Heart of War

by Lucian K. Truscott

“Mace! Stop!”

  The bridge was flooded. A piece of the side rail broke off and fell into the current.

  Mace picked up the phone again, dialing quickly. It beeped, the lighted dial going dark. He cursed. “We’ve got to try to get her out of there.” He pulled a U-turn and headed back up the hill. As they neared the flooded river, they could see that the woman’s car had slipped a few feet downstream. She had gotten one of her arms out of the window and was waving.

  “You know how to work the winch on this thing?” He rummaged around in the backseat and came up with the shoulder strap off his overnight bag, quickly fastening it around his waist.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m going to hook into the winch. Play out cable until I get to her. When I get out there and get ahold of her, haul me back in.”

  “The current’s too strong, Mace. Are you sure . . .”

  He stepped out of the car. “I’m sure she’s going to die if we don’t get to her.”

  Kara slid over to the driver’s seat. He waded around to the front of the Cherokee, raised a hand, rolling his wrist. Kara hit the winch release, and the drum started to turn with a loud whirrrr. When a few yards had played out, Mace hooked into the strap around his waist. Still facing the Cherokee, he backed slowly away from the car until the winch line was tight. Then he turned and plunged in.

  The river knocked him from his feet. He regained his footing, leaned into the current, moved a few yards farther, and suddenly he disappeared. Kara reversed the winch. He bobbed up, went under and bobbed up again, hanging onto the cable with both hands. She jumped out of the car and waded into the river, grabbing the winch line, guiding him in. When he reached his feet, he staggered and collapsed into her arms. He was gasping, spitting water. “You . . . were right. It’s . . . it’s not going to work.”

  Kara opened the door of the car, stood on the door sill, looking at the dim figure in the headlights. The woman’s head was thrown back. Both arms were out the window now. It looked like she was trying to pull herself free.

  Kara shouted at Mace, “See that tree over there?” She pointed at a tall pine about fifteen yards upstream, its trunk awash in the current. “If you get around the tree, you can approach her from upstream. I’ll play out the winch. You might be able to swim your way out to her.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  She got into the car. He leaned in the door. In the dome light his eyes were dark, hooded with fear. “Kara, I’m sorry for what I said . . .”

  She kissed him. “Be careful,” she shouted. The thrum of rain and wind nearly drowned her out.

  He waded through shallow water to the tall pine. Gripping the cable with both hands, he made his way around the trunk of the tree and eased out into the fast current. He let go of the cable and swam a few yards and grabbed onto the branch of a sunken bush. The water was washing over the top of the car now; waves were crashing into the woman’s face. He knew she wouldn’t last much longer.

  The Cherokee’s headlights barely illuminated what was happening fifteen yards away from shore. Mace let go of the bush, and the river swept him downstream. He hit the car’s front end, bounced on a wave over the hood, and hit the windshield, shattering it. Frantically he scrambled for a handhold, grabbing the A-pillar on the passenger side. The river was about to wash him downstream when slowly he pulled himself up on the roof of the car. Kara hit the winch release button, stopping it. The Cherokee’s wipers were struggling against the downpour. She stepped out of the door to get a better view.

  Mace had his legs wrapped around the A-pillar of the windshield, the river cascading against him, kicking spray in his face. He reached for the woman, grabbing one of her arms. He couldn’t move her. He held onto the A-pillar and slid into the water, still trying to work her free from the passenger window. A huge wave rolled over the car, completely swamping it, burying Mace in tons of water. Kara waited desperately for him to surface, but he didn’t show. She was just about to hit the winch and start to drag him in when he burst to the surface. He had an arm around the woman, waving.

  Kara hit the winch, slowly winding in the cable. Mace clung to the cable with one hand, his other arm and legs wrapped tightly around the woman’s torso. The winch pulled them a few feet, and a huge wave rolled through and they were swept under. They were out of sight for a long moment. Suddenly an arm thrashed out of the water, and the two of them popped to the surface, Mace struggling to keep their heads above water, kicking wildly.

