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“Commander, raise your right hand.” She felt the panic rise in her voice. He must have heard it, too. He raised his hand. She gasped, realizing that the sniper in the hills had his weapon trained on her commanding officer. She spun her body around to face this new threat and breathed hard, lining him up in her sight. She gripped her radio.
“Commander, new threat detected. Move position.”
“Give details, Red Four.”
There was no time to explain as a shot rang out from the sniper in the hill. She took aim and fired her shot immediately. The figure scrambled to its feet and ran, stumbling into the darkness of the woods beyond. She lost vision on him within seconds.
More gunfire echoed in the valley below. Voices bounced through the air, chaotic and aggressive. Before she could react, a huge explosion rocked the hills, sending a vast fireball billowing into the air. She watched it rise like a demon into the inky sky. She couldn’t catch her breath. She froze.
Captain Dean McGovern’s voice snapped her back to attention as his words echoed, loud and strong, in her ear. “Red Team, abort, abort! Fall back and regroup!”
She picked up her rifle and ran.
* * *
Dean banged the steering wheel in frustration.
“What just happened back there?” he shouted.
He looked at Cara in the rearview mirror. She sat, hunched and breathless in the backseat with a look of deep shock on her face. The jeep raced along the lane, whipping up leaves and woodland debris as it gathered speed. Dusk was settling, and the sky gave off an eerie half light, illuminating the black hills into which they fled.
He quickly slammed on the brakes as he realized he’d reached his rendezvous point. “Where are they?” he shouted, looking around anxiously, searching the hills for any sign of danger. “Gomez and Hicks should be here.”
In a flash, Sergeant Gomez darted out from the trees and ran toward the jeep. He looked like a rabbit caught in headlights. He was covered in mud and brushwood, but he kept his gun raised, pulled close to his body. Dean pushed open the door of the jeep. Gomez hurled himself onto the front seat, slamming the door behind him.
“Go!” he yelled.
“Hicks,” Dean yelled back. “Where do we pick up Hicks?”
Silence.
“Gomez, you and Hicks were paired, where’d he go?”
The sergeant stared straight ahead. “He’s gone, sir.”
“Gone?”
“He was in the direct path of the explosion.” Gomez’s voice cracked. “I couldn’t retrieve him.”
Dean gripped the wheel tight. “You sure?”
“Yes, sir, absolutely sure.”
Dean clenched his jaw and his breathing grew quick and strong. The tires squealed as he pressed the accelerator hard. “What on earth just happened there?”
He noticed Cara jump at the force of his shout.
Gomez sat back heavily in his seat, rubbing his face. He was pale. “The truck was packed with explosives. This was no weapons drop. There were two heavily armed militia soldiers in the front seats. They knew we were coming. This was a setup.”
Dean banged the wheel again. “Someone set us up?”
“There was a sniper trained on you, sir,” Cara said, clearly trying to control the tremor in her voice. “I scared him off with a shot, but he was trying to take you out.”
“Did you get a good look, Sergeant?”
“No, he was too far away.”
“Did you injure him?”
“I don’t think so.”
“So you missed?”
“No, sir, I was firing a warning shot. I wasn’t trying to hit him.”
Of course, he should’ve known. She never missed.
The jeep’s small engine whined against the speed at which Dean drove. He had to think. He needed somewhere secret, secluded. There was just one place he knew, and he wouldn’t feel safe until he got there.
He looked at Cara again through the rearview mirror.
“Sergeant Hanson, are you hurt?”
She rubbed her knee, wincing. It looked as if she’d fallen heavily through branches and thorns. Her face and hands were badly scratched.
“No, sir.”
His eyes flicked between her and the road ahead.
“This mission just got messy. You’re not trained for this kind of assignment, so it’s my job to protect you. You stay close to me, and you do what I say, when I say, understood?”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
He wasn’t convinced of the sincerity behind her standard response.
“Until we find out who tipped off Major Moore, we trust no one.”
Dean watched her closely through the mirror. She blinked slowly and seemed to be trying to steady her breathing. She took off her helmet and pulled the band from her hair, allowing it to fall loosely around her face. She put her head in her hands. He grew concerned.
