Forged in Fire (Delos Series Book 3) Read online

“Yes, it definitely has been a plus. It enabled me to understand why people do what they do and what’s important to them, their families, and their villages. And it also helped me create bonds of trust with them because I had a deep grounding in and understanding of the Muslim belief system.”

  “And your Greek cousins?”

  “They’re Greek Orthodox. Interestingly, my cousin Angelo has a small alcove where there’s a statue and altar to Artemis. I think the ancient gods and goddesses are a deep part of the psyche in that part of our world.”

  “Christian, Greek Orthodox, and Muslim. You kids really have three different world religions in your blood.”

  Matt gave her a slight smile. “In my business, it helps a lot. I think when you can go in depth into a culture, it fosters knowledge and leads to fewer misunderstandings. At least, I’ve found that to be true. We get a lot of perishable intel from the villages we have friendships with as a result. And it’s reliable intel. A lot of time, perishable intel is not to be trusted at all.”

  “But because you understand the inner workings of these people, and how they see the world and live their lives, you can connect with them in a more solid, positive way?”

  Matt gave her a proud look. “You’re an astute observer, doctor. Yes, that’s it, exactly. My mother would tell you that our mixed bloodlines help tremendously when we put a charity into a foreign country like Africa, for example. Much of the population there is Muslim. And because we understand the nature of that particular religious group, we can go in and make strong, deep connections, tailoring the charity to the needs of the locals. And in the long run, people derive so much more benefit out of our charity being present in their lives. We’re not selling a religion to them, and we aren’t missionaries. We’re respecting their particular belief system. We’re there to improve their education, their standard of living, to give them medical, eye, and dental support. It gives us a faster entrée into these folks’ societies, creates trust, and helps us build the charity based on their needs.”

  “I like your live-and-let-live attitude. Your mother, Dilara, is really a remarkable, wise person.” Dara reached out, sliding her hand into his. “Like her son …”

  The day gave way to night and Matt became more security conscious. He kept it to himself, allowing Dara to nap off and on throughout the day. This rest was good for her. Plus, that left knee of hers was getting the quality downtime it needed to start the healing process. He’d stitched it well enough, and it wouldn’t tear open under any circumstance, but it still meant Dara’s knee was her Achilles’ heel.

  He walked silently through the cave, moving down the tunnel, wary, listening for intruders who might come into the main cave. When he found none, he would go down the other tunnel and cross-check it as well. The only thing between dying and living was hearing the Taliban come into that main cave right away. And for Matt, that meant very little sleep.

  As he returned at nightfall, the gray light dissolving through the cut in the ceiling, the snow had stopped falling. Huge mounds of it sat collected near the wall. It meant fresh water for them, and he collected it and refilled all their water bottles, adding purification tablets. Water in Afghanistan was filled with bacteria and other, more deadly forms of unseen critters. Purification tablets killed all of them.

  He saw Dara sleeping soundly, lying on her side, snuggled up in the sleeping bag, the smaller blanket around her head and shoulders, keeping all her heat in. Standing, watching the last light begin to gray, he absorbed the planes of her beautiful face. There was tension across her cheekbones, and he knew that was evidence of her fears about surviving this situation.

  He had to give her that—she had a right to be worried, no question. How he wished he could get Dara out of this hot mess. But the only way they were going to get through it was by sticking together like the good team they were.

  They would slowly make their way to lower elevations, get below the snow line to that Afghan village that was American friendly. Twice already, Matt had tried calling Bagram, but the storm was slow moving and blocked the radio signals. Even his sat phone wouldn’t work due to the inclement weather.

  Taking a deep breath, he sat down near Dara’s feet, placing the rifle nearby. Chances were the Taliban would not move until dawn. They usually stopped at night because they had no capacity to look through the dark like he did with his infrared goggles.

  Where were the Taliban camped? Matt had no idea how close or far away they were from them. What he did know was that the enemy were tracking them. And even though the blizzard had wiped out their tracks, they’d still continue to search for them so they could capture or kill them.

