Callum gave Dec an apologetic look as he pulled out the orange juice. “Sorry.”
He took a swig and immediately felt better. Then he realized that she brought the juice here, something about Vitamin C being a good way to start the day.
He put the cap on the orange juice, and sat it on the counter. Then he moved the juice to the counter beside the fridge and pulled one of the kitchen island seats around, so he wouldn’t have to look at it.
“What’d the juice ever do to you?” Declan asked.
“It’s complicated,” Callum sighed.
“Oh? I was kidding.”
Callum slumped a little in his seat. “Yeah, okay.”
“Dude, look at me.”
Callum peered his way.
“You’re gonna be okay. You know that? At least she’s still on this planet. At least she’s still breathing. If it gets too bad, go after her.”
“You’re forgetting, perhaps, that her father is Don Valetti?”
Dec shrugged. “And?”
“And if I so much as look at her the wrong way in front of him, I’m dead. Worse than dead, probably. I fucked the hell out of his daughter.”
“So find a private time to talk to her. We were SEALs, it’s not like we don’t know how.”
Callum stared at his friend.
“Are you suggesting I kidnap her?” Callum asked slowly.
“No, not exactly. Just invent a convenient reason for you two to be together.”
“And tell her what?”
“Tell her what? Dude, tell her everything that you’ve been saying to me and Cor the last three days.”
“What, that I’m a miserable bastard?”
Declan slammed his palms on the countertop.
“If that’s what it fucking takes, then so be it! Leave me and Cor high and dry, without a third, if that’s what you need!”
Callum sat back. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“Well, you’re no use to us like this. So just think about that, will you?”
Declan got up to leave, shaking his head.
“Maybe I will!” Callum said as the door closed on his friend.
He got up and headed to the bedroom. He lied down on his bed, which still smelled of her. He closed his eyes, unable to resist taking a lungful of her sweet scent.
It was comforting, and heart-wrenching, all at once.
He drifted off, wondering if maybe he should try to contact her.
A mortar shell brought Callum out of his drowse, hitting the building next door. It was a frequent target because it had been a constabulary once, though it had been empty and bombed out for months.
Callum rose in the darkness, looking out the open window. He was sleeping on the second floor of an abandoned apartment building in Walakan, Afghanistan. Waiting for the United Arab Emirates convoy to roll through.
Callum picked up a bottle of water and took a sip. He couldn’t wait to be out of here, couldn’t wait to not feel sand between his teeth, under his nails, in his boots.
“Callum.”
He turned to find Azara behind him, and instantly felt guilty for wanting to leave. She was tiny for her age, sixteen, with her dark hair covered and her dark eyes gleaming.
“I was wondering where you were,” he said in fluent Pashto. “I thought you might not come.”
“Of course I came,” she said, looking around the room. “This is not a very nice place to sleep, Callum.”
He glanced at the rubble-strewn room, then shrugged.
“It is what it is,” he said, shaking his head. “Did your father see you leave?”
Her mouth drew into a tight line. “He won’t tell anyone.”
Callum glanced away. They’d talked about this, her not telling her father that Americans might get her out in exchange for eyewitness testimony.
She moved closer, hugging her hijab closer to herself.
“He thinks if there is a chance for me to go to America, I must take it. I wish you could’ve met him, he is a good man.”
Callum hadn’t felt safe going into the village Azara was from to meet her father or her three sisters, though he’d heard much about them in the last three months. He had made the request to get her out once she’d testified, saying that she should be paid for her services.
“Pay her in afghanis,” his team leader had said. “Pay her like all the other informants. Don’t you think that everyone comes to me with requests like this?”
Callum had run it up the chain of command; still no ironclad answer. Something about if they had room on the chopper…
Callum noticed a dust trail, rising high into the night sky.
They were early. That was unusual.
“They’re coming,” he said. “Let’s go downstairs.”
Leaving his water bottles and protein bar wrappers on the floor, he picked up his AR-15 and his radio. As they went down to the main level, he called to Declan and Cormac.