by Julie Rowe
“Masks off,” Alicia whispered to the two men in front of her. She whipped her own off and shoved it into a pants pocket.
They walked through the village and out into the tents, tying not to draw attention by hurrying. Max would have increased the pace, but Tom put his hand on Max’s shoulder and held him back. They took a right, then found a fairly busy area and sat with their backs to a tent.
No one said anything for a few seconds.
“Where’s Bull?” Tom asked quietly.
“He should have reported in a while ago,” Max said.
The smell of smoke, present because of open cooking fires, became much stronger. A small explosion had them all on their feet, along with many other people who came out of tents to look in the direction of the noise.
They let the crowd of people surround and carry them toward the noise and commotion.
Black smoke billowed out of the house they’d left and flames devoured the canvas that had enlarged the amount of space for the sick. And the dead.
The heat shattered the glass in the windows, allowing screams to rise above the flames. There were people still alive in there?
Alicia took a step toward the building, but a heavy hand on her shoulder kept her from moving any farther. Max’s eyes had gone hard and flat. It was the kind of expression an officer wore when he made a command decision between equally bad options.
Someone bumped into her and pain radiated out from her side, enough to make her gasp.
Max’s hand tightened and he looked at her with his brows low over his eyes.
She shrugged.
He gave her a little yank and pushed at Tom to get him moving away from the burning house.
At least the screaming had stopped.
They retreated into the tents until they were standing with no one close enough to overhear.
Max examined her, bending down to get a good look at her. When he got to her left side, he touched her poncho and came away with blood on his fingers. “Why didn’t you tell me you were injured?”
“Oh.” She stared at the blood and tried to remember when she’d gotten hurt. Right, when she’d killed the asshole. “I forgot.”
He gave her an are you kidding? expression.
“Sorry.” She lifted her hands. “It was a knife. One of the men who killed the women at the well must have tracked me. He was about to shoot me and two little kids who had the bad luck of being near me when the shooting started.”
“If he had a gun, why do you have a knife wound?” he asked as he lifted her poncho and bent closer to her.
“I was trying not to draw attention, so I didn’t want to use my rifle again. I took his weapon away, but I guess he had a knife too.”
“You killed him with your bare hands?” Max asked, rearing back to stare at her. “A man with a rifle and a knife?”
“Like I said.” She was trying to be patient with him, but sometimes Max made it difficult when he kept asking her to repeat what she’d just told him. “I was trying to be quiet and quick.”
“Your hands are quicker than a gun?”
“They’re quieter,” she said between clenched teeth, working hard to refrain from smacking him.
“I can’t see how bad it is. You have too many layers of clothing in the way. How painful is it?”
They had bigger problems to deal with right now. “It’s not bad.”
“Right,” Max drawled. “You forgot all about it.”
“We can worry about it when we’re out of danger.”
“Speaking of which,” Tom said softly, nodding behind them. “Here comes a little trouble.”
Alicia turned.
The bigger of the two boys she’d gotten to safety stood only a few feet away.
Chapter Thirteen
The boy was staring at Alicia’s bloody clothing.
Max watched as the child came over to take her hand.
He patted it as if she needed someone to calm her. “Come, my father will help you.”
Alicia opened her mouth, but Max interrupted whatever she was about to say by stepping forward and crouching next to the boy. “This is my friend, and I’m a doctor. Where is your father?”
“We have a house in the village. Come. Father said to bring him.” The boy looked at Alicia.
“Can we come too?” Max asked him.
The boy shrugged and took Alicia’s hand. He pulled her along with him while Max and Tom followed.
“Where are we going?” Tom asked, his voice pitched so it wouldn’t carry.
Max grunted. “Down the yellow brick road.”
“Not funny, Max.” Tom kept up a constant visual sweep all around. “Bull is late, which means he’s in trouble.”
“I’m well aware.” Losing one of the men under his command was an open wound that seemed to tear wider and wider with every passing moment. “The moment we’re secure for more than five minutes, you’re going to find him.”
“Thank God.”
“Did you think I was going to let him rot wherever he was?”
“No, I thought you’d want to send for reinforcements first.”
“Why would you think that?”
“You’re an officer.”
“I think I’ve just been insulted, but I’ll let it pass this once.”
“No insult intended. Most officers don’t know their right foot from their left.”
“I feel so much...smarter now.”
The boy took them around the crowd still watching the house burn and back into the village. The house he brought them to was small in comparison to some others, but it was clean on the inside. It had two rooms, one kitchen/living area and one bedroom.
A man stood in the kitchen with the smaller boy, who was hanging on to the man’s pants.
Tom came in last and shut the door.
The man looked them all over, then stared at Alicia. “You saved my sons’ lives.”
Ali glanced at Max, so he stepped forward and smiled. “Children should always be cherished and protected.” He gave the man a little bow. “We shouldn’t stay.” He gave Tom and Alicia a nod and they all turned back to the door.
