by Geri Krotow
“Roger, Grizzy.”
Gwen checked the compass heading and was grateful for one small miracle in this hell. She was taking the plane down at the right angle of descent to keep the waves from becoming brick walls lying in wait to destroy the aircraft.
Forgotten images of her life appeared before her in quick succession. The first time she rode her bicycle without training wheels, her dad’s smile, Mom’s hugs, Drew’s first kiss, her graduation from Annapolis.
Their wedding.
Drew.
“This plane is coming down in one piece. We’re all getting out.” It might be the last thing she ever did for them.
“Two hundred feet!” David hadn’t missed a beat.
“One hundred feet!” David’s shout reached Gwen just before she saw the last glint of white-capped waves through the night darkness.
“Hang on!” She pulled back on the yoke with all her strength.
“Fifty feet!”
David’s last report.
“Hands off power levers!” Gwen shouted the order for David to join her in letting go of the power levers and gripping the yoke. They’d lose their fingers if they didn’t release the levers.
For the length of an indrawn gasp, the world stood still as she waited for touchdown. Her mind struggled to convince her that this was like any other landing, the end of any other mission she’d be able to walk away from.
That delusion shattered when the plane hit water. What remained of the two operating engines’ combined ninety-two-hundred shaft horsepower screeched to a halt as metal propellers met the ocean surface with such a violent impact she was sure they were finished. Panic threatened to drown them before their greatest enemy did. The sea.
Not yet.
Water sprayed against the windshield and blinded her. It took all her mental discipline to ride out the ditch, hands on yoke. Each creak, groan and shudder as the aircraft broke apart echoed in her bones.
After interminable moments, the aircraft’s forward motion stopped and the race for their lives began.
“Out, out, out, let’s go!” Gwen used her deepest shout, the one that had its origins in her plebe summer at the Naval Academy, to motivate her crew. Not that they needed any motivation—their quick decisive actions flashed in front of her as if they ditched regularly.
Mac crouched next to her, shoving the copilot out the upper hatch. They were up to their chests in water and jet fuel, so every movement became slow and difficult. Her flight suit provided no protection from the ocean or the thousands of gallons of aviation fuel that had spilled from the torn wing tanks.
“Anyone else?” Mac yelled as he pointed directly above his head to the cockpit hatch.
“No, everyone else will exit the over-wing hatches.” They couldn’t go back to help anyone now, and she had to trust that the rest of the crew had survived the ditch. Her toe met a hard, unmovable steel bulkhead as she fought to hang on to the hatch rim while Mac, the flight engineer, prepared to egress.
Gwen prayed the crew who’d been strapped in back were out over the wing hatches, along with the life rafts. She wouldn’t know until she was out.
The fuselage tilted dangerously forward. They had precious minutes to get out and away from the sinking wreckage.
“Go ahead, Mac.” She gave him a shove and watched as his body disappeared up the hatch. Seconds later Mac’s hand reached down and grabbed the top of her helmet.
“Up here, ma’am! Let me pull you.”
Gwen complied and allowed him to save her life. As the plane commander, Gwen was responsible for each crew member’s life. She had to be the last one out.
She grabbed the edge of the hatch as soon as her arms were past the entrance and pushed herself up into the raging storm. The sting of salt water and the howl of the wind shocked her, and she had to take several gulps of air before she could ascertain where the life rafts were. In doing so, she breathed in the aircraft’s fuel fumes. Her eyes and throat burned and her stomach heaved. She had no choice but to vomit on the spot.
She saw David’s face, illuminated by his flashlight. The copilot was safe with the navigator and the second flight engineer. She couldn’t see any farther into the menacing darkness.
“How many?” Gwen screamed across the waves and the rapidly sinking P-3 to the first of the life rafts.
“All here, XO.”
Gwen couldn’t allow time for relief. She sought out the second and third life rafts.
“We’re missing the TACCO!” The shout from the second raft elicited immediate action from Gwen. Lizzie was still stuck in the aircraft.
