Danger Close (4 page)

While security made up of Afghan police and military inspected the forward vehicles, a guard came over to collect their travel documents. Wade watched the man’s face carefully as he checked the photo in his passport and glanced up to study him. When he handed it back and moved on to Erin’s without further investigation, Wade allowed himself to relax a little. The guard finished his check and waved them forward. Once they passed through the gate without incident, Wade eased back against the seat and placed his hands on his thighs, away from the grips of the concealed pistols. He watched in the passenger side mirror just to assure himself there was nothing funny happening behind them and no one following them.

“Something wrong?” Erin asked him.

“No.” He didn’t want to worry her, but he couldn’t let his guard down until that plane lifted off the tarmac in Kabul. Rahim had an extensive network and there was no telling who might be a threat out here.

She studied him for a moment longer, as if she wasn’t sold on the denial, then went back to staring out her window. Wade stole a glance at her profile. The curve of her cheek looked so soft and smooth, and that dusting of freckles across her nose was downright adorable on her. When she turned her head and caught him staring, he felt himself flush, but she didn’t seem annoyed or offended. Rather, she let her gaze travel over his face for a moment before meeting his eyes, and if he wasn’t mistaken she seemed to like what she saw.

“Can I ask you something?”

He might be rusty when it came to making conversation, let alone with a woman, but in his experience when a female phrased a question like that, it was gonna be really damn personal. Since he was going to be trapped beside her for the next long while, there was no escape except to be rude and shut her down, which he didn’t have the heart to do. Digging deep for the forgotten social niceties his mother had drummed into him as a kid, he answered. “Sure.”

“I assume you’re not current military, so what are you? A contractor?”

Close enough. “Yeah.”

Those intelligent eyes kept cataloguing his features and he knew she was studying him from the perspective of both a soldier and a medical professional. He was pretty sure she’d already figured out far more about him than she was letting on.

“Bet it’s been a while since you ate American-style food, huh?”

Yep, definitely putting it all together in that pretty little head. He nodded in acknowledgement and braced himself for more questions, the inevitable lies he’d have to feed her to protect his identity, but she surprised him by letting it go to stare out her window once more.

They rode in silence for the next forty minutes until the convoy began to slow when they reached the next checkpoint, the last one before they hit Kabul. Wade watched as the military guards approached the vehicles. This time a few of the soldiers climbed into the back of the supply trucks ahead to inspect the cargo. He could see two other guards talking to the driver and passengers of the lead Humvee. The taller of the two guards sent to inspect the first vehicle talked to the occupants for what seemed a lot longer than necessary, and by the time he and his partner turned and headed toward their vehicle, Wade’s instincts were already humming.

“Passports,” the guy said to Thompson in heavily accented English as he scanned the interior. His gaze fell on Wade and he paused for just a fraction of a second before taking their ID from Thompson. Wade kept his attention riveted on the man as he perused the documents and glanced up at Erin before swinging his eyes back to Wade. “Wait here,” he told Thompson, and motioned for his partner to come over. They stood far enough back from the truck that Wade couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it was clear from the surprise on the second man’s face that whatever the first one said meant bad news. Ahead of them, the first Humvee and both supply trucks started through the checkpoint.

“Taking their sweet fucking time clearing us, aren’t they?” Thompson muttered in annoyance. Being isolated from the rest of the convoy was definitely cause for concern.

The first guard said something into his radio that Wade didn’t catch, then turned and headed for the guardhouse. When the second guard stared at them and held up a hand to make sure they stayed where they were, the alarm in Wade’s head started blaring. Something was definitely wrong.

Move.

He cursed in Pashto and jerked forward to grab Thompson’s shoulder. “Get us outta here.” Erin stiffened and shot him a disbelieving look but Wade didn’t take his eyes off the second guard.

Thompson cranked his head around to gape at Wade, opening his mouth to say something, but Wade cut him off. “Right fucking
now
,” he snarled, just as more guards exited the little building and started toward them, weapons at the ready. Erin sucked in a breath and froze in her seat. Wade didn’t look at her.

