Edge of the Heat 6

by Ladew, Lisa

  After a moment’s indecision Steve picked up the radio. Ames was a grumpy fucker and Steve didn’t want to deal with him any more than he had to, but this smelled funny. “Chief? Your signal didn’t come yet, but … well, you ought to see this.”

  “Check.”

  Crap. The Chief sounded pissed off already. He strolled into the room, not sparing the civilians a glance. He walked up to the screen, read the message, and then stared at Steve with open irritation. “What? She’s sending the coordinates to the Navy. Let me know when my signal comes.” He stormed out. Steve narrowed his eyes. The Navy? Why did the Navy, the closest unit probably a battleship sitting 50 miles offshore, need to know her coordinates?

  Steve glanced at the civilians again to see if the hot brunette had noticed how important he was, but crap, she didn’t look like she remembered her own name, much less that Steve existed. She was lip-locked with one of the tall dudes, like he was going to war and she was going to be left alone for a decade. Steve watched them openly, his mind drifting to Sally and wishing she would kiss him like that.

  The brunette and the dude broke apart finally, and the dude strode out the tarmac and jumped in the helicopter, first putting on a flight suit over his jeans and shirt and then sitting in one of the gunner’s seats and going over another fucking pre-flight checklist. Steve shook his head. This just kept getting weirder and weirder. Maybe that one wasn’t a civilian after all.

  Steve’s console started beeping. Two short beeps and one long beep.. That was the signal. He depressed the microphone button. “Hey Chief, it’s your signal.”

  “Roger.”

  The team on the helicopter started to scramble, everyone jumping in their seats, pressing buttons, and stowing gear.

  The rotors turned slowly, then faster, and a voice came over the radio. Not the Chief. It must be his copilot. Steve had never seen the copilot up close and didn’t know his rank. “Golf 62, are we clear?”

  “Roger,” Steve said. Of course they were fucking clear. There wasn’t another helicopter or airplane for 200 fucking miles.

  “Golf 62, heading out.”

  “Roger Golf 62, I have your time at 1343.”

  He marked the helicopter as away with the click of his finger, not even taking his feet off the desk. He watched the rotors speed up and lift the helicopter off the ground, then the nose tilt forward and the tail tip up as it headed out into the desert. He watched until it was a tiny dark spot, and then he let his eyes close. Maybe he should look and see what the brunette was doing.

  An alarm sounded in the room and Steve’s eyes flew open. He’d never heard that alarm outside of training before. Was it a malfunction? He looked at the radar screen and saw that it wasn’t. Three blips flew across the screen exactly abreast of each other. It can’t be, Steve thought. But it was. It had to be.

  Steve’s feet hit the ground with a thud. He could feel the eyes of the civilians on his back. Fuck them. He should order each of them out of here right now.

  Instead, he grabbed the microphone and shouted into it. “Chief, Chief we’ve got missiles incoming!” He did a few quick calculations on paper and spit out the trajectory to the Chief.

  Out of all responses that could’ve come back over the radio, Steve expected the one he got least of all. Disgust lacing his voice, the chief came back, “Did anyone tell you what this mission was about, Trooper?”

  “Negative, Sir.”

  Steve could hear the sigh in the warrant officer’s voice when he spoke again. “Well I can’t tell you over the air. But you have to know. Ask the civilians.”

  The transmission broke, leaving Steve grasping for meaning. The civilians? They knew and he didn’t? And then one more sentence, the threat in it clear. “And no more chatter about the Mikes.” Steve blinked in confusion and then realized the Chief probably meant the missiles. So he’d fucked up by mentioning them on the radio.

  Steve whirled in his chair and focused his eyes on the four people behind him. One of them stood and spoke up, a guy with short, blond hair who was almost a foot taller than Steve himself.

  “You know the hostages that the NIB is threatening to murder? There is a mission going on right now to free them from the compound they’re in. The helicopter is going to pick them up from the desert. The missiles are part of their cover. There’ll be more of them.”

