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“They’re not. But we’re going to crawl out of here, just in case.” He waved toward the right. “The guys who searched this cave are around that curve in the mountain. I didn’t go down there to see how close they were, but I didn’t hear anything. If we’re careful and go slow, they shouldn’t hear us. But driving past them? They’ll notice that.”
“So what do we do? We have to get to Al Kamen as soon as possible.”
He held her gaze. “Dev, Cody and I will figure out the strategy with the least risk.”
She stared out at the peaceful-seeming valley. There was no movement as far as she could see. A few night birds called in the distance, but those were the only sounds. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
She glanced at him, waiting to start and ready to follow him, but he motioned her back into the cave. When he stood up, she did, too. “I need to make sure your pack is tight enough.”
“It’s comfortable,” she said with a shrug. “It’s adjusted the way I usually wear it.”
“You’re not usually crawling down scree in the middle of the night, trying not to make any noise,” he said. “Your pack has to be tight enough so it doesn’t shift while you’re moving. We don’t want it to throw you off balance. It’s easy to recover if that happens on flat ground. On this scree slope? It could be deadly.
“A shifting backpack could throw you off balance. Make you stumble. You’d fall down, maybe start tumbling down the scree. Injure yourself.
“If you slipped, you might dislodge a big stone, sending it rolling over the scree. The men around that corner would hear that. They’d come check it out. We don’t want that, either.”
“Fine,” she said, presenting her back to him. “Tighten it up.”
He’d already reached for the straps, but his hands stilled. His fingers pressed into her back, and she shivered.
“I’m tightening the straps so you don’t get hurt,” he said quietly. He pulled one strap almost too tight. Then he switched to the other. Made that strap equally tight. Then he tried to move the pack from one side to the other, but it didn’t budge. “There. Now you’re good.”
Laila twisted from side to side to see if she could make the pack move. But it didn’t budge. “Okay. That feels secure,” she said, swinging her hips a few more times.
“Good.” He moved to her side, holding her gaze. “Instead of being behind me, I want you beside me. I’ll stay closer to the mouths of the caves, so I can pull you inside if I see or hear anything. Leave about a foot between us, so if one of us slips, it doesn’t take out the other.”
“You mean if I slip, I won’t take you out.”
He flashed her a smile. “Pretty much. But I could slip, too, if I lose my focus. Neither of us is invincible.”
“Trust me, I never thought I was. I leave that to you Spec Op guys.”
“I’m not invincible, Laila. Far from it,” Jase said quietly. “I screw up all the time.”
“I doubt it,” she said immediately. “If you did, you wouldn’t be in Spec Ops. Probably wouldn’t even be alive.”
She held his gaze for a long moment. “I’m very glad you are,” she murmured.
He held her gaze. “Me, too.” He brushed a thumb across her mouth. “Let’s get going.”
He took her hand and walked her a few steps down the scree. She gripped him tightly, because it was looser than she remembered. More treacherous. “This is where we start to crawl,” he said, holding on to her arm as she lowered herself to her hands and knees. “Do you have gloves?”
She shook her head. “Didn’t think I’d need them in the desert.”
“You want to wrap pieces of your scarf around your hands? Keep them from getting too cut up?”
“I did that on the way up, and it helped,” she said. “But going down feels more awkward. I need to be able to feel the stones so I can grip them correctly. I don’t want to make any mistakes and slide down the hill.”
He studied her for a long moment. “If you want to protect your hands, I’ll stick close. So I can grab you if you start to slip.”
She shook her head. “No. I’ll be fine.”
He waited a beat, but she didn’t change her mind. So he nodded. “Now we crawl.”
