Until We Meet Once More (3 page)

Sean. Don’t do this to me.

Okay. That could mean a couple of things. If one word defined the SEALs it was silence. And the fact that Sean had gone silent could mean the drone wasn’t positioned where it needed to be or there was a problem with it or with the live feed. It could mean Sean was lying low somewhere where the surveillance drones couldn’t see him.

It could mean he had been captured.

Or killed.

But Vic wasn’t going to accept that until he had proof. He turned to jog back to the clearing but the pilot, Cheyney, appeared at the top of the open ramp. She called after him, “Captain Black! We can’t hang around here any longer.”

Vic threw back, “We’re not leaving without Kennedy, so simmer down.”

“I’ll simmer
you
down, Stoney,” Cheyney snapped. “Any minute one of these ragheads is going to show up with an RPG and punch a hole in my bird. We’re taking off.”

Vic thought fast.

“Fair enough. Leave me here. I’ll meet you at the bottom of the mountain.”

She made a sound that in another woman might have been considered a squeak. “
Leave
you here? Are you out of your goddamned mind? This mountainside is going to be crawling with hostiles within the hour.”

“
Stoney.
What are you — you know as well as I do that he’s — that there’s a good chance he’s been captured or killed. The live feed isn’t picking up any activity.”

“No way.”

“
No way
? What do you mean,
no way
? Stoney, no way can I leave you here. I’ve got my orders too, you know? And even if I didn’t —”

He couldn’t hear this. He liked her. They’d had some good times together, but… no. He said, “Katie, give me three hours. I’ll head for the valley below. It’s a natural landing zone. You can pick me up there at….”

“Listen, if Kennedy’s still alive we can’t fly out of here and leave him on this rock with hundreds of insurgents closing in on him.”

“I must be out of
my
mind. How the hell am I supposed to explain —?”

But she was talking to herself.

oOo

Eleven years ago, , Bancroft Hall, U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland

“So when were you going to tell me?”

The one look at Sean’s face he’d risked had hurt too much, so Vic was staring out the window of their dorm in Bancroft Hall, staring over the summer-green tops of trees. It made it worse because Sean was trying so hard not to show anything — after all those times Vic had warned him his face gave too much away. “I’m telling you now.”

“Now.” Sean’s voice was flat. “Okay. You’re telling me now. We’re…how many weeks from graduation? And you tell me
now
you’re thinking about the Rangers?”

“If I can get in.”

Sean jumped up from the bed and began to circle the room. “You’re going to cross commission to the fucking
army
? Your family’s been navy since your great-great-great crawled out of the ooze. And you’re suddenly talking about becoming an Army Ranger? You did notice we’re in fucking Annapolis, right?”

Vic turned then. “What do you
want
from me?”

Sean gaped at him. “What do I want? Well, Black, I guess I wanted what we’ve been talking about for three years. You and me in the marines together —”

“You jackass,” Vic yelled. He got his voice under control with an effort. “And how did you think that was going to work, Kennedy? It’s not even like we were going to be in the same unit. What the hell were you thinking? We were going to go steady? We were going get married?”

“What the hell was
I
thinking?”

“We’re career military. We can’t just…we’re not the kind of guys who…”

“Come out?”

Vic stopped cold. After a silence that seemed as deep and raw as the Mariana Trench, he said carefully, “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

Sean just stared back at him with those clear, light eyes.

Vic said — making it just as plain and to the point as he could — “Maybe it’s different for you. You got in here on an appointment and there’s only your aunt to think about. My grandfather was an admiral in the Second World War. My dad — my whole family — is expecting me to live up to —” The look on Sean’s face stopped him. Vic said roughly, “I don’t mean that, Sean.”

Sean was smiling now, and that fierce white curve of his mouth was far worse than the hurt that had twisted his face a moment before. “Why not? It’s the truth. It’s what you think. I’m glad you said it. It makes it —”

Vic grabbed his shoulders, pressing his mouth to Sean’s stopping him from saying it. He didn’t want to hurt Sean. That was the last thing he’d ever want. He’d have given his soul to take it all back, to erase the last half hour, to change the future. But regardless of what he said or didn’t say, this was the way it had to be. There wasn’t any other way for them. He’d always known it, and he’d told himself that Sean did too. That despite what Sean said, what they’d
both
said, Sean knew the truth as well as Vic did. But maybe Vic had been seeing what he wanted to see because Sean…had always had that stubborn, irrational streak of idealism. Or stupidity.

Sean tore free and got on the other side of the room. He was shaking — and so, Vic was surprised to note, was he.

