13
“Carys, I’m going to go out and make another call. I need to check in with my lieutenant. I don’t want to disturb our charges.”
“Why not make it here?” she asked.
“You know these satellite phones—usually you have to talk loudly or sometimes even yell to be heard.”
“There is that. Can you ask again for the names of who was killed and who’s missing? Please.”
“I can, but I’m betting that it will be the same answer. If Max didn’t have the answer last time, they probably aren’t likely to have released any names since then.”
He saw her open her mouth to protest.
“I promise to ask, I just don’t want you to get your hopes up is all.”
She bent her head. “I know. It’s just when I call, I’ve only been able to get ahold of Jamal and Hans, and they don’t know anything.”
He reached out and covered her hand with his. “We’ll be in Khartoum soon. Then you’ll know,” he assured her.
“Go make your call,” she said as she made a shooing motion. He gave a grin and hopped over the side of the truck. That woman was something else. He jogged out a good ways where he thought his voice would at least be muffled. He wanted a good idea of what they would be running into when they got to the capital city and he didn’t want to worry Carys unnecessarily.
He called Kane, knowing he’d know exactly what the hell was going on.
“Take this,” it was Leo’s voice.
“Sato here.”
There was a massive roar from a crowd. Kane could barely hear his teammate. “Raiden, it’s Cullen. I’m checking in. I’m going to be coming into Khartoum early tomorrow morning. I’ve got to get Shada to a hospital.”
Cullen continued to hear people yelling, but Raiden wasn’t saying anything.
“Raiden. Talk to me.”
“The main highway into the city is closed off. They’re rioting in the streets. There are hospitals open. There have to be with all of the wounded civilians, but I’m trying to think of how to get you to one of them.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Cullen demanded. “This is not some kind of movie. Khartoum is a city of five million.”
“With basically one way for you to get into the city from where you’re at,” Raiden ground out.
“Who the hell has the highway blocked off? The Rapid Support Forces?”
“Civilians. It’s a goatfuck.”
Cullen dropped down into a crouch and dropped his head onto his knees. How could they be this close, and end up having it all fall to shit? He took a deep breath and tried to get his tired brain to think. It wasn’t working. It wasn’t working at all.
“Look, Cullen, I’ll talk to Kane. He’s over at the airport right now. Midnight Delta has been brought in to help. He’s coordinating with them right now. When was the last time you’ve slept?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Cullen bit out.
“Yes, it does. You’re not worth two shits if you can’t think straight. Rely on your team right now. You need to get some rest. When are you planning on getting on the road?”
Cullen looked down at his watch. “I wanted to be on the highway at O-three-hundred hours.”
“Okay, sleep for the next five hours, then call me back up. We’ll have a plan.”
Cullen was silent.
“You’ve got to trust your team. Haven’t we always had your back?”
Cullen relaxed.
“Yeah,” he said. “You guys have never let me down.”
“Exactly.”
By the time he had walked back to the truck, Cullen had taken his teammate’s words to heart. Worrying was stupid at this point, and Raiden was right, his team always came through. What’s more, he desperately needed some sleep. When he got to the bed of the truck, he saw Carys setting down her treasured soda to pile some spiced potatoes onto a piece of flatbread.
A strand of her hair had made its way out of her braid and it was now curled around her face. She swiped at it like it was a spider or something. Then she shoved it back into her braid and gave a sigh of relief. There was definitely a story there.
“Well, come sit down and eat and tell me about the call,” she motioned for him to join her.
“Let’s wait until after dinner, okay?”
“Did you find out about my friends?”
“No, I didn’t.”
She slumped, then sighed. “Okay, we can wait until after we eat.” He watched as she took a delicate bite of her food, thoughtfully chewed, and then smiled. “This is good. I never quite know what I’m going to get. Of course, I always pretend it’s good. But this, I actually like.”
He liked that. Every one of his team members respected the different cultures that they encountered and were always polite and gracious. The fact that Carys was the same way just raised her even higher in his esteem.
“So, it’s not just the sweets that you like?” he teased.
She gave a wry smile. “So, I didn’t hide my mouth watering over the cake as well as I’d hoped, huh?”
“I thought you might scratch my eyes out if I had suggested we share.”
“Nah, you’re a too good of a driver.” She said before taking another bite.
He grinned around the large bite of food he had taken. After he swallowed, he asked, “Wanna tell me what other vices you have?”
“Oh no, you asked all the questions last time, soon it will be my turn. But it’s doctor’s orders that you rest as soon as you brief me on the call.”
The woman was right. It was time for shut-eye. She’d been an absolute trooper, but the dark mauve bruising under her eyes was visible even under the quarter moonlight. All the care she had been giving to her two charges had drained her, and no amount of sugar was going to recharge her the way that some rest would.
He settled back against the side of the truck and finished up the rest of his Fanta, then opened up one of the bottles of water and handed it to her.
“Thanks.” She took a sip and her hair got in her way again, then she swiped at it angrily.
“Carys? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m just overtired and when I am, I hate it when my hair is in my face.”
He reached out slowly and brushed it back behind her ear. Her sigh of relief was audible.