  But if Matt had any say in it, that wasn’t going to happen. Grimly, he leaned against the rock, head tipped back, closing his eyes. In his business as a Delta operator, Matt had learned to take catnaps of five to ten minutes. The least sound out of place would jerk him awake. In seconds, he’d spiraled into a deep sleep, desperately needing that time to recoup.

  The next time Matt awoke, he tensed. What was different? He silently got to his feet, gripping the rifle, his hearing keyed up. It was dark except for a full moon that was shining above the mountain. The light would come and go as thick clouds drifted lazily across the summit. What had awakened him? He stood quietly, listening. His gaze moved to Dara. She was still sleeping soundly.

  Sometime during the night, she’d turned onto her back. Her gold hair spilled like a frame around her soft, sleeping features. It was such a contrasting visual because of the danger they were in.

  He heard it again and still couldn’t identify the sound. Whatever it was, it was coming from down below, the echo carrying up the tunnel to their chamber. He pulled the leather cover away from his watch and glanced at it: 0100. Just an hour after midnight.

  Moving swiftly, Matt drew his goggles up, settling them over his eyes, quietly unsafing the M4 and heading for the tunnel. It would be best to allow Dara to sleep. If he woke her up, she might make unintended noise, and he couldn’t afford that. If Taliban had slipped into the main cave, they’d hear that sound in a heartbeat. And then, all bets were off.

  Halfway down the tunnel, he heard the bleating of goats.

  Goats.

  That meant at least one Afghan goat herder, probably a boy, was with them. Maybe two or more. The closer he got to the end of the tunnel, the more clip-clopping of goat hooves he heard. Matt slowed, remaining in the shadows. The moonlight was now hidden by clouds as he crouched, then slowly moved his head enough to peer into the cavern.

  There were at least forty goats, all shaking off snow and milling around in the center of the cave. Matt looked for the goat herder. There had to be one. Where the hell was he?

  He knew there were a number of villages on the slope of this mountain, and only one village was friendly to Americans. The rest were not, and Taliban often used them as spies. If the goat herder was from one of those Taliban-friendly villages, Matt hated to think about what would happen next. If the kid ran back to the village and alerted them to their presence, it would put them into a dangerous position. Damn it!

  Matt waited. The goats crowded, as if looking for their human leader. They moved in a large circle, some bleating, others lying down, apparently exhausted. Outside the cave, Matt could see many goat tracks through the two to three feet of snow that had fallen. There was a final goat, a white and brown one, that leaped up on the lip of the cave. She had a bell on her collar and it tinkled as she moved. Matt knew a female goat always led the way on the narrow paths across these ancient mountains. Once the nanny moved to the center of the restless mass and laid down, the others immediately followed suit.

  He didn’t move. Where was the goat herder? Where? He told himself to be patient. Pretty soon, all the animals were lying close to one another for body heat. Their coats were thickened for the winter, but there was nothing like a group of forty animals to produce body heat, keeping each other warm.

  Matt rested the stock of the M4 on his
thigh. Another fifteen minutes went by and he still didn’t see a goat herder enter the cave. He considered other possibilities. Had the kid driving the goats died of hypothermia out in the storm? Was he trying to reach this cave? Or was he injured somewhere out there with a broken leg, unable to move?

  Another thirty minutes went by, and still Matt saw no one enter the cave. Even the goats didn’t know he was nearby, mostly because he was upwind of their sensitive noses. If the wind had blown down through the tunnel, he knew his scent would have instantly been carried to the animals and they’d probably have stood up, bleated, and been wary.

  Americans smelled different from Afghans. Goats trusted Afghans. They didn’t trust an odd American scent. Right now, the animals were mostly sleeping. Only one goat stood watch at the lip of the cave, looking out and acting as a sentinel in case a snow leopard prowled nearby. And Matt knew those leopards roamed here, even though they were rarely seen.

  Fuck. This wasn’t a good situation. His mind focused on the loss of the goat herder. Most of them were kids between ten and fifteen years old. He hated thinking that the kid might have been injured out there, freezing to death or in pain, unable to make it to the cave with his goats. He slowly rose and turned, lightly walking up the tunnel. As he entered the cave, he saw Dara slowly sitting up, rubbing her eyes. He came around where she could see him, so he didn’t scare the hell out of her.

