Beyond Limits (29 page)

“He was getting kids to do this?”

“Yeah, this guy was a real scumbag, no moral code whatsoever. That was something I learned on my first tour: some of the top TAQ guys were the biggest cowards. So this guy’s high-priority, and we get this tip about him, but of course, we’re wary. Single-source intel tends to be unreliable. But the commanders get together and decide to send some guys in, see if we can get the dope on this cave complex. It wasn’t on any of our maps.”

“Sounds like a red flag.”

“Yeah, but you never know. Especially back then. This was early days in the war, and we didn’t have all the intel we have now. In some of the more remote places, we were still using Soviet maps, if you can believe it.”

“So I’m guessing you were on this team they sent in?”

“Me, Gage, Luke, and this guy Kevin Bunker. You haven’t met him, but he’s big. He was in the BUD/S class ahead of me, aced all the PT. He could bench-press three-fifty, but he was fast, too—always smoked everyone in the timed runs. He got the nickname ‘Hill’ because of his size.”

“As in Bunker Hill?”

“You got it.”

He offered her the flask again, and she shook her head. She wanted him to keep talking freely. He’d never shared so much about his job before, and she was lapping it up.

“So there’s a village located near this supposed cave complex, but it’s on a steep hillside, and I mean steep. We’re talking accessible by goats and locals, not outsiders. So they get out the maps and determine that the best way to get to this area is to hike down to it, and that’s what we did. Our four-man element dropped in high about 0400 hours. It was a straight SR mission, search and recon. Depending on what we found in terms of forces and weapons, we were planning to bring a bigger team in to finish the job.

“We start making our way down, and like I said, it’s steep. So we’re traveling combat light, which means we’ve left a lot of our armor on base. Even without it, each of us is carrying forty to fifty pounds of gear—water, radios, ammo. It’s only a twenty-four-hour op, but you never go anywhere without at least five pounds of water and an MRE in case things go off the rails.”

She watched him talk, deeply disturbed by the image of him behind enemy lines, moving around without body armor.

“We spend the better part of the day getting down through this forest, making sure to stay invisible among the spruce. By the time we near the destination the sun’s getting low, which is what we want, and we check our coordinates, and there’s the village out to our east. And then we start looking around and spot this cave right where the terp said it would be. It’s on the side of a cliff, this big, dark mouth, with some goat trails leading up to it. So we huddle together and go over the plan. After nightfall we’re going to slip up there, check it out, see what’s what. But then I start looking around. I’m on glass—binoculars—looking down at the village, and I start getting antsy. Something’s off with the setup, and I can feel it.”

She watched him, waiting.

“And that’s when it hits me. It’s too quiet. The village is too calm, too empty. Not nearly the kind of activity you’d expect in the evening when people are preparing meals and everything. And I turn to Gage to tell him, and that’s when all hell breaks loose. Bullets start smacking into the trees right above our heads, branches snapping off, bark spitting everywhere.”

“An ambush,” she said.

“Yeah, we were getting pummeled from all directions. Except down, so that’s where we went—we just started running down this mountain. And I’m talking ten- and twenty-foot drops, sheer cliffs, but there was nowhere else to go. We’re running full speed, sliding, jumping, trying to take cover behind rocks whenever we could, and the bullets are slapping around everywhere, and I hear one of my teammates scream, and I know he’s been hit. And I start running in that direction, but the bullets are flying, and it’s hard to stay oriented. Basically, I knew up and down, but every other direction didn’t exist in the chaos of it all. I end up behind this boulder with Luke, and his weapon’s jammed, and he’s trying to clear it, and I’m damn near out of ammo, so I’m starting to get worried, and then suddenly, that was it. Nothing.”

She stared at him. He’s under attack with no armor and scarce ammo, and he’s
starting
to get worried? “What do you mean, nothing?”

“Silence.” He sliced the air with his hand. “Zilch. No more shooting. For a while, Luke and I just wait. We don’t know whether they’ve run out of bullets, which had been known to happen, or whether they’re trying to wait us out. Finally, after a while, our daylight’s totally gone, and we figure it’s real, the shooting’s actually stopped. So we start maneuvering around the mountain in NVGs looking for Gage and Hill. We find Gage pretty quick, but Hill isn’t anywhere. At last, I pick up a heat signature and manage to spot him under this holly bush behind some rocks, and he’s injured. His whole foot is twisted around, about a hundred eighty degrees off.”

She cringed.

“It was ironic, really. We’d had all this parachute training, where they teach you how to land, but he’s injured from a fall, not a bullet. Meanwhile, Gage is on the radio, trying to get us some air support, but the timing’s bad, and all our Apaches are in a neighboring valley involved in a firefight. Our guys over there are really getting rocked, and there’re no spare choppers. Our CO manages to track down a Pave Hawk that can help us. We just have to get up to the top of this mountain where there’s a plateau. It’s the only viable landing zone for miles.”

“But Hill can’t walk.”

“His leg is broken in three places, so we carry him. Fireman’s carry, taking turns. And I’m not gonna lie to you—he was heavy. Luke had managed to get a needle in him and give him some morphine, which helped his pain but made him more like dead weight. We’re carrying him, and he keeps telling us to put him down, leave him there, come back later, but that wasn’t going to happen, so we take turns. At one point, we get to this very steep part, and Luke—you remember him?”

“From the meeting, yes.”

“He grew up kind of backwoods Tennessee, but he’s smart as hell. Innovative, too. He gets out his Ka-Bar knife and starts sawing branches off these trees, and we rig up this thing that’s kind of a sled. We strap Hill to it with some bungee cords and drag him up that rock face. We get to the top of the LZ, and then it’s a waiting game. Our helo’s on the way, but we’re jumpy, because there’s only one place to land for miles around, one extraction point, so everyone on the mountain knows where we’d go, and we’re feeling like sitting ducks. We’re stuck there waiting and wondering, were they really out of ammo, or was that just a mindfuck to get us into another ambush?”

