Masters at Arms (17 page)

Then there was Doc. Damián smiled. The Navy
corpsman he’d roomed with back at Pendleton sure did keep things
interesting. At first, the guy had pissed him off royally.
Arrogant. Privileged. Driving a freaking Porsche. What the hell was
he doing in the Marines? But over the months since that night at
the sex club, the man had grown on him. His unit couldn’t ask for a
better corpsman. He’d patched up just about everyone at some point
or other. Luckily, only for minor injuries. He hoped that remained
true today.

Damián still remembered Doc dragging his ass
to that fetish club, where he’d learned BDSM wasn’t all about
violence and inflicting pain. That was just plain wrong. It was
about a consensual exchange of power. Having control over
another—and yourself. Making sure her needs were met before
thinking about your own. He could understand that. Definitely
something he might be interested in trying when he got stateside
again.

Damián wondered when he’d ever get the chance
to be with another woman. He’d sure enjoyed himself with that
redhead. He smiled.

“What’s so funny?” Sarge asked.

“Just thinking about what a fucking great
life I have in the Corps.”

Sarge grunted. “Yeah, right. I’ll bet you
were thinking about some sweet pussy waiting for you back in
California.”

Damián’s smile faded.

Ah, Savannah
.

He’d replayed the scene at Thousand Steps
Beach over and over in his head. He and Savannah had connected so
perfectly that day. He’d never been with a woman who turned him on
as much or responded to him as well as she had. He thought it had
been good for her, too. So, why had she ignored his attempts to
contact her? He was in the phone book. She could have called him.
She knew his name. He regretted not exchanging phone numbers, but
the best he’d been able to do was leave printed messages in the
mailbox at her gate. No response.

Well, he’d also staked out the hotel in La
Jolla for a few weeks. She hadn’t returned, at least not while he’d
waited for her there. What had become of her? Had she continued to
let men abuse her for money? He gave his head a mental shake. He
didn’t like to think she’d returned to that life.

No, he preferred to picture her going to
college, getting her degree. Maybe she’d go on to become the social
worker she’d wanted to be. Help kids who needed her. That’s what he
hoped…

The rocket-propelled grenade came over the
wall and rolled to land mere feet from Sarge’s hip. Damián froze.
No one fucking moved. He looked over at Sarge, who just kept
eating. He didn’t fucking see it. Grant and Wilson kept talking,
oblivious, too. After what seemed like an eternity, Damián shoved
Sarge to move, shouting, “Take cover!” Sarge bolted up and grabbed
Damián’s arm, propelling him in front of him. Damián’s body felt
like it was moving through thick mud. Everything happened in slow
motion. He couldn’t move fast enough.

Grant and Wilson reacted at last, but too
damned slowly. Damián rushed toward them, trying to push them
toward the other end of the rooftop. At the last moment, Damián
turned to check on Sergeant Miller, who was right behind him. The
blast deafened his ears, the percussion of the explosion knocking
him backwards, hard against someone. They went sprawling across the
roof.

Mother fucking insurgents
.

It felt like a fucking wall had fallen on top
of his chest. His foot was on fire. He opened his eyes and saw
Sarge’s head, or what was left of it, lying on his chest. The man’s
bloody brains showed through the hole in his head. Sarge’s body lay
prone across Damián’s chest and abdomen. The pool of blood forming
on Damián’s chest felt warm. What the fuck?

A roaring in his ears merged with
high-pitched screams. Then he realized the screams were his.

“
Madre de Dios
! No! Sarge, don’t you
fucking die!”

He knew Sarge was gone, but kept yelling at
him as if he could bring him back by the sheer volume of his voice.
He looked up and watched as Grant and Wilson, on either side of
him, lifted Sarge off him. Damián turned his head away, watching in
horrific fascination as Sarge’s blood ran down the rooftop toward
Damián’s feet, where it mingled with another pool of blood. The one
forming around his own mangled foot.

What the fuck?

“Corpsman up!” Wilson called.

How could that be his blood? He didn’t feel
the burning pain in his foot anymore. As he stared, the image
blurred. A wave of dizziness caused his stomach to lurch. He was
going to lose his MRE. His head slumped back against the warm
concrete.

