Twenty-Two
TWENTY-TWO
M AYA SWIRLED TOWARD consciousness slowly, becoming aware of her surroundings by degrees. The quiet hit her first. The roar of the plane’s engines was gone and there was a weird chemical taste in her mouth. She cracked her eyes open and instantly squinted at the blinding white light assaulting her. Trying again, she found herself in a private hospital room. She still had an oxygen mask over her mouth and nose. That was why her breathing sounded so Darth Vaderish.
She blinked, letting her eyes adjust to the brightness. Sunlight poured in from a window on the left hand side of the room. She started to raise her left arm to shield her eyes and realized how heavy it was. There was a cast from above her elbow to the base of her fingers. She’d had surgery? She didn’t remember a thing after being put on that transport plane.
“Good morning.”
She whipped her head to the side of her pillow to find Doug Haversham smiling at her. He sat in a wheelchair tucked beneath a rolling side table strewn with papers and a laptop. He looked exhausted. He’d shaved, revealing smooth brown skin and a strong jaw. His left leg was casted, sticking out in front of him on one of the chair’s pedals.
She swallowed past the dryness in her mouth and throat she guessed were side effects from the intubation and pulled off the oxygen mask with her good hand. “Where am I?”
“Qatar.”
What? “I thought they’d send me to Germany.” She could’ve sworn that was what they’d told her before loading her on that flight. Had she been that out of it?
“They changed their minds.”
Or he’d pulled strings for some reason and changed their minds for them. Licking her dry lips, she nodded at her cast. “Any idea what they did to me?” The ache in her wrist was way better, that was for sure. Her fingers were still swollen though. Her cheek and ribs felt pretty much like shit.
“They set five bones in your wrist with pins and screws and are treating you for pneumonia. The doctors came by a while ago, but you were still out so they’ll be back in another hour or so to give you the full rundown.”
So Jackson had been right about the pneumonia. He was going to be one hell of a doctor when he made it through med school, she thought with a twinge of yearning. It hurt too much to think about not seeing him. With him in a different country for at least the foreseeable future, she wasn’t sure when she’d be able to see him. Or if she even would. She forced the image of his face from her mind and took stock of what was happening with her body.
“How’s your leg?” she asked.
Haversham grunted and frowned at the cast. “Hurts like a bitch, actually, but thanks for asking.”
“Sure.” Now that she thought about it, it did seem a bit easier to breathe. Her chest wasn’t quite so tight. The achy feeling in her muscles and the pervasive chills told her she must still be feverish. An IV pole beside her bed held some bags of fluids that dripped into the vein in her right arm. It creeped her out, thinking of that thing sticking out of her arm. She looked over at Doug instead. “Antibiotics?”
“I’d think so. You were one sick lady.”
Yeah, but she didn’t care about any of that right now. She couldn’t stand not knowing about Jackson for another second. “What happened with Jackson? Is he here?” She didn’t bother using his rank, since Doug knew about their...attachment to each other. Maybe it wasn’t a relationship as things stood now, but she’d like it to be. Man, she wanted that more than anything. He’d gotten inside her so deep it almost frightened her. Except for Pilar, she’d never imagined caring about anyone. The thought of living without him triggered a flare of panic and grief in her gut.
“I figured you’d ask me as soon as you woke up, so I wrote down all the details to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Damn meds are screwing with my mind.” He flipped through a folder on the desk and removed a sheet of paper covered with his bold scrawl. “The surgeons operated last night soon after he was brought in. The operation went well and they stopped the internal bleeding. He’s still in the hospital back at Kandahar and they’re going to keep him for another day or two before sending him through Germany and then stateside.”
Her heart sunk a little at that, because it meant she definitely wouldn’t get to see him. “And what about his prognosis? What kind of damage did the bullet do—?”
“Hang on, I was getting to that part.” He scanned his notes. “The bullet perforated part of his bowel but missed his bladder and kidneys. Apparently they think it was a ricochet, rather than a direct hit, and some fragments from the aircraft. At any rate, they fixed everything up and are treating him with heavy-duty antibiotics to fight any infection from the perforation.” He looked up at her. “They think he’ll be up and walking today, and there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be able to recover enough to return to active duty in a few months after some rehab.”
