First to Burn (7 page)

He hadn’t been this close to Captain Chiesa in a workout uniform since the first day in the gym. A benevolent deity had issued her the smaller size T-shirt, and she hadn’t swapped it for the gray garbage sack most females wore.

She cleared her throat.

Remembering his manners, he looked at her face. Fuck. She was frowning. He beckoned her and Mir into the room. “Welcome to our humble abode.”

Inside the door, Mir slipped off her sandals and barreled across the room to throw herself on a stack of embroidered pillows, but Theresa paused. “This is your ready room?”

“Expecting camo netting?” Rugs on the plywood surfaces showcased the colors and textures of the Silk Road. On the walls, birds with black-and-gold tails cavorted with deer in shades of brown, while geometric red-and-black designs softened the floor.

“Wondering what it keeps you ready for.”

Before he could reply, Kahananui dimmed half the lights and announced, “Aloha, ma’am. Thanks for bringing our buddy. And now
Cinderella
is about to begin.”

As Theresa bent to untie her running shoes, her black nylon shorts stretched across her ass like plastic wrap on cherry pie.

Fuck good manners. He stared.

Quiet, stifling as a sandpit, descended on the room until she shifted position to tuck her butt to her heels. She lowered her head, too, but not before he spotted the red color spread across her cheeks. Shit. She’d realized where every last eye had been plastered. His frown whipped the circle. Immediate conversations about the Yankees, whether frozen fish retained its texture in the mess and Cruz’s daily hypothetical—
would you rather wake up as the Terminator or Linda Hamilton
—where did he get those?—filled the dead air.

Her eyes and posture had the awkward, blinking innocence of a colt, as if she might leap to her feet and stagger away, so he’d let her come to him. Instead of pointing to the pillows and low table he’d chosen, he summarized the movie plot in Pashto and told Mir where to sit. The nine-year-old grinned and grabbed Theresa by the hand as Wulf brought over the coffee tray.

Good girl
, he wanted to say, but the other guys understood enough of the language to catch him out, and they’d had his number since the cafeteria weeks ago. “Your beverage service, ma’am.” He said Theresa’s title as if it were an endearment, not a barrier. To a man who’d stolen Ottoman princesses, higher rank was not an obstacle.

She laid three bags of cookies on the table before she lowered herself to the pillows, but her spine didn’t bend until Mir hugged her. He’d send the kid home with reams of paper and every government Skilcraft pen in camp to start her own school if she remained on his side.

When he lifted the silver coffeepot, someone with a death wish snickered, but the modern custom of flashing a middle finger solved that.

The opening credits hadn’t finished before someone called, “Sarge, pass a cookie?”

Reaching across Mir to the bags in front of Theresa, he slipped a slice of nut and raisin roll onto a napkin and handed it away.

“Wulfie, dude, me too.” This request came from the other side of the room.

This time he handed a cranberry chocolate chip concoction past her. Inches from his forearm, her breasts rose as she inhaled and held her breath, but he mustered his self-control. If he brushed them, even with the outside of his arm, he suspected she’d flee.

“Over here, Sarge.” The team was having too much fun.

“Don’t make me teach you manners tomorrow.” Although he didn’t mind being the butt of a joke—he’d pin them on a gym mat until they whimpered—Theresa had sunk lower and hunched her shoulders as the needling continued.

“Yeah, knock it off, you puky wahines
.
” Kahananui jumped to his rescue. “You’re worse than my six-year-old. I want to hear the frigging mice.”

Immersing herself in the story despite the language barrier, Mir flipped to her stomach and slid under the low table until her head came out the other side. And when she did, the feeble obstacle her presence had provided between Theresa and him disappeared.

He knew how to hunt. How to stalk. How to capture. He could cover the space to Theresa in one move, but it was smarter to bide his time. He shifted his hip, placed his coffee on the table and shifted again to recline. Here the carpet radiated warmth, as if she’d withdrawn only a moment before. They were close enough now that although their bare legs didn’t touch, his skin vibrated with awareness.

When the stepsisters attacked Cinderella and shredded the mouse-made gown, Theresa tensed.

He took the opening and slipped his hand over hers.

Her hand turned and squeezed as, on-screen, pearls flew and the frenzied sisters continued the mugging.

