Trying to think clearly, Rhona said, “When I was a little girl, growing up on the Navajo reservation, I used to go to this one red, sandy hill. I’d lie on my back, my hands behind my head, and just watch the white clouds pass above me.”
“Sounds like a nice pastime,” Nolan murmured. He was starving to learn more about Rhona, and now she was going to gift him with more information. The tone of her voice had dropped to a more intimate murmur.
“I used to see shapes in the clouds. A coyote. A snake. A rabbit. And always, I wanted to be free, like the ravens that fly over the res, up there among those clouds’ spirits.”
“So, you’ve wanted to fly since you were a little kid?”
“Yes. My Navajo mother used to tell my father, who is an Anglo, that I should have sprouted wings instead of arms.” Rhona chuckled, remembering those days.
“I guess we’re a lot alike,” Nolan murmured, watching the sun’s long shadows stretch over the land beneath them. “My dad loves to fish and we’d go to Klamath Lake, right outside the town where I grew up, and he’d sit on the shore for hours, dipping that pole of his into that cold, blue water. I’d take off and try and scare up the shorebirds and ducks, just to watch ’em fly. I envied them. There was a great blue heron rookery at one end of the lake, surrounded by walls of cattails, and a small knoll above it. I used to climb the knoll and watch them fly in and out.” He glanced over at her, absorbing the sight of her soft, parted lips. Lips he wanted to capture and tame beneath his. “I wanted to be like the great blue.” He sighed. “I didn’t like being earthbound at all. I knew my freedom was up here.” And with a jab of his thumb he motioned to the sky that surrounded them. “Turns out that’s when I’m happiest—when I’m in the sky, flying.”
“What about your marriage? Didn’t being with your wife make you as happy?”
Nolan considered her question. Opening his gloved hands, he looked down at them. “Being married was equal to flying, Rhona. Not that it was a perfect marriage, but the thing we had going for us was we were best of friends, too.”
“Besides being in love?”
“Yes.” He turned his hands over and rubbed them slowly up and down his thighs. “Maybe because we grew up together, went to the same schools…I don’t know. But I liked having her as a friend and a lover.”
“I don’t see that happen often in a marriage,” Rhona said, frowning.
“Maybe that’s why so many of them break up. Because they’re based on sexual attraction only. Maybe what happens is that when the newness wears off, there isn’t anything substantial left to hold the marriage together and have it move forward from there.”
“You’re right,” Rhona agreed fervently. “When I was engaged, my relationship seemed to have all the right stuff, or so it looked. But when it came right down to it, he wasn’t a friend. He wasn’t someone I could confide in and trust. It was all sex.”
Nolan shrugged. “I think most of us go through that. I didn’t, but I see it being played out around me all the time.”
Sighing, Rhona said, “I just wish I’d realized that before I got engaged. I should have.”
Laughing heartily, Nolan slapped his knee and said, “Oh, you and millions of others.” Reaching out, he squeezed her shoulder momentarily. “Hey, don’t be hard on yourself, darlin’. That’s called life. The key is to learn from your mistakes so you don’t commit them again.”
She nodded and pursed her lips. She wanted to say, But our relationship is pure sex, too. Where does that leave us? Will there be anything but sex to build on after we reach that plateau? Can there be friendship? But she knew that it was too soon to know which way things would go.
Rhona focused on their upcoming approach to Camp Reed. Nolan got on the radio and received landing instructions as well as clearance. Below, off to their left, the long black asphalt runway was stacked to the gills, literally, with all kinds of incoming and outgoing aircraft.
“Man,” she whispered, “I would not want to be an air controller in that tower. It must be murder to keep all this traffic straight.”
“No kidding.” Nolan glanced at her. Her face was set and serious. “I think we’ll opt for flying, not being tin pushers.”
Chuckling, Rhona agreed. “Pushing tin” was an axiom that air controllers used for what they did. The “tin” was an aircraft, and they “pushed” it from one point to another on the radar screen.
“What’s up on this next flight?” she asked. Nolan had the manifest for the cargo they’d fly today during the twelve-hour mission.
Pulling out the clipboard from behind his seat, he flipped open the lid and ran his finger down the lines of type. “MREs. Food.”