“Sergeant Hanson, stay focused. I need to ditch this vehicle and acquire another. While I look for something suitable, why don’t you lead us in prayer for Sergeant Hicks? He was a good soldier and a brave man. Let’s honor him and the sacrifice he made for us today.”
Cara lifted her head and gave him a weak smile. She closed her eyes and pressed her palms together. She managed to say a few words before she slumped sideways on her seat and his heart leaped into his mouth.
He willed the jeep to go faster, in a race against time to reach a place of safety where he could tend to her wounds, whatever they may be. He knew she must be in a serious condition to succumb to total defenselessness. She was too proud and strong to let her guard down so easily. He allowed his protective instincts to come to the fore, having decided that he would do everything in his power to steer her away from danger. He suspected that she might rail against his authority, but he was adamant that she would not come to harm—not now, not ever.
TWO
Cara tried to open her eyes but they were gritty and sore. She struggled to sit up as the room spun around her. Her vision was blurred, and her head swam with memories of running wildly through branches, feeling fiery heat on her back. She could see a small window with white drapes, drawn tight against the low-lying sun. She looked down at herself. She was wearing the Lycra pants and tee that she always wore underneath her ghillie suit. But who undressed her? She was lying on a large wooden bed with blankets, next to a pine dresser on which her rifle rested, neatly in pieces as if someone had been cleaning it.
She sat bolt upright. Captain McGovern! Had she failed him? She scrambled out of bed and promptly fell, with a thud, to the floor. The door flung open and someone rushed in, picking her up and sitting her back on the bed.
“Careful, Sergeant, you’re not strong enough to be on your feet yet.”
She focused her eyes on the face before her. Yes, it was Captain McGovern and he was safe.
“What happened?” she croaked.
“You went into anaphylactic shock,” he said, pulling her legs up onto the bed and laying her back on the pillows. “You came into contact with poison ivy while in the woods. You suffered a severe reaction to it, I’m afraid. We almost lost you.”
“Where...?” Her breathing was short and shallow. “Where are we?”
“We’re in a cabin in Wyoming,” he said. “It’s my secret hideaway. No one knows about this place but me.” He smiled at her. “And now you, of course.”
She realized that this was the first time she’d seen him smile. His teeth were perfectly aligned, gleaming white against the olive hue of his skin. She saw a new gentleness in his face, and the memory of his firm, strong arms cradling her sweat-drenched body flashed into her mind. She hated being weak and out of control. But at least she didn’t mess up. Not this time. She was grateful for that.
She lay back on the pillows. “How long have I been out?”
“About twelve hours. Luckily, I keep a well-stocked medicine box here in the cabin. We managed to get you here in time and administer adrenaline and antihistamines.”
She raised her hand to her head and touched it gingerly. Everything felt puffy and swollen. Dean’s face appeared over her, concern etched into the lines and furrows. He put his hand underneath her neck and raised her head up, bringing a cool drink of water to her lips. She sipped it gratefully, allowing the coldness of the liquid to soothe her tight throat.
He gently placed her head back on the pillow. “You should have disclosed your allergy to poison ivy when you enlisted,” he said, unscrewing the top from a bottle of calamine lotion. “You must tell your superiors everything that might affect your ability to carry out a mission.”
She closed her eyes. How could she tell him that she didn’t want to divulge any frailty to the army? That she thought even a simple allergy was something she must hide from her commanding officers, along with any other imperfections in her past. She wanted him to have complete faith in her.
“I always carry an EpiPen,” she said. “But I guess it wasn’t enough to stop the attack from progressing. I know I should’ve told you about my allergy, but I’m normally very careful around poison ivy. I haven’t had a reaction like this in over ten years.”
She remembered being fourteen years old, straining to breathe, as her father carried her to the car to rush her to the hospital.
“It’s lucky I found your EpiPen on the seat beside you,” he said. “Is there anything else I should know about you? Any other allergies or weaknesses?”
He dabbed the lotion onto the blisters on her forehead. She realized that she must be puffed up like a balloon, and she didn’t want him to see her this way.
