by Amy Faye
Once time passes, and they get used to the new aches and pains, their memory starts to slip. My neck is killing me, so I must have been hit in the head. More likely, your head, the most mobile part of your body, whipped hard. You’re dealing with a wicked case of whiplash, not a wound. But memory is fickle, particularly when adrenaline is pumping hard.
He sucked in another breath. If they’d been in the barracks… if only they’d been in the barracks. There was no way that this would have happened. Maybe outside the lobby. But his boys had a lot of experience keeping dangerous types out. If anything, they were too used to it. They saw danger where there was nothing at all. But he’d rather that they worried too much than got themselves killed worrying too little.
Lara’s finger twitched on the bed. It was a little motion, barely a twinge of the muscles of her arms. To Blake, it might as well have been a wave of her whole arm. He pushed himself up from the seat and leaned over the bed.
“Lara? Are you alright?”
Her eyes opened slowly. Then she squeezed her eyes shut.
“Is something wrong?”
“The lights,” she muttered. “They’re too bright. Please.”
Blake looked up. They weren’t bright. If anything, they were dim. But after being unconscious for nearly nine hours, he guessed that any light at all was too bright. In two steps he’d crossed the room, and flipped the light switch with a loud plastic click.
“There you go,” he said.
Her eyes opened again. The room was as dim as it could have gotten. But it was still bright enough for his eyes to see. With her night-vision still good, no doubt she was seeing everything as if it were well-lit.
“How long have I been asleep?”
“A little while,” Blake said. The numbers weren’t important. If she was really interested in them—
“How long?”
“Nine hours, give or take,” he answered. The chair was comfortable, but it wasn’t that comfortable. Not nine-hours comfortable. By then it was an uncomfortable chair.
“What’s the diagnosis?”
“Minor concussion, maybe. A few pieces of shrapnel glance across your scalp. No stitches. You’ll have hell for muscle pain, but you’re going to make a full recovery.”
“What was that?”
“Someone apparently decided that they didn’t want to live any more,” Blake joked. It was an inappropriate time to joke. But he’d lived through too many of these, and the only thing that kept him moving was the joking. So he joked inappropriately and just dealt with the look that she gave him for it.
“You’re kidding.”
“They decided that maybe you didn’t want to live, either. Nor any of us.”
“How did you get there so fast?”
Blake took a deep breath and leaned hard on the side-barriers. His eyes closed and he tried to quiet the voice in his mind that started piping up about whose fault this was.
“Coincidence. I’d taken four steps out of the elevator when they fired the explosives.”
“And the other people in the lobby?”
Blake’s lips pressed together. “Some of them were lucky. Like you. Like me.”
“How many?”
“Twenty-four in total were gone.”
“Are you hurt?”
Blake was used to muscle pain. Even out of the field, he could always find some new creative way to hurt himself. That was what his mother said, anyways. The soreness in his shoulder was a new level. He ignored it because he had learned how to ignore worse than that.
“I’m going to be fine.”
“Any injuries at all? It looked like you were bleeding.”
“Just a little flesh wound. Through-and-through. I got a couple of stitches, nothing to worry about.”
“Nothing to worry about?” She pushed herself up. “And what about me? Do I have any stitches at all?”
“That’s different,” he said. She pushed herself up all the way and winced when her weight rested entirely on her arms. She fell back, propped up to a seated position.
“Different how? Because you’re a tough man?”
Because I deserved it for putting myself at risk, he thought reflexively. He didn’t say it.
“Because I’m used to it,” he said instead.
“Which is because, let me guess, you’re a big tough man?”
“Well, that’s part of it,” Blake said. He smiled. She didn’t smile back at him. He didn’t know why he’d thought she might, but he’d learned his lesson.
“I’m going to leave you for a little while, okay? I’ve got to work. I’ll have a man outside making sure that nothing happens to you.”
Blake turned and stepped away. He didn’t mention that there was already a man stationed outside the room. He was supposed to be Blake’s protection detail. Blake didn’t need a protection detail.
“Blake?”
He turned back. “Something wrong?”
“I didn’t like that.”
“I know you didn’t, darling.”
“I’m scared.”
Blake took a deep breath and stepped back towards her. His hand pressed into her cheek. “Don’t be scared, darling.”
“Why precisely shouldn’t I? This is the second time someone’s tried to kill me, and it looks like it’s just going to get worse from here.”
“Because,” Blake said, and paused a moment. The words sounded silly even in his head. He wasn’t looking forward to saying them out loud. But someone needed to say it. “No matter what happens, I’m always going to be there to save you. I promise.”
Eleven
A voice outside the hospital room door reassured her, the same as it had every time that he spoke. She hadn’t seen her protector. All it would take would be to stand up and walk outside. But she was tired. Too tired to get up. Too tired to walk. Hell, sitting up was tiring. She laid her head back on the bed and closed her eyes. She could sleep soon. If she were careful, she could get all the sleep she needed and more.
