Battle Scars Read online

  Table of Contents

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  BATTLE SCARS

  Other Titles by Jane Harvey-Berrick

  Dedication

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  Chapter 1—A Bad Start

  Chapter 2—A Rocky Road

  Chapter 3—A New Road

  Chapter 4—An Old Friend

  Chapter 5—A Long Way From Home

  Chapter 6—Communication Failure

  Chapter 7—A Road Divides

  Chapter 8—Footsteps in Quicksand

  Chapter 9—A New Path

  Chapter 10—Laughing at Fate

  Chapter 11—Miles To Go Before I Sleep

  Chapter 12—A Rock and a Hard Place

  Chapter 13—Hope and Hopelessness

  Chapter 14—La Rue Désolée

  Chapter 15—City of Peace, Bay of Troubles

  Chapter 16—Trial By Fire

  Chapter 17—The Road Home

  Chapter 18—Reboot

  Chapter 19—Stop all the clocks

  Chapter 20—The One In White

  Epilogue

  Reviews

  MORE ABOUT JHB

  Acknowledgements

  Standalone Titles

  Undefeated (coming soon)

  One Careful Owner

  Dangerous to Know & Love

  Lifers

  At Your Beck & Call

  Dazzled

  Summer of Seventeen

  The New Samurai

  Exposure

  The Dark Detective

  Battle Scars

  Novellas

  Behind the Wall

  Playing in the Rain

  Audio Books

  One Careful Owner (narrated by Seth Clayton)

  US

  UK

  Series Books

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  Series Books

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  Battle Scars

  Copyright © 2017 Jane Harvey-Berrick

  Originally released in serial form, 2016–2017

  Editing by:

  Kirsten Olsen and Trina Miciotta

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you do, you are STEALING.

  I only distribute my work through Amazon, iBooks, Nook, Kobo, Ingram Sparks and Create Space. If you have received this book from anywhere else, it is a pirate copy, it is illegal, and you’ve really spoiled my day.

  Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Jane Harvey-Berrick has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Sybil Wilson / Pop Kitty Designs

  Interior Design & Formatting by Christine Borgford / Type A Formatting

  ISBN 978–1-912015–87–0

  Harvey Berrick Publishing

  To Erin Spencer,

  who asked for a short story and got 20 chapters

  Table of Contents

  BATTLE SCARS

  Other Titles by Jane Harvey-Berrick

  Dedication

  Want a free book?!

  Chapter 1—A Bad Start

  Chapter 2—A Rocky Road

  Chapter 3—A New Road

  Chapter 4—An Old Friend

  Chapter 5—A Long Way From Home

  Chapter 6—Communication Failure

  Chapter 7—A Road Divides

  Chapter 8—Footsteps in Quicksand

  Chapter 9—A New Path

  Chapter 10—Laughing at Fate

  Chapter 11—Miles To Go Before I Sleep

  Chapter 12—A Rock and a Hard Place

  Chapter 13—Hope and Hopelessness

  Chapter 14—La Rue Désolée

  Chapter 15—City of Peace, Bay of Troubles

  Chapter 16—Trial By Fire

  Chapter 17—The Road Home

  Chapter 18—Reboot

  Chapter 19—Stop all the clocks

  Chapter 20—The One In White

  Epilogue

  Reviews

  More books by JHB

  MORE ABOUT JHB

  Acknowledgements

  Want a free book?!

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  A Bad Start

  2016

  TWO HOURS LATER and my hands were still shaking.

  I’d been sitting in the cafeteria, fingers pressed against a cup of coffee that was now lukewarm. I could still smell the faint scent of soap and sweat as the man’s hands tightened around my waist and pulled me towards him, the scream dying in my throat.

  Another shudder ran through my body. If he hadn’t been there . . . the other man . . .

  My brain refused to consider what could have happened next. He was there—and I was thankful for that. I’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He hadn’t.

  Working as a foreign correspondent wasn’t as glamorous as it sounded. I spent my time in harsh climates, trying to talk to people who were too scared to have their words reported, too intimidated to have their photographs taken.

  It was important work—I thought it was important. My friends didn’t disagree, but they worried about me. And after everything that had happened today, it seemed they were right to worry.

  I couldn’t help replaying the afternoon’s events in my mind.

  My guide and interpreter, Omar, had taken me to a small, mudbrick house on the outskirts of the tired-looking village of Washir, trapped in the war torn land of Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

  We’d been careful. Omar had borrowed a rickety, beaten up-car from one of his numerous cousins rather than risk being seen in the modern American Jeep that I had access to. Then I’d been covered from head to toe in a blue burqa, seemingly indistinguishable from every other Afghan woman, so I couldn’t guess how we’d been spotted.