  Crouching in front of her, he held his finger to his lips. Her eyes widened with fear. He leaned down, his hand cupping her ear, and told her what was going on. She nodded.

  “Where is the boy?” she asked, whispering into his ear.

  “I don’t know, but damn it, I’m going to have to go out there to see if I can locate him. Something’s happened to him. Goats are never left like this to forage on their own.” Matt sat back on his heels, studying her. Dara’s face was deeply shadowed, her brow scrunched with worry. “I’ll follow the goats’ trail. It will be easy to do. I don’t anticipate Taliban on the move because they usually sit out the night.”

  “But how far do you think you’ll have to go?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “God, if that child is out in that blizzard, Matt …” Dara studied his grim features.

  “I need to do this, Dara. You should be fine here.” He pulled out his pistol and handed it to her. “If you hear men’s voices, you can get up and slip out that opening. And wait out there. If you don’t hear voices coming up the tunnel, you know they’re staying below. If you need to stand outside the cave until I return, then do it. I shouldn’t be that long, okay?” Matt reached out, touching her cheek.

  “Yes, fine. I can do that.” She gripped his hand. “Please be careful out there, Matt.”

  He smiled grimly, taking his shemagh and wrapping it snugly around his neck and shoulders. “No worries, sweetheart.” He looked at his watch. “I’ll scare the goats as I walk down the tunnel and out the cave, but they’ll stay inside. They’re cold, wet, and tired. They won’t move until dawn. It’s 0145. I hope to be back in two hours, at the most.” He took out his sat phone and handed it to her. Showing her how to turn it on and where the Bagram number was, he turned it off. “Keep this with you at all times. If I don’t come back by dawn, you know something happened to me.” He saw terror leap to her eyes. “But it won’t,” he gently reassured her, sliding his hand across her mussed hair.

  “But if it does, Matt? What do I do?”

  “Use the night to move. You can walk back up to the pass. It’s only about a quarter of a mile that way. Find a place to hide and then make that call to Bagram. It should go through because the storm will be past this area.” He pulled out a paper and pen from one of his pockets. “Here’s the coordinates you want to give them. This will tell the helicopter where to land.”

  He stopped to give her the ultimate message. “Wherever you are, Dara, at all times,” he told her heavily, holding her terrified gaze, “hide. Never stand out in the open. There will be Taliban around you, and how close or far away from us is anyone’s guess. But only when that Black Hawk helicopter shows up with the two Apache gunships with it do you walk out, wave your arms, and show yourself. Then they can land and pick you up. Okay?”

  Matt knew this was a lot to dump on Dara. He saw her summon up her courage.

  “Okay. I can do this. But, for God’s sake, be careful out there, Matt.”

  He leaned down, giving her a swift, hot kiss. Straightening, he donned his gear, pulled on the parka, and took his ruck, shrugging it onto his shoulders. Then he picked up the small woolen blanket.

  “I’ll be back soon,” he promised her gruffly.

  Dara nodded, fighting her terror as he left soundlessly, like the shadow he was. In a matter of moments, she heard scurrying, bleating, and goats suddenly moving around down in the main cave. Sound carried well up the tunnel, she discovered. She pushed the sleeping bag aside, the warmth quickly leaving. Dara didn’t want to be caught off guard. As she slowly sat up and then pulled her knees up, she grimaced. There was plenty of pain in her knees now.

  She arose, still in her socks, and walked unsteadily across the limestone floor to retrieve her now-dry jeans.

  Quickly sitting down on the sleeping bag, Dara pulled them on. To her relief, her knees were about 50 percent less swollen, and the fabric pulled easily over them. She got to her feet, feeling the throbbing in her left knee. Fingers trembling, she zipped up and snapped the waist closed on her jeans.

  Then, donning her dry parka, she packed everything but the sleeping bag and listened as the goats stopped milling around, indicating Matt had left the cave. Within minutes, the bleating stopped, as did the clacking hoof noises of the goats walking across the limestone floor. Dara walked stiffly to the tunnel, peering down it. Only the moonlight, which came and went because of the clouds drifting over the mountain, gave her some illumination.

