Afghan Storm (Nick Woods Book 3) Read online

  Wow. Well, he’s clearly not the best liar, Nick thought, a little stunned and perplexed. But instead of calling the man out on it, Nick simply nodded his head and let the odd doctor stitch him up.

  Oh well, thought Nick, I guess that’s that. And good riddance.

  Two days later, Nick was on a phone call with his CIA representative, Mr. Smith. The two men passed inconsequential intelligence updates back and forth. And through some unknown means of magic or maybe a conveniently timed concussive head injury, Nick had yet to bark or growl once.

  They were about to finish up when Mr. Smith announced, “Oh, and I have one more business matter to share with you.”

  “Hit me with it, man,” said Nick, still uncharacteristically pleasant and unconcerned.

  “We have selected a physician to join your team, starting immediately.”

  “You did what?” Nick asked, the long-lost edge returning to his voice.

  “Well, it just so happens that we received an application from a highly qualified candidate,” Mr. Smith replied, either missing the threat in Nick’s voice or quite possibly choosing to ignore it. “And considering the needs, or more specifically, the hazards of S3’s collective skill set, we have determined that a full-time physician would not only be more convenient, but efficient as well.”

  “Listen here, you,” Nick said as the embers of his temper began steadily flaring back to life. “S3 is my company. I decide who or what we hire.”

  “That as it may be, Nick, your company is still under contract.”

  “Well, ‘that as it may be,’ asshole,” Nick growled, “it was my understanding that I have the authority to decide who works for me.”

  Mr. Smith sighed. “What do you want me to say, Nick? You’ve been overruled.”

  “Again, I don’t see how that’s possible,” Nick shot back, the timbre of his voice rising. “It seems to me that someone needs to remember who’s in charge of S3.”

  “Well, I agree with you there,” Mr. Smith fired back.

  “You…” Nick started to argue.

  “The reasons are clear. First, considering the conditions you and your three men recently returned in,” Mr. Smith stated dryly, interrupting the incoming name-calling, “it seems necessary. Secondly, the unending physical harm that you and your men seem unable to prevent yourselves from inflicting on one another during training. Because, correct me if I’m wrong,” Mr. Smith continued, his tone becoming antagonistic, “did you not require additional medical attention only…” Nick could just make out the sound of a file folder being briskly flipped open, “... ah, yes. Two days ago?”

  Nick wanted to throw the phone, but Mr. Smith continued before he could get a word in edge-wise.

  “And let’s see here, it says that in addition to reopening a gunshot wound, ‘the patient also presented a patterning of bruises, a swollen left eye,’ and ‘a split lower lip.”

  “I tripped,” Nick hissed through clenched teeth.

  “Of course you did,” Mr. Smith replied sardonically. “Even without such consideration, the CIA has decided that continual and easily accessible medical support is not only in S3’s best interest but in ours as well.”

  “And how the hell do you figure that?”

  “It will be much easier to maintain secrecy in such matters if medical assistance can be done in house,” Mr. Smith asserted. “Also ensuring the continual health of active S3 members reduces our liability.”

  “Pfft.” Nick scoffed. “I’m pretty sure you guaranteed me that ‘you and the powers that be’ wouldn’t shoulder any liabilities, anyway.”

  “That’s true, but let’s face it, a dead American is still a dead American.”

  Nick started to speak, but Mr. Smith quickly jumped in to explain. “Think of it this way, Nick. If our enemies were to stumble upon a dead American, then the United States will, without question, fall under immediate and harsh scrutiny. America’s innocence will be compromised to some degree, no matter what the resulting verdict may be. But if we are able to verify the satisfactory health of our team members, theoretically, employed to venture into enemy territory, then we have also, in fact, increased the probability of survival and, therefore, the continued indemnity of our great country.”

  “So, basically,” Nick said, “you’re looking to cover your ass.”

  “Well, your ass as well. But yes. That’s the idea.”

  Nick hated how much sense this made, but he’d be damned if he’d relinquish any more ground or authority. Yet still, the health of his men was a priority, even by his standards, so he decided to let this one go.

