Bombshell - Jane Harvey-Berrick Read online

  To all of which James replied:

  “Fuck off.”

  Clay laughed and Zada hid a smile.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked me.

  I sat down, surprised to find that James had pulled out my chair for me. Surprised, but very pleased.

  I thought about Zada’s question before I answered.

  “Better,” I said eventually. “Still freaked by everything that’s happened, but it seems more like a really scary nightmare now. To be honest, I’m trying not to think about it too much. Have you heard anything?”

  Clay shook his head.

  “HQ is trying to find out what happened after we left, but it seems as though the women have scattered and gone, which is for the best, I think. There’s no news on Yad. They’re keeping a watching brief and our instructions are to stay here. So think of it as a paid vacation.”

  I gave a hollow laugh.

  “Right. Well, in that case, I’m going to see if I can find a hairdresser and someone to fix my nails, which are a complete disaster. Then I want a massage. A gentle one.”

  “I can do that for you,” said James slyly. “I also have hairdressing skills to offer.”

  My cheeks turned pink. He’d gone from fucking me in privacy and silence, to sexy smiles and innuendo in a single night. A girl could be forgiven for being confused.

  I did my best to roll with the emotional punches and embrace this fun side of him that I’d never seen before.

  James was relaxed, almost playful. It was new, and fragile hope exploded inside me.

  “Yes to the massage, but a giant no to the hairdressing. Once was enough, thank you all the same.”

  Clay’s eyes widened.

  “Bro, don’t tell me that you cut Harry’s hair? What the heck?”

  James shrugged.

  “What can I say? She begged me.”

  My mouth dropped open and I poked him in the arm.

  “Not quite how I remember it!”

  He grinned at me, a wide, genuine smile.

  It made me want to kiss him, wrap him up and take him home, then fuck him senseless.

  THOSE DAYS SPENT in a two-star hotel in Yerevan remain some of the happiest memories of my whole life.

  The air of Autumn was crisp and clean, and for the first time in several years, I had no drugs or alcohol in my body. I could think clearly and feel every emotion with painful clarity.

  I covered my bruises with makeup and pretended that we were an ordinary couple like everyone else, taking a city break together.

  I’d always preferred fairytales to real life.

  We visited thousand year-old fortresses and thousand year-old churches, walked the ancient Silk Road and the modern Republic Square. We ate together, explored together, woke up together and made love together.

  Every day James revealed a little more of himself to me, and I cherished every moment.

  I was surprised and confused when I saw him kneel down to pray in the mornings, facing East.

  I’d learned from Zada that Muslims did this five times a day as one of the Pillars of Islam, but James just did it once, every morning. Perhaps, in his own way, he was honouring Amira. I didn’t feel it was my place to ask. Just because I shared his bed, it didn’t mean I shared his thoughts.

  But he held my hand at every opportunity and it felt like he loved me. He just never said the words.

  We were sitting outside a small café, only just warm enough in the chilly air, drinking hot, spicy coffee.

  “The first time I saw you,” he said, “I thought you were Helen of Troy.”

  Surprised and pleased, I raised my eyebrows.

  “Why on earth would you think that?”

  He gave me a warm smile and slung his arm around my shoulder.

  “Because you’re the kind of woman men go to war over.”

  “I don’t want anyone fighting over me,” I said quietly. “Once was enough,” and I shuddered at the memory of Yad.

  His cool blue eyes softened as he stared at me, brushing his warm lips over my cheek.

  “That’s not what I mean—even then, that first day, I knew that you were something special. I was pissed off because I thought, I knew that you’d never be interested in a man like me.”

  “You thought wrong,” I smiled, snuggling into his side. “You’re exactly the man for me.”

  He sighed, and I knew the words that I’d hoped to hear weren’t what was coming next.

  “Bel, I’m not a good prospect. I have a small Army pension that pays the mortgage on a boring two-bed flat outside Reading. That’s it. I have no savings and I do a job that could send me pretty much anywhere in the world but nowhere anyone would want to go.”

