“Fifty yards to go,” Lady Harrier reassured the hobbling Marine she supported on her left side. She stared through the sites on her M4 rifle snugged against her right shoulder, finger on the trigger. The door that would lead them both to freedom was within sight. “You can do this.” The words were a promise to herself as much as to the injured man.
“Lady Hawk clear with three female packages. No major injuries.” Thank goodness her team leader had rescued the imprisoned women. They were in better shape than expected. Good. That would make her triage easier and extrication faster.
“Lady Eagle exiting the south side. Need a medic. GSW shoulder, side and foot.” Their team’s primary pilot and second sniper had her hands full. That poor soldier had several gunshot wounds.
“I need medics. Lady Falcon’s been shot,” Lady Kite stated coolly between heavy breaths.
Oh, fuck. Lady Harrier’s friend had been shot. The fist that grabbed her heart released the next second.
This is only a drill. It’s only a drill. She repeated the mantra with every labored step. This damn Marine was heavy.
“Coming out south side, now,” Lady Kite announced. “I hope to Christ you have those medics waiting because Lady Falcon is bleeding all over me and there are two Marines right behind me. One has an ankle injury and the other was shot in the thigh.”
No. This is not real. Lady Falcon is not shot. She is not bleeding all over Lady Kite. This is only a drill. We are practicing.
Lady Harrier had to get her mind off the words bouncing between her heart and her head. She needed to think of something else.
Daniel Callahan’s face inches away before he closed the distance and laid his lips on hers. That was definitely a distracting image. The kiss he’d given her just before she’d left Costa Rica a month ago shouldn’t keep invading her mind. But it did. This time the memory proved the welcome diversion she needed.
Something skittered in her peripheral vision. Looking through the infrared scope, she watched a large rat duck into the open door a few feet ahead on her right. That room had been cleared earlier, and all the rodent would find was empty darkness. She glanced around, but saw nothing unusual.
“Look, we’re halfway to the door.” She was supposed to be reassuring her patient, not thinking about the night she and Daniel had spent together…talking. Just talking.
She’d spent lots of nights with men, but they seldom talked. She had always preferred action to words. Their mouths had better things to do than spew lies and platitudes she didn’t need to hear to reach an orgasm. She needed the man’s mouth licking and sucking.
Sudden weight on her left side and a heavy grunt brought her out of her fantasy of Daniel’s head between her legs. “We’re almost there. You can make it. Only a few more steps.”
“Eighteen minutes, forty-six seconds. Not bad, ladies, but not good enough,” the gunnery sergeant in charge of the training exercise yelled in a deep voice as Lady Harrier threw open the door and stepped into the Virginia sunshine with her supposedly injured Marine.
He immediately stood. “You’re stronger than you look for such a little bit.” His Texas drawl was nearly as charming as his smile. Full lips surrounded two rows of straight white teeth. She imagined those soft lips kissing her everywhere. His brown eyes twinkled in the bright Quantico sun as though he shared her thoughts.
He was cute. Definitely fuckable. And fuck, she needed a man.
His gaze dropped to her chest which showed off her perky breasts even through the black T-shirt and night camouflage uniform. He stood straighter and lost the smile as he added, “Ma’am.”
She took in six feet of all-man in Marine Dress Blues—broad shoulders, and, yep, there were red stripes on his bicep. Enlisted. Off limits. Erasing any intensions she had about exploring his muscle structure under that black jacket, she nodded. “Sergeant. I might be height-challenged, but I’m innovative. Be glad I didn’t decide to drag your sorry ass down that hallway on a carpet. If you had any other injuries and couldn’t walk with my limited assistance that was my next option.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He glanced over his shoulder at the other Embassy School students participating in the training. “Permission to be excused, Captain.”
Sometimes Lady Hawk forgot her Army rank. Hell, she and the other Ladies of Black Swan wore civilian clothes so much, she often forgot she was still in the military. They spent most of their time at Homeland Security, and on missions where no one wore their rank. It took her by surprise as she looked down at her chest and saw two black bars embroidered between buttons. Her eyes met his. “Granted.”
She watched the very fine specimen of American Marine as he strode toward the other men gathered twenty yards away.
“Too bad.” Lady Falcon stepped up next to Lady Harrier.
“Yeah, it’s a real bitch that we have to do this again.” She never took her eyes off the nearly perfect ass on the Marine. Matter of fact, every one of them looked nearly perfect. All were at least six feet tall, broad shouldered, and with a trim waist accented by the white belt on the dress blues. Each was good-looking with a hard edge about him, but that was to be expected. Marines couldn’t even apply for Embassy Guard duty unless they’d had at least one combat tour. Most of those men had spent a year or more in the desert toting a gun and a heavy backpack.
“That too,” Lady Falcon admitted. “I was talking about our training-induced dry spell. I swear most of the men on Marine Corps Base Quantico are either fresh out of college over at TBS, or they’ve been married for years and are attending the Command and Staff College.”
