“Not just yet.” Max pivoted to watch the sky. “Looks like ground-to-air rockets. That’s tracer fire—machine guns shooting back.”

“What’s happening?” Amina asked.

“Rebel ground forces firing at inbound birds, I’d say. About three clicks away from here.”

Rachel looped her arm around Amina’s waist, as much for her own comfort as Amina’s. “Are the rebels coming, then?”

“Maybe,” Max said. “Maybe not. Maybe we were just the bait all along. I think they want the Black Hawks.”

“Why?” Rachel glanced back and forth between Max and the jungle, half expecting someone else to drop down beside them, this time an enemy with a rifle or a knife.

“Intelligence, the weapons, maybe just the bragging rights.” Max shook her head. “Who knows how they think? Any kind of victory, even if it’s fabricated, probably helps them recruit more followers.”

“It’s crazy,” Rachel murmured.

“Yeah, it is.” Max gripped Rachel’s arm. “I’m going back out. Don’t fire unless you hear shooting first. Then if anyone approaches and it’s not me, fire at anything that moves.”

“Stay here.” Rachel heard the tremor in her voice this time and didn’t care. She wasn’t afraid to be left alone—she was afraid for Max to be alone out there in the dark. “Please.”

Max’s fingers tightened on her arm. “We’ve got a better chance if I go. I’ll be back.”

“Do you keep your promises?”

“Yes.”

“Then promise.”

Max hesitated, moonlight glinting in her eyes. “I’ll do my best. I promise.”

“Your best better be damn—”

Max jerked her rifle to her shoulder. “Get down.”

Rachel ducked and pushed Amina behind her. Keeping her head below the top of the barrier, she crowded next to Max and squinted into the dark. Another explosion lit up the camp and she saw them. Shadows within shadows, creeping out from the jungle. Animals? Humans? Her imagination?

“Max?” She held her breath, afraid the pounding of her heart would give their position away. Beside her, Max was as still as stone. For an instant, Rachel imagined taking shelter against her, leaning on her strength. She knew she could and Max would not think less of her, but she would think less of herself. Tugging her lower lip between her teeth, she forced herself to see the nightmares in the night.

Chapter Fourteen

Max steadied her rifle and focused through her night-vision goggles on the spot where she’d detected movement. If she hadn’t spent her share of time on night maneuvers, she never would have recognized the faint blur in her vision for what it was—the fleeting break in the tree line made by four men ghosting into camp. Four men inside their perimeter, circling around to converge on the center from four directions. Four against three, and Amina and Rachel were completely untrained. Their best hope was to even the odds.

“Rachel,” she whispered, “move around behind me and watch our rear. Keep your head down.”

“Right.” Rachel shifted as carefully as she could, certain that every crunch of stone beneath her boots, loud as a cannon shot, was audible for miles. She might as well shout, Over here! And what would she do if she saw someone?

Shoot? Yes. No. Could she? Until this moment, the idea of actually killing another human being had never been real. Earlier, when she’d been infuriated at the senseless slaughter of her friends and alternately terrified and outraged that the rebels might return to wreak more violence, she’d wanted to strike back as viciously as she’d been attacked, or thought she’d wanted to. She’d wanted to lash out to ease her pain, but now, peering into the dark with her finger on the trigger of a weapon that only a day before she would never have considered even picking up, she wondered if she could take a life. And if she could, what did it say about who she’d become?

Amina crouched beside her, and Rachel knew in that instant she would pull the trigger if it meant protecting herself and her friend. She would have to worry about the consequences later. Max was only a few feet away, but she dared not look over her shoulder, dared not look away from whatever lurked in the dark. Just knowing Max was behind her, protecting her, made her feel safe in a situation where safety was impossible, and she held on to that feeling while she searched for danger. Her eyes felt dry and tight, and she realized she wasn’t blinking for fear that one millisecond of inattention would cost her everything. How did anyone survive this madness day after day? And at what cost?

She couldn’t see anything out there except the soft flutter of tent flaps. That was all it was, right? That faint shimmer in the hazy moonlight slivering across the bare ground like shards of glass scattered by a giant hand. If someone was coming, she couldn’t see them.

“Max,” she whispered, “I can’t see anything. What—”

“I’ve lost them too,” Max said.

“Are you sure they’re out there?”

