Текст книги "Hard Beat"
Автор книги: K. Bromberg
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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 23 страниц)
Chapter 20
The scent of destruction is one you never forget and one you can recognize at the first whiff. It also helped that for the hour-long ride to the village, we could hear the F/A 18 fighter jets overhead followed minutes later by the squelch of the radio and then Sarge relaying to us that a direct hit was made.
Sitting in the back of the armed transport carrier in the dim light, one thigh pressed against Beaux’s and the other against Rosco’s, I could feel that buzz humming through me, that rush that had been missing while I sat for hours on end in the hotel, watching the insects fly in endless circles around the lobby.
As the rocky terrain jostled us around, our combat helmets hit the metal of the transport behind us more times than we cared to count, but that only amplified the anticipation of what was going to greet us when we got our boots on the ground. Being packed like sardines in the Stryker, shoulder to shoulder, made it impossible to turn and meet Beaux’s eyes, to make sure she was okay without speaking aloud and giving away that I might care a little more than I should about my colleague. But I tried to ascertain her comfort level in other ways. With my hands flat on my thighs, I ever so subtly moved my pinkie finger to brush over the edge of where our thighs met. Just enough to let her know I was there, next to her, looking out for her.
But that was all I could do. The words I wanted, no, needed, to say, were lost for now in a lack of opportunity between when Pauly interrupted us and we were forced to slip out of the hotel on the sly, to the crazy cab ride where Beaux was stuck giving turn-by-turn directions to the driver in Dari until we arrived at the meeting location. Surrounded by soldiers geared and amped up on the adrenaline of the big raid stretched out before them, their excitement was palpable. In order to do our job, Beaux and I both needed to be in the right mind-set.
I never got the chance to tell her: either the moment was not perfect enough, my timing was off, or my courage gave way due to other circumstances.
Once we start making our way on foot to the bombing sites, the click of Beaux’s shutter accompanies the background noise of the soldiers’ boots crunching over cobbled streets, and the intermittent conversations between stern voices in English and confused villagers speaking in Dari to the American soldiers. The air feels thick with dust, plus the smell of nitrates and the scent of fire grows with each step we take closer to the epicenter of the bombing campaign.
Although I’m making mental notes as we walk so that I can commit things to memory, I also keep my ear attentive to the conversations Sarge is having a few steps in front of me. In between commanding soldiers to clear houses, check for hostile or retaliatory activity, and to hurry to the main site to help where the SEALs have already moved in and are looking for intel that might be left over, he’s also talking to commanders looking at the scene through drones flying overhead and discussing mission success.
“The situation seems stable,” I can hear him say to his next in command, “but this isn’t a friendly zone. I want you guys clearing houses. I want all military-age males in the village square so that we can make sure we have any threats contained until we clear out.”
My eyes wander as we walk. The many women I see peering through windows, eyes shaded by their burkas, make me wonder what they are thinking right now. Do they look at the uniforms of our armed forces and think savior or enemy? Their eyes express nothing. Barefoot little boys sit on thresholds, eyes wide as saucers with both fear and curiosity as they watch the brigade of desert camo uniforms stomp through their town. A constant keening sound has become white noise to my ears, but I can see women and kids bent over at the waist in certain courtyards, mourning whomever they think they’ve lost. I force myself to put up my fourth wall, shut my own emotion off so that I can report objectively and not be affected by the sights and sounds of devastation around me as best as I can. It’s not as easy as it looks, but I know Beaux is documenting everything: the emotional destruction in candid shots now, and then the physical destruction for Worldwide when we reach the epicenter.
I glance over at her as we walk, taking in her hair braided down her back beneath the helmet, camera bag slung over her shoulder and Kevlar vest, and the black Canon an extension of her hand as she snaps the shutter over and over, changing the angle to get a new shot every few clicks. She must feel the heat of my stare because she lowers the camera momentarily, her vibrant green eyes meet mine, and a soft smile forms on her lips.
The thought flickers in my mind again how she is this little piece of Heaven in this land full of Hell.
“Remember the rules,” I tell her, which earns me an even bigger smile.
