Tinderbox (Flashpoint Book 1)

by Rachel Grant

  Chapter Four

  Blanchard stopped short and stared at the wailing, babbling man. His flushed face was closed, expression unreadable.

  “What did he say?” Morgan asked. She was fairly certain the man’s last words were French, but her French was limited to cuisine.

  Blanchard unbuckled the straps of his heavy pack and dropped the load at his feet. “He said he can give us Etefu Desta. He knows where the man’s encampment is.” He knelt next to the wounded man. “He said he’ll give up the location in exchange for medical care.”

  Morgan’s whole body came to attention. Etefu Desta had been listed as the most wanted man in the region on every security bulletin she’d received from the embassy.

  “Bombing your car was minor compared to the things Desta has done to seize power in Ethiopia and Eritrea,” he added.

  He was right. They couldn’t ignore any lead to Desta’s location, even if it came from a dying man who was angling for medical care. She dropped to her knees next to Blanchard. “Know anything about patching gunshot wounds to the groin?”

  “Stop the bleeding.” He removed the man’s hands from his wounded genitals. “Did you have to shoot him in the junk?” He turned to his pack and pulled out several pouches marked with red first-aid crosses. “Put pressure on his femoral artery. That will help stem the bleeding. I’ve got bandages filled with a clotting agent.”

  She moved and settled on her knees across from Blanchard and unbuttoned the man’s pants, trying to decide the best way to pull them down without aggravating the wound.

  Bones, dirt, insects, and reptiles didn’t make her squeamish, but she’d never had her gag reflex tested by torn flesh and bloody wounds before. She steeled her spine. She could do this.

  She took a deep breath. In a flash, the scent of blood baking in the hot sun caused her to gag. Okay. Breathe through the mouth. She reached again for the man’s waistband and tugged at the cloth.

  Blanchard produced a sharp knife and split the man’s pants with a quick slice starting at the hip and going all the way to the hem at the ankle. He handed her the knife. “Do the other side,” he said, then returned to grabbing medical supplies from his pack.

  She copied his action, then peeled the pants down from the front. She grimaced at the sight of blood-covered genitals.

  “Do you know how to find his femoral pulse?” Blanchard asked.

  “I think so.” She’d recertified in CPR and first aid as part of her prep for the trip to Djibouti. She could do this.

  She would do this.

  She centered herself like she did before practicing kata. When she did karate, it was all muscle memory and focus. She could apply that here.

  Blanchard handed her surgical gloves and antiseptic wipes. She poured water from the precious bladder he’d given her over the man’s crotch to clear away some of the blood, donned the gloves, then used the wipes to find the wound. The bullet had grazed his scrotum and lodged in his inner thigh. Good. It was in the leg, below the artery.

  She was breathing normally again; the scent no longer bothered her. She’d dialed in her focus. Nothing mattered but the task before her.

  She found his femoral pulse and pressed with the heel of her hand, digging in deep. The man shrieked, likely because the pressure caused blinding pain given the proximity to his wound.

  She pressed harder.

  The man’s wail cut out midstream. He’d passed out from the agony, leaving them with blessed silence.

  Blanchard pressed a thick bandage over the wound. It soaked through, but the clotting agent and pressure seemed to be working, because when he removed it to swap out with a fresh bandage, the wound didn’t immediately pool with blood. She increased the pressure on the artery as he applied the second bandage. Her arms shook with the effort to maintain pressure.

  “You’re doing well,” he said as he wound gauze around the man’s thigh, securing the bandage. He tied off the end.

  She relaxed her arms and sat back on her heels, massaging her wrists, which ached from the strain.

  “You can’t tell anyone you shot him,” Blanchard said. “My gun. My bullet. My shot. Unless you want to tank my career.”

  “I won’t tell,” she promised.

  “Shit. A groin shot. I’m going to be teased about this for months. You said you were a good shot.”

  She couldn’t help but smile at his complaint. “Sorry. It’s been over ten years since I fired a gun. I’ll hit the next guy center mass. I promise.”

