Chapter OneToday’s the day, Sergey.”
He watched her as she lashed on her fatigues, boots, vest, and helmet. His eyes tracked every motion as she stood over her pack in the safehouse bedroom. A grand word for a faded concrete cube, peeling whitewash, and a steel cot that might have once been comfortable, but certainly wasn’t anymore. A tiny window let in the last of the day’s red light and the occasional whirl of the bitter dust that southern Afghanistan used for soil.
“You’d make me feel crazy self-conscious, Sergey, if you weren’t a dog.” Her fifty-five pound Malinois war dog popped to his feet as she knelt beside him to strap on his own Kevlar vest. Normally he’d be kenneled rather than curled up at the foot of her bunk but, since the US military had sent her to a forward operating bas
