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“It is right now. Do you feel it here?” and Alex touched his chest. “Here?” and he grinned and touched his head. “Does it not make you feel light. Floating? Hopeful?”
“All of those feelings. Yes.”
“It is a special gift a man and woman share when their hearts are in agreement.”
She gave him a look of awe. “Do you always say the right things, Alex?”
He gave her a wry look. “English is a second language for me,malen ‘kaya. I am a country bumpkin at best. I am grateful you do not peel me alive in my skin.”
Choking on a sudden laugh, Lauren gripped his lower arm. She pressed her other hand to her throat, laughing quietly. She managed, “It’s ‘skin me alive’, Alex.” She saw his eyebrows raise and that goofy grin of his spread across his face.
“See? And you say I have a way with words that touch you.”
Her smile deepened. Lauren clasped his hand. “You do. Trust me. You do.”
Alex looked at his watch. “We must end this conversation. I do not want other ears hearing it. Sergeant Killmer will be returning any minute now.”
Glumly, Lauren agreed. It was still gray out, the dawn at least an hour away. “They don’t need to know anything about how we feel toward one another,” she told Alex. She saw him become serious and nod. Their personal lives were just that. Private.
It was 0500. The hooting of monkeys was growing by the minute. No one could sleep through that except bone-tired operators who always lived on too little sleep. They had all learned a long time ago to cat nap anywhere. Anytime. Any place. Their life-affirming conversation had softened her, had opened up her trust toward Alex. Lauren turned, appreciating him in new ways.Possibilities. Dreams.All of a sudden, she was being handed them. To her, Alex was a stalwart warrior who, while looking hard on the outside, carried such a huge, loving heart within him. The fact that he not only understood her, but was patient with her, staggered Lauren.
She stood, placing her empty tin mug on the log. Lauren wished for some water just to clean herself up a bit. She knew Killmer collected water in large green tarps that funneled into several large five-gallon cans. That was their drinking water.
It wasn’t the first time Lauren was going to have to go without bathing. She’d been out on sniper ops lasting weeks, with her spotter. They’d reeked when they’d finally come in after completing the mission. Her heart and mind turned gently to Alex as he replenished the fire, and placed the grate back over the hole. He was a team player and she hoped that this spec ops team would trust him as much as she did. Time would tell.
For the nextthree days, they checked out two of the five possible sniper op sites. This entailed hours of hiking through the known trails, avoiding the ones Killmer knew Indians hired by the Russian mafia were carrying sacks of cocoa leaves along to be distilled into cocaine. There were ten villages that comprised Petrov’s area, where he manipulated the people, threatening them and forcing their men to carry drugs, or the cocoa leaves, to specific spots for production and transportation.
At one site, there was a hill above the village. Lauren didn’t like it because the only exfil route was a path leading through the village. If Petrov’s team engaged, and they had to run, they would put all the villagers at risk. Killmer agreed. On another site, there was no exfil. They’d have to stand and fight if the Russian team decided to stay, hunt and then engage them. Three days and two sites that wouldn’t work.
On the evening of that day, their last night in the meadow before they had to move out, because a mafia team would be using it tomorrow night, Alex and Lauren poured over the other three sites that Killmer had marked on the waterproof map. They sat on a log together, the map spread between their laps. The day was waning and, soon, there wouldn’t be enough light. Alex pulled out a topical map he’d brought and opened it up. Elevation was important. A sniper took the high ground every time if they could.
“Look,” Lauren said, tracing a trail in the jungle with her index finger, “there’s a village here, and there’s a small hill about half a mile away from it.” She peered closer, looking at thin, light lines on the map. “Are those feeder trails?”
Alex studied it, frowning. “Looks like.” He tapped the light lines radiating out from the hill. “These may be pig or jaguar trails.”
“Oh?” Lauren lifted her head, drowning in his hazel eyes, absorbing his nearness. At night, she slept near Alex and, sometimes, she would awaken in the morning and find herself curled around his back and legs, seeking his warmth. Never once did he make a move to take advantage of her or the situation. This increased the trust of him with the fragile self she kept buried deep inside her.
“Feeder trails are not made by humans,” he explained. “Wild pigs make them by rooting out the vine roots, looking for grubs and worms to eat. Over thousands of years, they have created hundreds of feeder lines in the jungle that they traverse as a result.” He frowned. “The only problem is, jaguars know about these pig lines, too. So, they are often sitting in a tree, or waiting on the ground or a hill, for the pig families to pass by at night. Pigs and jaguars are nocturnal, Lauren.”
“Great,” she muttered. “Does this mean then that if I like this hill site, there could be a resident jaguar around? Maybe who OWNS that real estate and won’t like me encroaching upon it?”
Alex grinned a little. “I have run into wild pig families many times at night. The boar males are dangerous because of their curved tusks. They have very poor eyesight and rely on their sense of smell. So, what they cannot see, if they are threatened, they lower their heads and charge. One of our team had his lower leg sliced open to the bone by one of those tuskers. He nearly died. I had a time stopping the bleeding. He had several torn arteries. I had sewn nearly a hundred stitches into his leg.”
“Have you crossed the paths of any jaguars?”
“Not that I know of, but I have seen their spore often enough.”
Mouth flexing, Lauren glanced over at the three Special Forces men. They were getting MRE’s out to eat. “Hold on, let me go talk to Killmer.”
Nodding, Alex was fine with Lauren being the connection between himself and the soldiers. None of them ignored him, glared at him, or were disrespectful toward him, but he also sensed that none of them fully trusted him, either.
Lauren handed Killmer the map and sat down next to him. He set his MRE aside.
“You’ve been here how long, Mace?”
“Five months.”
“Have you seen any jaguars around?”
