Poe (9 page)

She flipped through the pages and saw that Maureen had made trips to Mexico and the UK.

“It’s completely valid,” he said. “If anyone runs it, they’ll find you.”

She stuffed it into her pocket.

Next out of the duffel came a white envelope, which he tossed to her.

“Cash. Enough to get you where you’re going. The local currency is the hryvnia. It’s good in both the Ukraine and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.”

“What about Romania?” The plan was to cross from there on land into Ukraine.

“There’s a few lei in there, too. But you won’t be there very long.”

She checked the envelope, and nodded.

“You’re clear on everything?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Any questions?”

Just a million
, she thought, but said, “I think I’m good.”

“Deuce and I will be no more than a couple miles away from you at all times.”

“I know,” she said.

Cooper was trying to put her at ease, but it wasn’t exactly comforting. Once Alex was behind the prison’s walls, she’d be on her own until she got out again.

“Look, Alex,” Cooper said, as if sensing her concern. “If at any point you want to call things off, even if you’re already inside, then do it. Don’t worry about the target, just get yourself out.”

“Yeah, McElroy would love that.”

“I’ll worry about that asshole. You just worry about you.”

“Not very corporate of you.”

“I’m not a very corporate kind of guy.”

“And yet, here you are working for them. How long now?”

He hesitated. “Three years.”

“Three years. Wow.”

“I had to land somewhere after I got out.”

Just the hint of his time in the army was enough to quiet them.

It was nearly a full minute before he said, “I, um, I wish it had gone differently.”

“Don’t,” she said quickly.

“You don’t know how many times I’ve thought about it, what I could have done.”

“Let’s not talk about this.”

He turned to face her. “The thing is, as much as I wish it hadn’t happened the way it did, I did the only thing I could.”

She turned to the window and looked out at the night sky again, trying not to think about that day, trying not to think about anything at all.

“Alex, please.”

She didn’t move.

After several more minutes, she heard him get up and head toward the back of the plane.

She closed her eyes, the tension easing from her shoulders.

He was right. She had undoubtedly thought about it as much as he had, if not more, and she knew in her head there was nothing he could have done differently.

Her heart, though, was having a hard time buying it, because it was her heart that had taken the blow that day.

Stop thinking about it
.

But she’d already started.

* * *

I
T HAD BEEN
a simple resupply convoy, their platoon a tactical movement team escorting the vehicles—in this case, a handful of fuel trucks.

Once they got them to Baghdad, they were scheduled for a day off. Everyone was looking forward to that. Just one day when they didn’t have to worry about IEDs or snipers.

Hot. Dry. Sand pitting their skin even as they sat inside their MRAP Cougars. The platoon was divided among eight of the armored fighting vehicles, which were then peppered throughout the convoy. Alex was in a vehicle near the rear, manning the roof-mounted gun turret.

She saw the flash of the explosion a split second before the sound ripped down the road past her vehicle.

“Halt! Halt! Halt!” a voice yelled over the radio unnecessarily.

While the fuel trucks had all slammed to a stop, the Cougars moved into positions where they could get a better look around. The MRAP Alex was in rocked as it drove off the road into an empty lot. From the turret, she could see that the Cougar at the head of the convoy was sitting at an angle, blackened by fire.

But the MRAP was a tough machine that had stood up more times than not to IEDs without killing its occupants, a far cry from the army’s early days in Iraq, so Alex was confident her friends inside were okay.

Most IEDs were set off remotely by an individual hiding somewhere nearby, but the platoon couldn’t discount the possibility of a full-on ambush, so Alex swung around, searching for movement.

The second explosion came from the middle of the convoy, sending the cab of a fuel truck fifteen feet into the air.

A third explosion toppled another truck on its side, spilling its cargo onto the road, where it immediately caught fire in a loud
whoosh
.

“Everyone, get moving! Now! Now! Now! Keep going.”

The orders were transmitted by Cooper, the convoy commander. It was obvious they had fallen into a massive trap, and who knew how many more explosive devices were waiting to be set off.

Engines roared and gears grinded as the convoy started moving again.

