by Ilsa J. Bick
Soldier’s Heart: Part Four
Brotherhood Protectors World
Ilsa J Bick
Contents
No Plan Survives
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
So Late, So Soon
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Ghosts In The Macine
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
CHRISTMAS
Chapter 1
Also by Ilsa J Bick
About Ilsa J Bick
Original Brotherhood Protectors Series
About Elle James
Copyright © 2018, Ilsa J Bick
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
© 2018 Twisted Page Press, LLC ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this book may be used, stored, reproduced or transmitted without written permission from the publisher except for brief quotations for review purposes as permitted by law.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please purchase your own copy.
Brotherhood Protectors
Original Series by Elle James
Brotherhood Protectors Series
Montana SEAL (#1)
Bride Protector SEAL (#2)
Montana D-Force (#3)
Cowboy D-Force (#4)
Montana Ranger (#5)
Montana Dog Soldier (#6)
Montana SEAL Daddy (#7)
Montana Ranger’s Wedding Vow (#8)
Montana SEAL Undercover Daddy (#9)
Cape Cod SEAL Rescue (#10)
Montana SEAL Friendly Fire (#11)
Montana SEAL’s Bride (#12)
Montana Rescue
Hot SEAL, Salty Dog
Dear Readers,
As always, for those who’ve been along on this wild ride, welcome back! So many of you have gotten in touch and commented on what fun you’re having…well that’s gold for any writer. If you enjoyed this series, leave a review and then go check out my other books or tell your friends about these. We writers count on word of mouth and reviews.
For those joining in for the first time, best if you start with Part One or, if you’ve not read beyond that and wanted to wait until the series was done…have at it!
Thanks are due to many: Jordan Dane for her suggestion I give this world a try; Elle James for her kindness and generosity; Kate Richards and Nanette Sipe of Wizards in Publishing for their eagle eyes and terrific suggestions; Frauke Spanuth of CrocoDesigns for her fabulous covers. Thanks also to Darcy Harbaugh and the North Alabama Search Dog Association for sharing their expertise, stories, and—most of all—their wonderful animals. I also wish to thank Christopher Lanier for enduring gallons of coffee and thousands of questions as he shared stories of life as an amputee.
We all owe a debt of gratitude to the dog handlers—men and women in our Armed Forces—and their canine partners. A typical military working dog in the field saves, on average, a hundred and fifty soldiers over the course of his or her service and does so only for the chance to play a game. They and their handlers deserve our respect and gratitude.
On a lighter note, I want to thank the drill sergeant who once screamed that I marched like a doctor—and then laughed when I retorted, well, because I am. On the other hand, when he heard I did okay on that rifle range, he thought there might be hope. It was all very M*A*S*H and the military had its moments, but I would not now trade that experience for the world.
Lastly, and as always, all my love to my husband, David, who suffers my sleepless nights and thrown-together meals because, yes, he understands how thoroughly a story consumes me.
No Plan Survives
Afghanistan, 2014
Chapter 1
“Wait a minute, wait a minute.” Closing his eyes, Captain Jack Campbell pinched the bridge of his nose. Thought, What the hell? Kate knew they had to be on the road to KOP Kessel in less than an hour, and she knew why, damn it. “You want what, Kate? Over.”
“If she wants authorization for a medevac for that kid, I already nixed that.” Selecting another noqul from a small dish squared on a colorful rug, Pederson, their doc on loan from Leatherneck, bit the sweet in two, gave it a thoughtful chew, and then said, around sugared almond, “I examined that baby, and there’s nothing we can do.”
“Baby?” Major Gholam, the Afghan policeman in charge of the district, pinched a toffee between two fingers. “There is an infant?”
“Five months, more or less.” Pederson made a vague gesture toward the western mountains. “Treated by a local healer. The mother…my God, she couldn’t have been older than fifteen…wrapped the kid in a goat’s stomach. If she’d gotten the baby to a real doctor—”
“Pederson.” Jack put the weight of what he couldn’t say behind that one word: Put a sock in it. None of the elders sitting cross-legged on plump tulsah squared on worn rugs spoke English, but from the sidelong glances, muttered exchanges, and the way they kept finger-combing snarls from their long beards, Jack thought they were trying very hard to parse what this was about, and he needed hurt feelings like he needed a root canal. No criticizing the locals, especially when it came to customs and rituals. Wars started over less. “It’s not about that.”
“Oh.” If he heard the veiled reprimand, Pederson’s expression didn’t show it. Instead, the doctor rooted around a plate of hot kulcha-e-panjerei, selected a fried pastry, and took an experimental nibble. “Then what does she want now?”
