Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
September, 2020, Afghanistan
W hen Jess embarked from the Chinook helicopter that had brought both her and supplies for the well drillers in, she was met by Lieutenant Brad Parker, the man in charge of the drilling unit. She had her protective eye goggles in place, but was still left almost sightless by the dust the twin blades spinning above her were picking up into the air. The rotor wash was so powerful, it almost knocked her over, would have, in fact, if she hadn’t known to be braced for it. Never mind the small to large pebbles and gritty dust that rose around her. She spotted several of her men, with their own eye goggles in place, running toward the ramp of the helo to help unload the supplies so the bird could get back into the air as soon as possible. A helo on the ground was a sitting target for bullet rounds and, worse, RPGs. The village where they were presently drilling was on the sloping hills leading up to the Hindu Kush Mountain Range that rose to fourteen thousand feet above them, with two different enemy groups hidden but watching them.
She hurried toward the Navy officer waiting in his desert cammos. Finally, she was out of the blast zone of the rotors where dust, gravel, brush, and even rocks were being kicked up by the blades. Brad gripped her arm, leading her toward the opened gate of the village standing at the end of its valley. Jess pushed her dust-coated goggles down to now hang around her neck, and she saw a large crowd of villagers standing and watching what was going on.
“Welcome back, Jess.”
“Thanks, Brad.” She wiped the dust on her face away, sliding her dirty hands down her cammo pants. She looked over at the Navy officer. He had red hair, cropped short, and his blue eyes were trained on what was going on with the helo. It was always threat time whenever the helo was on the ground. He wore his side pistol, a .45 in a holster, but also had an M4 in its sling harness over his shoulder, barrel pointed to the ground, just in case. Jess had all her equipment, rifle and ruck stored away in a currently vacant stone village hut. As a woman, she got quarters to herself, which was nice. The rest of the men were two or three to each mud-and-rock house within the village that was not otherwise occupied.
“How are you doing?” Brad asked, looking back from his threat scanning, and into her eyes.
Jess shrugged. “Okay.” She turned, watching her men helping the two hard-working loadmasters quickly moving off forty-foot sections of casing. The casing would be used to sink the well down to a depth where water could be found. “How is everyone?”
Brad grimaced. “We’ve been pretty down since you called and told us about Dan, which is to be expected. But… you were there . It had to be tough on you?”
She nodded. “Yes, it was. It’s going to take all of us time to get over his passing.”
Brad stood, watching the offloading of the pipe as it was being stacked. Soon, the men of the unit would have to get the front-end loader with its bucket to carry the pipe to where it was needed. “While you were gone, we found we needed a lot more casing.”
“Haven’t struck water yet?” Brad was thirty years old, stood five foot ten inches tall, her height. He was a civil engineer by trade and a damned good one. Jess felt lucky to have someone of his experience in her Seabee unit.
“No. But plenty has been going on since Dan was… shot.”
Jess watched the last of the sixty casings being stacked by the men who’d busted their humps getting them all off the helo in record time. She could see them sweating even in the frigid early-morning air. The shadow of the mighty and beautiful Hindu Kush blotted out the rising sun’s rays over the valley and left the area near freezing. But as soon as the sun peeked over the rugged peaks, it would feel like someone had suddenly turned on a boiler. Jess knew the desert climate would jump up to near one-hundred degrees Fahrenheit. She had an Afghan shemagh : a scarf woven in the Shinwari tribe’s colors of yellow on green checks that she’d be putting on soon enough. It soaked up the sweat, stopping the collar of her uniform chafing her neck raw, and helped ward off the constant sand and grit around this place.
