Special Forces: Operation Alpha: Rescuing Pandora (Kindle Worlds Novella) Read Online Free PDF Page B

into sleep. The way she smelled right out of the shower. The way she used to cry over the sad puppies they showed on the TV to try to get you to adopt one.
    The way she loved him.
    Cam missed that most of all. That human connection. He wanted it, like a drug. Going without in his cold, dark world had been hell. Now he needed to figure out a way to get all that back. Because he was never letting go of her again.
    Ever.

5
    C amp Condor was about a two-hundred yard walk from the U.S. Embassy along the Tigris river. It was almost in the center of Bagdad and where the Army housed its troops and the contractors that patrolled the Embassy grounds with bomb dogs.
    Thirty minutes had passed since the rescue and Mohammed was so pale from blood loss that Pandora was afraid he was going to die right in front of her and Sammy. After the gates opened, the Rhino stopped in front of a tent and a team of medics arrived with a stretcher. Mohammed was moved into the hospital tent, but no one else was admitted.
    “I need to go with him,” Pandora said, as she was surrounded by the team.
    “Not now,” Cam told her. “He’s going right into surgery and you’ll be a distraction he can’t afford.”
    A couple of the M.P.s arrived. The one with the higher rank said, “Civilians will have to go to the Embassy.”
    Every member of the Delta team closed ranks, shutting off her view of the military police officers. “She stays with us,” Cam said. His tone was soft and deadly polite.
    “She’s our baggage,” Ghost confirmed. “The kid too.”
    The men reluctantly nodded and backed off. “You’ll be needed in the CO’s office.” There was no challenge, just a statement.
    “I’ll take initial,” Ghost said, “but they’ll want your report next, Phantom.”
    “Copy that,” Cam said.
    And suddenly, Pandora had nothing left. She was covered in Mohammed’s blood from helping Truck and holding bandages. Sammy was attached—barnacle like—to her leg. Reaching down, she ran her hand through his hair. Tears streaked a path down his face as he stared with wide eyes toward the opening where his Baba had been taken.
    “Come with me. You both could use a quick shower and rest,” Cam said. “I’ll make sure someone comes and gets you when he’s out of surgery.”
    She reached up and cupped Cam’s face. His beard scratched her palm, and those eyes that she could drown in gazed down at her in sympathy, and so much more that she couldn’t even begin to deal with at the moment.
    “Mama?”
    Pandora looked down at her son, who looked back and forth between the two of them. They were alone now, standing in the middle of the camp. Soldiers, American and Iraqi, moved around them, but never penetrated their bubble. “Yes, honey?”
    “Is Baba going to die?”
    Pandora squatted down to be at eye level with her son. “I hope not, but he’s hurt really bad.”
    Cam got down on one knee as well. “See that tent right there?” When the boy nodded, he continued, “Some of the best doctors in this country are right there. And they’re doing everything they can to save your daddy.”
    “He’s my Baba, not my daddy.”
    Pandora’s breath caught. Sammy was young, but he was so smart that when he started asking questions, she’d been very truthful with him. She’d never had him tested, but she had an inkling that her son was probably at a genius level IQ. She could see the confusion on Cam’s face, but Sammy continued.
    “My daddy died. He was a soldier.”
    Cam’s brow knitted as he moved out of the light to really study the boy. His focus had been to get them out safe. Using the finger of one hand, he lifted the sad child’s face up to his. Pandora knew what he saw.
    His own eyes staring right back at him.
    It had been her greatest pain, and greatest joy, seeing her husband’s eyes in her son every day, missing him the way she did. The shock that slid over Cam’s face twisted her heart. Guilt that she knew wasn’t hers to bear