Karen Foley – Heat of the Moment (страница 3)

“Goddamn! We’re under attack!” Sgt. Martinez screamed.

“Pull over, pull over!”

He wrenched the wheel hard to the right, dragging the vehicle to a shuddering stop. Behind them, the convoy split into two lines, one on either side of the road, even as a second rocket-propelled grenade streaked out of the orchard and struck the supply truck directly in front of them, flipping the vehicle onto its side and sending molten fragments of metal high into the air.

Almost simultaneously, Holly heard the unmistakable spit of small arms fire, and realized they were being attacked from both sides of the road. Glancing through the passenger window, she saw that insurgents were firing at them from the orchard on one side, and a crudely dug trench on the other. Their forward position in the convoy made them a vulnerable target.

“We’ve got to get out of the truck,” she gasped, and reached for her door handle.

Martinez looked at her in horror. “Are you kidding? It’s not safe. We’ll be killed out there!”

“It’s not safe here,” Holly insisted hotly. “We’re directly in the kill zone! We stand a better chance if we move toward the rear vehicles.”

The other soldier blanched, his dark eyes expressing his fear. “I’m a supply clerk. I’m not trained for combat!”

“You’re a soldier,” Holly said grimly, pushing down her own rising fear. “You’ve been trained for this, and you can do it. Now move! That’s an order!”

Opening her door, Holly used it as a shield to survey her surroundings. The air was heavy and acrid with the stench of burning fuel and scorched metal. On the road behind her, the gun trucks were spraying both the trees and the trench with automatic gunfire. They’d formed two columns of vehicles on either side of the road, turning the road itself into a safe zone of sorts. Still, there were twenty yards of open space between Holly and that protected corridor, in which she and Sgt. Martinez would be completely vulnerable.

The noise of the battle was deafening, but Holly scarcely heard anything over the roar of her own frantic heartbeat. Shane was on top of one of those gun trucks. Her heart clenched hard at the thought of anything happening to him. In the next instant she reminded herself that he was a seasoned soldier—a hardened Marine. He’d been doing this for eight years and he could take care of himself. Her only concern now was to get herself and her supply clerk to safety.

She motioned for Martinez. “Stay low,” she commanded.

Without waiting to see if he obeyed her, Holly crouched down and began working her way to the rear of the truck, keeping her weapon raised as she scanned the trees to her right, looking for any signs of movement. She blinked hard, peering through the thick smoke, and forced herself to move forward one step at a time. Her hands were slick on the assault rifle she carried and for a moment the only thing she heard was her own breathing, rapid and shallow. She forced herself to take several deep breaths and concentrated firmly on her goal.

If she and the sergeant could reach the other trucks, she knew they would be safe. Behind her, another explosion rent the air and the force of the blast threw her forward onto the ground. Martinez plowed into her back, and for a moment the two of them lay sprawled in the dirt, stunned.

Sgt. Martinez recovered first, rolling to his knees and dragging Holly upward. “Move, damn it!” he shouted. “Move!”

Glancing over her shoulder, Holly saw it was the engine compartment of their own truck that had been hit. The cab where they had been sitting just moments before was fully engulfed in flames. She scrambled to her feet and made her way to the next truck, and then the next, until a movement from the trees to her right made her stop and swing her weapon around, ready to open fire if she needed to. Glancing back, she saw that Martinez was still two trucks behind her, crouched in a combat-ready position with his weapon raised and directed at the trees.

Refocusing her attention on where she had seen movement, she cautiously crept forward, sweeping her rifle along the tree line as she went. Whatever movement she thought she had seen was gone, and she prepared to run the short span of open space between two trucks. Then she stopped short.

“Ohmigod,” she breathed.

She couldn’t believe what she saw; Shane Rafferty, swinging down from the top of his gun truck, his gaze fixed grimly on her as he made a beeline directly through the line of fire toward her position. He gestured wildly back toward her truck, but Holly couldn’t tell if he wanted her to be aware of the fire and move away from it, or run back toward it. She shook her head, not understanding.

Through the haze, Holly could see his eyes blazing at her. He yelled something to her and gestured again, but his words were lost beneath the sound of explosives. Holly stayed glued to where she stood, unable to tell where the precise threat came from amidst so much chaos. Shane held his own weapon low and strafed the orchard with gunfire as he ran. And just when Holly thought he might actually make it across the open space to her side, it happened.

The bullet hit him in the left leg, just below his knee. Shane staggered, his face expressing surprise. He managed to take three more steps before his leg buckled and he went down. Even then, he didn’t stop but began doggedly working his way across the ground toward her.

Holly found herself running toward him before she was aware that her feet were moving. Shane was no longer watching her, but was staring at something behind her, his expression one of dismay. He shouted something unintelligible, and Holly felt a hard slap against her shoulder, spinning her sideways and causing her to stumble. She scarcely had time to register what had happened, when an explosion rocked the ground, lifting her off her feet and sending her sprawling onto her back. For an instant, she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.

Couldn’t comprehend that the unthinkable had happened.

Had it been a grenade, or a IED? Slowly, she lifted her head and made a mental inventory of her injuries. Her back ached, and the exposed skin of her face and neck had been sandblasted by the dirt that had been flung up from the explosion. Her ears were ringing and the ground seemed to tilt beneath her. From the convoy, she saw another soldier had taken control of Shane’s gun and was spraying the orchard with a constant barrage of fire. Through the swirling dust and settling debris, she could just make out Shane’s prone body lying on the ground.

Holly became aware of a fierce burning sensation in her arm and glanced down, noting the darkening stain on the camouflage of her sleeve. Her left arm hung at an awkward angle and when she probed the area, raw pain sliced through her. Her hand came away covered with blood. She’d been hit, and from the total weakness in her arm, she knew the bone was broken. Cradling the injured arm against her side, she pushed herself to her feet and staggered over to Shane. He lay face down in the dirt and even when she saw the trickle of dark blood seeping into the ground beneath him, she refused to believe he might be dead.

“Please, God,” she breathed. Just let him live and I promise I won’t ask for anything more. Just let him live. Let him live.

Holly had heard about the effects of adrenaline giving people unnatural and amazing strength during high-stress situations, but she’d never experienced it until that moment. Reaching down, she hauled on the straps of Shane’s vest with her good hand and dragged him toward the trucks, digging her heels in and managing to move him across thirty feet of open ground with seemingly little effort.

Only when she had reached the safety of the trucks did two soldiers and a medic come forward to help her, lifting Shane’s body and carrying him to the rear of the convoy. With Shane out of harm’s way, Holly realized she was panting and light-headed and soaked with sweat. A fourth soldier caught her as she staggered, and supported her weight as he hustled her to a secure spot behind a truck and lowered her to a sitting position against one of its enormous tires.

She strained for a glimpse of Shane, stretched out on the dirt road as the medics worked on him. Around her, the sounds of battle continued. The world spun dizzyingly and Holly dropped her head to her knees, dragging in great gulps of air. Fear consumed her, so intense that she was certain her heart would stop beating. Her stomach twisted in a sickening knot. She didn’t know what she would do if Shane died. The very thought made her go weak. Blackness fluttered at the edge of her vision, and she was only vaguely aware of sliding sideways onto the ground…and then she knew nothing more.

SHE WAS HAVING the dream again, but this time it seemed so real…she could actually feel Shane’s hands on her, unbuttoning her shirt and exposing her skin to the cool air. His fingers brushed over her flesh, causing a thrill of awareness to shoot through her. She moaned softly and arched upward, seeking more of the delicious contact. She’d wanted this for so many years and now here he was, touching her, and even if it was only a dream, Holly didn’t want to miss a second of it.