  But ten minutes into the interview with Anoosheh and her family, there was a loud thump against the door, then glass showered onto the floor as a large rock was hurled through the window. An angry mob was gathering, and they were threatening to drag me outside. Omar wouldn’t tell me what else they were planning to do to me.

  I could guess. An unwanted Infidel woman. My chances were bleak and I was terrified.

  With no escape route, no backdoor, and no plan, my fingers trembled helplessly as I used my satellite phone to call the emergency number I’d been given upon arriving at Camp Leatherneck, the former USMC base where I’d been living for the last week.

  These days, it was run by the Afghan Army, but a small USMC detachment was still based there in a support and training role.

  Thank God they were still here. Help was on its way, but the noise outside began to grow louder, uglier, and more windows were smashed. I cowered into the back of
the room with the other members of the frightened family as Omar and Anoosheh’s father piled furniture against the door, their eyes wide and panicked.

  Suddenly, I heard shots outside, the distinctive sounds of a semi-automatic weapon firing. I thought I was going to die, and I prayed for the first time in a long while.

  The door exploded inwards and one of the children screamed. Then I saw the most beautiful sight in the world: US Marines, armed and deadly.

  The leader grabbed me by the hand, yelling something I couldn’t hear above the gunfire, clamor and noise. Then he wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me toward the door, his men clearing a path to the waiting Jeep.

  Anoosheh and her family followed quickly, and we sped away in a cloud of yellow dust as the furious mob rained down rocks on us.

  Omar insisted that we leave him and the family I’d been interviewing at his uncle’s house. I pulled out my wallet and gave him every dollar I had in there. It wasn’t much, but it would help them flee Helmand. I hoped.

  The Marines stoically ignored me as they drove back to Camp Leatherneck. They’d checked I wasn’t injured, but they had nothing to say to me. I could sense their dislike.

  Once I was safe in the compound, I was debriefed by my liaison, Captain Luis Fernando. He offered to make an appointment for me with the Base’s counselor. I just wanted to take a hot shower and wash away the fear and grime of the day.

  When I finally felt clean, I forced myself to the cafeteria, but my stomach churned too badly for me to risk eating. Thankfully the coffee was drinkable. Okay, it tasted like crap, but coffee helped. It was a normal thing to do, ordinary, nothing scary here.

  Until one very large and very pissed off Marine came marching over to me.

  “You don’t belong here, lady,” he snarled, standing next to my table, his broad, tanned hands resting on lean hips.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You nearly got yourself killed today. I had to risk my men to come and get your ass out of a sling. You risked lives: yours, ours, that Afghan family, your terp. For what? Another damn story about how badly the US fucked up in Afghanistan!”

  “I don’t! That’s not what . . .”

  “I’m not finished!” he snapped, and I couldn’t help flinching away from his obvious anger, from the raw power locked inside his muscled body.

  “We’re supposed to be winning hearts and minds out here, but your dumb stunt has set us back weeks—maybe months. You don’t belong here. Go home and leave the real work to us.”

  My mouth hung open, moving uselessly as I tried to reply.

  He shook his head in disgust, his dark blue eyes flaring with anger.

  My own fury ignited at the sight of his broad back and arrogant lift of his head as he marched away from me.

  I called out loudly.

  “Do you have sisters, Sergeant?”

  He stopped and turned slowly, his eyes narrowing as he decided whether or not to answer my question. His eventual reply was grudging.

  “I’ve got a younger sister.”

  “That’s nice,” I said flatly, my eyes flicking up and down his tall body. I guessed he was in his late twenties, so a younger sister would be . . . what . . . early twenties? “What’s her name?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Just interested.”

  I could see him examining my question, searching for any danger areas, any way in which answering would show weakness, anything that could be twisted and used against him.

  He licked his lips, then answered.

  “Lucy.”

  “That’s a pretty name. Did Lucy go to high school?”

  “Of course she did,” he scoffed. “She’s in college now and . . .”

  His words cut off when he realized he was coming close to having a conversation.

  “That’s nice,” I said again. “Good for her. The girl I went to interview today is fourteen. Her name is Anoosheh—it means ‘lucky’. She’d like to be a doctor, but that’s not going to happen. I know you won’t ask me why, so I’ll just tell you. Her family has been told to take her out of school or she’ll be killed. For wanting an education. And it’s not just her—the same thing is happening all over Afghanistan.”

  I saw a muscle in his jaw tic as he clamped his mouth shut.

  “Schools for girls have been burned down and teachers educating girls have been threatened or killed; girls have been attacked walking to school and even at school. So education is unsafe for them—it’s rare to find any females educated past elementary age.

  “Anoosheh is an exception—was an exception. Her school was burned down so she doesn’t go anymore. Eighty-five per cent of Afghan women are illiterate.”

  The sergeant frowned, his full lips thinning as he pressed them together. I had his attention and I was on a roll.

