“If your intel is good, my skills can keep up,” Cullen assured him.
That had been an hour and a half ago. It was still an hour before sunrise, and he was staring at the two trucks in question. They were fugly, there was no other term for them. Normally when it came to German engineering, Cullen was a fan. But this looked like a VW mated with one of those albino yaks. Yep, the two trucks were Unimogs. But they were beasts. They were fantastic in all types of terrain. He bet it would do great in the Baja 1000 Desert Race, except that no American in his right mind would drive anything so butt-ugly. So yeah, he’d scored. Sort of…
He continued walking the perimeter of the small village, there were fourteen houses in all. They were surrounded by rows and rows of sorghum and millet plants, which explained why they had trucks. Score one was the trucks, score two was the plant cover and score three was making it before dawn. He saw a line of clothes hanging from a clothesline. Never passing up a possible advantage, he grabbed a headscarf, a hijab, a raggedy pair of pants that wouldn’t cover his ankles but might fit around his waist and a huge football jersey for the reigning soccer team of Sudan.
They’ll probably be more pissed about him stealing the team jersey than the truck.
Just before he was ready to head back to the trucks, he saw a flash of white on the ground. He grinned when he picked up the extra-large thobe.
Thank you, Allah!
With this, he could at least cover up his uniform and blend in at a distance. Now for getting one of the trucks out of here without anybody noticing.
He checked them both out, the blue truck had better tires, so that was the likely winner, but the true test was going to be which one had the fullest fuel tank.
Both were unlocked, so he went up to the red one.
“Come on, Baby, give Cullen what he needs.” Quietly he opened the door of the first and carefully tipped the visor. Down fell the keys into his hand. He plugged the starter key into the ignition and turned one click. A half tank of fuel and shitty tires. Please, please, please say the one with good tires has more petrol.
He crept over to the puke yellow truck and opened the door. He held out his hand, tipped the visor and nothing.
“Fuck me running!” he whispered under his breath. He looked around the cab, checked the glove box.
Nothing.
“Think, Lyons.”
He went to the front of the truck and swept along the front tire underneath the fender.
Thank you, little baby Jesus.
He put the key into the ignition, turned a click and saw gold. Almost a full tank of fuel and damn near new tires. He scoped out the back of both truck beds, not surprised to find full jerry cans of petrol. He grabbed the one from the loser truck and tucked it in next to the one he intended to commandeer.
Here near the side of the husking shed, the trucks were stored on a plot that was on a bit of a rise, probably to let the rainwater drain away and prevent flooding into the shed. Another bit of luck that he’d take any day of the week. He wasn’t going to start the truck here, with that damned diesel engine it would wake everybody in all fourteen homes. Instead, he released the brake and put it in neutral, then started pushing it toward the road.
After the first three steps, Cullen’s legs were beginning to hurt.
You should have been training more, not working on your house, you dumb bastard.
Cullen’s muscles were on fire by the time he got the truck pushed to the road. As soon as it hit the thick red clay of the road, he fired up the engine and started driving, praying that the villagers would just assume it was a truck driving by. He didn’t need a truck chase in the middle of Africa.
Even after a mile down the road and he realized he’d gotten away with the truck, he still wasn’t happy. Not even the splendor of an African sunrise could get a smile from him, he was too worried about Shada. With every deep rut in the road he winced, worrying that she would end up ripping open her incision and bleeding out.
He slowed down as he approached the lonely house. Once again, he wondered why she lived so far away from any other person. That wasn’t the norm from what he had learned at the briefings he had been given and what he had observed. Normally a family like hers would be surrounded by more people. What was the deal?
Cullen got out of the truck, prepared to see what progress Carys had made inside the house to get Shada and the baby ready for travel. Before he had even stepped two feet toward the abode, the door opened, and her hair was glinting in the sunlight.
She opened the back door of the truck. “Thank God it has a backseat. I was worried that you were going to bring me a sedan or a two-seater truck with just a flatbed in the back. This will work.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Come inside. I need you to cut some things down to size. Once you do that, the mattress will lay out pretty well. I want to give her as much cushioning as possible, but we can’t use the blood-soaked bedding from where she gave birth.”
It took a moment for Cullen’s eyes to acclimate from the bright sun to the dim interior of Shada’s home. He could see what Carys was indicating. She had piled two crates near the door, they could be cut down so that they could be shoved into the footwells of the back passenger seats and then a mattress could lay on top of the seat and the crates. He grinned. The innovation was perfect.
“Let’s get this going,” he enthused. “How are Mama and Baby?”
“I just administered a low dose of pain meds to Shada when I heard the truck pull up and confirmed it was you. Adam doesn’t need to be fed again for another two hours.”
Cullen paused from where he was modifying the crate to fit into the back of the truck. “Adam, huh?”
Even in the dim light, he could see Carys blush. She nodded.
“I think that’s a perfect name,” he said quietly. “So, will they be ready to move when we have this set up?”
“We will do what we have to do.” She walked over to him and crouched down. “Cullen, this is one of the worst possible things we could be doing. You know that, right?”