The next explosion sent shrapnel flying through the air, dinging up the back of one of the fuel trucks and cracking a window on one of the MRAPs, but not disabling it.

Alex’s Cougar hung back to cover the rear as the convoy shoved its way around the two trucks that had taken direct hits. The only vehicle that seemed to be having problems was the MRAP involved in the initial explosion. While Sanchez, the vehicle’s driver, reported that his men were okay, he couldn’t get the engine running.

As soon as the rest of the convoy had cleared Sanchez’s vehicle, Bryant, the man in charge of Alex’s Cougar, said over the radio, “Poe, keep a keen eye.”

He then turned their MRAP toward Sanchez’s.

“Sanchez,” Bryant said as they neared the disabled vehicle. “We can squeeze you all in here with us.”

“Just go,” Sanchez said. “I’ll get this working.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sanchez said.

“Okay. We’ll watch your back until you’re running again.”

Bryant ordered the remaining four men in his vehicle to check on the soldiers who had been in the two destroyed fuel trucks.

Alex, hyperalert for any sign of danger, kept her gaze moving back and forth across the road as her squad mates climbed out and carefully made their way over to the now useless hulks. She had no doubt this would go down as one of the scariest moments of her army career.

The check was quick and far from satisfactory.

“Dead,” Wilson reported. “All of them. Should we bring the bodies?”

Bryant relayed the information and question to Cooper.

“The birds are on their way. They’ll pick them up,” Cooper said. “Sanchez, status.”

There was a delay, then Sanchez came on the radio. “I think I’ve got…”

With a sudden roar, the engine of the other vehicle came back to life.

“Back in business,” Sanchez said.

“Good! Get a move on,” Cooper ordered. “Both of you.”

For Sanchez to move, Alex’s Cougar had to get out of the way, so Bryant took the lead and headed after the convoy. Alex looked over her shoulder until she was sure Sanchez was following them before she focused back on the road.

That was why she only heard the explosion and didn’t see it.

The impact sent her vehicle flying, until it dropped back down several feet away. She slammed against the gun, her chest screaming in pain from the impact.

“What the hell was that?” Bryant asked.

Wincing, Alex turned and looked behind them. Sanchez’s MRAP was lying on its side, flames engulfing the hood.

“Sanchez is hit!” she said, breathing hard.

Without thinking, she scrambled out of the turret and dropped over the side of the Cougar onto the ground. Ignoring her bruised chest, she raced toward the other vehicle.

“Poe, stop!” Bryant ordered. “Get back here!”

She ripped her radio earpiece out and ran on without hesitating.

The bomb had been waiting on the side of the road, disguised as who knew what at this point—a soda can, a rock, a discarded shoe. The only things Alex knew were that the blast had been more powerful than any of the previous explosions, and that her vehicle had driven right past the device seconds before it went off.

She stopped near the front, out of reach of the flames, and looked through the windshield. She could see only one person—Riggins, crumpled against the passenger side door, at the bottom of the tipped truck. Sanchez had to be in there somewhere, too, but she couldn’t see him.

Using the undercarriage, she climbed up until she was standing on the driver’s side that was now facing the sky. She could feel the heat coming from the flames that still burned across the hood as she sidestepped over to the door and tried to pull it open. But it wouldn’t budge. She got down on all fours, then, cupping her hands at the sides of her face, she looked through the window into the cab.

From her new vantage point, she could see that Riggins’s head was cocked at an impossible angle, his neck broken. She took two quick, deep breaths, feeling them burn in her bruised chest, then looked around for Sanchez, and found him partially strapped in his seat. His face was smashed into the steering wheel, his eyes open and dead.

She took another breath. Riggins and Sanchez were gone, but there were others in the truck who might still need her help. She scrambled back to the ground and sprinted to the rear of the MRAP.

The metal door that would drop down like a ramp when opened was sealed shut. She pounded on it.

“Hey! Hey, open up! It’s me, Poe!”

Nothing happened.

“Can you hear me?”

“Poe?” The voice was muffled and weak.

