The change of subject wasn’t blatant enough for Jen. “Look, I made a mistake.”
At her roommate’s unusually serious tone, Theresa lifted her gaze from her dish.
“I shouldn’t have joked about him or pushed you.” She turned her paper coffee cup around and around. “Everything you said about fraternization, your career—I acted like it was no big deal—but you’ll be a field-grade officer in six weeks. And you need perfect references for your job search.” She took a deep breath. “Being downrange is making me crazy and bored. Teasing you seemed...” She hunched her shoulders. “Funny, I guess. But it’s not. You’re going to be a major.”
“I suppose when I get that gold oak leaf cluster, our fun has to stop.” Theresa waved at the gray-painted dining hall. “I’ll send the reality television crew home and cancel the hot tub. Sayonara Spring Break Afghanistan, hello eighty-hour work week.”
“I sooo cannot picture you in a hot tub.” Jen wrapped her arms around her waist and snorted. “You’d check if the chlorine levels met health code, or swab for bacteria on the deck.”
She wasn’t that joyless, was she? “Thank you for making me feel like a total loser.”
Jennifer stopped laughing. “I didn’t mean—”
“I’m not hungry.” Theresa stood and piled her cup and napkin on her tray.
“Sorry I—”
“See you at the office, okay?” Everything inside her twisted as she crossed the plywood floor toward the service window, but the plastic tray in her hands was indestructible. She could squeeze it as hard as she wanted.
“Aloha, Doc.”
It wasn’t Wulf’s voice, but it was familiar. She turned and saw the linebacker-size Hawaiian from Wulf’s team, the one with the daughters who liked princesses. “Sergeant K.”
“On for Tuesday?”
“For what?” They didn’t have an appointment.
“To return Nazdana, Mir and the twins. We’re free and a Black Hawk’s available.”
“Whenever.” She dropped her paper plate of food in the can. “They’re fine to travel.”
“How’s your schedule?”
“Me?” Silverware in the gray bin. Tray to the civilian contractor in the window. “Why?”
“You’ll be the guest of honor.” His teeth were blinding white in his tan face. “Boy twins are like winning the lottery to a dude like Dostum.”
“I’m too busy. My midtour leave starts Wednesday.”
“Dostum’s going to want to thank someone.”
“Colonel Loughrey did the caesarean. Invite him.” No way could she sit next to Wulf. The truth rolled around her stomach and threatened to boil up her throat. Remembering the way he’d caressed her hand still woke her some nights in a sweat. She couldn’t spend more time with him, not if she wanted to stick to the rules. “I assisted a little and cut the cords. That’s it.”
“Whoa.” Kahananui held up plate-size hands. “Our team doesn’t know that, and neither does the proud papa. He thinks Nazdana had a female doctor. She was unconscious and Mir was in the hall with me, so you’ll leave everybody sharing that happy belief, right?” He loomed closer to Theresa.
She retreated until the garbage can bumped her thighs.
“You’ll come? For her safety?” he pressed.
The photo she’d seen of a Pakistani girl with her nose cut off flashed in her mind. Similar honor crap happened in Afghanistan too. She’d have to go along to protect Nazdana from the risk of punishment for having been alone with unrelated men. Special Forces were expert at boxing people into corners, weren’t they? “What time?”
“A nice civilized oh-six-thirty Tuesday at the flight line.”
She’d have to find someone to cover her seat at the battle-update brief, which meant she’d probably have to do Monday’s brief in return. Clear her patient charts a day early. Pack for Italy. Check her battle rattle gear. Restock her rucksack with bandages, antibacterial ointment, prenatal vitamins and immunizations.
She’d also have to immunize herself against a certain Special Forces staff sergeant.
Flying from Camp Caddie to Nazdana and Meena’s home, Theresa had wedged herself between the two Afghan girls and avoided contact with Wulf. Returning, other soldiers had positioned themselves between her and Wulf so deliberately that for a second she wondered if they guarded him, but that was dumb. He wasn’t at risk from her.
Her head bobbed as she reviewed the day. She’d spent the first hour on the ground exchanging formal phrases and presents with the babies’ male relatives, and the next three in the women’s quarters giving physicals to Nazdana’s extended family. Then the serious eating had begun. Mir had guided her through the array of foods using English words and phrases she’d learned during her weeks at Camp Caddie, but Theresa hadn’t needed the girl to translate the women’s fingers-to-mouth gestures as they piled her plate with garlicky lamb kabobs and spinach-filled dough pockets. The party had been like Christmas at Nonna’s, down to the armed guards outside, but with spicy tea substituted for wine.
Each rotor turn bounced her helmet on the Black Hawk’s vibrating side. The silk-wrapped bundle in her lap contained presents from Dostum: a silver cuff bracelet, waterfall necklace and chandelier earrings. According to Wulf, the azure stones were lapis, a perfect souvenir of her deployment. Federal ethics rules required her to report gifts this valuable to Colonel Loughrey, but maybe she could keep the scarf tied around the set.
Thoughts of Meena burbled through her food coma as they blew past kilometers of dirt and rock. At goodbye the girl had reached deep into her English. Doctors help mothers. Her hands, skinny and chapped from labor, had cupped Theresa’s cheeks to say farewell. Doctor! Meena had pointed at her own chest. Mir and Captain Key-sa! She still refused to wear girl clothes or answer to her feminine name. Doctor and doctor!
Against the brutal odds of Paktia Province, Meena aspired to be a doctor. Like her.
Could she establish a fund for a girls’ school? Perhaps her old high school could become a sister school. If she could establish links to enough local women through maternity visits—
K’BOOOOM. Her body jerked against the safety harness, then slammed into the metal side of the helicopter. Black smoke erupted from the rear, choking her, and men started firing out the open side doors as the flight rerouted to hell. We’re hit.
“Brace yourself!” Wulf shouted as the helicopter lurched and dropped.
She covered her mouth to hold in her scream or her lunch or Holy Mary, Mother of God as her butt left the jump seat. Only the harness kept her from hitting the ceiling. Then the helicopter’s landing wheels smashed hard and her world filled with the sound of metal shrieking against its maximum stress. The rotors kept spinning and the whole machine bounced. Her stomach freestyled away as they rose for an instant like a tethered falcon and the heaving floor jacked her legs into her chest, but then they crashed down a second time. If metal could give a death rattle, she heard it.
Men fired and moved in a blur while the crew chief sprayed an extinguisher on flames snapping from the tail section. Black smoke set her coughing, but she swept her legs out of the way of the bodies launching out both doors. Her gut screamed commands—run, hide, shout, jump, shoot, dodge—but first she had to click the fast-release buckle on her harness.
“Out, out, out!” Wulf grabbed her shoulder and flung her past the sixty gunner in the port side door. His hand never let go as he crashed on top of her.