  “Let’s hope there is no next guy.”

  She let her gaze fall on the unconscious man. “Do you really think he knows where Desta is?”

  Blanchard shrugged. “I’m not willing to take a chance and assume he’s lying. We’ve been after Desta too long to let this opportunity pass, and given this assault, we need to take the asshole out. I’ll carry him out of the wadi and call for a medic helicopter.”

  “Won’t the copter be at risk from the sniper?”

  “Hopefully, Cal will have taken care of the sniper by then.”

  Morgan stared at the bandage, watching for deep crimson to saturate the bright white, but no red soaked through. If the militant bled out before he reached a medical facility, it wouldn’t be because they hadn’t tried to save him. She took a deep breath and stood, stretching cramped legs and arms that were tight from the strain of maintaining constant pressure on the artery.

  A glance downward showed her favorite field clothes were covered in blood. She probably looked like blonde bimbo number three in a horror movie, and Blanchard definitely looked like he should be the one wielding the chainsaw.

  She shucked the gloves, putting them in the bag Blanchard had used for other medical waste, and rubbed down her hands with sanitizing gel. Marginally clean, she grabbed the bladder from the ground and saw she’d gotten blood on the bite valve. She grimaced. No way would she drink from that.

  Blanchard offered her the mouthpiece for his hydration pack, and she took a grateful sip of water, then tucked the valve into the sleeve on his pack. “So, I’ll take one arm, you take the other, and we’ll drag him?” she asked.

  “No. That could make the bleeding start up again. I’ll carry him.”

  “Out of the wadi?” She glanced toward the slope. The dry riverbed had narrowed in this area, requiring a deeper valley. “The wall is steep here.”

  His mouth curved in a cocky smile. “I can handle it. I carried you—while you were kicking and fighting me.”

  She flushed at the reminder. “I think I’m the one buying tonight.”

  He looked at her over the top of his sunglasses. His eyes no longer held anger, but then, their truce had been solidified with gunfire. She glimpsed warmth in his gaze, and his lips held a hint of a smile. “You owe me more than that.”

  It was like he’d flipped the switch to her libido. Sure, she’d noticed he was attractive before, but it had been an abstract perception, like seeing a good-looking actor in a movie and enjoying his looks in a passive, impersonal way. But with one faint smile and a trace of humor, his appealing features went from theoretical to concrete. She went from thinking he’s hot to I want a piece of that.

  Did she want a piece of that?

  Her eyes landed full stop on the words “US ARMY” over his left breast.

  He wasn’t just military, he was Army. A Green Beret, no less. Her father would love Sergeant Pax Blanchard.

  Which put the soldier high on her no-way-in-hell list. She definitely did not want a piece of that.

  She cleared her throat and inserted a chill into her voice. “Well, I’m afraid a drink is all you’re going to get.”

  He cocked his head. “Relax, Dr. Adler. I was kidding.”

  “Morgan,” she corrected again.

  “Call me Pax. Hell, call me anything except Hulk. Not even Cal is supposed to call me that.” He nodded toward his gear. “Can you carry my pack?”

  She nodded.

  “Good.” He pulled out his radio and spoke in
the foreign language of military radio code. Task complete, he tucked it away and nodded for her to don his pack while he lifted the wounded militant.

  Holy hell, his pack was heavy. She contained her curses, having no desire to show him what a weakling she was.

  He’d carried her while wearing this thing? In this heat? The guy wasn’t the Hulk, he was Captain America.

  Captain America just so happened to be her favorite Avenger.

  Burdened with the wounded militant who was undernourished and probably weighed a hundred and twenty pounds, Pax climbed the steep wall of the wadi.

  Trailing behind, she tried to hide her labored breathing as she hauled a pack that was only one third that weight up the same slope. Pebbles rolled out from under her feet, threatening to trip her as the sun beat down on her head.

  This was why she’d never joined the military, in spite of her father’s intense pressure. Her dig kit was heavy enough, thank you very much.