Serious fucked up shit
. Was he going
to die here? Dreams of returning home and finding Savannah faded.
The sun disappeared into a cloud. Sudden blackness. Damián closed
his eyes.

Such a fucking wasted life.

* * *

“Corpsman up!”

Shit
. Marc heard the call come from
the rooftop of the building across the street. Holed up in the
make-shift command headquarters, he grabbed for his pack and a
litter.

“We’ve got your back, Doc,” Master Sergeant
Montague yelled, then he and several other grunts moved into
position near the doorway and windows with their rifles leveled at
the buildings where they suspected insurgents were still hidden.
Marc ran out of the abandoned house toward the one across the
street where the recon team had been staked out for the last couple
of hours.

The rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire echoed behind
him and from a nearby building as he zigzagged across the street.
He dodged the bullets stirring up sand and dust around him. Lucky
for him, the stairway to the roof on the outside of the building
had a high cement wall he could crouch behind as he made his way
upstairs.

When he reached the roof, he stuck his head
around the corner to assess the situation. Two Marines down, two
upright. Marc stayed low as he crossed the roof and hunkered down
beside the one with the worst injuries. A quick check of Sergeant
Miller’s nonexistent pulse and the damage to his head told him he
needed to focus his efforts on the other one.

Two grunts crouched nearby over this one.
Orlando.
Fuck, no!
Grant had a white-knuckled grip on the
wounded man’s hand. His buddy’s boot—and foot—had been blown clean
off, leaving a bloody stump of bone, tissue, and an exposed artery.
Losing blood fast.

Shit. Don’t you die on me, Orlando!

“Orlando! It’s Doc. You’re going to be
fine.”

The man opened his pain-filled eyes,
clenching his teeth to keep from screaming. Sweat broke out on the
younger man’s forehead. Marc put on his gloves and pulled a
tourniquet from the bag. Orlando groaned and tried to raise his
head to see the damage.

“Keep his head down!” Marc ordered Wilson and
Grant. The last thing he needed was for Orlando to see his foot and
sink into shock.

Even though Marc was seven years older than
Orlando, he’d connected with the man during training at Pendleton.
Orlando had been so damned serious. Marc had loved finding ways to
get him to lighten up. The kid also had a huge chip on his shoulder
back then. He’d acted like the whole damned world was against him.
It had taken the Corps a while to knock that shit out of him, but
you couldn’t ask for a better Marine. Marc had been impressed by
the strength and courage the man had shown. He was one of the best
sharpshooters in the unit, which is probably what landed him on
this rooftop in the first place.

Marc applied the tourniquet and bandaged the
bloody stump.

“Grenade came over the wall,” said Wilson,
holding the kid’s forehead. “Orlando and Miller saw it first.
Orlando shoved Grant and me away. Sergeant Miller took the brunt of
the explosion.” Wilson looked over at Miller and closed his eyes
tightly.

The sergeant was the first fatality the recon
unit had suffered. Marc had learned to stay numb most of the time.
Since the scene with Gino over Melissa, he’d never been one to show
much emotion, so it hadn’t been hard to do. He wouldn’t even try to
process the loss of Miller’s life for a while.

Focus on the living.

Marc checked Orlando for other wounds, but
didn’t find any visible ones, not that this one wasn’t serious
enough.

“How bad, Doc?” Orlando spoke through gritted
teeth, his lips whitened by the effort not to scream. Despite the
kid’s bravado, he looked scared shitless. The young man was about
to get a lesson in maturity no one should have to learn. If it
didn’t kill him first.

Marc tried to remain calm, even though his
heart beat so fast he was sure Orlando could hear it. He doubted
the surgeons would be able to reattach the foot, but as his
corpsman, he’d do his damnedest to keep him alive until they could
take over. If Orlando was lucky, the amputation site would be low
enough not to cause too many problems later on.

“Your foot’s pretty banged up. I’m going to
hook you up to an IV and we’ll have you medevacked out of here in
no time.”

“Will I lose it?” he whispered, as if afraid
to put the idea out there too loud for the universe to act on.

“The surgeons will do all they can.” He
needed to get Orlando’s focus on something more positive. “You’ll
probably be going home soon.”

