Chapter 12
CHAPTER 12
A good kind of tiredness inhabited Jess tonight as she sat down on the wobbly stool in her mud house. They’d arrived back at the village two days earlier. Everything had gone well since, much to her relief. Eli had repaired the backhoe upon receiving its replacement hose, and good progress was being made on the ditch that would eventually carry the well water into the irrigation complex she had designed with the help and ideas from the villagers. While she’d been away in Bagram, Sean Anderson had had some of his men improve her hut’s entryway security. Not only had a more secure door been fitted, but there were also new, much stronger hinges on it. And, although there was no lock on the replacement door, they had installed a security drop bar made of thick wood that ran horizontally between the two huge metal hinges when engaged. The door opened inward, so the bar across it would stop anyone from entering much better than a mere door lock ever could. As Jess untied her shoes with her one good hand, she thought about how much better she’d been sleeping at night with this added layer of security in place.
There was a knock at the currently open door. She looked up. The one candle she had on the table shed just enough light for her to recognize Logan’s heavily shadowed presence standing in the doorway. “Come in,” she said, smiling up at him. He pulled his NVGs up onto his forehead and stepped inside.
“Got a minute?” he asked. Anderson had told him about the reworking of her door, and he carefully checked out the new, heavy wooden bar. The LT’s men had done a good job of making the door secure, including the new, heavier replacement hinges. He closed it, lowering the bar into place, satisfied that the hut’s single-entry point was a helluva lot better secured than before.
“Sure, I always have a minute for you.” She saw how serious Logan looked. What was the matter? Pushing her boots off, Jess pulled off her sweat-dampened socks as well, wriggling her toes, glad to let them breathe. “What’s going on? You look worried.”
Logan came over and put her combat boots down at the end of her sleeping bag for her. “How is your arm doing?” he asked. Jess looked like her old self. Logan knew that being back into her routine was helping her deal with the trauma. Tendrils of hair clung to her cheek, perspiration gleaming across her face. Her cammies were dusty. And he could see dust coating the strands of the ponytail between her shoulder blades.
“Oh,” she muttered, “it’s cranky. Nothing new.”
“Have you been taking the Ibuprofen?”
“Yes, Doctor, I have,” and she smiled because he was constantly on her like a broody old hen, making sure she was taking the antibiotics and Ibuprofen. He walked over and framed her face with his large palms. Logan was going to kiss her. How she’d yearned for exactly that all day long. But he’d been out of sight most of the day. She’d seen him working with Lieutenant Anderson and, later, talking with her boss, Brad. She knew he was concerned for her safety and was probably talking to the officers about just that. As his mouth slowly brushed her lips, she moaned softly, raising her right hand, sliding it around his neck, feeling his hunger against hers. This was exactly what she needed. Reluctantly, Logan broke their kiss, leaving both of them breathing unevenly. She knew he probably had an erection, although tough to tell through the cammies. She was certainly turned on, wanting more, an ache building within her.
Logan released her and brought the other stool around the table and sat next to her. He steeled himself for what he had to say. “I have been getting intel from LT Anderson about this last attack, Jess. The identification and maps we pulled off those two dead Taliban were carefully studied back at Special Forces HQ at Bagram, by their Intelligence section. They put the photos of the men’s faces through their computer ID system.” He picked up her good right hand, holding it between his own. “Both LT Anderson and Parker think that it’s Qader Khogani’s soldiers. He’s the Hill Tribe leader. He’s been active in this valley for over a year.”
“Okay,” Jess murmured. She saw something in Logan’s eyes that bothered her. She tangled her fingers among his where he rested his hand against his long, hard thigh. “What does that all mean?”
“The CIA has been picking up a lot of cell-phone chatter at the Afghan-Pak border. They shared their intel with the Army.” His mouth flattened and he held her gaze. “What they’ve found the last two weeks, that none of us knew about until now, was that Khogani had made a deal with a Pakistani warlord who was wanting an American woman as a sex slave. He’s already put a quarter of the full bounty of a million US dollars into Khogani’s bank account in Pakistan.”
Frowning, Jess stared at him. “What does this have to do with me?” she asked, mostly as a way to delay the oncoming answer she dreaded to hear. She could already feel fear beginning to eat away at her. And she could see the seriousness in Logan’s narrowing eyes.