“My gut says yes, but whoever they are, they’re good.” Max swore under her breath, the vehemence surprising Rachel. “They might be searching the tents. Grif is alone. I’m going out.”

Panic surged. “No. If they’re here—”

Max edged next to her and unexpectedly clasped the back of her neck, her grip warm and strong and welcome.

“You’ll be all right,” Max murmured, her mouth close to Rachel’s ear. “You can do this.”

“I can’t,” Rachel whispered urgently. “Not without you. I won’t know when…I’m not sure if—”

Max’s fingers tightened on her nape, gentle and firm. Max’s breath seemed to slip beneath Rachel’s skin and soothe the sharp edges of her terror. “Yes, you can. I’ll be back. Remember?”

Amina pressed close to Rachel’s side. “Trust her…and yourself.”

“I…” Rachel gathered herself, tamped down the fear that clogged her throat. She never wanted Max to move her hand. She didn’t want to let the nightmares back in. “All right. Go. Go see to Grif.” She reached for Amina’s hand. Amina was steady and her certainty helped bolster Rachel’s resolve. “We’re good.”

“That’s my girl,” Max murmured.

For the first time in her life, Rachel didn’t mind being called a girl. She didn’t need to argue that she was a woman. Everything about the way Max spoke to her, touched her, said she already knew.

“Be careful.” Rachel wouldn’t beg Max to come back quickly. Max would do what she needed to do, and so would she.

“You too.”

And then Max levered herself up, rolled over the bags, and was gone. Rachel tried to follow her movement across the ground and thought she saw her flickering in and out of the shadows, but she couldn’t be sure. All the shadows looked the same. She wet her dry lips. “Amina, can you watch out the other side.”

“Yes. We’ll be all right,” Amina whispered.

Rachel watched and waited. In the distance, closer now than before, the pop of rifle fire, the sharp crack of explosives, and the constant barrage of things bursting in the sky continued. She had the absurd thought that she’d never be able to look at a light show again, never be able to hear thunder without experiencing an instant of terror. No matter what happened out here tonight, she was already changed forever.

*

Max raced for the cover of the nearest tent, expecting a round to take her down at any second. Whoever was out there surely had night goggles and saw her as she had seen them, and they were better than she was. She might have a rifle, but she was no tactical sailor. She could shoot as well as most on the firing range, but she was a surgeon first. Necessity made her a warrior, and she’d fight as long as she could to protect Grif and Rachel and Amina, but she was outnumbered and out of her element.

And what-if-ing wasn’t going to do her a damn bit of good. She had a plan and she wasn’t going to come up with a better one now. First step was to make sure Grif hadn’t fallen asleep or passed out from the pain—if he was awake, he could defend himself, even with one leg out of commission, better than Rachel and Amina. Once she knew he was secure, she could decide whether to head for the jungle in the hope of drawing the intruders away, stand out in the open and fight, or take a defensive position in the foxhole with Rachel and Amina. She checked the immediate area, saw no one, and sprinted across the twenty yards between her and the admin tent. Halfway there something hard and huge hit her in the midsection, her feet left the ground, and she flew a good ten feet and landed on her back with her rifle under her. The air whooshed out of her lungs when she hit, and a heavy body landed on top of her, making it impossible for her to drag in air. Gagging, gasping for breath with muscles that wouldn’t work, she fumbled for her sidearm. A formless face, masked by night-vision goggles and opaque camouflage paint, hovered over hers. The glint of steel flashed as a knife blade touched her throat.

A deep male voice rumbled, “Hernandez, SEAL Team Four. Who are you?”

“De Milles…” Max’s ribcage heaved as air rushed back in and she bit back a moan. Cracked rib or two. “Navy Medical Corps.”

He eased to the side and the crushing weight lessened. “Good to see you, de Milles.”

He grabbed her jacket, hoisted her up, and dragged her across the open ground to the cover of the nearest tent. “Sorry about the tackle. Had to be sure you weren’t some muj in a confiscated uniform. Where are the others?”

Max had only a second to savor the relief. They were still in the middle of a firefight and a long way from safe. “One wounded in the big tent on the left. Two civilians in a foxhole in the center of the camp.”

“One of the civilians name of Winslow?”

“That’s right,” Max said. “What’s the situation?”

“The birds can’t make it here—too much ground activity. We have to walk out a ways.” He murmured into his com link, instructing someone to get Grif.