Page 8 of Stand Fast

“And when did you come to the States?”

“After high school. My dad got hired at a private hospital in Michigan.”

“He a doctor?”

“Neurosurgeon.”

“Ah. So brains run in the family, then.”

Her lips quirked. He was charming, she’d give him that. “Yeah, I guess they do.” She loved and admired her father, but they sure didn’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of things—like her career.

“Bet that Christmas turkey would have been juicier and tastier if they’d used animu,” Maka said with a grin.

“Sadly, I guess I’ll never know.”

“Kai’s a master of resourcing stuff. I bet he could scrounge up a turkey and dig us animuright here on base so you could test it out,” Khan said to her.

“Oh, no, that’s not nece—”

“Yeah, I bet I could,” Maka said, a far-off look in his eyes as though he was already planning it out. Then his gaze flicked to her. “Let me see what I can do. I’ll get back to you on it.”

Okay, he sounded serious about this. “I…all right.”

Khan winked at her and continued eating his dinner.

To avoid looking at him or encouraging further conversation, she went back to eating her meal while the team talked around her. It was impossible not to like Khan, even if he was the same guy she’d met online. Another reason not to let him get too close.

Under different circumstances, she might have been tempted to indulge in a little flirtation and see where it went. But not here, and not with him.

A relief, really. In a few hours his team would go into harm’s way to carry out an operation based on her team’s intelligence reports and recommendations.

It would be dangerous out there far away from base. They could be hurt. Even killed.

The sobering reality made the food congeal into a hard lump in her stomach.

It wasn’t the first time the weight of responsibility had sat heavy on her shoulders. But even with the little time she’d spent with the team tonight, instead of a list of names and faces they were now all individuals with different personalities, and all of them had people who loved them waiting back home.

Jaliya mentally shook her head at herself. She should never have opened that door in the first place. Fraternizing with men who would go into dangerous situations on her recommendation was never a good idea.

Forcing down the bite of suddenly dry chicken stuck in her throat, she washed it down with a few sips of water, then gathered her tray and stood. “I’ve got some more things to prepare,” she said to them both as they looked up at her questioningly. “See you at the debriefing.” She left the table and didn’t look back, hoping her anxiety about the coming op didn’t show.

Chapter Three

Zaid cupped his gloved hands together and blew on them as he crouched in the frigid darkness at the base of a rise with his teammates. Overhead, the thick cloud cover obscured the moon and stars.

The temperature here in the foothills of the Hindu Kush Mountains had dropped well below freezing over the past hour and a light snow had begun to fall. Forecasters expected an accumulation of between six and nine inches by morning, meaning FAST Bravo had to make this quick if they wanted to avoid being stuck here in the bitter cold until the storm passed sometime tomorrow.

Back at the comparative warmth of Bagram hours ago, they’d attended a briefing given by Agent Rabani and her team, based on the interview he’d helped with that morning. The tiny village Barakat had mentioned lay nestled in a small valley three hundred yards up the side of the mountain. Zaid hoped like hell the kid hadn’t been lying, because this would be a damn waste of manpower and resources.

An icy blast of wind roared down the mountainside, slicing against his face like the blade of a knife. They were way out in no man’s land. The terrain here was too rugged for their helo to set down, so they’d had to fast rope in and hump it to the target on foot.

Above him, Freeman was already halfway up the face of the hillside, in the lead as usual as he set the anchors in the rock. Hamilton was next, and Prentiss was a dozen yards behind him.

Zaid slung his weapon across his back to keep it out of the way as he clipped his harness onto the guide rope and reached for the bit of rock sticking out of the snow-covered earth, using it as a handhold as he pulled himself up. The rest of his teammates all waited below for their turn, maintaining a secure perimeter along with the twelve members of the Afghan National Interdiction Unit they were working with for this op.

The twenty-yard climb was no joke with the swirling snow and wind. By the time he reached the top, he was breathing hard and sweating, and his fingers were numb. The instant he cleared the edge of the cliff and unhooked from the rope, the wind howled around him, blowing dust and the light covering of snow around enough to screw with his visibility.

After adjusting his goggles, he hurried over to where Hamilton was crouched near a large boulder and added his own eyes and ears to form a secure perimeter while the others began the ascent. Once everyone was with them, Hamilton gave Prentiss the order to deploy the drone.

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