Breaking Point

by Lindsey McKenna

  And then the medevac skidded into something big and unseen. Bay gasped, feeling the bird strike it on the port side. Metal crushed, shrieked and ripped open. It was so dark she couldn’t see anything. The entire cabin went black. She heard Gabe’s heavy breathing beside her helmet. Felt the painful grip of his powerful hands across hers.

  The helicopter continued to slide on its port side, still hurtling forward, plowing up the soil. The blades snapped, flying off in all directions, razors slicing through the night air.

  Finally, the medevac came to an abrupt stop. Bay gasped for breath, her heart pounding.

  Instantly, Gabe released her and jerked off his helmet. He lunged for the sliding door, but it refused to open. Cursing, he took his boot heel and slammed it into the handle area again and again. The door finally gave, and Gabe hauled it open so that everyone could escape.

  “Exfil!” he roared into the cabin.

  Bay helped Asifa sit up, telling her Gabe would carry her out. She could smell wiring and other metallic odors burning. Gabe returned to her side, and she moved into medic mode. The SEAL easily removed Asifa from the gurney, lifting her into his arms and quickly slipping out of the Black Hawk. Bay’s mind gyrated. What about the pilots and crew? How were they?

  She fumbled forward toward the cockpit, yanking off her helmet. She saw the two crewman in the rear of the cabin exfil. “Hey! Are you guys all right up there?”

  The two pilots were trying to get their harnesses unsnapped in order to escape. The left side of the bird’s nose was caved in, although Bay couldn’t see it. The pilots were cursing, jerking at their harness straps that kept them trapped in their seats. With a shaking hand, Bay reached into her pocket and pulled out her pen flashlight. She then went for the SOF on her lower leg.

  “Hold on, I’ll cut the straps,” she yelled, pushing forward into the cockpit, turning the light in that direction. Her fingers fumbled as she sought and found the straps trapping the pilot on the right side of the aircraft. She sliced them open and freed him.

  Bay pushed back on her knees to get out of the way so he could exit the cockpit. The pilot squeezed by her and exfiled. Bay struggled up into the cockpit once again.

  “Dammit!” the copilot hissed, trying to get free, yanking on the twisted metal. “It won’t budge!” he yelled.

  “Hold on,” Bay gasped. “I’ve got a knife. Sit still!” She flashed the light on it and quickly sawed through the nylon harness with the SOF. Instantly, the copilot was freed. He gasped with relief and pushed awkwardly out of the mangled chair. Moving out of the way, Bay leaned to one side and shoved the knife back into the sheath. The copilot grabbed the M-16 over the door, carrying it out with him. Now she needed to exfil!

  Bay grabbed the two rifles and leaped out of the smoldering helo. She pushed off the lip and fell face-forward onto the churned earth. Above her, she heard shots being fired. Behind her, the helicopter erupted into a whoosh of flame, the cockpit where the pilots had been seconds before, on fire. Sobbing for breath, Bay crawled away, the light of the fire helping her to see where Gabe and the rest of the crew were.

  As she crawled forward, Bay heard the yells of the Taliban coming toward them in the distance. Her mind began to work like a steel trap. Up ahead were a group of boulders at least ten feet high and about a football field in length. She could see Gabe settling Asifa in between some rocks, trying to give her as much protection as possible. The other four men of the medevac were spreading out along the boulder perimeter under Gabe’s direction.

  Once she made it to Gabe’s side, Bay thrust the M-4 into his hands. He’d put on his Kevlar helmet, the NVGs in place. Her heart was pounding hard in her chest, her breaths coming in ragged gasps. They’d survived the crash!

  Gabe gripped her by the shoulder and drew her down next to where he crouched. They had their own comms earpieces, and relief flowed through her as she heard his calm, low voice.

  “I need a shooter opposite these boulders. We can’t assume they’re going to attack us from only one direction. Go out there.” He pointed. “About a hundred yards beyond the helicopter. Prone. Keep watch through your NVGs. If you see a bunch of them coming at you, start firing. I’m going to get these Air Force guys to create a diamond pattern around these boulders. That way, no matter which way the Taliban comes at us, we’ll be able to defend our space and position.”

