Chapter 18
CHAPTER 18
“W hat are we going to do?” Jess asked Logan in a low voice. She saw his mouth had tightened. Fear rose in her. With no radio, they were completely vulnerable.
Logan shook his head. “Do it the old fashion way,” he told her wryly, looking at her, seeing the apprehension clear in her widening eyes.
“But what will Chris think?” Her voice was strained as Jess searched Logan’s shadowed face.
Shrugging, Logan said, “He has options. He’ll know my SEAL radio is out of radius, and he’ll think the batteries in the sat phone died.”
“And he won’t think we’ve been captured?” Because that’s what she would think.
“Probably not,” Logan told her, opening the ruck and handing her an MRE. “Batteries fail out in the battlefield all the time. Also, there can be satellite issues, and interference with the signal. He’ll check that angle to make sure.” He saw the nervousness in her expression, understanding Jess was, once again, thrown into shock. It was adding up like layers on her. He could see the distress building in her face. Logan knew to keep things low key with Jess, act as if nothing had happened, and that they would be fine without a radio. They probably wouldn’t be, but he wasn’t going there with her.
Jess felt her stomach tightening. She didn’t feel like eating but knew she had to keep up her strength. “How are you doing, Logan?” She saw his mouth twitch. Amazed at how calm he appeared after discovering the radios were broken, she didn’t know what to think about his reaction. Maybe SEALs were used to this sort of thing, but she wasn’t.
“Bruises and bumps,” he told her mildly, sitting down opposite her with his own MRE.
“That was a horrible fall,” she said, shaking her head. “I feel so sorry for that poor horse. He was so strong and steady for us.” Tears jammed in her eyes and she swallowed several times, pushing her emotions deep down inside her once more.
“ We survived it. That’s the important thing,” he replied gently, giving her a sympathetic look.
She ate and said nothing, her mind in a state of panic. “Do you know where we are?” Because she didn’t.
“Yes. We’ve got forty miles to cover. It’s ten miles to get off this mountain, twenty across that valley, and ten more miles to reach FOB Bravo.”
“If Chris can’t get in touch with you, what will he do?”
“He’ll be in touch with the CO at Bravo and tell him we’re no longer in sat phone contact. What Chris will hope is that, as we get closer to Bravo, we might run into a Marine squad on duty, looking for Taliban trying to sneak across the valley.”
“But if that doesn’t happen?”
“Then Chris may think the other radio is either destroyed or the batteries are dead in it.”
“Or that we’ve been captured?”
He saw Jess thinking and felt her mounting panic. “But we aren’t captured, Jess. And don’t forget: Chris has drone eyes up there. He’ll eventually have the drone operator fly this side of the mountain at a lower altitude where it can’t be torn up by clear air turbulence. And he’ll locate us with its infrared capability. He’ll know something is wrong with the radios, but that we aren’t captured.” Logan reached out, squeezing her ankle. “It’s okay to look at our situation realistically, but you’re almost in panic mode over it. We aren’t there, Jess. I need you to just keep the faith. I’ll get us out of this.”
Logan sounded so casual and confident! Jess felt chastised. “I guess it’s my engineer brain,” she confessed, shrugging. “My mind is set up to look at issues and, if there’s a breakdown, how to fix it.”
Logan grinned a little. “SEALs do the same thing. We call them workarounds. We’re a creative group when it comes to thinking outside the box.” He patted her ankle again, knowing his touch helped calm her. “Come on, I need you to eat and then we can get cleaned up.”
“And then sleep?”
“Yes. Night travel only.” Logan would hold Jess close. He could see her slowly unraveling beneath the stresses and demands stacking up on her. She wasn’t trained to handle this kind of continued, massive stress. And anyone, outside a black-ops-trained person, would be feeling vulnerable and in danger right now. “The CO at Camp Bravo will be looking for us. They’ll send out a Marine patrol, Jess. Our job is to make it across that valley. And we will.”
***
Jess awoke suddenly. She sat up, gasping. Groggy, not sure what time it was, she didn’t see Logan anywhere. There was grayness though the ceiling tear above, and she looked at her watch. It was nearly sunset. She’d slept long and hard. Now, as she moved, she was stiff and sore. Looking around, she saw Logan had left his ruck. Where had he gone this time? Probably out scouting around again? She wiped her face, feeling scared. Her mind went to the darkest possible place. What if the Taliban had captured Logan, or…?
