Lindsay McKenna – Down Range (страница 13)

“Ah, we’re going hajji,” Morgan teased Reza, taking the black wool cape, brown vest and black turban. They were large enough to fit over all her gear. Going hajji was slang the operators used when they wore Afghan clothing. It would help them fade into the population, harder for the Taliban to spot them at a distance.

Reza put his hands on his hips, critically assessing them. He went over to Morgan and adjusted the black turban covering most of her red hair. Along with it was a woven blue-and-white Shemagh scarf, identifying her as a Shinwari tribesman, which she would wear over her lower face so she couldn’t be recognized so easily as a woman by the enemy. “A man would wear the turban like this….” He grinned in apology as he tweaked how it was to sit properly on her head.

Morgan nodded and thanked him. Jake definitely looked like an Afghan. His beard was well started and the dark brown color of the rolled cap on his black hair would fool everyone. Reza checked him out carefully. He arranged the vest a little more across Jake’s powerful chest. Probably trying to hide it, Morgan thought.

“You pass inspection,” Reza told them. He pointed to the packhorse. “We go undercover, Wajiha. If the enemy sees us through their binoculars, we look like a family selling shoes.” He tapped the tarp, a black silhouette of a shoe that had been painstakingly hand painted on the material. It had his name above it, announcing he was a cobbler. “They will think we repair and sell shoes, going from one village to another.”

“Brilliant,” Morgan said. Reza had been a cobbler all his life. And he regularly rode from one end of this valley to the other, stopping at each village along the way once a month. In the winter, he remained home and fashioned shoes and boots he would sell to villages the following spring.

Morgan checked the tightness of the cinch on her fourteen-hand-high horse. Everything seemed okay, and she mounted and arranged the long, draping cape and vest that would hide her uniform and her pistol. Over her left shoulder, she carried an AK-47 in a sling so it was readily available if she needed the weapon. The disguise wasn’t perfect, but it would fool the enemy at a distance. “Let’s go,” Reza said. “We have twenty miles to reach the first village.”

Jake mounted, grimacing. He hated these wooden saddles. The Special Forces guys rode them all the time. They had scarred asses, too. He shoved some of his wool cape beneath the saddle to give him some added padding and protection.

“God, I don’t think I’ll be able to dismount by the time we get there,” Jake groaned. He heard Morgan’s husky laugh. She seemed very comfortable in her leather saddle, back straight, shoulders squared, riding like someone who had done it all her life.

“Don’t worry,” Morgan said, chuckling. “I’ll haul your sorry ass off that saddle tonight.”

Jake grimaced as they started out at a leisurely walk beside one another. “Hey, this isn’t funny. The last time I had to ride in one of these damn torture traps, I got a nail puncture right there.” He jabbed a finger at his right cheek.

“Oh,” Morgan said, trying to look serious, “did you have your tetanus shot updated before we left Hawaii?” She saw Jake grin a little. She enjoyed the unexpected camaraderie. Who else got nail wounds in their butt? No Purple Hearts were given out for them, either.

“Yeah, I got another shot, plus a round of antibiotics for my ruck. I also got rid of that damn saddle I had to ride last year and traded it in for a better-made one. Cost me five hundred U.S. dollars from an Afghan horse trader, but it was worth it. I should have held on to it.”

Morgan laughed and then relaxed as they rode. She was back into swiveling her head, paying attention to the least little thing that seemed to be out of place, and she constantly perused the dirt road for any suspicious IEDs or wires that might have been strung across it to kill them.

Morgan felt at home, in a way. Pressing her hand to the pocket on her Kevlar vest beneath the Afghan clothes, she felt the one photo she hadn’t shown Reza. She always carried a photo of her daughter, Emma. Maybe later, when they were alone and Jake wasn’t around, she would share it with her dear Afghan friend. There wouldn’t be many opportunities because a sniper team was joined at the hip.

That night, in the first village, they spent it out in a goat barn. Jake hated the odor. There were no windows in the building, and the potent goat-dung odor was choking him, making his eyes water. He wanted to go outside, but Morgan cautioned against it. Reza was sleeping just outside the door of the mud building, their horses’ lead ropes tied to his ankle, snoring away.

