“Suffice it to say the last relationship ended poorly for the young man.” Barnwell shook his head and stood to leave, placing his empty plastic cup back in the lunch-box and snapping it shut. He was almost out the door when he turned back to Eric. “He’s stationed in Israel now and considers it much safer than here with her.”
John woke, his eyes darting around the room, his heart thudding in his chest. He tried swallowing, but his tongue was as dry as the desert outside the base. He lurched out of bed, caught his foot in the blanket, and slammed to the floor. He threw the blanket across the room, cursing, then staggered to the bathroom.
He scooped water from the sink in the palm of his hand and swallowed, spilling most of it down his chest.
Christ, what a nightmare!
He turned to the toilet and pulled down his briefs. His bladder felt near bursting, but no matter how hard he tried, he could only manage a few starts and stops of a stream. He slumped to his knees and wondered if he was going crazy.
The memories of the dream came back. He was in Denver, shooting the men. They were all there; the bartender, Fletcher, and the rest. He saw blood spray in thick gouts, a fire-hose of red.
It wasn’t like that.
The men came for him, grinning, and suddenly a pink mist exploded from the bartender’s head, then the man’s body opened as blood and organs splattered to the ground. The bartender slipped in the gore, sprawling in his own entrails.
Fletcher stumbled over the fallen man, then turned back to John, a leer on his face. John stumbled backwards and shot, bullets tearing chunks of flesh from Fletcher’s face, but still he advanced.
His heart was racing, his lungs on fire.
I’m dreaming.
Still Fletcher kept coming.
One of the young men from the bar leapt on John, bearing him to the ground, and the coppery scent of blood was thick in his nose, until the man released his bowels.
John heaved and tried to roll away, but Fletcher knelt and pinned him to the ground.
Please let me wake up!
Fletcher laughed as the rest of the men approached, smearing their blood in wide swaths across his face, rubbing it in his eyes and nose, then sticking their bloody fingers in his mouth. He gagged on the taste, all copper and salt, and felt his gorge rise.
Please wake up!
A thump, like a clap of thunder, shook the ground. Then another. The men parted and Dyer stood before him with milky eyes. He smiled and opened his mouth, his tongue waggling. “Look, boy.”
A hand gripped his head. He resisted, but the hand twisted his head until he saw a building in ruin. There were people, some sitting on chunks of concrete and some sprawled across the pavement, soaked in blood. A girl in a tattered dress stared at him, holding the remains of her left arm. A cacophony of screams filled the air.
Then, glorious silence. The building was whole again.
He felt the relief as a physical thing.
Please wake up!
Too late. The building shook and a school bus parked in front turned to shrapnel, the front of the building collapsing, bodies tossed through the air. A man franticly tried to push his intestines back in his abdomen. The man turned to him, empty eye-sockets leaking blood.
A woman lay in the rubble, her body jerking in agony, a stalk of metal protruding from her chest, the blood scarlet against her white silk shirt. She gurgled bloody spittle from her mouth.
Please!
And, like that, he was fully awake, still kneeling in front of the toilet, the cold tile floor sapping the heat from his knees.
He stumbled to the kitchenette and grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator, draining it in choking gulps. The cold water was an icy spike in his stomach, but it calmed him.
He went back to the bathroom and snapped on the light, looking in the mirror. The harsh glow cast shadows on his pale skin, his pupils dilated. His hands shook as he traced his fingertips over his face.
He would ask Eric if this was an after-effect of the adrenaline.
No, he couldn’t ask Eric. He couldn’t ask Doctor Barnwell, either. It would be recorded and placed in his file. Better to keep it to himself.
He left the light on and retrieved his blanket, damp from sweat, returning to bed.
What the fuck?
The light peeked from the gap under his door. He took comfort from that, as well as the light streaming from his bathroom. He shivered, pulling the soft blanket tightly against him as he prayed in vain for sleep.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Deion crouched on the dark rooftop, his MP4 propped up against the parapet that ringed the roof. All they had to do was hold their position without getting killed. He glanced over to Neil, clutching his rifle on the east side of the roof.
Neil was nervous. They all were. He grimaced. They had to pull together as a team or none of them would make it out alive.
Shit, I wish Steeljaw was here.
The building was nestled in a long line of single story houses, with little space to the east and west. The back opened to a narrow alley littered with trash and rubble. It was the safest area, which was why he asked Jaabir to guard it.
Truthfully, he didn’t trust Jaabir, but the young man’s life was on the line, just like theirs.
Valerie and Nancy were holed up on the first floor. He had forgotten how much he enjoyed Valerie’s company, her smile, how good she smelled, even in a shitty place like Kandahar. It angered him that she was in danger.
She was right, his cowboy shit got results, but at a high price. First his posting in Afghanistan, then Valerie as they drifted apart. No time for that now.
He focused on the mission, craning his neck to assess the street layout. The fighters would come from the north, he was sure of it. It offered the clearest path back to the main thoroughfare.
He shifted the MP4 and sighted through the ghostly light of the night vision scope, looking to the west. There was a north-bound street two houses over, and the fighters coming around the corner would enter his kill zone. Neil would do the same on the right. Nancy and Val would have to cover the same area from their windows on the first floor.
He’d parked the Toyota Helix as close as possible to the front door, blocking it, providing Valerie and Nancy a modicum of protection. He just hoped it was enough.
“Freeman? You there?”
Hot damn! “Wise? That you?”
“I’m here. Delta is inbound, just hold tight.”
Eric’s voice was calm, but Deion knew better. During Frist’s training, he learned to read Eric, and he could detect the concern in Eric’s voice. “Go skiing in Colorado? Next time, you can have Afghanistan and I’ll take Denver.”
There was a pause before Eric replied. “Denver didn’t go as hoped.”
Uh oh. “You find the caesium?”
“Still working on it,” Eric said. “Sorry I’m not there with you.”
“We need to have a serious discussion when I get back,” he said.
“Can the shit.” Nancy’s voice cut through the earpiece. “We don’t have time for it.”
“Nice to hear from you, too,” Eric said. “Can you guys do one thing? Try to not get killed.”
Deion sighed. “We’ll do our best.”
“We’ve got drone data on the screen, I see your position. You’ve got fighters coming from the north.”
“I’m on the roof, west side,” Deion said. “Neil Burch is on the east. Nancy and Valerie Simon are on the first floor. A local kid is watching the back.”