Dangerous Territory: An Alpha Ops novella (9 page)

He moved slowly, knowing that his time here with Grace was coming to an end. He was eager to see his team again and to be back on base, but that in turn meant he wouldn’t see Grace again. He hated it, but he was fast becoming afraid that he had fallen for her.

Then everything happened at once, the familiar and welcome
whop-whop
of the helos, sending the feeling of home coursing through his body. The two helicopters crested the mountain that shielded the village from the worst of the weather, and he suddenly realized how other troops felt when he came to rescue them. He allowed himself a couple of seconds to watch their progress and then grabbed the green chem lights tucked into the pocket of his pants. He snapped them and waved them, indicating an all clear for landing.

In the swirling dust, he saw Grace standing at the sideline of the soccer field, backpack already on her shoulders. The village elder stood next to her, carrying Josh’s ruck and shielding his eyes from the updraft the helo made as it landed. The second helo, he knew, would circle overhead, offering cover fire if necessary. For a few seconds, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. There was a good chance he was never going to see her once they landed.

As the helo touched down and switched off the rotor blades, Josh’s attention turned to D.D., who was exiting, gun drawn, as per protocol. As soon as he realized it was safe, D.D. pulled Josh into a man-hug. “Man, you fucking scared us. Don’t do that again, okay?”

“Deal. Thanks for coming back,” Josh said, pulling away.

“Always, man. You know that.” D.D. looked away from him and swallowed. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get down with you. We took sniper fire, and the pilot had to…”

“Dude, listen to me. I would have done the same. You had no choice. None of us would be here now if the helo went down. You did the right thing. So did the pilot. And we are all here to tell the tale. That’s the important thing.”

“Thanks. We brought the stuff you asked for.” He nodded to the aircrew, who were unloading two plastic crates.

“What do we have here?” Grace’s voice surprised him with her proximity. It was all he could do not to grab her and kiss her, staking his claim on her right away. Staking his claim? He was truly done for.

He tried to compartmentalize his errant thoughts and answered her evenly. “One of the boxes is enough first aid for them to deal with Abul’s injuries and any others that may happen. The second has DVDs and video games for the kids.”

They both watched the village men bow and shake hands with the crew as they transferred the crates to their possession.

Josh turned to Grace, ready to ignore everything they’d discussed and ask for her contact details. In front of everyone. “I don’t know if you…” he started to say, but he was cut off by the pilot.

“We should get going, T.S. You ready?”

He looked at Grace questioningly, and she nodded.

“Roger that, L.T.,” he said, and held his hand out so that she could hoist herself into the cabin. She took it. One last time, he felt her hand clasped in his, and his mind flashed back to the cave, with her hand entwined with his, above her as he moved inside her. Sweet Jesus, how could he go on without doing that again?

Grace frowned at him, noticing his hesitation, but jumped in the helo as the rotors started slowly rotating. He followed, and after the aircraft had cleared the ground by just a few inches, D.D. climbed in, too.

*     *     *

Grace waved to Abul and his family as the helo slowly elevated and started moving back toward base. When she could see them no more, she shifted in her seat and cast her eyes down. She swore if she looked at him one more time, she’d be on the floor, wrapped around his feet, begging him not to leave her. And that would be undignified. Especially in front of the other crew.

She had to stick by her rule. And his rule, come to that. No good comes from personal connections in this line of business. She gritted her teeth against the swell of emotion rising in her. She had to fight this. Had to. He was talking to his colleague, and she snatched a glance at him. What was she going to do without the hope of seeing him again?

Her world suddenly felt devoid of hope. She had lived her professional life knowing it was enough to have the memory of that one night, and the possibility, even a slim possibility, that she might see him again in the same hotel. But she hadn’t. And he had made it clear that he didn’t want any distraction from his job. And her being a reporter was definitely a deal breaker. And she didn’t know anything else. She was seriously screwed.

She thought about her storage locker. It had been hers for four years. She loved that damn place. As soon as she got back, that was where she was going. Touching her stuff, her clothes, lying on her bed, would make all this craziness go away. She could hide all these crazy thoughts in a box, too. The feeling that this wasn’t one of those attachments she could forget scared her more than being stranded behind enemy lines had. There must be something seriously fucked up about her that she feared an attachment to Josh more than she did the Taliban.
What is wrong with me?

