Wings of Gold Series

by Tappan, Tracy

  Kyle was lying a few feet away. She couldn’t see him—even if she could’ve turned her head. A medic was crouched in the way, and, of all people, Tarzan. Before the helicopter found her and Kyle, Tarzan had apparently been fished out of Mangla Dam. He’d broken his already sprain-weakened ankle from his fall from the helicopter, but otherwise he was okay. At least someone was relatively fine.

  The AW was hovering over Kyle, a steady barrage of worried curses flowing out of him.

  Max closed her eyes.

  …She was being hustled off the helicopter.

  Kitty’s face appeared above her, bobbing against the night sky as the corpsman jogged alongside the stretcher. “Heavens above.” Her brow pleated. “She’s bruised from top to bottom.”

  “No,” Dr. Barr’s voice contradicted from off to the side. “Her skin is stained by the dye marker used to help rescue crews find survivors. It must’ve auto-activated from Lieutenant Hammond’s survival vest when he hit the water.”

  So that’s how the helicopter pinpointed them. “Kyle?” she croaked. The ceiling of the main medical tent appeared above her when they brought her inside, a row of ugly, round fluorescent lights. “How’s Kyle?”

  Fingers touched Max’s head. “Possible skull fracture.”

  Max blinked very slowly. Upper eyelids touching lower eyelids hurt like hell. “Is he alive?” It tasted like the Indy 500 had raced all two hundred laps in her mouth.

  “Corpsman, let’s get an X-ray of Ms. Dougin’s neck and spine. She no doubt has whiplash. I want to see how severe.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Max’s lips quavered. That hurt, too. “Is Kyle dead?”

  Dr. Barr’s voice came again. “Lieutenant Hammond is being taken to the trauma hospital at the Bagram base in Afghanistan. His condition was deemed too severe for our resources. I’m sorry, but it’s all I know.”

  Max peeled her eyelids open, raising the blinds on the specter of the recovery ward—a blurry vision of empty, neatly made beds to her right and a standing curtain-screen to her left, all of it gradually changing from fuzzy to clear.

  Kitty’s face leaned into view. “Hey, Max. How you feeling?”

  Max gathered her wits for a moment. Where had her roommate come from? Had Kitty been sitting next to Max’s bed all along? “Woozy.” She dragged her tongue across her lips. If there was any moisture left in her mouth and throat, it was hiding. “And thirsty.”

  “Are you hurting any?” Kitty asked.

  Max had a vague headache. “Not too bad.”

  Kitty nodded. “Dr. Barr gave you a passel of good pain meds.”

  “How long have I been out?”

  “About two and a half hours.” Kitty stood. “Dr. Barr.” She waved over the top of the curtain-screen, which had been erected, Max figured out now, to give her some privacy from the male patients in the ward. “Max is awake.”

  Dr. Barr appeared at the foot of the bed, attractive and efficient-looking in a white lab coat.

  “She’s not in pain,” Kitty reported, “but is a tad woozy.”

  Dr. Barr tucked her hands into her coat pockets. “You’re remarkably unhurt, Ms. Dougin, considering what you went through.”

  “How’s Kyle?” Max asked. “Have you heard anything?”

  Lines subtly pleated around Dr. Barr’s mouth. “There’s plenty of time to talk later. You need your rest.”

  “But—”

  “Keep an eye on her vitals, corpsman.” Dr. Barr left.

  Max glanced at Kitty.

  Kitty sighed. “She’s been avoiding my questions, too. I have a bad feeling she’s hiding something.” She took Max’s wrist to check her pulse. “Can I get you anything?”

  But Max drifted back to sleep.

  * * *

  “Lieutenant…? Lieutenant?! Can you hear me?!”

  Wheeze. Gasp.

  “He’s barely conscious, Doctor.”

  “He’s inhaled jet fuel into his lungs along with water. Roll him onto his side.”

  “Yes, doctor.”

  Head spins. Throbs.

  “Here, we’re going to use this to pound on his back. We need to break loose the contaminants in his lungs so that we can suction them out.”

  Body jerks. Ribs squeak and grind.

  “All right, put him on his back again. Hand me the tube. I’m going down his larynx now.”

  Choking. Scraping. Strangling.

  “This is bad. Increase the suction.”

  Fire and stars. Cactus spines.

  “Dammit…”

  “Doctor?”

