Chapter 7

Mac's first impressions were of thunderous noise and a bright light strobing somewhere beyond her closed eyelids. She squinted against the painful red glow, automatically raising a hand to shield her eyes before she opened them. Pain shot through her arm at the motion, a stab like the touch of a hot poker. She groaned and rolled over onto her side, away from the pain and the glare. She choked on the gritty air that whipped around her, each breath difficult.

The noise resolved itself into the whump whump whump of helicopter blades echoing off the dusty hills Mac knew surrounded her. She wasn't sure what had happened. One moment Harm was shouting something and the next he was throwing her from the HumVee. For a moment, Mac couldn't figure out why, but then she remembered.

There had been an explosion.

She snapped back to herself in a rush of adrenaline. Harm! Her eyes flew open.

Harm lay sprawled on his back a few feet away. Blood soaked the sleeve of his BDUs. Dust kicked up by the helicopter hovering low overhead clung to the dark stain, turning it from black to an ugly shade of brown.

"Harm!" Mac started to roll onto her hands and knees, and promptly threw up. When the heaves subsided, she wiped her mouth on her shoulder, then spent a moment gathering herself to try again. Her right arm throbbed angrily, the stabbing pain only adding to her nausea. She looked at it only to discover a jagged piece of bone poking out just above her wrist. Blood oozed around the spot. Tucking that arm against her chest, she awkwardly hauled herself up and crawled toward her husband.

A dozen yards away, the burning wreck of their vehicle sent up an oily gray plume. The downdraft from the descending helicopter whipped the column of smoke into a billowy vortex. Robed forms lay scattered around the overturned HumVee. One, she noted, was still moving, rolling back and forth in agony, though if he made any sound she couldn't hear him over the helicopter blades.

Mac reached her husband's side and all extraneous thoughts fell away. She ignored the wound in his left arm after a cursory glance. It was in his biceps and there wasn't enough blood to indicate a major artery had been hit. The sidearm lying a few inches beyond his outstretched right hand indicated he'd been awake and able to at least draw his weapon. She suspected he was responsible for the bodies she could see. What that didn't tell her was why he was down now.

She slipped her fingers beneath his collar, breathing a silent sigh of relief when she found his pulse. It was a little fast for her liking, but it would do for now. His helmet looked intact, without any visible sign of scoring or other damage. Her gaze moved lower, eventually pausing as she spotted the two ragged holes in the front of his BDU shirt. Bullet holes. She fumbled one-handed at the buttons as sudden terror overwhelmed her.

She was distantly aware of the Marines who jumped out of the helicopter as soon as it set down. They fanned out, forms bent over their weapons. Two approached Mac and knelt on either side of her, weapons cradled against them.

"Ma'am! Are you all right?" one shouted at her.

Mac barely spared him a glance. "Help me get this off him, Sergeant! He took two rounds in the chest. I need to see if they penetrated." The Marines' presence bolstered her and helped her keep her rising hysteria contained.

The sergeant slung his weapon while his companion remained in a crouch, scanning the area around them in constant vigil.

"Here, let me do that, ma'am. You've got a nasty break there." The sergeant indicated her arm as he took over the job of opening Harm's shirt.

Cradling her aching arm against her, Mac sat back on her knees as he pulled Harm's shirt open, exposing the black Kevlar vest beneath. Mac stared at the two neat holes punched in it. The first was in the lower right quadrant, the second center mass.

The sergeant ripped the velcro closures open, then pulled up the front piece of the vest, laying it on the ground over Harm's head. Mac bit her lip against a cry of alarm. Two tears, surrounded by little halos of blood, decorated his t-shirt.

"It's o.k., ma'am," the sergeant told her after a short inspection. "The vest did its job. He just got kissed." As she watched, he reached through one of the ragged holes and extracted the flattened lump of lead that was all that remained of one of the bullets. He held it on his palm, showing it to her. With trembling fingers, Mac took the little disk. She turned it in her hand, examining it. The dull gray metal was streaked with Harm's blood, but she could see through his torn shirt that all it had left behind was a raw spot on his chest about the size of a silver dollar, surrounded by bruising. The sergeant fished out the other bullet while Mac tucked the one she held into a pocket of her BDUs.