“It’s a phobia.”
“No big deal. We all have them.”
“Now that’s two for me. Messy hair and scorpions. At least I don’t faint at the sight of blood.” Her eyes twinkled.
“Yeah, you’d be kind of a crap doctor if you did.” He nudged the piece of cake toward her.
She shook her head. “I’m going to save it for breakfast. I would give it to Shada, but she’s still sound asleep and on the off-chance she needs surgery when we get there, I want her stomach empty.” She leaned over to her medical kit and pulled out an empty bottle of water. He watched as she poured the rest of her soda into the empty water bottle and capped it.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to give this to Shada when she wakes up. This will be her treat for breakfast.” Then she leaned forward and broke off a corner of the cake. “Okay, Mama needs a little taste before bedtime.”
Cullen was grateful for the fact that he was wearing a looser pair of pants. God, the woman looked like she was in the throes of ecstasy.
Down, boy.
They yawned at the same time.
“I’m too tired to say jinx,” she yawned again. “Can you tell me what was said on the call?”
“There’s rioting in the streets going on. The highway going into the city is closed off.”
She gasped.
“But the good news is that they’ve brought in another SEAL team. This is going to work out.”
“It is?”
“It is,” he promised her. “Kane and Raiden are working on a plan while we rest. They’ll have something for us by the time we wake up.”
“But—”
“S
ometimes there’s nothing you can do for a patient but wait and see, right?”
“Yes,” she admitted. “Those are the times I hate the most.”
“You and me both. But I trust my teammates implicitly. You and I both need rest so we can pull off whatever they have planned for us. Okay?”
She stared at him, her eyes searching his face for something. He didn’t know what, but she must have found it, because she said, “Okay, Cullen. You’re right. We need to sleep.”
He pulled back the Dora blanket and showed her the plaid blanket that was folded for padding underneath.
“Settle in,” he invited. “You’re going to have to make do with the empty duffel bag as our pillow.”
“We are,” she corrected. She was lying down and looking up at him when she said it. “Seriously, Cullen, just get in here. I’m cold, and we’re sharing the darn pillow.” With those last words, her eyes drifted shut.
He really needed to make sure he didn’t swear as much around her. He got under the blanket and snorted. Dora the Explorer. Couldn’t the kid have parted with Spiderman?
Carys’ body twitched, and he knew that she was on her way to a deep sleep. She rolled her head and some of her hair drifted onto her face. She whimpered and swiped at it. As he had done when she was awake, he brushed it back, marveling at the softness of her skin. She sighed and visibly relaxed. She melted against him, and Cullen thought he was going to have trouble going to sleep, but he forced himself to close his eyes and unwind. The last thing he was aware of was Carys cuddling closer, and a feeling of bone-deep satisfaction.
Cullen came awake, but his wrist wasn’t vibrating so it wasn’t his alarm. He listened intently and heard the soft sounds of Carys’ breath as she snuggled closer to his chest. It had been an hour, maybe two, when he felt her arms slip around him, and it had settled them both. Now he listened even harder, then he heard what had woken him up. It was Adam.
Cullen reluctantly extricated himself from Carys’ arms. He looked down at his watch. It wasn’t quite midnight, but close enough for the little tyke’s midnight feeding. He wanted to get to him before he went into a full roar and woke the women. The little kid struck him as someone with a fierce enough nature already to wake the whole damn desert to get what he wanted. Cullen grinned as he crept out of the back of the truck.
When he opened the front seat door, Adam was opening his mouth and sucking in air for a loud wail. Cullen was ready. He had gotten some strips of sterile gauze while he had been at the clinic, and while Carys had been eating, he had tied one of them around a tongue depressor and made it into a makeshift little pacifier that he’d wetted with water. He dunked that sucker into Adam’s little mouth before he could make another cry.
“Hold on, Bubba, Uncle Cullen’s going to get you your food. Then he’s going to get that stinky old diaper changed.”
He prayed that the baby wasn’t going to end up being inconsolable. His teammate Zed had told him some horror stories about Lulu as a newborn when he and Marcia couldn’t find anything wrong with her, and she’d just cry and cry, and the only thing that would make it nominally better was if they walked her up and down the halls.
As quick as he could, he used the cigarette lighter to heat some water to mix the formula. Adam was pushing at the little pacifier, which was not going to get the job done much longer. After he mixed the formula, Cullen grabbed the baby and a clean diaper, then exited the truck with the bottle.
“Let’s go take a stroll,” he whispered.
He cooled a couple of drops of formula onto his finger and let the kid suck on his finger as he walked swiftly into the night. At his first screams, they were well away from the women. The bottle still needed a couple more minutes to cool.
“Do you need a serenade?” Cullen tried singing and rocking, but it didn’t work. But it kind of soothed Cullen, so he continued until the formula cooled, then finally he plopped the nipple into the crying baby’s mouth. Finally, there was blessed silence.
“No wonder Zed’s ass was dragging when he came to the training center in the mornings,” Cullen mused. He’d seen Lulu in a temper as she turned two years old, and he’d bet as a newborn she had been tremendously demanding.
