THE 13 OF HEARTS
by Kay Springsteen
Blurb: Peter "Rabbit" Kincaid wasn't always superstitious but after several deployments with the US Marines, he's picked up a few quirks. His last tour of duty didn't go so well, and now he's back home recovering from injuries and awaiting clearance to get back in the fight. The fight is about to come to him in a different way.
Melinda "Lin" Doyle is a two-time US Marine widow on the run from the fallout of an incident that threatens to separate her from her two children. Making their home in a motel where she works for board and half pay, with her oldest child attending school under an assumed name isn't her idea of being Mother of the Year. Then again, neither is being at the center of a murder investigation.
Rabbit believes everything happens for a reason so when he and the young family cross paths multiple times over the course of a couple of days, he pays attention. Lin would rather the handsome Marine officer take his attention elsewhere before he ruins everything. How can they ever get along when everything they do appears to be at cross purposes?
*****
Kay Springsteen grew up in Michigan but transplanted to the south several years ago and now resides in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains with a couple of rescued mutts. On her days off, she enjoys photography, gardening, hiking in the hills, and spending time with her terrific family.
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Excerpt:
Waiting always felt as pleasant
as swimming in a stagnant pond. Rabbit hated it. Some nights, though, he wished
the waiting would go on for just a few hours longer. Memories and possibilities
had blended together into nightmares that had driven him from his cot into the
night. He’d get no more sleep, he knew from experience. Not until the calendar page
flipped over and erased the number thirteen.
Abbott had mentioned a poker
game earlier. A shiver traced the length of Rabbit’s spine. He’d pass on that
one. His luck had been running hot lately, built a reputation the guys were
beginning to count on. If he won the night before he led them on a mission,
they tended to be successful. But the odds were always strong the pendulum
would swing back the other way while they were in the field. If he didn’t play,
the lucky streak didn’t seem so long… so worn out.
As he exited the latrine, the
door sprang closed behind him with a dull thud. He cupped his hands together
and blew into them, spilling warmth into the chilly air around him in giant
white puffs. Who knew the Afghanistan desert could get so freeze-the-six-off
cold? It should have been hot as blazes. The ground on which he stood was surely
the same stuff the devil’s own playground was made out of. Even the Afghan
people referred to the Helmand Province as the Desert of Death. The densely packed sand beneath his feet wouldn’t
be any softer in the blistering summer months to come than it was currently, in
the depths of the harsh winter. The barren ground produced little in the way of
nourishment for the people, but it did somehow manage to support drug habits
worldwide with its bountiful harvests of white poppies.
“I need a smoke,” he muttered
to himself, passing the pitiful shelter of the guard shack at Checkpoint Four
with a nod to the corporal on guard duty. Instead of cigarettes, though, Rabbit
pulled out a roll of hard candy and eased it open. He checked the color in the
dim ambient light, and breathed a sigh of relief that the first one was too
dark to be orange. He popped the disk into his mouth and sucked on it, the sour
cherry flavor stimulating his salivary glands, reminding him he’d skipped his
dinner MRE. He squeezed his eyes shut and then pushed them open again lest the
horrors of his dreams somehow manifest while he was awake.
“There’s been reports of sniper
fire outside of the perimeter after dark, Lieutenant,” reported the guard.
“Understood, Corporal,” Rabbit
replied with a brusque nod. “I won’t go far.”
“Yes, sir.”
The candy wasn’t cutting it.
His nerve endings burned as though thousands of embers had sparked to life beneath
his skin. Need for nicotine clawed at his brain like a living entity. Spitting
the cherry flavored circle into the dirt, Rabbit dug out the red and white pack
containing his last few smokes. Then he patted his pockets, cursing out loud
when he realized he’d thrown away his lighter earlier after he’d used it for
the third time — better to toss it than risk accidentally using it a fourth
time. He paused and glanced over his shoulder at the guard. “Got a light?”
The corporal tossed him a
disposable lighter. Rabbit cringed at the pale color — white or yellow from
what he could tell in the dim light — definitely not his usual lucky black. He
accepted it with a smile of thanks, the need to light his cigarette outweighing
the need to keep his luck running with him. But he jammed his hand into his
pocket and tapped the green rabbit’s foot three times while he lit up.