As soon as the Chinook pulled up its ramp, it took off, raising huge, towering clouds of yellow-gray dust hundreds of feet into the air once again. Brad gripped her arm and said, “Come on….” and they hurried away from the helo’s LZ. As they walked through the village, the children quickly surrounded Jess. She stopped, pulling out wrapped hard candy from her pockets. The boys would always push the little girls away to get it first, so Jess made them stand apart. She would then hand the candy out on a girl-boy-girl-boy basis, to each group in turn. Jess had found that if she gave all the little girls their portion first, the boys would attack them, punching and hitting them, to grab the candy and then run away. The Afghan and Muslim way of treating women, even little girls, made her angry. They were considered less important than a cow, goat or sheep. It sickened Jess, but there was little she could do about it except enforce her little candy rule and hope it taught them something.
When her pocket was emptied of the candy, and every child in the village had a piece, they all ran off, scattering like a flock of wild birds in all directions. She saw Brad smile.
“You’re such a softy pushover, Courtland.”
Grinning, she said, “Yeah, I know it. Hey, I’m the only woman around. What do you expect? I draw kids like a magnet. They see ‘mom’ written all over me.” She saw Brad nod, take off his utility cap, and run his fingers through his short hair, wiping the sweat off his brow with his palms.
“At least these kids SEE a woman doing something other than being a broodmare and being treated like a piece of shit.”
“No kidding,” Jess muttered, falling into step with the officer. Some houses were made of mud, some of stone, some a combination of both. They were all one story, except for the chieftain’s, who was the heritage- and lineage-based leader of the village. He and his wife had a two-story stone home that stood like a castle above the hovels below it. Brad’s “office”, as he ruefully called it, was a mud home that had been abandoned. They ducked into it, the door only about five foot six inches tall. The Afghans were not a tall people, compared to the average American. Jess had more than once banged her head on a doorframe while distracted. She saw Brad’s wooden table, with a map spread across it, and its two accompanying stools. No electronics. He always wore two clipped-on radios on the shoulders of his uniform, not leaving anything worth anything in the house. People stole habitually around here, and the radios were lifelines for their team members.
He went over and turned on the gas-canister hotplate with its beat-up copper kettle. They were the fifth replacements just this month, but he had a small crate of them stowed away and wasn’t about to start lugging kitchen appliances around as well.
“Tea?”
She snorted. “I wish it were coffee, but yes, I won’t turn it down,” Jess said, taking off her Kevlar vest and helmet, setting them aside on the table, next to the map. She and Brad regularly spent hours on end poring over hydrology, geology and terrain maps of the area. Not that there was much information on the hydrology of this valley. This was the Third World and tribespeople were not aware of water tables below the ground or aquifers; underground lakes. They were uneducated and Jess couldn’t fault them on that. But to drill a well, trying to strike water without proper data, had become a real issue in this valley.
“I sent an email off to Dan’s wife, Sophia, while you were gone,” he said, bringing out two aluminum cups and setting them nearby. His mouth turned down. “It’s a shit job, Jess.” and he turned to her as she sat down on one of the two wooden stools at the map table.
“I know,” she whispered, suddenly choked up. “I was waiting to hear from you that the Navy officers had told Sophia of Dan’s death before I sent her an email myself.”
Shaking his head, Brad muttered, “This sucks. When we were in Iraq, every village we ever drove into welcomed us with open arms.” He poured the tea leaves from a container into two strainers and then dropped them into the tops of the cups. “Here, in this valley, they don’t trust us. Go figure. Their babies, children and old-folk are dying all the time from parasite-infested water. We’re bringing them safe, clean water to drink. You’d think the Taliban would leave us alone to do the well drilling for these people.”
Jess felt Parker’s frustration as he puttered around his office. Her heart swelled with warmth as she saw him pull out another tin, this one full of his favorite Oreo cookies, sent to him by his wife, Olivia.
“This must be a real occasion for you to pull out your Oreos at 0700,” Jess teased, grinning over at him. The hut was coolish right now, but once the sun rose over the mountains, it would become a sweat box. There was one window, which couldn’t be opened, and the heat built inside these huts to the point where no one wanted to be in any of them during daylight hours. And, of course, no electricity meant no air conditioning. Brad, engineer that he was, kept a small gasoline generator on hand to create enough electricity to charge their radios, cell phones, and computer Toughbooks, but running an air conditioning unit, twelve or more hours a day off of one, was out of the question.