  “Nurse, take his dog tags.”

  Swift tug against neck.

  “You’d better notify his next of kin. I don’t think he’s going to make it.”

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  Blank.

  * * *

  Naval Air Station, North Island, San Diego

  At zero-six-hundred on the dot, Lieutenant Eric “LZ” O’Dwyer switched on the coffeemaker in his office, which was really just a small, utilitarian antechamber to the large, plush office of his boss, Admiral Stanfield, Commander Air Forces Pacific: otherwise known as AIRPAC. As the Mr. Coffee machine got its groove on with a lot of hissing and grumbling, Eric sat at his desk and opened his emails. Stanfield traditionally came in at zero-seven-hundred on the dot, and Eric needed to get the jump on message traffic in order to brief his boss about the day’s hot items.

  Eric skimmed down the subject lines and—shit. There was a mishap notification message from Admiral Kelleman, Commander Strike Group One. Eric, as AIRPAC’s aide, had been cc’d, along with Stanfield’s Chief of Staff. Eric opened the email and started reading.

  …official mishap notification will be out soon, but I wanted to give you the word that two helicopters were shot down by terrorists last night in Pakistan, a Sierra bird and a Romeo …a PINNACLE OPREP THREE report has been sent to the White House. Recommend pushing information up the chain of command to CNO. One of the aircraft went down with a newspaper reporter, and we anticipate high press interest…

  Eric shoved a hand through his hair. Hell. Two helicopters had been lost; that was always a hard blow to the aviation community. He scanned down the email, jumping to the Killed/Injured/MIA list Kelleman had included: Petty Officer Samuel Jacob Tyson, United States Navy, Petty Officer Bradley Hugh Emerson, United States Navy, Lieutenant Kyle Jonathan Hammond, United States—

  Eric froze. His abdominals jerked once. He took his fingers off the computer keyboard and set his hands on the desk. Kyle… “Holy fuck,” he whispered. He sat unmoving, stunned at seeing his best friend’s name on such a grave list.

  It can’t be true.

  Mikey had always been a magnet for bad luck, that part was true, but still, Eric had never expected anything like this to happen to the guy.

  Mikey’s bad luck brigade included some real biggies: Kyle’s very first time in a helicopter in flight school with Eric, they’d hit a flock of birds and almost crashed; their first cruise together with the BattleCats squadron, when Eric had been the maintenance officer, and Kyle in charge of admin, Kyle had made a complete drunken idiot of himself on liberty; on their second cruise together with the Wolf Pack—when Eric had been the OIC of a counterdrug operation, and Mikey, his maintenance officer—Kyle had slipped off a cliff and fallen into the hands of some serious Columbian bad guys, subsequently getting the stuffing kicked out of him. And then there was Kyle’s relationship with his ex-girlfriend, Sienna, which was pure disaster from start to finish—not that it was even finished—including a secret kid who’d recently popped up into Mikey’s life seriously ill.

  But even with all this back-blow in Mikey’s life, he still managed to be the best friend a man could ever have. Maybe because Kyle had been through the meat grinder so many times in his life, he was the most judgment-free person out there—something Eric had always needed from the people in his life. Mikey had his opinions, sure, but there was never any agenda attached to them. He was the easiest fu
cking guy to talk to, and Eric couldn’t even begin to wrap his brain around not having him as a friend anymore.

  Admiral Stanfield strode in, his posture militarily erect, and…he frowned at Eric on the way to his large office.

  Frowned…? Eric blinked. Oh, crap. He was still sitting on his duff. Preoccupied with processing the news about his best friend, he’d failed to come respectfully to his feet the moment his boss entered—early, which the prick did to him some mornings. “Sir.” Eric leapt up just as the admiral disappeared into his office. Well, this morning already officially bites.

  Jabbing his index finger at the computer print button, Eric checked to make sure his khaki uniform was in spotless condition—stupid thing to do right now, but shit like that became automatic when a man worked as an admiral’s aide—then he grabbed a mug, filled it with coffee, and snatched up the printout. He finished reading it—oh, fuck!—as he hurried into his boss’s office. He set the mug of coffee on the admiral’s desk in front of him. “Two birds were shot down in a terrorist attack in Pakistan,” he said without preamble, handing Stanfield the printout of Kelleman’s email message. “A Sierra and a Romeo.”

