FGHANISTAN

THURSDAY, 16 APRIL 2009

Dan was helping a pair of very young and very female Marine privates get the wounded off the toppled bus. One of them was inside, pushing a frightened woman and her wailing two-year-old out of the window and into the other marine’s arms.

That second private—blond and cute in a Heidi of Wisconsin way—handed the child to Dan, who was on the ground. She then scrambled down herself to help with the woman, who was no lightweight.

The civilian was bleeding from a gash on her forehead, but she seemed more concerned with keeping her headscarf on. Her little boy was terrified, though, sobbing as he stood waiting for her, his arms outstretched.

“Your mommy’s going to be all right,” Dan told him, trying various dialects, but the boy didn’t stop crying even when his mother clasped him tightly in her arms.

“You should see the medic about your head,” the blond marine tried to tell the woman, pointing over to where Lopez had set up his triage, where the first ambulance had finally arrived, bringing medical supplies. But it was clear she didn’t speak English. The marine—the name S. Anderson was on her jacket—looked at Dan. “I’m sorry, sir, can you tell her—”

“I’m not an officer,” Dan told her, then used his rudimentary language skills to point to Lopez and say doctor.

The woman nodded and thanked them both profusely, her boy’s head tucked beneath her chin.

“But you’re a SEAL,” S. Anderson said as she scrambled back onto the bus. “There should be some form of address for SEALs that trumps sir. Maybe Your Highness or Oh, Great One?”

She was flirting with him, marine-style, which meant she was already getting back to work.

And Dan wasn’t quite sure what to say. I have a girlfriend that I really love seemed weird and presumptuous. After all, if S. Anderson had been a man, he might’ve said the same thing, and Dan would’ve laughed and replied, “Great One sounds about right.”

Except S. Anderson’s smile was loaded with more than respect and admiration. There was a little Why don’t you find me later so you can do me mixed in there, too. And Dan didn’t think he was merely imagining it.

The sure-thing factor was flattering, as it always was, and the old pattern that he’d run for years kicked in, and he found himself assessing her. Her uniform covered her completely, but it didn’t take much imagination to see that although she was trim and not particularly curvaceous, she was curvy enough. She was cute, freckled and petite and—Jesus, what was he doing?

But then there was no time to bitch-slap or otherwise chastise himself, because a gunman opened fire.

The first shot took down the Marine officer who was running the rescue effort, and the cry rang out, repeated by all of the military personnel in the area. Dan shouted it, too: “Sniper!”

Jesus, the civilian woman and her child were in the middle of the open marketplace, completely exposed.

S. Anderson saw them, too, and instead of diving for cover inside of the bus, she jumped back down to help him help them. Dan could hear her, just a few steps behind him as he ran toward the woman, shouting, “Run!”

But the woman had heard the shots, and she’d crouched down to shield her child, uncertain of which way to escape.

Because there was no cover anywhere near, and nowhere to run except …

“Go!” Danny shouted, thrusting the child into S. Anderson’s arms, pointing to the blast crater. If they could get to the edge of that gaping hole in the road, and slide down to the bottom and then hug the rubble and earth …

The woman shrieked as her child was ripped from her, but his plan was a good one, because she immediately followed, no explanation needed.

He tried to shield her with his body, tried to get her to run a zigzag path that was similar to the one Anderson was taking with the little boy. But the woman’s mission to reach and protect her child was so single-minded, it was like trying to push a freight train from its tracks.

From the corner of his eye, as he ran at the woman’s top speed, Dan saw Lopez and Izzy pulling the fallen officer to cover onto the patio of what, in happier times, had been a hotel.

But then Dan saw Izzy turn to look out at him in disbelief. He heard the other SEAL shout his name, and Dan realized that the slap he’d just felt in the back of his thigh had been a bullet.

And Jesus Christ, that was his blood exploding out through the front of his pants from the exit wound. And sure enough, his leg crumpled beneath his weight with the next stride he took. But they were close enough to the crater for him to push the woman the last few feet, down into Anderson’s waiting arms.

But Dan was still six feet away, with a leg that not only didn’t work but, holy shit, was really starting to hurt. He had to crawl, pulling himself forward, his hands raw on the rough debris in the street, because he was not going to do this to Jennilyn. He was not going to come home in a coffin.