  “Who’s the doctor?” Nick relented.

  “Oh well,” Nick could see the smug smile on the bastard’s face, “I think you’ll be very impressed. I’ve gotten some excellent recommendations on Dr. Clayton. Even one from a member of S3’s leadership.”

  Nick had no idea who Dr. Clayton was, but he was pissed he had been kept out of the loop. “You should have conferred with me, not Marcus.”

  “Oh, come on, Nick. I’d thought you’d appreciate knowing that a member of your team showed such great confidence in Dr. Clayton’s ability to do the job.”

  “You know you should have come to me.”

  “Well, I would have,” replied Mr. Smith, restraining the anger in voice, “but you had gone and gotten yourself shot recently. And as you were incapacitated,” his voice now rising, “I assumed you were unavailable for consultation!”

  Nick silently fumed, hearing Mr. Smith steady his breathing in an attempt to calm himself.

  “Now,” the CIA officer said, “Dr. Clayton has already received official orders and has been immediately transferred to S3’s employment directly from the Army. And it just so happens she’s already in Afghanistan. If you should desire to meet with her yourself, then you will have to schedule that yourself. Now do you have any other questions?”

  “No,” growled Nick.

  “Good,” Mr. Smith responded and briskly hung up.

  “Bastard,” Nick said, throwing the phone against the wall.

  He stood staring at the carnage. Then suddenly his eyes went wide, and he nervously asked the remains of what used to be a phone, “Did he just say ‘her’?”

  Chapter 60

  After his phone call with Mr. Smith, Nick found himself trying to process through a lot of questions and feelings. Manly feelings, that is.

  Mostly he was nervous about the identity of this Dr. Clayton. He truthfully had no idea how many doctors were even stationed on Bagram Airfield, and he had even less of an idea how many of those doctors were female. But he guessed that the statistical probability of it being the female doctor he had dealt with earlier was likely working against him, and chances were strong that he had most likely (and certainly, indirectly) hired a woman who he already didn’t like.

  And it seemed that the feeling might be mutual. However, that might also be the one thing that helped his odds. Hopefully, someone he’d already successfully pissed off wouldn’t think to apply for a job at his company. Would they?

  Argh, Nick thought. Why had he not learned the woman’s name? She had to have told him, right? She probably did, but you were too busy coming up with a reason to hate her guts. Remember?

  Well, at least he knew of one way to figure it out. Mr. Smith said he had talked to someone not just in S3, but in S3’s leadership. Barring any technicality, Nick was pretty certain that there was only one person other than himself that could be classified as leadership in his organization.

  Nick could hear Marcus’s voice before he even reached the weapons room. And either the man had just finished having a heart attack, or Marcus was telling one of his stories. Marcus was definitely one of the most disciplined and serious men Nick had ever met, but when he had a good story to tell, the man went all out. Nick could hear Marcus lost in an eruption of laughter. He could just make out Truck’s deep, hearty laugh in between Marcus’ attempts to catch his breath.

  When Nick entered the ro
om, he saw Marcus hee-hawing in a squat down on the floor. He was teetering so far forward that he required both hands out in front of him to keep him from falling on his face. Marcus had this reputation of when he got tickled enough about something, his body suddenly and very mysteriously became too heavy for him support on his own. If you got him going good enough, the man would either literally crumple to the ground or slowly stumble from person to person clutching at them for stability until he finally managed to steady himself or gave in and allowed gravity take him down.

  Meanwhile, Truck was seated with his M4 on his lap, clearly in the middle of cleaning it, but at the moment, the big man appeared to be having a straight-up, giggle fest. His face was splotched and red, and he had one meaty hand fanning back a collection of tears that threatened to pour out and down his face.

  Nick looked around the room and saw two unattended weapons and cleaning kits. One obviously belonged to Marcus and Nick assumed the other belonged to Red. However, as the little man appeared to be nowhere in the room, Nick had a suspicion that Red might somehow be at the butt of this particular joke.