Nodding, Rhona brought the Huey down for a landing. “Good. Señor Gonzalez was saying they’re really hurting for food. He worries me, Nolan. That old man is so thin and frail. One of the young guys said he’s giving half his rations away to others.”
“Yeah, he’s losing weight,” Nolan muttered as he felt the Huey gently kiss the landing apron. Once again he admired Rhona’s wonderfully light touch with the helicopter. The same kind of touch she had with him.
Shutting down the engine, Rhona unharnessed herself and got ready to disembark once the crew chief opened the fuselage door. “He’s so frail, yet so strong in spirit. You see it in his eyes. He cares for his people. Those boys—young men—who work with him just idolize him.”
Nolan released his own harness. “Yeah, he’s a saint in their eyes. And a wonderful leader in a mess like this.”
“Do you think we can do anything for his daughter?” Rhona saw the rear door slide open. The crew chief saluted her, and she lifted her hand and saluted back. It was time to get out, go to the head, grab something to drink or eat, and then hurry back to the helo once it was loaded up for the next flight.
Nolan motioned for her to leave the cockpit first. “Yeah, I’ve got a card up my sleeve….”
She squeezed out between the seats and then jumped out of the helo. Once on the tarmac, she waited for Nolan to join her. Already the crew chief and his team were beginning to prepare the aircraft for another load of cargo.
Settling his dark green garrison cap on his head, Nolan walked with Rhona toward the edge of the landing apron. They kept closely together, their shoulders and arms occasionally touching. Around them, the place was a mad chaos of controlled activity with people, HumVees and diesel trucks everywhere. On top of that, there was the continual whine and shriek of aircraft engines and the whapping of helos coming and going. The level of noise was constant and earsplitting. Waiting until they got to the tent area, Nolan reached out and stopped her.
Turning, Rhona faced him. The sun made her squint, and she took the aviator sunglasses from her left pocket and put them on. There was a slight, cooling breeze, and the sun felt warm and good as she stood near Nolan.
“Listen, I’m gonna go over to Ops and talk to Lieutenant Mason.”
“Okay…I’ll get us breakfast boxes from the chow hall and meet you back at the Huey?”
Nodding, he said, “That’s a roger.” And he turned and headed for the three-story concrete building in the distance.
January 11: 1100
Rhona had disembarked from the Huey once they’d landed back at area six, and followed Señor Gonzalez, who had brought his ailing daughter to the field. As they approached the gold-colored sedan where Consuelo waited, far from the activity on the field, Rhona glimpsed the dark-haired woman sitting in the passenger seat.
Rhona had just stepped up to the side of the car so Señor Gonzalez could introduce her to his daughter when she felt something was wrong. Straightening, she frowned. A chill worked up her back. Turning toward the helo in the distance, she studied it for a moment. And then icy fear gripped her. All movement had stopped at the Huey. Why? Blinking, she took off her sunglasses and narrowed her eyes. Rhona recognized all the young men who worked with Señor Gonzalez. But they were not moving. In fact, they looked frozen. How odd….
; “Excuse me,” she said to the old man, placing her hand on his arm. “Something’s going on at the helo. I’ll be back in a moment. You stay here with your daughter, okay?”
“Well…but of course, Señorita Rhona….”
She saw the nonplussed look on the old gentleman’s face and gave him a quick smile of reassurance. He looked worried.
“What is it? What’s wrong, señorita?”
“I don’t know,” Rhona said, putting her glasses back on. “Let me go check it out, okay? Stay here….”
Her heartbeat quickened. Something was wrong. No one was moving. She couldn’t see Nolan. The only people visible from this vantage point were the young men. Their arms were tense at their sides as they all looked toward the Huey. Fear bolted through Rhona. Her mind spun with possibilities. Had one of the people of the barrio argued with Nolan? Was there a disagreement with someone she couldn’t see?
Hurrying her steps, Rhona automatically took stock of everyone’s position. Her old combat instincts took over. She was scared, but she was thinking through the rush of adrenaline now pumping hard through her system. What was wrong?