Closing his eyes, he blocked out the princess-erella so he could absorb the feel of a real woman’s fingers. His thumb traced her knuckles. Like a miracle, her thumb returned the circle on his palm. He opened his senses to her, but the syrupy blonde and squeaky rodents intruded. At least tonight Kahananui hadn’t picked
Sleeping Beauty.
Last week that dragon had given him a nightmare. Even after he woke, he’d had sulfur and charred horse meat in his nose and Jurik’s name caught in his throat. He’d tried to joke about his thrashing by blaming Kahananui’s socks on the end of the bunk, but it had been the fire breather. Jurik had burned while the girl ran the wrong way, ran
at
the beast, too fast to catch when he was hampered by chain mail.

Theresa tugged her hand. His memories had caused him to squeeze too hard.

When he loosened his grip, the next step came easily in the dark. He trailed her shaking fingers across his lips, a light brush as he inhaled. Chocolate cookies and coffee perfumed her palm, better than harem attar. Her scent replaced the vile smoke of his memory. The rustle of her nylon running shorts replaced the screams. Then the skin above her socks branded his knee, a brand that howled
my woman touched here.
His imagination soared with the movie waltz.

Behind him someone coughed, a throat-clearing hack that sounded like his name.

“Hah-chh-out,” someone else sneezed.
Watch out
, they meant.

Touching Theresa was boneheaded for at least fifty reasons. He dropped her hand.

As Cinderella dashed down the steps to escape being unmasked, the music’s shift to desolation mirrored his feelings. He didn’t want to leave these brother warriors, and whenever he chased a woman, discovery followed. Women never let details pass unnoticed. No matter how much he yearned to whisper her name and feel its shape on his tongue, he couldn’t. If he pursued Theresa, he’d end up alone on the side of the road like this cartoon girl. Doctors asked questions and collected data, yet he’d touched one willingly, as eager as a dog to feel her fingers ruffle his hair, as needy as that round mouse.

No. Pushing to his feet, he staggered to the fridge. He’d found a home with the best men he’d ever fought alongside. They’d have to be enough. A few men turned at the white glow as he grabbed a bottle, but most stayed engrossed in the movie as the mice stole a key.

The cold water froze his frontal lobe and unlocked his sanity. Real life never worked out cartoon perfect, but Wyrd offered men choices for a reason. Fate allowed him to shape his destiny. Tonight Kahananui or Deavers could escort Theresa home.

Tonight, like a thousand nights before, and ten thousand upon ten thousand before that, he would be alone.

Chapter Six

Wulf paused before he ducked into the dust cloud created by the UH-60 Black Hawk’s rotors. The orange sun rising between two eastern mountain peaks sparked his memory, and he smelled citrus again, like the scent of Theresa’s hair when he’d sat close to her during the movie. A day and a half, two showers, and Black and Swan’s version of spicy Italian sausage pizza filled the interim, but her scent still came and went at the shittiest times.

Captain Deavers slapped the side of Wulf’s helmet as he passed and gestured toward their ride. This was the team’s second airborne hunt for an overloaded shipping container. Yesterday’s resupply run had proceeded by the book, and Alpha squad had returned disappointed, without intel or leads about what the chief had discovered before his death. Today Alpha squad would make a visible presence around Caddie while Wulf, Deavers and Bravo squad road shotgun with the pilot, Morgan.

Hunching lower to avoid decapitation from the rotor blades—once per thousand years was once too often—Wulf followed his captain. The four blades overpowered other sounds, but he knew what his commander would say if they could hear each other.
Time to move out on this be-yoo-ti-ful Sunday morning.
Time to find some shit to fry in a pan.
Last night Kahananui had taunted the guys on this trip about missing the Sunday omelet bar, so Deavers had found a dozen eggs and stuffed the Hawaiian’s running shoes. Shit
was
going to fry, but he’d be a hundred miles away and three thousand feet off the ground.

Inside, he tuned to the helicopter crew’s communications.

“Green on fuel. Green light from the flight line.” Captain Morgan finished his preflight checks. “Your team’s a go?”

“Ready.” Deavers’s voice crackled as he handed Wulf one of two metal cases the size of a quart of milk. “Got our toys.”

“No fireworks?” The pilot waited for Deavers to say no, then continued. “Right then, let’s pick up our delivery and boogie.”

Despite swinging a loaded twenty-foot shipping container, the tactical flight over the barely lit land was fast and stomach-dropping. Wulf rehearsed what-if scenarios, but the stretch of Theresa’s T-shirt when she leaned on her elbows intruded. He’d been surrounded too long by Afghan women swathed head to toe, or army women dressed to resemble chunks of concrete, because her gray cotton tee had seemed revealing. Thirty-two hours later, he could conjure her next to him, her legs stretched alongside his, butter-rich cookies and Turkish-style coffee mingling with that damn citrus scent that clung to her. He’d eaten an orange with every meal since
Cinderella
, proof of his stupidity.

