Page 33 of What Remains (John Worthy #3)

Hours later.

Gasping, John jerked awake, his mind tearing itself away from yet another drunken spiral of a nightmare that vanished as soon as his eyes opened.

Where was he? He couldn’t move. His heart was a knot of muscle, a fist battering his ribs as he struggled to suck in air, get his breathing under control.

God, he was suffocating. No, no, drowning again: falling into that freezing whirlpool, everything was swirling, and he was dying all over again…

“Take it easy.” A voice, close by, on his left. “It’s the altitude. Messes with your sleep, gives you nightmares. You’re hyperventilating. Cup your hands around your nose and mouth and slow your breathing down.”

“Yeah.” For crying out loud, he knew this.

Doesn’t make waking up from that nightmare any better.

Working his hands out of his sleeping bag, he pulled in a wheezing lungful, held it a moment before releasing a raspy exhalation.

Again. He breathed in and then out, in and then out, every exhalation eerily mirroring the moan of the wind beyond their tent.

“Sorry.” He sounded as strangled as a condemned man whose executioner has just tightened the noose, but he was calmer now.

Talking about his brush with death must’ve triggered that particular nightmare.

Maybe they should’ve stayed awake longer, talked about other things and let that particular horror recede.

Because there had been something mentioned, a detail his unconscious had noticed enough for him to pause, try to remember what it was he’d heard. Except the harder he tried, the faster that something slipped away in a minnow’s quicksilver flash.

“Worthy?”

“I’m here.” His hands were chilled. Sliding them back into the depths of his sleeping bag, he rasped another apology. “Sorry I woke you.”

“Not a problem,” Driver said. “I don’t sleep well at altitude either. I get these headaches.”

“We should take a diuretic.” He swallowed then grimaced. His mouth tasted like the inside of an old shoe. “Got some more in my pack. Want one?”

“So, I can pee like a racehorse?” A rustle, a soft snick, and then a narrow beam of white light speared the gloom. “Yeah, bring it on. We got to get up soon anyway.”

Grateful for the light and an excuse to get ahold of himself, he levered his body, still cocooned in his sleeping bag, to a sit.

Even when he’d been in the Scouts, he hated sleeping bags.

Whenever he zipped in, he always felt like one of those Egyptian mummies.

Reaching for his pack, he said, “What time is it?”

“About five-thirty…thanks.” Pulling a water bottle from the depths of his sleeping bag, Driver popped the pill John offered, took a long pull, then offered his bottle. “You should hydrate, too. It’ll help with the nightmares.”

“Yeah.” He forced himself not to gulp. When he came up for air, he said, “If we’re awake…I got a coupla questions.” In truth, he had three, but one step by one step.

“Seriously?” Driver capped then stowed his bottle. “Just because I said it was almost time to get up doesn’t mean I don’t want a few more minutes of shut-eye. Can you make it quick?”

“Probably not.”

“Have you ever considered that, sometimes, honesty isn’t the best policy?”

“Spoken like a spook.” As he said the words, something fluttered at the back of his mind. That something his animal brain noticed. What was it?

“All right.” Sighing, Driver squirmed around until he could lie on his side to face him. “Go for it.”

“Mac came back for you, right?” When Driver nodded, he asked, “But no one went back for Roni?”

“Why would they?” Driver yawned and his breath coalesced in a great smoking cloud. “She and I were both on the wrong side when the wall collapsed. I guess we could’ve gone back and slipped in through that old well, but with all that water, what would have been the point?”

“Except I’m here to retrieve her remains, which might mean she got herself out.” When Driver shook his head, he said, “Why the hell not?”

“I told you, Worthy. All that damn water swept her backwards. She never surfaced.”

“But that doesn’t preclude two things. Eventually, the water levels would’ve reached steady state, right? Roni kept in shape. She was athletic. So, she could’ve swum or treaded water or hooked onto the wall before she was swept too far into the caves.”

“Not blind as a bat she wouldn’t.”

“She had her flashlight. It was on.” His last glimpse of her: that white oval as she looked down and then over to where he’d been. “I remember her face.”

“So, you’re saying she might have worked her way back to where I dug myself out?”

“Is it impossible?”

“No, but it’s also not probable. Worthy, you’re alive because that water was freezing. How long do you think she’d have lasted?”

Not long. It was a question that didn’t require an answer, and he felt that sudden, nascent hope flowering in his chest wilt. “Then the only other possibility is her body was found by the same group that sent its guys to smoke us in the first place.”

