  But it changed Silvan’s world.

  It hadn’t been a kiss of “so glad to see you.”

  Their coming together had been an “Oh my god, I thought you were dead!”

  It took a coordinated effort, but they deployed the raft and managed to climb in before it blew away. It was small comfort in the heavy storm—it didn’t stay dry, but at least it remained upright. Between judicious bailing and unfurling the canopy, they finally were reasonably secure.

  The only way they could keep from being slammed together was by holding tightly to each other. It was something that Silvan had wanted to do for so long that it was hard to believe it was finally happening. Not how he’d imagined it, but holding her tight might just be the best thing to ever happen to him.

  “You aren’t going to die!” Debbie shook him by her hold on his vest.

  It seemed an odd statement as this was perhaps the safest they’d been in over an hour.

  “You aren’t!” She shook him again.

  “You’re awfully strong for someone who isn’t an elf.”

  She shook him again, though not as hard. As if she could anchor her words in his chest.

  If they hadn’t been deep in the comparative calm inside the high-sided raft, he wouldn’t have heard her next statement.

  “I’m not wrong this time. I can’t be. You’re going to live.” Then she buried her face against his shoulder and simply hung on.

  There, with the waves raging by dozens of feet above them, he knew he had found the missing piece, the tear in her world.

  Moshe. He wasn’t “some boy” who had died and changed the course of Debbie Rosenthal’s life.

  She’d been there. Held him while he died, telling him he was going to live. Her boyfriend? Her lover?

  “Did he save you?”

  Her nod told him the rest of the story. Moshe had died to protect her and she was repaying him by protecting everyone else that she could.

  Silvan held her tightly, and she let him.

  An eternity of howling winds and bailing out icy seawater later, a big C-130 Hercules turboprop roared by close overhead, soaring through the first light of day. It had sniffed out the track of their emergency locators.

  The satellite phone had been useless, the wave troughs too deep to allow even the time to place a call. Their handheld radios were only good for line-of-sight communications. But now with the big plane circling above, he pulled out the radio and told them they were safe and uninjured…and that there was no point searching for the other two pilots. The rest of the report would be for the company commander’s ears alone. He could decide who to contact about the spy trawler.

  Within the hour, a helo and a rescue swimmer would arrive to hoist them off the waves. The plane promised to stay on station despite the turbulence their crew must be suffering.

  Chapter Eleven

  Debbie lay quiet now, comfortable inside the circle of Silvan’s arms while they awaited the rescue team that would pluck them from the sea. Their helmets kept the worst of the howling wind at bay.

  “You don’t need to worry about protecting me.”

  Silvan’s shouted words were like a benediction. He might not understand that she hadn’t had a single thought of her own survival during the crash landing—she’d been shocked when she’d survived. But she’d known without a doubt that getting down on that hull had improved Silvan’s chances of survival. That was all that had mattered.

  But maybe he was right. She didn’t need to protect him as if he could be erased from existence at any moment. He’d survived the gunfire and crash just as they’d survived dozens of missions.

  When it was their time, like Junker and Tank, it would be their time.

  Until then—

  Debbie sat up as much as the pitching raft would allow and studied Silvan’s face. A few strands of his beautiful blond hair were finally long enough peek out from under the edge of his helmet.

  “I’ve got an idea.”

  His frown said that he couldn’t hear her.

  She braced herself against his shoulders by curling her fists around his vest’s armholes. Then she leaned in and repeated her shout between his right cheek and the edge of his helmet.

  “Bring it on, lady. If it’s a good one, I’ll put in a good word for you with the elf king.” His breath was warm against her chilled cheek.

  “How about we just worry about protecting each other?”

  “Sounds like a good plan.” Then Silvan’s face sobered, “How long were you thinking?” He had to repeat that more loudly.

  When he did, Debbie couldn’t help but feel the warmth in her heart despite the hail and spray currently battering at them. “How long have you got?”

  Silvan’s easy smile started slow but built big and then disappeared from view when he kissed her to seal the bargain.

  Debbie let her heart ride the wave as it lifted the two of them out of the trough and over the top together.

  She hoped they had a long, long time.

  If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy:

  Sound of Her Warrior Heart

  Delta Force operator Katrina Melman’s hearing goes missing when her mission gets blown away. But she’s Delta, the Army doesn’t pay her to fail.

  Sergeant Tomas Gallagher, the best soldier she’s ever met, only speaks to her in sharp commanding tones. Now she can’t hear him at all.

  Only together can they complete the mission if they hope to find the Sound of Her Warrior Heart.

  Introduction

  There are so many things we take for granted: good health, functioning senses, and (for the bulk of humanity) living in a relatively safe society.

  Then I was rewatching the movie Black Hawk Down. One of the soldiers (both in the movie and in real life) was temporarily deafened by being blown up followed by heavy gunfire too close to his ears.

