Over the Edge (49 page)
Wilhelm Gruber shifted his weight.
And Helga heard Annebet draw in a sharp breath. She hadn’t realized Gruber was there. Gruber, who knew Annebet had only one sister. Who knew Helga was not just a Jew, but the sister of the Jew who had married Annebet.
Gruber looked at Helga. He looked at Marte. He looked at Annebet.
And then he looked off down the street, without saying a single word.
And Annebet came to life again. “I’m taking my sisters and going to the market,” she told the German officer. “You can search the house if you like. My mother is inside. Mama!”
Fru Gunvald hurried back into her house through the back door and came right out the front, wiping her hands on her apron as if she’d been in the kitchen, cooking all the while.
“Someone has wasted this officer’s time,” Annebet told her mother, “claiming we’re hiding people here.”
Fru Gunvald looked so surprised, even Helga found herself believing her. “In this little house?” Fru Gunvald said with a laugh. “There’s barely room for us, let alone guests. Come in, come in, and see for yourself.”
“Come,” Annebet whispered, taking Helga and Marte by the hand. “Keep walking, don’t speak, and don’t look back.”
Helga didn’t look back.
And she never saw the Gunvalds’house or brave Fru Gunvald again.
The hotel lobby wasn’t as crowded as Teri had expected with the fire alarms still wailing, but then again, the big hotel was barely full—most of the rooms being used by U.S. military personnel, most of whom weren’t hiding from their lives, the way she had been.
She spotted the SEAL who was nicknamed Izzy, a sandwich in each of his hands.
“False alarm,” he told her. “Someone broke the call box on the second floor. Probably just—”
His T-shirt turned red and he dropped his sandwiches and crumpled to the floor. And Teri realized that that tearing sound she heard was an automatic weapon being fired.
Izzy had been shot. Still, he reached for her, trying to pull her down. But it was too late.
Teri felt the punch of the bullet hit her, the force pushing her back and over the top of a sofa. She landed on something hard as her world went black.
“Get on the radio,” Sam Starrett ordered Jenk, “and find out what the fuck is keeping O’Leary.”
He turned to find the senior chief standing next to him, washing down some of this infernal dust with a bottle of water.
“You know, we’re ready for this,” Wolchonok said with that matter-of-fact confidence that only the senior chief could pull off. “When L.T. calls and says go, we’re good to go. My guess is it’ll be right before sundown. The tangos’ll be expecting us to wait until dark, so we’ll jump the gun.”
Sam nodded. “I wish I had your confidence.”
“We can run it again, if you want,” the senior said.
“Oh, shit!” Jenk had turned a shade of pale beneath his tan, the radio handset to his ear. “Oh shit, oh shit.” His voice shook. “Frank O’Leary’s dead, Lieutenant.”
No one moved, no one spoke, no one breathed.
The senior chief was the first to kick back to life. “Report,” he ordered Jenk. “What happened? Did a helo go down?”
O’Leary—dead. It didn’t seem possible. The men who’d been resting in the shade stood up, moving closer so they could hear.
Frank O’Leary had been a quiet son of a bitch, but he’d been laid-back and easy to get along with. Although few besides Jenk knew him particularly well, he’d been well liked. And he’d been dearly loved for his skills as a sniper.
“Someone set off the fire alarm back at the hotel,” Jenk reported, “waited until everyone got downstairs, then opened fire in the lobby.”
“Oh, Christ,” the senior chief breathed. “What kind of casualties?”
“At least six Marines killed,” Jenk said. “About twenty wounded. Izzy and Gillman were both hit—I don’t know how badly, or if they’re even alive.”
“Find out,” Senior ordered him. “I want to know the location and status of every member of the Squad. Get everyone to check in. Support personnel, too. Helo pilots, everyone.”
“Everyone’s checked in but Big Mac, Steve, and Knox,” Jenk reported. “Support personnel’s checked in, except for Bob Hendson and—no, Hendson and Howe are both on the casualty list.”