  “Maybe you read about Malala Yousafzai, a young Pakistani girl? In 2012, when she was just fifteen years old, she was shot in the head by Taliban gunmen because she spoke up for the rights of girls to be educated. Or maybe you read about the 276 girls who were kidnapped from their school in Nigeria by Boko Haram—their crime was attending school. Many are still missing. Does any of this sound familiar, Sergeant?”

  He nodded, a staccato tilt of his chin.

  “Well, that’s why I do what I do, because I believe that we in the West need to read these stories. We need to keep fighting for what is right because otherwise we let the darkness win. That’s why I’m here. And that’s why I’ll continue to do my job.”

  “Fine,” he said, his dark blue eyes glittering in the harsh lighting. “You do your job, you go save the world. In the meantime, poor slobs like me have to save you from yourself!”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I bristled.

  “You come here, to a fucking war zone, and think being a liberal do-gooder is going to save you? Well it won’t. People like me, people with guns are going to save you. You’re so naïve and ill-prepared, but you think that you have the right . . .”

  “I am not ill-prepared!” I snapped back. I certainly wasn’t going to have this asshole tell me that I didn’t know my job. “I do my research, Sergeant, just like you.”

  It was true: I’d read up everything I could find about Helmand Province—correct behavior, local customs, even a few words of the Qu’ran to use in an emergency. Although I had to admit none of that preparation had helped me today.

  “Just like me,” he mimicked, an ugly smile on his handsome face. “So with all that research, with all that preparation, how do you think they found you today? You think it was just an accident that a mob turns up outside the house where you’re conducting an interview—a mob with the intention of dragging you out and stoning you to death? Probably raping you first.”

  I felt faint as every drop of blood rushed from my head, leaving my body cold and shocked. For a moment the asshole sergeant looked chagrined, but then the stormy expression returned.

  “I didn’t know,” I whispered.

  When he spoke again his voice was still stern.

  “Your footwear,” he said. “In Afghanistan, women don’t wear white socks and white sneakers: your research should have told you those are banned, because the Afghan flag contains white, so wearing white shoes would signify walking on top of it.” His voice was acid as he sneered at me. “You were seen. So much for your preparation. You should stick to reporting from the Bronx—it would be safer.”

  When he walked away this time, I didn’t stop him.

  I sat stewing for another hour, alternating between fury at the way he’d spoken to me, shock at how close I’d come to dying today, and the danger that I’d put myself in along with Omar and Anoosheh’s family. And then the shameful realization that I hadn’t even thanked Sergeant Asshole.

  He was right: he and his men had put their lives on the line for me.

  I felt small and ashamed.

  I left the cup of cold coffee and went to speak with Captain Fernando again.

&n
bsp; He looked irritated when he saw me standing at his door for the second time that day.

  “Yes, Miss Buckman, what can I do for you now, ma’am?”

  There was a slight emphasis on the word ‘now’, as if he really meant, ‘why are you bothering me again?’

  “I wonder if you could tell me the names of the men who came to my rescue today, captain?”

  “For the purpose of?”

  “I want to thank them,” I said simply.

  He looked surprised.

  “Anything else?”

  “Well, I’d offer to buy them all a drink, but seeing as alcohol is forbidden here . . .”

  He smiled.

  “You don’t need to do that, ma’am. I’ll pass on your thanks to the men in question,” and he turned back to his paperwork.

  “I wonder if I could thank them in person,” I pressed gently. “It would only take a moment—it would mean a lot to me.”

  He sighed, but nodded and stood up.

  “This way, ma’am.”

  We walked through the camp, sweating in the relentless heat, despite the long shadows cast by the setting sun. He led me past rows of military vehicles and featureless temporary buildings, until we arrived at a long, barrack-style tent, and heard the sound of men’s voices.

  “She sure got you chasing your tail, Jack,” someone laughed. “Not that I blame you. Man, that pretty little journalist is a sight for sore eyes.”

  “I don’t care how smokin’ hot she is,” came the reply. “That stupid bitch risked her life to . . .”

  “’Ten ’hut!”

  One of the Marines lounging by the entrance had noticed us. Captain Fernando risked a quick glance in my direction then clearly decided it was better if he pretended neither of us had heard that last sentence.

  The only giveaway was the dull flush of red beneath the handsome asshole’s tanned cheeks as his voice cut out, the words ‘stupid bitch’ dying on his lips.

  My own cheeks were equally red, not just because of what he’d said, but because he was standing bare-chested in front of me, a t-shirt dangling from one hand as if he’d just yanked it over his head.

  His skin was smooth and tanned golden by long hours in the sun. I could see the muscles of his chest and stomach, an eight-pack with light brown hair leading downward, before I tugged my eyes up to his strong chin, ruthlessly shaved, and those intelligent, heated, dark blue eyes.