“Everything,” Logan uttered, watching the flare of dismay in her eyes. “You weren’t mentioned by name, Jess. But the intercepted calls from Khogani to this warlord described you down to a tee. And the bastard pinpointed this village as to their target’s whereabouts.”
Her throat tightened as she considered his heavily spoken words. “Then… that’s why the two attacks… so close together?”
“Yes. Both times, they were trying to kidnap you.” Logan moved his thumb gently against the back of her workworn hand.
“Oh…God…” And Jess frowned, swallowing hard, looking around the hut. “Is that why the door is different? Stronger?”
“Kind of, yeah.” Logan allowed the information to sink in. “All this has been suspected ever since the second attack, and precautions were initiated, but now the confirmation has come through officially. What you might not know is that there’s always been an active slave trade in girls and boys between Afghanistan and the rest of the Middle East and Asia. Girls are stolen from their parents and sold into sex slavery. So are young boys.”
“That’s horrible, Logan! But,” she stumbled, giving him a bewildered look, “I’m not young.”
“You’re an American military woman,” Logan told her patiently. He saw the confusion in her expression, holding her hand a little more firmly. “Look, we in the black ops community were briefed on this scenario years ago. It goes something like this, Jess: The Taliban kidnaps an American military woman. They take her into Pakistan where the likelihood of her ever being found again is about zilch point zero. They would then take this woman and humiliate her in front of a video camera. Then, that video would be uploaded on major Al-Qaeda websites for the world to see. It would cause one hell of a reaction in the U.S., for starters. American citizens would see one of our women in a highly compromised position.” He didn’t want to have to say rape. Or stripping her naked in front of the camera. Or beheading her. Or all the above. Jess was looking at him as if he were an alien who had just landed in front of her. And he saw her connecting the dots: that she was just such a target of opportunity.
“This… this is a nightmare,” Jess whispered, giving him a fearful look. Are you SURE, Logan?”
He nodded, seeing the anxiety in her eyes, hearing it in her voice. He knew that having been shot would just feed that terror. And it hurt him to see it. He loved Jess. He wanted her out of here. Safe. Not a kidnap target of one of those sick sonofabitches. “The CIA is cooperating with Army Special Forces at Bagram on this very issue.”
She pulled her hand free, touching her brow. “What should I do, Logan? They’ve come close twice already.”
It hurt him to see the fear gripping her so solidly now. But maybe it would help to get her to listen to reason, too. “Look, Brad Parker is going to be receiving a set of orders tomorrow morning, Jess. Those orders are going to be for you.” He saw her scowl. His voice deepened. “They will be orders removing you from this site. That’s all I know. I don’t know where they’re going to send you, but it’s going to be far away from this place.”
Stunned, she stared at Logan. “Brad told you this?”
“Yeah, a little before we sat down to eat our MREs together earlier. They just called him.” Logan shrugged. “I wanted to be the one to break the news to you, Jess, and alone, not in front of Chris. I asked him if I could at least let you know about all this. He’s going to give you the full set of orders tomorrow morning. He’d like you at his office at 0800.”
Shakily, she pushed her hair away from her temple. “But, if they shot me, I’m no good to them.”
Logan grimaced. “They probably didn’t intend to shoot you, Jess. It could have been a ricochet, or just bad aim. Things happen in a firefight. We’re sure that they were coming to kidnap you and kill the other two men. I don’t know if you noticed, but they had a saddled horse with no rider with them. Did you see that?”
She shook her head, biting down on her lower lip.
“The conjecture is that they were going to tie you on that horse and ride away and quickly disappear into the hills with you in tow.”
Her gut clenched. “This is crazy!” she muttered.
“Crazy? Yeah. But it’s as real as it gets, Jess. They’re targeting you. And they aren’t going to stop until they get you.” Logan brushed her cheek, now gone pale, getting her attention, looking deep into her troubled eyes. “They aren’t going to stop, Babe. That’s what you have to understand about all of this.”
“You seriously think they’ll try again?”
Nodding, Logan growled, “Khogani needs the money from this transaction, Jess. This is how he feeds his men and horses and gets the bullets and AK-47s for his army. And there’s that deposit on you, sitting in that Pakistan bank, as the clincher.” He hated scaring her, but he could feel Jess’s indecision, her reluctance to believe it because her team, her job, was here. And she wasn’t a woman to be scared off easily. The stubborn set of her jaw told him volumes. “Khogani isn’t going to walk away from this, Jess. He’s already got his down payment. He’s going to come after you again and again until he gets you.” Logan would make damn sure that would never happen, but felt he had to hammer the point home for Jess to look at the situation realistically. And, indeed, he saw the reality sinking a little deeper into her.
