Chapter Twenty-Five
Stone ~ Late November
“I’m tellin’ ya, boys,” Duggan drawled in his broad Southern accent. “It’s true what they say. Everythin’s bigger in Texas.”
Spence snorted. “Everything except your johnson.”
Lou and I shared a look and chuckled.
Duggan shook his head and grinned. “How the fuck would you know, surfer boy? You wouldn’t know a big cock if one impaled ya.” He glanced at me and waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Give me a G cup any day.”
“Too much,” Lou muttered. “Anything more than a handful’s a waste. I like them itty bitty titties you can fit in your mouth.”
I wiped my brow while simultaneously scouring the desert ahead, wondering how in hell I got lumped in with these jokers. Patrolling the edge of the triangle was shitty enough without having to deal with Duggan’s titty talk. I missed touching Elise enough without having constant reminders about the other things I missed.
Duggan barked a laugh. “Call me greedy, but I wanna handful, a mouthful, and a warm place to slide my dick between. You should come to Texas; the women there would convert ya.”
“Had enough dust and oil to last me a lifetime,” Lou muttered. “Ain’t going to Texas for more of the same.”
“At least we’ve got bars and beer,” Duggan argued. “Along with juicy-titted women.” He glanced at me. “What about you, Stone? What’s your preference?”
My mouth tugged at one corner. “My girl’s my preference.”
Spence grinned. “She’s a knockout, alright.”
Duggan’s head cocked to one side. “Gotta pic?”
“Any disrespect, and I’ll kick your ass,” I muttered, going into my inside pocket and sliding a picture of Elise out. It was one my mom took of her on her eighteenth birthday when she’d finished getting her ready for our picnic date down by the creek.
The night I’d made her mine in every way.
My heart tugged inside my chest.
Fuck, I missed her.
Carefully, I handed Duggan the picture.
He studied it carefully. “She’s beautiful.”
“Yeah,” I concurred. “She is.”
He peered a little closer and drawled, “Perfect C, I reckon.”
Despite myself, I snorted a laugh.
These boys were assholes, but we were in this together, and at least they weren’t miserable fucks like some of the guys. Conditions at the base camp were dire. Things had gotten to the stage where we wanted to patrol because it got us some clean air. As stifling as the air was, it still smelled better than our living quarters.
Duggan waved the photo. “Can I keep this?” he asked, grinning cockily.
“Fuck off,” I retorted, snatching it back.
“Only jokin’.” His eyes slid to Spence. “What about your girl? Can I see her pic?”
Spence’s face blanked. “Ain’t gotta girl.”
I shot my buddy a smile that I hoped he recognized as a show of support.
Ally had Dear John’d Spence the week before. She wrote that she couldn’t handle him being away all the time and him being at war was fucking with her head.
I couldn’t believe it, fucking with her head? She was safe and warm in the comfort of the California sunshine while Spence lived in a damned warehouse that we called the Devil’s Armpit. Nothing fucked with heads more than going to sleep and not knowing if the building would be bombed during the night. Of having to take pills that would ease the effects of a chemical weapons attack, you know, just in case. Or the people you were sent away to protect hating your guts more than the enemy.
But poor fucking Ally, right?
Boo fucking hoo.
It was November now, and a lot of shit had gone down back at home.
Honestly, I had to bury it. There was nothing I could do for Elise here, and if I thought about her dad’s passing too much, it would’ve driven me insane. I was a Marine sniper, I worked out, and I was strong and fit, both physically and mentally, but when it came to Elise, I was goddamned helpless.
Instead, I saved it for my letters. It was through them I poured my heart out. At all other times, I had to stay sharp and alert, but I couldn’t do that if my mind got caught in a whirlpool of guilt because I couldn’t damned well be there for my ol’ lady when she needed me the most.
My dad had also been ill. He had prostate cancer. His diagnosis came through just before Jerome passed.
They caught it early, and he’d had surgery—can you believe on the day of the funeral? He’d kept it hush-hush because he was a tough-guy biker. The only people who knew were me, Mom, and Abe. God forbid he showed any weakness, especially to the brothers.
I couldn’t tell Elise, not by letter anyway, but I read between the lines and knew she was hurt that he hadn’t been there for her. But Dad would rather look like an asshole than show any vulnerability, so it was up to me to explain, which I would do one day, but face-to-face.
