Max understood. Most of the time, neither did she. “Then you don’t have to. But you do have to stay here until the IV runs in. Deal?”

Rachel frowned. “I don’t think I like your deals. I think they’re rigged somehow.”

“Well, until you figure out how, just go along with it.” Max slipped in an IV and hooked up the fluid. When she finished taping the line down, Rachel was asleep.

“You should rest too,” Amina said from beside Max.

“I will.” Max looked from Rachel to Grif. “When we get out of here, I’ll have a big meal, a bigger glass of whiskey, and I’ll sleep for a week.”

Amina smiled. “I never thought I’d say this, but that sounds really good.”

Chapter Eleven

Rachel jerked awake, surrounded by the rattle and roar of gunfire and helicopter rotors, the taste of sand in her mouth, the stench of cordite, the sweet cloying odor of fresh blood. Terror so deep she couldn’t think enveloped her. Above her the sun shuddered behind thick clouds of dust. Pain and fear dimmed her vision. She grabbed a breath and gripped the sides of the cot with both hands. The room spun and more memories assaulted her. Grif’s anguished cries of pain, Dacar’s blank accusing eyes, Max’s lethal gaze above the barrel of an assault rifle. Max. Another breath forced down her tight throat. Max’s hand on her back, steady and sure, the tenderness in her eyes she tried to hide, the certainty and gentleness of her hands as she tended to Grif’s damaged body.

Rachel centered herself. She was in the tent. She was alive. The erratic pounding of her heart settled into a steady cadence. Her right forearm ached and she held up her hand. Clear tubing ran to a plastic catheter taped above her wrist. An IV bag sat next to her, clipped to the back of one of the wooden chairs. She swallowed. Her throat was dry, her eyes ached. Nausea was a constant companion.

But she was alive. “Max?”

“You’re awake,” Amina said. “How do you feel?”

Rachel turned her head and looked at Amina as she had so many times in their tent—in the early morning before rising and the last thing at night before going to sleep, when they’d whisper a few minutes about things beyond the heat and oppression of this tortured land. Amina would speak longingly of family and friends, of hopes and dreams, and Rachel would listen. She had little that was personal to share and tried not to dwell on what that said about her life. If Amina noticed her silence, she never let on. Her lovely dark eyes, then as now, had always been warm and calming and accepting.

Tonight, Amina stretched out on a cot across from her, lying on her side, her head propped on her elbow, just as she always did. Strands of her ebony hair had escaped the tie at her nape and curled loosely around her shoulders. Rachel couldn’t remember ever seeing Amina with a single hair out of place, but nothing was as it had been, and so many things she’d once worried about didn’t seem to matter now. What mattered was food and water and keeping each other safe. What mattered was Grif, lying on a makeshift litter in the space between them. He appeared to be sleeping. She hoped so.

“I’m fine,” Rachel said.

“Really?”

Rachel laughed wryly. “No, actually I feel terrible. My head feels like the inside of a snare drum. But I’m all right, considering. How are you?”

“I’m all right too, I guess.” Amina glanced at Grif. “I’m so sad about Dacar and the others. So sad and so angry.”

“Yes. Me too.” The anger, Rachel realized, was much sharper than the sadness—a knife blade slashing through her, dulling the crushing pain of loss. She wouldn’t forget the dead, nor fail to mourn them, but she’d keep her anger for the strength she found in it. Amina was no stranger to loss. Both her father and older brother had been killed in some kind of clan conflict when she was just a young girl. Perhaps she’d replaced pain with empathy, channeling her grief into the aid program and a passion for justice. Rachel didn’t think she’d be able to find any empathy for those who killed for power and lust and greed. No, she’d keep her anger and, for the time being, her rifle. She scanned the tent and her stomach tensed.

“Where’s Max?” Rachel asked.

“She said something about reconnaissance. She went out twenty minutes ago.”

“Alone?” Rachel grimaced. “Of course, alone. There’s no one else here. How long have I been sleeping?”

“Not long. An hour, perhaps.”

Rachel sat up on the side of the cot, and the throbbing in her head disappeared in a rush of adrenaline. “She shouldn’t be out there without backup. Why didn’t she wait for me?”

“She’s a soldier,” Amina said softly.

“She’s a doctor.”

“And you’re already seriously dehydrated. It’s still a hundred degrees out there.”

“I’m going after her.” Rachel loosened the tape on her wrist, closed the port on the IV, and pulled the needle from her arm.

