Pamela Clare - Striking Distance

“We’ll be right outside the door,” one of the deputy U.S. Marshals assured her.

Laura nodded, her mouth suddenly dry.

And then she was alone.

JAVIER CORBRAY SAT in baggage claim at Denver International Airport, his back to the wall, his duffel and guitar case beside him, a cup of coffee from the coffee Automat in his hand. He took a sip, grimaced. ¡Carajo! This shit was worse than the swill they served on submarines. How was that even possible?

He took another swallow, his gaze moving back and forth along the crowded terminal, some part of him on edge. Then again, he was always on edge these days.

It had been five months since he’d decided to let that Pashtun shepherd and his sons live, five months of living with the consequences of that one decision. Warned by the shepherd, the Taliban had ambushed Delta Platoon outside Ghazni with heavy casualties. Javier had taken four rounds. Surgeons had saved his leg, patched up his shoulder, liver, and lung, giving him fourteen units of blood to keep him alive.

Still, he’d gotten off easy. In all, eighteen men had died that day.

Javier had been up and around much faster than they’d expected, pushing himself through the pain of rehab, determined to help his body heal to the best of its ability, regain his strength, and get back with the teams. He’d moved from rehab to PT, passed the post-deployment psych test, and thought he was about to start an active-duty workup. Instead, one of the shrinks had accused him of “playing to the test,” whatever the hell that meant, and had benched him.

Post-combat trauma.

It was bureaucratic bullshit. How could he pass the test and still get flagged? The screening was useless anyway. They’d borrowed it from a psych test created for the army. But he wasn’t some green kid back from his first tour of duty, a young soldier fresh out of boot camp who’d seen his first dead body. Javier had been deploying as a special operator for fourteen years now. He knew the realities of combat, knew his limits, knew what he could handle. He didn’t need to talk about his feelings. He sure as hell didn’t need some shrink’s shoulder to cry on.

Fortunately, Boss had persuaded Naval Special Warfare Command to back Javier, and a compromise had been reached. Javier’s medical leave had been extended for another two months, at which time he’d take the psych screening again. If he passed, he passed. He’d move on to an active-duty workup and be back with the teams by summer. If he didn’t pass . . .

That won’t happen, chacho .

A voice coming from the flat-screen TV overhead caught his ear.

“The trial of accused al Qaeda terrorist Abu Nayef Al-Nassar continued this morning when journalist Laura Nilsson took the stand.”

Javier looked up as the broadcast cut away to footage of Laura being waylaid by media outside the federal court building. Flanked by two officers from the U.S. Marshal Service, she made her way up the steps, then turned and smiled.

Javier felt a tug in his chest. He knew testifying wouldn’t be easy for her—sitting in a courtroom with Al-Nassar, reliving the horror he’d put her through—but Javier respected the hell out of her for doing it.

“Today marks for me the final chapter of an ordeal that began three and a half years ago,” she said into the microphones. “I know that justice will be served not only on my behalf, but also on behalf of the hundreds of others around the world who have suffered as a result of Al-Nassar’s terrible actions.”

Gone was the trembling, terrified woman he’d carried on board the Chinook. In her place stood the Laura he’d met in Dubai—confident, polished, beautiful.

Nothing he’d done in his career as a special operator had felt more rewarding than getting her out of that hellhole. Sure, he’d pulled his team out of some pretty tight scrapes, played medic to wounded men, taken out a bad guy or two, earned his share of medals. But the night he’d found her was the only time he’d directly saved the life of an American civilian. The fact that it had been Laura, that she’d been alive , had only made it sweeter. He’d gone to bed that night feeling like a hero.

He’d followed the news articles about her as well as he could between back-to-back deployments, and he knew what she’d endured. Repeated rape. Beatings. Daily threats of decapitation. Reading the news stories and watching her interview with Diane Sawyer had made him wish he’d kicked the shit out of Al-Nassar when he’d had the chance, maybe shot the fucker in the balls.

It had also made Javier want to reach out to her, to help her however he could, to let her know that he was there, that he cared. But he’d been downrange in Afghanistan for most of the past two years, and when he’d been home, he’d spent those few precious weeks with his family and his Mamá Andreína, who was ninety-two and had been in and out of the hospital. He hadn’t been sure Laura would want to see him or whether she even remembered their time in Dubai City.

Watching her now, he had to give her a world of credit. To go through what she’d gone through and to come out of it in one piece took strength.

“¡Oye, cabrón!” Hey, motherfucker!

Javier turned toward the familiar voice to find Nathaniel West striding toward him. “¿Que pasa, cabrón?” What’s up, motherfucker?

The last time he’d seen Nate—whose MSOT, or Marine Special Operations Team, had worked alongside Delta Platoon in Afghanistan—the man had been clinging to life in the burn ward at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, the right side of his face and body a mess of second– and third-degree burns from an IED blast. Scars now covered Nate’s nose, right cheek, and jaw, disappearing down his neck and beneath his winter coat, but he was alive. More than that, he seemed . . . happy .

Javier held out his hand, the lump in his throat making it hard to speak. “Damn, brother, you look good!”

Nate grinned. “It’s good to see you, too, man.”

They clasped hands—one hand dark, the other scarred—and drew together, slapping each other hard on the back while they embraced.

Nate was the reason Javier had come. Javier had wanted to see for himself that his brother in arms had recovered and was doing as well as his e-mails said he was. He’d gotten married this past summer to some sweet mami , but Javier had been downrange and had missed the wedding. He hoped to make up for that now.

They drew apart, both of them grinning, neither able to speak just yet.

Nate broke the silence. “I heard you got hit pretty bad.”

“Yeah.” There was no denying it. “I pulled through.”

Not all of his men had been as lucky.

“Thank God for that.” Nate studied him for a moment, a frown on his face, then gave a nod. “How long can you stay?”

Javier had spent three weeks of his two extra months of leave with his family, and had a little over four weeks left. “Trying to get rid of me already?”

Nate laughed, pointed at Javier’s guitar case. “If you play that thing, Megan might just throw you out.”

“Hey, I’ve gotten better, man.” But Nate’s ribbing didn’t bother him.

The smile on his buddy’s face lifted a weight from Javier’s shoulders that he’d carried for three long years. He’d been the first to reach the burning wreck of the transport truck, had pulled Nate out of the wreckage, held his uninjured hand, waiting with him for what seemed an eternity for evac. It had crushed Javier to see him in such agony, his body charred and shaking, his eyes wild with pain and shock.

Nate West had been a natural leader, one hell of a warrior, and a true friend. Now he was Javier’s hero.