“Yes, Mr. I’m-in-control,” she teases, adding a little bit of lightheartedness to this oppressive atmosphere. “I won’t leave your side. I’ll listen to you. I won’t leave your side, and I won’t leave your side. Satisfied?” She shrugs, her smile turning into a lopsided smirk as she raises the camera again.
“Smart-ass,” I murmur, although I feel a tad bit better hearing that she knows how important it is not to wander off.
“You wouldn’t know what to do with me if I was any different,” she fires back, causing me to just shake my head.
When I move to adjust my backpack, the weight of all of my reporting gear heavy enough to cause discomfort, I can’t help but think how Pauly’s going to kick my ass for once again getting the story first. I’m sure the other news agencies will be here inside of sixty minutes of my first report due to travel time. No doubt some are already en route, sniffing their way here after hearing the Hornets overhead and subsequent explosions.
But we got here first, and I can’t wait to get set up and go live. I have Rafe on standby waiting to patch me in.
My mind wanders to Omid and how his intel was wrong. I wonder whether he was protecting me or playing me for the opposition, except I can’t give it much more thought once the edge of the bomb zone comes into view. Beaux and her camera are back in action as we step into the scene of destruction, the steady sound of the shutter click a reassurance because when I hear it, I know she’s okay.
Piles of concrete rubble with trickles of smoke ascending from them lie before me. American soldiers comb through the piles, putting items I can’t quite make out into sacks to bring back to base and turn over to the CIA. Black bags are laid out here and there to signify deceased victims who appear to be high-value targets waiting to be DNA tested and identified. Such a mechanical set of procedures for the manmade loss of life.
And no matter how many years I’ve been on the job, how many scenes like this I’ve come to report on, I’ve never gotten used to the sight or the scent of lost lives. Quickly, I turn to look toward Beaux, to make sure that she’s okay; she doesn’t have many situations like this under her belt, and I know how tough it can be to process it all. She stands a few feet beside me, camera up to her cheek as her shield to make the reality seem far away even though, in all irony, it brings her closer to the destruction.
She seems as fine as one can be under these circumstances, so I turn my focus back on Sarge’s communications, all the while getting more perspective on the enormity of the operation. I begin to work out the wording of my report in my head, ears tuned in to Sarge’s voice and Beaux’s shutter, and eyes darting at the debris field stretched out in front of me.
I collect as much information as possible – the destruction of buildings, the emotional devastation on civilians, gauge the hostility versus the willingness to help the soldiers, anything and everything to add to my report and allow the viewer to understand the magnitude and importance of this campaign. I take it all in, filter through the things I have to be vague on now and details to clear with Sarge later before I can give an in-depth report. All that matters is I find a place to set up right now, get the feed up live, and file a story before anyone else gets here.
So you’re the one.
I chuckle to myself, my mind flashing back to the first night I met Beaux and the comment she made that’s never been more true than right now. Yep, I’m the one that every reporter hates and wants to be all at the same time. I find a setup that I think will work to report from just as loud shouts break out across the square. Soldiers are physically coercing three men from a house who are not cooperating. The soldiers have their guns drawn on the locals as shouting escalates from both sides, hands gesticulating wildly to try and bridge the language barrier in an attempt to mediate an already volatile situation.
“Thomas?”
I look up to find Rosco bearing down on me. “Yeah?”
“We know it’s not your first rodeo, but Sarge wants to make sure you’re vague. No location. No confirmed hits on high-value targets. No —”
“I know the routine, Rosco. I’ll play by the rules,” I confirm, irritated he’s even saying anything as I look back down to my computer to finish setting up my connections.
It’s a split second that lasts a lifetime for me. So many things happen simultaneously, but at the same time feel like they are their own individual moments: I swear I hear “BJ” called somewhere behind me at the same moment I realize the constant comforting click of Beaux’s shutter is gone. I snap my head up just as Rosco’s eyes widen at something over my shoulder.
And I know in an instant that it’s something to do with Beaux. That gut instinct I’ve spent my career honing picks up on something, and my heart plummets to my feet.
“Beaux!”
