Chapter 53
Reynolds’s face was covered in a film of clammy sweat by the time Spencer had helped him to the mouth of the small cave. Spencer crafted a pressure dressing from the first aid kit in his backpack, and after slipping off the DOD man’s shirt and pack, he fitted the dressing into place. Once he had taped it tight to staunch the worst of the blood flow from the wound, he rooted around in the kit and offered Reynolds a syringe filled with amber fluid.
“Morphine,” Spencer said.
“I need to call my superior first,” Reynolds said with a shake of his head.
“You sure? Maybe just half?”
“Later. Hand me the sat phone,” Reynolds insisted.
Spencer opened Reynolds’s backpack and removed the satellite phone, and inspected it in the gloom. “Damn. Looks like it got nicked by the bullet when it exited your back,” Spencer said.
“Does it still work?”
Spencer powered the phone on, and the screen lit with an amber glow before locking on a satellite and beeping once to indicate it had acquired a signal. “Looks like it.”
“Hand it to me.”
Spencer did, but it quickly became apparent that Reynolds couldn’t dial. His face fell and he handed it back to Spencer. “Dial this thing for me,” he said, and gave Spencer a number in Pakistan. Spencer listened until the line rang and then passed the sat phone back to Reynolds, who clamped it to his ear while Spencer scoured the ruins, distrustful of the silence that had fallen over the area.
When the call was answered, Reynolds whispered a name and then waited. Seconds dragged into a full minute, and then a voice came on the line.
“Monroe.”
“General Monroe, this is Casey Reynolds.”
“Not a good time, Reynolds.”
“I’m on a satellite phone. In Kashmir. I’ve been wounded, and we have a situation on the ground here, General. I need help.”
“Wounded! What in the blazes…”
“We took fire from hostiles. And we have civilians who’ve been taken prisoner by gunmen. Americans.” Reynolds gave Monroe a rundown on their situation and, when he finished, listened in tense silence.
Monroe’s response, when it came, was an outraged growl. “You idiot. I told you to mind your own damned business and to stay out of Kashmir, didn’t I?”
“Yes, sir, but we lost a man…”
“And now you’ve got civilians involved, and they’re at risk. Nicely done,” Monroe stated flatly. “You have no idea what the hell you’re doing.”
“All due respect, sir, we need help.”
Monroe sighed audibly. “You disobeyed a direct order, Reynolds.”
“Not technically, sir. I signed myself out on leave. This is on my own time.”
“Then get yourself out of your mess on your own time,” Monroe snapped. “Why are you calling me?”
“General…”
Monroe’s voice turned from angry to businesslike. “You said you’re wounded. How badly?”
“Shoulder. About a seven on a ten scale, but I’m still breathing.”
“Anyone else there? That driver of yours?”
“He turned out to be one of the bad guys. Ate a bullet.” Reynolds drew a painful breath. “I have one of the Americans here — ex-military, so he can handle himself. But we’re exposed, and it’s black as the devil’s heart out.”
“Stand by.” Reynolds could hear someone speaking in the background. When Monroe returned, his voice was dangerously low.
“Reynolds, if you make it out of this alive, you’re looking at a court-martial. I will not tolerate this sort of insubordination on my watch. You’ve blundered into a situation that’s way over your pay grade, in defiance of my orders.” Monroe paused. “I’ve scrambled some birds. We’re triangulating your phone. Leave it on.”
“There appears to be a well-armed force here, sir.”
“Keep your head down, and do not, under any circumstances, make your presence known. Do you read me? Do not try any heroics; do not engage. You’re in the middle of something you don’t understand, and anything you do will just make it worse.”
The general terminated the call, and Reynolds set the phone beside him and shook his head. “I don’t understand anything. That wasn’t the reaction I expected. He was furious.”
Spencer held up the syringe. “What exactly did he say?”
“That he’s sending help, but I’m not to engage anyone. That I don’t understand the dynamics.”
Spencer removed the orange cap from the syringe and eyed Reynolds’s arm. “Fortunately, I don’t work for the DOD, so I don’t have to care about situational dynamics.” He studied Reynolds’s face. “If you die, what happens to my murder charge?”
Reynolds looked away. “At least there’s one more person than me hoping I don’t die.”
“Not yet,” Spencer said, and squirted a few drops of morphine from the needle tip in order to clear any air from the syringe. “I’ll reserve judgment about later.”
He injected three-quarters of the contents into Reynolds and handed him the syringe. “Did your general say what kind of help was on the way and when it would get here?”
“No. Just that birds were in the air, and they would be here shortly, and to stay put.”
Spencer nodded and scooped up his rifle. “You should definitely do that.”
“He meant both of us.”
Spencer grinned in the dark. “I stopped taking orders from stuffed suits a long time ago. Frankly, I don’t trust you or your general, and I half expect a missile strike on this cave, homing on the phone.”
“You’re nuts.”
“You said he’s stonewalled you every step. You lost a man and he doesn’t care. Has it ever occurred to you that he may be playing a game where you’re just collateral damage?”
Reynolds swallowed hard as the morphine spread over him like a warm blanket. “We’re on the same side, Spencer.”
“You may think you are, but I’ve learned that when it comes to governments, there’s its side, and everybody else’s. I’m not about to bet my life that your man is playing straight with you. There’s too much about this that feels off. Sorry.”
“What are you going to do?” Reynolds asked dreamily as his eyelids fluttered closed.
“Whatever it takes. My friends are out there, maybe dead, maybe wounded, and they walked into an ambush that was set up by your trusted driver. If you think I’m going to let them bleed out because some anonymous blowhard in an office somewhere prefers I handle it his way, you have no idea who you’re dealing with.”
“Spencer…” Reynolds’s voice trailed off to a slurred sigh.
“Save your breath,” Spencer said, and turned his attention to the moonlit night. The ruins of the temple stood like broken teeth in the darkness, and the spread of tall grass near the cave mouth shimmered from a gust. He cocked his head and, with a final glance at Reynolds, emerged from the cave and set off for higher ground, AKM in hand, his jaw set in determination and his eyes alert, the only sound his breathing and the thump of his boots on the hard Kashmir dirt.
Chapter 54
Mehta sat across from three men, all dressed in simple clothing, their heads covered with kufiyas, their beards full and lustrous. Suri stood at the door, watching the proceedings. A suitcase full of euro notes rested on the table in front of the men. Mehta nodded in approval at his bookkeeper, who had spent most of the day painstakingly counting the money and verifying that it was legitimate — Pakistan, from whence the men hailed, was known for counterfeiting, and the euro was a popular target, as was the dollar.