“To talk to me.” The guy ate like a chipmunk. He said into his radio, “Hang on a second, Kate. Over.” Turning aside, he nodded to his translator. “Aasif, you want to make my apologies to our hosts?” The men listened as Aasif explained. They all nodded, their heads bobbing like those novelty dogs you put in a car’s rear window, but Jack didn’t like the looks they fired at one another. One, a reedy guy named Roomal with heavy kohl around his eyes and a beard dyed flame red, was particularly anxious. There was something in the way Roomal’s gaze kept shuttling to two men Jack hadn’t seen before which seemed just a little off. Aasif, his interpreter, had introduced the pair as third cousins from a village not far from Tajikistan. They were guys in their early thirties, Jack guessed. Nice cloth
es, glints of gold around their necks. Each wore a heavy gold signet ring on a pinky and one sported an expensive-looking watch. A conspicuous display of wealth. Maybe that explained why they were in the shura. Relatives with means could help in all sorts of ways.
As Jack turned to leave, Sergeant Stone, who’d been standing behind his right shoulder, said, “Want me to come with, Cap?”
“Yes.” Gholam’s lieutenant, a lanky guy with soft brown eyes named Amir Ali, gave a somewhat formal little bow. “Do you require assistance, Captain Campbell?”
“Please, take him.” Glass of tea in one hand, Major Gholam made a good-natured shooing motion with the other. “Otherwise, I will have to listen to his mother complain how I am not training him adequately.” Gholam gave a conspiratorial wink. “My sister can be a most fearsome nag.”
“No, no, I’m good.” The last thing he needed was family drama when it wasn’t even his family. Although he felt sorry for the poor kid, whose complexion had gone a mottled shade of mahogany. With an uncle like that... “Everyone, just stay put.” He waved Stone down, too. “You keep everyone honest,” he said, softening that with a grin he was certain did not reach his eyes. He didn’t trust any of these people at the moment. Something’s up. But what? “Back in a minute.”
Once outside, he let go of a relieved sigh and thumbed sweat from his upper lip. His clothes were sticky under his body armor, and grit caked at the corners of his eyes and in the creases of his neck. Swear to God, when he got back to the States, he was going to fall into a swimming pool and live at the bottom for a year. Breathe through a straw, if he had to.
He walked until he’d crossed the house’s long, slightly sloping courtyard. The village’s mud-baked homes staggered up the mountain in long, sweeping steppes. Out of habit, he glanced round. The courtyard was empty and there was no one on a sunbaked path at the bottom of a steep set of stairs. He toggled his radio. “Sawbones One-One, this is Coyote Zero-Seven. Okay, Kate, we got a couple minutes. What’s up? Over.”
Her voice crackled through the small speaker grille. “I need you up here PDQ. Over.”
“Come up?” He glanced west, squinting against the bright coin of the sun in a westering sky beginning to smear with orange and red. “You’re still in the mountains? Damn it, Kate, we’ve got to leave. Over.”
“I know that.” A pause, a fizzle of static. “That’s the problem. Over.”
“What? Kate, whatever’s on your mind, just come out and say it. Over.”
“Did you tell anyone other than us when we’re leaving?” Without waiting for him to reply, Kate pushed on, “Because Bibi knows, and I didn’t tell her.”
Oh boy. No one in his right mind let on when a unit was scheduled to move unless he wanted to give an enemy a nice timetable for planning an attack. He’d told Kate, and Stone knew—and that was it. As for people outside his unit…well, he could count them on exactly one finger.
“Jack?” No call sign this time.
“I’m here. Does she remember who told her? Over.” Please, make it be Gholam. And if it hadn’t been? Well, Gholam was probably like any commander. He had lieutenants and trusted officers. He could be forgiven for letting that slip. Sort of.
“Not really. Over.”
Okay, this was as good a reason as any to boogey, and she knew that. “Then, why haven’t you gotten your ass down here? Over.”
“Because I’ve got something here you need to see. Over.”
“Something I—” Something blurred at the corner of his left eye. Four women, each carrying platters, were passing through. He knew one, Reyna, who was the younger of Roomal’s three wives. She met his gaze shyly then tipped her head toward the food heaped on her platter. Looked like some sort of meat and rice dish. The food smelled wonderful—and was very bad news. Refusing a meal would be considered an insult. Yet had they ever been offered a meal before? He didn’t think so. What was the occasion? Wait, Gholam’s visit, of course. The villagers knew the Afghan police major was taking over from the Americans. Feeding the guy couldn’t hurt.