  Steve nodded and settled back in his chair towards the screen. Saving the hostages? The Marine and the reporter? Why the fuck hadn’t anybody told him about it? Steve got serious. This was important shit. This could even make the news. And he was right in the fucking middle of it. Oh Sally Ann was going to put out for sure if she saw him on TV!

  Steve started recording everything in his log. The missiles, the helicopter trajectory, who was on the helicopter, and who was in the room with him. He turned around, about to ask for their names, when a another alarm sounded. Oh fuck what now? he groaned.

  He spun back to his table, his heart lurching. He checked all of his indicators and lights, moving his eyes in a triangle across the displays but nothing was flashing. So what was the alarm coming from?

  The radio! Steve focused on the radio speaker, his eyebrows threatening to recede into his hairline. The alarm sound was coming through the radio. The mic in the helicopter was open. And then Chief Warrant Officer Ames spilled out a torrent of words that made Steve’s blood freeze in his veins.

  “We’re hit, we’re hit, surface to air missile. We’re going down. No engine power. Auto rotating six seconds to impact God help us.”

  Steve grabbed his pen in his hand, but all he could think to do was write we’re hit in his logbook. Suddenly, he would have given anything to be bored again.

  Chapter 19

  Emma watched the man in army fatigues in front of her go completely tense. She didn’t blame him. Her own body felt suddenly as rigid as a board. Next to her, Vivian pulled on her arm and asked frantically, “What happened? What’s going on? I couldn’t understand the man on the radio.”

  Emma didn’t want to tell her sister that the helicopter holding her husband had just crashed. Emma looked at Craig and saw what she thought her own face must look like. Terror, and trepidation, with a side of shock. Craig obviously had understood what the pilot had said. Her eyes met Jerry’s. Jerry’s white face said he had understood too.

  But Vivian, Vivian was the one here who had the most to lose. Hawk was her entire life. Emma glanced at the Army specialist in front of her again. He seemed frozen in place. Suddenly he moved like a wind up doll. He stood up and glanced around the room in a kind of uncontrolled fright. Then he grabbed up the microphone and yelled into it “Golf 62, Golf 62 come back. Are you there?”

  Nothing. The radio was completely silent. Dead, you might say. Emma pushed the word dead out of her mind and stood up. Never had she felt so helpless in her entire life. She was a medic and she should be helping everyone on that helicopter right now. But where was it? And how could she get there? She couldn’t. She looked out the window at the small helicopter on the tarmac. Someone had to fly her out there.

  The man in army fatigues in front of her laid on the radio again, practically screaming “Golf 62 are you there?” He grabbed a black binder off the shelf and flipped aggressively through the pages.

  Craig ran up to him. “Send someone out there to help them!” Craig yelled.

  The man looked at him, his eyes flat and frightened. “I don’t have anyone to send,” he almost whispered.

  “There’s got to be someone who can fly that helicopter,” Craig said, pointing wildly out the window. “We have to do something! Find a pilot! Any pilot!”

  Vivian watched this little scene and then grabbed at Emma’s shoulder again. “Oh God, did the helicopter go down? Did the helicopter crash?”

  “Yes Vivian,” Emma whispered, “but it’s going to be okay, I promise,” Emma promised, knowing she couldn’t keep that promise. She turned Vivian’s shoulders towards Jerry. Jerry hugged Vivian and Vivian buried her fa
ce in Jerry’s chest and sobbed. Emma and Jerry’s eyes met over her head. Jerry’s eyes were wide and frightened. There were so many things wrong with this horrible situation.

  Emma ran the few steps to Craig and the soldier. She glanced at the jacket of his fatigues to see his rank and name. Specialist Moran. She prayed he knew what he was doing. She looked over his shoulder to the operating procedure binder he had pulled out. He ran his finger down the phone numbers and snatched up the phone. Emma looked to see who he was calling but Craig saw first.

  “Camp Patriot?” Craig yelled, unable to turn his volume down. “We can’t wait for a pilot to come from Camp Patriot! We just came from there! And it takes three hours for them to get here! Anything could happen between now and then. You have to find a pilot here now!”

