Battle Scars Read online

  “I’ll be honest with you, Maggie. I want to tell you not to go, but I have no right to do that.” He looked away and shook his head. “All the years I’ve been a Marine, I’ve listened to the guys bitching about their wives and girlfriends hating it when they’re deployed.” He gave a wry smile. “It got old. And I can’t tell you how many Dear John letters I’ve seen burned, torn up or pissed on. Some women can’t handle it, you know? One guy had gotten divorce papers sent to him because his wife found ants in the kitchen and he wasn’t there to get rid of them. Just a grain of sand too many, I guess. I used to think those women were weak, shallow even. But I kind of get it now, because I want to tell you not to go. I want to tell you to stay in the US where you’ll be safe . . . safer. I want to tell you it’s too dangerous. But I can’t. And I’m choking on it, Maggie.”

  His voice had turned harsh and rough.

  I reached across, touching the back of his hand, but he didn’t react. He was holding himself so tightly.

  Then, slowly, his eyes turned toward me.

  “I’m not sorry for saying any of that.”

  I nodded, my throat dry and my eyes wet.

  “Thank you for telling me what you’re thinking.”

  Jack breathed out a long sigh, and tapped a tanned finger against the side of his head.

  “I gotta say, Maggie, a lot of thoughts were rattling around in there since last night. I knew there was somethin’ that you weren’t saying, but I didn’t think you’d be telling me that you were going to live in Egypt.”

  “I haven’t said yes definitely yet.”

  He gave a faint smile.

  “But you’re going to.”

  I curled my fingers around the back of his hand, squeezed gently and pulled away.

  “Yes, I am.”

  Because all that he’d said was about men risking their relationships to protect our country. And in my own small way, that was what I was doing, too—risking my relationship with Jack because my work was about something bigger than myself, my life. To me, journalism isn’t just reporting the news, it’s about telling the stories for people who have no voice. And that was important to me. It drove me, fired me up; it mattered to me.

  If anyone understood that, it was Jack.

  I hoped. I hoped that he understood.

  Finally, he nodded.

  “You should say yes. Hell, I’m the last person who’d say you couldn’t go. I can be away for six months, a year. More, maybe. And I have been. In the twelve years I’ve been a Marine, maybe seventy months have been on US soil. I’d be one hell of a hypocrite if I tried to tell you how to live your life. Even if I want to.”

  “You’re not mad?”

  “No. But I’ll miss you like hell.”

  The knot of unease that had solidified inside my chest began to loosen.

  “So, you still want to do the long distance thing?” I asked hesitantly. “Even more long distance? Even though we might only see each other two or three times a year? Living our lives on email and Facetime?”

  It sounded even bleaker said out loud.

  Two years, I told myself. I’d give it two years—twenty-four little months.

  Broadly speaking, there are two types of foreign correspondents: the ones who live their whole lives overseas, and the ones who burn out quickly after one or two postings, preferring to live in the US and make short trips abroad. After Zaatari, I’d begun to suspect that I belonged in the second category. Maybe I should have realized that earlier.

  Jack sat upright and held both my hands across the table tightly.

  “Long distance? Hell, yeah!” he said softly. “I’ve waited too long to find you. I’m not letting you go now. I want to try. I know it won’t be easy . . .”

  A relieved smile spread across my face.

  “Jackson Connor, have I told you lately how amazing you are?”

  “No, you’ve been slacking on that,” he grinned.

  “You. Are. Amazing.”

  “And not just in bed.”

  “No. You’re pretty amazing all around.”

  We finished our coffees in companionable silence, gazing out over the ocean, knowing that soon, too soon, I’d be even further away with an ocean, a continent, and a river of red tape between us.

  The sun’s heat seeped into my skin and Jackson’s thoughtful expression washed over my senses. Somehow, and I didn’t yet know how, somehow it was going to be okay.

