Afghan Storm (Nick Woods Book 3) (17 page)

Chapter 49

Rasool
Deraz, the Old Lion, paused to catch his breath. He leaned on his walking stick
and said to his bodyguard Mushahid Zubaida, “A little further, then let’s rest
in the shade.”

“As you
wish,” said Mushahid, bowing his head in reverence.

The two
walked a little further before Rasool took a seat in the shade of a rock
outcropping. It was clear the enemy had escaped again, and he wanted to rest
and pray, now that they knew the enemy was gone.

Mushahid,
off to the side, switched his AK-74 from the ready position in both hands to a
slung position. He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Mujahideen!
Mujahideen! We stop now. Find cover and rest.”

Mushahid
looked up the hill before returning his attention to their immediate
surroundings. He caught glimpses of his fighters moving toward concealment and
fighting positions. Mushahid pulled his AK-74 back into the ready position and
flexed his strong arms and abs, still angry about their recent battle.

Rasool saw
the fire in his best fighter’s eyes and said, “My dear friend, look all you
will, but I don’t think Allah will be bringing our enemies today.”

Mushahid
stopped searching the hills and met Rasool’s eyes. He nodded solemnly to his
mentor, noticing against his wishes how old and tired his leader looked.

Rasool’s
face was lined with wrinkles. Around his eyes and neck, Rasool’s skin was
creased and grooved as deeply as the draws along the mountains in which they
called home. Mushahid averted his eyes and gazed down the hill, seeing in his
peripheral the old man’s long, gray beard blowing in the wind.

He truly is
an Old Lion, Mushahid thought.

“Please give
me a little space,” Rasool said.

Mushahid
stepped back and watched Rasool pulled out his prayer mat and fell to his
knees, clearly crying, his eyes sparkling as tears built up.

Rasool was
indeed crying. He hadn’t meant to. He had bowed to pray but soon found himself
choking back tears. Seeing so many of his own men dead and wounded today --
after just seeing so many villagers dead on the side of the hill -- had shaken
him as badly as anything. And
still
the Americans had gotten away.

At least
they were
about ninety-nine percent sure they were Americans now. The villagers had heard
English as the truck raced through, and one of the men had been black. Another
had a red beard.

With their
escape clear, Rasool had found himself
again
left comforting the wounded.
This time had been harder because, unlike the villagers that he hadn’t known,
he had known every one of the men in the trucks of the pursuit force. The moans
of the broken and the sight of the dead had brought back years and years of
painful memories. Decades, really.

How much
longer, Allah? How many more must die? How many more villages must be
flattened? How many more fighters and leaders will die from a missile screaming
down from the sky from an unseen drone.

Rasool wept
until he could weep no more. He had hoped today would have brought a great
victory, and yet somehow, it had brought one of his greatest defeats. Rasool
had fought with his driver to get to the fight faster. Not for the reasons of
sheer courage, but for the reasons of fatigue.

Rasool
couldn’t bear to face more of his followers lying crippled or dead. Every
death. Every wound. Each took some of his strength out of him.

Give me
strength, Allah. Give me determination.

Rasool ended
his prayers and sat up. He beheld the hill before him and several that rose
beyond it. How beautiful they looked. How gorgeous, yet daunting. How steep and
cold and rough.

It was the
mountains and the history of the land that strengthened him when he couldn't
feel the strength of Allah. Yes, he thought. We’ll win this fight as we’ve won
with every other invader. The Americans are no stronger than Alexander the
Great had been. Nor were they stronger than the British. Nor the Soviets.

We will win
yet again, he told himself. We, these tough and poor people. We, these devout
and religious followers of The Way. We, these steep and unbreakable mountains.
We will prevail.

Rasool
solemnly folded his prayer mat and placed it back in his satchel. He knew his
fighters wouldn’t find the Americans who had skirted the Pakistani border
checkpoint today. Clearly, they were gone.

But there
would be tomorrow. Rasool Deraz felt the strength of pride fill his soul, and
he used the walking stick to push to full height.

“Mujahideen,”
he yelled as deep and strongly as he could, his voice not nearly as strong or
deep as Mushahid’s.

Many of them
popped up and looked toward him.

“Mujahideen,
we will make them pay. They may have gotten away this time, but we will make
them pay.”

A roar arose
from his fighters as they lifted weapons and began to shout, “Allahu Akbar!
Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!”

Chapter 50

After a quick flight to
Bagram Airfield, which was about as safe a place that existed in Afghanistan,
the team had only a short time to wolf down some food before they began
individual debriefings by S3 Intelligence Officers. The officers were
technically straight-up CIA, but because of the secrecy of this particular
operation, they were working under the S3 company name for additional
protection.

As every veteran knows,
debriefings are a huge pain in the ass. The only plus side, Nick figured, was
that Ahmud al-Habshi was going through the same thing. Only rougher. On the
bright side, it worked in al-Habshi’s favor that he didn’t seem to have much
stock in the bravery department. Hopefully, the soft man would cave quickly.