There were only three weeks to go, maybe less, before a transport plane would arrive to pick the whole unit up, and then she would have two whole weeks to get her head together before shipping out again. Two weeks she would spend, not at the Four Seasons, but somewhere as different from that as she could find. Start again. Build up her resistance to emotional connections.

The helo banked to the left as they came in fast to the base. All aircraft landed pretty quickly to avoid giving the Taliban unnecessary target practice. She remembered a soldier once telling her he’d spend his evenings outside his quarters in Iraq, watching the Iraqis try to hit the arriving and departing planes with small-arms fire. It had looked like tiny fireworks in the dark to him. Luckily, they’d been too far away to hit anything, but it had been a constant reminder to him that the base was surrounded by people who hated them.

She spent the last few minutes of the short flight with her eyes closed, trying to think about the article she was going to write when she got back to her quarters on base. Trying not to think about the man sitting across from her in the small cabin. Trying very hard not to think about his body, his actions, his economy of movement when he rescued Fallam. His body as it flexed under her touch. The feel of him as he moved within her.

Shit. Get a grip.

For two weeks she had vacillated between staying in her quarters and walking the base. She didn’t know why. Maybe because she thought he might find her if she stayed in her room, and then maybe he would see her if she was out walking. But then she couldn’t decide if she was walking around in case he came to her room and staying shut away in case he saw her out walking. Or vice versa. She was going nuts. Her brain wasn’t used to this kind of uncertainty and indecision. In all probability, he was on rescue missions. No one had a lot of spare time to go visiting or wandering around, and she suspected his job was particularly full-on.

There was a knock at the door, and her heart raced for a second. She opened it to find an army sergeant major with a manila envelope. She knew enough to know that these were her travel orders. All embedded reporters were treated the same as the units they were following. So when they said jump, she jumped.

“We’re going home?” she asked him, opening the letter.

“Yes, ma’am. This afternoon. A bird is on the tarmac, and everyone is assembling. Sorry for the late notice, but the original plan for a departure next week was scrapped because the weather squadron has predicted worsening weather.”

Grace looked around her tiny room. “It’ll only take me a few minutes.”

The sergeant major looked at her tiny rack of clothes and her laptop and agreed. “You travel light, I see. Which is good in situations like this. We’re wheels up in two hours.”

“No problem. I’ll be at the hangar in ten.”

“Copy that.” He left her alone to pack, and pack she did. It took her less than four minutes. She really didn’t see the benefit of bringing so much stuff that it felt like home. She understood the troops who did that, but she didn’t have a home to feel sentimental about.

As she walked to the hangar, every step became heavier. She stopped and checked her bag. She had everything; she was sure of it. And then her brain took the left-hand turn into a place that was clearly marked
DO NOT ENTER.
She stumbled on nothing at all as she searched the route for him. Every step she took, she found herself looking for air force tags rather than the army ones. Today, it seemed the whole air force was somewhere else. She didn’t see one, let alone the specific one she was half looking for. Okay, totally looking for.

I’ve made a terrible mistake.

She had been chasing the wrong thing. Her career didn’t excite her the way Josh did. Well, it did, but there were only so many stories she could tell over here. She had two more deployments lined up, but she wasn’t really sure why. Her stories had been told, at least after this one.

Shit. What had she been doing with her life?

She grabbed a soldier walking past. “Where do the PJs hang out?”

“If you don’t know, ma’am, I’m afraid I can’t tell you,” he said, gently taking her hand from his arm. He walked on with a look over his shoulder, probably checking that she wasn’t following him.

In less than two minutes, she was in the hangar. There was one air force uniform in the mass of bodies standing, sitting, and lying down, waiting for transport. She dropped her bag with the cargo guy at the door and ran toward him. She tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned around, frowning.

“Holy crap, Grace!” he said. “You made it. I tried to come back for you when they landed at the other end of the valley, but the PJs assured me they’d go in for you. They are as good as we all hope they are, then.”

“You have no idea!” Grace said, relieved to see the friendly face of Walker, the TACP who had bravely gone to find Beth. “How is she? Beth?” she asked, her thoughts of detachment way past her.

“We got her to the hospital and I visited her once, but she was flying high on drugs and in a really bad mood. I had no idea you could be pissed while high. Not a good patient, as it turned out,” he said with a half smile.

“Listen, I need to find Josh. Do you know where he is?”

“Sure. He’s heading home on this bird here. He’ll be on board, I guess.”

Relief overwhelmed her, and she dropped her shoulder bag to the floor and took a deep breath. A lightness rushed through her, and she closed her eyes to fully appreciate the stress leaving her body.