“I wonder where all the FBI recruits hang out at night?” Lady Harrier turned toward her friend and teammate. “You have to be at least twenty-six to even apply to the FBI. That puts them within a few years of us. Not that I’m averse to dating younger men. Most of them take direction well.”
“I’d just like to date something other than Bob, at least for one night.” Lady Falcon was referring to her battery-operated boyfriend.
“I know exactly what you mean.” Although Lady Harrier had named her favorite toy Channing, it wasn’t the same as having a man between her legs. Daniel immediately popped into her mind. She wondered just how talented he would be with his mouth, his fingers, and his cock.
“Sorry, ladies.” Lady Hawk stepped next to Lady Falcon. “They’re keeping us on a short leash for a reason. I expect we’ll be called out within twenty-four hours.”
Lady Harrier glanced over her shoulder at the training village where they had run through various scenarios for nearly forty-eight hours, both day and night. Each member of her team had been tested, and the situation had been analyzed and dissected. They were as ready as they were ever going to be.
Or so they thought.
Forty hours later, Lady Harrier pulled off bloody surgical gloves and sealed them in a Ziploc bag. “Were going to get you out of here right away.” She held the bare ankle of a Marine sergeant who was about five years younger than her. He probably thought it was for comfort, but she was counting his pulse and reassuring herself that blood was reaching his foot.
“No, ma’am,” he protested. “We have to get all the embassy personnel out first.”
The ambassador and the minister had already been airlifted along with a dozen or so members of the diplomatic corps. Most had sent their families home weeks ago when rumblings of a coup in the African nation had reached a level of concern. Constant updates came through the communication system in her ear, and she couldn’t miss the thumping of large helicopters landing on the roof.
Active gunfire outside the brick and block walls reassured her the SEAL team sent in with them as protection was doing its job. The man on the table was a member of the embassy’s security team. His injury was the most serious she’d seen since infiltrating. He needed to be on the next flight out, and then immediately taken to Germany where they could operate on his leg.
“Actually, sergeant, that’s not your decision to make.” Lady Harrier didn’t take shit from anybody. He’d been shot in his muscular thigh. She was pretty sure the bullet had nicked his femur, but without an x-ray, there was no way she could tell for sure. The tablet-sized x-ray she was testing just wasn’t clear enough for an accurate assessment. He’d been bleeding so badly, Lady Falcon had called for her assistance as soon as she’d found him. Good thing, too. If he had bled out much longer, he was going to need more than the platelet transfusion she’d already given him.
Thanks to the clotting agents she carried in her medical pack, she was able to stop the bleeding. That was the good news. The bad news was the extraction point had been changed to the roof, and they had to get all two hundred twenty pounds of muscled Marine with an attitude up four flights of stairs.
“Lady Harrier, this is Lady Hawk. I need you to trade places with me, right now.”
Lady Hawk and Lady Eagle had been responsible for retrieving the three women remaining in the embassy. If Lady Harrier was needed, that meant there was a major problem.
“We need to get this patient to the roof and out of here immediately.” Lady Harrier glanced toward Lady Falcon who stood guard at the door. Her nod indicated the hallway was clear.
“Lady Harrier, I’ll take care of that. Your expertise is needed here.” Their team leader sounded as though she was on the move.
“Lady Hawk, this is Lady Harrier. Moving your way with one injured.” She could carry the man if she had to, but he had one good leg. She wiggled herself under the arm on his good side and let her much taller friend, Lady Falcon, support him on the injured side.
They had just turned the second corner toward the stairs when Lady Hawk opened the stairwell door. “I’ve got him. The women were not in their assigned quarters. We found them in the infirmary. We’ve already taken two of them to the roof, but I don’t know if we can move the third one yet or not. Only you can make that decision.” Lady Hawk seamlessly slid under the Marine’s arm, freeing Lady Harrier to dash up the steps.
Because they had practiced so much in Quantico, she knew exactly where the infirmary was located.
What she found upon arrival was the last thing she ever expected to encounter in an embassy under siege.
Lady Harrier estimated the young woman’s age to be mid-twenties. Her red face and exhausted eyes told the first half of the story. Her feet propped in stirrups spread wide, explained Lady Hawk’s comment.
The woman was having a baby.
Baby. Baby. The word echoed in her mind as the edges of her vision darkened and closed in. Nita couldn’t breathe.
She stared at the white sheet draped over long suspended legs and knew what was underneath.
Lady Harrier started to turn around to leave. She had to get the fuck out of there. Right. Now.
She didn’t do babies.
Not since medical school rotations. Not since her lifelong plans to become a military physician were shattered in one shallow breath followed by a long exhale.
“Good, Lady Harrier is here. She’ll take good care of you and your baby.” Lady Eagle’s statement froze Nita in place.
She gasped in air. Not enough to clear her tunnel vision, but enough to circulate oxygen around her body and keep her on her feet.