  “Well,” I said carefully. “I’m not looking for ‘a good prospect’. My father can find me plenty of those and I’m not interested. You, on the other hand, interest me a lot. Besides, a person can only live in one room at a time—who needs fifty bedrooms anyway?” I sat up straighter. “Look, James, let’s not put a label on this. We’re having fun, more than fun, but you’re right, everything is up in the air. I’ve been thinking about us and how we can hold on to what we’ve got…”

  I held my breath waiting for him to say that there was no ‘us’ and that this whole relationship was in my head.

  But he didn’t.

  I let out a hopeful breath and continued, daring to put my dreams into words.

  “I’ve thought about applying for a job with Halo Trust for real. I know an awful lot about the work on the ground now. I’m hoping that they’d consider sending me as a sort of assistant to Clay. What do you think?”

  Myriad emotions flew across his face.

  “I think you’re amazing, Bel. But it scares the crap out of me to think that you’d make a career out of going to some of the shitholes that I’d be working in.”

  I gave a small smile as I reached up to kiss him, the sound of his dog tags chinking together eliciting a Pavlovian response of lust and need.

  “Then you know exactly how I feel, and how I’ve felt every day since I went on Task with you and saw what you do.”

  He kissed me softly, then after a few moments he pulled away and kissed the top of my head, an unmistakable age-old need in his eyes.

  “Shall we go back to the hotel?”

  And because I wasn’t a stupid woman anymore, I said yes.

  We’d also found a shop that sold condoms.

  WHILE WE STAYED at Yerevan, the Trust were intervening in Nagorno.

  Finally, word came that Yadigar Aghayev had been arrested and taken to a police station beyond his cousin’s influence, and we all breathed easier.

  We expected that we’d be sent back to finish our work in the valley. But after more delays, the news came that we weren’t going back to Nagorno at all. Another team was being sent to finish our work—the Trust were taking precautions, no doubt thinking it too dangerous to send us back in case there were reprisals. I hoped that they’d find a job for Maral. She was good at her work and very brave. They needed people like her.

  As for us, well, there was plenty of work for us on the Armenia side of the border. Another team was schedule to arrive from the UK, but James and Clay were going to set up the taskforce of locals and get the training started. It looked like we’d be staying Yerevan for at least another six weeks. Secretly, I was delighted.

  But after that, Zada and Clay were being sent back to the US for a month’s leave, and then transferring to another heavily mined country, Angola, a west-coast country of south-central Africa. James would be going, too.

  As for me…?

  James asked me to go with him. But it wasn’t the conversation that I’d hoped for.

  “Bel, I’m not sure it’s a good idea for you to work for Halo Trust.”

  I turned on my side in the bed, staring at him in surprise.

  “But you said … you said that it was a good idea. You said I was amazing!”

  “I know, and I haven’t changed my mind�
�you are amazing. But I need you to be safe more than I need you to have a job. If you go with me, I can look after you. But if you go wherever they send you and it’s not with me … I don’t think I could cope with that.”

  I was shocked by his honesty, then annoyed.

  “Wait, you’re saying that working in one of the Trust’s offices is more dangerous than what you do?”

  He frowned.

  “No, of course not, but…”

  “No, hold on. You’d be too worried about me working in one of their offices, but I’d have to watch you go out on Task every day neutralizing bombs? Double standards much?”

  “You’re twisting my words!” he snapped. “I’m just saying that you’re safe with me. If you take a job with the Trust, we can’t control where you’ll be sent. Just come with me as my … as my girlfriend.”

  I knew that this was a huge leap for him, but he’d changed me, and now he had to accept the consequences. And I had to remind myself that it wasn’t the same as my father refusing to allow me to work.

  “James,” I said gently, reaching out to touch him. “I’ve learned so much by coming out to Nagorno. You’ve taught me so much, too. I’m learning to stand on my own two feet for the first time in my life, but I’m not quite there yet. If I come with you as just a hanger-on, I’ll never be anything else, do you see?”