“Well,” Brad said, setting the cookies down in front of her, “it sort of is just that: a special occasion.”
“Oh?” She watched him pour boiling water from the kettle into the awaiting cups.
“Yeah, things have been hopping here, ever since Dan was shot,” he muttered. Brad handed her a cup. He sat down opposite her at the table, grabbing one of the vaunted, sacred Oreos. “The admiral back at Bagram has authorized us a sniper team. We have no idea who they are, which branch of service they’re from, or when they’ll arrive. The admiral said he was going to talk to a Marine Force Recon commander at the base and see if he couldn’t get a team out here to stand overwatch. In other words, protect our asses while we work. Keep an eye on who’s comin’ down into the valley to kill us. Most likely, the two snipers will each stand twelve-hour watches, one on, one off.”
“That will help a lot.”
“No shit,” Brad muttered, chewing on the Oreo.
“What about our A-team?” Jess asked, dipping the strainer in and out of her steaming cup. “What does Captain Anderson suggest?”
“He was the one who came to me and suggested getting the two-man sniper team in place.” Brad gestured on the map toward the higher hills less than a half a mile from the village. “Sean said those snipers will take the high ground. He said he was trying to get a couple of Army Delta Force guys in here, but I doubt that will happen. Those guys are the blackest ops groups around, and they want action. They don’t want to sit around a village and play watchdog. Then, there’s the other matter….”
Nodding, Jess thought about Logan being a SEAL sniper, but she kept that to herself, and replied, “Another rivet’s popped loose?”
Smiling a little at her turn of phrase, Brad said, “Yeah. We just got a Marine dog-handler in here by the name of Sergeant Andy Stapleton. He and his bomb-sniffing dog arrived here the day you left. His dog, a Black Lab named Ace, has already helped us out. Yesterday morning, your number two, Ben Gilbert, had the Marine handler and his dog sniff around the drilling truck. Damned if he didn’t find an IED buried right smack-dab in the ground near the vehicle.”
Gasping, Jess’s eyes widened. “Really?” Her heart pounded in fear to underscore this awful new development.
“Yeah,” Brad said grimly as he sipped his tea. “So, new orders went out from me: whoever is on morning shift with the drill rig, gets Sergeant Stapleton and Ace to FIRST clear the area where they’re going to be working. That includes the truck, and the casings, too, Jess. Anywhere the team’s working, I want it all cleared first by them or you don’t go near the area. No exceptions.”
“Right,” she murmured. “Who’d have thought we’d have to watch for IEDs around our equipment?”
He gave her a dark look. “Sean had warned us that, among the Pashtun, there were pro-Taliban villagers within the population. I’m sure the bomb maker came from one of their villages. Sick, isn’t it? Dumb bastards don’t even understand the importance of a well with clean water in it. But whoever it is, they are more than willing to kill us for trying to help them. Sick.”
“So? Apart from all that, it’s business as usual, Brad? Are we going to be assigned a new chief?” It hurt to ask. She saw pain in the officer’s eyes. It wasn’t a topic she wanted to talk about, but it was necessary. The chief became the fulcrum point between what Brad needed the drilling team to do and the team in the field, a vital link along the chain of command. In this case, the final link at the end of that chain was her , the person in charge of the whole drilling team.
“Yeah,” he muttered. “That admiral at Bagram put in that request as well. I haven’t heard anything yet.” He struggled with his emotions, shrugged, and then gave her a warm look. “Until then, you get to play chief. You okay with that? You’ve got more experience at well drilling than anyone here, other than what Dan had.”
Wincing, Jess whispered, “Yeah, no problem. I can do it.”