“But,” she insisted, “ you’re here… with Chris. And there’s that twelve-man A-team.”
“And, even then, we haven’t been able to stop him getting close to you,” he warned her heavily. “They’re opportunists, Jess. They saw the backhoe break down and waited like patient wolves to see if you would be going out there to check it out. And you did. None of us foresaw them planning something so carefully like that. They’re constantly changing their tactics, getting slyer and smarter.”
“It means they were watching me.” Jess suddenly felt cold. And terrified.
“Yes.”
“But… you have a satellite that passes overhead every day. Why can’t you find them? Send an Apache helicopter after them? Drop JDAM bombs from a B-52 on them if they’re hanging around like that?”
Logan’s grimace was pained as he saw her becoming shaky and resistant. Her voice was low, quavering. Jess was starting to glance around like a trapped animal, not wanting to believe any of this. But this was as real as it got, he hadn’t just been saying that to convince her. Sliding off his stool, he nudged her knees apart and stood between them, reaching his hands down and framing her face. “What we need is a drone over this position,” he told her quietly, his thumbs brushing across her temples. “We can’t get one, Jess. And without it, we’re blind, deaf and dumb. I don’t like admitting it, but we are. According to Anderson, this issue has gone all the way up to the DOD secretary. And he’s the one who has issued the orders for you to leave here tomorrow. There’s just too much evidence pointing toward you being kidnapped, Babe. And we don’t have the high-tech stuff we need to keep tabs on Khogani. Hell, he and his men can hide in the hundreds of caves up in those mountains above us. They can hide behind hills and get damn close to this village. Don’t you see? You HAVE to leave. It’s the only thing that will keep you safe.”
Making a frustrated sound, Jess leaned her brow against Logan’s chest. She felt his arms come around her shoulders, making soothing motions across them, as if to take away some of the fear eating at her. “This… this just isn’t right,” she whispered, tears burning in her eyes. “I’ve been with my crew for five years now…”
“I know,” Logan said softly, hearing the pain in her voice, kissing her hair, wanting so badly to lift this new shock and awareness off her slumped shoulders. “It’s for the best, Jess.”
She pulled up, looking up at his grim face. “Do you agree with them?”
“In a heartbeat. I don’t even like having you spend one more night here. The only good thing about it is they have attacked twice in daylight hours and Anderson feels you’re safe here, out of sight. That’s why he reinforced the door for you. No one’s going to be able to knock it open and grab you at night.”
“I did wonder about the door when I first saw it,” she whispered, still reeling from the sudden shift in her fortunes.
“And I’m staying with you tonight,” Logan told her, seeing relief come to her gaze. “I’m not leaving you alone, door be damned.” Logan saw a lessening of the fear in her eyes. That was good. “LT Parker will give you all the info tomorrow morning at 0800. We’ll both know where they’re going to send you next.”
Her heart ached. They’d only just spoken about this; the hurdles in front of them to make their relationship work. “I’m just sick about this,” Jess breathed, looking at him. She saw the anguish in Logan’s eyes. He wasn’t even trying to hide how he felt about losing her again so soon.
“I’m relieved,” he admitted. Logan eased from between her legs. “We’ll figure something out, Jess.” She had enough to worry about without putting their burgeoning relationship on top of everything else. Kissing her brow, he said, “Let me pour some water into your bowl for you? To clean up?” Logan wanted to distract her. He saw Jess rally beneath his care.
“Yes… thank you…” and she slid off her stool, standing, frowning. The worst part, more than anything, was being torn away from Logan. The pain in her heart increased over its final acknowledgement of the fact. Jess would lose her crew, who were loyal to her, too. The men under her were all like younger brothers to Jess, and they worked so well together. Tears burned in her eyes, but she forced them back. Jess knew nothing in life was fair. But this truly sucked at the highest level. Her arm was aching. She’d better take her pills.
“All right,” Qader muttered to his captain, Afir, “we will do it your way.”