  That started me thinking. As I’m hard of hearing and have partial colorblindness (just enough to kill my childhood dream of being an airline pilot, though I did get my private license), I’ve given a fair amount of thought to what it would be like to lose a sense.

  I sometimes wonder if I became a writer because of these shortcomings. Perhaps they leave me a little insulated from the world around me, thereby allowing me to so enjoy the stories in my head.

  Whatever it is, that was what lies at the core of this story.

  Take away one sense and see-taste-smell so much more. More of the world around the heroine. More of the hero.

  But they are Delta, so of course they are still committed to doing what is called for—no matter the challenges. Even if it means falling in love.

  Chapter One

  Purple.

  A purple so deep that it made her think of the purest fresh-pressed grape juice.

  Purple grapes. Round globes of color so dark that they ate the brilliant sunlight until they were almost black.

  Green leaves. Impossibly blue sky.

  Katrina knew something was wrong, but it took her a moment to identify what was missing.

  Birds. There should be birdsong. Her family’s vineyard was never quiet when the grapes were so close to harvest. This late in the season the bees had moved on to more flowery pastures, but the birds should be singing, arguing, playing.

  Funny, s
he didn’t recognize this row of vines, she thought she knew them all.

  It was hard to care, though. She’d always loved to lie on the rich soil between the rows of vines and stare at the deeply blue sky. She rarely spent that time thinking about the future or the past. In her memories it hadn’t been about some boy either. Of course when the boys came along, she’d spent less time alone in the vineyard watching the sky. No, the vineyard was always about the present moment.

  A thread of black smoke slid across the blue sky. Burning a slash pile? To early in the season for that. The summer was still hot and dry.

  She reached a hand up through the silence to pluck a grape. They looked ripe enough that half the cluster might fall into her palm at the lightest touch.

  Except she didn’t recognize the hand. They weren’t her slender teenage fingers. Where was the silver thumb ring that Granny had given her at twelve that had finally moved to her middle finger at fourteen?

  This hand was strong, with a shooter’s callus on the webbing between thumb and forefinger. And why was the hand, her hand covered in red, sticky…blood?

  A face intervened between her and her view of sky, grape leaves, hand…blood?

  It was a hard, male face.

  One that needed a shave.

  It should have alarmed her that he was so close, but she knew him. Or thought she should. He wore a close-fitting military helmet and anti-glare glasses. She flexed her jaw and could feel the familiar pressure of the strap of her own helmet. Squinching her nose revealed that she too wore sunglasses.

  Why did they need helmets to lie in the vineyard to watch the grapes ripen in the sunshine? She didn’t like sunglasses, they changed the color of the blue sky. She tried looking around the edges, but they were wrap-around, just like his.

  He was familiar.

  Very familiar.

  But never from this close. That wasn’t normal.

  His lips were moving, but she couldn’t hear a thing.

  “What?”

  He clamped a hard hand over her mouth and his lips made a “Shh!” shape, but she couldn’t hear anything.

  She studied his lips.

  Words. They were forming words.

  Kat! Are you okay? Not Katrina. Kat wasn’t a family nickname. Always her full name in the Melman family. Miss Katrina to the Mexican field hands as if her family were lords and ladies rather than third-generation Oregon vineyard owners.

  Sure she was okay. Though it was weird to have the face asking it silently, especially that face. She associated it with a cold, emotionless tone that could slice concrete.

  But why wouldn’t she be okay? She was lying in a lovely vineyard, the sun warming her face while she watched purple grapes, blue sky, and black smoke from a slash pile fire. It was expanding though. Maybe the fire was out of control.

  The bloody hand was still bothering her.

  And the silence.

  Maybe she wasn’t okay.

  Maybe she’d been—

  The memory slammed in like the blast of a mortar.

  Which was exactly what had happened.

  Chapter Two

  Sergeant Katrina Melman suddenly remembered the feeling of flying.

  There had been the high whistle of an incoming mortar round. She and Tomas—who she always teased about abandoning his poor H somewhere along the way, cruelly leaving it to wander the world on its own—had dropped flat in the vineyard and offered up a quick prayer for the round to land somewhere else.

  It had partially worked. Rather than a direct hit, the force of the blast had merely thrown her aside, slamming her into a line of grape vines. The burnt sulfur smell of exploded TNT overwhelmed the sweet grapes and rich soil.

  Pain was starting to report in. Abused muscles, the nasty gash on her hand, but nothing felt broken.

  “I think I’m okay.”

  Tomas shushed her again. Again she had to concentrate on his lips to figure out which words he was speaking silently. You’re shouting.

  “I am?”

  Again the hand clamped over her mouth.

  The silence. The echoing silence. The world hadn’t gone quiet. Her hearing had gone instead.

  Deaf.