But then again, Nick had
learned not to assume weakness based only on superficial observations. A couple
years back he’d met a man who had taught him a thing or two about mental
toughness. Allen Green, the chain-smoking, veteran reporter for
The New
Yorker
, had shown as much fearless courage as any knuckle-dragger Nick had
ever met. And he had fought violence and danger with the forces of good, using
transparency and the power of the media combined with truth to confound his
opponents to no end.

Allen Green had also just
about driven Nick to another level of insanity before ultimately becoming a
trusted ally. And if Nick was ever willing to admit it, he might even have come
to consider Allen as a friend.

The truth was that Ahmud
al-Habshi acted and looked like a pathetic mess, but Nick was willing to bet
(at least a small sum) that the man might be clever enough to be at least a
little bit dangerous. After all, even cute, little baby sharks can take a good
bite out of you. Not to mention that some sharks breeds have even been known to
eat their siblings while still in the womb. But at least their soft, and
potentially evil, baby problems were in the trusted hands of professionals.

For Nick and his team, it
took four hours before they were finally released from their debriefings. Nick
then instructed his men to get cleaned up, scrub down their gear, and get their
asses straight to bed. There had been no arguments, not even from feisty little
Red. Apparently several hours of reporting and CIA gibberish is all you need to
suck the feeling of victory from a man’s soul and leave him begging for
respite.

So while his team headed
off to shower and sleep, Nick went to have his injury poked and prodded. The
base medical staff had quickly looked it over and redressed the wound when he
first arrived on the base. Thankfully, they had also confirmed that he wouldn’t
need surgery.

But now as he sat waiting
on the exam room table -- tired as shit, in pain, and thoroughly marinated in
layers of man-funk no longer identifiable -- he began to wish that he’d thought
to rip his whole damned shoulder off for a chance at some anesthesia.

He had been dozing, still
in a sitting position, on the table when he finally heard a knock on the exam
room door. Nick opened his eyes, lifting his head to greet the doctor, and
suddenly wished he was dead.

Nick sat staring in utter
horror as a very attractive female doctor walked into the room. She only looked
at him for a second -- presumably to check and just make sure someone was in
fact in the room -- as she appeared to be in the middle of making notes in a
file of some sort.

“Just give me one moment,
and I’ll be right with you,” she said, moving over to a raised counter to
finish her notes.

She had actually finished
in a matter of seconds, but it had been all the time Nick needed to thoroughly
check her out. She looked to be in her late thirties, early forties. She had a
natural shade of brown hair that was cut just long enough to put up into a
short … “ponytail,” Nick believed it was called.

She was average height
with what appeared to be a healthy overall physique. But if Nick was honest,
the first thing he’d noticed (as probably every male she’d ever met had) was
that her bustline was not at all average. Let’s face it, scrubs aren’t really
designed to show off the human body that much.

So while Nick couldn’t
trace all of her curves from here, it was very easy to see that she had a rack,
plus some. Unfortunately, all that information did was give Nick a reason to
become real insecure and frustrated.

When the doctor had
finished with the file, she left it on the counter and turned to face him. Oh
crap, thought Nick as she gave him one of those genuinely gorgeous and radiant
smiles. It was the kind of smile that people talk about being able to light up
a room, the kind of smile that could instantly make the worst day of your life
feel manageable, maybe even conquerable so long as she was there beside you.

But for Nick, all that
smile did was instantly turn his frustration into anger. He didn’t want this
woman, let alone any woman for that matter, looking at or touching him while he
was this gross and weak and hurt.

The truth was that Nick
didn’t have all that much experience with women, even on a general basis. Sure,
he’d charmed a few girls here and there when he’d been younger. But even in
those days, he’d never collected near the amount of stories his buddies had.
Nick had always just figured that he was just a one woman kind of guy. And up
until a few years ago, he’d thought that he’d be spending the rest of his life
with his wife, Anne.

But now after losing Anne
several years ago, the only other woman he’d even thought about had been
Isabella, who he’d met a year ago on a job in Mexico.

And even with Isabella, it
had been about more than just having a little fun. Nick’s attraction to
Isabella had been immediate on the physical side of things, but he’d found that
his real desire for her had grown as he’d gotten to know her, to respect her
even. Now, maybe that was the way things were supposed to work, but it had been
a long time since Nick had been in that kind of situation.

Nick was sure that most of
his men thought he had gotten with Isabella because, well, she let him. Also,
because she was drop-dead gorgeous. And God knows she was, she was possibly the
most beautiful woman Nick had ever seen in real life. However, both Nick and
Isabella knew that those moments together had been something special. Though it
hadn’t been anything serious either, but it also hadn’t been just “banging,” as
they say.

The overall point was that
he felt a little lost on the concept of women, and Nick Woods was not the kind
of guy that liked to feel lost or confused by anything. And he most certainly
didn’t like being surprised. Now here before him stood a surprise that he was
without a doubt not ready for, and frankly, that just pissed him off.

