Meant to Be (30 page)

After about forty-five minutes Rad
started to worry, and fifteen minutes later, he was practically
distraught.

“
We got nothing here,”
Jenkins said over the mic. “False alarm. Let’s go.”

Rad stood firm, his gaze moving up and
down the line. She had to be here. These guys were too jumpy to
just be transporting vegetables over the mountains. He noticed two
men standing nervously beside one wagon, their eyes shifting and
darting from the ground to the wagon.

“
Let’s go. Move out!”
Jenkins said again. “That means you too Radcliff.”

Rad kept walking toward the wagon. He
put his hand inside and moved some of the produce around, but like
the others who had searched it before, found nothing.

“
Move out Radcliff, or I’m
reporting you. Now!”

Rad bent down and examined the bottom
of the wagon. Nothing out of the ordinary there either. He went to
stand back up and noticed his hand was wet where he had laid it
against the side for balance. When he studied his fingers, he saw
they were sticky and pinkish. Leaning back down, he ran his hand
over the corner. It came back red.

“
I need a crowbar over
here.” Rad turned and motioned toward Jenkins, and held up his hand
to show the blood. “This thing has a false bottom.”

An operator ran over with a crow bar
while others threw vegetables from the wagon right and left by the
armful. Still others on the team moved forward to help corral the
supposed-farmers who were now chattering angrily, as the creak and
splintering of wood ripped through the air. “We got
something!”

Jenkins leaned in, holding a photo. He
stared at the form lying in the small cavity of the wagon, but then
turned to Rad. “Can you tell it’s her?”

The face of the person lying in the
pool of blood was completely unrecognizable. The eyes were closed
and swollen, the mouth bloody and shredded. Her cheeks were
bulging, yet there did not seem to be any bones to support them.
One tooth was cracked and two were missing.

Rad noticed her bare feet sticking out
and picked up a foot. Seeing the crooked toe, and small patches of
nail polish, he primed his mic for all to hear. “It’s her. Positive
ID.”

The other men in the team quickly
herded up the farmers, while others spread out in a defensive
position. The roar of a helicopter landing about one hundred yards
away seemed to occur simultaneously.

Picking her up as gingerly
has he could, Rad ran toward the chopper with his precious cargo,
all the while thinking,
My God, she weighs
less than my ruck pack. There’s nothing left of her.

In full kit and body armor,
Rad ran across the uneven terrain, trying not to stumble and go
down. He heard sporadic gunfire, but it sounded like it was from a
distance or coming to him through water.
Guess the Taliban paid for their package and aren’t going to
let it go without a fight.

Rad knew the men behind him
were prepared for that situation. He kept churning his legs despite
the bullets now kicking up dust at his feet.
Got to make it to the chopper
, he kept
telling himself.
No matter
what
.

Now the gunfire was unmistakable and
growing louder. Rad fought the urge to look over his shoulder to
see what was happening behind him. Instead, he put his head down
and ran even faster until a sudden spurt of fire and pain in his
thigh caused his knee to twist, buckle and hit the ground.
Stumbling to his feet despite the pain, he tried to keep his legs
moving, but that was no longer possible. His right leg crumpled
beneath him at every step, so he had to sort of hop and drag it
behind him.

Rocks and dirt continued to spray
around Rad’s boots as gunfire tore up the ground around him. Every
step was agony. His lungs felt like they were about to burst, and
yet it seemed like he was running in slow motion. He looked up and
saw hands in the helicopter waving him on, and then felt their firm
grasp as they pulled him inside just as the chopper lifted off the
ground. The gunfire continued but was drowned out by the sound of
the blades slicing the air as the chopper struggled to gain
altitude in the thin mountain air.

“
Holy shit,” he heard
someone say as they pulled Lauren out of his arms and onto a
backboard. “This ain’t good.”

Rad lifted his head and watched three
men on their knees working silently and quickly over her as another
pushed Rad gently down and began cutting away what was left of his
pants. He struggled to sit up, to see if she’d been hit by the
gunfire, but the world tilted sideways as if the helicopter had
suddenly become a ship rolling in thick ocean swells. He felt his
head loll to the side and his stomach lurch. Pain flared and pulsed
in his leg.

“
Take it easy, soldier.”
The medic pushed him down. “You’re losing a lot of
blood.”

“
Is she okay?” Rad thought
he asked the question out loud, but no one answered. Instead he
heard the medic who was leaning over him say to his comrades in a
loud but calm voice, “I need some help over here.”

Rad wanted to argue, to tell them to
keep working on Lauren, but a sudden surge of nausea and dizziness
made it difficult to hold his eyes open. He heard a muffled roar in
his ears and thought at first the helicopter was having engine
trouble. The next moment he thought it was the sound of angry waves
violently hitting the beach. At last, he realized it was the sound
of his own panting, echoing and reverberating in his ears in a way
that made him shake his head to rid himself of the
confusion.

“
Stay with me, soldier.”
The sound of the medic’s voice came to him as if through a dense
fog, followed by the slight sting of a needle as someone put an IV
in his arm. Other voices seemed to be talking over him now, but
they were indistinct, like listening to a conference call with a
bad connection.

Why aren’t they helping
her?
Rad curled his right hand into a fist
as it lay on the floor of the chopper and felt something sticky and
warm and wet. Lots of it.

“
Once you get that one
going, start another line.” The voice broke through the distortion,
but Rad didn’t know what it meant. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to
have two DOA’s on the same flight.”

These words Rad somehow processed and
he struggled to sit up. “Jesus, is she okay?” Again, he thought he
asked the question out loud, but the voices hovering over him never
replied. Their tones simply grew more anxious. “Stay with me,
brother. Can you hear me? Stay with me.”

