Meant to Be (33 page)

The click of the door lock unlatching
after he’d punched in the numbers sounded like a gun blast to his
tightly strung nerves. As soon as he stepped inside, the sound of
machines greeted his ears, some beeping rhythmically, others
humming, still another making a sickening sucking noise. He walked
toward the bed and noticed how small and fragile she appeared as
she lay amidst a maze of blinking modern technology.

“
Lauren.” Rad tried to
fight the inclination to run from the room as he saw the number of
tubes sticking out of her nose and mouth and even her head. He
inched closer and saw her face was still swollen, but the black and
blue patches now had a yellowish cast. Her head was shaved on one
side, and a tube disappeared into a hole above her ear. Even though
her eyes appeared to be slightly open, he could tell they were not
seeing.

There was barely an inch of her he
could touch that was not hooked up to some sort of life-giving or
life-monitoring machine, but he found a finger and grasped it
firmly.

“
Hey, baby,” he said,
choking back tears. “I promised I’d see you again.
Remember?”

Within moments, the timer on Rad’s
watch beeped, and he knew he had to leave. Bending down, he kissed
her cheek tenderly. “I’ll be back,” he said. “Don’t worry about
anything but getting better. I got your back now.”

As he exited the room, he almost ran
into a nurse coming in. He gave her a nod and continued walking,
stripping off the lab coat in the elevator.

Once outside the hospital, he sat down
on a bench and called Wynn.

“
Hey, man. I need a
ride.”

Before he could tell Wynn where he
was, he heard Heather’s voice come on the phone. “Michael Radcliff
where are you? Why haven’t you answered your phone? Tell me you
didn’t sleep with Angie last night. I’ll kill you if you
did.”

The phone line became scratchy and
muffled as if there was a tug of war going on, and then Wynn came
back on. “Sorry about that. She grabbed the phone out of my hand.
Where you at?”

“
No, I didn’t sleep with
Angie. And sorry, I had my phone turned off. I’m at Walter
Reed.”

He heard Heather yell something in the
background but couldn’t make it out.

“
Why? Your leg bothering
you? You sick?”

“
No.” Rad paused a moment,
wondering how much to tell over the phone. “Remember the comment
Angie made last night that for all we know someone could be right
down the street?”

Wynn paused as if he were thinking.
“Yeah.”

“
And remember that story
you told me about a no-count love?”

For a moment, Wynn was silent. “What
did you do, Rad?”

“
I found someone I was
looking for.”

The line grew quiet, and then Wynn
whispered as if he’d moved to a room where Heather could not hear
the conversation. “You kidding me?”

“
No, brother. I’ll be
waiting out front. We have some work to do.”

When Wynn and Heather pulled up, Wynn
had to grab Heather’s arm to keep her from bounding out of the car
to give Rad a hug. Instead, they waited for him to climb into the
back seat.

“
How’d she look, brother?”
is all Wynn said.

“
Alive.”

Wynn glanced back at the mixture of
relief and pain on Rad’s face. “You wanna talk about
it?”

“
Not right now.” Rad
turned and stared out the window, overcome with a mixture of
emotions. The relief that came with knowing Lauren had successfully
made the transition from survival to recovery was tempered with the
knowledge that she was still beyond his reach. “We have a lot of
work to do.”

After a few minutes of going over his
plan in his head, Rad pulled out his phone. Before he dialed, he
leaned forward and put his hand on Wynn’s shoulder. “Think we can
keep those rooms another night?”

Wynn looked over at Heather, who
nodded. “Sure.”

“
Then let’s head back to
the hotel.”

As soon as they got back to
the room, Rad laid out his plan. He would call McDunna, tell him
he’d found her, and ask for authorization to get past the guard to
visit. The circumstances, in
his
mind, outweighed normal protocol, and he assumed
the higher-ups would agree.

But he soon learned this was not the
case. Even with McDunna going to bat for him, the officials
continued to deny her existence, and even threatened Rad with
discipline for saying he had seen her.

After a few hours of trying, Wynn put
his phone down. “I’m sorry, man. I don’t know who else to
call.

Rad leaned back in his chair, his lips
pursed, his jaw set, and nodded. “Thanks for trying.”

“
Guess it’s time to move
to Plan B.”

Rad gazed at Wynn
curiously.

“
I’ll take out the guard,
tie him up and stick him in a closet while you go in for another
visit.”

Heather leaned in from the balcony.
“No you won’t.”

Rad smiled. “Sorry, bro. I gotta go
with Heather on this one. I don’t think that will work.”

“
Well, let’s go back and
check it out anyway.” Wynn stood and squeezed Rad’s shoulder.
“You’re good at bluffing. Maybe you can just talk your way past the
guard.”

Rad nodded and shrugged. “It’s worth a
try.”

When they got back to the hospital,
Rad told Wynn and Heather to stay in the waiting room while he
tried his luck at getting past the guard.

He squared his shoulders when he
stepped off the elevator and walked confidently toward the room. He
knew the guard at the door would only be following orders, but
maybe he could get him to see his side of things and bend the rules
just a little.

When he turned the corner, his heart
jumped and dropped all at the same time. There was no guard. Maybe
Wynn had been right with his theory the guard took more than one
smoking break a day.

As he got closer, his pulse quickened
at the thought of getting to see her again. But when he pushed the
door open, his heartbeat came to a thudding halt. There was no
buzzing or beeping or blinking lights. The bed was empty, but the
room was not. A nurse turned and jumped in surprise.

“
Can I help
you?”

Rad tried to act calm, even though his
mind was racing. Had something happened? Had they rushed her to
surgery? Where was she?”