The man’s voice stopped them. “You’re hurt.”
Max said quietly, “We don’t want to bring trouble to your home. We are going.”
“You’re the Americans those pigs are looking for,” the man said. “They will find you if you don’t stay out of sight.”
Out of the corner of his eye Max could see Tom slowly reaching for his rifle under his poncho.
“I have a place to hide you.” The man turned and walked to the large fireplace dominating one end of the room. The chimney looked like it was part of the wall, but there was a narrow gap between the stone and bricks of the fireplace. The opening was dark and there were some rough stairs leading down into the darkness.
“Thank you my friend,” Max said, then bowed and said, “My name is Max.”
“Ferhat, and these are my sons, Berez—” he put his hand on the head of the youngest boy “—and Coban.” He gestured at the older boy.
Alicia went first. She had to take off her pack, but slid through no problem after that. She came back after a couple of seconds and whispered, “All clear.”
Max walked carefully down the steps into the darkness until Alicia turned on a small flashlight.
The room wasn’t very big and the ceiling was low. Both he and Tom were going to have to be careful not to hit their heads on it.
A few sacks lay in one corner.
Alicia looked in them. “Vegetables.”
“I need to check your wound.” Max turned to Tom. “Can you find out what’s happening? Where’s Bull? Who started that fire? Do we need to call for a retrieval?”
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p; Tom nodded. “I’m going to try to get up on a roof.”
“Good.” Max turned to Alicia. “This will be easier with a chair or something to sit on. I’ll be right back.”
She angled her head. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Max went upstairs and asked if there was a stool or chair they could use.
Coban grabbed an ancient-looking chair that had lost its back at some point, leaving only the seat. The four legs were wobbly enough to make a drunk look sober.
Max thanked him, took the seat, then went back into the dark root cellar.
Alicia stood in the middle of the room, looking like she was waiting for nothing more serious than a haircut.
He paused.
“What?” she asked when he didn’t move toward her.
“It’s too dark down here.”
She pressed her lips together. “They think I’m a boy,” she whispered. “We need to keep it that way.”
Damn it, she was right. “Can you hold a flashlight pointed where I need it?”
“Sure.” The word was tossed out as if she needed stitches every other day. Here he was, angry at himself for sending her out on an errand resulting in her getting hurt, while she brushed it off.
He was going to have to stitch her up, hurt her again, and she didn’t seem to care.
What was going to happen next time? She was good, but she wasn’t Wonder Woman, didn’t have super powers.
It made him want to turn her over his knee and spank her. Hard. “I know you’re a soldier, but this cavalier attitude of yours toward injury is making me crazy.” He glared at her. She really had no concept of how close she was walking the line between what he could accept and what he couldn’t. “You need to stop it.”
She studied his face. “You’re worried.”
It wasn’t a question, but he answered it like it was one. “Yes. There’s no situation where you getting injured is ever going to be acceptable. Yet, you act like it happens all the time.”
“It doesn’t,” she said, taking off her poncho and the rifle underneath it. She set them both on the floor carefully and quietly. “Happen a lot, I mean.” She removed the body armor, a thick shirt underneath that, and lifted the side of the tank top that was her last layer of clothing.
He wanted to take her out of this dark, dirty place and go somewhere safe, somewhere he could spend the time he wanted to explore her. Pleasure her. Tell her what was between them was more than just sex.
The bloody line that scored her skin an inch above her hip told him his fantasy was beyond reach.
First he had to knit her back together.
“The knife got you just below your body armor.” He handed her the flashlight and she pointed it at the wound while he put on fresh gloves and gently palpated the area around the wound.
“It isn’t as deep as I thought,” he said grudgingly. “But it’s still bleeding. I’m going to put a few stitches in, enough to keep it from getting worse if you have to move fast or fight again.”
“Okay.”
She was much too agreeable.
He took the flashlight from her and shone it to one side of her face, then the other. Her pupils reacted normally and she didn’t seem to have any blood or bruises above her neck.
“What are you doing?”
“Making sure you haven’t suffered a head wound you hadn’t told me about.”
“Why would you think I have a head wound?”
“Because you’re cooperating without a word of complaint, and that’s the opposite of normal for you.”
Her frown turned into a scowl. “I’m trying not to be a pain in the ass.” She leaned forward, then said with far too much enthusiasm, “But I can do that if you prefer.”
“Well, shit.” He tried smiling in apology. “I really screwed that pooch.”
She snorted a laugh, then caught herself. “Stop that. Stop.”
He handed her the flashlight and took off his backpack. Most of his equipment and supplies had been in the house that had gone up in flames, but he preferred keeping his first aid kit separately in his pack.