The rumble of a Humvee sounded in the distance, and I turned to watch it approach. It seemed a little early for transport, but time out here seemed so fractured it wasn’t a big shock.
It was only when I caught sight of the vehicle that I realized it wasn’t a Humvee. It was black and low-slung.
My gut jerked. “Fuck. Have they seen us?”
“I’m not stickin’ around to find out. We need to take cover!” Duggan roared.
“Where?” Spence demanded. “There’s nowhere. It’s all fuckin’ sand.”
“If we can make it to those caves, we may get lucky,” Lou said, pointing toward a rock formation looming a few hundred meters to our left.
“It’ll take us out of range of the base,” I warned them. “Our comms probably won’t work.”
“I’ll radio in our position now,” Spence muttered. “They’ll find us. We just need to take cover and ride it out until the cavalry gets here.” He got on the radio and began to speak urgently as he relayed our coordinates before muttering, “Over and out.”
A feeling of impending doom began to spread through my gut. Turning toward the caves, we began to run after the others. I craned my neck, checking the proximity of the vehicle before I turned back and gathered speed. The car was a black sedan, a type used by both Iraqis and Kuwaiti people.
“That ride definitely ain’t USMC,” I shouted.
“How much firepower have we got?” Duggan yelled, his panicked breath sawing in and out as I sprinted up beside him.
“We’re okay,” Spence huffed out, arms pumping at his sides as he kept pace. “But it depends if they’re friend or foe and if they’ve got more ammo than us. The last man standing’s the one with the most bullets.”
I glanced back at the vehicle again. “The last man standing is the one who needs the least bullets. If I can get a clear shot, I can hit their tank and blow ‘em sky high.”
“Let’s get under shelter, then we’ll plan our next move,” Lou rasped, almost wheezing as he sprinted close behind me.
The rocks loomed up ahead. They were at the bottom of a small mountain range but would still provide some cover; we just needed to be clever about it, and, anyway, they were a damned sight better than being left a sitting duck in the desert with constantly shifting dunes that would give us up in no time.
This was a Marine’s worst nightmare. We often didn’t know if the men who approached us were Iraqi or Kuwaiti. Even the people we were here to protect were suspicious of us, which led to misunderstandings and stand-offs. Some Kuwaitis believed foreign soldiers even stepping on their soil was a desecration.
Frankly, we were pissing against the wind.
A loud crack splintered the air, and something whizzed past my ear. Heart jolting, I ducked left, my arms automatically going over my head as I sprinted for the rocks just ahead of us.
“They’re firing on us!” Spence shouted. “Take cover!”
We dived behind a formation of rocks just as a line of sand around my boots turned to dust as bullets hit the ground all around me.
“Fuckers,” I spat, crouching low and turning to get my bearings by peering through a gap in the boulders. “They’ve hemmed us in.” My heart raced out of my chest as I watched the vehicle approach at speed. Whoever was in that car didn’t like us at all.
“No choice now,” Duggan muttered, pulling his sniper rifle from his back and setting it up. “We gotta fight back.”
An old beat-up black Mercedes stopped about fifty feet away, its four occupants screaming in Arabic as they exited the car.
“What the fuck are they saying?” Spence muttered through the bedlam. Taking his rifle off and checking his ammo.
“Somethin’ about camels,” Lou murmured. “I think they’re sayin’ someone shot at their camels. They think it was us.”
“For fuck’s sake!” My eyes rolled up toward the heavens, and I heaved a sigh. “You couldn’t make this shit up.”
“I think they’re Bedouin,” Spence advised. “If they are, we’re not the fuckin’ enemy.”
Duggan lined his rifle up through a crack in the rocks. “We’re always the damned enemy. Fuckers nearly shot me.”
“We don’t wanna start an international incident,” Lou whisper-shouted. “They’re our fucking allies.”
“Allies don’t shoot our asses,” Duggan pointed out.
“These ones do,” I retorted. “Over damned camels.”
“I can’t get a comms signal.” Spence cursed under his breath. “We’re out of range.”
I scraped a hand down my face. “Maybe we should’ve run back toward the triangle instead of away.”
“There was no cover that way,” Lou reminded me. “We would’ve been dead. Anyway, it’s too late for woulda, coulda, shouldas.”