  Kara jumped from the car and ran through the shallow water. Mace found his footing and stood, carrying the woman. She was limp in his arms. Kara grabbed the winch cable, pulling him to her. Together they slogged through shallow water to solid ground. The woman’s head fell loosely to one side as they laid her down. Her eyes were closed, her mouth frozen open, her white skin painted with debris from the water. There was a cut in her neck, a small one. It wasn’t bleeding.

  “Oh, my God,” gasped Kara.

  Mace grabbed the woman’s head and jerked it backward, chin up. He shouted to Kara: “You know CPR! Push on her chest with the heels of your hands between my breaths!”

  Mace knelt next to the woman and, holding her nose closed, he took a deep breath and blew into her lungs. Kara pushed hard on the center of her chest, and Mace blew again. They kept this up for several minutes, when suddenly above them came the whap-whap-whap of a helicopter. A long shaft of light from a Xenon spotlight flashed back and forth, searching the water.

  Kara stood up, waving her arms. “Over here! Over here!” she shouted as the wind whipped her face with stinging rain.

  The Xenon moved toward her, bathing her in white light. Kara dropped to her knees and began pressing on the woman’s chest again.

  The chopper circled, keeping the spot on them, then turned away, hovered, and set down on top of the hill behind the Cherokee. Two medics jumped out and ran down the hill toward them.

  “How long have you been doing CPR?”

  “A couple of minutes.”

  They opened a crash kit and went to work. As Mace pulled away from the woman’s face to get a breath, the medic placed a mask over the woman’s nose and mouth, and began squeezing a rubber air bladder, forcing air into her lungs.

  Kara pointed at the wound on her neck.

  The medic opened one of the woman’s eyelids with her thumb and shined a flashlight. Her eye was rolled back, exposing the bloodshot white.

  “May as well put that thing away, Johnson. She’s gone.” They stood up. A third medic arrived, carrying a stretcher. They lifted the woman’s body onto the stretcher and headed back toward the chopper.

  “You all had better come with us, ma’am,” said the medic.

  Kara opened the Cherokee’s door. “I’m going to move my car away from the water.” She started the Cherokee and backed it up. Behind her the chopper’s rotors beat the air. She stopped down the hill from the chopper. The passenger door opened. Mace leaned in.

  “Mace, they’re gonna want to know what you and me—”

  “I’m way ahead of you. Let me do the talking,” he said.

  One of the medics walked up. “Ma’am, we got to be gettin’ outta here . . .”

  “I’m with you.” Kara turned off the car and followed Mace and the medic up the hill and climbed into the chopper. The woman’s body was lying on a stretcher across the middle of the chopper between their feet. The door closed, the rotors picked up speed, and with a shudder the chopper leaned into the wind and banked into a turn, the Xenon spotlight writing on the river like a light pencil.

  Kara looked down, trying to find the woman’s car in the raging waters below. It was gone.

  Chapter Two

  “Her name was Sheila Worthy.” The doctor was a captain, still in his twenties, his eyes rimmed red from lack of sleep. He was leaning against the wall, picking at a thread hanging from the sleeve of his scrubs. He yawned and looked over at Kara sheepishly. “Sorry, ma’am. I mean, it’s been a long night.”

 
She smiled. “Was she a soldier?”

  The doctor straightened up, pulled a slip of paper from the breast pocket of his scrubs. “Yes, ma’am. Second lieutenant, worked in personnel over in Headquarters.”

  “Which headquarters?”

  “Third Army.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t know what she was doing out on a night like this. Just one of those things, I guess. Too bad.”

  He walked through a set of automatic doors. A nurse rushed up, and he broke into a trot as the doors whooshed closed behind him.

  The doors opened again, and a spec-4 appeared with a stack of hospital blankets. “Captain Taggert said you all could use these, ma’am.”

  “Who is Captain Taggert?” asked Kara, wrapping one of the blankets around her shoulders.

  “He’s the duty doc, ma’am. You was just talkin’ to him.”

  They were sitting on plastic chairs in a waiting area outside the emergency room. Kara wrapped the blanket around her shoulders, shivering.

