With everything she understood about the human body threatening to change, how could the face looking back from the mirror while she combed her hair be the same? The head tilted when she needed to reach to pin her bun, and the fingers in the reflection obligingly buttoned a clean shirt, but she felt removed from that person.
Dressed, she rolled her stained shirt carefully into a zip-closing bag and concealed it with her towel. The blood smears were the only evidence to support what she planned to tell Jennifer.
On her black sport watch, the day flashed: TU. Tuesday. Today was Tuesday and—oh shit, tomorrow—Wednesday she had to report at 0400 to the helipad for an 0500 lift to Bagram Airfield in Kabul. She had a seat on an air force flight to Kuwait City, where she’d switch out of her uniform and catch a commercial flight to Rome. The black civilian carry-on her roommates took turns using on leave waited, packed, at the foot of her bunk. She’d loaded it yesterday, expecting today to be hectic.
Hectic described today like stomach bug described Vibrio cholerae bacterium.
A reverberating knock on the bath unit’s aluminum door spun her around.
Braced on the wall across from his commander’s desk, Wulf acknowledged his miscalculation. Forty minutes ago when Theresa tore out of the helicopter, he should’ve followed her and untangled this clusterfuck, instead of trailing after Deavers to coordinate the downed aircraft recovery team. His captain and Kahananui had that situation handled. With the last man inbound, the disabled Black Hawk sling-loaded under a heavy-lift CH-47 Chinook and the incident report delegated to Cruz, he could no longer ignore his woman problem.
Letting go of his support made his head wobble, but before he could find chow he had to shower off the blood. If the stars favored him, maybe Theresa hadn’t yet talked to anyone about what she’d seen.
“Hold on.” Deavers spoke around the tobacco in his cheek. “The drugs in the container we found with Morgan are moving.”
“Damn.” He didn’t need this now, not when he felt like the walking dead. “Where?”
“The marked load’s part of a Black and Swan convoy to Peshawar. Presumably to a ship in Karachi.” The squint lines around his commander’s eyes announced that he wasn’t finished.
“And?” Wulf’s lips were too stiff from his effort to stay upright to say more. He needed ten times his normal calories after the amount of collagen his cells had burned regenerating his muscles and skin. Peanut butter and sports drinks kept him conscious, but he needed more carbs and fats, a lot more, to feel human.
“Someone ought to eyeball the load. Collect HUMINT and determine the destination.”
Human intelligence gathering in Karachi, Pakistan, required a fluent speaker of Urdu, Pashto, Punjabi and Sindhi. Wulf knew only one screwed soul who fit the bill.
“Someone means me?” Didn’t the captain understand what was on the line if Theresa poked deeper into his life? She’d searched for his medical files once, and now she had a reason to dig. “You realize I’ve got to find the doc—”
“Out of it, aren’t you?” Deavers spit in his cup. “Bama Boy’s keeping an eye on her.”
“What if she talks?” He scratched his chest. Until his body pushed out the fabric shreds and other debris trapped between the new cells, his skin would itch worse than a week-old jockstrap.
“He’ll keep her roommates away. Doesn’t she head out ASAP for midtour leave?” Deavers rifled papers on his desk. “Sure I can forge a Red Cross message requiring you out of theater for an emergency too.”
“Ahh.” Wulf sagged against the wall. He should’ve had faith, but that commodity was scant when his tank was this empty. “Where would my emergency be?”
“Karachi first, then wherever our mystery cargo goes. Find out who takes delivery.” Deavers handed him a blurry photo of a brown-haired man whose full mustache didn’t conceal his jowls. “Morgan’s disappearing flight-line manager. Cruz couldn’t dig up a better shot because he’s been wiped from the B & S database. And this—” he added a business card to the photo, “—is the best CIA guy in Karachi, if you need backup.”
Wulf pocketed both. “Who’s the worst one?”
“That’d be the new guy, name of John Smith. Seriously.” Chris rolled his eyes and grinned past the wad in his lip. “Going to play dumb?”
“Crossed my mind.” In a clueless nasal tone, he asked, “Uhh, can you tell me where the docks are? Is that the ocean?” before reverting to himself. “My coloring stands out in Karachi. Everyone’s so suspicious after the bin Laden job, I might as well go for laughs.”
“Your choice, but hurry and pack your cling things. Morgan’s on night ops so he can drop you on the convoy before it hits the border at 2330 tonight.”
Fast-roping onto moving targets was usually Wulf’s favorite part of a mission, but riding spider style was French for shitty sleep. He’d have to stay suctioned or magnetically attached to a container roof until they stopped somewhere he could disembark unnoticed.
“While you’re gone, we’ll hunt the lab.” Deavers pulled a map with red dots marching down a valley like a line of fire ants. “Firebases where Morgan picked up overweight loads.”
“Sorry to miss hide-and-seek.” Wulf’s stomach rumbled like Kahananui’s coffee grinder.
“You look like a dead trout.” He picked up his spit cup and tilted on two chair legs. “Better get to chow.”
“Love to. Some paper pusher with unauthorized side business kept me late.”
“Well, frag the son of a bitch next time.” Deavers tossed him a can of foul-n-fizzy energy drink. “Oh, wait, you mean me. Scratch that.”
Wulf popped the top. “Come on, any leads on my destination? Europe? North America?”
“No clue, but that much of Afghanistan’s best doesn’t fly special delivery. You’ll have time to kill before the boat unloads down the line.” The captain’s humor disappeared as his eyes locked with Wulf’s. “I hear Rome is nice this time of year. You might check it out.”
Wulf’s breath caught. Had his commander ordered him to follow Theresa? His expression must’ve communicated his question, because Deavers nodded.
“The team can’t lose you.” His captain left the instruction unspoken, but not unclear. Handle the problem with the doctor.
Wulf acknowledged by lifting his can in the informal salute Special Forces used among themselves. No need to let on he didn’t have the energy for a full hand to brow.
When Theresa peered out the narrow opening of the bathroom trailer’s door, she saw a woman with her fist raised to knock. Relief, as warm as the shower she’d finished, flooded her.
“Ma’am? Everything okay?” The private, who might turn twenty on her next birthday, frowned. “The sergeant asked me to check.” Her voice rose as if she wondered why, but then she answered her own question. “He said he heard a noise and thought maybe someone slipped?”
Theresa’s gaze followed the private’s thumb. Wulf’s teammate with the Southern accent stood in the shadow of a building kitty-corner to the shower unit. He held a phone, the picture of a guy looking for privacy to call home, but she knew better. He was watching.
“Ma’am? You okay?”
“I—I—” her mind churned. She couldn’t stay trapped here, and she didn’t want to leave alone in case he followed.
“You need some water or something?” The private raised her hands as if to catch her.