We both call her name as I whirl around to make out what he’s seeing. She doesn’t hear us, too damn preoccupied with her camera in one hand and that big heart of hers that she wears on her sleeve. She’s walking toward a dog lamed by something wrapped around his hind quarters. He whimpers, tries to walk, and stumbles.
Everything clicks into place at once for me. Snapshots that play together to show what’s about to happen minus the sound of her shutter.
Pure, unfettered terror steals my voice as I move on instinct – fight-or-flight – and knock everything over, my only thought to get to Beaux.
Rosco’s shout rings through the chaos around us and adds to the riot of fear screaming in my own head.
Beaux stops a few feet from the dog before her body jerks at the absolute commanding terror in Rosco and my voices even though I swear no sound even came out of my mouth.
Her face. I know before anything further happens that the look on her face will forever be scarred in my mind. At first it’s confusion, parted lips, widened eyes, as she ever so slowly lowers her camera.
One second. All it takes is a split second for the confusion to morph into a perfect visual of her panic-stricken fear that is like a vise grip on my heart.
My feet feel like they are wading through concrete, legs seizing up and not moving nearly fast enough to get to her.
She drops her camera. I don’t know why I focus on that, the sight of it falling and then stopping and recoiling back up like a bungee jumper when the strap around her neck loses slack.
Her body contorts, arms pumping, legs pushing, eyes locked on mine pleading with me in an apology I never want to accept.
C’mon, rookie, I call to her silently, urge her, beg her to put as much distance between herself and the dog caught in the improvised explosive device.
C’mon, baby.
The explosion rocks me to the core. The earth beneath my feet is nonexistent as I’m thrown into a spin cycle of smoke and sound and the complete unknown before my shoulders end up finding the ground again.
I’m stunned, shell-shocked, paralyzed. Unable to speak, can’t think, can’t hear anything except for a high-pitched ringing in my ears, and I am terrified to see.
Beaux?
Beaux.
Beaux!
My mind screams with fear; the horrific images of war in my memory mix with the thought of Beaux producing visuals I don’t want: her small body impossibly contorted, soft skin marred, long hair matted with blood. I hear the sound of Stella screaming in pain, but I’d swear it’s Beaux’s voice this time around.
Then the pain that radiates throughout my body and the sensation of my skull feeling like it’s beneath the wheel of a car rolling at an excruciatingly slow pace drown out everything else.
So you’re the one, huh?
Panic ricochets, and my head swims in a viscous haze that grows thicker by the second. My body is so heavy, and all I want to do is roll onto my stomach and crawl to find her. But I can’t move, can’t think beyond the dust and particles raining down around me, the staggering scent I winced at earlier now becoming a part of me.
“Tanner! Tanner!”
Voices shout from every direction, hands touch me and minister to my injuries and wave in front of my eyes. Sarge and Rosco and a soldier. A medic, I think. But I don’t know anything for certain because my focus wanes, fades to black momentarily before coming back, a little fuzzier, a lot more confused.
I don’t know much, can’t make anything I see stay still, but I do know one thing: There are people around me, trying to help me – everyone but the one I want to see there the most.
Bubbles. I close my eyes, my head feeling adrift like the bubbles we were blowing last night. Was it last night? I can’t pinpoint anything because I’m fading. Slowly. I welcome it because when it pulls me under, the pain stops momentarily.
“He’s in shock!” someone I can’t focus on shouts over the deafening ring in my ears.
Well, no shit. The observation is so odd that I want to laugh, want to tell them to stop looking at me and get to Beaux. She was closer. She was closer.
I couldn’t get to her.
I couldn’t save her.
Beaux.
My world spins, blackness seeping into the fringes of my consciousness and bleeding from the edges in, closer and closer, darker and darker.
Until there is nothing left.
Beaux.
You promised you’d always come back to me.
Chapter 21
I struggle to swim above the water. I claw my way to just beneath the surface with lungs burning, the sky in sight, only to be yanked back down. And I struggle against it less and less because when I’m swallowed by the darkness again, I can go back to the rooftop with Beaux, blowing bubbles, making love. It’s so much easier to be here in the warmth of the hot sun and the sweet taste of her kiss than to endure the ache in my head when I try to open my eyes.
