PRIVATE: A Military Romance Novel (Military Men Book 2) (15 page)

I headed straight for the command zone, an area our superiors were using to coordinate the rescue effort. Even in this chaos we had to make order, it was what we were trained for.

“Has anyone seen Private Kincaid?” I asked Major Laurence, the highest ranked there.

He consulted his clipboard, a list handwritten attached to it. “She hasn’t reported in yet.” He hastily scrawled my name at the bottom.

“What can I do to help?”

“We’ve got all the dogs out that we have available, they’re doing a sweep of the area. Stick close to one of those teams and help dig when they find someone.”

“Yes, sir.”

I followed the order, but the whole time my mind was focused on finding Sasha. The thought of her beautiful body being crushed under the weight of an entire building pressed heavily on my mind.

If she was there, I was going to find her. Maybe she had landed in a pocket like I had, maybe she had already climbed out but hadn’t checked in yet, or maybe she was already dead.

I needed to find her.

The dogs were picking up on the scent of humans everywhere. The moment they barked and scratched an area, we pulled away the debris until we unearthed someone.

Not all of them were alive.

More people were dead.

Every time we found a new body it took a piece of our hope away. Every time there was no life visible I prayed it wasn’t Sasha. Our last conversation couldn’t be the final one we had. I needed to tell her how I really felt, I needed her to know how much I loved her.

The day passed in the blink of an eye. All the muscles in my body screamed with fatigue and an ache that would take days to get rid of. My eyes burned from the dust in the air and my uniform clung to me like saran wrap.

There was no sign of Sasha anywhere. I’d checked with Major Laurence several times and each time he consulted his list, she still wasn’t on it. I’d been all around the site and nobody had seen her.

Lights were erected when the sun started to go down. Locals from the area had joined our search mission, desperate to find their loved ones as I was. They worked side by side with our team, talking to us in a language not all of us understood, but it didn’t matter. We were all there to help and that was all that counted.

“You should take a break,” Watson said as he drank from a water bottle. “Have you even eaten?”

I shook my head. “I need to keep going. There’s still survivors trapped. I need to find them.”

“You’ll kill yourself without having a break.”

“I need to find her. I mean, them. We need to find them, the survivors.”

“It’s Kincaid, isn’t it? There’s something going on between you.” There wasn’t a question in his statement. I didn’t know I had been so transparent. But, then again, Watson always seemed to be able to read me like a book.

There was no point in denying it. The reasons for keeping it a secret now seemed minute. “I saw her as the building came down. She hasn’t reported in yet. She’s out here somewhere and I have to find her.”

“I get it, man, I do. But you’re not going to find anything if you’re dead on your feet. Take a break.”

“I’ll break after I find her.”

Watson capped his bottle and got back to work at my side. We’d known each other long enough that he knew he couldn’t change my mind. That was how true comrades worked together.

Midnight passed, making my back ache and my head pound. Soldiers were resting in groups and then returning to relieve the next team. The hours passed by like blurs, making my search more and more desperate.

I didn’t realize so much time had passed when I caught the first glimpse of dawn as it peeked over the horizon. It would bring with it scorching heat that would only make the search more difficult.

More locals turned up in the morning, eager to do whatever they could to help. The Afghan people were kind and brave, their true nature eclipsed by the evils of the Taliban.

I refused to give up on Sasha. The dogs were still finding survivors even almost twenty-four hours after the disaster. She would be one of them soon, we would find her. I wasn’t going to give up until I found her.

Sweat dripped from my brow as the day heated up. It was almost unbearable being in the direct sunlight but it was nothing compared to what those trapped were going through. They would be worried about losing air by now, dehydrated, and scared.

I continued to dig and dig.

At thirteen hundred hours the dogs indicated they found another person. Half a dozen of us dug through the rubble, using sore and bloodied hands to pull away the concrete, metal, and glass.