As if on cue, Harm groaned. The sergeant's body shielded his face from the sun, and after a moment his eyes opened. He blinked groggily a few times before focusing on Mac.

He smiled. "Hey."

Mac felt her face split in a wide grin, part joy, part relief. "Hey, yourself."

He started to move and the smile turned into a moan of pain. The hand on the uninjured side went to his chest. "Ahhh, that hurts. What happened?"

The sergeant and Mac supported him as he struggled to a seated position.

"You took two rounds in the chest and a third in the arm is what happened," Mac informed him. Harm glanced down at himself in surprise.

"Looks like some of the local thugs ambushed you, sir," the sergeant added. "They probably belong to a guy named Mir. This is his territory. Though why he'd want this kind of trouble is beyond me."

Harm stared off into the distance, his brow furrowed.

"What about Corporal Ramos?" Mac asked suddenly. She hadn't thought about their guide until that moment, and felt a flash of shame for having been so consumed with Harm's safety that she hadn't even considered the other man.

The sergeant shook his head. "He didn't make it out of the vehicle before it got hit, ma'am."

Mac stared at the ground for a moment. Harm didn't react. She couldn't tell if he'd even heard the sergeant.

Suddenly, Harm reared to his feet, dragging Mac with him. He stared into her face, his blue eyes fierce. "They were after the plutonium. It was in our vehicle, Mac. I saw the box." He turned to look out across the barren landscape. "They took off with it on horseback. I don't know which direction." He paused. "How long has it been since they hit us?"

Mac consulted her internal clock as she tried to catch up with the new information. "Uh... thirty-six minutes, forty-four seconds."

The sergeant gave her a funny look, which she ignored.

She looked up at her husband. "Why would Mojaddedi put the plutonium in our vehicle?"

Harm shrugged, though only with the uninjured side. "I don't know. Maybe he's not in on the plot or there was some kind of internal falling out. Maybe he was trying to give it back to us."

Mac brushed her hair back from her face, a hopeless task in the ever-present wind. "And the other faction decided to take it back?" She frowned. "Maybe. But why wouldn't he tell us, if that were the case?"

Another half-shrug. "No idea. It's a totally unsubstantiated theory. It was just the first thing that came to me."

Mac had no response to that. Her gaze strayed to the burning vehicle. Three Marines were pulling Corporal Ramos' body from the wreckage. Anger welled up inside her.

"If they're on horseback, Harm, they can't have gotten far. This is rugged country, even for horses."

He nodded. "Let's radio back and let Colonel Flynn know what happened. And Webb." He paused for a moment, his gaze locking on her broken wrist as if he'd only just noticed it. She saw his eyes darken with the same haunted expression he'd worn the entire time she'd been in the hospital after Tony Ariel nearly killed her. But all he said was, "We can commandeer this bird to search while they get something better organized."

Deeply touched by the show of respect, Mac nodded. Together they headed toward the waiting helicopter. Since she was the Marine, not to mention the senior officer, Mac gave the helicopter's crew their new orders while Harm used the radio.

A few minutes later they were airborne. The corpsman apologized profusely both before and after setting Mac's wrist. She managed not to scream when he did it, mostly because she was afraid Harm would try to send her back to Echo if he thought she was in too much pain. Once it was over, she leaned back against the cool metal of the fuselage, sweating profusely and trying to will her rebellious stomach to settle. The corpsman moved on to Harm. Typical of her husband's unnatural luck, the bullet had gone straight through the muscle without hitting anything important. Mac mentally shook her head. Only Harm could take three bullets and come out with nothing but a flesh wound.

They sat on opposite sides of the Huey, staring out the open doors from the small space beside the door gunners. The dusty, scrub-dotted hills flew by beneath them, the shadowy outline of the helicopter flowing across them in rippling waves. Soon, two additional helicopters with Webb's people and more Marines aboard joined the search, but there was nothing to be seen except the hazy cloud of gray smoke from the burning HumVee that marked the center of their ever-expanding spiral. Nothing larger than a snake moved on the desert hills.