“
I, ah, just came to see
this patient.”

The nurse smiled and turned back to a
piece of equipment she was wiping down. “Oh, sorry. She’s
gone.”

“
Gone?” Rad swallowed
hard.

She glanced at him over her shoulder.
“Yeah. Been moved, I guess.”

“
Oh. Moved.” He breathed
again. “You know where?”

“
No.” She gazed up at him
curiously. “I’m new to this floor.”

“
But you’re sure she’s
just been moved. She didn’t… she didn’t…”

The nurse paused a moment as if just
understanding what he was saying. “Oh, no. No.” She shrugged.
“Pretty sure, anyway. I heard them talking about a chopper for
transport, but there’s no record to check.”

Rad stood silently in the doorway
another moment as his eyes swept the room. “Thanks for your
help.”

When he made it down to the waiting
room, the expression on his face must have told Wynn and Heather
things had not gone as planned. Neither asked any questions or even
said a word. And when they got to the car, Wynn turned up the music
loud enough that Rad’s choking sounds of disappointment and despair
could barely be heard.

Chapter 32

Six weeks later

R
ad threw the pillow across his head, trying to blot out an
irritating ringing sound. After a few moments, his weary brain
began to function enough to realize it was the phone lying beside
the bed. As he reached for it, he noticed the time—0500.

“
Radcliff
here.”

“
It’s Pops.”

Rad glanced at the time again and
struggled to catch his breath. Knowing that Pops and the whole team
were deployed caused the blood to rush out of his heart before he
even heard another word.

“
We have an Eagle
down.”

Rad heard a slight tremor in Pops’
usually calm voice even through the bad connection. He waited for
him to continue.

“
It’s Wynn.”

Rad sat straight up. “How
bad?”

“
Don’t know anything yet.”
The line went silent for a moment, except for the sound of heavy
breathing. “Dude, it’s bad.”

“
Heather know
yet?”

“
Negative.”

“
On my way. Keep me
posted.”

The line went dead.

Rad groaned as he threw his legs over
the side of the bed. Getting his joints moving in the morning was
the hardest part of the day. After letting Tara out for a few
minutes, he threw on a pair of jeans and a tee shirt, and splashed
some water on his unshaven face.

It would only take about thirty
minutes to drive to Heather’s. He hated the thought of getting her
out of a warm bed and had no idea what he was going to say once he
did it.

Even though he had plenty of time to
think about it on the ride over, Rad mostly thought about Wynn and
the guys. What had gone wrong? Had he let his brothers down by not
being there? Could he have done something to prevent it?

His hands tightened on the steering
wheel as he continued to wrestle with the idea of retiring from
active duty. With his reenlistment date approaching in less than a
year, he had to make a decision. Most of the time he leaned toward
going back for one more, rationalizing that what he needed most was
to do what he did best.

After sitting the last few months out
for his recuperation, Rad was straining at the leash to get back
into the action. He knew it would probably sound strange to most
people, but the acrid scent of gunpowder to him was like the smell
of freshly brewed coffee to most people. A sunset filtered through
the smoke of a burning building or bomb drop was captivating. Even
the constant need for caution and carefulness was a vital part of
his being. Everything harsh and unnerving about being in a war zone
energized and excited him.

Anyway, what would he do if he got off
this fast-moving train and tried to assimilate into civilian life?
After moving at an “all in, all the time” pace for all these years,
he wasn’t sure a slower lifestyle would appeal to him. Plus, he
felt it was his duty to defend his country as long as his body was
able to do it.

But was he able to do it?
Could he keep up with the new guys? Rad had spent the last fourteen
years of his life trying to be the best soldier he could be, but he
was not getting any younger. Even though he was close to being
fully recovered from his injury, he still had more than the average
aches and pains for a man his age. His mind drifted to Lauren. If
she were by his side, things would be different. Clearer.
Right
.

But she wasn’t. Since losing her again
he’d started his search all over, leaving no stone unturned in
trying to discover her whereabouts. He pleaded, questioned,
implored—and sometimes threatened—in an effort to get someone to
give him a lead. But those who had known she was in the hospital
had apparently been kept in the dark as to where she was
now.

Was she being cared for somewhere
close to him? Or on the other side of the country? He had no way of
knowing. It felt like he was trapped in a nightmare or stuck in the
middle of the Twilight Zone.

Not knowing her whereabouts or where
to even look, tormented Rad during the day and haunted his dreams
at night. He’d not slept more than a few hours straight since the
last time he’d seen her, and knew it probably showed. Night after
night she came to him in his sleep, calling his name and crying for
help. And night after night, he’d run toward the sound of her
voice, searching blindly for her in the darkness. When he’d finally
see her and reach for her hand, he’d wake up sweating, exhausted,
and gasping for breath.

She was always just beyond his
grasp.

Rad pushed those thoughts away and
focused on Heather. This was going to be hard on her. No matter the
ultimate outcome, the next few hours—possibly days and weeks—were
going to be difficult. Not knowing when, or if, you would ever see
the person you loved again was a feeling comparable to no
other—like having your heart squeezed by a giant fisted hand. Being
told your loved one was injured, alone, and thousands of miles
away, would only add to the awful torment.

As he turned onto Wynn’s road and
drove by the large, dark houses, Rad pictured the occupants snug in
their beds with no knowledge of what was occurring half a world—and
half a block—away. Their idea of stress and suffering was seeing
their electric bill double or enduring the loss of a game by their
favorite sports team. They had no idea what was happening outside
of their doorsteps or beyond their own little world.