“Are you all right?” Walker asked.

She gave him a wide smile. “I’m fine. I’m absolutely fine.” Already, she was visualizing them talking on the plane the whole way back. Persuading him to take a chance on her. Telling him about her work, her Pulitzer, and at freaking last, the very nonscandalous type of article she typically wrote. She laughed out loud in some kind of hysteria-glee hybrid. All it did was make Walker look nervous.

“Do you need a medic? I can see two from here. It’d be no problem to get one to see you quietly.” He looked concerned.

She laughed. “I promise I’m fine. I just want to get on board and get going.”

“You and two hundred other people in the hangar,” he replied. “Look. They’re starting to board.” He nodded toward the open hangar door to the flight line. A long line of troops were being escorted out to the aircraft. “Hey, Davitz,” he said to a very young-looking passing soldier.

“Yes, Sergeant?”

“This here is Grace. She’s on this flight, too. Can you make sure she gets on and point Josh out to her?”

“Josh Banning?”

“Yeah.”

Banning. She hadn’t even known his last name until now. How crap was she at her job anyway? The first rule is get the names. Get all the names. Of course, it wasn’t always easy, especially since combat troops rarely wore their name tags off base.

Grace stuck her hand out to the TACP and they shook hands.

“Safe trip,” Walker said.

“You stay safe, too.”

“I plan on it,” he said before relinquishing her to Davitz’s care.

As they walked out to the aircraft, she asked him how he knew Walker.

“He saved me and my patrol,” he replied simply.

Grace knew what the TACPs did and knew that it meant he had protected them by calling in close air support, as he had done when they had been ambushed.

“He did that for me, too,” Grace said.

The soldier just nodded and waved her in front of him up the stairs of the plane.

She sat in the nearest aisle seat so she could either see Josh as he got on, or be free to go look for him. Searching all the faces of eager men and women anxious to get home, she rehearsed in her head what her opening gambit would be. Hi? Hello? Fancy meeting you here?

As the cabin crew closed the door, she felt a tap on her shoulder. It was Davitz. “Banning’s in seat 32A, okay?”

“Thank you. I’ll go back and speak to him once we’ve taken off.” She was so excited to be seeing him again. She wondered if the person next to him would mind moving. Then she wondered if they should try to talk in private. She didn’t want to get him into trouble, and she knew he was a stickler for the rules. She wasn’t sure she wanted to embed again, so she didn’t care about that aspect of her job anymore.

As soon as the seat belt sign chimed off, she jumped up and headed back. Row twenty-nine, thirty… She looked for him but couldn’t see him. A stranger was in 32A. “Excuse me,” she said. “I’m looking for Josh. Josh Banning. Someone told me he was in 32A?”

“That’s me, ma’am. Private Josh Banning. Can I help you?”

Oh God.

Oh no. No. No. She had left base without seeing him. Without finding him. Shit. She didn’t even know his last name. She was never going to find him. Desperation settled on her shoulders like a heavy cloak. Hope disappeared in a pouf. Her stomach twisted.

“Are you all right, ma’am?” The private looked concerned.

“I’m fine. Sorry.” She turned and slowly went back to her seat. What had she done?

*     *     *

As a departing plane roared overhead, Josh was preparing to finish his shift, swapping his equipment out with the replacement crew’s. This was that dangerous time when you hoped not to get called out for a rescue. Minutes were always lost when you had to secure your gear.

His head hadn’t been in the game the entire time he had boots on the ground. Airborne, on his way to a rescue, his focus was always second to none. Planning rescue, evade, and escape came as naturally as breathing to him when he was on duty. Unfortunately for him, his twelve hours off in between shifts were totally fucking up his normally ordered head.

In his heart, he knew where this was going. He had to find her, and he had to at least try. Take a chance that it could work out. He’d never, ever met anyone as exciting, intelligent, and freaking contrary as Grace. Nor as sexy. Every time his eyes closed at night, he visualized her. In the Four Seasons as usual, in the cave, in the village, even ignoring him in the helo on the way back. Every second with her was burned on his brain. He needed a lobotomy.

He needed her.

He couldn’t believe it had taken him two weeks to be honest with himself.

He needed her. Shit.

Where was she?