The thirteenth had begun, and
its hours stretched ahead of him — a Friday on top of everything else. A day he’d
rather spend holed up in his bunk, not coming out until the clock hit
zero-hundred hours on the fourteenth. But that wasn’t an option. Of course,
when the entire year ended in a thirteen, every date became potentially hazardous
anyway. Thankfully, that particular phenomenon was about to end in just a
couple of weeks with the flip of the calender to January first.
He kicked at a frozen puddle
until the ice broke free, sending a huge chunk flying through the air to
shatter against a fifty-five gallon drum that was usually lit with a warming
fire. No blaze graced the barrel, not with sniper fire in the area. Rabbit
glanced at the stub of cigarette between his fingers. Even that small light
could draw the wrong kind of attention. With a final puff, he dropped the stub
into the dirt and ground it beneath his heel. Around him, Checkpoint Four began
to stir. The waiting game was almost over, whether or not he wanted it to be.
The predawn hour passed in a
blur of equipment checks and gear stowing. Three men stood together near a
mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle, the first vehicle in line behind the
mine chaser that would lead their convoy.
Chuckling, one of the men
handed a picture back to the guy next to him. “She looks just like you, man.”
The kid grinned and smoothed a
hand over his carrot-red hair. “Yep. Got her daddy’s good looks. And as soon as
I get off this deployment, I’m putting a down payment on a house. Can’t raise
kids in that cracker box we’ve got.”
The third man clapped a hand on
the ginger kid’s shoulder. “If that’s the first thing you’re gonna do with a
wife as pretty as yours, you and me need to have a talk about priorities, son.”
“Come on, Vince.” The first guy
slugged Vince in the arm. “Not everyone’s a horndog like you. Besides, you know
he knows how to do it. He’s got a kid!”
The group broke into easy
laughter, but it fizzled quickly at the approach of their sergeant. Rabbit
turned away. The guy shouldn’t be going on an op. Family men should be home.
With their families.
All too soon they were Oscar
Mike — on the move — and then Rabbit found himself focused on the world of gray
and tan he could see through the armored window of the MRAP in a blur of
another sort as they traversed the Desert
of Death.
The mine chaser at the head of
the pack found nothing for a couple hundred klicks, but the first stop wasn’t
unexpected. The farther out from a checkpoint, the more apt an IED would be
buried where it might score a hit on a vulnerable personnel carrier.
The third time they halted to
disarm a roadside bomb in as many kilometers, Rabbit got out and stretched.
They were near their target according to the GPS unit on board. Might as well do
a quick recon. He eased away from the side of the giant armored vehicle with
its rumbling engine and instantly lost his comfort zone. Too exposed. Changing direction in mid-stride, he angled his steps
toward a low outcropping of flat gray rocks. The late winter sun gave off scant
heat, and he shivered even under the weight of all his protective gear. The
chill racing up and down his spine didn’t help.
They had traveled a line just
under the top of the ridge known locally by some unpronounceable Arabic name
that loosely translated as Eternal Torment.
As he scanned the stretch of ground above them, he rubbed the back of his neck,
trying to ease the sensation of wasps swarming beneath his collar. A scorpion
scuttled around the largest rock. The attack was swift and unexpected. A tan speckled
lizard, about as long as Rabbit’s hand, exploded from the loose sand and stone at
the rock base and devoured the scorpion. After a satisfied flick of its long
blue tongue, the reptile shimmied back into its dusty hiding place. Nothing
else moved. Rabbit’s heart rate adjusted to a more normal pace.
The earlier wind had kicked up
dust devils in the dry sand beneath his feet, but even that had stilled, leaving
the air heavy with silence. No human sounds, nor any expected so far inside the
perimeter of the Desert of Death.
Yet something about the silence
was different, eerily so. Chief Warrant Officer Keith Sanders joined Rabbit to
look out across the monotonous expanse of grayish tan that made up the
landscape all the way to the horizon.
“Ever seen such a lack of color
in your life?” asked Sanders in the Alabama drawl that never quite left his
voice.
Rabbit snickered. “Don’t know
what you’re talking about. I see plenty of color — it’s just all butt-ugly.” He
blew out a slow breath through pursed lips and concentrated on relieving his anxiety.
It had to be nothing but the usual Friday the thirteenth jitters trying to grab
hold of him. He couldn’t let them win. He swept his gaze right to left, then
left to right, and saw nothing. Maybe there was nothing to see. Although intel
had pinpointed the crashed drone as having gone down in the Sangin district of
the Helmand province, they still hadn’t found it. Problem was, insurgents could
strip abandoned planes and helicopters quicker than a neighborhood gang could
strip an abandoned car in Detroit.