  Specialist Moran looked at him, lost. He spoke simply and slowly, like he was talking to a child. “You have to understand, our entire unit is in Syria. We don’t have any pilot here.” Craig slammed his fist into his thigh and turned away to pace in frustration.

  Emma looked at the young man, a pleading note in her voice and eyes. “There’s not one pilot — not one person who knows how to fly a helicopter anywhere near here?”

  The man looked like he was going to be sick. Emma backed up a step. But then a light came into his eyes. “Well, there’s Captain Johansen. He’s not a pilot - he’s the base dentist, but supposedly he is a pilot in his civilian life and can fly that helicopter. But he’s asleep. He pulled comm duty all night.”

  Craig turned back to them, still yelling. “Who cares? Wake him up!” Moran looked at him and shook his head. “You wake him up. I have to stay here. He’s in that building over there.” Moran pointed out the window to a long, white building. “He’s in room F. Pound hard, he’s difficult to wake up.”

  Craig sprinted out the door and Emma watched him reappear outside the window, crossing the tarmac to the building Moran had pointed out at a flat run.

  “Who shot at them?” she asked, turning back to Moran.

  “What?”

  “The pilot said it was a surface to air missile. Who shot the surface-to-air missile? Do you have any way to find out?”

  Moran turned back to his computers looking dull and ineffective. Emma thought she was seeing the man think, and it didn’t happen quickly. And then he warmed up. His fingers flew over the keyboard.

  “Yes! I have a way to find out, or at least figure out their general area and then we can try to get some visuals!”

  Emma watched over her shoulder not understanding anything that was flying across the screen. He picked up the phone and made another phone call.

  “Yeah this is Specialist Moran from Al-Goraam, we’ve got a helicopter down over here, we need a visual on what’s going on on the ground. You have any drones in the area?” Moran listened. “Okay sounds good I’ll call them too, but you get back to me if you find anything.”

  He slammed the phone down and looked at Emma. “Genius lady, good thinking.” He smiled and Emma thought it made his face lose that dull look. She tried to smile back but could only manage to expose her teeth.

  “We’re going to get some eyes on the ground in a second here,” he said and picked up the phone again. He made another phone call and gave the exact same speech. He listened and then broke into a completely inappropriate grin. Or so Emma thought. But then what he said changed her mind. “Roger, you do that, if you get a visual on anybody in the area with an RPG or anything that looks close, you light them up. We’re gonna try to send another helicopter in hot and they are going to need some support.”

  He listened again and said, “OK, roger that.” He scrawled some letters and numbers down on the piece of paper in front of him. Emma looked but didn’t know what they meant.

  Finally he slammed down the phone and started to grin at her again, but then his gaze landed over her shoulder. Emma looked too and saw Craig running back with a man behind him who was pulling on a flight suit as he ran.

  The two men burst into the room. “Moran!” the newcomer yelled. “we got a helicopter down — is that true?”

  Moran nodded “Yes Captain, and you’re the only pilot in a 300 mile radius.”

  The new guy, a short, compact, neat man with a nasty sunburn nodded. “Yup, I’m a pilot, but I know we don’t have any fucking medics on base don’t I? What the hell am I supposed to do? Fly the helicopter and pull them all out myself?”

  Emma stepped up to him. “I’m a medic. I’ll go.”

  The captain looked her up and down. “You’re a fucking civilian.”

  Emma nodded. “I am a civilian. I’m also paramedic in the Westwood Harbor fire Department and an Army veteran. Not that it should matter. Because I’m all you fucking got.”

  Behind her she heard one of the chairs move. Jerry backed her up. “I’m a paramedic too. I’m going.”

  The captain nodded and smiled slightly. “Get your asses on the bird then, aid bags are stowed in the back.”

  Emma started for the door. She heard the Captain ask Craig, “So what, big boy, are you a medic too?”

  She heard Craig say “No, but I can carry a stretcher, I’ll go.”