  His anger flared quickly, the storm brewing in his eyes.

  “A ‘hanger-on’? I say ‘girlfriend’ and you say ‘hanger-on’? Nice, Bel. Classy.”

  “Don’t be miffed,” I said, trying to keep my patience. “Perhaps I chose my words poorly…”

  “Yeah, you think?”

  “…but what I meant is that being there as your girlfriend without any official role makes me utterly dependent on you. I can guarantee that my father will cut me off. I’ll need to work, I’ll need the income.”

  “I’ll be earning,” he said, a mulish expression on his face. “We can live on that.”

  “I can’t live on you!” I said, my voice rising with his. “Amira worked as a nurse…”

  As soon as I said her name I knew that I was opening freshly-healed wounds.

  “And look where it got her!” he yelled, leaping out of bed gloriously naked, and pacing the room, his hands on his head. “It got her killed! I asked her to wait, I told her I’d go with her and she fucking died! Yad nearly raped you—he’d probably have killed you!”

  “There’s no reason that would happen again,” I shouted back, frustrated that I wasn’t getting through to him, upset that he’d mentioned Yad again. “I’ll be doing paperwork and…”

  “At least Amira was doing something important, not working in a fucking office!” he yelled in my face.

  Why do we hurt the people we love the most?

  “Saint Amira!” I shouted back. “How can I ever live up to the pedestal she’s on?”

  “Shut up! Just shut your mouth! You don’t get to say her name! Not ever!”

  How could I have been basking in his passion just minutes ago, the sweat from our love-making still drying on our naked bodies, but now we were screaming hateful and hurtful things at each other, piling up the rubble of those walls we’d spent the last few days pulling down.

  We’d both said too much and I burst into tears, disappearing to cry in the bathroom.

  I was still sobbing on the floor when I heard Clay’s voice in the bedroom. I couldn’t hear what he was saying but it sounded urgent.

  I grabbed a towel and opened the door a crack.

  “What’s going on?”

  James wouldn’t look at me when he spoke.

  “Work,” he said coldly.

  Clay looked puzzled by James’s curt response and turned a worried face to me.

  “The police have received warning that there’s a car bomb outside the city hospital. They’re clearing the area now, but they can’t get their own EOD team here for nearly an hour.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “They’ve asked for our help.”

  “What does that mean?” I gasped, stepping out of the bathroom, not caring that I was flashing Clay a lot of flesh.

  He looked away respectfully as he answered.

  “James is going to assess the situation.”

  My heart galloped then stopped.

  “That doesn’t make any sense! They have their own army, their own experts. I’ve seen armed police everywhere. Why do they want James? How do they even know about him?”

  “I’ve wondered the same,” he said quietly. “But it’s an urgent situation. They can’t evacuate the whole hospital because there’s an operation going on in the wing next to the bomb. They need our help. They need James’s help.”

  I gasped.

  “You mean they’re going to send him to neutralize the device… he’s going to wear the bomb suit!”

  Clay nodded.

  “Oh my God!” I whispered, my legs shaking. “No!”

  “It’s what I do, Bel,” James said between gritted teeth. “Deal with it.”

  James

  “WHY DO THEY want James? How do they even know about him?”

  Bel’s words echoed in my head as I automatically started prepping the equipment in the truck.

  Clay was acting as my Number Two—what the British Army called the assistant to the ATO. He wasn’t trained to do it, but he knew enough to be useful.

  Bel was right—this set up was all wrong. How did they know about me? How did they know I had all the equipment I needed with me? How did they know where to find me?

  Despite those thoughts thundering through, the call-out was real: an abandoned car next to the hospital had been found by police, packed with accelerant or some sort of incendiary device. Wires were seen, and at that point, the police had called the local Bomb Squad. As it turned out, they were already dealing with a landmine incident sixty minutes out of the city. Interesting timing. It sounded like a decoy to me.