  We climbed back into the rattling, rearing bucket of rust, and Jack drove us an hour north to a large, Spanish-style hotel near the pier in San Clemente. The palm trees outside rustled in the breeze and the perfect blue sky was gilded with warmth, even at this time of the year.

  “This looks very upscale,” I smiled at him.

  “Not as upscale as you deserve,” he said sweetly. “But it’s pretty nice. A lot of guys from Camp Pendleton use it when families come to visit.”

  “Do I get to see your barracks as well while I’m here?”

  He shrugged.

  “Sure, if you like. There’s not a whole lot of interesting stuff I can show you.”

  “I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

  Heat flared in his eyes.

  “There are one or two things, now I think about it.”

  Jumping out of the Jeep, he grabbed my suitcase and tugged me to his side as we walked into the hotel.

  There was something slightly desperate about the way he kept touching me, pulling me close to him all of the time. We were counting down the seconds to goodbye again.

  Guilt washed over me, because this time I was choosing a path that led me away from him. And what was my excuse for that?

  Jackson

  I haven’t been entirely straight with Maggie. She thinks she knows what I do in the Marines, and I’ve let her carry on thinking that. I’ve been vague, not only because there are things I can’t tell her, but because there are things I don’t want her to know.

  My MOS, military operational specialty, is Marine Corp Recon. We’re elite forward-operating troops, the eyes and ears for our battalion. We collect intel, and lead clandestine, unconventional attacks against the enemy: my Marine Specialty Occupation.

  When I was in Afghan, Maggie thought I was with some sort of public relations remit who just happened to be around to rescue her when the shit hit the fan. Well, I do my best. The Brits out there call it a ‘hearts and minds’ op—winning over the civilians, but that wasn’t my first duty then and it isn’t now. And when you’re a Marine, your sense of duty overshadows every other priority, whether it’s your uncle’s funeral or watching your first kid come into the world. If the Marine Corps says, Jump, you’d better have springs in your shoes.

  I’m Team Leader for Scout Snipers, which is a polite way of describing what I do. Yeah, we collect a lot of intel on missions, but our real purpose? We’re long-range assassins.

  Do I think Maggie would ditch me if she knew that? Maybe, at first. I think, like me, she’s in too deep now to do that, although I don’t want to test that theory just yet. Especially given her bombshell news.

  My specialty is over-the-horizon warfare, which seems pretty ironic given that Maggie will be far, far out of sight.

  But here’s the thing: I reckon I’m due a promotion any day now. At 30, I’d be pretty young for a Gunny, which is the next rank up, but I think it’s coming. And my CO has suggested that I step back from operations and take up more of a training role. I’ve got eight years left to go in the Marines, then I’ll have done my twenty. I could stay longer, but there are other things I want to do with my life, too.

  I’ve had twelve years of being on live ops, but I’m not greedy. I’d be okay . . . mostly . . . with handing that over to younger guys coming up behind me. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I’ve been having these thoughts since I met Maggie. A year ago, I re-upped. I applied for three duty stations, and then there are four places that good ole Uncle Sam sees fit to train snipers: right here at Camp Pendleton in
sunny Southern California; Marine Corps Base Hawaii, which every motherfucker wants; and back down in North Carolina at Camp Lejune, which is where I started this journey.

  Just before I met Maggie, I learned that I’d be at Pendleton as we usually stay with our units, but since I met Maggie, the pull eastward has been stronger.

  Yeah, I said four places, I know. They also train snipers at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia. Yep, Virginia. Just four hours from New York City. Just four hours from Maggie.

  Life is just one fucking joke after another. I could have been moving three-thousand miles nearer to her, but she’s just told me that she’s moving five-and-a-half-thousand miles in the other direction.

  I want to tell her no fucking way. I want to tell her that I’m thirty years old and finally ready to make a commitment to one woman for the rest of my life. I want to tell her all of that.

  But I can’t.