The senior chief made the kind of sound a man made when gut punched. It was not the kind of sound anyone there had ever heard coming out of the senior chief before.
Howe. Teri Howe. Oh, Jesus. Sam glanced at Alyssa, glad beyond belief that she was standing right there, whole and alive. He couldn’t even imagine how crazy he’d be going right now if he’d just been told her name was on that casualty list and that she could well be dead or dying.
“Which list?” the senior asked, swiftly pulling out of whatever he’d almost fallen into.
Jenk was still staring at him, wide-eyed.
“Which casualty list?” The senior seemed to expand, intent on getting this information now. He got louder. “Which fucking casualty list are Hendson and Howe on? The question’s not that hard, Jenkins.”
But Jenk shook his head. “Senior, it’s chaos over there—”
Sam stepped in. “Find out. Call Lieutenant Paoletti directly if you have to.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The senior chief turned to Sam, the muscle jumping in the side of his jaw. “You want to run this drill again, Lieutenant?” he asked tightly, ready to do his job despite the fact that the woman he cared for—and despite all his protests, Sam knew now for absolute certain that the senior chief cared for this girl—could very well be dead.
Sam shook his head. “No, we’re ready. Let’s go breathe down Max Bhagat’s neck. We’ll take a couple hours of rest, but we’ll do it over at the airport. Senior Chief, take Jenk and go to the hotel. Find out what the fuck is going on over there and report back in.”
The order wasn’t even out of his mouth before Wolchonok had grabbed Jenk and headed for the helos at a dead run.
There were tanks out in front of the hotel. Stan could see them as the helo approached. The number of Marines had quadrupled, too.
Christ, they should have gone into siege mode before lives had been lost.
Frank O’Leary—God rest his soul. The world was going to be a darker place without him in it.
And Teri Howe . . .
Just before they’d gotten onto the helicopter, Jenk had found out that Navy pilot Bob Hendson was on a list of names of personnel who had been flown via helo to the hospital on board the U.S.S. Hale, an aircraft carrier just off the coast, not far from Kazabek. Izzy and Dan Gillman were on that list, too.
But not Teri Howe.
Stan closed his eyes as the helo set down, praying to whatever God was listening that the reason Teri wasn’t on that list wasn’t because she was on the KIA list with Frank O’Leary.
Please God, don’t let her be dead. Please God, I’ll be good for the entire rest of my life. . . .
Jenk touched his arm, gesturing that they’d landed.
Ah, Christ, Stan had tears in his eyes. Jenk pretended not to see them as he followed him off the helo and across the roof.
He’d heard Jenk shouting on the helo, trying to talk on the radio despite the noise. He was still plugged in to the damn thing, still trying to get that information.
“Any word?” Stan asked.
Jenk shook his head, no, his eyes apologetic. “Not on Teri Howe. Stevie and Knox have both checked in. They were in their rooms. They slept through the whole frickin’ thing.”
“Head down to the lobby,” Stan ordered. “Find out what kind of information center has been set up down there. I want a status report on Izzy, on Gillman, on Hendson. Find out MacInnough’s room number—maybe he’s still asleep. I’m going to check Teri’s room.”
“Aye aye, Senior Chief.” Jenk didn’t blink at the news that Stan already knew Teri Howe’s room number.
They went down the stairs together, Stan pushing through the door that led to Teri’s hallway when they reached that level. He ran down the corridor, not daring to think about the hope that had sprung to life when he’d heard that two of the SEALs had slept through the attack. Maybe Teri, as well, had been too tired or too smart to head down to the lobby when the fire alarm had gone off. Maybe the alarm didn’t work on her floor. Maybe . . .
He pounded on her door. “Teri!”
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, please open the door with your hair messed from sleep, squinting a little at the light, and . . .
Stan pounded and pounded, and even if she’d been in the bathroom she’d had to have heard. And even if she’d taken her time, she could’ve gotten to the door and opened it. He finally stopped pounding, and he did what he should have done from the start—unlock the door. It took him four seconds to get inside, another two to see, indeed, that the room was empty.