But he saw all the blood, and he knew he was dead. There was no way he was going to survive, even if he made it to cover. The motherfucker with the rifle had hit an artery. Dan was going to bleed out before that sniper was taken down, and there was nothing anyone could do to save him.

But he didn’t quit because he didn’t know how to quit. And then he didn’t have to quit, because something hit him hard in the side, and he realized with a burst of pain that it was Izzy, singing at the top of his lungs, “Oh, the weather outside is frightful …”

The freaking idiot had run all the way across that open patch of gravel and debris. He’d dived, as if sliding into home, right on top of Dan, and they’d tumbled together down into the blast crater.

But it was too late.

And wasn’t this just the way it would happen? The last face Dan would see, the last person he would speak to before leaving this earth …

Was Izzy fucking Zanella.

The SEAL had stopped singing—thank you, God—and his face was grim as he rolled Dan onto his back; he ripped another of his stupid bungee cords from his vest pocket and used it as a tourniquet around Dan’s upper thigh—as if that would help.

“What can I do?” Anderson asked as, in the background, the little boy continued to wail.

Izzy glanced at her. “Apply pressure at his groin. Help me slow the bleeding.”

“Zanella …” Danny tried to get his attention, finally grabbing the front of his vest. “Zanella—”

“Hang in there, buddy,” Izzy said, using his knife to tear Dan’s pants to get a better look at his wound. “You’re going to be okay.” But Anderson blanched, in contrast to Izzy’s reassurances. “We’re going to get you to the hospital—”

“No, you’re not,” Dan said. No one was going anywhere with that shooter out there. Dan could hear the report of his rifle, again and again. “Zanella, you gotta tell Jenni for me—”

“No, no, no,” Izzy said, interrupting him. “You’re gonna tell her whatever you want to tell her yourself, bro. That sniper is toast. We’ve got the fucking United States Marines on our side. Am I right or am I right, Anderson?”

“Sir, yes, sir,” she said.

“They’re gonna take him out—”

“Not soon enough,” Dan interrupted. He could feel himself getting cold. Ah, God, Jenni … He reached to grab Anderson’s arm, because he had to make sure Jenni knew, and Izzy wasn’t listening. “She didn’t believe me,” he told the woman. “Jenn didn’t. And I need her to know—”

“Gillman,” Izzy said sharply. “Listen to me. You fucking stop bleeding, do you hear me? You can do this. Use your brain for something other than being an asshole. Lower your heart rate and tell yourself to keep your blood away from this leg.”

“Zanella—”

“Do it, goddamn it.” Izzy turned to Anderson. “Keep applying pressure, Private. I’ll be right back.”

Izzy launched himself up and out of the blast crater, keeping his head down in a crouch as he ran back toward Lopez and the medical supplies.

He could hear the ping of the bullets, see the geysers of dust they kicked up as the sniper tried for him and missed.

And missed.

And missed again, suckwad motherfucker! Hah!

He slid into the cover provided by the ornate wooden deck of what once had been a fancy hotel restaurant, where patrons could dine on two levels. There’d probably been a tent to protect the upper level from the sun as the good folks of this town had had their business lunches.

Back during the time when the people of Afghanistan had both businesses and lunches.

But right now the wooden deck made it possible for the wounded to be cared for without risking death or injury to their caregivers.

One of whom was Lopez, who helped him to his feet. “Holy Jesus, Son of God,” he said in Spanish as he saw the blood on Izzy’s uniform.

Lopez was covered with blood himself, from trying to save the marine officer’s life. Trying and failing, which sucked royal ass.

“It’s bad,” Izzy confirmed, telling Lopez what he didn’t want to hear, yet already knew. “Dan needs surgery. Now. Bullet nicked his femoral artery.”

“Fuck.” It was not a word that Lopez used often, in English or in Spanish, but it fit the situation.

“I need a clamp,” Izzy told him as he was already moving toward the medical supplies, “and some morphine and some bags of blood—he’s O—and IV tubing. A needle—you know, all that shit.”