Amina rose, opened a paper pack of gauze, and taped a folded square over the IV site on Rachel’s wrist. “I don’t think you should. We are not soldiers.”

“I think we are now.” Rachel hugged Amina quickly and let her go. “Look after Grif. I won’t leave the camp, but I can’t sit in here waiting.”

“It will be night soon. It will at least get cooler.”

“I’m not worried about the temperature.” Rachel didn’t want to say what they were both thinking. When night fell, they might be rescued. Or the rebels might return. She didn’t know, and there were no answers. All her life, she’d sought answers—why her father cared more about power and prestige than happiness, why she never met a woman who would risk social status for love, why no matter how much she achieved, she still felt restless and dissatisfied. Suddenly the questions seemed self-indulgent and the answers didn’t matter any longer. What mattered was what she could do in the moment. What mattered was now. She shook her head as she took her assault rifle and stepped out into the camp. Max was turning her into a soldier after all. As she searched the camp and couldn’t find her, the tension in her middle swelled. Shaking off a wave of fear at the thought of Max in danger, she wondered what else Max was doing to her.

*

Max stopped in the first clearing she could find where she could actually see the sky through the dense canopy. The sun was an angry red eye in the west, and she estimated another hour before dark. She tried her sat com again.

“Foxtrot Charlie, this is Fox MD2, requesting immediate extraction. Over.”

Like all the other times she’d tried from closer to camp, she got only static in response. She repeated the message and waited.

…D2…repeat…

Max gripped the radio, her pulse jumping. “Foxtrot Charlie, this is Fox MD2, requesting immediate extraction. Over.”

…status…

“Four to transport. We have wounded. Over.”

Static.

Max squeezed the radio, wanted to scream at it. Steadily, clearly, she said, “Foxtrot Charlie, come in. Over.”

Nothing but dead air.

Max waited another ten minutes, repeating her message, and got no further response. She checked her compass and set a course back to camp, her fatigue and hunger and worry fading a bit. That fragment of contact, the sound of a friendly voice from home, was almost as heartening as the drone of rotors drawing near. The troops in Djibouti, her family far more than the mother and father with too many children and not enough means or interest to care for them, knew she was out here, and help would come. She’d never doubted it, but the insidious feeling of being isolated and abandoned lurked inside her, emerging when she was at her weakest. Not knowing when or if another attack was coming had gnawed at her all day. She’d told Rachel it didn’t matter what was coming—all that mattered was to be prepared and face it head-on. She wasn’t worried for herself. She would never feel the round that took her out, but she had two civilians and a seriously wounded sailor on her hands and at least a few more hours to wait until the birds returned. If there was a race between the Black Hawks and the rebels to get to them, she put her money on the Black Hawks.

The attack that morning had been a disorganized raid by a few rebels who’d likely stumbled on the camp by accident. The small scout force might have attacked without knowing the identity of the Red Cross contingent. She doubted the insurgents would have cared about the neutrality of the aid workers even if they had known, considering they assaulted the locals whenever the villagers or herders came close to rebel territory. The main rebel force was probably still miles away. The rebel survivors would have wounded, and by the time they reached their base, even if another attack was planned, it would take time to organize the forces and return. A return raid might not even be a priority—unless they had a specific target. Just like she’d had. Rachel.

Two Black Hawks had been sent to extract Rachel specifically. Rachel had avoided talking about herself, but someone with power had arranged something like that. If she’d been the focus of the attack that morning too, the rebels were likely to return for another try. Max blew out air. Thinking about Rachel in the hands of the rebels short-circuited her reason. She needed to concentrate on what she knew and what she could do. She’d heard from base. Help would be on the way, and until it arrived, she had to be ready to fight again. She started back for camp, glad to be bringing good news to Rachel. To Rachel and Amina and Grif.

The footpath was hardly recognizable at first, barely wide enough for a hyena let alone a human, and she’d stepped onto it before she’d realized it. The trail ran parallel to the camp, about fifty yards into the jungle, and was only one of hundreds crisscrossing the area, traveled by hunters, herders, and nomadic tribes—and, in the last few months, by rebel forces using the jungle as a sanctuary from aerial and ground attack. This was probably the route the rebels who’d raided the camp that morning had taken. From the looks of the trail, it wasn’t a major access route. Nothing suggested mechanized transport or even a large volume of foot traffic.