Just then, Logan appeared at the opening to the second cave chamber. Her heart leaped with relief. His face was glistening with sweat, his eyes intense and focused. When he saw her awake, she saw him drop his game face. He relaxed and shrugged his shoulders, as if rolling off the tension held in them.
Logan knelt next to Jess. He placed his M4 against the rock wall. “How are you doing?” he asked, grazing her hair. The strands were tangled, and he ached to slide his fingers through them and then make love to Jess. It wasn’t going to happen, but Logan thought she looked beautiful despite the situation. He saw her green eyes were still drowsy with sleep. At least her eye on the side that had taken the punch from that Hill soldier days earlier, was open and the swelling almost gone. She must have just awakened.
“Better,” Jess murmured, absorbing his brief touch. “Are you okay?”
He smiled a little. “Fine. I left about an hour ago and did some reconnoitering around the area.”
“And?”
“No activity so far. It’s quiet.” He saw relief in her eyes. “Our objective for tonight is to reach that valley. That’s ten miles. I figure thirty-minute miles, so we should easily make it.”
Jess slowly stood up, moving her hands down her cammies, smoothing them out. “No Taliban?”
“They’re around,” he said, opening his ruck. He pulled out two MREs and set them on the sleeping bag. “We just have to move quiet and avoid them, is all.”
She walked over to the dripping water and cupped her hands, splashing it on her face to wake up. Logan had hung a dark green towel on a nearby rock and she picked it up, wiping her face dry. Walking back, she sat down near him.
“I can’t get over how calm you are about all of this,” she admitted, taking the offered MRE from his hand.
“It’s training, Jess. I’ve been at this for ten years now. It’s like breathing to me at this point.”
“Have you ever been in a situation like this before?” She opened the MRE, watching him.
“Where we’ve had dead radio batteries? Yeah, more times than I can count. Batteries are always our worst issue. Some guys forget to carry fresh spares. And sometimes, even when they do, they don’t last or work for as long as we wanted.” He smiled over at her, thinking Jess looked damn nice with her hair mussed. It was that wild child coming out in her again. “We have a mission with our OIC, officer in charge. Our master chief runs the mission, so even if we suddenly go out of radio contact, he’s figuring it was due to the batteries.”
“Not getting captured by the Taliban?”
“No, not that.” Logan didn’t want to tell her about a SEAL team who had been dropped into a Taliban hot spot. The radio had been working back at camp, but the one out in the field hadn’t been. And, no matter what the comms SEAL did to try and get it to work, it wouldn’t. It had left them vulnerable. The officer with the group had ended up having to use his personal cellphone and, luckily, he’d gotten through to HQ. Touch-and-go saves like that came through for teams all the time, and sometimes…they didn’t. Logan couldn’t go there with Jess, not with her this close to the edge. He had a cell phone on him but it wasn’t even worth checking; the Camp Bravo area had no cell towers to even pick up a call. Jess had a terrier mind, he was discovering. Going over and over an issue, trying to come up with a fix, rather than accepting the reality of it and figuring a workaround, instead.
“Any extra thoughts on where your new orders will take you?” Logan asked, deciding to focus her on something more positive.
Jess hesitated. “I don’t know. Still probably Port Hueneme, back to my old Naval battalion.” She frowned. “I’m not sure what I’ll do in the long run if we get out of this, Logan.”
“Oh?” He saw Jess frown.
“I’ve gotten ten years into the Navy. I was hoping to make twenty.”
“No reason you can’t,” he said, wanting to stay positive for her, pushing down his selfish desire for her to retire.
“I—I don’t know now.” Jess shrugged and gave him a look of consternation. “I’ve met you, Logan. I don’t want to be sent half a world away from you. I wish… I wish we could have to some serious time together but,” and she looked around the cave, “our lives are in chaos right now.”
“Keep the faith, Babe.” Logan finished off his MRE. “We’ll get out of this, Jess. You’ll find out what your orders say and we’ll take it from there.”
“It’s a larger issue than that, Logan.”
He saw the starkness in her gaze. “What else?” he probed.
“This… this whole incident, the kidnapping, is forcing me to look at everything.”
His heart squeezed with trepidation. “Even us?” God, he hoped not. Jess’s whole world had blown up in her face. And Logan knew she was roiling in shock. She’d had no time to absorb what had happened to her, or work out the emotions that came with it. Logan knew it screwed with people’s thinking, that it distorted reality for them. When the corners of her mouth lifted, he felt less worried.
