Terror Stash (30 page)

“That one’s glycogen.” His voice was bodiless.

She stared at him. Glycogen? What was that? Some esoteric form of cocaine? Heroin? She licked her lips. “Was everything that Nelson told me about you a lie?”

He lifted his head with effort and cracked open an eye to look at her. “The other bottles are insulin,” he said. “Check the labels, if the seawater hasn’t ruined them.”

This time she really thought her brain had called it quits. For several heartbeats she could barely form a thought. Then she found her tongue. “You’re diabetic?”

He shifted, moving himself into a better sitting position—one not quite so sprawled and uncaring. “Ironic, isn’t it?” he said dryly. “One of the few diseases where western medicine actually has an edge.”

She found herself sitting on the toilet cover and didn’t remember getting there. “That’s why you head back to Western Australia on a regular basis?”

He grimaced. “I come for the people and the beaches. But yeah, I also stop by and get blood work done and stock up on the latest treatments.”

“What’s the glycogen for?”

“Severe hypoglycemia.” He carefully capped the needle and tossed it so it landed in the open pouch on the counter. “I didn’t get a chance today to eat properly or take my shot. I’ve been busy.” He shrugged. “It’s been one of those days.”

“But don’t they...I thought you could drink orange juice or eat candy to offset hypoglycemia.”

“If you deal with it as soon as the first symptoms show up. If you leave it too long, then you have to use the glycogen.”

“That can’t be good for you, leaving it so long.”

“I told you, I didn’t get a chance to deal with it earlier.”

“But anyone in their right minds would have let you...” She caught her breath as his meaning registered. “You’ve never told anyone, have you? No one at all. That’s why you left it for so long. You were trying to hide it from me. You weren’t going to inject yourself in front of me.”

“Yeah, well, now you know,” Caden drawled, hoisting himself to his feet.

His drawl, the casual shrug, didn’t distract her. “Are you ashamed of it, Caden?”

He leaned against the counter with both hands, hanging his head. She thought he was going to ignore her question, or shower his fury upon her and avoid it that way. But he took a breath and let it out noisily. “It’s like my body has let me down.”

She shook her head, amazed. “So you compensate with physical strength, speed, stamina. But Caden, millions of people have diabetes and the conditions you grew up in were hardly conducive to good health. It’s not your fault.”

He caught her gaze in the mirror, his eyes narrowing. “Nelson didn’t even spare me that, huh?” He sighed and started packing the pouch again and zipped it closed with a forceful tug.

“Did you think he might?”

He grimaced, refusing to look at her again, even in the mirror. “Yeah, well, one of my few moments of wishful thinking.”

She held up her hand. “I know, last thing you want to talk about, right?”

This time his head jerked and his black eyes pinned her gaze. “You haven’t exactly been forthcoming about your secrets, either, so don’t play the hypocrite with me.”

It hurt—more than she thought it would. It was the truth, but not for the reasons he believed.

He made an impatient sound, grabbed the pouch and moved out of the bathroom. “I have to eat,” he said.

She followed him into the kitchen

As he studied the inside of the refrigerator, she pushed the hot words out. “It’s not that I won’t tell you. It’s that I can’t. I don’t remember anything before I was about twelve. At least I think I was about twelve. You have to understand, Caden, I’m not used to talking about it. To anyone. The few times I ever tried to explain, it changed things. People wouldn’t treat me the same afterwards. So I stopped telling people.”

He glanced at her. Then he looked back into the fridge. His eyes caught hers again before he let his gaze skitter away. The hand holding the fridge door tightened its grip. “Me, too,” he said at last. “Until today.” He took a breath. “Until you.”

She nodded. “I’d trade you stories, Caden, but honestly....” She spread her hands. “I don’t know how to tell it.”

He reached for the bread and pulled out two slices. “Hold out your hands.”

She held them out, puzzled.

“Palm up.”

She flipped them. He laid a slice of bread on each hand, reached back into the fridge, slapped two slices of cheese on them, reached back into the fridge again, pulled out the remainder of a pepperoni sausage, reached for his folding knife and sliced off thin layers, which he laid on the cheese. He reached into the fridge again, topped the two sandwiches with another layer of bread each and shut the fridge. He took one from her hand. “That’s yours,” he said, pointing to the other one on her hand. He took a huge bite out of his and leaned back against the counter, chewing.

