Ricochet (40 page)

“He wasn’t handling the explosives,” she said. “Charlie was doing that. Ray was just moving equipment, and when he grabbed the locker holding the blasting caps, it exploded.”

“Charlie didn’t know that. How would you—”

“Brad,” she said. “Charlie was ten yards away, picking up debris that blew off the control hut. When Josh interviewed Brad, he said he and Ray were moving everything back into the truck to return to the stockyard. He and Ray reached for the blasting cap locker at the same time. Ray got it first.”

Nathan’s free hand lifted to his face. He rubbed his eyes and swore under his breath. “He’s just a
kid
.”

“It was an
accident,
Nathan. A tragic
accident
. No one could have predicted that cap would blow or when. This is exactly why we buy risk insurance. It’s no different than me buying life insurance in case I’m in a car accident.”

“I can’t…talk about this.” He shook his head and dropped his hand. “I’m a miserable human being right now, and you’re not going to change that. You need to leave.”

“You don’t have to talk, and you can be as miserable as you want,” she said, crossing her arms. “But I’m not leaving you.”

“I can take care of myself,” he barked with a ferocious glower. “Just leave me
alone
.”

Before she’d worked for Renegades, Nathan would have easily intimidated her. Now…not even close. She stood, turned and crawled onto the bed, then leaned back against a pillow.

“Rachel, I’m tired—”

“No one’s stopping you from lying down. There’s plenty of room for two people.” She pulled her knees up and slipped them beneath his T-shirt. “Are you going to waste your time arguing, or are you going to get some sleep?”

He swore again and lifted the bottle to his mouth. Rachel winced, knowing that alcohol had to burn going down. Then he lowered the bottle, his expression a similar grimace, and stalked to the bed.

When he lay down, Rachel reached for the bottle. “Share?”

He passed it to her, then dropped his forearm over his eyes. The other hand lay flat against his chest. She didn’t take a drink, just held the bottle. And watched the tension slowly ebb from his face as he drifted.

She remained still a long time, letting him sink into sleep. When his breathing found a slow, steady pattern, Rachel quietly set the vodka on the floor beside the bed. Propped up on one elbow, she watched him sleep. Watched his chest rise and fall, watched his fingers twitch against his chest, watched his head occasionally jerk sideways…and wondered if he was dreaming about what happened to Ray or what happened in Afghanistan. Or maybe something that had happened long before that.

Sixteen years he’d endured trauma after trauma for their country. For the men he served with. With another four to go, she couldn’t help but wonder if he’d come out of his twenty years—or more, if he chose—alive. If he’d come out intact—physically or mentally.

Rachel’s heart reached out to Nathan even while her mind told her to cut her losses. She slid her palm over his cheek, and he stirred but didn’t wake. Letting her hand fall to his jaw, she lowered her head to his shoulder and snuggled closer.

Nathan sighed, turned toward her, and eased an arm over her waist, then tugged her close, pressing her body to his. With their legs tangled, his chin resting on her head, he stilled again, and his breathing regulated.

But Rachel couldn’t sleep. She didn’t want to miss a minute of this unconscious sweetness, just one window into the real man beneath his trauma.

The dull clank of cowbells tinkled in Ryker’s ears. The sound made the hair on the back of his neck spike. He stepped in ultraslow motion, his gaze scanning the gravel at his feet. The air seemed to buzz with stress. Townspeople frustrated with the interruption of their farmers’ market stood behind armored vehicles blocking both ends of the road.

In the distance, dogs barked, chickens clucked, goats—those damned goats with cowbells strung around their necks—bleated, and the murmur of Afghan villagers touched Ryker’s ears. He forced every distraction away and inspected the ground immediately in front of him, then in a ten-foot radius, where the team member five feet to Ryker’s left and two feet behind—Mike Carmello—did the same. Their five-man team formed a diagonal string across the road where a possible IED had been called in to their EOD unit.

They passed a fruit stand on the left. A shop stacked floor-to-tented-ceiling with birdcages on the right.