Elizabeth held her breath, waiting.

“And then I hear it. The helo’s coming, and we’ve got our infrared lights there to guide her down, and I still can’t believe we’re getting out of there. We load Hill into the bird, and I glance into the trees, and I see this green figure—that’s what it looks like through my goggles. It’s a TAQ fighter, and he’s got an RPG on his shoulder. Gage starts yelling and pushing me, and the three of us jump in and get the hell out of there.”

“What about the RPG?”

“He missed. Firing at night from a distance, it was literally a shot in the dark, but it rattled our cage anyway.”

She tried to digest the words. He never talked about his missions, not in any detail. She looked out over the landscape. Just listening to his story left her feeling dizzy. She looked at him. “Why did you tell me that?”

“I want you to know what it’s like.” His face was deadly serious. “We have each other’s backs. That’s ironclad. We move mountains for each other.”

The brotherhood thing again.

“Will you miss it when it’s over?” she asked quietly.

“When what’s over?”

“The war. Everything’s winding down.”

“Yeah, well. It’s never really over for us.”

She’d known that, but she wanted to hear it from him. What he did was too important to ever actually stop. The war on terror would continue in the shadows, and spec ops forces would continue to fight it.

He wouldn’t quit, anyway. He believed in the fight, and he didn’t want to leave his brothers.

And she wouldn’t ask him to.

Which brought them right back to the same dilemma she’d predicted when she’d first met him, when he’d burst into her life and turned everything upside-down. She looked at his strong profile now, at his muscular arm resting on his knee. She couldn’t remember ever being so drawn to a man, so hopelessly attracted. She respected him, and he made her laugh, and he made her pulse pound whenever she got near him, but that was chemistry, and it didn’t get rid of the very real obstacles. He was gone all the time, putting his life on the line. And he was so committed to his team she didn’t believe he had room for anything else. She looked at him, and he was watching her with that steady gaze that made her nerves hum. Slowly, carefully, he was dismantling all the fences she’d built around her emotions. And she was letting him.

A distant buzz of a phone, and Elizabeth scrambled to her feet. They rushed to the truck, and Derek reached through the open window and plucked his cell from the console.

“Vaughn.” He listened for a moment and held the phone out. “It’s Torres.”

She snatched it up. “What is it?”

“S
he’s stable,” he told her. “They’ve upgraded her condition, and they’re moving her into a room.”

Elizabeth’s heart clenched. “Is she awake? Can I see her?”

“No and no. Doc says a few more hours. Her parents just arrived, though, so they’ll be here when she wakes up.” There was a tremor of emotion in his voice. “So that’s the news. Sounds like she’s going to make it through.”

She squeezed her eyes shut.
Thank you, God.
“What about Jamie?” she asked.

“Still the same. They’re watching her. I’ll call you if we get anything new.”

“Please. No matter how late.”

She got off the phone, and Derek was staring at her in the dimness.

“Doctors say she’s stabilized.”

“She awake?”

“Not yet.” She handed him the phone, then walked around to the passenger side to climb in. She stared numbly at the dashboard.

Derek climbed in, too, and pulled shut the door. He looked at her. “You all right?”

“Yeah.” But she sat there, motionless, replaying the news.
She’s going to make it through.
Suddenly, her lungs constricted, and she couldn’t breathe. She clasped her hand to her chest and realized she was shaking.

“Liz?”

“I was so sure she was going to die.” She covered her face with her hands, but that didn’t stop the hot flood of tears.

“She’s going to be okay.”

She turned away.

“Hey.” He leaned across the console and pulled her into his arms.

“I was so
sure
,” she said against his shoulder. “People die. It happens. They die in the line of duty or doing something careless or stupid or for no reason at all.” Her voice hitched. “I can’t believe I wasn’t paying enough attention, and it’s my fault.”

“It’s not your fault.”

Her arms tightened, because she wanted so much for the words to be true. She rested her head against his neck, and at the first scent of him, it was over. The tears just came. His chest was hard and solid, and his arms felt so strong wrapped around her. How many times had she dreamed of him holding her like this?

She wished things were different. She wished they could be like other people, normal people. But they couldn’t. They weren’t.

“Sorry.” She pulled back, but he wouldn’t let her go.

“Look at me.”

She wiped the tears away.

“You weren’t responsible,” he said. “They were. Get that straight.”

She nodded. But the look of tenderness on his face made her eyes well again. He reached up and gently brushed her cheek with his thumb, and his eyes were intent in the dimness. And then he leaned over and kissed her forehead, and she just . . . lost it. There was no other way to describe it. Whatever hold she’d thought she had on her feelings disappeared, and she reached up and dragged his head down to kiss him. It was wet and sloppy, and she would have been embarrassed, but he pulled her right across the console, practically into his lap.

And then everything went into overdrive. His hands were everywhere. Hers, too. She tried to get her balance as he shifted her on his lap. When she looked up, his eyes were dark with desire, and a shiver of anticipation moved through her as all the memories rushed back. She wanted him so much she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think—with the exception of one persistent thought that wouldn’t go away.

Why does he have to leave?

His hand slid under her shirt and found her breast, and heat speared through her as every thought left her except that she wanted him. She twisted closer. He gripped her hips and pulled her firmly onto his lap until she was straddling him and her knees were wedged against the console and the door. It might have been painful, but she was too distracted by the warmth of his hands and his thumbs rasping over her nipples. She kissed him and kissed him and arched her body against him, and then he pushed her shirt up and went for her breast.