The young men were tall, all of them six feet or more. They had formed a semicircle around the opening to the fuselage of the Huey. The flatbed truck was only a few feet away. Unholstering her .45 from where it hung on the front of her flak vest, Rhona decided to play it safe. She was going to assume that someone was at risk. It had to be Nolan, who was still out of sight.
Her heart pounded furiously with dread. Lifting the pistol up near her body, she kept her footsteps light and soundless. Luckily, she was five foot nine inches tall, so the young men provided cover for her approach. Still, Rhona was wary. Heading toward the front of the truck, she moved up against the right fender. Keying her hearing, she tried to listen over the pounding of her heart.
A voice. A man’s voice. Threatening. Gulping, Rhona realized it wasn’t a voice she recognized. Bending down, she inched forward to the end of the truck to try and hear who was speaking. Crouching down, she took off the safety on her pistol and locked and loaded it. A bullet was now in the chamber.
What she heard next sent a chill straight to her pounding heart.
“I told you, Mr. Pilot, to call your copilot back here now or I’m gonna blow a hole through that head of yours. You got that?”
Nolan was sure his temple was being bruised by the point of the Beretta 9 mm pistol barrel, which was being jammed repeatedly into his head. The man was short—only five-foot-ten—but he had his hand, like an eagle’s claw, on Nolan’s left shoulder, the gun at his head. Nolan faced the Huey, his heart in chaos. The man, who called himself Frank, was a member of Diablo. He’d caught Nolan from behind at the door of the helo. And he’d told everyone to freeze or he’d blow Nolan’s head off. No one moved.
Sweat ran down Nolan’s face. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Frank, grinning at him triumphantly. The man, who was probably in his thirties, had a scraggly brown beard and smelled like he desperately needed a bath. The look in his blue, ferretlike eyes was dangerous. Nolan had seen the same glitter in the gaze of a wild animal when it caught its quarry.
“I told you, I don’t know where she is,” he rasped, his voice low and taut.
“Lyin’ bastard,” Frank hissed. Again he jammed the gun into Nolan’s temple. “Call her back here now, fly boy, or you’re dead meat just like those two pilots we capped the other day.”
Rage flowed through Nolan. “You…murdered them….” The words came out strangled, with barely held rage.
Laughing harshly, Frank said, “Yeah, fly boy. They didn’t know what was comin’. They thought we were Goody Two-shoes like these idiots surroundin’ us! Now, call the slut, will you? I’m short on patience and I got an itchy trigger finger, besides. Wanna test me on it? Huh? Go ahead, try me.”
Nolan’s hands slowly closed into fists as his mind churned with possibilities on how he could disarm the son of a bitch. No way would he call Rhona over here. No, this bastard had already killed his two friends. Nolan was damned if Rhona was going to become a target. Somehow, some way, he had to get the upper hand on this gloating lunatic.
As Nolan stood there, wavering, with Frank’s fetid breath making him nauseous, he felt the man’s hand tighten on his uniform. He saw the man’s finger brush the trigger. Tense, his eyes darting around him, Frank lifted his lips to reveal his yellow, coated teeth.
“Dammit, I said call her. Do it now or I’m gonna drop you and go find her myself!”
Sucking in a breath of air, Nolan steeled himself. There was no way in hell he was going to give up Rhona to this wild-eyed, crazy bastard. The guy was hopped-up on something, more than likely cocaine, because he couldn’t stand still. He was aggressive, eyes darting, always jerking and moving. The only thing he kept steady was the gun barrel against Nolan’s aching, bruised temple.
“Go to hell,” Nolan muttered between gritted teeth. In those seconds, as he saw the man’s finger again brush the trigger, Nolan realized that he loved Rhona. Love. Real, honest-to-God love. The kind he wanted again, but had despaired of ever finding after his wife’s untimely death. And now he would never get to tell Rhona that. She would never know. One kiss. They’d shared one kiss that had made their worlds stand still, melt together and become one. Why had he been so blind? Why hadn’t he realized when he’d shared that deep, tender, searching kiss with her that he loved her?