“Those watermelons sure look good.” This came from Dog, the guy in the center and four feet behind Ryker. “When’s the last time we got watermelon in the mess? They should really be buying local merchandise, to support the area, you know?”

“Great way to die of food poisoning,” Carmello said. “Or swallow an IED.”

“Sure reminds me of summer, though.” The wistful voice of Tagger followed, fourth in the line. “Reminds me of clear, cold lagoons, rope swings, long, tan legs in jean cutoffs, string bikinis…”

“Summer?” Dekker said. “You’ve got to be fuckin’ kiddin’ me, man. You need to see fruit to remind you of summer when I’m cooking in my own skin?”

Another blazing Afghan day, and they were all wearing fifty pounds of uniform and equipment. Sweat trickled down Ryker’s cheek. He couldn’t bring himself to participate in the light banter, but he knew it relaxed his team and allowed it to flow, because their eyes, ears, and feet were always sharper when they were relaxed.

A goat darted into the road fifty feet in front of them. All five men raised their weapons in perfect choreography, then froze. Ryker’s heart rate spiked. The senses he’d thought were already alert peaked to hypersensitivity. Silence stretched taut across the team. He peered into the shadows of the abandoned tents filled with food and jewelry and fabric, their canvas flaps blowing in the wind. Squinted through the dust skittering along the gravel.

“Where’d he come from?” Carmello asked, his voice low and tight.

No one answered the hypothetical question they were all thinking. Movement dashed through the corner of Ryker’s vision. He glanced up and to his left without moving his head. A young Afghani man, early twenties, appeared on the top of a building backing to the street used for the village’s farmers’ market.

“Dekker.” Ryker called to the man on his far right. “We’ve got eyes. Ten o’clock.”

Dekker’s weapon swept upward to get a look at the possible threat through his scope. “Got him,” Dekker responded. “Appears unarmed.”

The brown and white spotted goat stood in the middle of the deserted road, bleating, looking lost. It took a few steps forward, a few steps back, and bleated again.

“Sarg?” Dog said. “Want me to take it out?”

Ryker’s stress escalated. He scanned the area near the animal, but couldn’t see any evidence of an IED. With townspeople looking on—including a bevy of kids—Ryker weighed the pros and cons of shooting the goat. This war was a goddamned political minefield.

He was just about to give Dog an affirmative, when the goat startled and darted through the tents on the opposite side of the road. When nothing exploded, Ryker’s shoulders eased.

“Keep moving,” he said. “I want to get the hell off this street.”

“Roger that,” Dekker said.

Ryker started forward again, his gaze focused hard on the ground at his feet.

No disturbances, no divots, no soft ground.

Step.

No wire, no metal, no plastic.

Step.

“Sarg,” Dekker said, his voice rippling in a way that made Ryker’s gut turn to ice. “Eyes just pulled out a phone.” Then his voice rose, and he yelled, “Put it down! Put the phone down, now!”

The man held both hands up as if in surrender, but still held the phone in one. And grinned. Dekker continued to yell, this time in Pashto. “
Preebáasem baabat!
”

The goat darted back into the road. This time behind them, and only ten feet away.

Red flags spiked in Ryker’s mind. He spun, aimed at the animal—

A child broke through the barricade and came running toward the goat, screaming, arms outstretch. A boy. Maybe six or seven.

Ryker swore and hesitated.

A woman struggled in the crowd behind him, frantic, calling to the boy in Pashto. Telling him it wasn’t his goat, and ordering the boy back to her.

Alarm shot up Ryker’s spine. He grabbed Carmello’s arm with his free hand, lowered his weapon, and screamed, “Cover!”

But the last half of his word never made it out of his mouth. The goat startled and ran—straight for Tagger. The animal was just two feet from Ryker’s teammate when the explosion detonated. In slow, vivid, horrifying color, the goat came apart at the seams like a ragdoll in the jaws of a wolf.