  Someone wanted me at the scene.

  Even as I had these thoughts, my emotions were shutting down one by one.

  I wasn’t a shrink, but I’d come across enough of them in my time to understand what was happening. Emotions were there for a purpose, but to me they were an expendable resource.

  When you’d had trauma after trauma, self-preservation eventually kicked in and your emotions ran dry. Some people spiralled down into despair and become non-functioning—that’s what had happened to me after Amira died.

  Just recently, I’d begun to wonder if there was a way back—perhaps my emotional resources would refill and emotions would return. Like in relationships: you meet someone, you trust them and you get hurt ... how many times before you’re involved with someone but never allow them close enough to hurt you again?

  My mind and body had conditioned itself to the environment, protecting itself by reducing the emotional risk. But I had begun to hope that with time, with Bel, a positive relationship might heal some of the damage and allow a return to normal functioning. Whatever that was.

  But during those minutes, as Clay drove the truck with our police escort to the cordon area, I knew that there was no normal for me. Perhaps I could still display something resembling emotion. If I picked the right subject and pushed hard enough—like when Bel had been assaulted. But was it an act? A memory of how I used to be? Because I still had the ability to switch off emotions at will. The problem was, would they ever switch back on?

  Oh well, it had its uses.

  A steady drizzle had settled in, and I watched, hypnotized, as the wipers ticked across the windscreen like hands on a clock, counting down: tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.

  I’d been here before, so many times, too many times.

  I remembered the rain of an Afghan winter, that miserable feeling of waking up in a dry sleeping bag to find the pitter-patter of rain on the tent. I knew that I was going to get wet, but what was the alternative? Say no to the Troop sergeant?

  So I’d crawl out of my sleeping bag, bitching about the fact that the bott
om of the bag was soaked, check out the sitrep in the Ops room, then outside the Incident Control Point, I’d pull my rig on—the bomb suit.

  It’s heavy, hard to kneel, hard to lie flat. Peripheral vision is reduced to almost nothing, but even so, I’d be on the alert, watching, searching the skyline, the buildings, the gutter. Nothing moves, nothing to see except the drips rolling down the front of my helmet and the car bomb that I’m walking towards. My only option was to plod on.

  How was it different to now? I smiled grimly to myself—I’d chosen to be here. I’d dared to think that I could have a life beyond all the crap, all the pain, all the desperate humiliation, but I’d been wrong.

  I had a strong premonition that I was going to die.

  And I didn’t care.

  Memories shivered through me, relentless and stinging.

  In Afghanistan, it was freezing cold in the winter and baking hot in the summer.

  Regardless of the misery, a soldier accepted the weather and had more important things to worry about. I’d only consider the conditions if they could affect my work: numb fingers as I tried to manipulate the pliers or the screwdriver or my knife, and even then all I’d do is adjust, adapt, accommodate.

  But the summer heat out there was blistering, you simply can’t understand it—even the blast of heat from opening an oven door only mimics it for a second. It was the kind of heat that tested tempers, drained energy, and put you on a slow, irritable boil, sometimes resulting in explosion. Everything smelled burnt or the stifling scent of ball sweat.

  I remembered it all.

  While I was out there, I’d attended six suicide bombings—which means I’d be called out after some bastard had blown himself up along with anyone who happened to be walking past.

  Was that what I’d find by the hospital?

  I tried to remember that it was a car bomb, not a suicide bomber—no one had died yet. But in my mind, other memories filtered through.

  I remembered the smell, that sticky metallic smell of blood that hits you when you first get on scene. But then it was the smell of burning. Pieces of burnt flesh would be stuck to every surface: up the walls, on the vehicles, and all those burned bodies meant to me was that they helped me to determine the direction of the blast. The humanity, the loss, I couldn’t think about that. I focussed on the work: where did the bomb originate? How much force did it have? What evidence could I find?