Conspiracy Game (GhostWalkers, #4)(112)

“Good grief. Are you planning on staying awhile?”

“We like comfort,” Ken explained. “All the amenities of home. It’s called being prepared, little sister. Better to stash a few supplies here and there then get caught with your pants down.”

Jack spread out a groundsheet and tossed a sleeping bag on it, gesturing for Briony to sit down. “Everything but the baby book. Next time, we’ll think to include things like that in all our caches, so if we lose one, we’ll have another.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“He’s not,” Ken said. “He’s always got books to read. I’m a music man myself.”

She sat in the shade watching the two men set up a lethal field around the small camp. They seemed to have thought of everything. They had several small tabs to use should they need warmth, as well as supplies to eat. Mostly, she noticed, they had ammunition, guns, and explosives.

“Lay back, baby. Let me take care of that wound on your hip,” Jack instructed. He heated up water using one of the field tabs. Crouching beside her, he pushed up her shirt and indicated she shove down her jeans enough to give him room to work.

“It doesn’t hurt as bad now that we’re not running,” she told him.

“You’re covered in blood.”

“I was running. It was bound to bleed a lot. I didn’t stick anything important,” she said. “I was very careful.”

He removed the blood-soaked gauze and peered closely at the small stitches. “Not a bad job, but a little uneven. You did better on me.”

“Not a bad job?” She squeaked the words, glaring at him. “I sewed it up myself, thank you very much.”

Ken burst out laughing. “He said the same thing to me once.”

Briony winced as Jack cleaned the wound again with the hot water and antiseptic. It burned and stung enough to bring tears to her eyes. “Where were you? How’d you get hurt?”

“Afghanistan,” Ken said. “There’s a ten-thousand-foot ridge known as the Whale’s Back on the west side of a valley, and on the east the Shah-e-Kot mountains rise above, with the enemy sitting up around ten to twelve thousand feet, using everything from small arms, to mortar and heavy machine guns. The infantry was caught in the valley humping over bare ground with heavy gear and no cover. The enemy had all the advantages, sending heavy fire from very defensible positions, inflicting heavy causalities on the infantrymen.”

“When you say infantry, aren’t you talking a lot of troops?”

Ken shrugged. “I think a couple of battalions. They were chasing the resistance into the mountains in an attempt to mop up after the battle. We were sent in to provide additional defense for the troops.”

“Ow!” Briony slapped at Jack’s hand as he poured liquid over the wound. It burned even worse than the first brew he’d used.

“Stop being a baby,” Jack murmured. “You sound just like Ken.”

“I take it the situation got bad,” Briony prompted, gritting her teeth. Her side hurt worse than when she was running. The talk distracted her, and in any case, she liked catching glimpses into their world.

Jack pressed fresh gauze to the wound. “It went to hell very fast. The two battalions were taking heavy casualties and were pinned down. Six of us went in to try to clear out the enemy and get our men out of there. The enemy had them right where they wanted them.”

“How did Ken get hurt?”

“I think he has ADD,” Jack said. “He can’t stay still.”

Briony laughed, in spite of the fact that he was taping the gauze in place and the wound still burned from the double dose of disinfectant. She knew Ken could remain still for hours.

“You laugh,” Jack said, “but it’s the truth. We hooked up with the Airborne’s brigade, and the enemy was throwing everything at us but the kitchen sink. We moved up to a better vantage point and began picking them off, but as soon as we got rid of one, another would take his place. The fighting went on so long we were running low on ammunition. We’d cached our gear below and Ken decided he’d just take a little run across the bare valley and up to a ridge about another one hundred meters and collect it for us. You, know, a little stroll through the park.”

“And you sat up there and protected him while he did it,” Briony guessed.

“Hell, someone had to. He’s a maniac. He took a grenade launcher with him and made the run back and forth through heavy fire at over eleven thousand feet. The air’s pretty thin, but not only did he drag our gear and ammo back, but he took out a nest of al-Qaeda hidden in a streambed firing mortars at us. Just as he came up over the ridge, I caught the edge of tree cancer just above us and knew a sniper had set up.”

“What’s tree cancer?”

“Snipers set up, and sometimes you catch the edge of their blind. It looks like a growth on the trunk, so we refer to it as cancer.”

“Okay, I get it. So what happened after you spotted him?”

“I took out the shooter, but he got off a round and nailed Ken.”

“He failed to mention the only reason I was able to make the run and live was because he took out anyone trying to cap my ass,” Ken said.

“You do something like that again and I’ll shoot you myself.” Briony caught the rough affection and the fear for his brother swirling in Jack’s mind, but as always his voice was calm and matter-of-fact.