  Gasping for breath, Bay said, “They don’t have NVGs. They aren’t going to see anything.”

  “They’ll see muzzle flashes.” His mouth turned grim as he looked toward the two pilots. “We’ve got a lot of problems. First, they’ll fire wildly and they’ll all go through their ammo in a heartbeat. That means you and me are the workhorses. Conserve your ammo as much as possible.”

  Nodding, Bay shrugged out of her ruck, located her NVGs. She quickly put them on the rail system on the helmet and locked them into place. The firelight from the helicopter would make the NVGs useless until she got out beyond it. Then Bay would have good vision through the goggles.

  Gripping her shoulder, Gabe ordered, “Stay far enough away from that helo. They’re gonna start firing RPGs into it, thinking we’re hiding in there. Stay safe!” He released her shoulder.

  Bay moved quickly around the helo. The instant her back was behind the flames shooting into the sky, she could see clearly through her grainy green NVGs. Hunkering down on her belly, her legs spread wide, she quickly shifted her gaze from right to left in a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree arc. Gabe was right: the Taliban were coming. A lot of men were coming from about five hundred yards away. With shaking hands, she pulled out four mags from her H-gear and laid them out in a line in front of her. They would be easier to get and slap into the rifle after ejecting the emptied mag.

  Hauling the M-4 to her shoulder, Bay opened the covers on the Night Force scope, pushed her NVGs up on her helmet and began to target the closest enemy. She gave Gabe the intel on her radio, the mike close to her lips. She was already hearing the pop and bark of weapons behind her, bullets snapping and singing into her area.

  Bay drew a bead, allowed her breath to move to still point, and then fired. The sound of Gabe’s M-4 roared in her ears. A man went down, the rifle flying out of his hand. Gulping, she knew the suppressor on her M-4 would not draw immediate attention. The Taliban charging toward their position were wildly firing at them. The dirt exploded in geysers all around her.

  Would help arrive in time? At least fifty Taliban were running hard toward her. And how many were coming from the other directions in this valley? Bay focused on her breathing. She had to stop them. Three hundred rounds of ammunition and she had fifty men running full tilt in her direction. The only question was: Would she be able to shoot fast enough, accurately enough to get them before they reached her position and breached it?

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  BAY FELT THE world slowing down. She knew that strange sensation occurred when adrenaline shot heavily through her bloodstream. It was also the feeling she might die. She continued to methodically fire at the enemy hurtling toward her. They were in open fields, and while it was easy to sight and fire, there were more and more running toward their other positions. She heard the slow, continuous firing of Gabe’s M-4 behind her. The pistols the Air Force crew had sounded like firecrackers, fast and wild compared to their deeper-throated rifles.

  The sound of Gabe’s voice was nearby. He spoke on the comms, directing the Apaches. Would the combat helicopters get here in time? Or would they find all their bodies in the morning? Dead. Her field of fire was wide. A thumping noise came from the east. The Apaches had a familiar sound as they raced through the night toward the firefight. They would never be seen by the enemy, but Bay was sure the Taliban heard them because some were halting in the field, looking up and pointing toward the dark sky.

  Bay struggled to remain focused. The men who didn’t stop were racing towar
d her, firing their weapons. She kept expecting to be hit, more than glad she was wearing the sixty-pound Kevlar vest on her upper body. Her mind raced as the M-4 bucked against her shoulder, jerking her hard every time, with every shot. Her world was slowing down. Off to the left, she heard a new sound.

  As she lifted her head, Bay’s eyes widened. Two Taliban soldiers had sneaked up out of her range of vision. They were less than twenty feet away from her, rifles raised and pointed at her. She rolled over on her back, wrenched the M-4 around and fired. The men screamed, both yanked backward by the power of the bullets. Gasping, she rolled back over on her belly, resighting on the main force.

  Suddenly, the night sky lit up like the Fourth of July. The puncturing growl of the .50-caliber Gatling gun sounded beneath the bellies of at least four unseen air wolves above them. They looked like red arcs of tracers slamming into the fields. There were screams and shrieks. The whumping sound of the blades reverberated like rolling thunder through the area as the Apaches arrived with a vengeance. Gabe kept talking to them, his voice calm and unruffled. Her respect for him rose a thousand percent because she knew she would never sound that cool under fire.