It was a woman, we could see her long hair. It was brown with a strain of red mixed in. I held my breath when I realized it was just like Sasha’s. I’d ran my hands through that hair before. I’d been lost in those very strands. They were the same hairs I’d used to tip her head back before kissing her.

My hands worked faster, the pain completely gone as I pulled debris away from her. As we moved, we revealed more of her body. The patch over her left breast clearly stated ‘Kincaid’. It was her.

My heart stopped beating while I felt for a pulse. Her eyes were closed and she was unresponsive. But there was a dull thudding in her neck. She was alive, but I wasn’t sure what kind of condition she was in. A graze to her temple had covered half her head with blood, now dried and cracked.

Simon helped me carry her over to the makeshift medic tent where a nurse gave her a quick look over. “She might have a broken arm. I’ll splint it and then she will be fine to transport back to base. You can take her over to the trucks once I’m done.”

The nurse deftly secured Sasha’s arm with a pristine white sling and gave the all-clear. We carried her away and got her inside the next truck that was leaving the site. I refused to leave her side and collapsed on the floor of the vehicle. My legs were unable to keep me up any longer, the past twenty-four hours finally caught up with me.

Sasha appeared peaceful as she lay unconscious. I hoped she was dreaming of beautiful things and not reliving the nightmare of being trapped underneath a collapsed building.

She had to be okay. I’d found her and now I wasn’t going to let her go. The moment she woke up I would tell her how I felt. I wouldn’t let her be anything other than okay.

I held her head in my lap as the truck hit every pothole and bump in the road all the way back to base. A team of doctors were waiting there for the influx of new patients. They took Kincaid from me but I followed them, never letting her out of my sight.

The doctor tightly bandaged her broken arm and then cleared her, assuring me she would wake up in time. Her head wound with a dozen stitches underneath and an IV was put into her arm to rehydrate her after so many hours without water.

“I’ll put a cast on her arm when the swelling goes down. You should get some rest,” the doctor said. “Drink some water and go to bed.”

“Is that your formal diagnosis?” I asked, knowing going to bed was still a long way off for me.

“It’s common sense.” He said as he left to attend to another of the many patients still needing attention.

The base hospital wasn’t well equipped but it did know how to deal with major trauma without many resources. The stretchers lined along the walls in two straight rows. Sasha was in the corner, left to wake up in her own time.

I settled by her bed, ready to be there for as long as it would take.

It was another three and a half hours before her eyes opened. I hovered over her, desperate to hear her say she was okay before I would believe it. “Nice of you to join us,” I said. “Trust a woman to be late.”

A tiny smile quirked her lips. “You didn’t have to wait for me.”

“Yes, I did.”

Her bloodshot eyes blinked a few times before they remained open. “That was some ride.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. Out of all the words she could have used for what had happened, a ride was not on the shortlist I expected. “Yeah, it was. There were no safety harnesses though, it was a bit irresponsible. Do you need anything?”

“I’m thirsty.”

I immediately reached for the water jug and poured her a glass. She needed assistance sitting up enough to drink. I helped her lay down again. “How are you feeling?”

“Like somebody dropped a building on my head. Plus, my arm feels like it’s on fire. Otherwise, I’m okay. How about you?”

“I’m fine. It’s you I was worried about. You’ve got a broken arm.” My body and mind felt better after seeing her awake. “I was so scared I wouldn’t find you.”

“You did.”

“The dog squad helped. I can’t take all the credit for it.” We sat in silence for a few moments while she processed what had happened. Then there was no more time to wait. “I love you, Sasha. I realized just how much when I couldn’t find you.”

“I was thinking the same thing before I lost consciousness.”

“I don’t want to stay away from you.”

“Neither do I.” She closed her eyes slowly before continuing. “But we still have to. Nothing has changed since this morning.”

“Yesterday morning.”

“I was trapped for that long?”

“Yep.”

She seemed to have a hard time comprehending how long she was out for. The doctor joined us, going through all of her injuries before giving more instructions for me to get some sleep. I must have looked like hell, I sure felt it.