“Holy shit,” Thompson blurted as he realized what was happening, then started the truck and gunned it in reverse. His whole body tense, Wade stared through the windshield as the guards burst into a flurry of activity. Swinging them around in a hard J-turn, Thompson stomped on the accelerator and tore back the way they’d come, already on the radio to the lead vehicle, now trapped on the opposite side of the checkpoint. “They’re coming after us—getting us outta here.”

“Oh, shit,” he heard Erin breathe as she ducked down and put a hand on the weapon strapped to her thigh.

Looking back through the passenger window, Wade saw two black pickups tearing after them, a gunner in the back of each manning the mounted rifles there. He whipped around to check their six o’clock. Beyond the barricade, the soldiers in the rest of the convoy were all being hauled out at gunpoint and ordered onto their stomachs on the ground. Over the radio Wade could hear the shouts and confusion going on, and the message was clear: they were on their own.

Wade faced front and leaned forward a little to peer out the windshield as they tore down the two-lane highway. “Get us off this road,” he snapped at the driver.

“And go where?” Thompson demanded, jaw tight, fingers clenched around the wheel.

“Where they can’t follow. More of ‘em will be coming at us from the northern checkpoint now too.”

Swearing, Thompson glanced once in the rearview, saw the trucks coming at them, and veered off the main road. The big vehicle bounced and bucked as it tore across the dry, open plain. Over the radio, the response from Bagram came back.
Stand by
. “Got any ideas?” Thompson demanded.

The only two options were left or right. “Head for those hills.” Wade pointed left, to the northwest.

“What about mines?” Erin said in a tight voice, her body tense. She had her weapon in her right hand, her left one gripping the door handle so hard her knuckles were white.

Wade took in her pinched expression, how pale she was. A foreign feeling of guilt settled in his chest. He’d done some fucked-up things in his time undercover, but knowing he’d put her in this potentially lethal situation because Rahim was targeting him made him feel badly. “Shouldn’t be a problem here.” Unless they ran over an IED buried in the ground.

“So, toward the hills. And then what?” Thompson jerked the truck to the side to avoid a clump of boulders.

“We see what happens.”

Erin cranked around in her seat, mouth thinned as she stared out the rear window. “I think they’re gaining on us.”

Wade swung around to look. Yeah, and at this speed, in another few minutes those gunners would have them within range. He turned back to search in the distance ahead of them, scanning the terrain for a better, faster route. There wasn’t one. The Humvee plunged and groaned as it hit a shallow gulley then heaved up the other side. Thompson steered them out at an angle. “Shit, there’re fucking rocks everywhere,” he grumbled. They bounced and rattled over the ground as he swerved them around rock clusters. “Hold on,” he warned.

Beside him, Erin grabbed the upper handle above the doorframe with her left hand and holstered her weapon to grip the edge of the seat with her right while Wade flattened a hand against the seat in front of him. A second later the Hummer slammed into something. The bone-jarring impact jerked them forward against their seatbelts amidst a loud bang and a groan of metal. When the vehicle evened out once more, a telltale thumping sound came from beneath it.

“Just blew out a tire, and maybe an axel,” Thompson said, face grim as he kept maneuvering them forward. Already the vehicle was beginning to lose speed.

“They’re still back there,” Erin reported, “but it looks like they’re not gaining on us now.”

Yeah, but it was only a matter of time before they blew more of the self-sealing tires on this terrain. Wade searched the base of the foothills for someplace they could go until backup arrived.

“What’s the story on our backup?” Thompson demanded over the radio.

“Unknown at this time. Stand by,” came the response.

“Yeah, I’ll fucking stand by,” he grumbled derisively under his breath before giving a terse acknowledgement.

“Over there,” Wade told him, pointing a little ways to the north where a trail cut up the hillside to where a small village lay nestled in the shelter of a ridge high up. “Get us to the base of that trail.”

“Why?” Thompson’s voice was laced with stress.

“Just get us there.”

Cursing under his breath, Thompson aimed for the base of the hill. They jostled and rattled over more rocks and the thumping sound became louder. At least one more tire was blown, but the big beast kept on rolling anyhow. When Wade checked behind them again, the pursuing trucks had slowed enough to buy them some time to ditch the vehicle and disappear before the enemy caught up.