“No, you’re the only constant in my life right now,” Jess admitted, her voice emotional. “If anything, this experience forced me to admit what I already knew, Logan. That I loved you.”
He tucked the MRE packets away in his ruck and moved over to her, their hips meeting. Reaching out, he eased his fingers through her hair, holding her gaze. “Hold on to that, Babe. I love you, too. We’ll work this out. We’ll get out of this. In a few days,” Logan teased, “we’ll be sitting and looking back on this experience and laugh about it.”
“I don’t know about laugh, but I know I’ll be so glad it’s over,” Jess admitted, her scalp prickling with pleasure as he framed her face. She saw the narrowing of his eyes, the heat and desire in them, as he leaned forward, his mouth finding hers. For just a moment, Jess sank into a cauldron of heat, of wanting Logan so badly, despite their circumstances. His mouth was gentle, and she opened to him, wanting to taste Logan, feel his strength, feel how he cherished her. For just a moment, Jess languished in the heat of his kiss, his mouth slowly, deliciously, exploring hers.
As Logan reluctantly broke their kiss, he smiled into her softened green eyes. “That’s what we have to look forward to, Jess. Just hold on to what we have….”
The wind was gusting as Jess held on to Logan’s belt and they made their way down through the woods toward the valley floor. The valley was wide and almost completely flat. Through the branches of the trees, they silently walked in and around, she sometimes caught sight of the land far below. The air was cold, and she was grateful for the wool shemagh of hers that Logan had brought along. She wore his gloves, and worried about him being cold, but he told her not to bother herself about it.
They had walked for nearly an hour when they entered a craggy area where the trees thinned out. Rock outcroppings were everywhere. Jess had learned to walk differently, moving her boots parallel to the ground. That way, if the toe hit something, she could adjust, instead of stumbling. They came upon a narrow trail below a rock cliff. Logan hesitated. In the thin moonlight, Jess could see the trail curved around yet another huge boulder.
Suddenly, Logan swept his arm back, nearly taking her off her feet. Jess squelched a gasp, scrambling to crouch down behind the rocks.
Logan made a sharp hand signal for her to stay right where she was.
What was going on? Her adrenaline shot up. Tense, Jess gripped the rocks, somewhat protected by them. Logan crouched, his M4 up to his shoulder, the barrel pointed at the curve in the path.
Two men on horseback rode around it into view.
Jess wanted to scream. She saw they had NVGs on, and that they were armed Taliban. And, exposed as he was, they were going to see Logan! Her fingers dug into the roughened rocks. Everything started slowing down as a cry lurched into her throat.
The lead soldier was the first of the pair to spot Logan, lifting his AK-47 to fire at him.
Logan fired first, his M4 barking a single blast. The man cried out, flung out of his saddle, his AK-47 flipping up end over end into the air.
The second man fired.
The booming echo was massive. Jess hunkered down, bullets spraying past her. She saw Logan, unmoving, calmly aiming his M4 up at the soldier. He fired one shot.
A gasp tore from her as she saw the second man unseated, toppling off his horse.
Jess watched as Logan walked swiftly to the two, gun still trained on them, the nervous horses dancing around the motionless soldiers slumped on the dirt path. Seeing the two men unmoving, he quickly grabbed the animals’ loose reins. Then, unholstering his SIG pistol, keeping it at the ready, he walked over to each soldier in turn. Gulping, Jess shakily stood up, her heart hammering wildly in her chest. She watched Logan carefully check each soldier. He signaled back to her that they were dead. Unsure of what to do, she remained where he’d gestured for her not to move from, her arms wrapped around herself. Clouds were sliding by again and hid the moon, making everything darker. Now, she could barely make out Logan leading the horses.
He walked back over to Jess. With his NVGs on, he could see her stark, frightened expression. “You all right?” he asked her quietly.
Jess gave a jerky nod. “They’re… Dead?”
“Yes.” Logan thrust the reins of the horses into her hands. “Our transportation. Wait here. I need to strip them of their outer clothing. We’re going hajii . And I’m taking their NVGs and giving you a pair to wear.” Jess watched as he did so, then saw him rolling the stripped bodies off the path toward the edge of a steep cliff a short way below it. It was gruesome work to Jess’s eye, and she looked away, stomach tightening, to spare herself the sight of the men’s bodies, white in the returning moonlight, tumbling from the cliff edge.
She could never do the work that Logan did. It made her appreciate him even more, realizing that, if they’d stepped around that corner unawares, the soldiers would have seen them first. They would have gotten the drop on them. And one, or maybe both, of them could have been captured, wounded, or killed. Jess swallowed against a dry throat, petting the tense horses. They were shaken by the gunfire just as much as she was.