  When she nodded her understanding, Tomas eased off his hold on her. He mouthed out some long sentence that she had no hope of unraveling, especially as he kept looking away to scan the vineyard, hiding his mouth in the process.

  “I can’t hear you,” she tried to make it a whisper.

  Tomas spun back to face her and winced.

  Unable to hear herself, she’d lost all calibration of her volume.

  You can’t? Tomas’ lips moved, but she heard nothing—not even the proverbial pin. At least she was fairly sure that’s what he’d said. Lipreading was something they taught undercover types. She was a shooter.

  Katrina stuck with just shaking her head.

  Shit! No problem reading that. With quick rough hands he began inspecting her.

  She slapped his hands aside then sat up, and wished she hadn’t. Every muscle screamed—silently—in protest. She began inspecting herself. Everything moved when she tried it. A quick pat-down revealed no sources of blood other than her hand.

  Tomas bound that quickly enough, using the medkit that hung from his vest.

  Armored vest.

  Field.

  Mortar.

  She looked around and spotted her rifle tangled in one of the grapevines. She slid it out and it appeared none the worse for having been blown up.

  “That makes one of us who’s okay,” she whispered to her baby. The MK21 Precision Sniper Rifle was fifty-two inches and eighteen pounds of silent death that let her “reach out and touch someone” over a mile away. It was her reason for being—her role in Delta Force. Her role in—

  Moldova. She and her rifle had been blown up in a vineyard in the Eastern European country sandwiched between Ukraine and Romania. Except no one was supposed to know they were here. They—

  Tomas slammed her down to the ground and lay on top of her and her rifle. She could feel by the rigidity of his body that he wasn’t dead. He was bracing over her like a human shield. For half a moment she thought she finally saw a bird flying across the sky. A falcon swooping on its prey. An…incoming round!

  She felt the ground buck against her back from the explosion. The air blast hit against the far side of the vines, peppering the two of them with hundreds of grapes blown off the vines. The vintner was going to be furious.

  Tomas pushed back to kneeling beside her.

  We’ve… but Tomas turned away and she missed the rest of his sentence. It was as if he didn’t want to look at her after lying full length upon her a moment before. They were both wearing combat vests, making it one of the unsexiest moments ever, but she got the feeling he was still embarrassed by it.

  Sitting up, she grabbed the helmet straps on either side of his jaw and turned him back to face her.

  “What did you say?” Katrina struggled to keep it soft. Tomas didn’t reprimand her so she must have succeeded. “I’m deaf.”

  His eyes widened briefly. Then he grabbed her head, his powerful hands strong but gentle along her cheeks, and turned it to either side to inspect her ears.

  No blood, his lips formed the words quickly, but she hoped she got it right.

  She heaved out a sigh of relief at his words. Good. That was good. No dribbling blood meant that maybe her eardrums were still intact.

  He made a sharp slicing motion to the west with a flat hand. Right. They needed to get moving. He signaled reminders to stay low and go down the center of the path—jostling a vine might give away their changing position.

  At her nod, he led off.

  Stepping out, she walked straight into a grapevine.

  She scooted to the middle of the path and tried again.

  This time she plunged into the grapes the next row over.

  It wasn’t vertigo, she’d had that induced during training and learned how to fire through it. Besides,
vertigo always made you spin in the same direction. With her ears out of operation, her balance was off.

  Tomas grabbed her arm and, though it felt like he was pulling her hard to the right, they progressed straight down the aisle of dirt between two rows of green leaves with her weaving like a drunkard.

  Fifteen seconds later she felt the air thump against her back as a mortar killed the poor grapevines she’d stumbled into. Whoever was firing at them was good.

  Chapter Three

  By the end of the row, she began to get a feel for how to counteract her balance problems.

  Tomas yanked her down to the soil, scanning the terrain ahead. He might be a hardcore pain in the ass, but she couldn’t ask for a better soldier to be at her side. There was no better man to be in a tight situation with in Delta. She’d tried to talk to him in camp, but he always gave her the cold shoulder, with a voice that could be used to chill a meat locker. However, on assignment, he guarded her like a mother hen or big brother. He was the best soldier, and she’d always been drawn to the best, but for some reason he wouldn’t even give her the time of day once they were back in a green zone.

  That green zone felt awfully far away at the moment.

  They lay together at the edge of the lush vineyard. Looking back she could see that it swooped down into a valley and up the next hill in neat and orderly rows. She’d never had a Moldovan wine and wondered if they were any good. Simply by the size of the field, they were successful. She plucked a grape. Blue-purple. Thick skin that resisted her bite before it popped, flooding her mouth with a high sugar content. Merlot probably. Or maybe a Zinfandel, they tasted a lot alike while still in the grape. She could be lying in the hills of Oregon’s Willamette Valley…if it weren’t for someone firing a mortar at them. Very few mortars being fired in the Willamette Valley in her experience.

  Right! Time to start thinking like a soldier again.