When Adam was finally satisfied, Cullen got his diaper changed and then put him back down for another hour or two of sleep. He peeked in to see how Shada was doing, and her breathing was strong and regular. He smiled.
When he crawled under the blanket, he wasn’t surprised when Carys sleepily asked after the mother and baby. Cullen looked at her. He wondered if she was really even awake.
“They’re fine.”
“Good,” she slurred. In less than a minute, her breathing evened out and she was back asleep. He gathered her close and drifted off with her.
“Up and at ‘em, Sweets.” Carys’ eyes popped open. It took just a moment to orient herself. She sat up in the back of the truck and saw that the truck bed was open, and Cullen was shirtless and holding Adam next to his chest as he swayed back and forth.
“Does he need to be fed?” she asked groggily.
“Nope, just did it. This was number three, right after I cleaned up number two. He sure does like to poop,” Cullen grinned.
A laugh popped out of her mouth. “That’s kind of what they’re known for, crying, pooping and eating.”
“Well, he’s setting records. It’s about time for us to get going.”
“I need to check on Shada.”
“Her saline is about empty, so I figured we would leave a little early so you could get that done. Plus, you need to have cake for breakfast.”
“Shada first.” She climbed down and smoothed her finger down Adam’s cheek, coming perilously close to the heat of Cullen’s chest. He had kept his shirt on last night when she’d slept with him, but he was giving the baby the skin-to-skin contact she had recommended. She stifled a sigh, yearning to feel that same heat against her flesh. Embarrassed at the thought, she rushed past them to get to Shada.
By the time she switched the saline and got Shada out for yet another potty break and belted back up, Cullen had everything ready for them to head out. He handed her the cake and Adam.
“It’s going to be bumpy, but soon we’ll be on a highway,” he flashed her a grin.
“Have you called your team?”
“It’s going to take us forty-five minutes to an hour to get to the highway. They are cooking something up. They said to make our way there, and they’d have something for us by the time we got there.”
Carys’ stomach clenched. “Will they?”
“Absolutely. If they said they’ll have something, they’ll have something.”
She searched Cullen’s features. He really didn’t look stressed out.
“You’re really not worried?”
“Nope. They sounded confident. They have something in mind. We’re going to be golden.”
14
He pulled onto the highway. Carys held his satellite phone so tightly that her knuckles were white, yet somehow her other hand was gently stroking Adam’s head as he slept in the sling against her chest. Kane had called eighteen minutes ago to say they would have an update soon, but that Cullen and Carys should get onto the highway as planned.
The sun was just beginning to crest on the horizon. Why the hell were there so many cars on the highway? This highway was normally as empty as Route 66 in August. It should be dead. At least all the cars were headed south, away from Khartoum.
“It has to be bad in the city if this many people are fleeing,” Carys said quietly. She gasped. Cullen hated it, he had hoped she wouldn’t notice the small incident up ahead. Apparently, that was too much to ask for.
“What’s going on?”
“RSF,” he said succinctly.
“Yes, but what are they doing to those people? It looks like a family. I see children.”
Carys let out a muffled shriek as she watched one of the civilian men hit in the head by the butt of a rifle. Cullen just drove faster
past the spectacle.
“What could he have possibly done to deserve that?”
“Probably nothing,” Cullen said. His hands were getting sweaty on the steering wheel. He glanced down at the phone in Carys’ hand, willing it to ring.
They had approximately eighty kilometers to cover before they made it to the city barricade. He saw an armored combat vehicle approaching with two men manning the gun at the top. It barreled down the highway, pushing cars out of its way. Cullen swerved into the gravel on the side of the road to avoid them. Shada groaned with pain and Adam let out a sharp cry as he was jerked around.
Cullen righted the truck and continued to drive north, shutting out the sounds of Shada and Adam, and Carys’ attempts to soothe them both. He needed to stay focused, not just on his driving but on any more Rapid Support Forces that might be coming their way.
The phone rang and Carys shot her hand out toward him. He grabbed it.
“Yeah? Whatcha got?”
“It’s Kane. I’ve got a lock on you. I’m coming toward you. I’m halfway between you and Khartoum. Raiden’s behind me. We’re going to convoy you in.”
Cullen didn’t spend his time asking stupid questions like how’d they make it out of city past the barriers. “What are you driving?” Cullen asked so that he would know what to be on the lookout for.
“I’m driving the VW Kumelwagen. It’s the color of mud.”
“You mean The Thing?” Cullen couldn’t help the sharp laugh that popped out of his mouth. It felt good, he needed the relief.
He saw Carys giving him the side-eye.
“Yep I think Rommel rode in it during World War II,” Kane chuckled. “Raiden’s stuck driving a Toyota four-runner. He lost the coin toss.”
“What color is Raiden’s truck?”
“It’s baby blue. You said you were in a puke yellow Unimog, right? We’ll see you since I’m tracking you. We’ll be pulled over on your side of the road before you get past us. As soon as we see you coming in our rear-view mirrors, I’ll pull out in front of you.”
“What’s the situation in Khartoum?”
Her Tempting Protector: Navy SEAL Team (Night Storm Book 2) Page 13