  She’s been offered her dream job in Egypt. And what kind of bastard would I be if I tried to stop her? I’m not even sure I could, which makes me feel like shit. But even if I could stop her, I know it would be the wrong thing to do. She’d resent me, and resentment would turn to hatred, then disappointment and indifference.

  I’ve seen it happen.

  Life in the military isn’t for everyone, and it’s particularly tough on families. It’s not a coincidence that with units who get deployed regularly at short notice like SEALs, they’re made up of a higher than usual number of orphans and foster kids. True story. And if I wanted to be real cynical about it, I’d say the military likes it that way. They want the baddest motherfuckers on the earth running toward the enemy because they’ve got nothing to lose, not running away because they’ve got a family to get back to.

  So now I don’t know what to do.

  With Maggie being in the field in the Middle East, I don’t want to go into a training role. I want to be out there, with her, which I know is dumb because I’m not going to get deployed to Egypt. Well, probably not. Although I did have some EOD friends who were out in Libya helping get rid of landmines.

  My CO is a good guy, but if I went to him and asked to be transferred to Quantico because of Maggie, he’d laugh at me. We get our orders and we stay for three years, no matter what. So I go where they send me—and hope that Maggie will come back to me one day.

  The motto is: Home is where the Marine Corps sends you. But I can’t help thinking that home is where Maggie is. Either way, I’ve got at least three more years on the west coast.

  All these thoughts have been buzzing around in my brain since she told me her news.

  I kind of want to be mad at her, but when I look into her beautiful eyes, I can’t do it. I’m not going to spend this weekend being a dick. I don’t know when I’ll see her again, and I’m going to make every second count.

  “How you doing over there, Jackson Connor?” she says, all soft and sexy. “I can practically see the thoughts churning around in that busy brain of yours.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yes, but I have a tried and tested method of distraction that I think could help.”

  She stretches out on the white sheets of the king-size bed and smiles up at me.

  “I don’t know, I’m trained not to get distracted but to complete the mission. You sure you can help?”

  “Hmm, let me see . . .”

  All it takes is one light touch of her fingernail running down the bare skin of my forearm and I’m so turned on, there’s fucking stars bursting behind my eyes.

  “Is it starting to work?” she laughs gently.

  “Yep, definitely taking effect,” I agree, laying down on the bed next to her, and covering her slender body with mine.

  But even as her tongue presses into my mouth, starting a wicked conversation that burns right through every molecule of my body, part of me is thinking, God, I love you, Maggie. So much.

  But I don’t say the words out loud.

  A Rock and a Hard Place

  JACK WAS READING the newspaper while he waited outside his CO’s office, but he only got as far as the headline before he tossed it aside in disgust.

  It didn’t help. In fact, folded on a desk a few feet away, it taunted him.

  Finally, he leaned across and picked it up again, reading avidly, a tense frown creasing his forehead. As he continued to scan through the black columns of ink, his blood pressure began to rise.

  74 JOURNALISTS KILLED IN LINE OF DUTY THIS YEAR

  The organization Reporters Without Borders has stated that nearly three-quarters of the journalists killed were victims of “deliberate, targeted violence”.

  Five female journalists were also killed, including 32 year-old Anabel Flores Salazar, a crime reporter for the Mexican newspaper El Sol de Orizaba.

  “The violence against journalists is more and more deliberate,” said Christophe, the secretary general of Deloire Reporters Without Borders. “They are clearly being targeted.”

  Jack’s heart was racing and he felt the need to point his M40 sniper’s rifle in the direction of . . .

  But that was the problem: he didn’t know where the enemy was hiding. Probably in plain sight. Probably within a dozen clicks of where Maggie was currently doing her job.

  His knee began to bounce and sweat broke out on his forehead.

  He pulled his cell phone from his breast pocket, desperate to hear her voice, desperate to know that she was okay. Or as okay as she could be, given the tightrope of danger she was walking.

