Читать книгу Wolf Haven - Lindsay McKenna - Страница 14

CHAPTER SEVEN

“GRAYSON, HOW ARE YOU, brother?”

“Hey, Jag, good to hear your voice.” Gray smiled as he stood near the door to the wildlife center. It was nearly 8:00 a.m., and he had put in a call to the senior chief of ST3 at Coronado. The senior had given him the contact number of the SEAL who had led Sky’s rescue mission. Gray knew him well, Petty Officer First Class Ryan Stark. He had been a shooter in his squadron, and Gray had been with him when Kell Ballard, the LPO, had headed up the team. When Kell left, Ryan took his place. Everyone knew him as Jag, for jaguar, because Stark was as silent and deadly as the legendary South American cat.

“How’s life in Wyoming? Last email I got from you was two months go. Did you get snowed in?” Jag teased and laughed heartily.

Gray could feel his stomach knotting. “No, just busy putting the final touches on the wildlife center I’m running. Look, I got permission from the senior back at Coronado to ask you about a rescue mission you headed up.”

“Sure. What do you need to know?”

Gray knew all their ops were top secret. But ex-SEALs or retired SEALs were sometimes cut some slack if there was a personal stake in needing to know. “Your rescue of Lieutenant Skylar Pascal. Do you remember it? It was about eight months ago?”

“I couldn’t forget it if I wanted to,” Jag growled. “How did you get wind about this op?”

Mouth quirking, Gray walked around the corner of the building where he was out of sight of everyone. No one was around on the cold, sunny morning, but he didn’t want this conversation being overheard. He filled Jag in that Sky was going to be his assistant.

“Now, I know a couple of things,” Gray went on in a quiet tone. “She was in a Black Hawk crash, and there were two survivors. The doc was shot in the head later in a cave, leaving her the lone survivor. The Taliban held Sky for two weeks and she was waterboarded.”

“You know a whole helluva lot,” Jag muttered.

“Not enough, though. I need your eyes on this, Jag. You were there. You pulled the op. What else can you tell me about that mission?” Gray held his breath, trying to prepare himself.

“It was a nightmare, man. Me and my team took down four Taliban guarding that Afghan house. We captured two others. The Taliban was hiding her in plain sight in a border village. We got inside the house, found this small room locked. I shot off the lock and kicked the door open. It was dark and smelled bad. Real bad. I aimed my rifle around with the light beneath it and spotted something in the corner of the room. At first, I thought it was just a pile of old, ratty wool blankets. There was a table in the center of the room with chains on each corner of it. I flashed my light around and there was blood all over the freakin’ place. There was vomit, shit and urine. The place smelled bad, man. When I went over to the blankets, I used the toe of my boot to nudge it, and it moved. Scared the hell outta me. I leaped back, ready to fire at it, thinking a Taliban was hiding under it.”

“But it was Sky?” Gray pressed grimly, his eyes narrowing, his gut knotted so tight it hurt.

“Yes, it was. She was naked, hair matted and filthy dirty. I tried to ask her name but she was dazed and in deep shock. All she could do was huddle, arms wrapped around herself, shaking. It was really bad, Gray. Never seen anything like it.”

Mouth tightening, Gray rasped, “What else? I need to know all of it.”

“I knelt down beside her and put my rifle aside, told her who I was. Told her we were there to rescue her. I saw her one wrist, Gray, and man, it was ground up like fresh, raw hamburger. And then as I slowly pulled the blanket off her back to examine her for other wounds, I caught sight of her left ankle.” Jag blew out a breath, his voice deepening. “She had blood poisoning from those chains they were wrapping around her ankles and wrists. Red stripes were running halfway up both her calves. She had a high fever, shaking with chills, and was completely out of it. She didn’t respond to me. They fucking broke her, Gray. And I mean in the worst kind of way. One of my other guys, a combat medic, came over and he about lost it as he quickly examined her for other wounds. She was so filthy, bloody and was sicker than hell.”

“Had she been raped?” Gray closed his eyes, steeling himself.

“We didn’t know at the time. When we got her to Bagram hospital, I talked to one of the doctors in the E.R. who admitted her. He said she hadn’t been raped. Shit, they’d done just about everything else to her. The doc wasn’t sure she was going to make it. Lieutenant Pascal had a fever of a hundred and five degrees with a very advanced case of sepsis, blood poisoning. She was severely undernourished and dehydrated, Gray. Literally, nothing but skin over her bones. I don’t think those bastards fed her at all. The corpsman gave me a clean blanket from his rucksack, and I wrapped her up in it and picked her up, got her the hell out of there. She went unconscious on me while I was carrying her toward the helo. The corpsman put an IV in each of her arms on the flight into Bagram. None of us were sure she was going to make it. She was in pitiful condition, Gray.”

“Did you get the bastards who did this to her?”

Jag laughed darkly. “Sure did. A little fat man and a tall, skinny bastard. We took ’em prisoner. Later the CIA boys at J-bad, Jalalabad, took them in custody. And after the spooks learned what they’d done to Lieutenant Pascal... Well, let’s just say those two got what they doled out to her in spades.”

“I’d like to kill them,” Gray snarled.

“Hey, man, no worries. I heard about four weeks later that they were found dead from trying to escape. I didn’t ask how. It just made me feel good those two sonofabitches were dead for how they treated that Navy officer.”

“Anything else?”

“No, that’s it. It’s enough,” Jag said wearily. “You say she’s with you now? How is she?”

Gray snorted and started pacing the length of the building. “Considering everything you just told me, she appeared normal to me and to everyone else around here.”

“Man, that’s unbelievable she’s rebounded like that. She’s got a real set of balls.”

Gray wasn’t so sure. “She had a flashback last night, screamed and woke me up. I eventually talked her awake, and she told me about her capture. But I knew there was more. Sky is a very strong woman to have handled everything that’s happened to her and still be able to function in society.”

“Man, I’ll tell you, busting into that room and the rank odor that hit us, the smell of her rotting, infected flesh...”

Nausea burned in his throat. Gray swallowed hard, his voice hoarse. “Did the spooks ever tell you if they learned anything from those two bastards? Why they did this to her?”

“Yeah. I met one of the spooks about six weeks later over at the J-bad chow hall. We were flown up there as part of a task force on an op going down that night. I asked him the same question. The little fat guy said they thought she was a spy.”

Grunting, Gray halted and took a deep breath. “Lying bastards.”

“Hell, yeah. The spook said they’d tortured Lieutenant Pascal just to get even with all Americans. One American was as good as another, as far as they were concerned. Didn’t matter if it was a man or woman.”

Rage flowed through Gray, his hand tightening on his cell phone. “Hey, I owe you on this, Jag. Thanks for letting me know the rest of the story.”

“No problem, man. It’s good to hear she not only survived, but she’s thriving, too. I’d never have believed it myself, seeing her in that state.”

Nodding, Gray said, “It gives me a lot of hope I can help her walk the rest of the way.”