“Sean is going through the village with his sergeants. They’re trying to catch our friendly neighborhood bomber red-handed, or at least find someone who might be able to point them out. The Pashtun people are pro-American, as a whole, but they’re afraid of some of the people who come to their village, and I’m pretty sure those people are undercover Hill tribe members or Taliban.” Shrugging, Brad went on, “Probably a hopeless task because these people are just as afraid of Taliban reprisal as we are. We know there are Taliban insurgents hiding and living among the villagers, but they aren’t going to rat them out just like that, for fear those bastards will kill their whole family if the father comes to us with intel.”
“These people,” Jess sighed,” are caught between a rock and hard place. Most of them just want to be left alone to survive. They’ve got the Taliban wanting to tell them how to run their lives on one side. And then they have us on the other. There’re so many fine lines for them to walk. I feel sorry for them.”
“Chief Behzaad Sahar, leader of the village, told me yesterday, after he found out an IED had been planted near our truck, that he was sorry it happened.”
“That was nice. I always took him for being Taliban.”
“He could be. But even if he isn’t, he almost certainly damn well knows who the bomb maker is, but he’s not talkin’.”
“And if he did,” Jess said, finishing off her tea and standing, “then it’s the same story, even for him: he’d get a Death Letter from the local Taliban warlord telling him he and his family were going to be killed for consorting with the Americans.”
“Yeah,” Brad sighed. “Helluva situation, you know?”
She pulled on her Kevlar-4 vest, hating the weight of the ceramic plates in it. Before, they hadn’t worn them. But, just before Dan was shot, Brad had put out the order that everyone had to wear the forty-pound vests, based off intercepted Taliban chatter. She put on her dark green baseball cap and picked up her helmet. “I’m going to my hut and then I’ll go out and join the team. I also want to meet Sergeant Stapleton, thank him and Ace for saving more of us from getting killed. I love having a dog around.” The grimness of her task weighed her down. Normally, well-drilling teams were seen as protectors in less-developed countries. Village people would invite them into their homes, the chief and his wife would hold a celebratory feast in honor of the fact that the team was there to bring them fresh water. But not here. The ungrateful Taliban utilized rat lines; trails up and over passes in the tall, craggy mountains curving around the villages. They could hit-and-run as they pleased, disappearing into the scrub trees that ranged upward to the snowline, already in place at this time of year.
“Later,” Brad said. “Make sure your radio battery is charged? I want to stay in close touch with you at all times when you’re on your shift.”
“Roger that,” She finished off the now-luke-warm tea, sat the cup on his map table and raised her hand to Brad as she ducked out beneath the doorframe. It seemed as if she’d been in both a nightmare and a dream over the last two days. Losing Dan and finding Logan. Her heart felt heavy about both of them. Looking around as she walked the two blocks down to her mud home, Jess remained alert. She saw one of the A-team sergeants, and raised her hand in silent hello to him. He was dressed in full combat gear; a sign of the heightened defenses put in place since the Taliban attack. It didn’t make her feel any safer. There was no such thing as safety out here. But Jess did feel the sniper team would be a step in the right direction. They had long-range scopes on their rifles and could see an attack coming from a long way off. They could sound a warning, allowing enough time to get her people to safety instead of being shot at like sitting ducks.
Inside her stone-and-mud hut, she pulled out her shemagh of green and yellow checks, wrapping it around her neck, with a triangle of its bright cloth left hanging down the front of her uniform. Apart from just protecting her exposed skin, it would also stop grit from sifting down inside her shirt and chafing the sensitive skin beneath her breasts and armpits. The Kevlar vest was an extra forty pounds of weight she had to carry for eight-hour shifts. They drilled only during daylight hours. At night, everyone slept like logs because of the brutal physicality of their work demands. Tucking her radio into a nylon belt around her waist, she picked up her .45, making sure there was a round in the chamber, and then safed it before sliding it into its dark green nylon holster. She grabbed her constant companion: her Swiss Army knife, which she slid into her right cargo pants’ pocket. It was one of the handiest tools she had, able to get in through gaps and deal with many breakdowns on the drilling equipment that regular-issue tools couldn’t even hope to reach.