Nick saw her react to his
scowl. She seemed slightly surprised, but only for a second. And then she
recovered well.

“Listen, lady,” he said.
“Whatever ray of sunshine crap you’re about to blow up my ass, trying to make
me feel better, well, I just don’t have time for it. Alright?”

Her smile barely wavered.
The only change, if anything, was a mischievous twinkle suddenly sparkling in
her bright brown eyes.

“Well, I have to tell you,
Mr. Woods, that’s actually a huge relief. Because as it just so happens, I
spent the last little bit of sunshine I had left on my last patient. And to be
honest, I consider my time to be quite precious, as well.”

Then she just stood there
smiling at him, her hands clasped together in front of her. There was a
challenge in that look, daring him to go ahead and take another shot.
Apparently this woman was more than prepared for whatever crotchety card she
got dealt. But having no good retort on hand, Nick settled for rolling his eyes
and grunting.

“Well, now that
pleasantries are out of the way,” she said, still smiling, “how about we take a
look at that shoulder now?”

He didn’t say anything,
didn’t even look at her.

“Good,” she replied,
picking up a tray of instruments and other medical paraphernalia, and dragged a
stool over toward the table. Snapping on a pair of gloves, she then stood still
beside him giving him an expectant look.

“What?” he snarled, hating
the feeling of being forced to look at her.

“Well, Mr. Woods. It’s
your shirt,” she said.

Nick just sat there with a
stupid look on his face too flustered to decipher her code.

Luckily, she was more than
happy to help him out. “See, it appears to be blocking my access to the wound.
I assumed that, given your inspired, can-do attitude, you’d prefer to remove it
yourself. Yes?”

Nick growled again. His
irritation getting the better of him as he quickly, and not at all gently, tore
off the shirt. The wound on his shoulder howled, and Nick wanted to kick his
own ass for the audible groan of pain he allowed to escape.

Thankfully the lady doctor
didn’t comment or call him on it. She simply honed her focus onto the wound and
became all but oblivious to Nick. She carefully cleaned the injury, inspecting
it for any potential problems.

When it came time to
stitch him up, she ended up beside him, sitting on the table facing him so that
she could attack the wound from the side. She kept one foot lightly set on the
floor with her other knee bent and butterflied out on the table, bearing most
of her weight. When she had settled, she had then reached across him and
delicately grabbed his uninjured shoulder trying to angle him so she could get
a better view to start her stitch. Nick had resisted for a moment not realizing
her intention, but obliged when he saw the focused, non-combative expression on
her face. She’s just doing her job, Nick reminded himself.

Nick tried desperately to
stay calm, knowing it would be both easier for her and him to get through the
sewing process if he was relaxed. But he couldn’t help but stiffen every time
one of her breasts brushed or lightly pressed up against his arm. Not to
mention the intoxicating scent of her shampoo she kept forcing him to inhale.
He knew better than to think any of it was intentional, but with his present
mood came a limited perspective, and he petulantly blamed her for every single
slip.

Despite it feeling like
hours to Nick, the doctor had finished stitching and patching him up in less
than five minutes. She stood, removing the instruments and bloodstained debris
while dutifully rattling off instructions of when and how to replace his
bandages, what changes to watch for, and more medical details. Nick, both
physically and emotionally spent, simply nodded, his eyes on the floor refusing
to look at her.

In the midst of her final
remarks, she informed him that, as he was significantly dehydrated, he was also
to be fitted with an IV before bed. And instantly upon hearing that news, Nick
was able to scrounge up the little bit of fight still left in him.

“Now look here, lady. I don’t
need no damned IV!” he barked “Can’t you tell that I’m tired of being picked at
and bothered today? And you, you come in here trying to get me to drool all
over myself, acting like everything is damned rainbows and ponies. Well, get
over yourself, sweetheart!”

Nick had no idea how long
he’d ranted for, nor did he honestly remember a great deal of what he’d even
said to her. The information had practically vanished from his head the second
after it left his mouth, or more likely the information hadn’t passed much
through his head at all. All evidence pointed at the latter because he’d
finally looked up to find the doctor’s brown eyes burning into him, her face
devoid of any humor. It looked like the doctor’s professionalism had held, but
just barely.

She briefly let her eyes
flutter to a close, before immediately snapping them back open. “You’re all set
to go, Mr. Woods,” she said now appearing serious as a heart attack. “Medical
staff will find you later for your IV. If you have any problems, please let
someone from the medical staff know. Have a pleasant rest, Mr. Woods.”

She then smartly turned on
her heel and headed for the door. Nick continued to watch her as she snatched
up the file she’d come in with and reached for the door.

“Oh and Mr. Woods,” she
said suddenly, releasing her grasp from the door handle and turning back around
to face him. “While proctology may not be my specialty, it’s fairly obvious that,
sunshine or otherwise, the attempt to blow anything else up your ass would not
only be impossible, but it would also be of no benefit to anyone.”

And with that, she turned
and left the room.