  When Marcus finally saw Nick standing in the doorway, his face lit up. He stood precariously trying to find his balance and moved in a drunken fashion toward Nick. The man was obviously too lost in his amusement to read the serious expression on Nick’s face.

  “Oh, man, Nick,” Marcus said, “you are not gonna believe this, brother.”

  The man chuckled a bit more, and Nick looked over to see Truck slapping his thigh as a fresh wave of hiccupping laughter tumbled over him. Apparently it was a good joke if it had Truck willing to be seen with an unmanly amount of tears spurting from his face.

  “Okay,” Marcus exhaled, attempting to rein his amusement in. “So I had gone to get Red to tell him to get his gun and kit, right? But when I got there, dude was already gone, okay? But I happened to see that the man left his lamp on. So being the conscious man that I am,” he said, bobbing his head briskly from side to side, “I went to turn it off for him, right? And as I get over to the lamp, I look down and find this stick or whatever on the ground by his nightstand, kind of hidden. Well, I have no idea what it is. But it seems kind of familiar, you know, so I grab it.”

  Now by this point, Nick was genuinely curious about the “stick,” so he adjusted his face to grumpy where before he was ragingly pissed off. Both Marcus and Truck looked to one another and fell into another fit of giggles.

  A few deep breaths later, and Marcus continued the story, “So I find Red and Truck in here already cleaning. And so I go ask Red, ‘Yo, man. What the hell is this thing?’ Then the little man’s face goes all bug-eyed and red. But he won't tell me anything. So I keep at him. Even Truck starts asking him about it, but the man won’t say shit. Then finally, it hits me.”

  Nick looked over and saw that big ole’ Truck had started snorting and panting, a tear-stained mess again. Nick was, honest to God, sure the man was going to pass out from a lack of oxygen.

  Marcus came over to stand directly beside Nick, placing a big hand on Nick’s non-injured shoulder. “You remember at the compound, that first hut we hit?”

  Nick simply lifted his eyebrows, urging the man to move the story along.

  “Okay, well you remember how Red got tripped up on that chair in the front room, and you had to advance past him? Well, while you and Truck were clearing out the back room, I could have sworn I heard some kind of scuffle still going on in the front room. Of course, I’ve got the door, so I can’t do anything about it. Can’t turn around, right? I just wait until I get Red’s signal that he’s covering the door so I can start moving the furniture and shit from the room.”

  Then Marcus smiled so big that Nick thought he could get a pretty good guess as to how many teeth the man actually had in his head.

  “Turns out,” Marcus continued, “that the little dude got his gear caught in the damned chair…” Marcus suffered another fit, unable to finish the sentence.

  “... so the boy is wrestling and karate chopping the thing into pieces,” Marcus said, snapping his arms in the air imitating the scene as his words became less and less decipherable through the hoarse squeak in his voice.

  “And then I realize that not only has this boy gotten his ass handed to him by a fucking chair, but he’s gone the entire mission without noticing an eight-inch-long piece of chair leg still caught in his gear.”

  Marcus seemed to dissolve as he all but fell to the floor while Truck had come to the clear end of his sanity. At some point, the big man must have set his gun down as he was now half-pitched backward in the chair bouncing his leg and waving both hands in a gesture suggesting that either Marcus stop or the big boy was going to wet himself.

  Nick allowed them to laugh for a minute longer as he moved over to look at how much progress Red had made on his gun. The proud little man must have decided to abandon ship and let the two girls in the room have their fun. Ultimately, Nick was glad that they’d had something to laugh about. And he’d look forward to laughing about this later. But right now, he needed to get some shit straightened out.

  From behind him, Nick could hear Marcus say to Truck, “I mean it took me a couple trips to clear that chair from the middle of the room, man. Red must have beat that thing into ten or more pieces.”

  As soon as the giggles began to die down, Nick turned to look at Marcus. The grin on the man’s face fell as recognition suddenly won over his amusement. “Is something wrong, boss?”

  “We need to talk,” replied Nick, keeping any sign of anger out of his voice.

  Truck, who was still a little too giggle drunk, interjected an “oooo” attempting to sound girlish, but lost his enthusiasm for it when he saw that neither of the other men was laughing. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

  “The hall?” Marcus offered.