He stowed his kit and considered running down to the media compound right away. Seeing D.D. putting his own stuff away, he figured he really needed a shower. D.D. and Josh had been in two firefights that shift, and each of them had at least half a pint of blood on their pants from a shot soldier, whom they had patched up and delivered to the hospital. Not an ideal look for wooing. Wooing? He was losing his mind. He grinned. Yeah, he was.

One combat shower later, he was smoothing his hair while jogging down the path to the main base. He had to stop to salute two senior officers, and he was about to salute a third time, when he noticed an airman sitting on a makeshift table. The airman looked at Josh as if he recognized him.

“Sergeant?”

The other airman’s eyes lowered to Josh’s insignia and name tag. “You’re Travers, right? The PJ who went back for Grace? Thanks, man.” He stuck out his hand and they shook.

“No problem, Walker.” Good thing their names were on the front of their uniforms while on base. “I’m looking for her, actually. You seen her?”

“Yeah, I saw her. I just put her on a plane stateside.”

Coldness washed over him. “Really? She’s gone?” Fuck. Shit.

“The battalion she was embedded with went home a week early. You okay?” Walker looked concerned.

“Sure. It was a bad idea anyway. I don’t know what I was thinking.” Except that was a lie. He sat down opposite the TACP and buried his face in his hands. He heard the fluttering of the magazine on the table.

“Look. This is Grace, right?”

Josh raised his head and looked at the magazine Walker had spun around so he could see a photo. It was her. A tiny picture at the top of an article titled “A Generation at War.”

He looked back up and said, “Do you mind if I read this?”

“Go ahead.”

His heart broke as he read. She didn’t write about scandals or about the myriad bad things that happened at war. She painted a picture of young soldiers who were willing to die for their country. She wrote about their lives at home, what had brought them to war, who was waiting for them back home. She also wrote about how they dealt with the terrible things they’d seen. What experiences they’d be taking home with them. Her last paragraph pondered who would look after these kids when they got home, who’d have their backs. It was the kind of article he’d write if he had her skill with words.

Shit. He was a horse’s ass. He didn’t like to think how many times he’d accused her of being a scandalmonger. She’d been absolutely right. These were the stories that needed to be told. He flipped back to look at her picture again. Under it was the byline “Pulitzer Prize winner, Grace Grainger.”

Such an ass.

“This wasn’t who I thought she was. I treated her like a tabloid reporter. Shit.” He rubbed his hands over his face, as if that could wipe away the cringe-making memories of what he’d accused her of.

“I spent about five weeks with her. She was awesome. Kept everyone focused on home and told the dirtiest jokes I’ve heard,” Walker said. “Sexy, too. I mean, melt-your-heart sexy.”

“Hey, shut up, man.” Josh bristled at his words, but Walker only laughed at him.

“Yeah, I thought so. Don’t worry, though. My thoughts were… elsewhere, shall we say.” He sighed. “Sounds like we’re in the same boat.” Walker laughed again and shook his head. “What are the odds of deploying and falling for someone downrange?”

Josh noticed the tension around his face and recognized the symptoms. “Apparently, not as long as you’d think.” He groaned out loud. “So, who…?”

“An army sergeant. Beth Garcia. She was the one who was shot. Your team got her to the base hospital in time.” The airman swallowed hard and looked away.

“She’s going to be all right?”

“They already shipped her back home. I never said anything to her, though. She’s probably forgotten I exist by now. It’s for the best, though, right? Forget it and move on,” Walker said with some finality. It sounded as if he’d been thinking about it awhile.

“I thought I could do that. I mean, I
should
do that. And I tried to do it for the last couple of weeks, but I just don’t know, man.” Josh sighed, sat back, and looked at the sky. “It just finally felt wrong.
Dammit
.”

“There’s an e-mail address on her byline,” Walker said, tapping the page.

“Yeah, she said no e-mails. Anyway, I’m not sure anything I could say in an e-mail could make up for the level of ass I’ve been.”

“You sure you’re okay?” Walker asked, with an amused expression on his face.

“I’m fine. I just wanted… I needed… Fuck.”

“Oh. Yeah, sorry. I can’t help you with that. But I owe you one… so if you need anything, get in touch.” He handed Josh a business card.

He looked at it and nodded. “I appreciate it.”

“I have connections stateside. I mean, finding people connections.”

Understanding immediately, he said, “Thank you. I may have to take you up on that.”

“It sounds like you should. Make sure you do,” Walker said as he got up, leaving Josh with the magazine.

Josh suddenly felt the same sensation of hope he had felt for the past three years, but now it was hope that he might still find her. A real hope.