Tangled Pursuit (28 page)

He wiped his sweaty brow with the back of his forearm. “None. I spotted one about five hundred feet below us, northwest. I’m going to make a sketch and then get this intel called into Bagram.” He looked at her. “Hungry?”

“For food, yes.”

He clucked his tongue, shaking his head sadly, and gave her an amused look. “And here I had such dreams, darlin’.”

Snorting, Tal said, “All I want is a breakfast MRE, Chief Lockwood.” She saw the merry glint in his eyes, feeling power and confidence radiating from him. He was a warrior to his soul. Wyatt fed on this kind of op, and she was glad to see him in his element.

“Spoilsport,” he muttered, turning and heading deep beneath the tarp pulled across their hide.

With a half smile, she went back to work. Right now, the last of the soldiers trickling across the border was being counted. They’d been able to follow the first camel caravan an hour ago. She’d watched the twenty camels and the men leading them make a turn to the south below them. Wyatt’s SEAL team had already called in, and they were going to silently follow it from a distance. They finally had their quarry, and that was good. She heard Wyatt talking in a quiet voice to Bagram, giving them their GPS, their layout, and anything else he felt was important to them.

Of great importance to a sniper team was an LZ. If one or both of them got sick, were wounded, or needed to be airlifted out for emergency reasons, they had to have a place where a bird could land. Sometimes, it didn’t happen. And sometimes, like this time, they got lucky. Wyatt had found a flat area half a mile on the other side of the ridge that could handle a helo coming in to land and making that kind of transfer.

Tal intently kept watch on the border, the human traffic swelling, covering the no-man’s-land of yellow sand and red clay soil. It was mostly bone-dry desert with little greenery. There were hills flanking the border on the Pak side, and she knew that border crossers and snipers hid there during the day. They’d move out at dusk like a toxic horde across the border, infecting Afghanistan with their lawless intentions.

Beyond the hills was the famous Khyber Pass, one of the few connections between the two countries. Truck traffic, oil tankers, and horse, foot, and bicycle traffic congested it. Those who could escape Afghanistan arrived in rags, penniless, heading for Pakistan, hoping to get away from the war, find work, make money, and not starve to death.

She felt Wyatt coming forward, smelled the scent of ham and eggs in the air. Luckily, they were on the side of a rocky slope, near a welt of a ridge that rose two hundred feet above them. The six-foot-tall bushes on it helped create a natural protective barrier for them. Any enemy trying to get to them would make a hell of a lot of noise trying to get through all that thick scrub. The wide, graceful curve of the rocky slope flared out, like a woman’s fan fully opened, for about one-quarter of a mile below the hide, giving Tal an unbroken view of the border area.

The only way the Taliban could sneak up on them was through that grove of trees at five thousand feet. That was their Achilles’ heel.

“Here,” Wyatt grunted as he sat near her, legs crossed, handing Tal her food. “Want me to take over the scope?”

Tal shook her head, sitting back on her heels. “No. Things are quiet for a minute. Now begins the boring part of counting men,” she said wryly, taking the MRE. Her stomach growled.

“I think I’m going to start calling you Mama Leopard,” he laughed, and opened up his own food, spreading out the different packets around him. “I like a woman who’s not afraid to eat a real meal. People who eat salads all the time drive me crazy.”

“Women have to watch their weight, unlike you testosterone-loaded men,” she said defensively. “When I finally turn in my commission to go to work for my family, I’m going to have to watch what I eat, because I won’t be expending calories like I do on a sniper op.”

He dug eagerly into his scrambled eggs with his spoon. “The estrogen factor. Right? Women tend to put on fat pretty easily if they’re not exercising to meet their caloric intake.”

“Yes. You guys will never have to worry about weight gain if you’re in black ops, for sure. Talk about unfair,” Tal griped. The salty ham made her make a pleased sound in the back of her throat. She saw Wyatt’s eyes change, burn, and she could feel him wanting her. It didn’t help that her breasts were tightening beneath the tan t-shirt she wore. She never wore a bra out on a sniper mission. Wearing a Kevlar vest was bad enough. A bra just chafed her flesh and made her even more miserable.

“You have any idea when you might turn in your commission?” Wyatt asked evenly, ignoring his sexual reaction to Tal’s nipples pressing against her T-shirt.