Lopez was shaking his head, even as he rummaged through his equipment. “We don’t have blood yet,” he said as he gathered up everything else, scooping it into a bag for easy transport. “Or even any plasma extender. But if I can—”

“You’re not going out there,” Izzy told his friend.

“Yeah,” Lopez said. “I am. I’ll use the clamp—”

“Not good enough. I’ll use the clamp.” Izzy took the bag from him. “Danny needs blood, Jay, and I’m O, you’re not. Give me the tubing—and two needles.”

Lopez silently—but swiftly, bless him—added what Izzy needed to the bag.

And Izzy dashed back out into the sniper’s kill zone.

Luckily for him, the dickweed was a relatively crappy shot.

NEW YORK CITY

THURSDAY, APRIL 16, 2009

“This isn’t the way to do this, Jack.” Jenn stood her ground even as the big man took a step forward, on the verge of invading her personal space with the crutches he’d needed to get around since 1968. She held his gaze, too, refusing to let it waver, not even to glance behind him at the small crowd of other intimidating-looking men who’d gathered grimly to support him. Some of them had pulled back their jackets when she’d first arrived, to let her know that they were armed. And wasn’t that just great? “You know that the assemblywoman—”

Jack Ventano interrupted her. “Isn’t getting this done.”

“It takes time,” Jenn told him. “There are laws—”

“There should be laws,” he agreed, “insisting that the men and women who serve our country get the care and the support that they need, instead of—”

“You know we’re on your side.”

“That’s not enough, and you know that.”

Jenn was silent then, because he was right.

The big man pushed his gray hair back from his face, revealing the edge of the long, rough scar he bore on his forehead. He’d gotten that in ’Nam, at Khe San, he’d told her once, when she and Maria had taken a tour of the shelter, back when Maria was running for office. He’d lost most of his leg in the same battle. But worst of all, he’d lost his best friend, a man named Tom Terwilliger—which was why this shelter bore Terwilliger’s name.

Lost. What a funny euphemism for it. As if Tom and Jack’s leg had both been accidentally misplaced.

“Maybe, this way, we’ll finally get news coverage,” Jack told her now.

“Maybe,” she pointed out, “you will. Fat lot of good that’ll do you, serving time upstate, in jail.”

“Won’t be the first time I have a temporary vacation in Ossining,” he said with a smile that softened his harsh, weather-beaten features. “And if it helps this place get rebuilt …” He shrugged. “I can do the time standing on one hand.”

“As soon as I walk out that door,” Jenn warned him, “the police are coming in. If you or anyone with you kills a cop … Your trip upstate won’t be temporary. And this place will never open again.”

“No one’s going to kill anybody,” Jack reassured her.

“You can’t promise that,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said, and the expression on his face was almost apologetic. “I sort of can. The police aren’t coming in, because … you’re not going anywhere.”

Jenn laughed, but then stopped as the men behind Jack moved between her and the door. This was just perfect. “So what am I?” she asked. “Your hostage? For the love of God, Jack. We’re friends. Friends don’t hold friends hostage.”

“Hostage is such an ugly word,” he said. “But yeah. If that’s how we have to do it.” He shrugged again. “We were kind of hoping it would be Maria. Thought it might give her a positive bump in the polls. A win/win …”

“No,” Jenn said. “Nope. No, Jack—” Her cell phone rang. “Think about what you’re on the verge of doing. If you keep me here against my will? That’s a felony.” She checked her screen—it was Maria. “This is the assemblywoman,” she told him, holding up her phone. “I’m going to take her call, and when I’m done? We’re all going to walk out of here together. We’re going to go get some coffee, and we’re going to figure out a way to get you news coverage without a crime and a victim and a trial and a jail sentence.” She looked around at his buddies. “Jail sentences—plural, gentlemen.”

They seemed uneasy at that, looking to Jack for confirmation.

She turned away from them as she opened her phone and put it to her ear. “Maria?”

“Jenn.” Maria had on her pure-business voice. Terse and to the point. “Where are you?”

“I’m over at the shelter, with Jack and some of his guys,” Jenn reported. “We’re just about to go to Starbucks.” She glanced over at where Jack was now being questioned by his men, and raised her voice a little. “My treat.”