His life began flashing before his eyes, from the time he was a young child onward. Nolan closed his eyes and waited. He stopped breathing. This was the end. He didn’t want to die. He wanted to live—live to tell Rhona he loved her, and wanted to share his life with her if she’d have him—but none of those things were going to happen now. Because, in a few seconds, he was going to be dead, his brains splattered across the fuselage of the Huey. What a hell of a way to go….
Nine
January 11: 1110
Just as Nolan drew in what he believed would be his last breath of air, he heard a commotion off to his left. Slanting a glance in that direction, he saw the young men part like the Red Sea. Then Rhona stood there. His eyes widened. Somehow she had slid soundlessly between the Latinos, her gun drawn and raised. The look in her slitted eyes was one of rage. Her mouth was grim. Her hands were held out in front of her, wrapped around the .45—which was aimed at Frank.
And then, to his horror, Nolan heard Frank curse. The man jerked the pistol away from his temple and in one single, smooth motion, aimed it directly at Rhona. No! Oh, God! No!
Breathing hard, Rhona saw the gunman turn his aim away from Nolan and toward her, fury and surprise erupting in his narrowed eyes.
There was no time to think; only to react. Rhona’s finger brushed the trigger, but before she could get a shot off, she saw the barrel of her opponent’s gun explode with a red-and-yellow flash.
The bullet hit her high, near her left collarbone. She grunted, thrown backward by the force of the blast.
Nolan reacted swiftly, whirling toward the gunman with his fists clenched and delivering two solid blows to his chest. At the same time, the gunman got off two more shots.
The second and third rounds struck her low, in the abdomen, sending Rhona flying off her feet. But not before she fired back, the barrel leveled at the gunman’s head.
A cry ripped from Nolan’s mouth as he saw Rhona go down. Her uniform fabric exploded. Bits and pieces of cloth fragments flew into the air like confetti suddenly released. At the same time, the rupture of gunfire shattered his eardrums, and Nolan heard Frank grunt as the pistol fell from his nerveless fingers and he crumpled backward.
Then the air was filled with shouts and cries as terror reigned. But Nolan’s only concern right now was for Rhona, and he raced to her side.
No! God no! Not her! Don’t let her die!
The Latinos stood back, their mouths agape, their eyes wide with confusion and terror. As Nolan dropped to his knees beside Rhona he felt tears jam into his eyes. She lay on her b
ack, unconscious.
He reached out with unsteady hands to touch her hair, which had come loose in a tangled mass. Her eyes were closed and she lay like a puppet, sprawled out on the yellow dirt. Calling her name, he leaned over her.
“Rhona! Rhona! Can you hear me? Wake up!” Nolan shouted, staring in shock at the three bullet holes in the fabric of her flight suit. Gripping her gently by the shoulders, he leaned closer.
“Do you hear me? God, say you can hear me! Rhona?” His voice broke with terror. Running his badly shaking hand across her limp body, he tried to find the wound so he could staunch the flow of blood he was sure was pumping from her limp body.
And then he remembered that she was wearing a flak vest beneath her one-piece flight suit. With trembling hands, he ripped open the Velcro that held her uniform together from throat to crotch. As the suit was peeled away, he saw Rhona’s dark green Kevlar vest beneath it. Sobbing, Nolan tried to steady himself. He loved Rhona. She couldn’t be dead! She just couldn’t! And yet she’d taken three direct hits, at close range.
Peeling the upper part of her flight suit wider, he gasped. There were three deep indentations in Rhona’s Kevlar vest. Had the bullets penetrated it, and was she bleeding out beneath it? Nolan’s hands would barely work as he fumbled with the Velcro openings located at her right shoulder and along her rib cage. Pulling the vest open, he frantically searched her smooth, golden flesh beneath her white cotton chemise. Three ugly black-and-blue bruises were already forming, swelling up in huge welts.
His breath came out ragged with relief. None of the bullets had penetrated the vest. It had saved her life.
He didn’t know what to do first—cry or hold Rhona. As he took off the vest and handed it to one of the Latino teens, who had knelt down opposite him to help, more tears flooded Nolan’s eyes.
Rhona groaned softly.
Once Nolan had closed the front of her flight suit, he lifted his head toward hers. Her black lashes fluttered faintly. Anxiety shot through him.
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