  Just when she thought she might pass out from the heat and exertion, she reached the lip and collapsed on the ground. So much for masking her wimpiness. Vomiting sounded really good right now, except she was too dehydrated for even that.

  “Go on without me,” she muttered as Blanchard—Pax—continued forward without breaking stride.

  “No time for a rest break, Adler.” His voice oozed disdain. “We’re exposed and need to take cover while we wait for the helo.”

  He sounded just like her father. Bastard.

  She surged to her feet, finding strength in the desire to avoid embarrassment and the need to prove herself to this stranger.

  He reached an alcove at the base of a mesa and tucked the unconscious man in the enclosed space. Morgan dumped his pack at his feet and dropped to the ground, desperately hoping she wouldn’t hurl.

  Her entire body was flushed, and she could barely breathe in the thick, hot air. Her sunglasses slipped off her sweaty face, and, too tired to retrieve them, she closed her eyes against the blistering sunlight. Her heart pounded as blood pulsed along her occipital nerve. She was one step shy of a migraine, and her heart felt ready to explode.

  “You did well,” Pax said.

  She cracked open one eye to see the accompanying smirk but was surprised to glimpse nothing of the sort. He looked sincere. She drew her brows together. This man made no sense.

  “You did. I figured you’d react more strongly if I was an ass. Stopping there wasn’t safe.”

  He’d manipulated her to spur her out of danger?

  Cunning, yet embarrassing that he’d correctly guessed how to get her moving. Her father had wielded humiliation too, but she supposed this was different. Pax’s taunt might have saved her life.

  He’d get a pass on his methods. Once.

  Her pounding pulse slowed to a more normal rhythm. Breathing became less of a chore. Maybe she wouldn’t die of heat exhaustion. Speaking of dying, she twisted to look at the unconscious militant. “How is our patient?” she wheezed out the words.

  “Still breathing.”

  “How long until we can get a copter?”

  His shrug was anything but casual, and she realized he was worried. About Callahan.

  On a conscious level, she knew today’s events weren’t her fault. She was a victim. But the brain didn’t always accept logic as fact, and in fighting Pax to get to the fossils, she’d made the situation worse.

  It felt like everything was her fault.

  The explosion. The IED. The sniper. She was responsible. The catalyst. Or maybe Linus was. Regardless, it fell on her shoulders, which was a heavy, horrific weight to bear.

  What if Callahan was injured or killed? He was out here because of her. Because she’d stepped right into Desta’s trap and acted exactly as he’d expected her to.

  A single gunshot reported in the distance.

  She met Pax’s gaze as he stiffened, holding his radio in a tight grip. The silence broke with a rustle of static, then a voice she suspected was Cal’s.

  She heaved a sigh of relief as a wide grin broke out on Pax’s face.

  She felt his smile low in her belly.

  Oh yeah, I definitely want a piece of that.

  Less than five minutes after the militant was whisked to a Navy ship via helicopter, a Humvee rolled up to take Morgan and Pax to the base. It had been less than three hours since he and Cal had laid down the tack strip in the roadway and set up their roadblock. He pulled off his helmet and settled into the rear seat beside Morgan. He scanned her as she leaned back and closed her eyes.

  Long blonde hairs had escaped her braid and now adhered to her flushed, sweaty brow and neck. Her clothing, arms, and hands were splattered with blood, and dust had settled into the damp creases of her skin, giving a hint to how she’d look years from now, when facial wrinkles would be more pronounced.

  She’d be a beautiful, aging fairy.

  She looked so delicate, yet it had been made more than clear in their short acquaintance she was no fragile blossom. She’d escaped an explosion without hysterics—well, except for the part about being pissed at him for saving her—shot a man without flinching, and then proceeded to help save that man’s life.

  His anger at her had evaporated in the scorching heat and been replaced by something entirely different.

  Simple, basic lust. A side effect of adrenaline that usually had no focal point when a combat mission was completed.

  She was feeling it too. He’d seen it in her eyes as they waited for the copter, felt it in the charge that rippled through her when she’d accepted his help climbing into the backseat of the armored vehicle.