Logan heard the men’s bodies tumbling off the escarpment as they fell, before landing with twin thuds quite some distance below. He was sure that, within twenty-four hours, the bodies would be seen either by other Taliban soldiers or Afghans herding their sheep and goats through the area. He quickly went through the stripped clothes, looking for identification, maps or any other information they contained. Jess saw him tuck some papers into one of his cammie pockets. He then took up the dead men’s hats, vests, trousers and shirts from the ground.
Logan returned to Jess, hands filled with clothes. “Watch what I do, Jess, and then I’ll hold the horses and let you climb into the other set of clothes.”
Within minutes, Logan transformed himself from looking like a SEAL into looking like an Afghan. He took the man’s shemagh and pulled it over his helmet so it couldn’t be seen and then wrapped it around his nose and lower face, covering them. If Jess didn’t know better, Logan would totally pass as an Afghan to her eye. The pants were too short for him, his combat boots showing, but overall, and certainly from a distance, he no longer looked like an American soldier.
Logan took both sets of reins from her hand. He saw Jess’s fingers tremble as she quietly pulled on the bulky brown trousers. Looking around, he worried about other Taliban on the trail tonight. These two had been riding alone, which was unusual. Normally, they traveled in groups. The clothes were expensive, compared to the type of clothing an Afghan farmer would wear. Maybe these two had been officers? Going somewhere to meet someone? Logan’s mind spun with possibilities. Along with the papers, he’d found a radio in each soldier’s clothes and had tucked them into another cammie pocket. Although he and Jess wouldn’t be able to use them, the CIA would surely like to get their hands on them, because of the end-to-end encryption applications used by the modern Taliban. They could then turn them on and, hopefully listen in and pick up intel without the Taliban knowing they were in American hands.
Shortly, Jess was dressed. The clothes were warm and bulky on her. She pulled the man’s rolled cap over her hair, not thinking too hard on where it had just come from, tucking her ponytail up under it. Logan told her to wrap the Taliban soldier’s shemagh around her nose and lower face as he had, so she couldn’t be identified as a woman. He knew what was going on in her mind: that she was wearing a dead man’s clothes. It couldn’t be helped. It was the best way to continue toward Bravo. Even through binoculars, Logan knew if Taliban saw them, they could pass as brethren. That was a huge piece of luck that had just unexpectedly turned their way.
Jess mounted the bay horse, the wooden saddle feeling rough and awkward beneath her. Logan mounted the black horse and gestured for her to follow behind him. He’d used the leather rifle sheath on his horse to place his M4 in, taking the AK-47 and slinging it across his back. If the Taliban saw the M4, they would know they were Americans. Logan had placed the other AK-47 over across Jess’s back, settling it into place the way a Taliban soldier would wear it. He’d taken the extra AK-47 ammo, and they split it between them. Extra firepower was always an advantage.
Logan had no idea where the trail led, but it was going down, the way they wanted to go, and that’s all he cared about. Worried that the sound of gunfire would draw Taliban who were hunkered down for the night, he trotted the horse, wanting to put distance between the firefight zone and themselves. Overall, though, he considered the probability of Taliban mounting up to follow them as low. He’d given Jess the other pair of NVGs and, now, she could see as well as he did.
Jess rode tensely. She didn’t really know how to steer the horse, except for the quick lessons Logan had given her. But the gelding seemed content to keep his nose near the lead horse’s tail and just follow, and so she began to relax slightly. The wooden saddle she rode creaked. She’d placed as much as possible of the wool vest that hung to her knees beneath her butt to protect it from the uncomfortable saddle. Once in a while, her horse would stumble and it would rattle her, making her afraid the horse would go down like their other one had. But it didn’t. It seemed to stumble a lot, though, which kept her nerves raw. Up ahead of her, Logan rode like a pro; slouched in the saddle, his hips moving with the sway of his Afghan pony. He looked like a Taliban soldier. She wasn’t sure she did. There was some comfort in having the AK-47 against her back. Logan had briefly shown her how to use it, clicking the selector to semi-automatic in case she needed it. Jess had never used this type of weapon and hoped she didn’t have to.