I can’t keep track of how many times I resurface, but the penlight in my eyes and the cool burn of something like ice being injected into the top of my hand are annoying enough that I promise next time I’ll wake up.
Next time.
But then the minute I’m firmly ensconced back in the depths of my subconscious, the look on Beaux’s face as she realized what was happening flashes before me.
I never told her I loved her. It’s on constant refrain in my mind when I come to and the only thing I know for sure before the darkness steals my thoughts from me once again.
The void of sound and pain is so soothing that when I reach the surface the next time, the beeping that’s muffled in my ears confuses me for a moment. The bright light that hits my eyes as I break free from the weight of the water holding me down causes me to squint and then blink rapidly as I try to focus on the room around me.
“Tanner? Can you hear me, Tanner?”
I feel like I’m on the wrong end of a megaphone, sound siphoned through a pinhole, but at least the roaring pain in my head has dulled to a nagging ache behind my eyes and at the base of my skull. My eyelids are heavy, wanting to droop back down, but between my name being called again and my sudden awareness of everything, I force my eyes open as confusion gives way to worry.
And dread.
“Beaux. Where’s…?” My voice breaks as I try to make the question sound as urgent as it is in my head, but I know at best I sound groggy.
Patient brown eyes assess me as I look around and place myself in the military combat hospital on the forward operating base. “Tanner, do you know where you are?” I start to nod and stop immediately as the pain radiates through my head. “Don’t move. The pain will ebb slowly. You took a pretty big hit to the head. Have a slight concussion. So much better than we’d expect with the blow we were told you took,” he says as he writes something down on the chart in his hand. “You’re a lucky man. We gave you some sedatives to allow your brain to rest for a bit, so it may feel like you’re having a hard time waking up.”
I don’t care about me, I want to yell. How is Beaux? Where is she? Tell me she’s okay!
“You’ve been here a little over a day with a concussion and some minor scrapes and stitches. You’re likely to be sore with how close you were to the blast zone, but you’re lucky those are your only injuries.”
I try to process that I’ve been here over a day. At least twenty-four hours. A lot can happen in twenty-four hours. And while his words are delivered in a soothing Southern accent, they make me even more upset because if I’m lucky and I was that close to the epicenter, what the fuck does that mean for Beaux? Emotions riot through me, so many of them that I can’t pinpoint one to grab and hold on to other than my need to know that she’s all right.
“Where is she?” I ask, trying to sit up. All I can focus on through the stabbing pain in my head from my sudden movement is that I need to see her.
“Whoa! Lie back down, Tanner,” he says with his hands on my shoulders, pressing me back down as I continue to resist, unable to accept that he’s not answering me. “You need rest.”
“No, I need to know where she is.” It feels like I’m asking for the umpteenth time and this only adds more panic to the fear lying deep down in the darkness I just broke free from. The one I think I intentionally left behind because it can’t be true; she can’t be dead.
And when the actual thought crosses my mind, when I allow myself to think the worst for the first time instead of wrestling against it, all of my fight leaves me. I let the doctor push me back to the pillow as I search the expression on his face and his eyes that won’t meet mine for the answer I most fear.
“Tanner!” Sarge’s voice booms into the empty space, and the relief in his voice and concern in his eyes are a dead giveaway of how serious the situation is. “Doc told me you were coming around, so —”
“Where’s Beaux?” I demand, not caring or wanting to talk about myself. The fact that his steps falter gives me enough of an answer.
“She took a big hit,” he says softly. The man I’ve always known to have a stiff upper lip doesn’t have one right now. That doesn’t sit well with me.
“Where is she?” I grit out, wanting to shake him and tell him to tell me something I don’t already know. I may feel like I’ve been knocked around by a baseball bat to the back of the head, but I’m not stupid, I know stalling when I see it, and I don’t think he gets that internally I’ve been shredded to pieces waiting for an answer.
“She’s on her way to Landstuhl,” he says, voice quiet, tone grave.