Orlando tensed in pain, gripping Grant’s hand
even tighter, and then his body slumped against the roof, his head
lolling to the side. The kid’s body began to shake. Shock. Marc
inserted the IV needle and adjusted the drip then heard the scream
of an incoming mortar round.

Instinctively, he shielded Orlando’s chest
and head with his own body, spreading his arms out to cover as much
of his wounded buddy as he could. The blast hit the wall beside
him, taking out a portion of the cement structure. Marc felt chunks
of cement slam into his back and side, stinging the skin where he
didn’t have protection from the SAPI plate.

Fucking sitting ducks.

Marc shouted, “Let’s get him off the
roof!”

“Sure thing, Doc!”

“Staging area’s across the street. I’ll send
up a 9 Line request.” Marc knew it could take up to ten minutes for
the medevac chopper to arrive. “Then we’ll come back for
Miller.”

As Marc made the call, he gasped for air.
What the hell? He watched the two grunts load Orlando onto a
litter, pick it up, and start for the stairs. Marc rose to his feet
to follow, but felt a crushing weight against his side and chest.
He tried to catch his breath, but couldn’t fill his lungs with
air.

He managed to fight the pain and take a few
steps before his vision blurred. The pain in his side was so
fucking sharp, it inhibited his ability to breath. Gasping for air,
he watched the rooftop stairway swim before his eyes. He pitched
forward into blackness.

* * *

Adam wondered why his last tour had to be so
fucked up. If he could get his units out of Fallujah without major
casualties, it would be a miracle. He hoped the RPG he’d heard
explode hadn’t resulted in serious injuries, but knew Doc would
take care of his troops. He always did.

While the Coalition Forces still seemed to
have the upper hand, Adam knew there were many more bloody days
ahead before they’d be able to claim the Sunni stronghold. He just
wanted to finish up this deployment and get everyone home in one
piece. He was getting too old for this shit. He’d retire as soon as
he got stateside again.

The scream of a mortar round brought him back
to full alert. The blast looked like it had hit the rooftop where
his recon team was.
Fuck
. He needed to get up there. He
turned over operations here and had managed to get across the
street, hunkered down in the stairwell, when he looked up and saw
Wilson and Grant rushing down the stairs bearing a litter.

Adam stood and provided cover for them.
Damn
. Who’d gotten hit? He and the remaining troops inside
the staging building continued to pepper the area with gunfire as
Adam followed the grunts with the litter back across the street.
Once inside, he looked down at the unconscious Orlando.

“Doc radioed for the 9 Line Medevac, sir,”
Grant reported.

Good. He needed to get the kid out of here.
Adam looked through the doorway, expecting to see the corpsman. And
where was Miller? No one else came down the stairway.

“Where’s Doc? Miller?” Adam barked.

“I thought Doc was right behind us. Maybe he
stayed with Miller, sir,” Wilson said as he covered Orlando with a
blanket. “Miller didn’t make it.”

God fucking damn.
He’d lost another
man. “I’m going back over there.” Adam put his helmet on and
adjusted the strap.

“Right behind you, sir,” Grant said.

“Grab a litter.” Doc’s job was to save lives.
He’d be upset about losing Miller, even if he couldn’t have
prevented it. Although Doc had been trained to use his rifle, Adam
knew the corpsman wouldn’t be thinking about protecting himself
right now. No Marine left behind.

They headed across the street, insurgent
gunfire spraying bullets at them as they ran. At the top of the
stairs, they turned the corner and found Doc lying face down. A few
feet away lay Miller, his head blown apart.

Fuck. No hope for Miller.

Doc’s right side was covered in blood that
had soaked into his camo and had begun to pool by his outstretched
arm. His medical bag lay beside him. Several pieces of shrapnel had
embedded themselves deep in the back of the SAPI plate, but some
must have entered the side of his torso where the plate didn’t
provide protection.

Doc gasped for air.

“Get the scissors out of his bag!” Adam
screamed, then surveyed the damage.

God damn it!
A piece of cement steel
protruded from the side of the corpsman’s chest, under his arm.
While Grant rooted in the bag, Adam reached out and placed his hand
on Doc’s shoulder. “Hang on, Doc. We’ll have you out of here in no
time.” Adam accepted the scissors from Grant and cut the camo away,
being careful not to jar the projectile.