Page 105 of Duty Preserved

The camp was ours. The rangers had held their ground under sustained fire, returned fire with discipline, and driven the attackers back. All of their training had culminated in this brief firefight, and they’d handled it like true men.

I should have felt something good about that. I would, later. Right now, my body was telling me to do one thing and only one thing.

I turned toward Sarah’s cabin.

The door was open.

I’d told her to stay inside. I’d told her to stay down. The door was open, and no light came from inside. She might have opened it after the shooting stopped. She might have heard the all clear and come to the threshold to wait for me. That was the version I told myself as I walked toward it.

“Sarah?”

Nothing.

I crossed the distance and stepped inside. The cabin was empty. The bed was unmade, the sheet pushed to one side where she’d been lying when the radio woke us. Her boots were gone from the floor beside the chair. Her field kit was still on its hook by the closet.

“Sarah?”

I was louder this time. The bathroom door was open, but it was empty. The window was shut.

Her book was facedown on the side table where she’d left it before bed.

Everything in the room was exactly where it should be. The only thing missing was her.

I went back outside. The temporary vet setup was empty.

The mess tent was empty, chairs pushed in from dinner and undisturbed. One of Baraka’s men was still holding his position on the north line.

“Have you seen Sarah?”

He shook his head.

I checked the other cabins. The supply storage. The vehicle bay. I asked each ranger I passed. Same answer.

Nobody had seen her. I felt dread spreading outward from my chest.

I went back to her cabin and looked at the ground all around it. Looking for signs of anything. In the back, I found tire tracks.

Fresh ruts in the soft dirt. They came in from the south. The opposite side of camp from the gunfire. They curved behind the row of cabins where nobody was watching because the whole camp had been facing north.

I followed the ruts. They ran along the backside of the cabin cluster and out through the access track that fed the south approach. A vehicle had come in quietly while we were chasing the one group north.

The attackers had never tried to advance. They didn’t need to take ground. They didn’t need to win the firefight. They needed ten minutes of noise and muzzle flash to keep us fixed in one direction while a second team came in from behind.

They needed her.

One vehicle. From the south. Straight to the cabins.

I’d told her to stay. I’d told her to stay in this cabin, stay down, and I’d come back for her. And she had. She’d done exactly what I asked.

Nasser had Sarah.

Chapter 29

Sarah

The gunfire was constant, and I couldn’t see any of it.

I was on the floor between the bed and the wall, as low as I could get, my palms flat against the concrete. Away from the windows and the door. Doing exactly what Donovan had told me to do before he kissed me and went into the dark.