  Some of the Taliban escaped the Gatling guns and continued to hurtle toward her position. She released a spent mag, dropping it into the dirt in front of her, slapping another one into the M-4 with the palm of her aching hand. Behind her, above all the roar and noise, someone screamed. It sounded familiar, one of the crew. But who? She couldn’t just get up and leave her position; that would be unforgivable. She had to remain where she was. Her mind began to unravel between wanting to save a life and staying put.

  The Apaches were like a pack of invisible predators in the dark, spewing out their death as they circled the area around the crashed and burning medevac. Soon, Bay saw the last of the Taliban fall in the field. Gasping for breath, she called Gabe. “I don’t see any more enemy out here. Who’s hit?”

  “One of the pilots,” Gabe returned.

  “Can I come in and help?”

  “Yes,” Gabe answered.

  Shakily getting to her knees, Bay found her legs weak. She shut off her NVGs and pulled them around her neck. Sweat was trickling down the sides of her face. Adrenaline made her shaky. She raced around the end of the still-burning medevac, the flames leaping twenty to thirty feet into the sky.

  “The Apaches are hunting for stragglers,” Gabe said, watching Bay run around the end of the tail rotor assembly of the burning medevac. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a Taliban soldier leap out of nowhere, his knife drawn, lunging at Bay. She didn’t see him. In one, swift movement, Gabe shouldered the M-4 and fired a few inches off her right shoulder. The bullet hit the Taliban in the head just as he was bringing the knife down to strike her in the back.

  Stunned, Bay jerked to a halt, no doubt misunderstanding why he was firing directly at her. And then the man screamed right behind her. She whirled around, off balance, her eyes widened. The Taliban was falling forward, a knife dropping lifelessly out of his hand. Giving a cry, Bay stumbled and fell backward, slamming into the ground.

  “Get up!” Gabe snapped. He remained on one knee, M-4 scanning behind her as she struggled to her feet. He saw the terror in her eyes. That had been so close! Too damn close.

  Bay ran toward the protection of the boulders. All around them, the noise of the hunting Apaches drowned out everything else. The whumping sounds were sending earthquake vibrations through their bodies; they were that close, somewhere up above them, unseen. The copilot lay to the left, unmoving. The pilot was leaning over him, his face tense.

  Bay dropped to her knees on the other side of the copilot. The flames from the medevac were giving her just enough light. Their field of fire was clear; no more enemy were hunting them. Quickly, she assessed the unconscious copilot. He was in his late twenties and she noticed the blood on his upper thigh. Instantly, she took her SOF from the sheath and slit open his one-piece flight uniform from his knee to hip. Gabe had been right: she did find a use for this big knife. A bullet had hit the man in the center of his thigh.

  Dropping her medical ruck, Bay calmed herself. She went to work to stop the squirting arc of the blood from a torn artery pumping out of his wound. He would die in two or three minutes if she didn’t stop it.

  * * *

  GABE SLOWLY GOT to his feet. Staying on comms with the Apache pilots, he held the barrel of the M-4 upward, walking toward the huddled group of Air Force crewmen. They were all gathered around the wounded copilot watching Bay work quickly and efficiently to stabilize him. Gabe moved past Asifa, pained by her fate. She had been killed in the melee, a stray bullet striking her in the head. There was nothing he could do about it. Gabe continued around the perimeter, staying in touch with a Night Stalker M-47 Chinook helicopter coming their way to pick all of them up. They’d be flown into Bagram. Already the hospital had been notified that one wounded and one dead were coming in.

  Warm blood dripped off his fingers from a flesh wound he’d received in his lower arm, but he kept up his slow, vigilant walk. Other Taliban in farther parts of the valley could be coming their way. He’d alerted the Apaches, and already three of them were heading north to engage the approaching enemy.

  One Apache continued to fly on a racetrack above where they’d made their stand. They were their eyes in the sky to keep them safe from further attack. Gabe walked around the front of the boulders that had protected them. There were hundreds of white nicks on them, showing the fierce gunfight the Taliban had thrown at them.