He stood there, in her empty room, knowing that he didn’t have any time to waste on his own frustration and pain. He had to find her. He had to go down to the lobby, where she may well have died. He turned around, closing the door behind him. He had to go into the conference room they were using as a temporary morgue and—
Teri was standing in the hallway.
Her clothes were covered with blood, and her eyes were huge in her face as she stared at him.
“Oh, my God,” he whispered. “Are you hurt?”
“It’s not my blood.”
Stan reached for her, needing to see for himself that she truly was unscathed. But he hadn’t so much as touched her when she lunged for him, her arms tight around his neck. She was shaking, and he held her tightly, too, his hand slipping up beneath the edge of her jacket and her shirt. His fingers found smooth skin, unbroken skin, unwounded skin, thank you, dear Lord.
“Frank O’Leary’s dead,” she said, her face against his chest.
“I know.” But she wasn’t. She was alive and warm and her heart was still beating. He could feel it. She was pressed that tightly against him.
“I held him while he died,” she said. “He called me Rosie and he told me that he loved me.”
“Oh, Christ—” Oh, Frank.
“I told him I loved him, too, and then he just . . . oh, God, Stan, he died.”
“Oh, baby, I am so sorry.”
She was crying. Thank God she was crying. When he first saw her standing there, she’d looked dazed. Battle shocked. What she’d been through this afternoon had been the closest thing to a battle that she was likely ever to experience. And in many ways it was far worse. It was bad enough getting caught in a firefight when you were fully armed, but to have some asshole open fire into an unarmed crowd . . .
“All I could think was that I didn’t know where you were,” she told him. “The lobby was filled with people who were hurt or dying, and I didn’t know if one of them was you. And then I couldn’t stop to look because they needed pilots to fly the wounded out to the U.S.S. Hale, and every time we came back I was afraid it was going to be you I was carrying to the hospital there. And I kept trying to find out where you were and nobody goddamn knew anything. So I just kept flying, covered with O’Leary’s blood. God, it’s under my fingernails, and poor Rosie! Her world has ended and she doesn’t even know. . . .”
He held her tightly, aware as hell that while he’d been scared out of his mind about her, she’d been worrying about him, too.
“I’m okay,” he said. “Tell me again that you’re okay.”
“I’m okay,” she said. She pulled back to smile at him through her tears. “I’m so much more than okay, because my world didn’t end.”
Stan’s radio shrieked.
Teri pulled back from him, wiping her eyes. “God, I need a shower.”
She unlocked her door. Held it open for him.
He triggered the radio’s switch, refusing to think about what she’d just told him. “Wolchonok. I found Teri Howe. She’s all right. Come back.”
He stepped into her room. Only for a minute. Held the door open wide with his foot.
“Thank God. I found MacInnough, Senior,” Jenk reported. “You don’t want to know where he’s been. Let’s just say he’s seen a different kind of action. Over.”
“Izzy, Gillman, Hendson? Over,” Stan asked as Teri slipped off her jacket and kicked off her boots. She stepped out of her pants—Christ, what was it with her and taking off her clothes in front of him?—and he let the door close.
“Izzy’s in critical condition, but already out of surgery. Took a round to the chest,” Jenk told him. “Gillman got hit by flying glass. And Hendson got hit in the knee. He’s in surgery right now. They’re trying to save his leg. Over.”
Stan turned his back to her as Teri peeled off her shirt. “Radio Lieutenant Starrett with this information. Over.”
“Already have, Senior. Over.”
“Good. Get your ass to the airport. I’ll join you there ASAP. Over.”
The shower went on.
“Negative, Senior Chief,” Jenk came back. “Starrett’s already sent the team back to the hotel. Max Bhagat’s afraid it’ll look like retaliation if we go in with force now. We’re back to stalling for as long as we possibly can. Looks like we’ve got the night off, Senior. Get some sleep, if you can. Over and out.”
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