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Present Day – Antakya - Turkey

See the world, he said. 

You’ll have fun, he said. 

It’ll be the time of your life, he said.

Evie ran faster, still unable to believe that she was being chased by a man with a gun.  This was not going to end well. 

Think, Avery, think. 

He was a native. Meanwhile, a white girl running through a bazaar in Antakya, Turkey, was just screaming for attention.

Up ahead she saw the shop she’d visited quite often in the last few days.  She made a beeline for it.  She hated to bring trouble to Zehra and Nehir, but it was a matter of life and death. 

Hers.

“Evie!” Nehir greeted her as she ran through the opening of their rug shop.  Evie lost no time scrambling under one of the large carpets on the floor and covering herself up.  She knew how smart the women were, having spent hours with them.  She tried to keep her breathing shallow and control her shudders so that the thick material above her would not move and betray her hiding place.

She could hear raised voices in Turkish.  After a week in Turkey, she could easily identify the language and was proud she could even speak a few phrases.  But there wasn’t a chance in hell she could actually understand them.  Evie clenched her hands in frustration.

If she had to guess, the guy with the gun was asking where the bitch of an American woman was.  She hoped that Zehra and Nehir would not give her away.  Please say sisterhood would win out over nationality.

The man continued to yell, then she heard him coming further into the narrow confines of the shop.  He stomped past where she was hidden on the floor.  She prayed like she’d never prayed before. 

Shit, shit, shit. 

Was her phone on vibrate?  No, she knew it wasn’t.

She eased the zipper of her fanny pack open and felt for her smart phone, then eased the tab over to the vibrate setting.  Sweat coated her back despite the fact it was only sixty degrees.  She still hadn’t wrapped her head around the fact that she could be in the Middle East and it was chillier than in Tennessee. 

Dammit, why couldn’t she be home right now?  Why had she ever wanted to go on an adventure?  What had she been thinking?

***

Same Day – Undisclosed Location

“Is he going to make it?” Mason demanded.

“If we can get him to the ship in time.” Aiden didn’t look up from his patient.  He was one of three men that they had rescued from a place that didn’t exist in a country that they should never have been in.

Aiden had no clue what idiot in their company had told these three oil executives that they would be safe there, but they should be strung up by their thumbs. 

Anybody who read a newspaper would have known that this region was a volatile mess, and any American there was likely risking their life.  Now Aiden and his SEAL team were there to yank their asses out of the fire.

This man had ripped open his stomach when he’d botched an escape attempt and tried to climb through a torn steel-mesh fence.  His wound had been festering for over a day, according to his colleagues.  Now Aiden was using everything at his disposal to keep the guy together for the helicopter extraction.  He tore the duct tape with his teeth and wrapped it around they guy’s abdomen over the sterile gauze covering the gash on his stomach.  They needed to get him to a surgeon ASAP. 

The man groaned in pain. 

Damn! 

The cocktail of antibiotics and painkillers that Aiden had given him should have kept him out cold. 

“We need to move.  Speed it up.” 

He didn’t spare Mason a glance.  Aiden knew that they must have gotten some hairy sucking intel if his lieutenant was stating the obvious.  He grabbed the remaining supplies and bloody gauze.  Just as he was hoisting his patient, his teammate, Drake Avery, materialized at his side. No matter how much animosity the man might harbor against Aiden off-hours, he was always a professional on the job.

“Together,” was all Drake said as he helped to heft the man upward.

Despite the fact that they were gentle, he gave a weak shriek and went limp.

Thank God.

“Dumb son of a bitch.  Gary’s going to end up getting us killed.  Can’t we leave him behind?” one of the two other evacuees complained loudly.

“We’ll get all of you home safely,” Mason assured the man. 

Aiden was impressed with Mason’s calm response.  He might agree that Gary was an idiot, but there was no way on God’s green earth that a SEAL would ever leave a man behind.

“What an asshole,” Drake muttered.

Aiden gave a small nod of agreement.

A half-mile later, he noted that the same man who’d complained was having a hard time keeping up with them.  Figured.  Aiden started counting in his head, knowing what was coming next.  He hadn’t even reached thirty when the expected question came.

“How much longer?”  Aiden winced at the man’s petulant tone.

“Seven more miles,” Mason answered.

“Why couldn’t they land the helicopter closer to where we were?” the man whined.

“We need to get over those hills up ahead.  It’s a safer place for the helicopters to land.”

“We have to go over those hills?” the man gasped.

“We need to start moving faster.  The pick-up is in one and a half hours,” Mason said.

“That’s impossible,” the executive said.

“If we can make it, you can make it,” Drake bit out.

Dumbass would want somebody to carry him before it was all over, Aiden thought to himself.

Darius, another team member, slowed down so that he was beside Aiden.

“Want me to take over?” he asked, nodding to the unconscious man Aiden was carrying.

“I’m good,” Aiden answered.

“Drake?” Darius asked.

Drake laughed softly and shook his head.  Darius fell back further to join Aiden’s two other team members, Jack and Clint, who were bringing up the rear with the two businessmen.

“When can we stop?”  It was the same man as before.

“We can’t.  Here, have some water,” Darius said.

“I’m not going to make it.”

“Shut up, Ed.  Just keep your fucking mouth shut and your feet moving, and we might make it out of here alive.” 

It was the first time Aiden had heard the third evacuee talk.  It turned out he liked the man.

“George, I’ll report you to Kevin for insubordination.”

Aiden chuckled, and it mingled with the rest of the team’s laughter.

