Chapter 28

One week later

 

Rad picked up his vibrating phone and saw it was McDunna.

“What’s up?”

“We may have something. Get up here.”

Click.

Rad jumped in his truck and drove faster than he should have, bursting through the office door in less than ten minutes. McDunna appeared mildly surprised but didn’t wait for formalities.

“They picked up some communication with Afghanistan.”

“What does that mean?” Rad asked impatiently.

McDunna paused a moment to light a cigarette. “The CIA thinks the White House has put enough pressure on Pakistan that they don’t want the liability anymore. They likely sold Cantrell to the Taliban and are going to be moving her.

Rad’s heart sank and rose all at the same time. She was still alive. And if she made it to Afghanistan they had a chance of getting to her. But what the Taliban would do to her was unthinkable.

“When do I leave?”

McDunna took a deep breath and blew smoke out slowly. “The in-country team will be handling this one. I’m not sure you should be involved, attached as you are.”

Rad could not have felt more pain or raw torment if someone had just stabbed him in the heart with a dull blade. “You can’t be serious.”

McDunna lifted his gaze and stared at him with slit-eyed scrutiny, seeming to rethink his decision. “Jenkins is the lead on this. If I let you go and he says pull out and you don’t have her, you sure as hell better follow his orders.”

Rad swallowed hard. He did not even allow himself to contemplate the possibility they would not have her. “Yes, sir. I will.”

 

Rad was in the air that same day while a plan was being prepared with a rushed special operations tempo. The adrenaline surge and anxiety he felt for this mission was stronger than usual, making the plane ride feel like days.

Once on the ground and back in familiar territory he felt a little more in control, even though in reality he was in limbo. All action and orders were out of his hands now. Being acquainted with Jenkins from a previous mission, Rad had no trouble assimilating into his command, but Jenkins made it clear Rad’s job was to ID the prisoner and otherwise lie low.

There was nothing he could do but wait…and try to force down the dull ache of foreboding that threatened to overtake him. The old saying, “so close, yet so far away,” had never so accurately reflected his circumstances. Missions like this had a way of stalling or even dissolving before they made it off the ground. And even if everything did move as planned, there would be no do-overs. As usual, everything had to go perfectly

After a few more days of intercepted phone calls, it appeared the operation was going to be a go. The kidnappers would be taking their “package” through the Khyber Pass, mixing in with a wagon train of farmers transporting their produce. When the line of farmers made it completely out of Pakistan, a unit of Marines would temporarily close up the pass behind them while Jenkins’ men would search the wagons for the special cargo they were seeking.

Once the wheels of the operation started turning, everything began to unfold at lightning speed. Rad and the team were dropped in the area under cover of darkness and watched the caravan proceed through the valley. When the word came to move, they used trucks and all-terrain vehicles to stop and surround the procession of wagons, carts, and donkeys loaded down with produce. Half of the men formed a security perimeter while the rest began to round up the farmers and go through the wagons.

After about forty-five minutes Rad started to worry, and fifteen minutes later, he was practically distraught.

“We got nothing here,” Jenkins said over the mic. “False alarm. Let’s go.”

Rad stood firm, his gaze moving up and down the line. She had to be here. These guys were too jumpy to just be transporting vegetables over the mountains. He noticed two men standing nervously beside one wagon, their eyes shifting and darting from the ground to the wagon.

“Let’s go. Move out!” Jenkins said again. “That means you too Radcliff.”

Rad kept walking toward the wagon. He put his hand inside and moved some of the produce around, but like the others who had searched it before, found nothing.

“Move out Radcliff, or I’m reporting you. Now!”

Rad bent down and examined the bottom of the wagon. Nothing out of the ordinary there either. He went to stand back up and noticed his hand was wet where he had laid it against the side for balance. When he studied his fingers, he saw they were sticky and pinkish. Leaning back down, he ran his hand over the corner. It came back red.

“I need a crowbar over here.” Rad turned and motioned toward Jenkins, and held up his hand to show the blood. “This thing has a false bottom.”

An operator ran over with a crow bar while others threw vegetables from the wagon right and left by the armful. Still others on the team moved forward to help corral the supposed-farmers who were now chattering angrily, as the creak and splintering of wood ripped through the air. “We got something!”

Jenkins leaned in, holding a photo. He stared at the form lying in the small cavity of the wagon, but then turned to Rad. “Can you tell it’s her?”