  Stanfield took the paper, his frown deepening as he read. “Any fatalities?”

  Eric swallowed. “Yes, sir.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Kitty lifted the empty IV bag off its stand, the rattle of her watch band against the metal pole bringing Max’s eyelashes fluttering open. “Mornin’, Max. Dr. Barr says I can take out your line now.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Max pushed awkwardly to a sitting position against the wall and knuckled the sleep from her eyes. “Any word on anything?”

  Kitty sat on a stool next to Max’s bed. “Farrin got off the satellite phone about an hour ago, but she’s been holed up in her tent ever since.” Kitty gently tugged the IV out of her patient’s wrist, then shoved the used needle into a plastic box marked Hazardous Waste. “Now it’s real obvious to me she’s hiding something.”

  “Well, we need to find out what.” Max’s lips drew tight as the stitching on a barley sack.

  It’d sure be nice to know. All morning Kitty herself had been wondering what, her stomach in more knots than her Aunt Clara’s hair after a weekend bender. She peeled a bandage out of its wrapper, but before she could smooth it over the puncture mark on Max’s skin, Max had flipped the sheets off her body and swung her legs over the side of the mattress.

  “Max! What in tarnation…?”

  “I’m going to talk to Dr. Barr. Get some answers.” Max yanked on a pair of sock slippers. “I’m a reporter.” She smiled savagely. “I’m good at it.”

  “Good gracious, all right”—Kitty jumped up—“but quit moving ’round so suddenly ’fore you pass out, and let me get you some scrubs to put on. You can’t go gadding around camp in a hospital gown.” Kitty hurried to a tall linen cupboard. “And then I’m going with you!”

  As the head of the aid station, Dr. Barr was the only person who lived in a private tent. When she called, “enter,” at the first knock, Kitty and Max stepped into a spacious living quarter with a double-sized bed on the right, colorful pictures on all the walls, and on the left, where another bed would’ve normally been, was a small desk. Farrin was seated at it now, and Kitty was tempted to take the coward’s way out of this confrontation and hide her head under it. The doctor was hardly grinning like a possum eating a sweet tater when she saw who her visitors were.

  Max, on the other hand of matters, didn’t seem fazed by Farrin’s displeasure. “Dr. Barr,” she said crisply. “I appreciate you might be keeping news from me—especially if it’s unpleasant news—until I was well enough to handle it. But as you can see, I’m on my feet and standing before you. Please tell me about Kyle.”

  Farrin set down a pen she was holding and folded her hands in her lap. “I don’t have any news regarding Lieutenant Hammond.”

  The two women stared at each other for a long, tense time.

  Kitty glanced back and forth between them. Something was stirring in the depths of Max’s gaze. Farrin’s face was pale, and her eyes looked like they’d grown extra lines around them overnight.

  “What happened?” Max asked in an undertone.

  Kitty brought her head around.

  Max’s voice had lost all traces of its customary evenness, and the semi-tartness in her expression had been swapped out with a worried one.

  An eternal pause followed before Farrin said, “Sit down.”

  Kitty parted her lips. Creepers of ice inched along her flesh. Farrin had darted her eyes at Kitty when she’d said that. “What—?” Kitty’s voice broke, quivery and too high. She cleared her throat. “What is it?”

  Max’s hand came to Kitty’s elbow, urged her to Farrin’s bed, and sat her down on the edge of it. Kitty’s legs felt like twin saplings off a rubber tree plant.

  Farrin picked up her pen again. “Since the US military has mostly kept me out of the loop on what’s going on, it took a fair bit of calling around on my part to get some answers. I was finally able to find out that two helicopters were shot down last night: the one you were in, Ms. Dougin, and another. The Pakistani government is in an uproar about their sovereign airspace being violated, so they won’t allow the Americans a salvage operation. But the helicopter that dropped Ms. Dougin off here last night for aid was able to land briefly at the crash site and examine it.” Farrin slid the pen to the tops of her fingers, clicked it open, clicked it closed, slid it back down.

  Kitty blinked rapidly and the tip of her nose stung. Like when static electricity raised the fine hairs on her arms, warning of an oncoming lightning storm, she was covered in goosebumps now. A storm was brewing, a storm of a different sort, but its destructive force was fixing to flatten her all the same. “Farrin…?” Kitty’s voice was a parched whisper.