I hang my head for a moment and close my eyes as I absorb his answer. The single comment brings me unfathomable relief because God, yes, she’s alive and then uncontrollable fear, because if she’s on her way to the largest military medical center outside of the United States, then she’s most likely critical. The U.S. military doesn’t just fly people there for scrapes and bruises. Let alone nonmilitary personnel.
The air whooshes from my lungs from the elephant-sized amount of pressure sitting on it. I try to process the situation, come to terms with possibilities I don’t want to face again.
“Get me on a plane to Germany.” As I make the demand, I start to rip leads off from under my hospital gown, making the machines around me beep with obnoxious warnings. The doctor whose name I don’t even know yet steps forward and tries to stop me. Despite the pounding in my head and how my muscles feel like I just went a hundred rounds in the gym, I grip his biceps and hold him at arm’s length. By now I’m running on pure adrenaline.
“We need to monitor you, sir. You —”
“I’m alive, right? That’s all you need to know.” I dismiss the doctor without a further thought, loosening my grip on him before I turn my eyes back to Sarge. “How is she?”
He visibly works a swallow down his throat. “You guys are lucky you were wearing armor.”
“That’s not telling me shit, Sarge.” No one can mistake the warning tone in my voice.
“She’s critical. Unconscious. A few broken bones. They were mostly concerned about brain injuries at first, but after a few scary moments, they got her stabilized here before putting her on a transport to LRMC.”
I hang on to the few positive words I can, hold them close to my vest, and don’t let go. “You said stable.”
“No, I said she was critical but stable,” he says as I stare at him, my jaw clenched and heart racing as I try to figure out what exactly that means.
“We were concerned about the possibility of a traumatic brain injury at first. Her brain was swelling from taking the brunt of the blast. We got her broken arm taken care of, wrapped up her ribs, took some scans of her head, and once we saw the pressure inside was ebbing off, we opted to transport her to Landstuhl where they can give her the treatment she might need since we’re limited in our capacity here.”
I try to wrap my head around the one term that scares the fuck out of me. “Brain injury?” I swear my voice sounds like I’m scraping it from the back of my throat; it’s that difficult to find the words.
“Yes, but that can refer to many things, so let’s hold off on jumping to conclusions. She was responsive to stimuli, which is huge, and the swelling stopped, so that’s the biggest positive. We were just concerned about a few things and thought we’d better be safe than sorry, put in a request to send her off, and got the okay, so we did.”
There’s an iota of relief from the constant worry that floods me, but it does nothing to abate my need to see her, hold her hand, breathe in the same air as her. “Thank you,” I whisper with an acknowledging nod, “and I’m sorry about…” The doctor waves his hand in a never-mind gesture in regard to my apology for how I struggled against him.
When I eye Sarge again, the look on his face says he already knows I’m not going to back down. “Tell me you’ve got some way to get me to her or else give me a goddamn phone so that I can manage it.”
A war of wills happens between us before his eyes flicker over toward the doctor and then back toward me. “I’ll see what I can do, but I’m not doing shit until the doc clears you to leave.” Then Sarge and the doc meet each other’s eyes in a silent agreement. They’d better not be fucking with me right now or I’ll walk out of this sterile prison on my own accord and get to her any way I can. I have to see her. It’s the only way I think I’ll be able to stop this ache in my chest that has nothing to do with the blast.
“You’ve got twenty-four hours to get me there,” I demand even though I know I don’t have a single leg to stand on. I’m not military personnel. He is under no obligation to get me to Germany to see her, and yet I feel so fucking helpless right now that I do the only thing I can: boss him around with the hope that it will work.
“You need to rest now,” the doctor says as he looks up from his clipboard, the stern warning reinforced by the look in his eyes. Shit, now that I know Sarge is going to work on getting me to Beaux, that she’s currently stable, I realize just how fucking much my head is pounding.
So I let my head fall back against the pillow and inhale a deep breath as I close my eyes. I instantly feel better without the bright light of the room, but my mind still wanders.
Still worries.
Still relives that look on her face as she ran toward me, knowing I wasn’t going to make it to save her in time.