His gut clenched. “Carys, I wouldn’t be doing it if there was any other choice.” He cupped her cheek. “We have to get to Khartoum—your lives, all three of your lives, are depending on this.”
She nodded. “Okay, I have scoured the house. Every bit of fluid and food I’ve got packed. I also have a hijab for me to wear.”
“You plucked the suggestion right out of my head,” Cullen said as he bent back down to the crate. “Is she on solid foods? I have some MREs. Raiden stuffed his into my pack. There’s packets of fruit and applesauce in there for her.”
“The applesauce would be a Godsend. Maybe I could finally get her to eat something. But so far, she just hasn’t been interested. That’s just one more reason I’m so worried. I have a few bananas as well that I was going to mash up. We’re not going to be able to take the direct route to the capital, are we?” Carys asked.
Smart. The lady was smart.
“Nope. Not with me driving. Even with you in the hijab, I’m going to stick out like a sore thumb. I’d normally suggest we drive at night so we could avoid detection, but I need to be able to see the road so that I give Shada the smoothest ride possible.”
He stood up and Carys followed him as he went out to the truck to see if the crates fit in the footwell. They did.
“Is she going to be okay with me carrying her?” Cullen asked.
“That’s part of the reason I administered the pain medication. Having a strange man, especially an American, carrying her was going to be difficult for her no matter how desperate the situation. I have her covered in her hijab. I’ve told her about you and explained that you are a trained medic like Raiden. That seemed to help.”
Cullen nodded. He picked up the mattress and Carys’ large medical bag and hauled them out to the truck. When he had it all situated, he went in to carry Shada out to the vehicle.
He formally introduced himself in Arabic. “Your
son is very handsome.”
She hugged her son close to her chest, then relinquished him to Carys’ waiting arms.
“Thank you, he is already a great joy in my life,” Shada said sweetly.
“It has been a pleasure to feed him and meet all of your children.” Even dosed with pain medication, Cullen could see a look of pride in Shada’s expression.
“Please tell me if I’m hurting you when I lift you up,” Cullen asked. “The last thing I want to do is cause you any pain.”
“I will be fine. Just take care of the doctor and my baby,” the woman said softly.
Cullen couldn’t help but admire the woman’s stoic attitude. He carefully picked her up, not surprised when she didn’t make a sound. Carys held the door open while holding the baby in her other arm. She walked ahead and was able to help him place Shada in a comfortable position, all without causing baby Adam to wake up.
He helped Carys into the front seat, then went back into the house to make sure nothing was left behind. As soon as he was satisfied that they were all packed up, he hot-footed it out to the truck, and headed out on the route that Kane had provided.
8
The cloth that she had tucked up around the windows in the backseat helped to keep the sun off Shada and Adam as they drove at a snail’s pace down some non-existent road. Carys knelt over the front seat and wrung out the damp cloth, and wiped it down the woman’s brow, face, neck and arms.
“No,” she protested groggily.
“He can’t see,” Carys reassured her, referring to Cullen.
Adam was pressed in beside Shada and the bench seat and giving a weak cry. He needed to be fed. She checked the saline drip into Shada’s arm, it was still flowing.
They’d been on the road for four hours, and Carys needed to check Shada’s dressing. What’s more, the last time she tried to feed Adam, he just spit up the formula. The constant motion was making him carsick. Why couldn’t he be one of those babies who were comforted by being driven around?
“Carys, sit forward and put on your seatbelt,” Cullen said sharply.
The truck lurched and Adam sank down lower between his mother and the back of the seat. Carys had to almost stand up on the seat to pull him up.
“Carys, goddammit, sit your ass down.”
She ignored him, then picked up the now squalling child and maneuvered him securely into her arms so she could twist her way back down into the front seat. As soon as she was pointed forward, she saw what Cullen had so upset. They were coming up on two Jeeps—one of them had men with rifles in their laps. They blocked their progress.
Cullen stopped the truck.
“The two with guns are wearing Rapid Support Forces uniforms,” Cullen said quietly in English. Bad news is, we don’t know if they’re rebels or are with the new government. Let me do the talking.”
Carys had already checked her French braid—it was so tight that it was giving her a headache, which meant it wasn’t going to show underneath the dark hijab. She brought the scarf down lower over her brow, and the lower part of the robe up higher so that it covered her mouth and nose. Holding Adam should make her blend in as a pious Muslim Sudanese woman. But how in the heck Cullen was going to spin the fact that he was driving her around, she had no idea. She just prayed God that he was a smooth talker.
“Carys, in case the shit hits the fan, here are the keys to the car and a gun.” He shoved both at her. She let them drop beside her on the seat. “Now it could be I need you to act as my backup.”
“Your backup? What does that mean?” she asked.
“You’ll know.”
He got out of the truck and went to the first man holding the rifle. He must have recognized the highest-ranking soldier. She heard him say, “Peace be upon you,” in Arabic. But then Adam started whimpering and she couldn’t hear them.
When the man that Cullen was talking to started screaming, Carys could hear quite clearly. He was accusing Cullen of being a spy. Cullen held up his hands, but not in surrender, she could see it was more in a soothing manner. She rocked Adam more, wishing she could hear what Cullen was saying.
