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Darren frowned. “Are we talking or…”
“Talking, but I want to be touching if that’s… I mean…”
Darren walked into the bedroom, and I followed him. I watched as he stripped down to his underwear. He climbed onto the bed and patted the spot beside him. “Come here.”
I marveled at how tender he could be. “You better not be doing this out of pity.”
“Doing what? I hope you don’t mean getting into bed with you. You might have your faults, but sex isn’t one of them.”
“Damn right. I mean being so nice.”
“Lie down.”
When I did, he spooned around me and laid his hand over my heart. “I can be nice sometimes. I’m not always a monster.”
“Only when you’re fucking me or protecting me.”
“Right, and it’s basically how I protect myself. Now it’s your turn to talk.”
After a moment, I found my voice. “I was doing reconnaissance work, and I found a guy alone in a cave, smoking weed. I surprised him, and I could have captured him easily. Instead, I started talking to him. He was high enough to forget he shouldn’t be talking to some American who’d just appeared.”
“Was he supposed to be on guard duty or something?” Darren asked.
I shook my head. “I thought that at first, but he’d just snuck out of camp for some alone time. I asked him where he’d gotten the weed and if he’d share. He handed the joint over and introduced himself as Khalil. I gave him a fake name, took a puff, and gave it back.” I took a breath, steeling myself for the next part.
“We kept talking, and I managed to fake all but a few drags from the joint. I asked him if he was hiding out there so he didn’t have to share his score, and he said partly, but he tried to spend as much time away from camp as possible. He said he wanted to find a way out, and he admitted that his older brother, Omar, hated him because he wasn’t a good soldier, and I realized his brother was the head of a vicious guerrilla group we’d been dodging. I encouraged him to tell me more about his brother, and he let it slip that their unit was planning an attack on our camp. I knew I had to do whatever it would take to stop it.”
Darren pulled me tighter against him as I continued my story.
“I considered capturing Khalil after all and bringing him back to camp to interrogate him and use him as a bargaining chip, but I had another idea, one I knew might ultimately get us better information.” I paused. I wasn’t proud of what I’d done. It haunted me still, and I wasn’t sure I could bear Darren hearing it.
He kissed the back of my neck. “Whatever it is, whatever you did, I’m here for you.”
“You don’t know…”
“I do.”
He sounded so confident that I managed to continue. “He held the joint out to me again, but I shook my head, telling him I had to look sober because I was supposed to be on duty. Then I asked him if he’d be willing to pay if I could get more for him. He told me he didn’t have much money, so I suggested he pay me in information instead. I wanted all the details about the planned attack in exchange for enough pot to last him for months.”
“Could you have followed through?” Darren asked.
“No. I could have rounded some up if I’d been willing to admit what I needed it for—men guarded their stashes seriously—but I didn’t have access to the amount I’d promised him. Khalil was hesitant. He said his brother was too careful, that he’d kill him if he got caught.”
“But he never said he cared if you stopped the attack, only that he was afraid to get the information?”
I should have known Darren would put that together. “I finally convinced him, partly because I insinuated that if he continued to give me information, I could help him truly escape, not just escape by getting high. I made an arrangement to meet with him a few days later.”
“Did he not know you were with the US forces?”
“I think he did, but he wanted to pretend he didn’t. I could have been with one of the aid agencies that had a presence in the area. Maybe he’d convinced himself of that, or maybe he was too desperate to get away from his brother. Based on some things he said, I was sure he disagreed with his brother’s politics, and where we were, that could prove deadly. Running away was his best option.”
Darren shook his head. I was sure he knew the story wasn’t going to have a happy ending. I just hoped I could get to it without breaking down.
“I knew there was a huge chance he wouldn’t turn up, but I took the risk. If I could get the details from him, we could head off their attack on our camp, and I could save all our lives. If Omar led an attack, there was a huge chance we would suffer serious losses.”