Focus.
Bringing his rifle stock to his nose, he sucked in dark oil and metal. His weapon. His mission. His team.

In the twenty minutes before they reached Firebase Rushmore on a ridge commanding a valley bend, he managed not to think of her six more times. The Black Hawk never touched ground while the firebase grunts worked with the crew chief to swap the supply container for its empty twin. Eight and a half minutes, and then Morgan lifted their new load off the packed dirt rectangle next to the sandbagged compound and soared away. The poor bastards at the firebase wouldn’t see another friendly for fifteen days.

With Rushmore three ridges and two valley twists behind, the pilot called Wulf and his commander forward. “See the weight?” Morgan pointed to a dial. “Six bucks heavy, when all it’s supposed to have is outgoing mail and unburnable plastics.”

“Jackpot.” Wulf’s arms and chest tingled with anticipation. They had over six hundred kilos of secrets hanging below. “Pick your spot. We’ll execute.” Distractions fell away as he became one with his squad. They had separate arms and legs and beating hearts, but one mission: the box. Find out what it held and why Chief was dead, then balance the books.

“Studied topos,” the pilot said. “There’s a partially concealed saddle fifty klicks west.”

“We saw it. Drop our snipers on the overlooking ridges.” His commander nodded as Wulf continued, “Our commo will stay on board to coordinate. The captain and I go in the can.”

“Roger that.” The pilots would hover, prepared to haul the container off with Wulf and Captain D inside at hostile contact.

Before the dust boiled from the ground, Wulf had an instant to gauge the distance to the corrugated roof of the half-size twenty-footer. Reassembled, his welds would be easier to conceal on the rippled metal than on flat steel, where they would look exactly like a trap door.

He fast-roped to the top, the zip a rush that was always over too soon. Next to him, Deavers was nearly invisible through the brownout. Wulf’s blowtorch had to be roaring, but the massive rotor blades overhead left no air for other noises. Dirt scoured his goggles until it was impossible to see past his arms. No way could his commander spot an elephant next to them, let alone a Taliban fighter with a rifle a half klick away. For the other man’s sake, he hoped the team snipers had clearer views.

The steel square of roof fell into the void. Odd to see it disappear, to know it clanged metal on metal as it landed, when he could only hear the overhead thwacks.

He dangled on the edge and dropped, followed by his commander. The dusty light that filtered through their entrance point revealed four shrink-wrapped pallets of white bricks fixed to tie-downs on the floor. An instant after he registered the incongruity of commercial packaging in the wilds of Clusterfuckistan, the pickle-barrel smell walloped him. It wasn’t the lethargic dream-scent of raw poppy resin, so Deavers wouldn’t fail his next piss test just by breathing. This was the stink of hundreds of bricks of processed base.

His flashlight played over the cargo and lit his commander, who tried yelling loud enough to be heard. Even inside the can, the Black Hawk obliterated every noise, but his lips were easy to read. “O-pi-um?”

“Morphine,” Wulf mouthed back. He unstrapped the metal case from his chest. Flat transmitter chips, the size of match heads, nestled inside in packing foam eggcups. While he peeled protective paper from a wood-patterned chip and fixed it to a pallet, he calculated the requirements to prep and pack this much junk. Water. Fuel. Lime. Ammonium chloride. Space. Multiplied by the number of containers Morgan had noted, the processors would need more square feet than a hilltop firebase like Rushmore offered. The lab had to be somewhere else.

At the other end, Deavers slit a tiny hole in the plastic and inserted his last tag between paper-wrapped blocks. In two minutes, they’d marked the whole load for satellite tracking, but the bigger problem sliced through Wulf’s gut like a seax.

How were drugs getting inside containers at different firebases?

Not via American soldiers, please. Let it be someone else. The kids out there couldn’t be responsible for loading this shit. The army and marines had enough to do being policemen and border patrol for places the Afghan government didn’t reach. If soldiers tried to tackle poppy production, they’d also end up being the chamber of commerce, the farm bureau and social workers, so they usually stuck their heads in the sand and left drug policy to the State Department and politicians.

Now that would change. Because someone had killed Chief, someone inside the wire who was neck-deep in the opium trade, that fucking ostrich was about to raise its head and come up locked and loaded. His team would find the truth.

He hoped the truth didn’t suck as badly as he suspected it might.