“No, sir.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, sir.”
His gaze rested on hers as he attended to her wounds. He seemed to be searching her eyes for the truth. Could he see through the facade to the ugly reality that she had watched her father die before her very eyes? And that it was her fault. It was her greatest weakness, one that would stay with her for the rest of her life.
She remained silent as he soothed her soreness and washed up in the small sink in the corner.
“Where is Gomez?” she asked, thankful to change the subject.
“Gomez is here with us. We’ve conducted a debriefing session, trying to figure out what happened out there yesterday, but you may be able to shed more light on things. We just needed to get you strong again.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Let’s cut the formalities, shall we, Hanson? Call me Dean.”
“Yes, sir.”
She managed to laugh as weariness overcame her, and she couldn’t fight the sleep that closed her swollen eyelids yet again. She watched Dean’s face fade to a blur while she drifted into slumber, and she prayed that his life would not be in danger because of her weakness. As a sniper, she had guarded many lives, but no mission had ever made her feel this protective. She didn’t know why, but she somehow felt connected with Dean, and she needed to recover so she could take her place by his side.
* * *
Dean stayed a little while as Cara slept, wanting to be sure that her breathing was steady and strong. She looked small and vulnerable, lying under the heavy woolen blankets. Looking at her face made him think of his mom, her eyes puffy and red after crying through the night. He pulled up the corner of the blanket and laid it over Cara’s exposed shoulder, making sure she was warm and comfortable underneath. Even with her swollen features and crisscross scratches on her cheeks, she was still beautiful, and he didn’t want to tear his gaze away from her.
He couldn’t shake the feeling there was something she wasn’t telling him. He knew that look in her eyes. He’d seen it too many times before. It was a haunted look that lingered behind the eyes of many soldiers in Special Forces—a look that said a thousand things about war and death.
As he watched her sleep, he wondered what she had seen to give her that same look. He thought he knew about all her combat experience from reading her dossier. Unless, he wondered. This wasn’t something she’d seen in war.
* * *
Cara splashed cold water on her face from the white sink in the corner of her room. She was drained of energy, and she gripped the edge of the basin tightly to hold herself up. The sound of male voices drifted through the thin walls. Dean’s voice was instantly recognizable, low and rumbling. She shivered. She was cold. And she was hungry. She pulled a blanket from the bed and wrapped it around her body, tucking it under her chin before opening the door of the bedroom and stepping out into the hall.
Her socks slid on the bare wooden floor as she padded down the hallway, heading for the light escaping from a crack under a door. As she approached, she heard the voices more clearly. Dean and Gomez were deep in conversation.
“All I’m saying is we have to be careful,” said Gomez. “None of us in Tenth Group ever met this woman before, and as soon as she gets assigned to our mission, we get set up. It’s quite a coincidence, don’t you think?”
“I don’t think Sergeant Hanson is a rat,” said Dean. She heard his chair scrape on the floor and the sound of his heavy footsteps on the wooden boards. She flattened her back against the wall, hiding in the shadows. She heard the faucet running and the click of a kettle. She breathed out.
“Hanson says she had a chance to take out the sniper who took a shot at you,” said Gomez. “Why’d she let him go, huh?”
“That wasn’t part of the mission objective, Gomez. She followed protocol. You can’t blame her for obeying the rules.”
“It just doesn’t add up, sir.”
“Sergeant Hanson is a good, loyal soldier. I don’t think we have any reason to mistrust her, but she certainly will compromise our situation. She’s not one of us. She’s infantry, not Special Forces, and we’ll have to keep her safe until we know what threat is out there. It’s a problem we could do without right now.”
Cara’s head fell to her chest. A problem?
“Can’t we just take her to the nearest base and leave her there?” asked Gomez.
“I need to know exactly what we’re dealing with before any of us goes back to base. Moore has already terminated Sergeant Hicks. He may have his sights set on taking us all out, especially as he’s got help on the inside.”
“So what do we do now?”
She heard Dean sigh heavily. “We find out who we can trust before we go back in. We can’t risk being set up again. I’ll make contact with Fort Carson tomorrow. For now, we keep Hanson safe and make sure she’s well enough to travel. I’ll go check on her.”
