Chapter Eleven
A grin came and went on Sharp’s face. “Wow, so you do know how to swear.”
She looked at the other soldiers on the helicopter. Most of them still wore grins, but a couple didn’t. They frowned and avoided her gaze. Great. Marshall was probably going to hear a complete report of everything they’d said here within minutes of their arrival at the base. She’d need to talk to Max ASAP to make sure Marshall didn’t get in the way of what needed to be done, rather than what one power-hungry asshole wanted done.
He was going to come at her with everything he had, which was a lot. His initial patrol infected, the helicopter crash, and her having gone over his head before she left.
Yep, he was going to attempt to tear her limb from limb.
She let one of the combat rescue medics check her over and re-dress the injuries on her left arm and leg. Sharp was lying quietly on his gurney on the floor of the aircraft, staring at the bulkhead above him or at her face. She listened as he asked the medic monitoring him how much longer until they arrived at the base.
Fifteen minutes.
Grace let her head fall back. Fifteen minutes of relative peace before having to face Marshall and the rest of Sharp’s team. Rasker and Williams had died in the crash, and so had the rest of the men with them. All of them soldiers. All of them her responsibility.
No matter how rational an explanation there was for their deaths, she was the reason they’d been in that helicopter, the reason they died.
Maybe she deserved to get yelled at, because she’d accomplished nothing. She still had the original samples, yes, but they were over twenty hours old now, and they’d had the shit shaken out of them.
She was going to have to go back to the village and get fresh ones.
Marshall wasn’t going to like that.
Something nudged her foot. She glanced down at Sharp, who tapped his headset. She checked hers and realized she’d shut it off.
“What?” she asked after she turned it back on.
“How long will it take for you to fix me up?”
Geez, he sounded like it was as easy as fixing a car. A few stitches here, a unit of blood there, and he’d be as good as new.
“You need at least one unit of blood, probably two. Your bullet wounds, large and small, need to be cleaned out and sewn up. You’ll need a complete set of X-rays to make sure you don’t have any broken bones, and you need at least eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. You tell me, how long will it take?”
“Too fucking long.”
She shrugged. “That sounds about right.”
His narrow gaze told her he suspected something. “What are you going to do when we land?”
“I need to go back and get fresh samples.”
“You’re not going back to that village alone.” He said it like he was the major and she was the sergeant.
“Of course I won’t. I’m sure Marshall will assign several soldiers to accompany me.”
Sharp lifted his lips in a silent snarl, showing her just how much he didn’t like that idea. She didn’t like it much either, but her list of choices in regard to how she completed her mission was getting shorter and shorter. She gave him a long, direct look that said protest all you want, buddy, it’s going to happen .
“Make contact with Cutter as soon as we’re on the ground,” Sharp said. “He’ll support you in whatever you have to do.”
“Are you sure about that? Rasker and Williams are dead.” Grace fought tears. Again.
“Not your fault.”
She shook her head. She was the reason they’d gone.
“Hey.” Sharp rapped his knuckles against her leg. “ Not your fault .”
“Then whose fault is it?”
“The son of a bitch who’s playing around with a bacteria that could easily kill a whole lot of people.” He wrapped his hand around her ankle. “Don’t lose focus. Stay on task. Complete the mission.”
“I wish it was that easy.”
“It isn’t easy.”
She sighed. “Let me guess, it’s what puts the special in Special Forces?”
The medic on the other side of Sharp’s gurney stifled a laugh.
“Now, now,” Sharp said with a grin in his voice. “No giving away trade secrets.”
“Ha, as if. What I know about how you guys get to be what you are would fit in a shot glass.”
The pilot interrupted their conversation. “Two minutes to touchdown. Medical standing by.”
Everyone onboard shifted in anticipation of landing.
“Remember what I said,” Sharp ordered, his hand on her ankle again. “Make contact with Commander Cutter.”
“I won’t forget. I want to tell him personally how sorry I am for the loss of Rasker and Williams.”
“Tell him I want beans for breakfast, okay?”
“Beans?”
“Don’t knock ’em. They’re good for when you’ve got a long haul ahead of you or when you need to heal.”
At that moment, the helicopter landed and two medics were unstrapping Sharp’s gurney and rushing him out as fast as they could.
Grace released her jump harness and followed them into the base hospital. She quickly related the history of Sharp’s injuries to the on-duty doctor, who insisted on taking care of Sharp himself, while she got checked out by another physician.
She ended up needing a few stitches on her left leg and arm. The doctor had finished sewing her up and was talking to her about giving her antibiotics even though she showed no signs of infection. Just then Colonel Marshall strode into the curtained cubicle treatment room she was in.
Colonel Marshall was an old-school officer. Big on discipline, short on excuses, and zero on failure. She anticipated anger, frustration, and dislike.
He looked like he wanted to kill someone—her. She held herself very, very still.
“Is she medically fit?” he asked the attending doctor without looking away from her.
“Yes, sir,” the doctor replied. He’d also frozen into immobility, his back against the wall.
“Dismissed.”
The doctor glanced at Grace, then left without saying anything else.
Coward .
Marshall waited a couple of seconds, then snarled, “My patrol is dead. Every last man.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“I don’t want your goddamn apology,” he spat at her. “I want a fucking explanation for why you chose to leave the majority of your team, and my men, to die.”
