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“Looks hinky to me,” Chuy said.
“Everything’s hinky to you,” Noah said, opening his door. “I got this.”
“Do not exit the vehicle, Stone!” Fuller barked. “Take us there, Dusfresne. You get twenty minutes, Stone, then we haul you into this truck. You got that?”
“Yes, sir,” he said. “Got it.” Damn. Depending on what Fariq said about him hitching a ride, he’d have some fast talking to do with Fuller, for sure.
Bo turned onto the dirt road.
As they drew nearer to the buildings, the Iraqis seemed to stiffen, weapons half raised, as if expecting a confrontation. Noah’s scalp prickled. Chuy was right. This did feel hinky. The soldiers around him in the truck tensed, shifted positions, readying their weapons.
There was a sudden thud, as if a boulder had slammed into the driver’s side of the vehicle, followed by pops and pings from bullets hitting the front grill. The windshield cracked.
Then an explosion rocked them. Noah’s eardrums felt as if they’d burst. Smoke and dust filled the air. Around him, men were shouting, but it sounded like he was underwater in mud.
Noah fumbled with the door handle, but it wouldn’t give. He was moving through a nightmare’s quicksand, stunned and slow.
The door flew open and Daggett yanked him to the ground. A few feet out, Fuller was giving hand signals to the other men. He turned back to Daggett and yelled, “Get Stone under cover. Go, go—”
Abruptly, Fuller froze. A hole appeared in his forehead, his jaw sagged and he dropped to the ground. Before Noah or Emile could react, another blast struck—a direct hit on the HMV, now empty, behind them. A wave of heat and sound plowed him down. Hot knives seemed to slice his shoulders, belly and legs. He heard an ungodly scream. Just before everything went black, he realized the scream had come from him.
WHEN NOAH CAME TO, HIS body burned with pain and every breath was a stab of agony. He lay on his side, tasting dirt and swallowing blood. His ears rang and his mind kept flickering like a lightbulb about to blow. He tested his body for mobility. His right leg and left arm seemed to be broken. Any movement made him nearly pass out. His ribs were at least cracked and every breath was torture.
He was being shouted at, but with his ears ringing, he couldn’t detect the language. A rifle jabbed him in the chest. An Iraqi soldier above him wanted Noah up.
Adrenaline was all that got Noah to his knees, despite his injuries. He saw Emile Daggett, also kneeling, bleeding from the head and mouth, one eye swollen shut, a rifle trained at his temple.
The two Iraqis arranged themselves in front of Noah and Emile, clearly readying to execute them. Dully, Noah wondered why his life wasn’t passing before his eyes. Instead, he thought, This is a great story, but you’ll be too dead to write it.
Suddenly, shots chinked nearby, zinging off metal, pocking the dirt. Another Iraqi ran up to the two guarding Noah and Emile and yelled something. Agitated, the soldiers dragged Emile and Noah to their feet and shoved them forward. Noah’s leg gave out, so he got dragged along the ground into a machine shop, then to a small room filled with tarp-covered crates and what looked like engine parts. The space stank of wet earth, motor oil, blood and something foul.
Emile turned to speak and got slugged by a rifle butt. He dropped to the ground, unconscious, possibly dead. When Noah looked up, he saw the stock of a machine gun coming for his head. Once more, he dropped into blackness.
THE NEXT TIME NOAH WAS conscious, the dimness of the light leaking through the seams in the steel walls told him hours had passed. His mouth was coated with dust and he was desperate for water. His pain had localized to his injured parts, including his skull, where he fingered a baseball-size lump. Emile was out, but breathing.
Going under with a concussion was bad news, so he fought to stay awake, but failed. When he came to again, he heard machine-gun and rifle fire and an occasional mortar landing nearby. He wet Emile’s lips from a bucket of foul-smelling water that had appeared while Noah was unconscious. Emile groaned.
Hours passed. Noah faded in and out. At one point, he heard men talking overhead. He thought he recognized Fariq and tried to say his name, but his mouth was too dry, his voice too faint.
He tried to find a way out. There was something about the crates he needed to check. He felt for his camera, thinking he should take pictures, if he could stay awake long enough and clear his vision…?.
He woke in different parts of the cramped room, forgetting what he’d been trying to do. At one point, a guard came in and caught him writing in his notepad. This time, when the blow struck and the blackness came, Noah expected never to see light again.