“You think the drone’s even out
here?” asked Sanders, scanning the landscape.
“I think if it was, it’s likely
not here now,” admitted Rabbit with a shrug.
“It’s quiet.” Sanders put his
field glasses to his eyes and aimed them at the landscape again. “Too quiet —
even for Helmand.”
Rabbit cringed. Man, he hated that it wasn’t just him
thinking those things. Especially on what had to be the unluckiest day for a
mission. “Yeah, been too quiet for the past five klicks,” he murmured.
Sanders froze. “What’s that?
About two hundred yards straight out.”
Rabbit lifted his binocs but
stopped at the soft, warbling whistle from behind him — Gunnery Sergeant Hector
Chavez’s unique warning cry. Rabbit glanced over his shoulder.
Chavez gave a surreptitious nod
in the direction they’d been heading. “Foot mobiles incoming,” he said quietly.
Shifting, Rabbit aimed the
binocs on the road. At first glance, the ragtag band of men appeared fairly
benign.
Which is exactly why the hair
at the back of Rabbit’s neck stood on end. The figures traveling in their direction
— four men and a boy in his early teenage years — all wore the traditional pale-colored
Afghan payraan tumbaan, plain
with no embellishment. A lot of grunts referred to the people as “pajamas”
based on the look of the loose-fitting pants and knee-length shirts. For
himself, Rabbit tried to steer away from derogatory terms. Indulging in bigotry
only made their goals that much harder when they couldn’t relate to the people
of the region.
The
group had to know they were approaching U.S. troops. A small convoy of
mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles was hard to miss. Yet they walked with
confidence, not hesitation. Definitely not
showing fear. The spotter in the turret on top of the first MRAP turned his
focus — and his rifle — to the approaching group.
Satisfied
no surprises would arise from that sector for the moment, Rabbit turned toward
the anomaly Sanders had seen and raised the binoculars again. Sure enough, in
the middle of the tan-grayness of the winter-sleeping landscape, he could see
the barely discernible outline of a wing. The same color as the terrain
surrounding it, only its smoothness made it stand out. Two figures — locals,
from their clothing — moved from behind the ruined aircraft, each carrying what
could only be electronic components of the downed drone.
“Son
of a biscuit-eater,” murmured Sanders. “They’re stripping it like a blessed car.”
That
boy sure did like to state the obvious. Heat erupted along the back of Rabbit’s
neck. Ever since their unit had taken a hit and lost two members to injuries a
month back, they’d all been on edge, and the date sure wasn’t helping the pangs
in Rabbit’s gut. But it was more than that. Something was off.
The
sound of laughter and loud voices speaking in Arabic drew his gaze, and he frowned.
A couple of the approaching men were acting like drunken dockworkers with their
coarse and rowdy behavior, a neat trick since the Afghan people were forbidden
to drink.
“Looks
like me and my brother when we got into our daddy’s ‘shine.” Sanders confirmed
the assessment.
The
people in the region tended to a more conservative show in the presence of
foreign troops. Why would those men want to draw attention to themselves?
“Diversion,”
muttered Rabbit.
“Decoys,”
Sanders said at the same time.
Both
men turned back to the wreckage in time to catch more men scurrying away from
the site. The sudden silence from the men up the road brought Rabbit’s head up.
Not a soul could be seen. The group seemed to have vanished into thin air.
“Where’d
they go?” Sanders squinted up the road, a frown creasing his forehead.
“I
don’t know.” Rabbit’s fingers twitched. He readied his M16, double checking the
magazine and giving the stock three pats. “Okay, Lucille, this just might be
showtime.”
A
high-pitched whine began to the north and drew closer.
“Incoming!”
came a shout from the lead MRAP.
“Get
down!” screamed Chavez from somewhere behind them.
The
world seemed to spin in sluggish motion. Time slowed, events dragged out.
The
freckle-faced ginger kid in the gun turret of the MRAP looked up. His eyes
widened and he slid from his straps, scrambling to abandon the vehicle.
“Get
out!” shouted Rabbit, waving his hand. “Get out of there!”
The
explosion threw him several feet. He landed on his back against a low mud wall.
Searing pain scissored along his right side. The acrid smell of burning rubber
scorched his nostrils, but it was the screams filtering through the ringing in
his ears and the smell of cooking flesh that made his stomach heave up what was
left of his breakfast MRE.
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