Maya sank back against her pillow, dizzy with relief, but she didn’t want to think about him returning to duty. Hell, she didn’t want to think about having to return to duty right now.
“What about you?”
She met his gaze. “What do you mean?”
He set the paper down, pushed the rolling table away and wheeled himself over to the side of her bed. “What are you going to do after this?”
She shrugged, then the coughing spell started. Wincing, she partially sat up and ripped the oxygen mask away to cover her mouth with her right forearm. Her ribs still hurt like a bitch, but she could feel the new binding they’d wrapped around her. Once the coughing stopped, it took a moment for her to get her breath back. This time she was happy to put the oxygen mask back on. “I assume they’ll send me back home to recover, since I won’t do much good over here for the time being.”
He nodded slowly, his thoughtful expression making her think he knew something she’d didn’t. “Where will you go?”
She frowned at the question. “Home.”
“You have a place to stay?”
“My apartment off base.” The question threw her. Where else would she go?
After staring at her for a moment, he broke eye contact and fiddled with the blanket on his lap. “I checked into your background this morning.”
Whoa, wait. Maya removed the mask and raised an eyebrow. He’d had time to dig into her information after having surgery?
A small smile played at the corner of his mouth. “Well, okay, I had my staff do that.” His expression changed, softened. “They couldn’t find a living relative to inform about your injuries.”
So her grandmother was dead then. She’d wondered about it over the years. And she wasn’t sad to hear she was gone, because that old woman hadn’t lifted a finger to intervene when she’d found out what her son had done to Pilar. No, she’d done the unforgiveable and ignored it, while her granddaughter was repeatedly raped beneath her roof.
The empathy in Haversham’s eyes made her angry. The only family she’d ever cared about was Pili, and she’d died years ago. So she was alone. A lot of people were. She didn’t need anyone’s pity. “And?”
“And so I wanted to know if there was someone who could maybe stay with you while you recover.”
“It’s a broken wrist and some banged-up ribs, not a spinal cord injury. I think I can handle it.” And the Air Force would step in to find her extra care if she couldn’t.
Now his lips quirked. “I meant being tired and weak while you fight off the pneumonia, but I figured you’d feel that way. If you change your mind, though—”
“No, thanks. I’ll be all right.”
He studied her for a moment. “You know, it’s okay to ask for help when you need it.”
“I know that.” It came out a touch prickly, but she couldn’t help it.
“Good, because that makes this next order of business much easier.”
She gave him a suspicious look. “Meaning?”
“I hear you saw Rahim out there.”
“I’m sure it was him. Did they get him?”
His expression soured. “Not yet.” He shifted in his chair, and it was obvious his leg was bothering him. “You’ll be debriefed up the wazoo over the next couple of days, but you’d better make peace with the idea of seeing a therapist when you get back to the States.”
The one and only therapist she’d seen after Pilar died hadn’t helped her at all. The mere thought of dredging up all those old wounds and adding in the discussion about what she’d just been through was both overwhelming and exhausting. “Because if I don’t comply they won’t return me to duty, you mean?”
“That, and it will stay on your permanent service record.”
Well, that sucked. The sigh she heaved turned into a coughing fit that made her rear up in bed and double over. When it finished, Doug was close enough to shove a pillow behind her back for support. She was sweaty and weak, a little dizzy. “I’ll think about it,” she wheezed. This was too much for her to handle on her own. She knew that, and she had to have a clean service record to apply to the agencies she planned to target. But God, the thought of reliving all of it with a therapist made her heart rate accelerate.
“Hey, if I can do it, you can too,” he said quietly.
She eyed him dubiously. “They’re making you see a therapist?”
“Oh, yeah. Otherwise I think they’re worried I might freak out in the middle of a big speech at a press conference or something.” His grin was so disarming she smiled back a little.
They’d all gone through a nightmare. It was definitely going to leave a mark. “Maybe we could all go together and get a group rate.” It would help to have Jackson there with her. She’d feel safer, less exposed with his steadying presence there. When was she going to get to see him again?
His eyes brightened. “I’ll get my people on that.”
The American public ought to see this side of him, because he was actually a nice man beneath that politician’s image. She looked down at his cast. “So, what’s the word on your leg?”