I stayed with her, refusing to leave her side until I was called away by Atoll. I was ready to fight him, say there was no point in telling me to stay away from Sasha because I just couldn’t do it. One day with her working on another unit and she’d almost died. Nothing could make me stop protecting her now.

When he spoke, the words were not the expected ones. “We’re all assembling in the mess hall. Get your ass down there, I need you to hear what I have to say.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

He issued the same order to another few soldiers on the way out. Only those incapable of moving were excused from the meeting.

“Will you be okay here?” I asked Sasha.

“As long you come straight back here and tell me everything that he says.”

“Will do.”

I left the hospital tent and joined the flood of soldiers heading toward the central meeting hub. The mess hall was the only place inside the base able to hold us all at one time.

Watson was leaning against the wall when I joined him. “Do you know what this is all about?”

“Nope,” Watson replied. “You?”

“Nope.”

We faced the front where a box was being used as a makeshift podium. Atoll had climbed up and was waiting for some silence. A hush fell over the room as voices were lowered.

Atoll took a deep breath before he began. “I know we’ve all had a hellish couple of days so I’m going to get straight to the point. The horror that we have experienced and all the lives that were lost was an intentional destruction of our people. We have a traitor in our midst. There is evidence to support this.”

Voices were raised again as they processed the news. It wasn’t anything that I hadn’t suspected. Making it public was a bit of a surprise but I understood what Atoll was doing. He was sending a message to the spy, telling him that now we were
all
watching him.

Atoll waved at the crowd to quieten again. “I know this news is unwelcome but I do not take treason lightly. I have evidence that indicates the bomb planted in the hospital was US Military issued. Someone here used one of our bombs to kills hundreds of people. I will find out who is responsible for this and I will throw the resources of the entire military into finding you. The dead will have justice.”

Everyone started to look around, surveying those standing by their side and wondering if it was them whom had betrayed us. Nobody was going to trust anybody now and it was a sad state of affairs when comrades had to be suspicious of their own.

When the major was finished, I pulled Watson aside. “Did you know about this?” he asked.

“I only found out a few days ago but I had my suspicions before that,” I replied somberly.

“Fuck.” I knew how he felt. “Are you sure?”

“Sure as I can be. Something happened when I was in that hospital yesterday.” I hesitated, hoping I was putting faith in the right person. Watson was one of my best friends, I trusted him with my life. I was certain he wasn’t the spy.

“What was it?” he prompted.

“When the floor was giving away in the hospital, I had good footing. I could have made it out safely if someone hadn’t pushed me into the hole.” Saying the words out loud brought the memory back. I could still feel the hands on my back from where I was pushed.

The look of shock on his face was proof enough of my faith in Watson. “Are you sure? I mean, it was chaos in there, couldn’t it have been a beam or something?”

I shook my head. “Someone tried to kill me in that hospital. I think it has to be the same person who planted the bomb and is tipping off the Taliban to every single thing we do.”

“We need to find him.”

“I completely agree.”

“I have your back, brother,” Watson declared.

“And I have yours.”

That gave me a grand total of two people that I could trust. Watson was one of them and Sasha was the other. It was a pathetic amount out of the thousands of soldiers on the base.

God help us all.

Chapter 17

Sasha

҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉

The broken arm hurt, but it didn’t sting as much as finding out there was a traitor on the base. I couldn’t help but look at people and wonder if it was them.

Whoever it was, they had done a good job of blending in. In my mind I scrolled through all the faces of every soldier I knew. They all seemed so genuine, ready to lay their lives down in the name of our country.

I had nothing to do except think about it for three straight days while I was in the hospital tent. Matt had spent every moment with me he could but that still left a lot of thinking time. Being allowed to return to my dorm was a godsend.

I’d just made it back to my bunk when Uncle Arthur caught up with me. “Ah, there you are. How are you feeling, Sasha?”