“They’re all dead?” No one had mentioned anything to her. No one had even brought up the village and what was happening there.
“My entire original patrol is dead, thanks to you. The rest of the A-Team that went with you are fine, for now, but they won’t stay that way for long. Insurgents have taken up positions around the village and are trying to pick them off.”
“Did you send in some support?”
He lunged forward. “Don’t tell me how to do my job,” he yelled, not an inch from her face. She jerked back as his spittle landed on her eyes, nose, and mouth. “I sent support, but guess what, their helicopter came under heavy fire short of the village and barely made it back here intact.”
He walked around her, shoving her away from the exam table she was standing in front of, until he could circle her. “I was told you left in a bird with three of my men and two from the A-Team. Where are they?”
Was this some kind of trick question? “We were shot down, sir.”
He walked around her one full circuit before saying, “And you survived with a couple of scratches. How convenient.”
Ooh, that was the wrong word to use. “Convenient would have been arriving at my destination with my samples and my escort intact,” she said in as even a tone as she could manage. “Convenient would have been identifying the pathogen that killed everyone in that village and your men, and determining the correct procedure to contain and eradicate the pathogen.”
“What a load of sanctimonious bullshit,” he sneered at her.
“It wasn’t bullshit to regain consciousness after the crash to realize that most of the people with me were dead. Insurgents reached our crash site in minutes. Minutes , Colonel, and when they got there they proceeded to shoot everyone they found, alive or dead, in the head.”
“Explain to me how you and your boyfriend got away with so few injuries.”
She narrowed her gaze. “I’d found someone alive, one of your men. I was trying to find the emergency medical supplies when two Afghan insurgents arrived and began shooting everyone. I was hidden behind a piece of bulkhead, and though I hadn’t found the medical supplies, I’d found the backup weapons’ locker. I loaded a Beretta and shot them both.”
“You shot them?”
“Yes.”
“And your boyfriend?”
“Who are you referring to? I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“That sniper pal of yours, the one who never leaves you alone.”
“He’d been thrown clear of the aircraft. The two insurgents had spotted him and were moving in to kill him. I shot them first.”
“Well, isn’t that a nice, neat little story.” His sneer twisted even further. “I don’t buy any of it.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re lying.”
His accusation made no sense whatsoever. “Why would I lie?”
“To cover up your earlier mistakes at the village that allowed my men to die of whatever bug killed them.”
“I made no mistakes.”
“I’ve got eight bodies and an Afghan advisor who says otherwise.” He stepped back and signaled to two armed soldiers standing a few feet away. “Lock her up.”
They approached her, one with handcuffs out.
Marshall had lost his mind. “What? Why?”
“I’m charging you with dereliction of duty, abandoning your post, and reckless disregard for human life,” Marshall said as his goons cuffed her and then started to march her out of the medical building.
“None of that is true!”
No one paid her any attention. Not even Marshall spared her another glance once his men had her under control.
She twisted her body and head around as far as she could in order to yell, “Wait! We have to go back to the village and get new samples. The ones I took are too old and possibly contaminated.”
No response.
A few members of the medical staff flicked glances at her, and she could tell they were worried, but with Marshall in no mood to listen to anyone, no one said anything.
“Colonel, please,” she begged. “Send another team.”
Her two jailers marched her faster.
The last thing she heard was Marshall ordering Sharp locked up with her under the same charges.
Holy shit . Marshall had just made a horrible situation a thousand times worse.
There was nothing she could do to stop him.
***
S harp lay on the gurney , playing possum for all he was worth. The last thing he wanted anyone to know was that he was conscious. Grace had talked to the doc who was still sewing him up. This was the third wound he’d put stitches in and there might still be a fourth. They’d also stuck an IV in his arm and were giving him a unit of blood. He felt better already.
He’d pretended to pass out during his first stitching up, mumbling something about being afraid of needles.
His gurney was on the other side of the cloth wall from where Grace got checked out and stitched up, so he’d heard every word Marshall said to her.
The guy was a paranoid buck-passer, but the charges he’d leveled against Grace were no joke. Things were FUBAR and Marshall had decided to make her the scapegoat. Along with Sharp’s A-Team.
He was going to regret that.
Sharp continued his lights-out routine as the doctor finished up, then played dead when Marshall came and breathed right on his face.
Someone needed a mint.
“Why isn’t he awake?” Marshall demanded. “I was told he was talking to the bitch on the bird.”
“Maybe he was, but from all the bruising and swelling on his head he’s had his bell rung at least once. He lost consciousness while I was sewing him up.”
Marshall stepped away and grunted. “Move him to the brig.”
“I’m afraid I can’t allow that, Colonel,” the doctor said. “Sergeant Foster needs to remain immobile until after I’ve done a scan of his skull and spinal column. If he’s got the concussion I think he has, I might even need to perform emergency surgery.”
No one said anything for a moment, then Marshall grunted again. “He’s under arrest for the same charges as Samuels. When he wakes up, contact me.”
“Yes, sir,” the doctor said.
Heavy footsteps walked away, followed by a couple of others.
Other people started talking, mostly medical-speak.
One of those voices belonged to his doctor, who ordered the cleanup of the exam room he was in and the one where Grace had been. After a few minutes, things seemed to calm right down.
A soft sound told him someone was standing close by.
The doctor whispered in his ear, “You can stop faking now.”