Afir sat just inside the opening to a cave, their small fire hidden from the outside by a low stone wall built for that very purpose, watching their meal for the evening cook in a black pot suspended from a metal tripod. His leader sat next to him, scowling heavily, unhappy. He felt like pointing out that he had been right, but Afir knew it wouldn’t be wise to rub Khogani’s nose in two failed attempts to capture the American woman.
“My lord,” he said, keeping his voice subservient, “we tried our best.” He gave an eloquent shrug. “There is no blame.”
Qader nodded, mollified. “We’ll wait until the messenger returns.” Twenty of his men also sat in the alcove. The goat meat boiling in the pot, along with some onions and potatoes, smelled good. He worried over the American woman’s wounding. Would the Pakistan warlord still want her? He’d wanted her unmarked. Qader mulled over what to do about it. She had an arm wound. Would the warlord not accept her because she was damaged merchandise? Or still buy her, but lower the purchase price he’d promised to pay?
Qader had already sent a rider north, with a message for the warlord about the situation. Cell towers weren’t exactly numerous, but there were enough on the Pak border that, if one got within range, calls could be made. That soldier, a young fifteen-year-old boy named Shekaib, had been sent riding at high speed to that area. Qader had to know whether to move ahead with the plan or not. The rider was to return tonight sometime. Qader moved restlessly, wanting to know what happened. He flexed a fist, feeling angry. His men had been given strict orders to NOT shoot at the woman! But it had happened, anyway.
The sound of a horse trotting outside the cave got everyone’s attention. Qader stood, realizing it was his messenger, Shekaib. His heart beat a little faster. The boy dismounted at the cave opening, pulling the tired, wet horse in with him. Qader headed him off, giving him a sharp gesture to leave the horse standing and walk with him out of earshot of his other soldiers.
“What news?” Qader demanded as they stood just outside the cave entrance where no one could hear them.
“My lord,” Shekaib began in a low voice, “the warlord wants his money back. He said the agreement was that the American woman would be in perfect condition.”
Qader cursed softly, glaring down at the thin fifteen-year-old boy, still barefaced, unable to grow a beard yet. “What else!”
“My lord, I contacted your commander in Pakistan. He called the Taliban leader in Peshawar. The Taliban will give you a hundred thousand American dollars for her.” He smiled a little. “They do not care if she’s been shot, so long as she does not die enroute to them. The commander told them it was an arm wound and that she was in good condition.”
“Only a hundred thousand?” Qader ground out, his hands moving into fists. Rage flared within him. He wanted to put a bullet in each of the surviving men who’d ridden on that attack. They’d cost him nine-hundred thousand dollars! Money badly needed to keep his army together.
Shekaib winced. “I’m sorry, my lord. Yes, that is the amount they offer. They want her delivered over the border, to your usual meeting place. So long as she is alive, that’s all they care about. They laughed and said all the better that she’s been shot. And they said to tell you that they don’t care if the merchandise is soiled or not. If she comes to them with bruises or cuts, they don’t care. But they don’t want her to have any broken bones. Nor do they want her raped. They will do worse things to her on the video.”
That was a relief. He hated Americans. Especially the women. He relaxed his hands. “When do they want her?”
“As soon as possible.”
“Is there a deadline?”
“Two weeks, my Lord.”
Qader cursed to himself. That meant Afir’s plan would have to be put in motion.
“Very well,” he snapped. “Take care of your horse and then get something to eat.”
“Yes, my lord,” Shekaib murmured, trotting into the cave.
“I can’t sleep,” Jess muttered, pressed against Logan. They lay with their work shirts and cammies on. He didn’t want them naked tonight because some kind of attack could come at any moment. Everyone military at the village was on high alert. His M4 was at hand between him and the wall of the hut.
Logan knew with his SEAL instinct that it was somewhere around 0200 in the morning. Jess had slept, but restlessly, often awakening and then falling back into a light doze. Gently, he brought her even firmer against him, her head resting on his shoulder. Her hair was clean, he’d helped her wash it earlier, and it smelled sweet as it tickled his nose. “I know,” he murmured, sympathetic. Her arm was in its sling tonight, even during sleep, Logan wanting her to give it as much rest as possible. Jess moved her leg over his, snuggling as close as she could get to him. He smiled to himself, liking her boldness. Jess knew what she wanted. There was never any guesswork about her.
“My mind is going a million miles an hour, Logan. In five different directions. This situation is driving me CRAZY.”
