The Edge of Courage (Red Team) Read Online Free PDF Page B

only teasers. The flesh of the story remained hidden behind a shroud, too terrible to recall.
    The shrinks at Walter Reed had said he wouldn’t recover until he faced what had happened that day in Kasheem Baba. He didn’t disagree, but the truth was locked away so deeply within him as to be impervious to drugs or nightmares, a secret that hid like a cancer, slowly killing him in its ravenous destruction.
    * * *
    Pale morning light eased through the windows. Rocco opened his eyes. Without moving, he looked around the quiet bunkhouse. He sighed and leaned his head back. He’d slept longer than he’d expected—longer than usual.
    He changed into his running gear and jogged up the trails he’d seen yesterday, ending at the bluff overlooking the house. He counted the cigarettes. No new ones. He looked out over the vista. He’d catch the bastard who was watching Mandy. Sooner or later.
    Rocco took the trail down from the bluff, through the construction site, and then down the long drive to the main road. Running when he was exhausted was a challenge, but going through the motions of being normal was all he had. The meds the shrinks gave him kept him too stoned to function, but without them, rage simmered just beneath the surface of his mind like a festering wound. He forced himself to rise with the sun, eat something—whatever little thing he could keep down—and breathe. None of it felt real. He could only hope that his brain would reengage, and he could own himself again.
    And when he did, he was going back for Zaviyar.
    He ran three miles down the road in front of Mandy’s spread. The return trip was all uphill. By the time he came back to the dirt turnaround in front of the residential portion of the ranch, he was drenched with sweat. The sun was up and the day promised to be one of blistering heat. Spring weather here was as changeable as it was in the highlands of Afghanistan. Wintry one day. Blistering hot the next.
    He looked up. Mandy stood at the ridge overlooking the construction site. Wind plucked at the edges of her hair, fanning it over her shoulders. Involuntarily, he turned in her direction, silently crossing the distance in the packed dirt. He lifted his face to the breeze, seeking her scent. It was faint, but he found it. Sweet, heady. He squeezed his eyes shut as a memory slammed into him.
    Kadisha wore a long necklace of tiny jasmine flowers, warmed by her body and the heat of the summer evening. She laughed as she lifted it over her head and draped it over his, crushing the flowers against his chest to infuse the night air with the blossoms’ sickly sweet fragrance.
    Had she known, even then, what he was?
    Rocco opened his eyes. Mandy watched him, frozen like a hunted animal, her coffee mug halfway to her mouth. Yet unlike prey, nothing about her was camouflaged. Her hair blazed like flames in the morning sun. Her green eyes matched her green fleece jacket, making her standout like a flower in the barren expanse of a desert.
    He was breathing hard, and every draw of air brought him her scent. He wanted to touch her, wanted to feel the smoothness of her cheeks against the palms of his hands, wanted it as he hadn’t any human contact in a very long time. He couldn’t risk it. He knew what would happen.
    His hands curled into fists. He nodded at her, then pivoted and made for the house, hoping a shower would settle him. He had one and only one mission today: fix the tractor so that he could mow the fields. He showered, ate a boiled egg, then headed for the toolshed.
    * * *
    The sun was high by the time he’d cleaned the tractor’s fuel filter and fuel supply hose, changed the battery, and flushed the radiator. He was rubbing the grease off his hands when Mandy came down to the shed with two glasses of something cold to drink. The tractor, which he’d moved to the dirt driveway, puttered next to them, releasing diesel fumes into the air.
    “You did it! You got it running!” Mandy smiled at him as