  Rolling his shoulders, Gabe felt the stiffness caused by the crash. His mind slid back to Bay. She’d more than proved herself. If the SEAL team had any misgivings about her in combat, they’d be laid to rest now. He wondered how she was doing. She would be devastated by Asifa’s unexpected death.

  Gabe forged ahead, never taking for granted that they were safe. Up north of them, he saw the red tracers of the Apache Gatling guns, hearing their staccato growl echoing down the narrow valley past them. Yeah, more Taliban were coming their way, just as he figured.

  Feeling sudden urgency, Gabe asked for an update on the MH-47 coming to pick them up. It couldn’t be too soon. They were in a helluva bind. Taliban would come pouring down the valley and try and kill them, too. Wiping the hard line of his mouth, sweat glistening across his face, his eyes slits, he continued to guard the group by exposing himself.

  * * *

  BAY FELT RELIEF as the Night Stalker MH-47 landed just outside the group of boulders. She’d finished placing a tourniquet on the copilot’s wounded leg, stopped the loss of blood before it landed. The powerful gusts of rotor wash hammered the group. After getting an IV going, pouring fluids into the downed copilot, Bay asked one of the shaken medevac crewmen to hold the bag above the copilot’s head. The pilot and crew chief picked up the unconscious copilot, heading quickly for the M-47.

  Bay turned and headed back toward the other end to find Gabe. She met him halfway, his face grim. He’d pulled down the NVGs and they hung around his neck. His face was gleaming with sweat and was unreadable, the M-4 held high in his hand. As she raced up to him, breathing hard, he reached out and gripped her shoulder, stopping her.

  “Asifa is dead,” he told her, holding her startled gaze. “She got hit right after the firefight started. I’m sorry.”

  Bay’s mouth fell open. She felt her heart crash and fall through her. “N-no...” She gulped, feeling his hand tighten on her shoulder, as if to try and steady her from the shocking news.

  “Take my M-4. I’ll carry her to the helo. Cover us?”

  Too stunned for words, Bay felt tears flood her eyes as she followed Gabe to where he’d tried to keep the girl safe. As he leaned down, slipping his arms beneath her thin neck and lower legs, Bay gulped back a sob. Gabe was incredibly gentle with Asifa. Once she was gathered in his arms, he balanced her against his body and knee, pul
ling the blanket over her body.

  Bay fought her emotions as she watched the area around them. Gabe came up to her shoulder and walked past her. Turning, Bay kept his back, watching the rocks that had saved most of them. Above, to the north, the Apaches continued to hammer the Taliban. The whumping sounds of the unseen Apache above them kept guard as they hurried toward the rescue helicopter.

  On board, Bay had other duties. The Night Stalker pilots from the Army lifted off, heading up as fast as the double-rotor Chinook could grab air. Gabe placed Asifa’s body in the back, the blanket covering her. He remained beside the Pakistani girl, on one knee, his M-4 in his right hand, guarding her.

  Bay’s focus was on keeping the copilot stable. They’d placed him on the metal floor. The pilot had taken off his jacket to provide a pillow for his partner’s head. Bay was always touched what men would do to help a fallen comrade. The other two air crewmen sat nearby, ready to assist if she needed them.

  Bay could see the exhaustion and shock in all their faces. It had been a close call. As she adjusted the flow of the IV after listening to the copilot’s heart, she happened to glance toward the rear of the MH-47. Gabe was hidden in the shadows, the sparse green light only enough to see where a person could walk without running into something.

  Gabe’s eyes glittered like black obsidian in the low light. His face was completely unreadable, mouth pursed, his attention focused on her. Bay felt her heart writhe in her chest over Asifa’s unexpected death. She wanted to cry for her, for the terrible jam she’d gotten herself into without realizing it. Wiping moisture out of her eyes, Bay returned her attention to the copilot, who was remaining stable. Oh, Lord, she could hardly wait to land at Bagram.

  Gabe moved near Bay after the MH-47 landed and cut the rotors to idle. The hospital orderlies with a gurney, lifted the copilot out of the rear of the Chinook at Bagram. They’d landed at the hospital instead of at the Operations Helicopter Terminal. He reached out and gripped her arm.