  Walking to the opening, she saw three feet of snow piled up beyond it. The wind was whipping erratically, sometimes howling, then suddenly still. Everything was in chaos. Looking up, she saw ragged clouds moving swiftly across the summit.

  Would Matt return? Would he be killed by that unseen goat herder? By the Taliban? What if he ran into a Taliban camp? Never had she hated her tendency to worry more than now. Rubbing her brow, she turned, quietly walked into the cave, and sat down on the sleeping bag.

  Soon, the wind began to shriek every now and again. Dara was scared, and every noise made her jump. How did Matt live in this world of death and danger? She wrapped her arms around herself, pulling the sleeping bag over the top of her and snuggling down into it. Dara wasn’t sure at all that she could sleep. Not now. Not with Matt gone.

  CHAPTER 14

  Making his way swiftly through the freshly churned snow trail created by the goats, Matt knelt by a grove of evergreens. With his infrared goggles on, he would spot body heat in an instant, whether it was human or animal. He saw nothing. Gripping the M4 with his gloved hand, he moved forward on the trail that led down a fairly steep slope.

  There were groups of evergreens, and it was easy to crouch and run between them. The goats had used the groves as a windbreak against the blizzard as they’d struggled upward to reach the warm, dry cave. The snow was nearly knee-deep but dry, white, and fluffy, which he was grateful for. Matt hated wet, heavy snow because walking in it was like slogging through peanut butter. His breath shot out in white vapor clouds as he negotiated the slight hill that led downward. The rocks were hidden beneath two to three feet of snow, and more than once Matt slipped, fell, and rolled. He wondered if the goat herder had fallen and injured himself. It would certainly be easy to do.

  The trail curved to the left around a copse of evergreens. The moon’s rays struck full force as a cloud drifted out of its path. Instantly, Matt saw a lump of red heat ahead near one of the trees. He halted and drew up his M4, looking through the scope. It was a human being huddled in the snow, half covered with the white stuff. Matt had to be careful. If it wa
s the goat herder, and he was alive, he had to find out what village he was from.

  He knew that even if he was from a pro-Taliban village, he’d try to help him. No one deserved to die out on this icy, frigid mountainside. The wind whipped, howling through the area, pummeling his body as he straightened, keeping his M4 ready to fire as he warily approached the body.

  As he got closer, Matt could see it was a young boy, probably around ten years old. He was wrapped tightly in his brown wool cloak, his black hair cut in a bowl shape, his spindly legs drawn up beneath the thin material toward his chest. Matt moved quietly, his boots crunching the snow as he walked up to the boy, who was partly hidden by a snowdrift. Was he dead? Alive?

  He pushed up his goggles, blinking, allowing his vision to adjust to the moonlight. The boy stirred, and Matt heard a moan.

  Matt knelt down, on guard. Goat herders generally carried a knife on them, but that was all. He placed a hand on the kid’s shoulder, noticing how thin and bony it felt beneath his glove. The boy’s black lashes quivered. Leaning over, Matt spoke in Pashto. “Hey. Are you awake? If you are, open your eyes.” He kept his voice low so it wouldn’t carry.

  “Uhhhh …”

  Matt saw the boy’s dark brown lashes barely lift. His mouth was thinned with pain. He groaned. His teeth were chattering badly, his body spasming and jerking, indicating hypothermia. The boy was freezing to death.

  “Tell me where you’re hurt,” he ordered, smoothing his hand along the boy’s shoulder.

  “M-my leg,” he cried out.

  “Okay,” Matt said soothingly. “Listen to me.” He leaned over, trying to get the boy’s attention, knowing he was hypothermic. “I’m Aslan. I’m here to help you. What is your name, boy?”

  His small brow wrinkled and he moaned, burying his face into his arms. “Hadi …”

  “Good, Hadi. I’m going to get you out of here and get you warm.” Matt began to move the snow away from the boy’s shivering body. He wore thin, dark brown wool leggings. His feet were bare, bluish-gray, in only a pair of leather sandals. No socks. Matt moved his hands knowingly down one of his legs and felt a bump at the boy’s ankle. Instantly, the boy cried out piteously. He was too weak, too cold, to do anything else.