Cara froze in the hallway, eyes darting back and forth. She sprang forward and raced for her bedroom door, just managing to get her hand on the frame when the kitchen door opened, flooding the hallway with light.
“Hanson,” called Dean. “You’re awake.”
“Yes, sir.” She could not bring herself to call him by his first name. “I was just coming to find you.”
He held the door open wide. “Come sit with us. You need to eat.”
He ushered her toward the kitchen table, laden with used coffee cups and scribbled notes on pieces of paper. She sat, and a bowl of hot, chunky soup was placed in front of her. She ate eagerly, not bothering to look up or make conversation. She realized that she was famished.
When she had finished, Dean placed a mug of steaming coffee on the table and she warmed her hands on it, surprised at the way they trembled slightly.
Dean laid his hands on the table, palms down. He looked at her, unblinking, and she met his eyes, saying nothing, allowing the silence to sit uneasily between them. He seemed to be trying to read her emotions, but she did her best to give nothing away. The way he studied her face unnerved her, and she felt her guard slipping. He seemed rock solid and unshakeable, and in her debilitated state, she was irresistibly drawn to his strength. But it was a dangerous path to tread—she normally worked alone, depending on no one but herself. She couldn’t allow that to change, no matter how much her attraction to him grew.
“Gomez and I have been piecing together all the information from last night’s mission,” he said, looking at her shaking hands. “Looks like someone on the inside tipped off Major Moore and he was able to plan an attack, hoping to take out our entire unit.”
Her eyes flickered over to Gomez before asking, “Who?”
Dean shrugged his shoulders. “Operation Triton is top secret. Very few people know about it.”
Gomez eyed Cara suspiciously. “What can you tell us about the sniper in the hills?” he said.
“Not much,” said Cara. “He was a long way away.”
Dean rested his arms on the table and leaned in her direction. “What was he wearing?”
“Looked like regular clothes—jeans, sweater.” She cast her mind back. “And a red bandanna around his head. But no ghillie suit, no camouflage, no real attempt to hide properly.”
“Not a trained sniper, then?” Dean offered.
Cara shook her head. “No trained sniper would be so sloppy.”
Dean put his arms behind his head, his muscles flexing. “But his shot was good. He hit the ground right next to me. Another couple of feet and I’d be dead. It was certainly someone who can handle a rifle.” He lowered his voice before adding, “Someone like Chris Moore.”
He rose from the table and stood by the window. “Major Moore would like to see us all dead, I’m afraid. He’s fighting a war against America and all military personnel are targets.”
“With all due respect, sir,” said Gomez. “We haven’t been told anything about the terrorist organization that Moore is working for. Isn’t that a bit odd?”
“It’s highly classified,” Dean said, turning to face them. “The military wants to keep it all under wraps.”
Cara watched his face intently as it darkened. “We’re in deep now,” she said. “We need to know what we’re dealing with.”
Gomez shot her a sideways glance. “She’s right,” he said. “Whatever happens from here, we should know what we’re fighting for.”
Dean leaned back on the counter and looked between them for a few moments before speaking. “Do you remember the explosion that happened last year at Fort Bragg?”
Yeah,” Cara said, “it was a faulty munitions batch. I read the memo about it.”
Dean shook his head. “It wasn’t faulty munitions that caused the explosion. It was a bomb, planted by someone who knew the base well. It totally blindsided us. A group called the United Free Army claimed responsibility shortly afterward. That’s when we decided to put Moore undercover, infiltrate the UFA and shut it down from the inside.”
“And they managed to turn him?” said Gomez, shaking his head. “If they can turn a man like Moore they gotta be strong. He’s not a man who’d break easily.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Dean, lowering his voice. “But they got to him somehow. Maybe he saw something in their ideology. Maybe he’d had enough of fighting in wars thousands of miles from home, wars that never seem to end....” His voice trailed off.
Cara looked up into his face, sensing the rawness of his pain. Just what had stolen his friend from him and left this wide, empty void? She voiced her thoughts.
“What exactly is their ideology, sir?”