“What’s the top one?” he asked, inhaling her scent, pressing his mouth to her wrinkled brow. He heard her make a soulful sound in her throat, sensed she was close to tears.
“You.”
“What about me?” Logan felt her press her face against his neck. He tightened his arm just a bit, trying to give her the support she needed.
“I-I don’t want to lose you, Logan. We’ve just found one another and I’m acting like a sniveling teenager.”
The moon was full tonight and milky light spilled silently through the only window in the hovel. Easing Jess onto her back, propping himself up on one elbow, Logan laid a hand across her belly. Drowning in her shadowed face, her beautiful high cheekbones softened by the grayness of the light, he held her glistening eyes, sensing her sadness and anxiety. The sadness was over them parting. The anxiety was over her world coming apart under her again. It was a lot for anyone to deal with, Logan knew. He slipped a fingertip across her temple, watching the black strands it brushed aside glimmer in the moonlight. “Jess, I’m a rock in your life. Okay? You might leave here tomorrow, but we’ll be in touch. I’ll know where you’re at. I’ll figure out a way to see you.” He saw huge tears form and then slip silently down her cheeks.
“My heart aches, Logan,” she whispered.
He shared a tender smile with her. “So does mine.”
“I-I just feel like my heart is absolutely being torn apart. I’ve NEVER felt like this before, Logan.” Desperation came to her low voice. “It’s a terrible feeling; as if I’ve lost everything… Silly, really. That’s not logical.”
He moved his finger down from her brow, removing the tears, and then kissed her damp cheek. “A lot has been piled on you, Jess. Anyone would be reeling from it, feeling like they were tearing loose inside themselves. All you have to do is hold on to me. To the fact that I want you in my life. That I’ll make that happen one way or another. That’s a promise.”
The deep emotion in his voice calmed her. Logan meant every word of it. She saw it in the stubborn quality of his eyes, heard it in his thickened voice. His mouth moved into a slight smile as he dried off a cheek with his thumb.
“I want to share a dream I have for us,” he rasped. “Maybe it will give you something to hold on to?”
She swallowed and nodded. “Please… tell me? I want something… anything, to hold on to Logan.” Because her life, as she’d known it, was slipping away.
“Ever since you told me you kicked around the world, grew up a wild child, I’ve been harboring this dream inside of me: I want to take you home to Wyoming, take you to the Tetons, where I loved to go with my parents. We’d drive over them at least twice a month when I was on summer vacation. We’d hike, fish and just soak up the beautiful mountains around us.” He followed the curve of her eyebrow with his finger, watching calm come to her eyes. “You and I are going up to a place about seven thousand feet in the Tetons. There’s a glacial stream that rushes out of a nearby lake. It’s filled with trout. I can see us pitching our tent there, laying out our sleeping bags, setting up a Coleman stove and getting out our fishing gear. We’ll catch the trout, panfry them with butter, salt and pepper. There’s nothing like fresh trout. And we’ll go hiking. There’s a lot of beautiful places I want to show you. Plenty of grizzly around, too, but I know what to look out for, and there’s buffalo, pronghorn antelope, deer, elk and raptors: birds of prey. It’s the Garden of Eden for me.” Logan saw her expression soften, saw the hope burning in her eyes. “I want to share those happy times I had back then with you, Jess. You’re of the earth. You’ll find a piece of heaven there, I hope.”
She closed her eyes. “It sounds wonderful, Logan.”
“Thought it might.” He kissed her lips gently, wanting to erase the anxiety he knew she wrestled with. Jess hadn’t had the time to absorb the fact she’d been shot, much less process it fully. Now, she was being ordered out of her job, being sent somewhere, away, but not knowing where. And was being torn away from him . Logan understood he was central to her stability from the standpoint of someone to talk to, to let down with, and be able to cry in front of. He knew Jess had a lot of inner strength; that wasn’t the issue. It was just about being there for her during this major stage of her crisis. And now, she was going to be ripped away, plopped somewhere new, alone and without friends or support. That was the military for you, and it sucked. But she knew the drill and would shore herself up accordingly and get through it. He was going to miss her. Because he loved her. Torn, Logan wondered if he should admit it, or not, right here and now, and then decided no. It was just piling more onto her already-full plate. There would be a quieter time when he could tell Jess and love her. A time to fully celebrate that glorious next step of togetherness.