“Christ,” I muttered. “We’re gonna have to shoot. There’s four of them and four of us, but we’re damned snipers. We can disable them but not go in for the kill—”
I was cut off by another spray of bullets hitting the rock behind our heads.
Pulling my rifle off, I did my checks and lined it up through a tiny gap in the rock. “Don’t go for the car. Give them a means of escape. If we cut off their route, they’ll be backed into a corner. Give ‘em a choice to leave us be.”
“Got it,” Spence muttered, taking aim through his sight. “But remember, our ammo’s limited. Don’t wanna waste too much.” He squeezed his trigger and popped off a shot, aiming at the ground next to the feet of two of the guys.
A barrage of deafening fire came at us. The men took shots at the rocks behind where we huddled without care or thought.
Duggan aimed and fired a bullet that whizzed past the ear of one of the men, who immediately threw himself on the ground, his gun going flying. “They ain’t trained,” Dug pointed out. “Poor bastards got ‘emselves in a sitch they can’t control.”
Lou popped off three warning shots into the air.
Another of the Bedouins took a dive into the dust. He lost grip of his weapon, and it flew across the ground. The two remaining peppered the rocks with gunfire, screaming at us in their language.
“I wish I knew what the fuck they’re sayin’,” I murmured.
Lou let off another warning shot. “Believe me. It’s nothing good.”
“How the fuck do you speak Arabic? You’re from bumfuck Montana…” Spence’s voice trailed off, his eyes slashing to mine and narrowing. “You hear that?”
“What?” Lou asked, peering through his sight.
Spence held a finger to his lips, demanding silence, just as a rumble sounded in the distance.
My chin jerked toward the horizon, eyes squinting in the bright sunlight. Sure enough, a plume of dust puffed in the distance as a vehicle came hurtling over a sand dune, heading toward the mountain range and us.
The Bedouins craned their necks and began to chatter furiously. Within seconds, they bundled into their car, slammed the doors, and sped off in the opposite direction.
My head reared back. “What the fuck just happened?”
Spence jerked his chin toward the dust billowing in the distance. “They got scared. Whoever’s coming for us spooked ‘em—” He was interrupted by his radio crackling.
“Good morning, boys,” a disjointed voice came through comms. “This is your friendly neighborhood extraction team. Word on the desert is that you’ve just had a lesson in diplomatic relations.”
My shoulders slumped, and I sent up a silent word of thanks to whoever up there was looking out for my ass. The whole incident had taken no more than thirty minutes, but it was the most screwed-up thirty minutes of my life.
Suddenly, the safety of Devil’s Armpit didn’t seem so fuckin’ bad.
Spence froze, except for one eyebrow that lifted toward his hairline. “Is that Cox?”
I grimaced. “Seems so.”
Spence sighed. “It fucking had to be. You know he’s gonna rip us new ones, right?”
My head jerked in assent. “Yup, especially when he finds out we had a diplomatic stand-off over camels.”
Duggan barked a laugh.
Heaving a relieved breath, I bent down to grab my ammo and canister when I caught a slight movement from the corner of my eye. My head whipped toward a gap in the rocks, and I saw what looked like metal glinting in the sun.
My blood turned to ice, and I started toward the Humvee, bellowing, “Run! They’re in the caves.”
Deafening gunfire filled the ether, and I cursed loudly as I felt a painful burning sensation in my shoulder. I went down, and despite the pull of my shoulder, my hands automatically went to my head as an almighty boom rocked the air around us. An ungodly, intense heat hit my back, and my ears rang so loudly that it was all I could hear as I felt my body lift and fly through the air before landing with a crash in the dust. I cried out as pain wracked my body from head to toe.
For a second, my eyes fluttered open, but I couldn’t see anything apart from sand and dust swirling around me. My eardrums throbbed, and everything fell eerily silent.
I willed myself to keep my eyes open, to turn my head and see what the fuck just happened, but I couldn’t move.
Keep it together, Stone. My voice chanted in my head. Keep it together. Stay the fuck awake.
But I couldn’t do it. Maybe I wasn’t strong enough, or perhaps the pain was so damned excruciating that I needed to make it stop.
My eyes fluttered closed, and everything began to turn black. Then I felt my mind get sucked into a vortex of oblivion where there was no pain, no Marines, no enemy.
No anything.