  “Two men are MIA, possibly captured and presumed dead,” Farrin continued, “but the rest were confirmed killed on impact, including…” Farrin turned deeply saddened eyes to Kitty. “I’m so sorry, Kitty, but Lieutenant JG Steve Whitmore was among those killed.”

  Max gasped loudly.

  Kitty stared. She’d heard the words Dr. Barr spoke, had recognized the meaning of each of them. Knew their separate definitions. But strung together into this sentence, they just didn’t make sense. “No,” Kitty said carefully. “Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am, but I believe you’re wrong. Steve can’t be dead.”

  Dr. Barr watched her, her throat moving.

  Kitty rounded on Max. “I took a chance,” she told her roommate. If Max understood this, then it would all be okay. “Don’t you see? I was brave this time. I…I finally chose the right man. So…so…”

  Tears fell down Max’s face, diamond-like water droplets that were each a pitchfork in Kitty’s soul. If Max was crying, then…then maybe this was actually really true.

  Kitty rounded on Farrin again, her butt twisting the covers on the bed. “Steve said nothing could ever make him leave me. So…so you’re wrong. He’s not dead. Because he said…you know, that he was loyal down to his frigging boots. He said…”

  I so wish I could hug you right now.

  Kitty tented her hands over her mouth. “I t-told him,” she quavered and choked. I’ll see you soon…that’s what she’d said to his sweet face. “I told him,” she insisted.

  Max set a palm on Kitty’s knee. “Go on, Dr. Barr. Please tell her the rest now.”

  Kitty flashed her eyes up. Her innards filled with a soupy swill of panic. There was more?

  Another eternal, thundering silence passed.

  Farrin’s voice was barely audible. “The two men who went MIA from the helicopter wreckage and are presumed dead have been identified as the head pilot, Lieutenant Commander Jason Vanderby, and the lead SEAL.”

  A sense of horribleness overcame Kitty. Her hands dropped from her mouth to her lap with a soft thump, and she exhaled such a completely exhaustive breath, the bones in her upper ribcage seemed to bow inward. A SEAL…
<
br />   “The SEAL in question is Petty Officer Shane Madden. I’m so sorry.” Farrin leapt up from her chair.

  Why…?

  The image of the doctor immediately slipped out of Kitty’s field of vision.

  Oh, no. It was Kitty who was slipping, her rump sliding off the end of the bed, her back hitting the mattress and bouncing. I’m fainting…

  Hands grasped for her. Max tumbled to the floor along with her, and suddenly Kitty’s head was cradled in her roommate’s lap.

  Kitty’s lungs pumped, each hysterical rise and fall of her chest punching pain into her. But unlike the time Shirleen set Kitty’s broken arm in the Hart family dining room, this time unconsciousness overtook Kitty and released her.

  But then…the agony of losing two men she loved was so much worse than her stupid arm.

  * * *

  Max slowly stuffed the few items she’d unpacked when Kyle told her they’d be staying for one more night back into her duffel bag, working with heavy movements. How in the world Kitty had managed to pack all of her belongings in under five minutes, Max couldn’t figure. Maybe because Kitty wanted out of here so badly…

  Mere moments after Kitty had come blinking awake on the floor of Dr. Barr’s tent, she’d asked the doctor to send her back to the USNS Mercy. In a mechanical voice, Kitty had said that she needed to get away from this aid station for a while. Dr. Barr had readily agreed; she was evacuating the aid station anyway—which meant Max was also being cleared out. Max didn’t hold any special love for this aid station, either, but she would’ve preferred to stick as close to Kyle as possible. That wasn’t going to happen.

  With tears stinging her nose, Max carefully set the cotton ball bouquet Kyle had made for her on top of the rest of her stuff, and zipped her bag closed. Then she just gazed at her duffel alongside her backpack. Had the roulette wheel of fate and circumstance landed on a different number, her bags would be at the bottom of Mangla Dam right now.

  My luggage is still in my tent.

  We’ll send for it.

  A spasm of anguish gripped Max’s heart. Those had been Kyle’s last words to her. No, not quite. I’m not going to let anything happen to you was what he’d said before jumping into the cockpit. And he’d kept his word, hadn’t he? He’d stuck around to unhook her from her seatbelt…and maybe died because of it. Are you dead, Kyle? She pressed a palm over her eyes.