  “Yeah,” Nick replied. And the two men made their way out of the weapons room into the adjoining hallway. Bagram Airfield was, at present, mostly vacant as the majority of US forces had been ordered to finally pull out of Afghanistan. And S3 had its own area on the base, so for the purpose of a private conversation, the empty hallway was as good as a high-security war room.

  “What’s going on?” Marcus asked.

  “We need to talk about Dr. Clayton, Marcus.” Nick was suddenly very glad that he’d walked into the weapons room when he did. Although he hadn’t exactly been able to enjoy the humor earlier, the scene of his two men having a moment of rare and genuine laughter had been a valuable reminder to Nick.

  These men were people, his people. And if he was going to ask for their respect, then it was important that he do the same for them. Ultimately it would be unfair for Nick to lash out and accuse Marcus of anything without hearing the man out first.

  “Dr. Julia?” Marcus inquired. “Yeah, what about her?”

  So definitely a woman, Nick thought. He cleared his throat, then said, “Well, I assume you know that S3 has officially hired Dr. Clayton as its full-time physician. I was just informed of this by Mr. Smith.”

  Marcus looked confused. “I mean, I knew that there was the possibility. I didn’t know that she had already been hired.”

  “Okay, Marcus,” Nick said, “Can you just tell me what your whole role in this was? Because all I know is that Mr. Smith told me he’d spoken to someone within S3’s leadership. And since I knew he hadn’t talked to me about any doctor, I’m assuming he went to you, correct?”

  “Yeah. I mean, listen. Here’s what happened, alright? I get word that I’m supposed to call Smith as soon as possible. So I call him, and he gives me orders to go and interview this doctor. And he tells me to interview her under the same process we would hire anyone else for S3, except for adjusting the questions to better suit a physician.”

  The man stopped, looking at Nick as if trying to gauge how Nick was taking the information. But Nick simply nodded and said, “Okay, so what happened?”

  “Well, I went and interviewed her. I mean, Nick, Smith gave me an order.”<
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  Nick waved his hand and shook his head, dismissing any defensive instincts Marcus had about needing to explain his actions. Nick wasn’t mad at Marcus. Sure, he wasn’t too happy about the situation or how his slimy CIA boss had worked a damn loophole in order to get their way.

  “No, Marcus. I know you were just doing what you were told. And even though I’m not exactly happy about what happened, or even how it happened, you did the right thing, okay? So just tell me what you told Mr. Smith about Dr. Clayton.”

  Marcus sighed in relief. “I told him that Dr. Julia met all of S3’s standards as far as I could tell.”

  “You think she’d be good for S3?”

  Marcus gave Nick a look of exasperation.

  “Nick, I told you forever ago and several times since then, how I thought a physician, or a medical professional of some level, would be valuable to S3.”

  Oh yeah, remembered Nick. He did recall Marcus saying that a time or two, or twenty. But it had never been a pressing concern, so Nick had consistently kicked the can down the road, barely filing it away in his head.

  “Okay, so what’s the deal with her? Is she really up for this, or even able to handle the kind of trouble we get into?”

  “Look, Nick, from what I could tell, she’s overqualified for the job,” said Marcus. “She’s worked for years in austere conditions on small, forward firebases. She’s saved lives with limited medical gear on some firebase in the middle of nowhere. And her background is impressive. She graduated from Harvard and spent years patching up gunshot wounds on gang members in Baltimore before joining the Army after 9/11. This woman is one of the best. I’ve researched her.”

  “Hmm…” Nick said, folding his arms across his chest and looking thoughtfully down at the floor. “She say why she wants the job?”

  “Actually,” Marcus said curiously, pausing, “As a matter of fact she did.”

  “Yeah?”

  “It sounded to me like she’s been here for a long time, Nick. She seems a little hallowed and ready to move on. And the opportunities in the Army for real trauma work are becoming more and more limited. Plus she seemed to feel that moving to work beneath a corporate company might make it easier for her to move into the private sector one day.”