  He rubbed his sweaty palms over his camouflage pants and took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down, then tucked his phone back in his jacket pocket. She wouldn’t appreciate being woken up just to stop him from having a meltdown.

  Get a fucking grip, Marine!

  This was hard, really hard. In some ways, mentally tougher than boot camp. The Marines didn’t have a ‘Hell Week’ like the Navy’s BUD/S training to become a SEAL, although there was a ‘Crucible’ phase at boot camp. Nope, no single Hell Week, just thirteen really shitty ones.

  He’d been a skinny, towheaded kid when he’d gotten through basic training, and he’d believed that he’d survived the worst that could be thrown at him.

  That kid didn’t know that being separated from the woman you loved grew more hellish every single day.

  Maggie had only been gone for two weeks and Jack had hated every single second of them. They’d agreed to spend Christmas together with Maggie flying out to California for the holidays, but that was still three months away. Three long, lonely months with nothing but memories to hold, memories that slipped through his fingers like mist.

  “Staff Sergeant Connor, you may go in.”

  Jack’s head jerked up when he heard his name, embarrassed to have been caught daydreaming.

  He nodded at the young Private First Class who was waiting to usher him in to see his Commanding Officer, Captain Joe Richmond.

  Jack marched into the office and stood at attention.

  “At ease. Have a seat.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Well, Jack, you and me have been down a long road together, haven’t we?”

  “Yes, sir. Nine years, sir.”

  “So long? And before that?”

  “Just your average grunt, sir.”

  Captain Richmond gave a brief smile.

  Jack thought back to those early days when joining the Marine Corps had felt like the greatest adventure on earth. He’d assumed that it wouldn’t be long after boot camp until he rolled right into scout sniper training, since he could outshoot every recruit he’d ever met. Instead, he’d hit his grunt unit and got hitched in a line company for his first deployment to Iraq. So it was almost two years before he got a shot at a scout sniper screening.

  By then, he’d realized that there was a lot more to being a sniper than simply being a good shot. And besides, there was only one scout sniper platoon per Marine Corps infantry battalion—maybe only sixteen men among a thousand Marines and Sailors. A
scout sniper had to be at the top of his game, not just physically, but mentally and professionally. Maturity was key, as snipers were trusted to operate outside the wire, sometimes well outside the range of friendly support. Every member of the team had to know their job backwards, forwards and inside-out with a strong core set of infantry skills.

  And he’d done it and was proud of it, but now Jack was at a crossroads: professionally and personally. And the two important paths in his life weren’t necessarily going in the same direction.

  “Well, Jack, you made Gunnery Sergeant. Congratulations.”

  His mind jerked back to the present and he felt the wash of relief and pride flood through him. He’d hoped to hear that news, and all his colleagues had assured him that his promotion was in the bag, but still, it was fucking fantastic to hear it at last. Jack’s smile was genuine and large as he stood to salute his CO.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Jack’s head was spinning. He’d gotten his promotion. But in some ways it felt like a hollow victory without Maggie being there to share it with him.

  His CO offered a brief smile.

  “Here are your orders, Gunny. Do us proud.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Dismissed.”

  Jack snapped a salute and turned around, marching out the door and into the future.

  Whatever that would be.

  Maggie

  Sweat clung to my forehead as I scraped my hair into a ponytail, feeling a momentary coolness on the back of my neck.

  It didn’t last. The humidity was at eighty percent and the weather app on my cell phone said 32oC. I converted the figure in my head: double it and add thirty, making . . . holy shit 94oF.

  And the air conditioning didn’t work.

  But Cairo was very different from the city that I’d expected to find. I’d read stories about Western women being harassed and foreigners being cheated, buying goods at double or triple the prices locals paid, but that hadn’t been my experience so far. On the whole, I found a fascinating, bustling city where history exploded in a thousand colors, accents, religions, languages, skin tones, dress styles, car exhaust fumes and spice.