“I’m not sure I can get away, Kate.” I might be trying to find a graceful way to get our butts down to the convoy without looking like we’re spooked or know something. And he didn’t really know anything, but this was starting to feel pretty hinky. Like a FUBAR in the making. “How important is this? Over.”
“Would I call if it wasn’t? Over.”
Damn. “How far away are you? Over.”
“Just a second. Let me—” She must’ve asked someone a question because a babble started up, voices heaped on top of one another. “Forty-five minutes if you hoof it. It’s the same path Pederson took, only you have to detour. Tompkins will mark the turnoff. Over.”
So, hour and a half there and back, minimum. Maghrib was a half hour after that, which would make them late getting out of the village. “Who’s up there with you?” Then a little light bulb went off in his brain. That babble. “Jesus, Kate, are those kids? Over.”
“Yes.” She sighed. “It’s a long story. Can you slip away? Just you, maybe two, three other guys? There are some, uhm...guys here we had to subdue and—”
He broke in. “Say again? You had to what? Over.”
“There are some guys. Villagers. Actually, we didn’t do it. We found them like this. Over.”
“What the hell do you mean, you found them?” He had a terrible thought. What if Prophet had been wrong and Taliban or other insurgents were in these hills? “Found them where? Over.”
“In the mountains. And, no, before you ask, insurgents didn’t do it. Over.”
“Then who?” After a moment without a reply, he remembered to add, “For God’s sake, over.” Sometimes he hated this damn radio.
“The kids. Over.”
“What?” On the path below, an older man wheeling a bicycle looked up and frowned. Smiling, Jack raised a hand and waved. “Yeah, yeah, nothing to see here, you have a good day, keep moving.”
“Jack?”
“Hang on.” Once the old man was out of sight, he said into the radio, “Why did the kids do that? Over.”
“I’ll tell you the whole thing when you get here. We’re okay, but one of these guys doesn’t look so hot. He’ll probably need a medevac. Over.”
Oh brother. This day was getting better and better. “Should I bring Pederson? Over.”
“Unless he’s got a drill for a burr hole, I don’t see his coming up as a plus, no. You know what a tight-assed, needle-dick he is. Over.”
“It’s really not funny, Kate.” And thank God, this was a secured channel. Then something else she’d said caught up. “Wait a minute. You’re saying I shouldn’t bring Gholam or any of his men? Over.”
“That would be optimal. Over.”
“Jesus, Kate, you gonna give me a hint?” He didn’t see how he could manage excluding Gholam. “Listen, you’re asking me to try and lie to a guy who has every right to be included. I don’t see how that works.” Although Pederson had already made the assumption he was going to see a sick child. “Unless I say I’m coming up to look at a patient, the one you had Pederson see. Over.”
“Sure, that works. The more this gets played as something about a baby no one else cares about, the better. You wouldn’t be exactly lying, either. You are coming up to see a guy who got whacked. QED, he’s a patient, just not the patient Pederson saw or Gholam assumes. Over.”
“Then I think I need to know what’s going on. Consider that an order. Over.”
Dead air. Then, “How does heroin hit you, Jack? Among other things, I mean. Over.”
Oh boy. He closed his eyes as if the world might look different when he opened them again. It didn’t. Heroin was bad but not unexpected. The Army knew the villagers grew poppies, but eradication fell to the Afghans. “Let me guess. You think Gholam’s in on it. Over.”
“It’s a distinct possibility. The kids don’t have a name, but they don’t trust the police and claim to have seen the guy before. Over.”
He was stuck. “All right, I’ll do my best, but don’t count on Gholam staying behind. This is his territory; these are his people. You should assume he’s coming. Over.”
“Then, can you keep the number of his people to a minimum? Over.”
“He’s going to wonder why.” He chewed the inside of a cheek. “No promises. Be on my way in five. Will you be able to cover us? Over.”
“Sure.” From her tone, he didn’t think she’d thought of that. “But there aren’t any hostiles up here. We’d probably have engaged them by now, Jack. Over.”
“Plan for the worst, hope for the best. Over.”
“Wait, aren’t you the one who always says no plan survives contact with the enemy? Over.”
“Yes, but I can’t claim credit. Helmulth von Moltke wrote that, more or less, back in 1880. Prussian guy, Chief of Staff. He wasn’t wrong, either. Over.”
“Now, you’re being cynical. Over.”
“Nope. Just realistic,” he said. “Over and out.”
He’d just started back when his radio blatted a nasty little static fart and Stanton’s voice sizzled through the speaker. “Coyote Zero-Seven, Coyote Zero-Seven, this is Tango Two-Charlie.”