Another voice outside spoke, and then the soldier’s voice responded. The door opened and a woman stepped inside. She wore a head scarf and a heavy white coat. For a moment, Lara was almost afraid. A coat like that could hide most anything. Certainly, a little thing like a grenade would be easy to hide. She hated the fear, but she couldn’t fight it away as easily as saying that she hated it.
“You’re awake. That’s good.”
“Are you my doctor?”
The woman smiled. “Jamila Iqbal. I’m one of your doctors, Miss Winters.”
“Oh,” Lara said. The woman had a clipboard in her hands and looked down at it with a frown.
“We just wanted to make sure that you knew, before you had any chance to fear. There’s no need to worry about your child. It’s still perfectly healthy.”
“Child?”
The woman’s smile faltered, just for a moment. “Child, yes.”
“I’m sorry, I’m not following.”
“Were you not aware? When was the last time that you had your menses?”
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m afraid not, Miss Winters. And… in case you were considering… well, a very unfortunate decision, I’m sure that isn’t going to be a problem once you return to the United States, but…”
The idea hadn’t even crossed her mind. Nothing had. Her mind had blanked completely. She couldn’t be pregnant. It wasn’t physically possible. She’d only… well… it was physically possible. It was so unlikely, though. What were the odds?
She knew better than to ask the question. The odds didn’t matter. What had happened mattered. And apparently, what had happened was that she’d gotten herself pregnant. She blinked.
“And the baby… is healthy?”
“After an injury like yours, it’s something that we would want to keep an eye on. But as long as there’s no bleeding or cramping… we took the liberty of performing an ultrasound.”
“And does Blake know this?”
The wom
an raised an eyebrow. “The man who came in with you?”
“Big guy, looks like he’s ready to punch his way through a brick wall?”
The woman’s smile widened. “The American. Yes. No, of course we didn’t tell him. He’s not your husband.”
“No, he isn’t.”
“He thought you were still undergoing lifesaving measures. And, of course, you were. Our staff just neglected to inform him whose life precisely we were trying to save. We’ve tried to reach your father, but the emergency information in your file appears to have been out of date.”
That was true. She hadn’t updated it in a long time. If she remembered, that was probably back when her parents still had a land line, which was… Jesus.
“I’m sorry.”
“If you’d care to update that…”
Her soldier spoke into his radio outside. The words were hard to make out. He sounded serious. He always sounded serious. It seemed to be a general affliction of soldiers. Every one that Lara had ever met. The door opened an instant later.
“Miss Winters?” The doctor turned and gave him a severe look. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’ve got reports of a suspicious-looking person outside. If she can be moved, Dr. Iqbal, then I’d be remiss in my duties if I did not have her removed from the hospital to a safer location.”
“Very well, I understand. I’ll have the paperwork filed within ten minutes.”
A new voice joined the other two. A man’s voice. American. He sounded like he spoke while he was gargling something, coarse and throaty. “Is this the room?”
“Sir,” the soldier said. He turned in the doorway. “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m under strict orders not to let anyone inside.”
There was a moment of silence. “Soldier?”
“Sir, I need to perform an evac. Immediately.”
Dr. Iqbal’s eyes widened. “You’re not armed, sir?”
The soldier stepped aside rather than stop whoever it was bodily. He was short and broad, his skin dark and weathered. He had a stripe across his eyes like a raccoon that showed just a little bit of what his skin might have looked like it he weren’t out in the sun all the time.
“Sir, I have to ask you to leave,” the soldier repeated again. The newcomer looked at her hard. Like he was trying to memorize her face. And then in a smooth, swift motion, he turned to the doctor and reached for his hip.
Lara was too tired for any of this. She wanted to lay back down. Adrenaline made up the difference, going straight to her stomach and making her feel immediately sick. She pulled the needle from her arm in a swift motion and swung her legs out of bed. She wasn’t wearing anything under her light gown. It wasn’t a situation she was happy with.
But as his hand came back up a moment later, holding something compact and anodized black, she was less happy with the situation she’d found herself in now. So she forced her legs to move, hard and fast. She ran as hard as she could.
A pop followed after her, and another, and then steps falling heavy on the tiled floors. Somewhere, someone pulled an alarm. Lara kept moving. She found a staircase, pushed the door as hard as she could, and started going down.
The lights were dimmer here than they were in the halls, but she didn’t mind that one bit. Her head still hurt with bright lights. A second after she hit the door, someone else did. She might have had a ten second lead out the door, and it had dropped to six. Her feet didn’t feel good on the steps. She needed to get away.
She jumped down the last couple of steps and stumbled forward headlong into the wall. She caught herself with her hands and pushed away, ran down the steps two at a time and prayed that she wasn’t going to get caught. She knew that it was hopeless.
And then she hit the ground floor and ran smack into Blake Prince, as surprised to see her as anything.
“We need to go,” she panted. “Now.”
Blake took her arm wordlessly, and walked her out. There were guards stationed at the doors. They made no effort to stop him.