Her stomach clenched in fear, an emotion she hadn’t felt in years. She’d been in firefights plenty of times and had never been this afraid. She’d been stripped naked and beaten during a mission in Iraq and hadn’t been this scared.
She looked at her shaking hands and wondered if her feet would move so she could run away.
Get your shit together, Nita. Her mental chastisement helped…a little.
She had a moral and legal obligation to take care of this woman…and the child inside her.
She had the training and had actually delivered over one hundred babies while still in med school. But the unborn child inside the woman on the hospital bed frightened her to the point she could not move.
Whump. Whump. Whump. The landing of the next helicopter shook the building. Lady Harrier hoped her teammates had gotten the young sergeant to the roof for evacuation.
With that momentary distraction, she sucked in a much-needed breath.
Lady Eagle stared at her. With her fingers hidden from the couple in the room, she used American Sign Language to ask if Lady Harrier was okay. Was she hurt?
No. Not hurt. Just immobile.
Physiologically, Lady Harrier could move. Psychologically, she couldn’t force her brain to make her feet step in front of the other.
The woman on the bed moaned and rubbed her large abdomen. She pinched her face as she attempted breathing techniques taught during childbirth classes.
“Oh, thank God you’re here, doctor.” The man wasn’t much taller than Nita, maybe five feet ten inches, but his grip was strong as he shook her hand. “I’m Ken Walker, the charge d’affaires, and this is my wife Diana. She’s the protocol officer here.” He gave Nita a half smile. “At least we were.”
He pulled, and Lady Harrier had no excuse but to follow him back to the side of the bed.
“She’s pregnant,” he added as though it wasn’t obvious.
“No shit, Sherlock,” Lady Harrier sniped before she could hold her tongue in check. Hoping they both let it slip, she asked the next routine question. “How far along is she?”
“Thirty-eight weeks and two days,” Diana quickly answered.
Whew. Nearly to term. The last thing Lady Harrier wanted was to deliver a premature baby.
She placed her hand on top of Diana’s distended belly. Gently feeling for the position of the baby, which seemed to be head down and in position. God was looking favorably on her today. She wasn’t sure if she could perform a cesarean section with the limited surgical implements she carried in her medical kit. “Has her water broken?”
“No, not like they showed us in the movie in the birthing class.” Ken took his wife’s hand and kissed the back of her knuckles. “You’re doing great, sweetheart.”
Lady Eagle interrupted, “It looks like you’ve got this. I’m going to clear this floor.” She disappeared down the hall.
Got this? Not really. Lady Harrier hadn’t had anything to do with a baby in years. That was by her choice. She wasn’t at all comfortable with babies. She’d rather face an armed terrorist than a tiny newborn human.
Lady Harrier moved along with the expected questions. “How often are the contractions?”
“They kind of come and go.” Diana spoke calmly and looked at her husband for confirmation.
Well, at least the woman isn’t hysterical and screaming. Lady Harrier knew just how tough women were. She’d treated enough emergency cases of gunshots, knife wounds, broken bones, and damaged soft tissue from beatings that she was well aware of the pain levels that women could endure, practically without complaint. The woman in front of her wasn’t in any real pain.
“They were coming about every fifteen minutes,” Ken noted, “but then they just stopped.”
Thank fuck! Maybe I won’t have to do anything after all. Knowing what came next, Lady Harrier warned Diana, “I need to check you and see how far you’re dilated.” Quickly snapping on gloves, she moved down to the end of the table and sat on the rolling stool. “You’ll feel a little pressure as I insert my fingers into your vagina canal.” She was only dilated two centimeters and the cervical plug was still in place. With one hand on top of the bulge, she pressed gently on the baby to see if perhaps Diana was further along the process. Almost no movement in the cervix.
Lady Harrier let out a long, slow breath. She closed her eyes. Thank you God and baby Jesus.
Gunfire coming from the floor beneath them brought her out of her prayer. Through her earpiece she heard a report that the embassy Marines were clearing floor by floor, double-checking to be sure no one had been left behind.
She stood and stripped the gloves off her hands. Removing her communication unit from her ear, she replaced it with the stethoscope. She smiled at the nervous couple, then announced, “I’m pretty sure you’re not in labor. I’m going to listen to your baby’s heartbeat just to be sure it’s not under stress.”
She blocked out everything except for the rapid thumping in her ears, glanced at the large watch on her wrist, and began counting heartbeats. She wondered if they knew they were having a boy. She yelped in surprise when the unborn infant kicked at her hand.
She lifted the stethoscope and shoved it back in her pack. Catching herself before she used the pronoun he, she announced, “Your baby has a healthy heart beat and isn’t ready to come out quite yet.”
“What about the contractions?” Concern was evident in the father’s voice.
Lady Harrier screwed the tiny comm unit back into her ear. “You need to get dressed immediately. We have to get you out of here.”
If they could get her on the transport sitting on the roof, she could make it to civilization before having her baby.
“Operations control, this is Lady Harrier. I have two and a half that need to be on the next flight out before this baby decides it wants to be born in Africa.”