He glanced around the interior for weapons. Thompson had an M4 up front with him, and a sidearm. Wade looked at Erin. “That your only weapon?” he indicated the holster on her thigh.

She hadn’t let go of the door handle. “Yes.”

“Any spare mags?”

“Two.”

Better than none, and with any luck they’d be up and out of range before the chasing force arrived. The Hummer limped its way over the last few klicks to the bottom of the hill Wade had indicated. “Kill the engine,” he said to Thompson. “We’ve gotta hump out of here on foot.” He didn’t need to tell them that staying with the truck would guarantee them getting killed.

“
Shit
,” the guy muttered, but did as Wade said, shoving the keys into one of the pockets on his web gear.

“Grab whatever water, weapons and ammo you’ve got, and let’s go,” Wade ordered as he slid out of the vehicle. He ran around back and hauled out his duffel while Erin and Thompson grabbed their rucks and hurriedly put them on. He looked up the trail that switch-backed up the hill. The village appeared to be a quarter mile or so up, but with the trail winding like that, the hike was going to be a hell of a lot longer. He glanced at Erin. She stood at the foot of the trail, helmet on and ready to go, watching him tensely. “Come on.”

He took point, leading them up the trail at a rapid clip. The air was cool, but the morning sunlight bounced off the hillside in waves. Between that and the relatively steep grade of the trail they climbed, he was sweating within minutes. They were only a few hundred yards up the loose dirt pathway when the sound of the approaching enemy engines reached him. Wade glanced upward, hoping to find a place where they could scale the hillside from one level of the trail to the next. They had to make headway, fast. “Up here.”

The others followed him to a short incline. He grabbed Erin by the arm and towed her to the spot he had in mind, then took her by the hips to push her upward as she scrambled her way up to the top. Soil and rocks slid down the side as she moved, but soon she was at the next level. She dropped to her knees and extended a hand down to Thompson, who ignored it and clambered up after her. Wade went last, clearing the lip just as a rifle round buried itself into the rocks about twenty feet below them, the report echoing in the air. Erin snatched his hand and dragged him to his feet, her eyes wide. Together they started running up the next leg of the trail, moving away from the shooters.

When Wade glanced over his shoulder a few seconds later he saw one of the pickups stalled too far away from them to be any threat, its occupants already moving out on foot. The other truck was only a few hundred yards from the Hummer. In the back of it the gunner opened fire with another short burst. Rounds impacted the hillside in an explosion of dust. Ahead of him, Erin was in the lead. She’d picked another spot to scale the hillside and was clawing her way up it when another burst rang out, this time close enough to their position to raise Wade’s heart rate.

“Gimme your rifle,” he shouted to Thompson, who glanced back at him for a second as if he thought Wade was crazy before handing it over. “Go. Stay with her.” Thompson ran to catch up with Erin as Wade dropped to one knee behind a boulder and took aim at the gunner in the back of that truck. The range on the weapon wasn’t the greatest but it was close enough so he fired and a high-pitched metal ping rang through the air a second later. He’d missed the gunner but hit the big mounted rifle in back, and for the moment the return fire stopped. To conserve what ammo he had, Wade slung the M4 and raced to catch up to the others. The enemy truck was almost at the Humvee now.

No sooner had he clambered up the incline Erin and Thompson had just scaled than the bark of more rifles broke the stillness. Ahead of him Erin ducked and instinctively threw her hands up to shield her face as a round plowed into the dirt a few yards in front of her. The enemy was well within range now. Wade whirled and took aim again, this time at the guy in the lead, and fired. The guy fell back with a cry, blood spurting from a wound high up in his shoulder. One of his buddies picked up the fallen rifle to return fire along with someone from the group farther back. Wade fired at the closest man at the bottom of the hill, winged him in the thigh.

Then he heard Erin’s shout. “Thompson’s down!”

He glanced up the trail to see her kneeling over Thompson, who had his hands pressed low over his belly, his teeth bared and his eyes squeezed shut in an agonized expression. Erin already had his ruck off, was trying to drag the much larger man by his web gear toward safety, behind the cover of some nearby boulders.