Twelve
They drove in silence for a couple of minutes. Blake restrained himself from asking until Lara looked like she wasn’t afraid that any moment, someone might come bursting down the street with an M-60 mounted on the back of their Jeep.
Damascus wasn’t that bad. Not really. But something about his presence there, and her presence there, was making it an interesting stay. Normally, he’d have been ignoring the whole thing, and he’d be in and out of the country within a matter of hours.
The reason that everything was going nuts was the exact same reason that he couldn’t leave the country to avoid the problems. They hadn’t been all that present in the Cathedral back home. He’d been able to wait a whole month before he came back, to set up a private jet and a flight crew and get himself good and comfortable. No interruptions.
Now he was in Syria, and things were pretty much going nuts. They’d been there less than twelve hours, and twice things had gone sideways.
“Do you want to tell me what the hell happened in there?”
Lara’s lips pressed into a line. “Someone tried to kill me.”
“Someone? What did he look like?”
“He looked like one of your guys,” Lara said. That sounded wrong. Which made his ears perk up.
“You’re sure?”
“No,” she answered. “There are a whole lot of other options. But he spoke English without an accent, your guard called him sir, and he didn’t look Arabic. So I’m taking an educated guess.”
“Well-educated, I’d say.”
“I agree,” she said, with an edge to her voice that she was annoyed.
“I wasn’t trying to question you. Did he give a name? Did you hear it?”
“I didn’t,” she said. “But I think he shot some people. My doctor, at least.”
Blake’s lips pinched shut. He didn’t have an answer for that, except that he wasn’t happy about it. That would mean that there was something going on here. Something complicated.
“I’ll radio into Peterson, then,” he said finally. He picked up the heavy radio and hit the button for channel four. Then he pushed the button to transmit. “Gawain, this is King Arthur. Report.”
Lara gave him a look. He shrugged. Then he repeated the command. There was a long pause. He repeated a third time. At this point, the answer was starting to become obvious.
“Maybe he can’t answer?”
Blake kept driving. He wanted to close his eyes and try to lower his blood pressure a little. But he was still driving. He pushed the button and pressed it.
“Temple Mount, this is King Arthur. Do you read?”
A man’s voice answered. “Five by five, King Arthur. Temple Mount, go ahead.”
“I’m trying to get ahold of Peterson. Have you heard from him?”
“He was supposed to be with you, sir,” the man on the other end said. Blake’s lips pressed together.
“He was reassigned in the field,” Blake answered. “I had him looking over my flight crew.”
“Yes sir,” the voice on the other end said. “If you give me just a minute, I’ll check his location.”
There was a momentary pause. Blake caught Lara looking at him, wondering. Worrying, he knew. If only he could be any less worried than she seemed to be.
“Anything?”
“I’ve got a location, sir. He’s located at or around the Dr. Shami-Attar-Bdeir Medical Care Center. Do you need an address?”
“Any indication that he’s moved from there in the past ten minutes? Or that he was anywhere else?”
“No, sir. He’s very stable.”
“Good work, son,” Blake said. Then he did pull over on the side of the road, and pressed his head into the steering wheel.
“Blake?”
“How many shots did you say were fired?”
“I don’t know.”
“More than one?”
“At least three.”
Blake pulled his head back just far enough to knock his forehead on
the steering wheel. It sounded loud to his ears.
“God bless it. Alright. You’re with me, then.”
“Is something wrong?”
“We’ve got to get you someplace safe.”
“Blake?”
“You don’t know why we’re here, do you?”
“You said that you were soldiers. Doing all the usual soldier stuff.”
“This specific trip, though. You don’t know.”
Blake turned the key in the ignition and the SUV jumped back to life.
“No.”
“That first attack. It wasn’t random. Someone was trying to kill me. A terrorist group. Looking to get Israeli interests out of Syria, of all things.”
“Which means… you?”
“Apparently. So I came back to clean up the mess.”
“And…”
“And apparently, they’ve decided that you’re with me.”
“I don’t understand. What does that have to do with one of your guys attacking my hospital room?”
“How did they know what flight I was going to be on? It’s not like I publish an itinerary. Most people probably think that I fly private. And now, apparently, I do. In spite of myself.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
“So either they’ve got a robust intelligence network, or…”
“Someone internal.” She let out a sigh as she thought it over. I didn’t like it any more than she did. A worried silence settled over them as the car eased its way through traffic.
“So we’ve got at least someone looking to get at you. Someone who, apparently, wants to have me killed.”
“So what do we do, then?”
Blake’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel, and he tightened his jaw.
“We find the leak, and we plug it. That’s all we can do. Once that’s done, I can start working on the bigger job of making sure that we can cover everything else.”
“And how do you do that? How many people are working for you? How do you test them?”
“The command staff here isn’t extensive. We’ve got five hundred boots on the ground, performing various daily duties. A few hundred stationed at home, and a rotation that goes through. Which means the command staff is under a hundred. And most of those wouldn’t be over Peterson. After all, he was a member of my personal staff.”