He shook his head but two of his buddies seemed to like the idea. Jenn let them work on Jack as she focused her attention on Maria. “Where are you?” she asked her boss and longtime friend. “Because we could use you down here. These guys need a solution and—”

“I’m still in Albany,” Maria cut her off. “Jenn, you need to go into the ladies’ room or somewhere private. Immediately.”

“That’s … not possible right now,” Jenn said. The facilities had been over near the kitchen, where the blaze had done the worst of its damage. “I’m kind of in a meeting with Jack. We’re actually inside the shelter.”

“Pass him the phone,” Maria ordered.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Jenn lowered her voice to say. “Whatever you’ve heard, I’ve got the situation mostly under control.” Or she would have, if she could continue to appeal to Jack’s honor, his down-to-earth sanity, and his strong sense of right and wrong. Friends didn’t hold friends hostage, and he knew it.

“Damn it, Jennilyn,” Maria said in a rare burst of temper. “Pass. Jack. The phone.”

“Jeez.” Jenn turned back to Jack, holding her cell phone out for him. “The assemblywoman apparently wants to talk to you quite badly.”

He took it. “This is Jack Ventano.” He was silent then, just listening, frowning in response to whatever Maria was telling him, glancing over at Jenn and then away, down at the floor. He finally spoke. “She’s going to want more information.” He paused again, listening, then, “Okay. Yeah, I’ll … Yeah. No, it’s bad timing, but when is it ever good timing for … Yes, ma’am, we’ll get her there. I’ll have her call you back in just a few.”

He hung up the phone, handing it back to Jenn, even as he turned to his posse. “Let’s get those boxes out of here. We’re standing down and moving it out. We’ll fight this fight another day.”

There was grumbling among some of his men, but the two who’d wanted Starbucks leaped to gather up their supplies.

Jack gestured toward the door as he told Jenn, “Let’s go.”

She hesitated for only a second or two before she followed him. “What did Maria promise you?”

“Nothing,” he told her as he led the way out the door.

There was only one police car out there. But on second glance, Jenn realized that Mick Callahan’s unmarked car was also double-parked in the street. He was leaning against it, and as he saw her and Jack emerge from the former shelter, he pushed himself up and came to meet them.

Jack, meanwhile, was giving orders to his guys. “Take the stuff back to my place. I’ll meet you over there in about an hour.”

Now Jenn was really confused. “I thought we were all going for coffee.”

Mick didn’t greet her. He just nodded to Jack, talking over her—which was hard to do because she was so tall. “I got it from here.”

But Jack shook his head. “I’m coming, too. She’ll have questions that I can maybe answer.”

Mick, always such a hardnose with something of an oppositional personality, was actually nodding in agreement as he reached to open the back door of his car. He put his hand on Jenn’s shoulder as if to usher her in, but she stopped.

“Guys. What’s going on?” She turned to Jack. “Whatever Maria has planned, she didn’t share it with me. Where are we going?”

“Jennilyn,” Mick answered for Jack, “just get in. Then you can call Maria back and she’ll, um … Explain.”

“Honey, she wants you to be sitting down,” Jack said, his brown eyes warm with concern and compassion. “So go ahead and sit, and I’ll tell you.”

And just like that, the world lurched, and Jenn knew with a horrible certainty that something terrible had happened. She lowered herself into the backseat of the car, looking from Jack to Mick and back, as God, Jack nodded and said the words she dreaded.

“It’s about Dan Gillman.”

“Oh God,” Jenn heard herself say as all of the air left her lungs. “Oh no. Oh, please don’t tell me—”

“He’s been badly wounded,” Jack said, which wasn’t as awful as the words she’d thought he was going to say.

“Wounded,” she repeated. Badly, he’d said. “How badly?” She fought the urge both to cry and to throw up. Neither would help her—or, more important, help Dan.

“Maria didn’t know,” Jack said, handing his crutches to Mick as he pushed her over on the bench backseat so he could sit beside her and take her hand. “But she told me he’s a SEAL, and honey, SEALs are fighters.”

Jenn nodded. Dan. SEAL. Fighter. Yes. Oh God. “Where is he?”