For a moment, Jess allowed herself to think of Logan, of how he’d made love to her in that small German inn. It seemed like some delicious dream now. Not reality. Her heart swung darkly between grief over Dan’s death and the conviction that she’d probably never see Logan again. Mouth tightening, Jess tucked all those feeling deep down inside. They had a well to dig, and her men were waiting for her to show up, be a leader, and get the day’s drilling underway.
It was a blistering hundred degrees at noon when Jess gave her crew the order to stop drilling and take an hour to rest and have lunch. Where had the time gone? She’d been back to work for two weeks. She trudged back through the village, sweating heavily, hating the weight of the vest. Before she went to see Brad, she detoured to her house. Hauling the damned-heavy Kevlar vest off her shoulders, she opened it up and pulled out every last ceramic plate, hiding them beneath another shemagh . Jess couldn’t handle the combination of the desert heat on top of the Kevlar holding in her body heat as well, creating a sauna-like condition inside the vest. She’d drank over a gallon of water already. And she was on her crew to keep hydrated. They hated the order to wear the heavy vests, too. Jess was willing to take her own chances without the armor. Hauling the blessedly plate-less vest onto her shoulders, she closed its Velcro and shook out the dusty shemagh over the front of her chest. She suspected her entire crew would go back to their huts and get rid of their plates, too. If so, she hoped that Parker wouldn’t discover what they’d done. She wasn’t about to rat them out.
Just then, Brad radioed her to come to his command center, that he had good news for her. She dipped into Brad’s hovel. He looked up from studying his maps. There was a light in his blue eyes and she thought he looked happy. “What’s up?” she asked, taking her cap off and wiping her sweaty brow with the ends of her shemagh .
“Good news,” he said, grinning. “Just got a call from the admiral at Bagram. We’re getting a replacement Seabee chief in two weeks.” His grin widened. “Even BETTER news?”
“Yeah? I don’t think I can take too many doses of good news in a row,” Jess said wryly, sitting down opposite him. She opened up a protein bar, chewing on it and sucking water from the CamelBak tube across her shoulder. “Tell me you found the bomb maker in the village?”
Brad shook his head. “No, but we got two snipers assigned to us. They’re coming in on a Chinook that will arrive shortly.”
“Wow, that was fast,” Jess murmured. “I think they’ll be as important as Ace is to us.”
“The Admiral said they’d be assigned to us as long as we’re here in this godforsaken, Taliban and Hill infested valley.”
“Good,” Jess murmured, seeing the relief in Parker’s eyes. She knew he bore a heavy burden of responsibility for all of them. That’s what a good officer did: take care of his or her people.
“How’s it going wearing those damned Kevlar vests?”
“Hot; sweating gallons, drinking gallons of water. Really, can’t we just have them sitting nearby and put them on when a sniper sees a Taliban crew galloping toward us? It’s really hampering our work efforts, Brad,” and she gave him a pleading look. She saw him mulling it over.
“Not yet,” he hedged, worried. “Let’s see if this sniper team can give us the credible-threat signal in time to be able to haul those vests on if the occasion arises.”
Making a face, Jess said nothing. Brad had been around, and probably knew she and her crew had dumped, or were going to dump, those plates. If he did, he said nothing.
“How’s it going out there?” he asked.
“We’re at eighty feet and nada.”
“That’s what I thought. Is the soil standing up or not?”
“No,” Jess said flatly. “Nothing but sand. We’re having to spend a lot of time drilling until we can get a metal casing beat into the ground to hold what we’ve drilled. That sand is a bitch. It caves in all the time. We’re spending extra time supporting the soil, because of it.” And then she added grumpily, “Wished to hell it was clay.” Because clay was the thickest and least porous of all soils. When the drill bit churned and ground an opening, the clay would move and hold everything else that could move remaining in place. They didn’t have to put in a casing every hour like they did with the damn quixotic sand.
Brad’s radio took off. He pulled it out, answering it.