The force of the blast rocketed Ryker off his feet. He hit a wall, bounced off, and collided with another member of his team. They ricocheted again, this time off each other. Ryker was thrown back into the fruit stand. He shook it off and saw Carmello rolling away from him, toward the middle of the street.

Ryker rolled to his belly. Panic burned through his body. His vision blurred, dimmed, but he belly-crawled toward Carmello. “Mike! Get out of the street! Mi—”

Another blast rocked the ground and stabbed at Ryker’s ears. Debris rained down, trapping him in darkness. He fought to get out. Shoved bricks and poles and pots off him. Struggled out from the tangle of a canvas tarp.

And found carnage.

Tagger was gone. Just gone. Ripped pieces of gear and uniform and bloody body parts scattered everywhere. Dekker lay in a heap nearby, missing legs and the center of his torso.

Ryker screamed for Dog and Carmello but heard nothing—not even his own voice. Reality warped around him like funhouse mirrors. Grit filled his lungs until he couldn’t breathe. He forced himself to move, sluggish and painful. He found Dog first, the top half of his body strewn across a vendor’s shattered fruit cart, the bottom half twisted in the road surrounded by a pool of blood.

“Ry!”

The yell came to him like he was underwater. He turned, found Carmello, his eyes wide with horror, three of his four limbs scattered around him.

“Ry! Are you okay? Where are the others?”

Ryker crawled over rubble and smashed fruit and unidentifiable debris to reach Mike. He sat up, scanning Mike’s body over and over, but he couldn’t understand why he was incomplete. Why he was missing pieces. The desire to put him back together like a puzzle consumed him, and he glanced around for his limbs.

“Ry,” Mike screamed, jerking Ryker’s jacket with his one arm. His only arm. Ryker couldn’t understand. “You’re bleeding. Are you in shock? Why are you looking at me like that? Where are the others? Ry, where’s our team?”

His gaze jumped to Carmello’s. His buddy’s dark eyes were filled with terror. Something clicked inside Ryker. Nothing clear, nothing concrete, but he started moving—dragging tourniquets out of his tactical vest and using every ounce of strength he had left to tighten them around what was left of Mike’s limbs.

“What are you doing?” Mike screamed through the pain.

“Have to stop…” he muttered, securing the tourniquet, “the bleeding.”

“They’re dead, aren’t they?” Tears filled Carmello’s eyes and spilled down his cheeks, creating a pale river through the dirt and blood. “Oh my God, oh my God. They’re dead. They’re all dead.”

The tormented pitch of Carmello’s voice reached into Ryker’s chest and yanked. Mike’s eyes were closed, his face twisted with the torment, his head rolling side to side. His words slurred.

“Carmello!” Ryker yelled, fisting the man’s bloody jacket and shaking him. “Carmello, stay with me.” He lifted his gaze from the ground for the first time and found people swarming everywhere. Military, Afghanis. “Medics! Where are my fucking medics?”

“Is it…” Carmello’s dark eyes swerved back and collided with Ryker’s, his expression open and so utterly vulnerable. “Is it bad?”

“I got you, bro. You’re okay,” he lied. “Look at me now.”

But Carmello’s gaze slid sideways as if he couldn’t hold focus. “Holy fuck. Holy…where’s my…where’s my arm?”

Mike’s face turned white in an instant. His eyes rolled back. He was fading, dying right in front of Ryker’s eyes. “I need medics!” he screamed, his throat raw. He shook Carmello again. “Eyes here, Carmello. Right here. On me. We’ve got this.”

“Ry?” he asked, his gaze sliding in and out of focus. “I…I can’t feel my legs…”

He lifted his head, trying to sit up. Ryker pushed him back. “Dude, don’t move. Look. At. Me.”

But it was too late. Mike had seen his missing limbs. “Oh my God. Oh my…”

“Hold on, Mikey.” A sob garbled Mike’s name. Hopelessness and helplessness tried to bully their way into Ryker’s heart, but he battled them back. “Medics are coming. I’m right here.”

“No,” Mike croaked, dropping his head back. His eyes fell closed. “Let me go, man. I’m already dead.”