The wind was sharp and fierce as they rode down toward the valley. Logan knew thousand-year-old paths crisscrossed the slope, along with newly made rat lines. The rat lines had been created to carry fertilizer for bomb making material, as well as weapons, into Afghanistan. He couldn’t tell the difference between the newer and older trails. Logan knew that the rat lines were active at night. This smuggling branch of the Taliban usually carried the supplies in on donkeys and double-humped Bactrian camels under cover of darkness, hoping to avoid detection. Even then, if a drone were around, Apache’s, or even B-52s or jets, would be called in to destroy them.
As he rode, he wondered if there was a drone above them or not. They had been at a high altitude and the possibility that there wasn’t one, was real. Logan’s mind moved over their situation. The drone might be brought in at around five thousand feet, and he and Jess were still heading down to that altitude, probably currently at around seven thousand feet. When the drone came online, all Chris might see, if it were still nighttime, was two Taliban soldiers on horses. Unless Chris looked very closely at them, that is. The cameras on the drone were good, and Logan hoped Chris caught sight of his American combat boots. If he did, he’d know that they were alive, not captured. And that they’d gone hajii to avoid detection by the enemy. But all that was conjecture. He didn’t want to tell Jess that Chris might also assume they’d been captured by the Taliban. They’d still look for them but wouldn’t find anything. It left them in a vacuum of sorts, and Logan kept that info to himself. By riding hajii , it meant US forces would see them as the enemy. Logan knew he was dancing them on the edge of a sword that could cut them either way, but he had no choice, not without constant backup intel from Chris. And that was impossible, now, leaving them open to attack from either side.
Halting an hour later, Logan checked his watch. It was now close to 0300. The clouds were drifting across the slope, causing fog-like conditions once again. This time, however, the dampness was deflected by the thick, warm wool clothing they wore. He gestured to Jess to ride up beside him where he halted at the crossroads of three different paths. Standing up in the saddle, he rubbed his butt.
Jess kicked her horse, and it reluctantly moved up alongside Logan’s. She followed suit and stood in the stirrups, rubbing her aching butt, too.
“Couldn’t we get rid of these awful saddles?” she complained.
“No. Part of the camouflage,” Logan told her, sitting back down after pulling as much cloth beneath his butt as he could. “Taliban don’t ride bareback. We’d be spotted in a heartbeat.”
Grumpily, Jess muttered, “I can’t believe it. My butt is numb!” She heard him chuckle.
“Yeah, well, American asses aren’t like Afghan ones. We’re wider and bigger.”
Snorting, Jess managed a sour grin. “How far do you think we’ve come?”
Logan looked around. He didn’t like being even slightly exposed like this, but at least they were in decent enough rock cover here, even with the trees thinned out and far between. “About seven miles. We’re making good progress. How are you holding up?”
Jess shrugged. “Okay.”
“This will probably make you never want to ride a horse again,” and his smile widened.
“Got that right,” and Jess shared the smile with him. He looked like a knight on his steed, sitting straight and tall, shoulders thrown back, as if he owned this land. It was that amazing SEAL confidence.
Logan gestured to the paths’ intersection. “I’m taking the path that goes down. I want to reach the valley floor before dawn. We should make it easily, but we need to look for a cave somewhere down there as well. Any port in a storm.”
Frowning, Jess nodded. Chris was no longer available to give them terrain information.
Logan urged his horse down the path. Jess’s horse obediently followed.
She saw the slopes ahead were absolutely cleared of brush and trees. Only rocks stuck out here and there. She worried that any Taliban nearby would spot them. Logan was constantly looking around. She did too, but she didn’t know what to look for, except a human or horse in plain, obvious sight, and that was unlikely, she knew.
In another hour, Jess saw the path becoming less steep, more level. She saw patchworks of fields, bordered by two- or three-foot-high rock walls to demarcate each owner’s land. Logan turned to the right, taking another path that led toward a rare grove of trees in the distance. The mountains were now clothed in clouds, their peaks hidden. The wind was less in the valley. She spotted a massive outcrop of rocks jutting out, reminding her of a huge ship’s bow. Logan slowed down and guided his horse up toward it.
In a few minutes, Jess saw why. There was a series of caves along one side of it. She watched Logan halt his horse and dismount. He pulled the M4 from the horse’s rifle sheath and unsafed it. Bringing the reins of his horse to her, he said, “Stay here. I have to clear this cave. I’ll be right back.”
Nodding, Jess gripped the animal’s reins, watching him trot silently up around the rocks and then disappear from sight. Through hard-won experience, she knew firsthand how often the Taliban used caves at night. What would happen if Logan ran into a group sleeping in one?