CHAPTER THREE
Phoenix, Arizona
AT 3:00 A.M., MEL woke to wet sheets and a sharp pain. Instantly, she knew. Her baby was coming. Her water had broken and she was having contractions. Game on. A few weeks early, but safe, gracias a Dios. Endometriosis could lead to premature birth, but at her last appointment, the doctor had told her the baby was developed enough to be born anytime and likely not need neonatal care.
Okay. This is it. Here we go. Excitement poured through her. Adrenaline, too, waking her up, putting every cell of her being on alert. She was a little scared, her heart pounding, but she stayed in charge, her tasks scrolling through her mind: Call the doctor. Wake Mamá. Dress. Pack a quick bag. Drive to the hospital. She pushed to her feet and got started.
The doctor told her to meet him at the hospital, so she went to wake her mother. She hated to rob Irena of vital sleep, but her mother would have her head if Mel left without her. “Mamá, it’s time.”
Irena threw back the covers. “Lista!” she said, bounding out of bed. Ready. Mel’s heart ached at how hard her mother tried to hide her pain from Mel.
Irena was still weak from a second surgery, required because her fibromyalgia flare-ups had delayed chemotherapy. Mel had moved home to be more useful to her and had been helping out more at Bright Blossoms.
Mel carried her mother’s condition constantly with her—a drumbeat in her head, a throb in her heart. What if she didn’t recover? What if she got worse? What if she died?
At least Irena would see her grandchild. Mel knew that and it filled her with relief. No matter what happened, she’d have given her mother this gift.
“Are you excited, mi’ ja?” her mother said, a happy light overriding the gray exhaustion that ruled her features. Just the sight of Mel’s growing belly had seemed to cheer her and daily Mel had been grateful for that.
“Very,” she said, going close to hug her mother, taking in the comfort, the warmth, the love that meant so much to her. “Gracias a Dios I am here to see this day,” Irena whispered, her voice urgent, her eyes gleaming with tears. It was rare for her to admit this possibility and it hit Mel hard.
She bit her lip and swallowed against the lump in her throat. “Of course you are here. You’ll be here for years and years.” She pressed her cheek against her mother’s, praying that what she’d said would prove true.
“Get dressed while I pack.”
Then, in her room, throwing toiletries into a bag, it hit: What about Noah? She’d put off calling him, not wanting to deal with his shock and possible outrage over her carelessness with birth control. Plus, she hadn’t heard from him since that first month. He’d clearly moved on. She should, too.
Oh, Noah. Her heart surged with longing for him, as it had over and over again during her pregnancy. It was weak and stupid, but at night, she’d often fantasized him with her, spooning in bed, his warm hand cupping her swollen belly, cozy in their cocoon.
Pregnancy hormones, no doubt, but embarrassing as hell.
And now? Now that the baby was here? She had to tell him. The man hated secrets. She owed him this truth.
She reached for her cell phone, where she had his number, but a contraction gripped her. Pain ripped through her insides, twisting her organs, taking over her brain and body, making her gasp. She grabbed the bureau, panting, fighting to remember the Lamaze technique. “Ow, ow, ow,” was the best she could manage. How many minutes had gone by since the last contraction?
She didn’t remember. There was no time for a phone chat, that was certain, so she settled for a text: Got pregnant that weekend. Baby coming. No need for anything. This is what I want. No regrets.
She took a deep breath and hit Send. For better or worse, Noah would know. Putting her phone in her bag, Mel set off to have her baby.
Two days after the attack
Landstuhl, Germany
NOAH OPENED HIS EYES and jolted upward. Pain stabbed his chest and his hand hit a metal bar. He saw he was in a hospital bed. Alive. Safe. At least that. He checked himself out, moving as little as he could to minimize the pain.
His chest was taped, he had casts on his left arm and right leg and stitches pulled at the skin at his shoulders and his thigh. He touched a thick bandage around his head. Okay. Got it. That was all the activity he could stand, so he closed his eyes and drifted off.
After that, he slipped in and out of awareness for a while, hearing voices, beeps, clicks, the whisk of curtains, feeling his body being shifted, getting jolts of pain, the stab of injections, hearing groans, seeing lights go bright, then dim.
Eventually, he was alert enough to understand that he was in the medical center at the Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany, where military personnel and some civilians were cared for when injured overseas.