When she could finally get the poor little boy to take a little bit of the bottle, she started to hear talk of money. How come she wasn’t surprised? She had hundreds of piasters and Sudanese pounds tucked away in hidden compartments, and on her person, but it always came down to U.S. dollars. She saw Cullen pull out two bills. He was smart, it wasn’t as if he took out a wallet and drew out money, or pulled bills off a wad of cash, he just had two rumpled bills from a pocket of his thobe.
Even from her seat, she could see the avarice in the man’s eye. He was definitely considering trying to extract more money from Cullen.
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Cullen said in a calm tone. Once again Carys was impressed with how well he spoke Arabic.
“I have the gun,” the man said. “What are you going to do about it?”
That was her sign. She picked up the gun and put her hand outside the window and trained it on the scene in front of her. There wasn’t a chance in the world that she would make the shot, but they wouldn’t know it.
“Look over at the truck, you’re not the only one with a gun.” She would bet anything that Cullen was grinning. All the African men’s eyes swung to her.
Please, Adam, don’t fuss. Don’t fuss.
“Look, I really don’t want any trouble,” she heard Cullen say. “Let me go back to my truck, I have just a little bit of American money, not much, but a little, that I can give you. But I need more water. Is it a deal?”
Her heart was in her mouth as she waited for their response. Finally, the man motioned with his rifle. Cullen turned and sprinted to the driver’s seat. He opened the car door and she saw him duck down, push the thobe out of the way, then fumble underneath his bulletproof vest. He pulled out a bunch of raggedy bills.
She cocked her eyebrow in question. “Later, Carys.” He threw all but one of the bills on the car seat and ran back to the men.
“Found it.”
The man who didn’t have a rifle and wasn’t wearing a red beret pulled out a half-full plastic jug of water. He thrust it forward.
“Nope, get down and hand it to me, and I’ll trade you the twenty dollars for it. That, and safe passage.”
“I’m a man of my word,” the leader sounded offended.
“This is a bad situation. It is my task to worry about my woman. I must be careful,” Cullen shrugged.
That seemed to get through and the leader told the man with the water to get down and make the trade. All Carys could think about was how heavy the gun was, and how she needed them to hurry up.
“Thank you,” Cullen said formally when they concluded their deal.
The leader bowed his head and Cullen did the same. He walked slowly back to the truck. When he got into the driver’s seat, he didn’t even move the money. He just sat on it, dumped the jug of water at her feet, took the offered keys from Carys, started the truck, and pulled away from them. She saw them staying where they were in the sideview mirror.
“Thank God, my arm was getting ready to drop this thing.” Carys started to pull the gun back into the car.
“Stop! You need to keep it trained on them until they’re out of sight.”
The muscles in her arm were burning, she didn’t know if it was physically possible. “Cullen,” she started.
“You can do it, I know you can.”
“I’m glad you do,” she muttered. Her triceps dug deep into the side of the car, her forearm felt like it was going to fall off and the gun trembled in her hand.
“Cullen, I’m going to drop the gun.”
“No, you’re not. You’re Carys Adams, you get the job done no matter what.”
“I know who I am,” she bit out. “That’s why I’m telling you I’m at my limit. Drive faster.” She started counting seconds in her head.
“Just one more minute, Carys,” he urged. “Almost there, Darlin’. You’ve got this.�
�
She fought back tears and held on tighter to the pistol. She heard Adam’s snuffle over the car’s engine, as if he was encouraging her too.
The gun started to slip.
“Done!” Cullen shouted.
She gripped tighter, stopping the fall of the gun, and moved her aching arm back into the car. She deployed the safety and carefully placed the gun next to the jug of water at her feet. The sob of relief took her by surprise. Cullen wrapped his hand underneath her braid and squeezed her neck. It felt wonderful.
“You did good.”
She cuddled Adam close to her breast, needing all the intimacy she could get.
“Were they going to shoot us?” she finally asked.
“I’m not sure,” Cullen said. “I’m still not sure that they won’t follow us even though they were initially going in the other direction. The only thing that gives me hope is that it looked like they were in a hurry to go the other way.”
“Where do you think they were going?”
“My guess is Alshbarga. Kane said that there is a build-up going on down there.”
She nodded, too tired to do much else, but still, she looked over the seat to check on Shada. Her ebony skin had taken on a pallor that did not look good. “Cullen, when can we stop?”
“I need to put a few more kilometers between them and us before I feel good about stopping.”
“We could just end up running into someone else. We need to stop. I need to check her vitals and make sure the saline is still getting to her. She doesn’t look good. Can’t you pull off into the trees?”
Cullen looked over at her, she could see the determination on his face.
“As soon as I see a good spot, I’ll pull off,” he promised her.
“Thank you.”
Carys sank back against the seat. Little Adam gave a whimper. His wet diaper had soaked into the fabric of the hijab while she’d been holding the gun. Even when she changed him, the scent of urine would still permeate the air around her. The relief she felt at the fact that he was hydrated enough to pee through his diaper and cause such a wet stain on her hijab thrilled her.
Her Tempting Protector: Navy SEAL Team (Night Storm Book 2) Page 8