Mac felt increasingly desperate as one hour passed, then another. The constant swaying, jouncing motion of the helicopter robbed her of her equilibrium, as if she were perpetually in that state of having just stepped off a spinning ride at an amusement park. She pressed her cheek against the edge of the door, feeling the machine's heavy vibration in her teeth, and stared at the unbroken dun-colored scenery. A half dozen men and horses couldn't just disappear, could they?

Distantly she could hear Harm's voice as he talked with someone on the radio. She turned to look at him, her gaze skipping across the dark body bag that lay on the floor between them. The man who sat opposite her on the floor of the Huey bore little resemblance to the dashing naval officer she knew and loved. His dark hair was grayed with dust, and his tan skin streaked with dirt and blood. His BDUs, likewise, were dirty and torn, and the hard mask of his face was that of a soldier well acquainted with war. The blue eyes, which alternately twinkled with laughter or burned with the intensity of his emotions, had turned flat and gray. He had killed two men today, she realized. This man who shared her life and her bed, whose gentle hands evoked from her body passion unlike any she'd ever known. Those same hands had killed two men today, and they were far from the first. Mac understood what it meant to take a life. She knew what that felt like. But for her it had been an isolated incident—a desperate measure in a desperate time. For Harm, it was simply part of his profession.

The object of her thoughts remained oblivious to her introspection. Harm thumbed the switch on the radio, ending his conversation, and set the bulky piece of electronics on the floor between his feet.

"Webb says there may be caves in these hills," he shouted over the deafening roar of the blades. "Which would explain why we haven't seen anyone. Flynn's called up a full-scale manhunt. The advance units should be arriving any time, with some more choppers."

Mac nodded, then turned to their pilot. "Lieutenant! How's our fuel?"

"We've got about twenty minutes left, ma'am," he answered over his shoulder. "I've got orders to wait for the extra choppers to get here, then take you and the commander back to base."

Mac couldn't argue with that, much as she wanted to. She, at least, needed to feel solid ground beneath her feet, and the Marines from Echo were much better trained and equipped for this kind of search mission. She nodded at the back of the pilot's head.

"Thank you, lieutenant."

#

They landed in the midst of a beehive of activity. Mac gingerly stepped down from the helicopter with assistance from Harm and the Marine sergeant. The moment her feet hit the ground, the world canted sideways.

"Whoa, there." Harm caught her elbow. "Mac, you o.k.?" She felt the sergeant brace her on the far side.

"Yeah." She tried to shake them both off, without success. "Just dizzy."

"Might be a concussion," the corpsman said, stepping down behind them. "You were both unconscious for about thirty minutes."

"My head doesn't hurt," Mac protested. "And I can walk," she added pointedly as Harm moved closer.

Caught, he rolled his eyes. "Don't let go of her," he instructed the sergeant.

"No, sir," the sergeant agreed.

Slowly, they made their way to the medical unit. By the time they got there, Mac was ready to let someone carry her. Her vision swam and her tongue felt like it was coated with fur. The nausea had come back full force, too.

"In here," a woman's voice said. "Lie her down in here." Mac looked up into a sea of people dressed in blue scrubs. The woman, a severe-looking blond about her own age, indicated a small room defined by moveable partitions. It contained a standard examination table, a rolling tray full of instruments, and a linens hamper. Mac staggered toward the table, thinking she'd never seen anything so welcome in her life. She collapsed onto it and felt someone lift her feet onto the table. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on breathing in the hopes that it would keep her from throwing up. Marines didn't get sick.

A gentle hand touched her hair, stroking it back from her face. Harm. She smiled into the darkness behind her closed eyelids.

"Don't you have a bullet wound someone should be looking at?" she couldn't resist asking him.

"It'll keep until I know you're all right." His voice was rough. His fingers gave her cheek a final caress, then moved down across her shoulder, trailing the length of her arm to twine tightly around her own.

"I'm fine."

"I'll believe that when the doctor says it."

