“Nicotine gum?” Theresa bit her tongue too late to stop her question.
“That obvious?” Laura’s eyebrows raised above her reflective lenses while she fiddled with her camera.
Wulf rounded the corner of the motor-pool office. Theresa hadn’t seen him in the week since their run. The feat should have been hard to accomplish in a camp this size, but they’d become avoidance experts.
“Put your camera away,” she warned Laura as the man who really didn’t like photos crossed the gravel.
“Why—” With her camera half raised, Laura twisted to look. “Well, that’s a problem.”
Wulf reached them, eyes narrowed as he stared hard at both women. “Captain Chiesa.”
“Sergeant Wardsen,” she retorted.
Then he glared at Laura with an intensity that confirmed the name Rizzotti wasn’t a coincidence.
“I gather you know Ms. Rizzotti—” she didn’t stunt the emphasis, “—already?”
Instead of answering, Wulf interrogated the other woman. “Did Ivar send you?”
“Not even hello? I don’t do your brother’s bidding, Sergeant Rude.” Laura spit her gum in the dust.
“No, that’s rude. I should make you pick it up.”
“You and what army?” Laura was already scraping the foil off another piece of gum.
Theresa refrained from pointing out that one piece should last an hour. Ten minutes in Afghanistan was like an hour at home, or maybe a dog year. Even if Wulf thought she was a rule-following ice queen, she wouldn’t gripe about how much gum someone chewed.
“Cut the crap, kid.” Wulf crossed his arms over his chest, his brown T-shirt sleeves threatening to bust a seam. “Tell me why you’re here.”
“I’m an adult.” Smiling without revealing teeth, she raised her camera. “With a job, remember?”
Wulf scanned the vehicle convoy. “You’re not going on this sorry-ass mission.” His statement sounded like a command, not a question.
“I have a photo exclusive,” Laura said.
He pointed at Theresa. “I meant you.”
That finger pushed her pissed-off button. Sleeping with her didn’t give him a right to order her around. “I’m guiding the senator around the new provincial hospital.”
“No.” His voice was as gritty as the sunbaked parking lot. “You’re not.”
“This is my chance to help women and girls like Nazdana.”
“No. It isn’t.”
“So.” Laura cleared her throat. “Seems like you two know each other.”
“Too well,” he said.
“Barely,” she said.
Wulf gestured at the line of SUVs. “I’ll blow a goat if the guards let those out the gate.”
“Buy it dinner first.”
Laura snorted, but Wulf loomed so close she could’ve touched the vein at his temple. “I haven’t busted my balls on security so you can roll out of here whenever you want to feed your adrenaline habit—”
“Security? What are you talking about?” And she was absolutely not a thrill junkie.
“Forget it,” he said.
She could almost hear his teeth grind, and then understanding dawned. A helicopter pilot had started mooning after Jennifer; one of Wulf’s teammates had been hanging with the transportation officer that shared their hut; and this morning the Hawaiian on Wulf’s team had reported to sick call with a gastro complaint. Oh-so-friendly, he’d asked about her day. She’d mentioned this mission. “You’ve been spying on me!” Her nails dug into her palms as she fought to keep her fists at her sides. “You sneaky—”
“This gets better and better,” Laura interrupted. “In fact, it’s so good I almost want to talk to your brother, Wulf, which I generally enjoy less than reformatting my hard drive. Alas, the army waits for no woman.” She tugged Theresa’s elbow. “Our ride’s here. Toodle-oo, Wulf old man.”
Theresa followed, if only to avoid charges for kicking a subordinate. Do not turn around, she cautioned herself. Keep walking. There’s a hospital to visit.
A civilian with a clipboard and earpiece motioned her to the second car and sent Laura to the convoy’s rear. After wedging the rucksack of medical books by her feet, she struggled to stretch the seat belt around her Kevlar vest. Wulf’s concerns were valid enough that she didn’t remove her protective gear, not even the neck-compressing helmet.
“Sir.” She introduced herself to the white-haired man who slid in the opposite door. In a blue button-down and khakis, the senator resembled every politician who visited the troops. They exchanged polite conversation while the convoy idled at the gate.
“Black and Swan invited me here to show why I shouldn’t appoint a special prosecutor to examine their finances.” The blunt change of topic, not the lurch as they passed the gate of Camp Cadwalader, left Theresa gaping. “Boots on the ground usually know more than geezers like me stuck in Washington. So tell me, Captain, what do you think of Black and Swan’s services? Good value for the taxpayers?”
Gifts like the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee inviting her to talk about Black and Swan didn’t happen often. She inhaled and started. “I—”
The boom was so close the gargantuan pressure crushed her chest. It crushed her answer, her breath, her vision, crushed the world around her until everything disappeared except one instant of understanding. In the flash one thought hung like a scalpel over her heart: she’d walked away from Wulf angry.
Now she’d never be able to tell him she loved him.
Chapter Twenty
The shock wave slammed Wulf’s back, and he knew what he’d see when he turned. He was sprinting for the gate by the time the dirt geyser topped out, and he didn’t stop running even when the guards, crouched behind blast barricades, yelled “Get down!”
Find Theresa. His heart pounded the imperative. Get her. She had to be okay. Snaking through the concertina wire while the debris plume changed from a brown froth of airborne dirt to black smoke, he focused on the wreckage a hundred meters down the road.
Laura. He’d almost forgotten Lorenzo’s granddaughter was in that mess too. Let both be alive. Behind him, rescue sirens blared, but he’d reach the site first. They’re not-dead-not-dead-not-dead. The words matched the piston beat of his legs as he closed the distance.
A dark-haired woman pulled at the side door of an SUV.
“Theresa!”
She turned, and the way his heart stuttered when he saw Laura felt traitorous.
“It’s stuck!” She stumbled from the twisted door, her hand wrapped in a jacket to pull broken glass from the shattered window. “I can’t open it!”
He grabbed the window frame and handle and yanked until the vehicle rocked, but the door didn’t budge in its warped frame. Bracing his foot on the SUV’s body above the tire, he pulled even as flames ran up the far front seat. He had seconds until fire filled the compartment. He pulled again, and this time the door popped free.
Theresa slumped sideways from her seat belt. Laura used an extinguisher to block the flames while he ripped a strap cutter off his vest and sliced the nylon restraints. Everyone else was beyond help—that was obvious—so he scooped his woman into his arms.
Her spine arched and she flailed at air as he ran toward the military ambulance. Her scream wasn’t the high-pitched sound of fear. It was a gut-cry of pain.
“You’re going to make it.” Empty assurances sucked, but he didn’t know what else to say as he sprinted with her.
“Wulf.” He looked down as she moaned his name. Her lips curled back to show her teeth. “Hurts.”