He was back there again, seeing it as if he were standing off to the side, watching and knowing what happened next but not able to change the outcome. So many warning signs. Why hadn’t he seen them?
Jabar’s bright white athletic shoes should have been a tip-off. A size too big and laced up around his long skinny legs. But the kid was always showing up with crap like that. Most likely the shoes came from Logan. The two exchanged contraband on a regular basis. It was one of the things Logan expected Creed not to notice, or if he did, to look the other way. Especially since Creed had made it clear that he wasn’t interested in “free” designer sunglasses or athletic shoes or diver’s watches. And he declined the experimental cough drops and cough syrup. He knew there was other experimental stuff Logan distributed to his men. That was the real reason for the gifts. Where or how Logan got any of those things, Creed didn’t know and didn’t want to know. He and Rufus would move on to the next platoon in another week or so.
Jabar showed up that day wearing a baggy jacket, a sleek zip-up windbreaker in addition to the white athletic shoes. The sleeves were rolled up to the kid’s elbows, bulging with too much fabric and making his stick arms look even more fragile. Likewise, the rest of the jacket bulged, but in ways that indicated there was more than only Jabar’s slight frame hidden underneath.
At first Creed thought certainly Logan must know that Jabar wasn’t exclusively his little con artist. The kid was a hustler who could swindle and trick even someone like Logan.
But on that day Jabar jabbered faster and louder than usual. He had the swagger and belligerence of someone twice his age and three times his size. Creed heard him yelling at Logan, climbing on rocks and jumping down with his arms out, making the baggy sleeves look like wings.
Logan seemed annoyed but not alarmed. He cursed at the boy, then laughed at him, but it wasn’t in jest. Instead it sounded too much like mockery, too much like he was daring the boy.
Rufus started whining at Creed’s side, straining at the end of the leash. Nose in the air, neck hair bristling, tail curled, ears pricked forward. The dog was alerting.
That’s when Jabar saw Rufus. Creed didn’t notice that the boy’s hands were balled up. The first rock he threw hit Creed in his temple. The next landed with a sickening thud against Rufus’s shoulder. Jabar yelled at them, digging into his pockets, plucking out and throwing rocks, his arms swinging in exaggerated wild loops. Even Logan took a hit.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“He’s loaded,” Creed yelled, pulling Rufus back along with him.
He saw the boy dig into the folds of the windbreaker. Saw the cord. Knew he’d never make it behind the boulder ten paces away. He snatched up Rufus, all eighty squirming pounds of him, and he dived for shelter as he heard the explosion. It blasted him off his feet.
Dirt and rocks crumbled, raining down. Burning pieces of metal shredded his back. The last thing he heard was Rufus’s whimper before everything went black.
Creed felt the wet tongue licking his cheek. His eyelids were heavy. When he tried to open them it was as if sandpaper scraped against the lenses. Blurred figures danced in the dim light above him. A dog nose hovered, then the licking started again. Creed reached up and caught the small head between his hands, massaging the ears and containing the licks.
When his vision finally focused he was surprised to see not Rufus but Grace, his Jack Russell terrier.
“What are you doing here?” Creed asked the dog as his eyes darted around the large area, a towering ceiling with steel beams and massive light fixtures on low. The bed beneath him screeched under his movement and he remembered the small cot in the corner of the school gymnasium.
North Carolina. Not Afghanistan.
Landslide. No explosions.
Bolo butted his big head up against Creed’s side. Grace scampered along the other. Just as he was trying to put the pieces together in his fuzzy mind someone said from behind him, “It’s about time you woke up.”
He twisted his neck to see Jason Seaver, his hired dog trainer. But he had left him back at his facility in the Florida Panhandle.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
21.
Washington, D.C.
Maggie O’Dell stepped off the elevator and immediately felt the knot in her stomach tighten. She wasn’t looking forward to telling her friend that she needed to leave her side for an out-of-town assignment. Last night, when she was leaving Gwen, O’Dell caught a glimpse of something in her friend’s eyes.