“Listen,” Vic said, keeping his voice low. “This isn’t anything to do with how I-I feel—”

Sean yanked off the class ring he wore. Vic’s ring, actually, because they had secretly exchanged their class rings as Second Class Midshipmen. He hurled it with vicious accuracy at Vic. The heavy ring hit Vic squarely on the bridge of his nose and bounced away.

oOo

Present day, , Somewhere in the Aram Mountain Range, Kunar Province, Afghanistan

Vic was already a hundred meters down the steep, rocky slope when he saw the Chinook wheeling away like a great black bird. It silhouetted briefly against the enormous red moon and then was gone.

The mortar crew continued to take petulant shots at it until it had vanished, the sound echoing off the stone walls, and then rolling away into a silence as absolute as the grave.

Vic reached for a handhold and something skittered away from his hand.

Cautiously, and very quietly, half-walking, half-sliding he got down the steep hillside until he reached a trail of sorts. He kept his eyes peeled because Sean Kennedy was somewhere on this mountain and Vic was going to find him if it was the last thing he did.

Sean was smart and savvy and stubborn. No one knew better than Vic how stubborn Sean Kennedy was — if eleven years of radio silence were anything to go by. Sean wouldn’t give up. He’d keep fighting to get to the LZ.

If he was able.

And so Vic continued down a ledge that would have given a mountain goat pause for thought.

There was a clack of stone on stone, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the stillness of the night. Vic froze. The sound came from about twenty meters in front of him. Someone scrabbling up the cliffside. He reached for his combat knife. If this was a fight, it needed to be a quiet one or he was liable to have all of al Qaeda down on him. And if it wasn’t a fight…his heart thudded hard in a hopeful mixture of adrenaline and anticipation.

Silent and deadly, he sprinted forward, and as he watched, two dirt grimed hands — one wrapped in a blood-stained handkerchief — groped blindly along the edge of the cliff.

Vic was ready, ready for the worst and hoping for the best as the man hauled himself, panting, over the lip of the trail and dragged himself to his feet, swaying as he tried not to put weight on his right foot. Vic saw the sweat dark hair, the stained headband, and the gaunt, bearded face.

“Sean,” he said in a voice that sounded nothing like his own.

Sean Kennedy’s head snapped up and he nearly stepped backward off the mountain side. Vic lunged for him, caught his arm and towed him forward. For an instant they were in each other’s arms, clutching tight, and then they were apart, standing on what felt like the edge of the world, teetering, off-balance physically and emotionally.

“
Stoney
?” Sean said at last. “Is that you?”

“Yeah.” Vic was grinning like a fool. “Yeah, it’s me.”

“Jee-zus. It
is
you.” Sean closed his eyes for a moment. He opened them and peered owlishly into Vic’s face. “
You’re
the cavalry?”

“You were expecting the navy?”

“Ha.” Unexpectedly, Sean’s legs gave and he half-sat, half fell onto the ribbon of goat track, head dropping back with exhaustion.

Vic knelt beside him. “How bad are you hurt?” He patted Sean down — any excuse to touch him, if he was honest. To reassure himself that it really was Sean, that he really was alive. All the times he’d dreamed of this moment — none of the dreams had come anywhere near this terrifying reality.

Sean’s shoulders had broadened and his body was the hard body of a man. Beneath Vic’s searching hands — and the battered body armor — Sean was all bone and muscle. His face was much older…a thousand years older, and something inside Vic grieved for that. The last time he’d seen Sean he’d been a lanky kid with hair the color of autumn and eyes younger than spring.

Eyes still shut, wincing beneath Vic’s exploration, Sean said, “It’s all relative. Was that my taxi I saw flying away a little while ago?”

“Just taking her for a spin around the block.”

“I hope it’s a short block.”

Vic found where a bullet had grazed Sean’s shoulder, a crease along his upper arm, another nick along his side where he’d been hit beneath the edge of his vest. An assortment of cuts and scrapes and bruises. Nothing vital had been hit and the blood was drying, crusting. It was as though al Qaeda had been chipping bits and pieces out of him for days. “Christ, how many times have you been shot?”

Vic let go of him abruptly, pulled his binoculars from around his neck and threw himself down at the edge of the mountain, scanning the dark slopes below.

When he still didn’t answer, Vic glanced around and saw that he was sleeping. He turned the binoculars back on the mountainside beneath them.

Nothing.

But that didn’t mean they weren’t out there.

He crawled back to Sean, hesitating for an instant at the sight of that strained and weary face in repose. He rested his hand on Sean’s shoulder and instantly caught the gleam of Sean’s eyes.

“Well, we can’t go up. I don’t think anyone knows I’m on the mountain, but they’re going to be wondering what that chopper was doing here. We can’t risk landing topside again, but Grizzly is going to meet us in the valley at oh five hundred.”