  “Anything else I can get for ya, ma’am? Coffee? Donuts?”

  “Do you know what happened to Major Hollaway?”

  The spec-4 pointed down the hall at the automatic doors. “He’s in there talkin’ to Captain Taggert right now, ma’am . . .”

  The doors opened on a military police officer thumbing through a manila file folder. He looked up, squinting over a pair of half glasses.

  Hollaway was a big, florid-faced man with a salt-and-pepper crew cut and a coal black mustache. As he walked up, he put a friendly hand on her shoulder.

  “You look like you’ve had better days, Kara, you don’t mind my saying so.”

  Kara groaned. “I feel like I’m talking to you from the bottom of a well, Frank.”

  He pulled up a chair. “It figures you’d be mixed up in this. Which one’s your client? The dead girl or the sergeant here?”

  Kara shot him a look. He threw up his hands in mock surrender. “Just joking, Kara. Sorry.”

  “I’m a witness this time, Frank.”

  He looked at Mace. “Staff Sergeant Nukanen? Did I pronounce that right?”

  Mace stood up. “Nukanen. Yes, sir.”

  Hollaway extended his hand. “You did one hell of a job out there tonight, Sergeant. The incident report says you pulled the young woman out of the water yourself. Mind telling me how you did that?”

  Mace shuffled from one foot to another awkwardly. “It wasn’t just me, sir. I tied into Major Guidry’s winch, and she played me out into the current, and once I got the woman out of the car, Major Guidry winched me back in.”

  “The medics tell me you and Major Guidry were giving CPR when they arrived.”

  “We did what we could, sir.”

  Hollaway peered at Mace over his half glasses, then turned to Kara.

  “Just for the record, Kara, what were you and, uh"—he looked down at his file—"Sergeant Nukanen doing out there on the South Gate Road on a night like this?”

  Kara started to answer, but Mace interrupted.

  “Sir, the major picked me up at a hitch-a-ride shelter. She was on her way to drop me at my barracks. Sir.”

  Hollaway made a note. “Hellish storm out there tonight. Never saw so much rain. It was raining hard when you picked up the sergeant here?”

  “That’s right.”

  Hollaway looked up from his file with a slight smile. “Very commendable. I’ll make a note in my report that you are in compliance with the commanding general’s policy on ride sharing. Make you look good when the paperwork gets upstairs.”

  “Thanks, Frank.”

  “I have one more question. Was the young woman alive when you arrived on the scene?”

  Kara glanced at Mace. “Her car was underwater up to the windows. She was hanging out of the window. I thought she was waving at us.”

  “What did you think, Sergeant?”

  “Sir, she looked like she was waving, but by the time I got to her, the car was almost totally underwater. The river was pushing her around pretty bad. One of her legs was caught in the steering wheel.”

  “Was she alive when you reached her?”

  Mace dropped his eyes. “No, sir. Her head was underwater, and she wasn’t breathing.”

  Hollaway shook his head. “These accidental-death investigations really get to you. You’ve handled them, haven’t you, Kara?”

  “A few. The way things are today, they’ll kick it right back to you if you don’t dot every i and cross every t, so we’ll be glad to help you any way we can, Frank.”

  “Okay.” Hollaway thumbed through his file for a moment. “It looks pretty straightforward to me. She tried to drive through a flooded spot in the road. Her car probably stalled, the river was rising, and a flash flood overflowed its banks, swamped her car. She got stuck out there with the water coming up. The river was too deep and fast, so she had to stay with the car. And the rest is . . . well. You were there.”

  Kara sighed. “That’s the way it looked to me.”

  “The only thing that doesn’t fit is the wound on her neck. She wasn’t bleeding when you all pulled her out, was she?”

  “No.” Kara wondered where he was going with this.

  “Did you see anything that could have caused her wound, Sergeant?”

  “I couldn’t see that much, sir. The car was full of water, and the river was throwing me around pretty good. I guess she could have gotten hit with something. There was a lot of debris out there, sir. Whole trees were floating past. I saw pieces of a bridge, the roof off a house . . .”