  Emma skidded to a stop and shot a glance at Vivian. Vivian’s face was white and she held a trembling hand to her head. She ran back to the captain. “Captain, there were four people on the helicopter. How many people does your helicopter hold?”

  “6 plus a pilot.”

  She looked at Craig. Craig nodded. “I’ll stay with Vivian,” he said. His face crumpled ever so slightly. “You come back to me okay?”

  Emma grabbed him and give him a fierce hug. “Of course. I’ll be back here before you know it.” “Vivian I love you!” she yelled as she ran out the door to the small helicopter.

  The captain followed them and climbed into the pilot seat. He picked up a clipboard and looked at it then threw it on the ground. “We don’t have time for this shit right now do we?” He looked at Jerry and then back at Emma, a crazy glint in his eyes.

  Emma scrambled frantically for her seatbelt. The captain flicked on a few switches and started the engine. Emma had only been in a helicopter once before, and that time she was woozy from a blow to the head and laying on a stretcher. Now, sitting up and with all her wits about her, she wasn’t sure she was going to like it. She wasn’t scared of heights but flying always made her anxious. And suddenly the helicopter was lifting. She grabbed the sides of her seats with both hands, digging her fingers into the fabric.

  The way it lifted off the ground was just so different than anything else she was used to. It went straight up and then tipped forward like it was a bucking bronco trying to flip them all out the front windshield. Emma bit back a scream and tried to take a deep, calming breath. She was doing this for a reason. For Hawk. And for Sara, she thought. Oh God, who was going to pick Sara and the hostages up out of the desert now?

  Chapter 20

  “Sara, JT, somebody say something,” Dani yelled again, her eyes planted on the compound behind them. In the next second and a half of silence, a universe of terrifying possibilities played out in her mind, most of them featuring Sara and JT both dead, shot in the head, and her dying of thirst or maybe being eaten by wild animals, alone.

  “I’m here,” JT said.

  “Me too,” Sara’s voice called, sounding pinched but still strong. “You just keep an eye on that wall Dani, you’re doing great.” Dani almost wept with relief.

  Her relief quickly turned to desperate anticipation as she heard a furious, hypersonic, whistling noise that sounded to her like death. Before she could put her head down or shout a warning, the world exploded in front of her. A wall of sand slammed across the distance from the compound to the three of them in an instant.

  Dani felt dirt, dust, and rocks scrape her face and neck and push into her eyes and nose. She screamed and covered her head in one arm, cutting her scream off short when tiny rocks slammed into her teeth and her tongue instantly became coated with dust. With her
other hand, she engaged the safety on the gun and put it in her shirt, trying to protect it from the flying grit. Two more whistling missiles slammed into the compound in front of them. The ground rocked and swayed and more flying debris showered them. Dani covered her head with both hands and curled into a ball, horribly aware of the muzzle of the gun poking in to her chin from under her shirt. The fear of being separated from JT and Sara overtook her again but she didn’t dare open her mouth to call to them.

  Dani felt a hand on her back. “We have to walk out of this,” Sara’s muffled voice yelled in her ear. “Cover your face with your shirt and give me your hand.”

  “You’re not shot?” Dani called back, after pulling the neck of her shirt over her face.

  “I am shot,” Sara said. “But we still need to walk out of this.”

  Dani stood up, holding on to Sara’s clothes and squeezing her eyes shut against the stinging pain of dust and dirt swirling around them. “JT?” Sara called.

  “Over here,” JT said.

  Sara took Dani’s hand and pulled her. Dani couldn’t tell if they were heading towards the compound or away from it. She didn’t know how Sara knew either. Dani tried to let go and trust her. Sara hadn’t failed them yet, but Dani really didn’t want to end up back at the compound. Well, if the compound even existed anymore.

  After a few moments of shuffling, Dani chanced a glance and found that she could see again and the steady rain of debris seemed to have stopped. The dust cloud around them had lessened enough that Dani could see through to open air. She looked to her right and saw Sara, her eyes squeezed shut against the grit, and JT on Sara’s far side.