“I was considering doing it after I nailed Raastagar. I’ve done that now. But”—she sighed, frowning, as she spooned the scrambled eggs into her mouth—“it’s gotten more complicated of late.”

“Oh?” Wyatt gave her an innocent look. “In what way?”

She slipped him an annoyed look. “You know what I’m talking about.”

Wyatt swallowed a smile. “Well, I like having you around, but that’s my very selfish viewpoint. I know you want to get on with your life, one that’s full of promise. And you’ll be with your family, which is important.” And she’d be safe.

“I won’t miss the danger,” Tal admitted. “I’ll still be worrying about Alexa and Matt. I can’t even begin to imagine what this is doing to my parents. Every time I go on leave to be with my family, I see the stress in their faces and the anxiety in their eyes. Everyone is in a constant state of worry about us, because we’re in all in combat zones.”

“You certainly didn’t choose safe careers,” Wyatt agreed, looking around, keeping an eye on things. Right now, while Tal was the sniper, he was the spotter. It was his job to keep them safe. The eastern horizon was brightening by the minute. It would look beautiful if they weren’t in such a potentially deadly place. They both knew the Taliban would be avidly hunting around the slope Tal had shot from, killing her HVT. They were a good mile away from there, but that didn’t mean anything, so he stayed on high alert.

“No . . . we don’t have safe careers.” Tal frowned. “What do your parents think of your career choice?”

“My mother, Daisy, is like all of your family: always on pins and needles when I’m deployed. My father, Hank, just quietly accepts it. I know he worries, but he’s never said anything to me about it.”

“I’m looking forward to getting out,” Tal admitted. “It’s not something I’ve told anyone else, though. Except for Jay.”

“A herd of horses couldn’t drag it out of me, darlin’.”

“Do you
ever
lose your Texas sense of humor, Wyatt?”

He raised his straight brown brows. “Sure I do. You just haven’t seen me on the job before. I joke around when things are quiet—it helps me get through the other times. Then I’m not smiling. Just ask my men.”

“When I’m off duty, I can joke around. But on an op? I’m a take-no-prisoners person,” she agreed, her voice sounding faraway.

“If you could be anywhere right now, where would that be?” he suddenly tossed out, curious.

Rolling her eyes, Tal gave him a silly smile. “Eating a banana split?”

Wyatt’s eyes lit up with amusement. “No one can say you don’t have a sense of humor too, Captain Culver. You’re giving me a run for my money, woman.”

“Seriously. I’m dying for some ice cream.” Tal gave him a pointed look. “You’ve turned me into a banana split addict, Lockwood. This is all your fault, you know?”

“No,” he said lightly, holding her laughing gaze. “I’m having a great time spoiling you. There’s a big difference, darlin’.” He finished off his MRE, gathering all the smaller pouches around him and stuffing them into the largest pouch.

Tal felt heat flying into her cheeks and inwardly groaned. She was twenty-nine, for heaven’s sake. She shouldn’t be blushing like this! Yes, he knew exactly how to indulge her. She was never going to forget that night of lovemaking with him, either. Talk about being spoiled!

Things were moving so much faster than she was used to. She’d known Brian a year before she’d fallen in love with him. They’d had a friendship first, and later on it had changed into something deeper and more satisfying.

Her thoughts were interrupted when the radio beeped.

She watched as Wyatt set the Ziploc with the finished MRE packages aside, changed channels, and gave the call sign and password for the day.

All her joy evaporated as she listened to Wyatt speaking in low tones to Drummond, his LPO. She saw the tension return to his face. Looking at him now, he could pass for an Afghani. He had deep lines at the corners of his eyes, and his skin was sun darkened. His sable-colored hair hung in twisted strands around his face, barely brushing his shoulders. She couldn’t even visualize what this Texan would look like cleaned up and presentable.

But even now, he turned her on with his sensuality, which always smoldered beneath the surface. Tal wanted him just as much as he desired her.

Frowning, her mind wandered over their conversation. She’d just found Wyatt. Tal didn’t want to leave him when she handed in her commission to go work at Artemis. She knew it was selfish of her. Dilara, her mother, was always full of Turkish proverbs. One stood out: “Time reveals everything.”