  “I asked Dr. Taggert about that. He said the wound entrance was clean. If debris caused the puncture wound, it would have left residue, like a piece of bark, wood splinters, bits of soil. He said the wound was caused by a sharp, pointed object. Metal, or maybe glass.”

  “The window she was hanging out of was busted out, sir.”

  “Maybe that was it. The full autopsy will give us microscopic evidence of the wound path. I’m just trying to find something for my report in the morning.” He turned to Kara. “You know how it is. They don’t want a snapshot. They want the big picture.”

  Kara was staring off in the distance. Suddenly she came around. “Yeah, I know how it is.”

  “I called her folks a few minutes ago, talked to her father. A retired colonel.” Hollaway checked his file. “Colonel Worthy, lives up in North Carolina. Asheville, I think . . .”

  Kara’s head whipped around. “Colonel Worthy? I didn’t put it together . . . Sheila Worthy . . . oh, Jesus. I served under him a few years ago. He was one of the good guys, and believe me, good guys were few and far between back then.”

  “He’s on his way down here now. It’s going to be a rough day for him.” Hollaway stood up. “I’ll get an MP car to drop you off, Sarge. Where are your barracks?”

  “I’m over in the 2nd of the 29th, sir. Down in South Barracks.”

  Hollaway turned to Kara. “If you want to wait a few minutes, Kara, I’ll drive you home.”

  “That would be great, Frank.”

  “Why don’t you come with me, Sergeant?” said Hollaway.

  “Yes, sir.” Mace turned to Kara. “Thanks for the ride, ma’am. I’m sorry things turned out the way they did.”

  They shook hands. “That’s quite all right, Sergeant. Good evening.”

  “Good evening, ma’am.” Mace followed Hollaway down the hall. They disappeared around a corner, leaving her alone in the empty hospital corridor. She was huddled in her blanket, lost in her thoughts, when a voice startled her.

  “Major Guidry.”

  General Beckwith was standing a few feet away in his dress blues. She jumped up from her chair.

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Sit down. Sit down.” Beckwith looked over his shoulder down the hall, pulled up one of the plastic chairs. “It’s been awhile.”

  “Yes, sir. It has.”

  “I’m sorry we had to run across each other under these circumstances.”

  “Me too, sir.”


  Beckwith looked down the hall like he was expecting someone. He was still looking away from her when he said: “Major Hollaway tells me you were there when they recovered the body.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He shifted around in his chair, adjusting his tie. “A tragedy. Truly. She worked in my headquarters.” He paused, seeming to collect his thoughts. “I wish these kinds of things didn’t happen. It seems senseless, a fine young officer’s life ended, just like that. It makes you feel so helpless, do you know what I mean?”

  “Yes, sir. I do.”

  There was another long pause as he looked down, rocking his left shoe from one side to the other. The shine was marred by a spattering of dried raindrops. He looked up, finding her eyes.

  “I had no idea you were stationed here at Benning, Kara. You should have called the office and stopped by.”

  “I figured they’re keeping you pretty busy over there at Third Army Headquarters these days, sir.”

  Beckwith chuckled. “You’ve got it exactly right on that score.” He paused again, his gaze drifting away. “Why don’t we get together for a D-3 company re-union? My aide tells me there are twelve of us here on post. Thirteen, including you. Meet up at happy hour at the O-club some Friday. Swap a few tales about the old days at the academy. How does that sound to you?”

  “That would be great, sir.”

  “Good. I’ll tell my aide. His name is Randy Taylor. Good man. He’ll make the arrangements.”

  He stood, straightening his jacket, adjusting the buttons, and Kara got her first good look at him. He was trim, erect, tensed on the balls of his feet, just the way she remembered him. His hair, graying at the temples, was swept back on top, longish for an officer. He paid an inordinate amount of attention to his appearance for an Army man. She remembered her roommate saying that the first male officer to get a face-lift was going to be Beckwith.

  “I’ll have Randy call you, then. About the reunion.” He flicked an imaginary speck of dust from his sleeve, and without another word walked away. The small taps on his heels echoed in the empty hall . . . tap-tap-tap.