Rad heard them but couldn’t find the
strength to respond. He was being sucked into a deep, black void
and had to use all his energy to fight it. He tried to reach out
and grab onto something, but his arms wouldn’t move, and anyway,
there was nothing to grab. He was being swept along in a sea of
dark, swirling water that carried him closer and closer to a giant
abyss. The medic’s voice came to him again, this time more urgent.
“Stay with me, man!”

Rad struggled to open his
eyes, to stay conscious, to take another breath.
I don’t think I can,
he
thought just as a roiling wave swept over him, spinning and
swirling him down, down, down, into the depthless hole.

Chapter 29

Rad slowly became aware of
light against his eyelids and the muffled sound of someone moving
around the room. He moved his fingers and felt sheets but could
tell he was not in his own bed.

When he finally mustered the strength
to open his eyes, a young woman stood over him, smiling.

“
Are you
awake?”

Rad blinked and tried to focus his
vision on the speaker. He wanted to speak but found an impenetrable
wall between will and action.

“
I’m Donna. You’re at
Walter Reed. Do you remember how you got here?”

Rad stared over her shoulder blankly a
moment without responding, trying to clear his head from the hazy
images that seemed caught in a sticky web.

“
Lauren,” he finally
said.

When there was no response from the
nurse, his gaze drifted back to her.

“
Lauren,” he repeated.
“Where?”

“
Is that your wife?” The
nurse sounded confused. “I’m sure she’s been contacted.”

Rad closed his eyes in order to summon
the strength to talk. “On the chopper.” He ran his tongue over his
dry lips and swallowed. “Rescued. Where is she?”

“
Radcliff, I see you’ve
finally decided to rejoin the living.”

Rad turned his head painfully and
watched a good-looking blonde with a folder in her hand and a
stethoscope hanging around her neck walk into the room.

“
I’m Dr. Bradley. Lindsey
Bradley. How ya feeling?”

Rad ignored the warm greeting.
“Lauren. She okay?”

“
Hello or nice to meet you
might be a more appropriate way to greet someone who’s been working
night and day to save your life.” The woman’s tone was gentle even
if her words were not. She reached for his wrist and proceeded to
take his pulse.

Rad struggled to sit up. “Is she okay?
Was she hit?”

“
Whoa, cowboy.” Dr.
Bradley put a restraining hand on his shoulder and pushed him back
down. Looking up over her glasses she asked the nurse, “Is he
talking about his wife or what?”

The nurse shrugged. “I’m not
sure.”

Rad’s hands curled into fists as he
looked from one to the other. “What the hell is going
on?”

Dr. Bradley kept her hand on his arm
and sat down in the chair beside him. When she leaned in, he caught
the faint scent of her perfume. “You’re pretty heavily sedated
Radcliff. Maybe you’re a little mixed up.”

Rad bristled at the insinuation as she
bent over with a stethoscope and listened to his heart and lungs.
“Why am I here?”

Dr. Bradley remained silent a moment
as she finished checking his vitals. Then she leaned back in her
chair. “You were hit in the thigh with a bullet that ripped you
apart to the bone and ruptured your femoral artery. You
subsequently almost bled to death on the hop.”

Without thinking, Rad reached down to
feel his leg, to make sure it was still there.

“
Yes, we saved it,” Dr.
Bradley said. “But it was touch and go for a while.”

“
How long?”

“
How long,
what?”

“
How long have I been
here?”

“
You spent a day in a
field hospital getting stabilized, then went to Germany where you
had your first surgery.” She paused a moment, seeming to study his
blank stare. “And you’ve been here about ten days.”

Rad focused his attention on her. “Ten
days?” He struggled to sit up again. “Where’s Lauren?”

Dr. Bradley pushed him back down and
sighed heavily. “Tell me who Lauren is.”

Rad winched at the pain induced when
he turned his head fully toward her, his brow wrinkled in
confusion. “She was on the chopper with me.”

He watched Dr. Bradley make eye
contact with the nurse, then lower her gaze to the folder she
carried.

“
I’m sorry, but there’s no
record of any other injured combatants coming in with
you.”

Rad closed his eyes and
tried again to clear his groggy mind.
Maybe
it is a drug-induced dream. Maybe she hasn’t been rescued at all.
Maybe…

But then he remembered holding her in
his arms, running to the helicopter, the pain when he was hit. It
had to be real.

Rad moved his attention to the doctor
again and studied her intently. Was she lying? Was she afraid to
tell him the truth? He reached out and touched her arm. “Level with
me. Is she dead?”

The doctor still did not raise her
gaze to meet his. “Here’s something.” She appeared to be reading
from the file. “It says here you were injured in a routine
live-fire training accident.”

Rad’s eyes widened.
“
Training
accident?”

He took a deep breath as he grasped
two reasons why that would be placed in his chart. Either Lauren
Cantrell survived the ordeal and the government didn’t want anyone
to know the rescue had taken place—or she had not and they wanted
to make it appear she had never existed. His pulse began pounding
in his ears as he thought about the latter, and then a machine
beside his bed started beeping with an alarm that surpassed the
loudness and intensity of his throbbing heart.

“
I need to talk to my CO,”
he said impatiently.

“
You need to calm down is
what you need to do.” Dr. Bradley nodded to the nurse who pushed a
button on the machine, silencing the alarm. “See what you’re doing
to yourself?”

“
I need to talk to my CO,”
Rad repeated. When there was no response, he reached up and wrapped
his fingers around the doctor’s wrist. “Right away.”

Dr. Bradley gave him a serious and
sympathetic smile. “Okay. As soon as you wake up.”

He blinked in confusion.
“I
am
awake.”