  And, like him, she was trying to ignore it.

  Did she know adrenaline was the cause, or was that new for her?

  He doubted her work usually got the adrenaline pumping in quite this way. But then, she’d moved through the wadi like a seasoned soldier.

  “The base commander wants me to take you both straight to HQ,” the marine in the driver’s seat said.

  “She needs to be checked out by a medic first.”

  He could see the driver’s frown in the rearview mirror, but he didn’t argue. How could he when she was covered in blood? Sure, it was someone else’s blood, but that needed to be confirmed. The woman needed to be hydrated and checked for signs of shock.

  On the base, they entered the medical clinic together, and Morgan was quickly whisked into an examining room. Pax turned to leave, intending to head straight to the commander’s office, but Janelle, a pretty, petite African American medic with a heavy Brooklyn accent stopped him. “Not so fast, Blanchard. You step into my building after an explosion and exchanging gunfire, and you get examined like everyone else.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You aren’t fine until I tell you you’re fine.”

  Ten minutes later, Janelle tucked away her stethoscope. “You’re fine,” she said with a wide grin. She scanned him from head to toe. “But don’t tell Dion I said that.”

  Pax laughed. Dion, a fellow Special Forces operator, and Janelle had been having a not-so-secret fling for the last month. Given that they were in different branches of the military and neither was an officer, fraternization rules didn’t apply, but it would be damn hard to maintain the relationship when one or the other was sent home. A reason to avoid in-country flings.

  Or maybe a reason to have them.

  Pax reached for his blood-coated shirt and pulled it on, wondering if he had time to take a shower and change before Dr. Adler would be released, but she was in the waiting area when he stepped out of the examination room. She clutched a thirty-two-ounce bottle of blue Gatorade to her chest and made a face when the doctor admonished her to drink the whole bottle.

  Dr. Carson turned to Pax. “Make sure she finishes it, Sergeant. If she refuses, I want her back in here for an IV.”

  It appeared he was once again Dr. Morgan Adler’s babysitter. Given the adrenaline-fueled thoughts that ripped through his brain every time he looked at her—dirt, sweat, blo
od, and all—he didn’t find the role nearly as annoying as he had in the wadi.

  “Yes, sir,” he said. He led Morgan out of the building. The early afternoon heat hit him in a wave, and that fast, he was sweating again. He took the sport drink from her hands and twisted open the top, breaking the seal. He handed it back to her. “Drink.”

  She frowned. “I don’t trust beverages that are colors not found in nature.”

  “Flowers are that shade of blue.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Not found in food. Did you know blue is a sign something is poisonous or spoiled? We’re hard-wired by evolution to avoid blue food. Even blueberries aren’t really blue—they’re green inside with purple skin, which is why they look blue but have purple juice, not Smurf-vomit blue.”

  The adrenaline had a tighter grip on him than he thought, because he even found her obstinance appealing. And obstinance was never appealing. “You’ve put a lot of thought into this.”

  “I wrote a paper on it as an undergrad.” She studied the bottle. “They were out of red at the clinic.”

  He placed a finger under the bottle, tilting it up to her mouth. As she drank, he leaned into her and spoke softly. “After we meet with the base commander, I’ll take you to Barely North—the bar on base—and spike your Gatorade.”

  She lowered the bottle and swallowed. There was a sheen of blue on her lips, and he had the urge to lick the moisture away. “I don’t think the doctor would approve,” she said in a husky voice, and it took a moment to realize she was responding to his words, not his thoughts.

  But then, the doctor probably wouldn’t approve of his thoughts either. “He said to make sure you finish the Gatorade.” Pax shrugged and flashed a not-very-innocent smile.

  She smiled back, and he felt heat that had nothing to do with the sweltering day and high humidity.

  A horn sounded behind him, and he turned to see Cal at the wheel of an open-top utility vehicle. “Get in.”

  Even though he’d known Cal was okay, Pax felt relief at seeing him just the same. Morgan made a beeline for the back. Pax took the front passenger seat.