“Still attached, which makes me happier than I can say. The breaks were pretty bad, so they’re not sure if I’ll walk without a limp ever again, but I can live with that. Let’s face it, there are a lot of people way less fortunate than me currently being treated in this building.”
Yeah, that was the truth. They might have gone through hell but at least they were alive, still had all their limbs and their brains were still intact.
“I also heard that you were interested in applying to the CIA or FBI?” he added.
Damn, his staff was pretty thorough. “That was my plan once I finished the terms of my enlistment.”
“You realize that in light of your captivity, that makes it even more important for a psychiatrist to sign off on your mental status?” he pointed out.
Oh, he was good. “Yeah, okay, I got it. I’ll go to the therapy,” she grumbled.
A satisfied grin curved his mouth. “I think you’d be a great addition to both those agencies. Especially on an FBI task force. And I happen to have a few connections there too.”
She shot him a sideways glance. What was he saying?
He folded his hands atop his stomach. “It’s your decision to make, but once you heal up you might consider applying for an honorable discharge. No one would think less of you for it after this.”
While she didn’t want special treatment, the idea of going back to work in a combat zone didn’t hold the same appeal it once did. Actually it made her heart race and her palms sweat. “You’re saying you think I have a real shot of getting into the FBI after all this?”
“I think you have a good shot, actually. And if you need a letter of reference, I’d be honored to write you one. I’ll make sure it gets into the right hands.”
Wait a minute. “I appreciate the offer, but I don’t want you to feel like you have to do me a special favor just because—”
“I wouldn’t offer unless I believed you should be there, Lieutenant. I meant it when I said you’d be a good addition for them. They’d be lucky to have you.”
A tingling of excitement rushed through her. The end goal of working for one of those agencies had been something she’d dreamed of for years. She wanted to help eradicate any evil that would harm innocents. With a clean bill of health, a psychiatrist’s signature of approval and a letter of reference from the Secretary of Defense, her dream seemed more attainable than ever. “Well then, thank you. I might take you up on that.”
“I hope you do. And if there’s ever anything I can do for you, you’d better not hesitate to call me.” He pulled a card out of his shirt pocket. “This is my personal cell phone number. Call me anytime.”
She took it with a murmur of thanks. But the suspicion rolling around in her gut wouldn’t go away. “You’re not doing this because you feel like you owe me something, are you?”
“No, even though I do owe you since you saved my life out there at least a few times. I’m doing it because you’re an airman, and we American fighting men and women stick together.”
It made her think of Ace and Jackson. Of how loyal and steadfast friends they both were to her. She smiled. “Yeah, we do.” And that made her incredibly proud.
The door opened and a nurse appeared, carrying a tray of blood-taking supplies. Maya withheld a groan. She’d been poked and prodded enough. All she wanted to do now was sleep.
“One more thing,” Haversham said, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper so the nurse wouldn’t overhear. “There’s another number on that card you might be interested in. And he also asked me to give you this.” He pulled a black iPod out of his pocket and handed it to her. “You’re supposed to listen to track number three, apparently.” Blinking, she took it from him and he patted her shoulder. “See you later. Get some rest.” With that, he swiveled himself around and wheeled the chair out the door one of his security staff held open for him.
“I need you to keep this on,” the nurse said, placing the oxygen mask back over her nose and mouth and securing the elastic band behind her head. “How’s your pain level?”
“Good.” Compared to how she’d felt before, it was nothing she couldn’t handle. Her voice was muffled beneath the mask.
“I’ll just take a quick blood sample and let you get some more sleep.” She reached up to adjust something on the IV pole.
Maya paid minimal attention to the nurse at her bedside and flipped the card over in her fingers. Beneath Doug’s cell number were handwritten numbers, along with the words SSgt. J. Thatcher .
Jackson’s cell number. Her heart squeezed. It shouldn’t have surprised her that Haversham had managed to dig that up too. Or had Jackson given it to him along with the iPod? She was going to listen to that special track the moment she was alone.
Laying the card on her chest while the nurse checked her vitals, a secret smile spread across her face. She didn’t know when she’d be able to see him next, but at least she’d be able to talk to him. She couldn’t wait to call him, just to hear his voice.