“I figure we have maybe an hour before we have to clear this place,” he said. “Do you have more cash?”

“A little.”

“It’ll have to do until we can get to your car again. That could be interesting, too.”

“I should pack some stuff.” She looked towards her office. At the very least, she was taking her computer. She’d stay barefoot rather than leave it behind.

“What happened when you were twelve?” He took another bite of his sandwich, as if he’d casually asked what the time was.

“I found myself wandering the streets of Khafji when the Iraqi army invaded, during the Gulf war.” She forced herself to take another bite, fighting for casual, for cool. “I just walked around, trying to figure out what I was doing there and who I was. Then I ran into an American soldier, called Vinnie Dela Vega. He was a US Ranger. He was just as puzzled about me as I was, but he said I spoke English like an American and I remembered a lot of American things. The first thing I asked him for, when I knew he was from the States, was if he had a Pepsi. I wasn’t able to tell him
anything about myself except that I remembered an explosion and losing someone and that I had been wandering the streets for days. Vinnie told me that since I spoke English like an American, he was going to say I was American, especially as I liked Pepsi so much.
So he removed all his rank and insignia and sneaked me across the city to the last operational base the Rangers were holding before they pulled out.”

* * * * *

It was the second day of their odyssey across the fragmented streets and mounds of rubble that made up most of Al Khafji. Vinnie had long ago discarded his shirt and helmet and torn the stripes off the sides of his trousers and untucked the hems from inside his boots. He’d told her that it was too hot for the additional layers.

Much later, Montana had learned that he’d been trying to smuggle her past two alert armies and a dozen different guerilla outfits without drawing fire. If they could pass as civilians, there was a chance they could reach safety. He’d also taken the risk of burying his rifle in the same alley in which he’d found Montana. He was traveling with one handgun concealed in his pocket.

Vinnie was dark haired and sun-tanned. With his tee-shirt and dark trousers, he could pass as a middle-aged native. He’d coaxed Montana into putting back on the dirty dishdashah she’d worn over her jeans and wearing the hijab again. She hated the headcloth with a passion but at twelve years of age, she was old enough to understand that blending in with everyone else was necessary for survival.

Just after morning prayers, when the mosque bells had fallen silent, they’d edged up to a bombed-out field of stones and rubble. Bent piping and steel clawed at the sky. Whole slabs of wall lay at mortal angles while disquieting evidence of human habitation drew the eye—a shower stall, the rings still in place and a plastic curtain hanging from the last, wallpaper still clinging to bricks, a kitchen chair with a missing cane bottom perched atop a pile, looking very ordinary and domestic.

The detail that held Montana’s gaze was a colorful poster of Janet Jackson. It hung from a chunk of cinderblock by one corner, lifting a little as heat vapors stroked it. Who owned it? Were they the same age as her? Were they still alive? What had happened to them?

From here, they could smell the sea, too. It was rich and thick with salt.

“There we go,” Vinnie said, settling onto his stomach as he studied the way ahead. “Look, ‘tana. See on the other side there. See the glittering?”

She dragged her gaze away from Janet Jackson and looked where Vinnie pointed. Something was glinting in the harsh sun. “Field glasses?” she guessed and glanced at him.

“Right on, sweetheart. Look just behind that glitter. Look hard. What do you see?”

She peered, searching. She glimpsed red and struggled to pull it into focus, to make out details. Red, and something. Stripes...

“It’s a flag! An American flag!!” She gripped Vinnie’s arm, unable to say more. The excitement that gripped her took away her ability to vocalize.

He grinned and reached out to pull the hijab from her head and tousle her hair. “That’s the base, ‘tana. We’re nearly there. Take the dress off, darling. You’re an American, now.”

She struggled out of the cotton dishdashah and threw it away. Vinnie tossed the headcloth on top of it and took her hand.