Dean cleared his throat. “Their aim is to get the military to pull out of all overseas wars. They think the government is neglecting its own people to look after foreigners abroad. Until we withdraw troops from all overseas conflicts, the UFA says that every military installation and every serving soldier is a legitimate target. The bomb at Fort Bragg is just the first.”
“How on earth did they infiltrate Fort Bragg?” Cara said. She’d only been there once, but it was the most heavily fortified base she’d seen in her life.
“Good question, Hanson,” Dean said, raising his eyebrows. “They had a man on the inside but we don’t know who. Truth is, we have no idea how many personnel they’ve turned. They actively target disgruntled and angry soldiers, usually ones fresh back from tours of Afghanistan, where they’d seen American soldiers caught up in roadside or suicide bombs.” He closed his eyes. “Or worse.”
Cara also closed her eyes, images flashing of things she had seen fitting this description. It was a subject that she knew bonded her and Dean together without question. Their experiences may not be shared, but they had a shared understanding, and no further words were needed.
“We don’t know who the inside man at Fort Bragg was,” Dean continued, “but we know he was angry enough to target his own colleagues. Four men died that day. We’re fighting a war being waged by our own men and, what’s worse, we don’t even know who they are.”
The three soldiers sat around the table in momentary silence as the enormity of Dean’s words sank in. Cara knew all about fighting in far-off places, in hot, dusty lands miles away from her beloved home soil. She never imagined she would have to defend herself against her own countrymen. The news hit her like a brick, and she renewed her conviction to do all she could to prevent any more lives being lost.
Dean sat at the head of the table, his face solemn and still. “We must remain vigilant at all times because all of us are targets. Anything suspicious needs to be reported to me immediately, any time of the day or night. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” they said in unison.
“I reckon we’d all like a hot shower,” he said, breaking into an unconvincing smile. “I’ll check the cabin is secure while you two take advantage of the hot water.”
Cara drained her coffee cup, noticing Gomez watching her from the corner of his eye. She stared at him defiantly, pulling her chin up high. He looked away and headed out the door, leaving her alone with Dean.
“How do you feel?” he asked, sitting in a chair next to her. He put his hand on top of hers. “Your swelling has subsided, but you’re shaking a little.”
“I’m fine,” she said, moving her hand and placing it in her lap. “Thank you for everything you did for me, sir. I appreciate it.”
“We have to trust each other, Hanson. And help each other.”
“Gomez doesn’t trust me.”
Dean laughed. “Don’t take it personally. Gomez trusts no one. He’s a lone wolf.”
She looked at her hands, clasped together on her knees. “I’m sorry that you feel it necessary to look after me. It’s disappointing to find out I’m not accepted as one of the team.”
A confused look fell over his face. He had grown more stubble since the start of the mission, and his face looked broader and darker.
She brought her face up to meet his. “I don’t want to be a problem.”
He narrowed his eyes as realization dawned.
“You were listening to my conversation with Gomez?”
“Yes.”
He sighed. “Special Forces don’t usually fight alongside regular infantry soldiers on these top-secret assignments. This mission has taken a very dangerous turn and, as your commanding officer, it’s my job to keep you safe.”
She lifted her head high. “Are you sure you want to keep me safe because I’m infantry and not because I’m a woman?”
He ran his hands through his hair. She knew it was a sign of frustration.
“Your mission brief was to terminate a target. Period. We didn’t expect it to turn into guerrilla warfare. This is not your war, Hanson. This kind of dirty war is best left to the experts.”
She decided she would read between the lines. “Best left to the men, you mean?”
His eyes locked on hers and he stared at her with such strength that she felt her toes curling.
“Don’t start making assumptions about what I mean,” he said defensively. “Your job is to take orders, not challenge them.”
Her anger started to slowly simmer beneath her skin. She felt as if he were dismissing her, preventing her from playing her part in protecting those around her. She rose from the table and started to walk toward the door.
“I should know my place, huh?” she muttered under her breath.
Suddenly, he was there, in front of her, standing so close that his huge frame dwarfed her own. He was breathing hard. She saw his nostrils flare as his chest rose and fell.