But I didn’t have time to do more than toss my bed roll onto the lumpy bunk before I was ordered to a briefing room for a sit-rep on some new intel at Now Zad.
“Nice of you to join us, Hunter,” Grant said, his voice terse.
I don’t know what had flown up his ass, so I just took a seat out of his eye-line, sweating freely in the intense heat of the old Nissan hut.
“First: you will have noticed by now, gentleman, that we have a journo on embed with us, Lee Venzi. You will extend every courtesy—but say nothing. Is that clear? Keep all interaction to a minimum. And those of you with training in obs will have noticed that she’s a woman, which means someone has completely fucked up. I’ll send her on some routine foot patrols to keep her busy and out of the way.
“Next: there’s been an increase in Taliban radio chatter in the Now Zad area that has all the brass very unhappy, and that makes me very unhappy, which will make you very, very careful. They’re concerned that word of the op has leaked out, but it’s just a hunch at the moment. Hunter, I want you to go through the radio transcripts and see if you can find anything that they’ve missed. Do not go through your terps. Clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
I hated going through transcripts. They were usually translated by semi-literate idiots. It was bound to be a waste of my time if the spooks had already reviewed them. But it was an order, not a request. Didn’t look like I’d get much sleep tonight either. Whatever, I was used to that.
Grant pulled out a map of the area and penciled in the position of known local Taliban that we needed to be aware of, then started going into detail about the Afghan elder we wanted to get on our side and the village where he lived.
“Erik, you’ll be in charge of BGAN satcomms.”
Grant nodded his head at a Lieutenant sitting next to me. I thought his name was Jankowski but I wasn’t sure. As far as I knew, he’d be the guy leading the op.
We’d almost finished the briefing when I looked up and saw Caro escorted by a female PFC. I grinned at her before I remembered I wasn’t supposed to.
Fuck, that was so hard to remember—it just didn’t feel right.
Grant still hadn’t seen her.
“If a guy sticks his head around the corner he could very easily have a gun. If you can’t see his hands, he could have something, a hand grenade, say. Pulling a trigger is easy—we need to bring him in. It’s not about that one person, it’s about the team. I’ll need you to go in first and…”
I coughed discreetly, unwilling for him to say anymore in front of Caro—something that might compromise her safety. Grant threw her an irritated look, but Caro stood her ground.
“I can come back,” she offered calmly.
“No, that’s fine, Ms. Venzi,” Grant clipped out. “We’re done here.”
Grant jerked his head at me in dismissal. I saluted and threw Caro a quick smile as I left. I had 10 minutes before the designated mealtime. I’d rather have eaten with the guys, but maybe Grant wanted me under close supervision. It was going to be hell having Caro so close and not be able to talk to her or touch her.
I showered quickly, shook the dust out of my uniform and pulled on a clean t-shirt. That was as good as it was going to get. Another two days and we’d all stink. Now Zad didn’t have showers, just basic strip and wash facilities, and there weren’t exactly going to be washing machines to clean your clothes. After three days, you couldn’t even smell your own stench anymore.
I was starving by the time we ate our long-delayed evening meal. It was the last fresh food we’d have for a while. You could live off of MRE’s, but that was about all. It amazed me how many different ways they could fuck up meat with gravy. The MRE gum wasn’t too bad.
I was seated with Lieutenant Sanders, the executive officer, and four second lieutenants including Jankowski, at the opposite end of the table from Caro.
I’d been told not to talk to her, but I also knew that if I looked at her I’d give myself away, so I spent most of the meal staring at the food, or gazing into the distance. Even that seemed to piss off Grant, but since I was following orders, there wasn’t much he could do about it.
Eventually, Caro went to leave, and we all stood up politely. I risked a quick glance at her.
“Sleep well, gentlemen,” she said quietly.
The others sat down again, but Caro was looking straight at me when she ran her fingers along the chain around her neck. She was telling me that she was wearing my ring. Yeah, that was a good moment.
As soon as she left, Grant repeated his orders not to give her any information, not even whether it was hot in summer. What an asshole. He had no idea how good of a journalist Caro was if he thought that was going to stop her from getting a story. Hadn’t he read her articles? Although I liked the idea that Grant was trying to keep her out of the loop and safe.
After that, we were dismissed.
I spent three tedious hours going through the transcripts, learning not one single useful new fact.
With my eyes burning, I rolled into my bedding and passed out.
Reveille was at oh-four-hundred. I was washed, shaved and fed 30 minutes later, and we were waiting for Caro. And waiting. And waiting.
Grant looked like he was about to stroke-out when he sent the same female PFC that I’d seen the night before to shake her awake.
Caro emerged five minutes later, red-faced and embarrassed.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, sounding flustered. “I overslept. It won’t happen again.”
Grant was too irritated to reply, merely nodding and getting ready for our small convoy to leave Leatherneck.
I noticed that Caro was moving stiffly. I longed to walk over and rub her shoulders and do a bunch of other stuff that isn’t in the Marine Corps Manual.
She pulled on her body armor, tugged her hair up into a rough ponytail, and slapped on her helmet. Damn, she looked cute.
Grant was so pissed, he did the one thing he could to show he was mad at her—told her to sit by me. I was the luckiest son of a bitch in the whole damn world. And yeah, my mom really was a bitch.
“Good morning, Ms. Venzi,” I said in my best panty-dropping voice. “I trust you slept well?”
“Too well, thank you,” she replied politely, raising one eyebrow.
As we sat side-by-side in the APC, I was aware of the pressure of her thigh in the next seat. I slid my backpack closer and took her hand in mine. She didn’t look at me, but her lips turned upward in a private smile. Yep, that look went straight to my dick. It was going to be a long ride.
We headed north, the scenery the same dusty, barren landscape, bumping along a broken road, heading up into the foothills. The heat was already building and we were all sweating.
Our road followed the side of a riverbed, and for a hundred yards in each direction, a strip of green vegetation broke the bleakness of the lunar landscape.
Scattered in the stony fields were the typical fortified farms with high walls, built from a mixture of mud and straw so they blended into the dirt. Some were collected into loose hamlets for protection, but most had been abandoned after heavy fighting in the area. They were a complete fucking nightmare to search, and often booby-trapped after the families had been kicked out. The area seemed deserted but I could see herds of skinny goats, which meant that the owners were around, watching us. I scanned the high ground, looking for anything out of place, but there was nothing. I knew they were there, hidden. At least they weren’t firing at us.
It took us five hours to travel the 60 miles to our next stop, thanks to roads that had the shit bombed out of them, and there were some that had been washed away in Spring floods. Our destination was the town of Now Zad.
What a shithole.
It had been an important market town once, but now it was torn to pieces, buildings destroyed by mortar fire, bullet holes across every wall, empty shops were open to the sky, shutters drooping. But there were still people living here, God knows why. Nowhere else to go, I guess.
An elderly man was selling a few potatoes and eggs from a rug outside a vacant lot. He waved his hands wildly as we drove past, cursing the Infidel invaders and hoping that our balls rotted to dung and fed the crows, Allah be praised.