“We have to be sneaky for a while yet,” he told her. “You’re going to want to start running, but you can’t. Not till we get much closer, okay? We’ve got a lot of open ground to get across and the fence to climb at the end. And see those buildings up there?” He rolled over on one shoulder and pointed to the apartment blocks behind them. “There’ll probably be snipers up there, watching the station, waiting for a chance to pick off the soldiers. So we keep out of any sight lines they might have. Remember what I said about sight lines?”

She remembered vividly. In the last six days, through hard experience, she had learned how to stay out of sight of the tops of buildings and other high places where someone with a good rifle might be waiting. Vinnie had formalized her learning and given her a vocabulary to describe it.

For the next ninety minutes, they stole through the rubble field, sliding around heaps of debris, wriggling through holes in the wreckage, always aware of the high aeries at their backs, the possible observers.

Vinnie, ahead of her, held up his closed fist and Montana froze obediently. Then he beckoned her to come to him, to keep low.

She wriggled forward to his side.

“There. That’s home base, honey.”

A shining, new and very tall fence marked the edge of the rubble field. Behind the fence, suburbia took over. The suburban streets looked completely untouched, but it was an illusion. The buildings still stood, but they were unoccupied, the residents long since fled as refugees, heading into untouched areas of Saudi Arabia.

In one of the buildings close to the edge of the field, US personnel had set up a forward station for field command.

“Can they see us, Vinnie?”

“Probably, honey. They’ll have a sniper tucked up somewhere out of sight, keeping an eye on things. He’s probably been watching us for a while now, trying to figure out what we want.”

“Let’s go, then.” She was mad with impatience. There was barely a hundred yard between them and the nearest whole building. She felt like she could sprint there in two heartbeats. So close, so close. “They’ll have Pepsi, right?”

Vinnie laughed. “The base will have Pepsi,” he told her. “You bet. But there’s a tiny problem.”

“What?”

He nodded ahead. “No more cover. D’you see how it’s all flat ahead? We have to go along that roadway to get to the building where the base is. The road is wide open.”

“We run?”

“Not straight away. But it may come to running, ‘tana. If it does, you run like hell and you don’t stop. And you zigzag. Remember how I told you?”

She nodded and Vinnie clambered into a crouch again, looking over his shoulder.

They crept along the side of the road, hugging the chunky, broken off lumps of concrete. Montana could feel the skin on her back prickling painfully. Being shot at had taught her to fear being exposed this way.

The base drew closer, inch by inch.

Finally, Vinnie squeezed her hand. “Now, we run,” he said. “Are you ready?”

She bit her lip and blinked up at him, sudden tears hurting her eyes, tearing at her throat. “You’ll stay with me, after, won’t you?”

“I’ll do my best,” he promised. “But the world is a strange place, remember? You lasted this long in hell’s outhouse...you can live with anything else that comes along. You’ve already proved it. Right?”

“Right.” Vinnie had said this often over the last couple of days, but she still didn’t really understand it and wouldn’t for another decade.

“Let’s go.” He took off running. Montana had always been good at running and took off fast. Very fast. No preserving energy for a long haul. Speed was all she needed. She was nearly home. Nearly safe.

Vinnie got the drop on her, but she was lighter and faster. She passed him and kept going. Ahead, she could see a soldier half-concealed in a doorway, waving her on. Excitement thrilled through her and made her even faster. There was a high singing wind in her mind. She reached the fence, rattled it with her hands. The soldiers on the other side were waving her on, encouraging her to climb over. Shouting to her.

Then she heard the shots from behind them and the excitement instantly congealed into fright. She risked a quick glance over her shoulder. Vinnie was coming up behind her, running like crazy, but behind her...and closer to the snipers on the rooftops behind them.

She turned back to him.

“
Move it!
” he hollered. “Get your ass up that fence!”

“Hurry up!” she screamed.

That was when the bullet ripped through his chest. She saw it emerge, saw the blood and flesh explode out around it, tearing the tee-shirt apart.

Amazingly, he kept on running. Another bullet hit the tarmac right next to her foot and whined away into the rubble.

Vinnie reached her. He was screaming at her as he grabbed her and threw her up into the air. High up. She soared.

At the top of the fence, many hands grabbed her, pulled her over, handed her down to others, below.