“Yeah! Yeah! Who is that?”

“Mill…wood,” the man on the other side answered.

“How bad are you hurt?”

A pause. “Bad.”

She cursed under her breath. “What about the others?”

Another pause, this one longer. “Boyd and Drew are dead, I think. Chambers looks like he’s still…breathing.”

“You need to release the door. I can’t get to you otherwise.”

“Don’t know if I…can.”

“Try, goddammit!”

She could hear something clatter against the door, then what sounded like a grunt.

“Millwood! Are you all right?”

A scrape, but no other response.

As she raised her hand to pound against the door again, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. She twisted around, reaching for the gun she wasn’t carrying.

“Dammit, Poe! What do you think you’re doing?”

Cooper.

“Get the hell back to your vehicle,” he ordered. “We’ve got to get out of here!”

“Millwood’s inside. He’s still alive. Chambers, too.”

Before Cooper could reply, automatic gunfire broke out a couple hundred yards away. By the sound of it, they both knew it wasn’t coming from someone in their platoon. Almost instantly an MRAP returned fire.

Cooper lost focus for a moment, frozen in place. He then depressed his transmit button. “Copy that. Get them moving. Bryant, swing around here and pick us up.” He listened for a moment, then said, “Do it.” He focused back on Alex. “You’re sure they’re alive in there?”

“I talked to Millwood just a moment ago.”

He grimaced for half a second, then moved toward the door. “Let’s get this open.”

Together, they tried to pry the door loose as the sound of gunfire grew dangerously closer, but the damn thing wouldn’t budge.

“Millwood! You’ve got to help us,” Alex yelled.

No sound from inside.

“Millwood!”

Bryant’s Cougar barreled around the corner and braked to a hard stop.

“Millwood!”

There was the
ping-ping-ping
of bullets striking the metal of the downed MRAP. Alex and Cooper ducked.

“Come on,” Cooper said. “We’ve got to go!”

“They’re still in there!”

“We’re dead if we don’t move now!”

He grabbed her by the arms and pulled her toward the other Cougar.

She twisted side to side, trying to get free, but he held on tight.

“No! We can’t leave them!”

More bullets, streaking down the far side of Sanchez’s MRAP.

As Cooper got Alex to the back of Bryant’s vehicle, someone inside lowered the door. The second they were on board, the door shut again.

Ping-ping-ping-ping.
This time the shots were hitting their truck.

“Go! Go! Go!” Cooper yelled at Bryant.

The Cougar began moving away quickly. Alex, free now from Cooper’s grasp, pressed herself up against the side window and looked back through the protective slats at Sanchez’s wrecked MRAP.

“Air support is coming,” Cooper said. “They’ll get ’em.”

“Oh, God!” Alex said.

The back of the other MRAP had started to swing open.

“They’re trying to get out! We have to go back!”

Cooper rushed to the window, then yelled to Bryant, “Turn around!”

Bryant had just started to turn the wheel, when a pickup truck with a machine gun mounted on back circled around Sanchez’s vehicle and stopped near the widening rear doorway. The gun swung around and pointed through the opening. Alex and Cooper saw flashes of gunfire as attackers flooded the interior of Sanchez’s vehicle with bullets.

Horrified, Alex pushed back from the window and grabbed at the hatch to the turret. As soon as it was open, she pulled herself up and pivoted the gun around, aiming it at the pickup.

Running on pure adrenaline, she let loose a steady burst of gunfire, riddling the truck and its occupants with holes.

When she was done, there was little of the vehicle left untouched.

* * *

A
LEX HAD BLAMED
Cooper for the deaths of their colleagues, and had requested a transfer out of their platoon, which was denied.

She had known, even then, that Cooper had given the only orders he could, and by doing so had saved her life.

But that hadn’t brought Millwood and Chambers back.

Nor had it quelled the feelings of self-doubt that had plagued her ever since.

Why hadn’t she reacted faster?

Why hadn’t Cooper let her stay just a moment longer? Long enough to get that door open and pull Millwood and Chambers to safety? And what about Sanchez and Drew and Boyd and all the others?