The neurologist explained that Noah had suffered a traumatic brain injury. His language center had been damaged, so speech and attention span would be compromised, but they were hopeful he would recover. They were hopeful. Okay. He’d hold on to hopeful. He was so foggy he could barely form a thought, let alone ask many questions.
Not long after that, he awoke to find an officer in a dress uniform at the end of his bed, hands crossed at his crotch, chest loaded with medals.
“I’m Brigadier General Wade Nelson,” the man said, “here to extend the Army’s best wishes for your recovery. What happened over there was regrettable.”
“What about…the men?” Noah croaked out, fighting the gaps in his brain for words. “Daggett was…hurt. Others…?” Every thought was a battle.
“Private Daggett is recovering in this facility,” Nelson said. “Sergeant Fuller, killed in action, yourself and PFC Daggett were the only casualties incurred during the incident in question.”
Noah nodded, relieved no more men had been hurt.
Nelson then rattled off a military description of what had occurred. Noah concentrated as best he could, fighting to understand, though words kept dropping through holes in the sieve his brain had become.
In essence, Nelson told him that Fuller had acted against orders by allowing a civilian to join the patrol, that Noah had forced a detour to an unsecured area, where Fuller’s men initiated unprovoked combat resulting in Fuller’s death and the capture of Noah and Emile by the Iraqi soldiers who believed themselves under attack by U.S. troops.
Noah and Daggett had been “secured” some time later. There would be an investigation…disciplinary actions taken…and serious consequences.
“It was…me…” he managed to say. “I’m at fault.”
“We are well aware of that fact,” the brigadier general said, his mouth a grim line. He moved to the side of the bed and looked down at Noah, his eyes dark with anger. “Your irresponsible actions have jeopardized our status with the Iraqi military, its government and its people, Mr. Stone.” The words hit like hammer blows, pounding straight through Noah’s mental fog. He would remember each one, he knew.
“On behalf of the U.S. Army and the American people, I urge you, in any reporting you may do, to respect the men who risked their lives to save yours and be utterly clear about your culpability in what transpired on that ill-advised patrol.”
My duty…is to…the truth. The words slowly lined up in his brain, but refused to become speech. The most he could manage was, “The men…were…brave.” That was one truth he knew.
The remainder of Nelson’s words became a meaningless jumble. After he was gone, Noah tried to recall the attack. All he got were flashing images: Chuy and Emile hassling each other…Bo spitting tobacco…goats in the road…spiderwebs of cracked glass in the HMV’s windshield….
Why couldn’t he remember? He tried not to panic. The neurologist had warned him that he’d likely experience something called retrograde amnesia and be unable to recall anything around the time of the trauma, at least for a while, though it sometimes became a permanent loss.
Abruptly, a scene flashed into his mind—slowed down like a movie dream sequence. Pings…pops…a blast from behind…his body frozen…Daggett yanking him from the vehicle… Stumbling forward… Fuller:
Get Stone under cover… The black spot between Fuller’s eyes…Fuller on the ground.
Then the screen in Noah’s brain went blank.
The horror of what he’d done rolled over him like a semi. Fuller had assigned Emile Daggett as Noah’s bodyguard. Protocol said that reporters got babysat. Noah ignored that, believing it unnecessary in his case. But he’d been given a guard all the same and that fact led directly to Fuller’s death and Daggett’s capture.
Noah had caused this. It was on him. He gripped the sides of the bed, shaking with anger at himself and regret—so much regret.
Those soldiers. What they’d risked and lost.
All because Noah needed a hot story to impress his editor.
Sickness washed through him and he fumbled for the kidney-shaped dish on his tray to puke up bile. The spasm made his injured ribs seem to split wide-open, a punishment he welcomed.
A rattling sound made him notice his cell phone vibrating on his bed tray. Seemed someone had gathered the gear he’d left at FOB River Watch when he went on the fateful patrol. He scooped the phone close enough to see the call was from Hank.
His editor would want the story, of course, though Noah remembered little beyond what Nelson had told him. It didn’t matter. He was a reporter. He had a job to do. Fighting pain, he answered the call.
It did not go well. Words failed him over and over. There were long gaps where he could only breathe and struggle for language. Finally, Hank said, “We’ll get the basics and come back to you for a comment. You just get better.” His tone was gentle, as if Noah were a child or a volatile mental patient.
“Yeah.” He fought the helplessness, the frustration, the shame. He was a writer, but words were lost to him.
