"Water would be great. So, you want to hear a Martin story?" He pulled up a seat at her table after performing a walkthrough of her house.
She handed him a water bottle. Tearing the gift packaging, she put a spoonful of honey in her tea. "Were you with him when he got that scar?"
"Which one?"
"Not so good at fishing, huh? I guess I'll start with the one on his chest."
"I'll let him tell you that one, but I will tell you a story about his first tour to Afghanistan. December 2001, we were assigned to Task Force K-Bar. The original name was the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force - South, part of the first major ground invasion in Afghanistan Operation Anaconda. The military loves long words and acronyms,” he said, chuckling.
“Martin was new to the teams and to our squad. Three weeks into the deployment, the mission tempo was so high we stopped counting the number of assignments. One night, eight of us hiked about eighteen hundred yards up the side of a mountain. On the other face was a Taliban stronghold. Our job was to photograph and destroy a lightly-manned outpost, but the intelligence was bad—it was a fully-operational base. Caves stored tons of arms and munitions, and tunnels moved troops and vehicles. We counted at least one hundred fighters.”
“Oh my God,” Elizabeth worried.
Tate closed and reopened his eyes. “Our plan changed to avoid being caught: gather the intel, relay it, and get out of there. The flyboys would blow it up after we were tucked in bed.”
He shrugged. “Plans have a way of falling apart, though, because a nasty storm rolled in. A job planned for a few hours grew to three days. Then things went to hell, and Greece got sick about five hours later. It turned out he had kidney stones blocking his tube and a severe infection."
"Did you have any antibiotics and pain meds?" Even though it was over fifteen years ago, she worried about the soldier.
"We did, but not enough for three days. Martin, along with our medic, Alamo, were tasked to stay with him. By day four, he was burning up and in agony." His shoulders tightened.
"Wait, you said three days?" Her brows fretted.
Tate smiled. "Welcome to the military. Weather refused to break, leaving us stranded. The longer we stayed increased the jeopardy. Greece understood if he cried out, our position wouldn't stay secret. We took turns lying beside him to keep him warm, sharing our supplies with him, trying to keep him hydrated and comfortable. Martin told us his mom used to fill socks with hot salt when he got an earache. He carried him over his shoulder in a blizzard up another thousand feet to a small cave and built a fire. No salt, but he filled a sock with sand."
"Old-fashioned hot packs." She was proud.
"On the sixth day, the weather cleared, and we managed to hike out to a rendezvous spot. In the service and working for Chase Security, I witnessed Martin do things like that often. He finds a way out, even at his own risk."
Elizabeth's eyes were drooping.
"You’re tired. Let me stay?"
"No, Tate. The best thing for me is to go to sleep."
Chapter Thirteen
Martin guzzled from a water bottle, then crushed it and hurled it against the wall in frustration. Aware he almost lost Elizabeth again, as soon as she left the hospital, he demanded an explanation about why the two cops abandoned their post. Janice and Matteo's presence stopped him from throttling Lieutenant Irvin Lamb, who arrived to take his complaint.
His parents found him pacing the room designated for the family to wait in private. "We took Janey home to rest a while; Patrick told us what happened. Where is Elizabeth?" Fay eyed her son.
"Tate took her home."
"Marty, you need to rest too." Dennis put an arm around his shoulders.
"I almost lost her again. Today, seeing that bastard holding that knife, I promised myself no one would hurt her again. I broke my own promise."
"None of us can make those promises, no matter how much we love someone." Fay opened her arms to her firstborn.
"Mom, it’s so hard. As much as I want to, I can't lock her away to keep her safe," he admitted.
As the afternoon moved into evening, Martin paid attention to the encrypted notes on his laptop.
Joseph “Red” Canel from Bravo team posted that Troy managed to buy some pot from fellow prisoners. Troy was posing as Royce Mills, a thirty-six-year-old pretrial remand for domestic abuse, auto theft, and possession for sale and distribution. His rap sheet said he’d been in trouble since his teens, all for offenses involving drugs.
More violent pornography traced to the Silverton distribution hub hit the internet. Facial recognition examination of the material identified two males and one female as indigent inmates who were listed as “died in custody.” None of the children seen in the pictures were identified, including the Jane Doe.
Indigent deaths all went through the office of the Director of Corrections, Clay Jenner. A picture of him triggered a sense of familiarity, but his background record showed nothing irregular. Martin texted Mike to repeat all checks into Jenner, as well as a new request to investigate the circumstances of Tonette's incarceration.