The face of the person lying in the pool of blood was completely unrecognizable. The eyes were closed and swollen, the mouth bloody and shredded. Her cheeks were bulging, yet there did not seem to be any bones to support them. One tooth was cracked and two were missing.

Rad noticed her bare feet sticking out and picked up a foot. Seeing the crooked toe, and small patches of nail polish, he primed his mic for all to hear. “It’s her. Positive ID.”

The other men in the team quickly herded up the farmers, while others spread out in a defensive position. The roar of a helicopter landing about one hundred yards away seemed to occur simultaneously.

Picking her up as gingerly has he could, Rad ran toward the chopper with his precious cargo, all the while thinking, My God, she weighs less than my ruck pack. There’s nothing left of her.

In full kit and body armor, Rad ran across the uneven terrain, trying not to stumble and go down. He heard sporadic gunfire, but it sounded like it was from a distance or coming to him through water. Guess the Taliban paid for their package and aren’t going to let it go without a fight.

Rad knew the men behind him were prepared for that situation. He kept churning his legs despite the bullets now kicking up dust at his feet. Got to make it to the chopper, he kept telling himself. No matter what.

Now the gunfire was unmistakable and growing louder. Rad fought the urge to look over his shoulder to see what was happening behind him. Instead, he put his head down and ran even faster until a sudden spurt of fire and pain in his thigh caused his knee to twist, buckle and hit the ground. Stumbling to his feet despite the pain, he tried to keep his legs moving, but that was no longer possible. His right leg crumpled beneath him at every step, so he had to sort of hop and drag it behind him.

Rocks and dirt continued to spray around Rad’s boots as gunfire tore up the ground around him. Every step was agony. His lungs felt like they were about to burst, and yet it seemed like he was running in slow motion. He looked up and saw hands in the helicopter waving him on, and then felt their firm grasp as they pulled him inside just as the chopper lifted off the ground. The gunfire continued but was drowned out by the sound of the blades slicing the air as the chopper struggled to gain altitude in the thin mountain air.

“Holy shit,” he heard someone say as they pulled Lauren out of his arms and onto a backboard. “This ain’t good.”

Rad lifted his head and watched three men on their knees working silently and quickly over her as another pushed Rad gently down and began cutting away what was left of his pants. He struggled to sit up, to see if she’d been hit by the gunfire, but the world tilted sideways as if the helicopter had suddenly become a ship rolling in thick ocean swells. He felt his head loll to the side and his stomach lurch. Pain flared and pulsed in his leg.

“Take it easy, soldier.” The medic pushed him down. “You’re losing a lot of blood.”

“Is she okay?” Rad thought he asked the question out loud, but no one answered. Instead he heard the medic who was leaning over him say to his comrades in a loud but calm voice, “I need some help over here.”

Rad wanted to argue, to tell them to keep working on Lauren, but a sudden surge of nausea and dizziness made it difficult to hold his eyes open. He heard a muffled roar in his ears and thought at first the helicopter was having engine trouble. The next moment he thought it was the sound of angry waves violently hitting the beach. At last, he realized it was the sound of his own panting, echoing and reverberating in his ears in a way that made him shake his head to rid himself of the confusion.

“Stay with me, soldier.” The sound of the medic’s voice came to him as if through a dense fog, followed by the slight sting of a needle as someone put an IV in his arm. Other voices seemed to be talking over him now, but they were indistinct, like listening to a conference call with a bad connection.

Why aren’t they helping her? Rad curled his right hand into a fist as it lay on the floor of the chopper and felt something sticky and warm and wet. Lots of it.

“Once you get that one going, start another line.” The voice broke through the distortion, but Rad didn’t know what it meant. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to have two DOA’s on the same flight.”

These words Rad somehow processed and he struggled to sit up. “Jesus, is she okay?” Again, he thought he asked the question out loud, but the voices hovering over him never replied. Their tones simply grew more anxious. “Stay with me, brother. Can you hear me? Stay with me.”

Rad heard them but couldn’t find the strength to respond. He was being sucked into a deep, black void and had to use all his energy to fight it. He tried to reach out and grab onto something, but his arms wouldn’t move, and anyway, there was nothing to grab. He was being swept along in a sea of dark, swirling water that carried him closer and closer to a giant abyss. The medic’s voice came to him again, this time more urgent. “Stay with me, man!”

Rad struggled to open his eyes, to stay conscious, to take another breath. I don’t think I can, he thought just as a roiling wave swept over him, spinning and swirling him down, down, down, into the depthless hole.