“Maria didn’t know much,” Jack said as Mick put his crutches in the front seat and climbed behind the wheel, signaling and pulling out into the traffic. “I guess she’s got a friend whose husband is a chief in Dan’s team …? She was the one who called Maria.”

Jenn nodded again. “Savannah,” she said. Savannah was Jenn’s friend, too. It was her connection to SEAL Team Sixteen that had brought Danny into her life. Please, dear God, let him be all right …

“Maria’s trying to get more information,” Jack told her. “In the meantime, she figured you’d want to go home and maybe pack a bag, so you’d be ready to go, in case they send him somewhere a little friendlier than where we think he is right now.”

Jenn nodded again and dialed her cell phone, calling Maria back, praying that from here on out, the news she received would only be good. “He’s a fighter.” She repeated Jack’s words back to him just before Maria picked up her phone.

“Jenn,” she said. “Are you sitting—”

“I already know,” Jenn cut her off. “Jack told me. Danny’s hurt. Please, just tell me what else you know.”

“They’re flying him to Germany,” Maria told her. “Savannah’s finding out where. She’ll call you. She wants to buy a plane ticket so you can … But I don’t think that’s a good idea. Not yet. Not until …”

“What aren’t you telling me?” Jenn asked.

“Jenni, he’s still alive, but—” She cut herself off again. Whatever that but was going to be, she substituted it with, “He’s strong.”

“You need to tell me everything,” Jenn said.

Maria exhaled hard. “I know. It’s just … he lost so much blood,” she said. “One of his teammates ended up doing a battlefield transfusion, and nearly died himself, because of it. Jenni, it’s a miracle that Dan’s still alive at all. If he didn’t have the friends that he has … This would already be a very different phone call. As it is …”

Dear God. “Was it an IED?” Jenn asked, because it was clear Maria had gotten at least some details.

“Indirectly,” Maria said, and her word only made sense when she added, “Dan was assisting with the civilian casualties after some kind of car bomb went off, and a sniper started shooting. He was hit.”

“So he’s been shot,” Jenn said, meeting Jack’s steady gaze, “someplace where he lost a lot of blood. In his chest or—”

“It was his leg,” Maria told her.

“His leg,” Jenn told Jack, unable to keep herself from glancing down at his empty pant leg. Oh God.

“If something goes wrong with the surgery,” Maria said, “or if he’s too weak to be operated on … He could lose his leg. And that’s one of the better-case scenarios. I really think you should wait before you go anywhere, Jenn.”

“I don’t want to wait,” Jenn said. “Tell Savannah yes, please buy me a ticket. Tell her thank you.”

“Jenni,” Maria started.

“I want to be there,” Jenn said. “I need to be there when he wakes up, especially if … God, most people don’t get that chance. I’m going to be there.”

“Jenn, he might not wake up.”

“But he’s strong,” Jenn reminded her. “He’s a fighter. Just tell Savannah. I can be at the airport in an hour.”

Danny was strong. He was a fighter.

But all young men and women who went to fight wars were strong. They were all fighters. And sometimes, despite that, they died anyway.

Jenn looked at Jack, who was still holding her hand.

And sometimes they lost their legs.

LAS VEGAS

DATE UNKNOWN

For too many years, there was no such thing as no in Neesha’s world.

Dissent was not allowed, not without punishment.

Years ago, when she was first brought to this awful place, punishment meant an empty belly and nothing but a hard, cold floor to sleep upon, a faucet for water, and a bucket for her waste, while locked in a tiny, empty cell. That was often all it took among the other new girls to turn a no into a yes.

But in those early days, Neesha preferred the hunger, the bucket, and the cold floor to the pain and humiliation that came when the men—the clients or visitors, they were called—held her down with the weight of their bodies and jabbed themselves between her legs.

It was wrong, and she would not do it ever again.

And she screamed and cried, which frightened the visitors, and kept them from touching her. It also made the tall man with the florid face who was her new lord and master angry, so he locked her again in that cell.

The hunger made her cry, but she still said no. And then a fellow worker, a girl who was older, saved part of her meals to share. She furtively passed the morsels through the tiny window in Neesha’s door. And so she put up with that hard, cold floor for nine whole days and nights of no, with only twinges of hunger instead of great, yawning pain.

