Hell or High Water (Deep Six #1)(29)
He shrugged one big shoulder, and she took that to mean he wasn’t going to expound on the subject. She was proved right when the next words out of his mouth were, “The promise Wolf was talking about has to do with Rusty.”
And just like that, the air inside her lungs burst into flames and her stomach congealed into a ball of acid that was one part nausea and two parts heart-shredding guilt. Rusty Lawrence…the man she’d watched get leveled by five rounds of center-fire ammo. Rusty Lawrence…the man who had given his all, his last full measure of devotion to save her life and, ultimately, the lives of her assets inside the terrorist group that went by many names, one of which was the Islamic State.
Chapter Six
12:39 p.m.…
Leo watched Olivia’s throat work over a swallow and her big, blue eyes widen until they seemed to take up her whole face. “R-Rusty?” she asked, her voice breathless and weak. Neither condition struck him as particularly Olivia-like.
Then again, that awful day outside Aleppo had changed all of them, so…right.
“You see, we made this…um…” He trailed off, trying to find a way to explain the unexplainable. How did one describe what it was like to spend a decade and a half working and fighting beside a guy, being scared and cold and hungry on the battlefield, or sharing beers and bonfires and bar bunnies back stateside? How did one explain what it was to be part of a band of brothers and the incredible weight of a deathbed promise to live your life to the fullest because one of you wasn’t going to live another sixty seconds?
“Look, Rusty had been talkin’ about hangin’ up his combat boots and camo for a while,” he said, opting for the simplest of explanations. “He kept sayin’ that none of us were gettin’ any younger, that all of us had more than done our duty for our country, and that it was time to start makin’ real lives for ourselves. When we found him alive inside that * general’s compound—”
“I don’t know how he lasted that long,” she whispered, shaking her head, her voice catching. “When I left him, I would have sworn he was dead. If I’d known he was still alive, I would’ve—”
“He was the toughest sonofagun I ever knew,” he cut her off. “And he should have been dead. Don’t blame yourself, Olivia. There was nothin’ you could’ve done for him. Except maybe get yourself killed too.”
Something flickered in her eyes, something that had him cocking his head. Then it was gone. Just like that. And, yeah. He reckoned no matter what he said, nothing could make her stop second-guessing that day.
“Anyway,” he went on, “he brought it up again. So, we made a pact”—though covenant was really closer to describing the promise they all made while huddled on the floor of that helicopter—“that we would do what he wanted. Quit the Navy as soon as our contracts were up and start making real lives for ourselves.”
He lifted his arm, showing her the tattoo and leaving out the part where tears and snot had flooded from his face while he held his dying friend in his arms, his fingers and the fingers of his men plugging gunshot holes—so many goddamned gunshot holes—in a vain attempt to sustain a life that was quickly slipping away…
“Promise me,” Rusty said, the gurgle of blood making his words nearly unintelligible above the loud whump-whump-whump of the helicopter’s rotors beating the hot air overhead. The big bird lurched forward, its landing skids scraping the ground for a couple of heartrending seconds before it finally hopped into the sky. The sound of rounds pinging off the chopper’s metal skin grew fainter and fainter as they gained altitude and raced to get out of range. All the while Michael “Mad Dog” Wainwright maintained his position at the open door, raining death in the form of hot lead onto the rebels below.
Bwarrrrrrr! Bwarrrrrr! The big floor-mounted .50-caliber machine gun’s mouth burned bright orange from the heat of the endless rounds it spat from its throat. Spent casings clinkety-clacked against the floor and walls all around them.
“P-promise,” Rusty gurgled again, one side of his face covered in blood from the bullet that had grazed his skull and left his scalp torn.
“Don’t talk, man!” Bran begged, yelling over the angry buzz of the weapon. Leo looked up to find his best friend’s face shiny with far more than just sweat. Great streams of tears streaked down Bran’s dusty cheeks and formed crystalline droplets in the bushy beard he’d grown to blend in with the local population. “Save your strength!”
“Promise me, LT…” Rusty insisted, lifting his hands to curl his fingers around the straps of Leo’s body armor. Considering most of Rusty’s blood was coating the floor of the helicopter, the little jerk he gave Leo was surprisingly strong, “…that you’re f-f—” He was racked by coughing then, blood filling his mouth to leak from the corners of his chapped lips in oozing rivulets.
“Turn him onto his side so he can breathe!” Doc bellowed, ripping open a package of QuikClot with his teeth.
“How is he?” Romeo yelled from his place in the copilot’s seat. Leo didn’t answer. He was too busy helping Bran, Mason, and Wolf keep pressure on Rusty’s myriad wounds while they carefully pushed him onto his side so the fluid filling his lungs and throat didn’t choke him to death. Rusty grunted, hacking up a puddle of blood that coated Leo’s knees. But that gruesome mess was nothing compared to the sight that met his eyes when Doc yanked up the side of Rusty’s fatigues shirt, revealing a ragged wound on his flank that pumped deep red, nearly black blood.