Jess listened to the scratchy conversation. It was the Chinook co-pilot, saying they were arriving in fifteen minutes with the two snipers. Could they clear a landing area with a green smoke cannister in that timeframe? She quickly ate the rest of her protein bar, washed it down with huge gulps of water, and stood. She saw Brad’s eyes light up with excitement as he said he’d have the LZ, the landing zone, ready for them. This was a first: a well-drilling team having to have two snipers assigned to protect their asses. She smiled a little and followed Brad out of the hut. Jess felt excitement, too, but even more than that: relief.
The double-rotor Chinook came in quickly and landed, sending up clouds, hundreds of feet high, of rolling yellow dust in all directions. Jess stood back with Brad, watching the unfolding ramp appear and disappear within the swirling brown-out dust. She noticed several villagers, mostly women and children, watching with interest. It wasn’t every day a military helicopter landed here. The dust was so thick that she couldn’t see anyone on the mostly-obscured LZ it had landed on. This was going to be a fast off load of personnel and then an even swifter takeoff because the pilot at the controls was keeping the blades turning at well over two hundred RPM, revolutions per minute. That was near-takeoff speed. The noise pummeled her ears, the invisible rippling effect of the rotors whipping around, like fists punching into her body. At the drill site, she normally wore earplugs, but they were hanging around her neck at the moment.
“There they are,” Brad said, pointing to two figures appearing out of the cloud of thick, roiling dust columns.
Squinting, Jess could barely make out two men, each carrying a heavy duffle over their right shoulder and a cased rifle over their left. Their heads were down, and they were running to escape the choking, blinding dust raised by the noisy Chinook.
“I’ll be damned,” Parker muttered, surprise in his voice.
“What?” Jess asked, watching the snipers appear and disappear in the swirling dust as they approached.
“I think,” he muttered, lifting his hat off his head and wiping sweat from his brow, “I don’t think they’re Marines….I thought they said back at HQ at Bagram they were going to give us Army snipers…”
“What do you mean?” Both snipers appeared out of the last cloud. Jess felt her heart leap into her throat. Her eyes narrowed. No! It couldn’t be! Her mouth dropped open as she saw Logan Randall, along with another SEAL, trotting toward them in full combat gear.
“They’re Navy SEALs!” Parker exclaimed, excited. “I’ll be damned! This is great! They’re the best! When I talked to the admiral, I requested SEALs on the off chance, but I never thought in a million years I’d ever get a pair of ’em. Damn, our luck’s changing, Jess. Let’s go meet them!”
Jess gulped. The SEALs were slowing to a walk, hefting their huge, heavy duffle bags, probably weighing a hundred pounds or more each, on their broad shoulders. And, as they drew closer, Logan’s gaze turned her way. She felt her stomach flutter. And then her heart pounded with silent joy. And then, she worried. If Parker suspected anything, it could spell bad news. She eagerly searched Logan’s dusty, sweaty face, his game face, for any sign of his feelings, but his expression remained set and alert. The other SEAL, who was about an inch shorter than Logan, had the same stolid look on his face. These were the best of the best! Professional warriors. Jess could barely still her happiness. How had Logan managed this? She remembered his gruff promise to see her sooner, not later. What were the odds? The chances?
***
Logan kept his face carefully arranged as he and his partner, Chris Lowery, approached Jess and the officer standing next to her. He saw the shock and disbelief in her green eyes, saw her wrestling between happiness at seeing him again and trying not to let it show. The gold flecks in her eyes sparkled, even at a distance, telling him how glad she was to see him. She looked so different out here; hair in a ponytail, coated with the ever-present dust and grit, her baseball cap in place, shading her wide, intelligent eyes. The cammies all but hid her delicious body from the world, but Logan knew that body intimately and he could feel himself stir. No one would see it, but from the look in Jess’s dancing gaze, she knew.
He dropped his weapons bag and did not salute Parker because the Taliban and Hill soldiers targeted officers. Instead, he thrust his hand forward in the normal, but strong, manner for a handshake.