He still held the phone when a wave of terror washed over him. His heart pounded so hard he grabbed his chest, causing more pain. Was he having a heart attack? He was shaking and sweating and terrified. Of what? He was safe in a hospital bed. What the hell was going on?
Then he remembered the neurologist describing a panic attack, a common aftereffect of a trauma. They hit out of the blue, scary as hell, mimicking a heart at tack, but are essentially harmless.
The terror and pain had barely released him when his phone buzzed again. He checked the display. A number he didn’t recognize. He saw he had dozens of texts and voicemails, some from before the assault, he was sure.
People would want to know he’d survived. He couldn’t deal with their sympathy or questions. He deleted all the voicemails, then highlighted batch after batch of texts to delete in groups. On the last set, as he clicked Delete, he saw Mel Ramirez.
Mel.
Her name sent warmth pouring through him. She’d been in his mind a lot in the months since they’d met—her face, her smile, her fire. He’d been thinking he would look her up when he got back. But that could never happen now. Not after this. Just as well that her message was gone, unread, like the rest.
He decided to write one general “I’m okay” message. It took forever, the words elusive, his spelling hopeless, but he managed the equivalent of, Minor injuries. Be in touch. He ticked “all contacts.”
At the last second, he unchecked Mel, then hit Send. He owed her a personal note. She was probably doing great, living the life she’d been poised to launch that weekend. He mangled words and skipped letters in his communication, but the gist was: Not sure where I’ll end up. I know you’ll do great. I wish you every happiness.
Corny, but true. Thinking about her was a momentary escape from the hell of his thoughts. There was her number on his screen. He could hit Call and talk to her. Her voice would be like medicine. But he didn’t deserve to feel better. Not for a long, long time. He pressed End until his phone went black.
He would answer the questions he had to for the National Record story, then get out a media statement expressing regret for his irresponsible actions and gratitude for the soldiers’ bravery. The main thing he wanted right now was to get well enough to wheel down to Emile’s room and say how sorry he was he’d put him in harm’s way. If the soldier was well enough to punch his lights out, Noah would be happy to have him slug away.
Phoenix, Arizona
MEL STARED AT THE BABY she held, hardly able to believe they were home, in the room she’d prepared for him, painting and papering it in circus colors and accents.
Daniel Marco Ramirez, named for Irena’s father and grandfather, had been born tiny, but healthy after twelve hours of labor the previous day. “Welcome to the world, mi’ jo,” Mel whispered to him, her throat tight with joy.
She was so lucky and so happy.
Tired, too, of course. And worried. Now that the excitement had died down and reality set in, she was concerned. Would she be able to juggle caring for a new baby and her fragile mother? Irena had gone straight to bed when they got home from the hospital that afternoon. Mel had brought her soup on a tray for supper. There was a lot to handle now and it was all new.
Mel sighed. There was something else in her heart, too. She felt a little, well, sad. Her life had changed completely overnight. She already missed News Day. She would return to work after three weeks, but if her mother needed more help with Bright Blossoms, Mel would have to give up the job.
As for her goal of moving on to another paper in a bigger city? Out of the question for years, at least. In the ever-tightening market, news jobs would only grow scarcer.
She’d made the right choice, and she had no regrets, but she couldn’t help missing the dream she’d worked so hard for and barely had a chance to taste the rewards of.
She hadn’t heard from Noah yet.
She knew he was safe in a military hospital, recovering from his injuries. She’d been deep in labor when CNN on the TV in her hospital room scrolled the news of his rescue in Iraq. From what she could figure of the time differences, her text about the baby had reached him the day before the attack in Iraq.
Obviously, he had other things on his mind now. Her heart went out to him for what he’d been through. Eventually, he would respond to her.
Oh, Noah. Selfishly, foolishly, she wished he were here in the golden glow of the circus-seal night-light, sitting on the edge of the recliner, his arm around her, looking down at the brand-new person they’d created.
Daniel was so perfect, with ten tiny fingers and toes, two delicate shells for ears and his whole soul looking at her from huge, wise eyes.
It was ridiculous, of course, to even picture Noah in such a sappy, domestic scene. He would no more be here than sprout wings and fly. He never wanted kids. He’d been clear about that. He was too selfish, too restless, too career-focused. And she respected him for knowing what he wanted, for not playing games about it.
Still…