In the murky silver light of dawn, he saw Driver’s face fold in a frown. “And kept as a bargaining chip?”

“I seem to recall that the tactic has moved governments before.”

Driver’s head moved in a slow nod. “I can see that. The only way that would work, of course, was if they had some way to both prove and spread the news.”

“Exactly. Our military would be anxious to avoid bad publicity. Except the guys who attacked us would have to suspect or know that someone hadn’t made it out. If that’s true, that would indicate surveillance for a prolonged period.”

Driver’s nose wrinkled as if something smelled bad. “I dunno, Worthy. Those guys who raided us that day didn’t seem the patient type.”

“Ah, but you see, that fits neatly into my second hypothesis.”

“Which is?”

“That they were trying to delay us. For argument’s sake, let’s say that they saw or knew I was leaving with some of the boys.”

Driver was quiet. Then he said, “What you’re saying is that they either picked up Mac’s chatter or had eyes on us for a while.”

“Or on one particular person.”

“Who was?”

“Driver, who was the one person who’d probably pissed off a lot of people?”

“Excluding present company and our government?” Driver paused. “Shahida.”

“Precisely.”

“You think they were after her?”

“I think that’s what this whole thing was about.

Driver, I spent a lot of time beating up on myself, thinking that it was because Mac broke radio silence to get in touch with Drummond to meet me and those kids halfway which started the ball rolling.

That whoever was after us homed in on Mac’s communications.

Except I got back too soon and spoiled everything by sending up that flare.

After that, they didn’t have much choice but to attack outright. ”

“They could’ve withdrawn.”

“I don’t think that was an option. My guess is they’d gotten word back to more of their people and hoped that help was on the way. Leaving them only one course of action, really.”

“To delay us.”

“Exactly. They had rifles and that RPG launcher. If they played it right, they could’ve kept us there for quite a while. They had to know we wouldn’t risk the boys.”

“Then how do you explain the RPG?”

“Nerves? Crappy aim? Actually,” he said, “that did delay Flowers, Mac, and Meeks.”

“Who then wasted them.”

“But think, Driver. Someone somehow got ahold of Roni’s body.

So, I think they were trying to keep you from leaving until their guys could get there and come at you from behind.

Just do a flanking maneuver. You guys would’ve been pinned, and Mac would’ve given up rather than risk the boys’ lives.

They may have been fighters under Shahida’s command, but with no weapons, they were just a bunch of kids. ”

He watched Driver think about that. “Okay, I’ll give you that. But how did anyone get ahold of Roni’s body? The way out was blocked.”

“There had to be another entrance into those caves you guys didn’t know about. Think about it. Think about all those artifacts Flowers showed me. The carvings on the walls.”

“Indicating the caves had been in use before.”

“Precisely. You said that Roni got sucked back the way we came, right? Only that way was blocked because of a cave-in.”

“So, they knew another way in?” Driver was quiet a moment then nodded. “Okay, I’ll give you that. Either they found Roni alive and then she died, or they killed her, or they found her body. Same diff, really. Dead would be easier for them. Bag the body and split.”

Driver’s detachment, his tone of just the facts , stung. On the other hand, did he get emotional when talking about a patient who didn’t make it? Did his lack of a display of emotion make a patient’s death any less of a blow? He couldn’t do his job if he wasn’t master of himself.

“We’re agreed that what I just said might be true?” When Driver nodded, he said, “Therefore, if they’ve cut a deal to return Roni’s remains, that has to mean whoever’s had her is getting something in return.”

Driver studied him for a long moment. “Where are you going with this, Worthy?”

“I think I just got there.”

“What you’re really asking is why now ? Is that it?”

“Precisely. Driver, it’s been two years and change since Roni was MIA. Why release her remains now ? What’s different now , in the Wakhan, than two years ago?”

Silence. Then: “The road.”

“Exactly. The road is done, except the Taliban can’t use it because China won’t open the border. Which doesn’t make a lot of sense if Ustinov is right, and Chinese engineers have been exploring ways to ramp up mining.”

“But Ustinov is a Russian spook.”

“Whom Patterson and with whomever he’s collaborating on this mission trusted enough to act as a go-between.”

“The Ruskies helping us ? You’re assuming that’s the case because Ustinov’s a spook and Mac was a spook, that somehow equals them working on the same side.”