Jake sat up on his bedroll, cursing softly. Morgan was six feet away, sleeping near the door. “How the hell can you sleep in this stink?”

Drowsily, Morgan opened her eyes. “Ramsey, shut the hell up, will you? I’m whipped. Isn’t your ass tired enough to fall asleep?”

Jake sat up, scowling. The goats were all lying down, crowded next to one another in a small, wooden corral a few feet away from him. One bleated at him. He never took off his boots, but he had laid his Kevlar vest next to his rifle in case he needed them. “Hell, no!”

“Gawd,” Morgan mumbled, rubbing her face. “We’ve got friggin’ jet lag, we haven’t slept in twenty-four hours and you’re wide-awake. If you’re going to bitch all night, get out of here. Go sleep outside with Reza.”

Amazed she could handle the foul, intense odor, Jake got up, jerked his sleeping bag off the dirt floor and muttered, “I’ll do that.” He headed for the door. He could barely see Morgan, milky slats of the full moon leaking light into the barn.

“You need to stay in here,” she growled, throwing out her hand and grabbing his lower pant leg so he couldn’t leave. “You know better, Jake. Now, get a grip, will you?”

He halted, her hand strong on his pant leg. Looking down, he snorted. “I’ll die of asphyxiation by dawn if I don’t get out of this hellhole. Then you’d feel guilty.”

“Oh, stop the drama, Jake. Sit down. We’ll talk. Maybe that will make you drowsy. Once you’re asleep, you won’t smell this crap.” She jerked twice on his pant leg. “Sit!”

After he dropped his sleeping bag next to hers, Jake walked over and picked up his rifle and Kevlar. Placing them near his head, he lay down. Morgan was six inches away. He swore he could feel her body heat. He placed his hands behind his head and muttered, “This sucks.”

“What a whiny baby,” she grunted, sitting there cross-legged, looking down at him. Jake’s face was deeply shadowed, but she could see those icy gray eyes and saw he was really upset. “I thought you’d be griping about your ass, not the goat smell in here.”

Mouth quirking, Jake enjoyed looking over at Morgan. The moonlight was soft. He could barely see the freckles sprinkled across her cheeks. “My butt aches like hell, but who’s going to listen to me bitch about that? And—” he raised one brow, his voice deepening “—just for the record, SEALs don’t whine.”

Morgan shook her head. “I swear. A man can be eighty years old and still be a sulky fourteen-year-old teenager when he wants to be.”

“I’m not sulking.”

“Are you going to be like this the rest of this mission, Ramsey?”

There was a teasing glint in her eyes. Her mouth was soft and relaxed, more like her old, feisty self. Had Morgan rebounded from the emotional meat grinder he’d put her through in Hawaii?

On the flight here, Jake had run out of options on how to try to atone for his past behavior. His way of helping would be hauling her into his bed and loving her. He knew Morgan wouldn’t approve of those tactics at all. In fact, she’d fight him. He smiled a little. “This barn and the goat smell isn’t a five-star quality hotel over here in the badlands, is it?”

Clasping her hands around her drawn-up knees, Morgan shook her head. “There isn’t even a one-star in this poor country. At least you have a roof over your head. If it was raining, you’d be happy to be in here.”

“Well, the sky’s clear and it’s not raining.”

She sighed. “I love rain….”

Hearing the wistfulness in her soft voice, Jake decided to make a daring request. “Tell me a bedtime story, Morgan. And then I’ll let you go back to sleep.”

She tilted her head, as if seriously considering his request.

“What kind of story? Jack and the Beanstalk, so you can visualize yourself climbing out of this barn?” She gave him an evil laugh.

Her laughter went straight through his heart. Morgan rarely laughed, and in truth, there hadn’t been much to be happy about, either. “You know, I’ve missed hearing you laugh. It’s the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard.”

Morgan’s smile instantly dissolved as she heard the sincerity in his voice.

For a moment, Jake wanted to reach out and graze her clasped hands wrapped around her knees. Her hair was loose, framing her face. She looked so damned feminine in such a rough, godforsaken place. And yet, he was glad she was here. “Okay, the story I want to hear is about your family. Tell me about your mom and dad.”