Cold Pursuit - Carla Neggers [35]
An ambassador getting run down on a Washington street was a big deal.
Television reporters had set up a little ways past the revolving doors for live shots and were on the lookout for anyone who’d been there that morning.
Bruni had been run over on a bad spot on a bad street. Grit had been out there for ten minutes, and with the traffic, the distracted tourists, he decided it was not out of the realm of possibility for Bruni to have been hit by accident. A busy man with a lot on his mind crosses the street without looking, and—that’s it. He’s done.
Leaving the scene was another matter. That didn’t look good.
Moose Ferrerra, a fellow Navy SEAL, materialized next to Grit. “The Grim Reaper comes for you fast or slow. Either way, he always wins.”
“I know, Moose,” Grit said. “I know.”
Moose didn’t respond. He looked the same as he had thirteen years ago on his first day of SEAL training. Fresh, young, eager, cocky. Nothing like he had in April when the Grim Reaper had swooped down on their position in eastern Afghanistan.
A hellish mountain pass, newly opened after the harsh winter. A helicopter with mechanical trouble. Heavily armed, pissed-off bad guys.
Not a great combo.
Grit and Moose and the rest of their SEAL team had joined up with a Special Forces unit to take out a series of enemy weapons caches. Everything went fine until the SEAL exfiltration. The Green Berets stayed behind to protect friendly local villagers, who’d helped pinpoint the caches, from retaliation and continue their work.
The helicopter ran into problems almost immediately and was forced to make a hard landing in an enemy hot spot.
Moose was shot first. Then Grit. Then Elijah Cameron and his guys came to their aid.
Elijah was shot.
It had been a long night.
Grit was convinced that the Grim Reaper had come for him, not Moose, and he still didn’t know why things hadn’t worked out the way they’d been meant to. He only knew that he should have died that night. It wasn’t superstition or pessimism or depression—it was dead-on certainty.
He knew he should be dead.
And he wasn’t grateful he’d survived. Most days, he wished he hadn’t.
Which annoyed the hell out of Moose. “My friend, you need to get an attitude of gratitude.”
Moose’s voice. Clear as a bell. He was right, too. As always.
Grit watched Washington types go through the revolving doors into the hotel lobby. It was too early for happy hour, but he had learned, since Elijah’s call, that the hotel was a favorite for meetings, from multi-day conventions to an afternoon workshop on how to sell mortgages.
Bruni had likely been on his way to some sort of power breakfast in the hotel dining room. Or maybe breakfast by himself. Never mind that he was an ambassador, he had to eat.
Grit stepped out of the way for a brisk woman pushing a baby in a stroller the size of a VW Bug. She didn’t make eye contact with him. Neither did her cute, slobbering, baldheaded bambino.
They disappeared around the corner, and Grit sighed. His left foot hurt.
“You don’t have a left foot,” Moose said.
“I know I don’t.”
After seven months, Grit hadn’t forgotten that he’d lost his lower left leg, but his left foot did, in fact, hurt. Phantom pain, he’d learned, was a common and very real phenomenon. It had to do with how nerves in the residual limb communicated to the brain. His doctors and physical therapists at Bethesda had explained how it all worked in careful detail. Grit had learned more about the nerves, muscles and workings of legs than he’d ever imagined knowing. He’d made good progress; he wasn’t back to his preinjury mobility, but he had confidence, which he hadn’t had in the beginning, that he’d get there.
He was on his second prosthesis. He’d probably need another one or two in the coming months as his leg adapted and toughened and adjusted to the mechanics of prosthetic use.
Since he hadn’t died in that mountain pass, he figured he might as well get on with living. Not that he was grateful.
Moose was the one who’d urged the Special Forces medic to cut off Grit’s leg. “Don