Lindsay McKenna – Taking Fire (страница 12)
“Surely, a special woman, then?” Khat couldn’t conceive of this ruggedly good-looking man, who obviously was intelligent, not being in a relationship. That simply wasn’t possible.
“I don’t have anyone.” So what did he see in Khat’s eyes? Surprise? Shock? Desire? Happiness? Mike decided to turn the tables on her as he chewed the salty beef. “What about you, Khat? Do you have a husband?”
Heat swept up from her neck and into her face. “No.”
“Someone here in Afghanistan that you love?” He could think of a hundred men who would stand in line to get her. She suddenly became nervous, licking her lower lip. Shy with him, unable to hold his gaze.
“No one,” she answered softly. “My line of work is too dangerous.” That wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the truth. No man would consider her whole. Her back and shoulders were nothing but scars, ridges and were ugly. Men did not want a scarred woman with a shameful past. Her father, who had been born in this province, once he had seen her scars for the first time, had cried. He had told her mother that no man would ever consider her for marriage. He cried for the grandchildren he would never hold in his arms. He was shamed by her scars.
Khat had felt even more wounded by her father’s patriarchal Afghan attitude, but she was at a place in her life that his words had cut even deeper than the lashes she had received during interrogation by the Taliban. And when she had survived and healed physically, she’d come back here four years ago. Her father said she was a dead woman walking. He was right.
Mike felt Khat leave, her thoughts elsewhere, her eyes growing clouded. Sensing pain or suffering around her, he said, “You’re right, in our business, we can have a short life. It’s hell on anyone who loves us. That’s why I’m not in a serious relationship. I wouldn’t want someone worried about me all the time over here.”
Pensive, Khat forced herself to eat because she knew her body needed the nutrition and energy. “My parents are very unhappy about what I do. They don’t understand it. Or me.”
“That’s too bad. You’re doing important but dangerous undercover work.” The hurt in her face moved Mike. He wanted to open his arm and ask her to come and lean against him. Khat needed to be held. It was so clear in her darkening eyes. Her mouth was pursed, as if holding back unknown pain and memories.
If one of her parents was Afghan, it was probably her father. He would have made the decision to move the family to the States, not the woman. And Afghan males were patriarchal as hell, superprotective of their daughters, wanting only two things from them: being a virgin upon their wedding day and giving them grandchildren to carry on their family lineage. He imagined if his thinking was accurate, Khat was seen as a misfit as a woman to her father. And it would have put a lot of pressure on her to live up to her father’s expectations of her, versus what she wanted to do with her life as an individual. Which was to become a Marine Corps sniper.
Khat wanted to move away from her painful past. “Your name? Michael? That is one of the archangels of heaven. Did your parents name you that because they knew you’d be a warrior someday?”
“My father named me after my grandfather. He fought in tribal wars that helped bring the House of Saud to power a long time ago. He was a warrior.” Mike gave her a wry look. “I think my father was hoping I’d become like him. Instead of picking up a scalpel, I picked up the sword.”
“Just as in the Koran, Michael the archangel is the one who battles, protects and defends.”
“I do my share of battling,” Mike agreed. “And I am protective of those I love.” His voice became gritty. “And I’m a sucker for women and children who need protection.”
Her skin riffled with the darkness of his voice. “Don’t look at me. I can protect myself.” Khat would never let on that she’d never felt as safe or shielded as the past two days with Mike’s presence in her life.
“It’s my nature,” he said seriously, seeing the haunted look come to her eyes. Something told him Khat rarely received any protection from anyone. She’d learned a long time ago to take care of herself and never expected help from another quarter. What the hell had happened to her to make her think like that? He shouldn’t feel so damned elated to discover she wasn’t married or wasn’t in a relationship presently.
“Your last name, is spelled
Now why would she want to know that? “In the old country it was spelled
“It’s my understanding the name means one who uses a hammer?” She lifted her chin and stared at him.
“Guilty on all counts,” Mike said, giving her a slow smile. “There’s various meanings to it. One is it means a bright, shining star that leads the way.”
“You are a leader. There is no question.”
“I try to be,” Mike said. “Another, the name of the Morning Star, Venus.”
“I think you’ve taken two of the three definitions to heart,” Khat said lightly.
“What? I’m not a star?” He chuckled. “I did love astronomy when I was a kid. My dad even bought me a small telescope so I could look at the stars.”
“But that lost out to becoming a warrior? Your first name, Michael, combined with your last name pushes you toward being a man of action. Someone who can use the sword.”
“You’re right.” He lost his smile. “If I had one wish before I left you, it is to know your full first name. I know Khat is your nickname.”
Feeling her heart move beneath his humble request, Khat saw the sincerity in his narrowing eyes. “I can’t. I’m sorry. Besides, my name does not have the glory and power that yours does.” She managed a small smile, appreciating him for who he was: a very brave SEAL. The joke was, her Pashtun name, Khatereh, simply meant, “memory.” And so it had been. There were branding memories in her mind about her scarred flesh and fractured soul she could never forget. And she was never the same after her capture. So much for
She rose. “It’s time to go.”
MIKE STOOD NEXT to Khat as they waited beneath the edge of a wadi that spilled out onto a plain where the Medevac would land shortly. It was a quarter moon night. He could hear the wind gusting off the mountains, sliding into the desert plain before them. The stars were bright. The horses had been hidden and tied farther up into the wadi. Nothing moved. He breathed a sigh of relief that a drone was overhead with thermal imaging capability, not picking up anything but animal body heat. There were no humans in the immediate area except them. Still, he was alert and took nothing for granted.
Damn, he didn’t want to leave Khat out here alone. It ground against every protective mechanism Mike possessed. Hell, yes, she was competent. She said she’d been doing this for five years, and she was still alive. So who did he think he was? She was the one who saved their sorry asses a few days ago, not vice versa. Mike smiled a little, his eyes glittering as he swept the rocky scree slope to his right, the same slope his team had damned near been killed on. If not for Khat.
His hearing was slowly returning to normal, not as sharp as it had been, but he could hear Khat talking in a very low voice on the radio transmission to the Medevac coming their way, giving the pilot the GPS position to land the bird five hundred feet from where they were hidden. She’d already gone out earlier, like a shadow, and removed rocks or limbs that could be kicked up by the whirling blades of the Black Hawk, potentially causing them injury. She knew her job.
Mike kept hearing the call signs Archangel and Boulder. Which sign was hers? If he could pick up her black ops code name, that was a piece of vital intel he could use.
Khat signed off the sat phone, everything in place. She shoved it into a pocket on her H-gear she wore around her torso. Her M-4 was in a harness across her chest. Her mouth was dry with tension. Even though the drone’s eyes were above the exfil point, she was wary. The wind rustled the tree leaves. Her hearing was cocked toward any other sound out of place. Leaning down, she placed Mike’s rucksack to her right, where she could easily pick it up and sling it over her shoulder in a run to the Black Hawk. He couldn’t do it; his left arm was in a sling.
She straightened, pulling the NVGs around her neck, pushing her fingers through her captured hair in a single braid down her back. Nerves always got her at moments like this. Murphy’s law of “if anything could go wrong, it would,” was alive and well in a combat zone. Her mind was racing over the rally point in case they were jumped by unseen and undetected Taliban. It would be their only escape route. Khat felt the heat of Mike’s body close to hers and could sense his alertness. Amazed he didn’t feel tense, she realized it was a different kind of training. Join the SEALs and you knew you would be facing combat continuously. It took a special kind of person to be comfortable in such a situation. She wasn’t one of them.