“Petty Officer First Class Logan Randall, reporting as ordered, sir. This is my partner, Petty Officer First Class Chris Lowery. We’re here to provide you security for the duration in this bitch of a valley,” Logan said and grinned.
Brad grinned back and shook his hand. “You’re a sight for sore eyes, Randall. We’re glad to see you, and you too, Lowrey.” He shook the other SEAL’s hand and then turned to Jess, where he introduced her to them. “Why don’t you take them to that empty house diagonal from yours? You know which one. They can stay there.”
Nodding, Jess said, “Will do.” She stretched out her hand to Logan and pretended to introduce herself. When his hand enclosed hers, she felt his heat, felt his desire, even though there was absolutely nothing in his face to suggest he even knew her. He was protecting her and Jess breathed in relief. Chris Lowery was a lanky Texan, with a thick drawl that made her smile. She liked this bearded SEAL with his long, red shaggy hair.
“Come with me,” she told the SEALs, gesturing for them to follow her.
Logan checked out the people standing nearby. SEALs dressed dramatically different to other black ops groups and, unless he missed his guess, the elders, who had come out of the village as a group, had surprised looks on their deeply weathered, tanned faces because of that. Maybe, as word sped like wildfire through the village that there were SEALs here, the attacks might stop. He could hope. He lengthened his stride to catch up to Jess. He saw her face was flushed. Right now, he couldn’t do or say anything. Chris, his swim buddy, knew about their relationship, but he’d have Logan’s back and keep their relationship secret. The crew would never know a thing. First and foremost, though, Chris was here to protect this woman who had stolen Logan’s heart, which he would do at all costs.
“Is Lieutenant Parker going to give us a briefing?” Logan asked Jess, meeting her eyes. He saw her nod.
“Yes, as soon as I get you guys set up in that abandoned house, I’ll take you to his office.”
Chris caught up and walked on her other side. Jess thought it was such a SEAL thing to do; to be protective of women, and she smiled to herself. Both men were looking around and she could feel them on guard, watching, evaluating the people and the area. “Ma’am? Are you the only woman here on the well-drilling team?”
“Call me Jess,” she told the SEAL. “Yes, I am.” She knew she was an anomaly.
“And could you point out where you stay at night?”
Surprised, Jess pointed to the right. “I’m here. Why?”
Lowery shrugged. “You’re an American woman. That makes you an automatic target of the Taliban and Hill Chieftains. We need to know where you’re located, is all.”
Some of her excitement bled off. Chris was right. He was doing his job, figuring out all the angles and the players, so he, as a sniper, could properly grasp the lay of the land. “Well,” she said, gesturing ahead, “your hut is catty-corner from mine. I’m about twenty feet, diagonally speaking, away from you guys. I think I’ll feel safe enough,” and she gave Chris a grin. He smiled back, nodded, but maintained his seriousness.
“If you have coffee at your hut,” Logan warned, “you’re liable to see both of us over there every morning with our mugs, begging for some.”
Jess laughed. “Yes, I have coffee. And yes, I’ll be happy to share with you guys.” She liked the deviltry dancing in Logan’s eyes. His mouth made her lower body go hot and achy. The man’s smile made her melt.
“Thank you,” Chris said, lightening up a bit. “We brought coffee grounds in the hope someone here in the drilling unit would have a coffee maker.”
“I’m the only game in town,” Jess said, raising her hand, again enjoying the drawl of the easy-going Texan. He was leaner than Logan, and he had a rolling gait that belied the fact he was a deadly sniper.
“Woman after my own heart,” Logan murmured, giving her a wink.
She felt heat rush to her face. Jess could hardly wait to get Logan alone. No one would think anything of him being in her mud-and-stone home. Word would get out the SEALs liked coffee, and she was the only one in the village with a pot and a generator hooked up to create electricity to make the brew. It wouldn’t raise eyebrows. Jess could barely think straight and had to force herself to focus. Logan was here! And, judging from the sly ‘ I-told-you-so ’ smile he gave only to her, he was as happy about it as she was.