Mac heard a shuffle of people moving around her. "Colonel Rabb, I'm doctor Stevens," said a new voice, a man's pleasant baritone. "I'm told you were caught in an explosion. You have a broken wrist and are feeling dizzy."

"Yes," Mac admitted without opening her eyes. She still felt like she was on the helicopter, bouncing and spinning.

"And you were unconscious for a while?"

"Yes."

"All right. Well, let's take a look."

#

An hour later she was resting much more comfortably in a regular hospital bed with an IV in one arm and a splint on the other. The fluids were for a case of mild dehydration, which the doctor suspected was the cause of the dizziness. In addition, he'd checked her over for additional broken bones, and after a careful examination of her head had ruled out concussion. At that point, the medical staff had managed to drag Harm away to have his own wounds looked at.

Mac lay quietly, until the sound of a curtain being pulled aside made her turn her head. Doctor Stevens, a Navy lieutenant commander's insignia on the collars of his khaki uniform, waited for her to notice him before stepping inside.

"How are you feeling, colonel?" he asked as he hooked the nearby stool and seated himself on it.

"Better," Mac told him.

"Still dizzy?"

She shook her head. "No."

"Nausea?"

Mac sighed. "A little," she admitted. "Is that from the dehydration, too? Not that I understand how I managed to get dehydrated in the first place. I've been keeping up with my water intake. This isn't the first time I've been in a desert."

Commander Stevens waited patiently until she'd finished. She supposed he was used to people taking out their misdirected frustrations on him.

"Actually, that's what I was coming to talk to you about."

The quiet statement stunned Mac into silence more thoroughly than any shout could have. She stared at him as a cold knot formed in her gut.

"Tell me."

He nodded. "It's very simple. You're pregnant, colonel. The standard requirements aren't enough for both you and the baby."

For a moment, Mac forgot to breathe. Exhilaration and terror at the idea combined to choke her into silence. But eventually she regained mastery of her voice.

"How—How far along... am I?"

He shrugged. "A blood test can't tell us that, but certainly no more than a couple of months."

Two months... A new fear seized her. "Doctor, I was exposed to some amount of radiation about five weeks ago. Commander Rabb and I, both. They cleared us onboard the Seahawk, and said we hadn't had enough exposure to pose a threat..." She stared into Stevens' hazel eyes, hoping he could reassure her.

He considered her gravely. "Did they draw blood when they checked you out?"

She nodded.

"Then you weren't pregnant at the time. We do that one as part of pretty much every blood screening on female service members."

Mac slowly began to relax. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

She drew a deep breath. "So, less than five weeks?" A smile slipped out of hiding at the thought of a baby. She unconsciously laid her good hand across her stomach, curving it protectively around the invisible life there.

"Sounds like it," Stevens agreed. "Which brings me to my next topic."

Mac looked up expectantly, and was not reassured by his solemn expression.

He met her gaze. "You took a pretty hard fall today, which can cause miscarriage. I'm not saying it will." He held up a hand as if to forestall the bolt of panic his pronouncement generated. "So far, things look good, and unless you experience abdominal cramping or start to bleed, there's no reason for concern. I am going to insist that you remain under observation until tomorrow, and then, if things continue to look good, you'll be headed for Kandahar and then back to the States."

Too overwhelmed to argue with him, Mac simply nodded. She knew it was policy, though some small part of her rebelled at anything that caused her to be treated differently from a man.

"Do you have any questions for me?" Stevens asked after a moment.

Mac moistened her lips. "Can I see my husband?"

He chuckled. "Of course. He's outside—probably wearing a groove in the floor as we speak."

Mac grinned. That sounded like Harm.

"Anything else?"

She shook her head. "Maybe later. Right now I can hardly think straight."

His smile was warm. "That's not too uncommon. Well, congratulations to you both, colonel." He stood. "I'll send the commander in on my way out, and be back to check on you in a couple of hours."

"Thank you." Mac watched him duck past the curtained partition. Suddenly nervous, she smoothed the regulation blanket across her lap and waited for her husband to appear.