But the tall man—Mr. Nelson—he must have found out about the food, because the kind girl vanished. Neesha hadn’t seen her again, not even once in all of the years since.

It was then that Mr. Nelson brought Neesha and her no into a beautiful room—more beautiful than she’d ever seen before in her entire short life—where a magnificent meal was set out on a huge table.

He’d left her there, and Neesha, still hungry, had eaten her fill, filled, too, with hope that her grandfather, a man her mother had spoken of with such affection and respect, had somehow managed to find and rescue her.

But when a man came in, while he was, indeed, old enough to be her grandfather, he had a face as pale and a head as bare of hair as the moon. His eyes were not like Neesha’s or her mother’s. They were blue and flatly ugly, as if his soul had already left his body.

And although she hadn’t yet learned to speak any American, she knew what he wanted from his gestures.

When she gave him her emphatic no, he smiled. And he didn’t just take what he wanted anyway, like the other men before him, hands trembling and even weeping while they’d kissed her, before she’d learned that her piercing screams would scare them away when simply sobbing wouldn’t.

Instead, he took while he beat her, and he laughed with delight even as she screamed. And then he took some more in ways that were meant to hurt her, until she lay naked and bleeding, too stunned to cry, on that beautiful floor.

The man washed himself after, whistling as he did so, and then he left.

Women came in then, but they weren’t warm like her mother had been, back before she’d fallen ill and died. They cleaned Neesha and bandaged her as best they could, but they did it without any comfort or kind words. In fact, they spoke to her sternly. You reap what you sow.

And then they brought her back to her cell, where she wept until she fell asleep.

The door didn’t open for three very hungry, very sore days as she lay on the floor, curled up in a ball. And when it finally did open, it was once again Mr. Nelson who stood there, looking down at her as she trembled and wept with fear.

And he took her, carrying her because her legs wouldn’t hold her. He brought her back, not to the beautiful room, thank God, but to a separate bathing room, where the cold, angry women again washed her clean.

They braided her hair in a way that made her look even younger than she truly was, and they gave her a new dress and delivered her back to Mr. Nelson, who led her to the smaller room where she’d first lived and served the visitors, before she’d dared to say no.

A man was in there, waiting. His hungry eyes filled with tears as he saw her, because he, too, knew that what he wanted to do was wrong because she was just a child.

There was food laid out in there, too. It was nowhere near as sumptuous as the feast she’d had three days before. But it was hot and it smelled good and it would fill her belly and give her strength. The bed in the corner was soft and warm. Neesha knew that, as well.

And although she didn’t speak Mr. Nelson’s language and he didn’t speak hers, he made it clear that it was her choice. She could go in.

Or she could say no, and go back to the room where the men wouldn’t kiss her and lick her with their tremulous mouths, touch her almost reverently with their trembling hands, but instead would hit her and bite her and laugh while she screamed.

Neesha went inside.

And she never again said no.

Not until years later.

Until the day it happened.

Until the day that Andy, the fat daytime guard, had clutched his chest and fallen, gasping and wheezing, to the ground, leaving her door unlocked and open as he shuddered and shook.

Neesha stepped through the door and around him and quickly slipped from the wing of the building where the children were locked in their rooms. And because she’d just had a visitor who’d wanted only to watch and touch himself while she bathed and then put on the clothes and makeup of a much older woman, she was able to fade back and then pass, unnoticed, through the women’s wing, where the guards were there only to keep visitors from going where they weren’t wanted, instead of keeping the workers from escaping.

And then there it was.

An unguarded, open door.

It led to an outside that wasn’t part of the small, caged, inner courtyard that she had come to know so well during her long years imprisoned here.

Neesha stepped through that door, marveling at a sky that stretched out to the horizon, at a sun that shone full strength upon her upturned face, a sun that was not weakened by a screen.

But there wasn’t time to stand there, stunned by the possibility of her newfound freedom.

She was in a parking lot, outside of a long, low, adobe structure, and she quickly lost herself among the rows of cars, ducking down to hide from anyone who might come looking for her.

And they would come. Mr. Nelson. Or the guard named Todd.

And if they found her? She would be punished.

Of that Neesha had no doubt.