He pulled out a suture kit and opened it up. He gave Alicia a local anesthetic, cleaned the wound with iodine—call him old school, but he preferred it to other antiseptics—then closed the wound with six neat stitches.
He covered it with a self-adhesive bandage and took the flashlight from her so she could put her clothing back on.
“How do you feel?” he asked. “Light-headed, dizzy?”
“No,” she answered, meeting his gaze with ease. “I’m good.” She looked at the stairs leading up. “Check in with Tom?”
Max nodded and brought the radio to his mouth. “Tom?”
No answer.
“Tom?”
“Hi, Dad.” Tom spoke in Arabic, his voice low and careful.
Relief loosened tight muscles along Max’s shoulders. He was safe, but not alone. “How’s the weather?”
A long pause, then a reply. “It’s raining bullets all over the place. There are two separate firefights going on at opposite ends of the village. No sign of brother Bull.”
“Is the fire out?”
“Mostly. It spread to another house, but a few people finally got a bucket brigade going and threw some water on it.”
“What are the chances of leaving the village safely?”
“Not so good. I saw a couple of people try to leave. They were chased back into the village by some armed men who must be hiding in the hills around the village. That’s not the only bad news.” He paused for a moment. “There are a few bodies in the streets. Some of them are wrapped in sheets, but some are just lying outside doorways. Not all of them are the result of the weather.”
“How many?” Max asked, despite knowing he wouldn’t like the answer.
“I don’t know, twenty maybe.”
That many?
“Call me with another weather report in ten minutes.” He ended the call and looked at Alicia.
“What’s wrong?” she asked him, her gaze sharp.
“Leaving is out of the question. Tom said he watched a few people try to leave, but they were forced back by armed men. He also reported seeing dead people in the streets.” He shook his head. “The number of dead inside people’s homes has to be even greater.”
“Holy shit,” Alicia breathed.
“Nothing holy about this.” He frowned. “I’ve never seen a flu infect so many people, then kill them so fast. Identifying it is my top priority.”
“No argument here.” She shrugged. “Order a supply drop.”
“It would have to be unobserved and possibly snuck in by someone on the ground.”
“Tonight?”
That was their only option. “I’ll make the call.”
He contacted the base, and after a couple of conversations was able to arrange for a modified supply drop. General Stone also insisted on four more Green Berets to help with operations on the ground.
More soldiers to worry about.
Max didn’t want more people, but with Bull missing and the violence a huge barrier to getting anything worthwhile accomplished, no one was listening.
He ended his call and gave Alicia a sigh. “Company’s coming.”
“Sweet,” she said. “How many?”
“Four of your favorite cousins.”
“Sounds like a party.”
“More like a disaster waiting to happen.”
She fell silent, and Max wondered what she was thinking.
A lot of things had gone wrong since they had arrived. Discovering his contact was dead and the flu virus had a mortality rate far above the norm. The presence of armed fighters who seemed to know there were Americans in the village and were willing to kill to fi
nd them. Alicia becoming injured in a fight. Bull’s disappearance. A fire that destroyed their equipment and killed several people. And lastly, currently hiding out in an old basement.
“We can’t stay here,” he said, breaking the silence.
“Why not?”
“We’re putting this family in danger.” His radio crackled in his ear. He held up a hand to Alicia then replied to the caller, “Hello.”
“Dad, you need to come up here.” Tom’s voice was no louder than his last call, but it held an unmistakable note of fear and anger in it. Something had gone horribly wrong.
“How do we get to the roof?” Max asked.
“One of the kids will show you.”
“Tom needs us on the roof,” Max said to Alicia.
She preceded him out of the basement and when they got to the kitchen, the older boy was there to show them the ladder on hinges that took them up to the roof.
Alicia stayed low as she exited the hole, so Max followed her example.
Tom lay on his front, sighting down his scope at something some distance away, given the narrow incline of his rifle. Alicia took up the same position on Tom’s left. Max did the same on his right.
Alicia had her own rifle out and was using her scope Max didn’t have a rifle, but he carried a scope for just this purpose. He pulled it out of a pocket and sighted in the same direction as Tom.
No, his problem was with shooting people. Looking at them didn’t hurt anything.
What he saw made his heart falter.
It was the well at the center of the village, the same place gunmen had killed two women and attacked Alicia. More gunmen had a crowd gathered, mostly of men and boys. They were standing in a rough circle around the well, giving several feet of open space for the gunmen to walk around, gesture with their weapons and yell.
To perform.
Near the well, kneeling and with their hands behind their backs, were two men. Behind them were gunmen with rifles pointed at the back of the kneeling men’s heads.
A few of the words one was yelling were audible. The gunman screamed about Americans, safety, death and disease, and what the world would soon know as surely as they did.
Nowhere was safe.
The leader of the group suddenly lifted up the heads of the two kneeling men to show the crowd what an infidel looked like.