“Are you for real?” Drake asked incredulously.  “Dude, stand down and listen to your friend with a brain.”

“Avery,” Mason said warningly.

Aiden understood Mason cautioning Drake.  Aiden admired the fact that their lieutenant ran a tight ship.  Mason believed in treating the people under his care with the utmost respect, no matter how much they might provoke the SEAL team members.  But God knew this asshat was certainly putting them all to the test.

“We’re going to need to get a move on,” Clint said suddenly.

Aiden knew that he was the team member in charge of communications.  Clint had either heard from one of the pilots, or he’d heard something from the building they had just left behind.

“How much time do we have?” Mason asked from the front of the formation.

“Our window is now forty-five minutes,” Clint responded.

Aiden glanced at the men behind him, and, even in the moonlight, he could see that they were wearing dress shoes.  The man named George caught his eye. 

“I’m good.  I run triathlons.”  He wasn’t short of breath.

Darius and Jack got on either side of Ed. 

“If you need any help making it, Sir, I can help you,” Jack said in a Texas twang.

“You can do this, Ed.  We can make it,” Aiden heard George encourage his co-worker.

Mason looked at him and Drake.  “You two good?”  They nodded.

Taking point, he jogged up the slope of the hill, and they followed in his footsteps.  Aiden hated jostling the injured man, but he had done everything possible to ensure that he could survive the trip to the evacuation point.  Now they just had to make it there in time to meet their transport and get the hell out of Dodge.

There was a commotion from behind.

“I’ve got him,” Jack said.

Aiden didn’t turn.  He needed all of his focus on making it up the hill, but he surmised that Ed had faltered or fallen, and Jack was now carting his ass.  They were heading into a wooded area, and Mason increased his pace, but carefully picked through the underbrush, so that the team could handle their loads without making a misstep. 

The man in his grasp started to struggle. 

“Help!” he screamed, and twisted violently, then he let out a shrill scream.  He was delirious. 

Goddammit! 

“Sir, I need you to calm down.”

“Hurts,” he gasped. 

Aiden looked down and saw that blood was dripping out from under the duct tape.  There was a lot.  He wasn’t going to make it if he didn’t bind him up tighter. 

“Mason, we’ve got to stop,” Drake said.

“Can’t,” Mason said.

“No other option,” Aiden told his commander.

Mason paused.  “Darius, lead the others to the rendezvous point.”

“Nope, you go too, Mase.  Aiden and I have this,” Drake said.

“Wrong.  He’s my patient.  I have this. You all go.  I’ll bring him with me.”

“He’s never going to make it if you try to carry him over your shoulder, and you know it.  If you carry him in your arms, you won’t make it there in time.  Face it, you’re stuck with me.” Drake glared at him, daring him to disagree.

Aiden assessed the man who had been giving him nothing but hell for the last two months and finally nodded in agreement. Both he and Drake looked at Mason simultaneously. 

“I expect you two to be at the rendezvous point on time, and I expect this man to be alive.”

“Done,” Drake said.

“Affirmative,” Aiden answered, already pulling at the makeshift bandage to assess the damage, as he shrugged out of his backpack.  Drake, meanwhile, had a flashlight shining on the gaping wound.

The other men filed past, and Aiden saw that Jack was indeed carrying the man who’d been complaining.  He pulled out his medical supplies and went to work. 

Bloody! Fucking! Hell!  Mierda!  Diu!  Aiden continued to swear mentally in English, Mandarin, Spanish, Arabic, Cantonese, and Mayan.

“Close it up.  We’ve got to go.”

Aiden looked up at Drake.  He’d been monitoring the time.  Aiden knew that the man had given him as much time as possible.  He didn’t think it was enough.  But he stopped swearing and started praying as he closed the gaping wound for the last time.

“Hurts,” the man, named Gary, said again.  He’d been crying out in pain for the last agonizing six minutes.

“I can’t give you anything more for pain.  We’re going to carry you to the helicopters, and it’s going to hurt even more, but we need you to hold still, okay?” Aiden asked the man as he and Drake lifted him up.

The man let out a long gasp.  “Okay,” he whispered.

Aiden and Drake ran.

They heard the helicopters before they saw them. 

Mason and Darius were on the top of the ridge, waiting for them. 

“We’ve got him,” Mason commanded.  “Go.” 

He and Drake didn’t hesitate. They transferred the man, and made a beeline for the helicopters.  A man was hanging out of the one closest to them, urging them toward him.  They jumped aboard.  Clint was the only other SEAL aboard, and he’d already started setting up the pallet for the injured man. 

“How is he?” Clint asked.

“Not good,” Aiden said as he pulled out the saline to get ready for his patient.  Clint pointed behind him, and he raced across the belly of the bird to assist the others in getting Gary into the helicopter.  Gary was out cold, which was a blessing. 

He and Drake worked fast to get him strapped in, then Aiden had the IV going and secured the blood pressure cuff around his arm.  Gary’s airway was good, but he had lost too much blood.  He needed surgery.  There wasn’t any blood on the copter to give him a transfusion.  Aiden read the blood pressure, it was shit. 

“ETA?” Aiden demanded.

Mason was immediately beside him.  “A little over an hour before we reach the ship.”

Drake was pulling the survival blanket around Gary, and then a wool blanket on top of that. 

Nobody asked him if the man was going to survive.  They knew the odds as well as he did.  They were abysmal, and there wasn’t a damn thing more Aiden could do for him except pray.  Maria Margarita Canul O’Malley would be over the moon if she knew just how often her son prayed.