Now Tal had to apply that proverb to Wyatt and herself. Not that he was pushing her for answers. And now that she knew he had been trained as a sniper, she realized he was much more like her than she’d first thought: an onion.

Somehow, knowing this settled her down, and she didn’t worry so much about what Wyatt might be hiding from her. Not that Wyatt tried to hide anything, really. She knew SEALs were very humble, never bragging about what they knew. More than likely, that’s why he never brought up the fact he was also sniper trained. But being an onion, unless someone asked him the right question, he would reveal nothing more than he wanted to.

In many ways, he was as private as she was. Tal never told anyone about herself. If she had to fly on a commercial jet and her seatmate asked what she did, she’d make something up. She never told anyone, especially a stranger, that she was in the Marine Corps. And she’d never divulge that she was a sniper.

Tal heard Wyatt sign off. She met his eyes, noticing they were now darkened with worry. Her breath caught. “Everything okay?”

He moved to where she sat. “Yeah, my team has got the camel caravan in their sights. Now it becomes a matter of following them at a distance to see where they go. Drummond was telling me we’re in for some bad weather midday.” He craned his neck, studying the still-cloudless blue sky.

“Spring storms,” Tal muttered with distaste. “It’s either a blizzard or a thunderstorm. Just depends on your altitude. I really hate the way they pop up out of nowhere. You can drown in them if you’re at a lower altitude where it rains.”

“In Texas we call ’em ‘frog stranglers.’” Looking up at the overhead canvas for their new hide, Wyatt studied it before he returned his gaze to Tal. “I have an idea. What if we find some wrist-sized tree limbs in the surrounding area?” He pointed upward. “We could put them crosswise in the hide to support the tarp fully. There would be less rain coming in here, which,” he predicted sourly, “we’ll have a lot of if we get one of those storms.”

“Good idea,” she murmured. “I could sure use some leg stretching.”

“This is probably the best time to do it,” Wyatt agreed. “Right now the Taliban is probably about a mile away from us trying to find you after last night’s firing of the Win-Mag. We need to work quietly and stay alert. Shall we?”

“Sure,” she said. Turning, Tal placed the covers over her scope. “You’ve been out surveying. Did you see some old limbs lying anywhere nearby?”

Wyatt pointed to the west of the hide. “Yeah, plenty of ’em. I think if we get eight of them, about six feet in length, it will span the hide but not poke outside the tarp to reveal the hide to prying eyes.”

She got up, moving on her hands and knees toward their exit point on the north side of the hide. Some thick, heavy brush sat only six feet away from it. “I’ll go first,” she told him after making sure she had a bullet in the chamber of her .45, reholstering it without closing the restraining strap and keeping the safety off.

It took an hour of careful movements, but they ended up with eight ideal limbs. At 0900, the clouds were already building to the west of them. Tal was glad they were doing this, because the area of the slope where they’d chosen to create the hide was in a somewhat shallow depression. Water would flow down on them from the grove of trees above.

Wyatt missed nothing, pointing to several old water runoff channels. After they placed the rafters across the hide, they pulled the tarp over them and anchored it down with rocks. Wyatt began to dig a few shallow channels to bleed away the water runoff that could come pouring down from above them. Unfortunately, he couldn’t do much more.

If a sharp-eyed Taliban who knew this area saw such a man-made channel, he’d instantly get suspicious. Tal made up her mind that if those storms rolled in, they were going to get soaked to their skin. The more important objective was to keep their rucks closed; that way they’d be waterproof. And they had to protect her Win-Mag, which was not immune to water damage. The M4s could handle just about anything and keep on firing.

Her radio beeped. She eased back into the brush to hide and switched frequencies. Giving the day’s password and code, she identified herself. Who was calling?

“Captain Culver? This is Dr. Giovanni Andreoli. Sergeant Caldwell asked me to call you and tell you Jay’s going to be fine. I just performed surgery on him and removed his gallbladder. He had a gallstone stuck in the biliary duct.”

Relief barreled through Tal. She closed her eyes. “Thank God . . . thank you, doctor. Has someone called his wife, Linda Caldwell?”

“Yes, I just did. And she’s fine, and very relieved. Sergeant Caldwell told me she was pregnant, so I worded things very carefully for her so she wouldn’t overreact.”

Tal suddenly became choked up. “That’s wonderful. What will happen to Sergeant Caldwell now?”