Gwen had to go back in and get her.
Lizzie.
Going back the way she’d exited was risky, especially if Lizzie was unconscious. Gwen couldn’t inflate her LPA or she’d never get back in the fuselage. She made a quick guess as to where the over-wing hatch was positioned on the now-sinking aircraft.
She had seconds.
Gwen took a deep breath and dived into the thrashing sea, holding on to the aircraft as a guide. She found the over-wing hatch and went in.
Total darkness meant that feeling her way through the fuel-filled cabin was a challenge, but Gwen knew she had to get Lizzie. Get your shipmate or die with her.
She ignored her need for air and felt forward to the TACCO station. Lizzie was still strapped in her seat, only her face above the waterline.
Gwen drew in great gasps of air as she struggled to release Lizzie’s seat belts.
“C’mon, Lizzie Lady.” She used Lizzie’s call sign and grimaced with relief when her fingers managed to unbuckle Lizzie’s straps.
“You with me, Liz?”
“I’m here. Hit my head.” The whispered reply was all Gwen needed. Lizzie was still alive and had a chance if Gwen could get them out of the destroyed fuselage.
“I need you to take a deep breath. Hang on to me and I’ll do this as fast as I can.”
“I’ll try.”
“Okay. One, two, three.”
Gwen went under with her arm around Lizzie’s chest, pulling her through the totally submerged aft cabin. Their progress was excruciatingly slow and Gwen sent up a prayer that they’d make it to the over-wing hatch.
The fuselage groaned with each wave that hit the steel frame, sounding deadly, final.
Gwen’s fingers caught on the rim of the hatch and she pulled both herself and Lizzie through it. Something scraped her arm and a piece of metal clanged on the top of Gwen’s helmet.
She didn’t stop. She couldn’t, wouldn’t. She was Lizzie’s only chance.
Her own lungs burned and she was afraid that Lizzie had sucked in fuel or seawater in an effort to breathe. Gwen felt the tug of the aircraft’s drag once they were free of the fuselage. They had seconds to clear the area. She reached over to Lizzie’s LPA handle and pulled. Lizzie left Gwen’s arms as though a great arm had stretched down and pulled her up. Gwen grabbed her own beaded handle and yanked. Her LPA inflated and bolted her to surface.
The black spots that she’d tried to fight off dissipated as she gulped in the salty, wet air. She blinked. Lizzie floated a few meters away from her. She swam over and wanted to scream when she saw Lizzie’s closed eyes and blank expression.
Please let her be unconscious, not dead.
She tried to hook their LPAs together but the rough seas only allowed her to clutch Lizzie’s vest collar as they were tossed like pieces of trash.
“XO, over here!”
Gwen couldn’t tell whose voice was behind the flashlight beams as she started swimming toward them, Lizzie in tow.
Get away from the aircraft. Get away. Get away.
Hours of training in simulated ditches had drilled into her the necessity of putting as much distance as possible between her and the ditched craf
t. It was moments from sinking and would take down everything around it.
She pushed and kicked and hung on to Lizzie. After what seemed like hours, they arrived at the side of life raft number two. Number one was attached to the right of it. She couldn’t see the third raft.
“Get her up—she’s injured.” Gwen pushed Lizzie as hard as she could, watching as the hands of two crew members reached over to haul her up.
She saw Lizzie’s boots go over and into the life raft.
She’d done her job. All crew members safe, in their rafts.
“Grab my hand!” The second flight engineer leaned over the raft and held out his arm.
Gwen prayed it wasn’t too late. Exhaustion weakened every muscle and she couldn’t lift her arm out of the water.
“Go, report it.” She wasn’t sure he’d heard her, and the sea spray threatened to choke her each time she opened her mouth.
Drew.
She had to fight, to get back, to get home. A sob escaped her throat as she willed her booted feet, so heavy, to move, damn it! Her life, her hope, was on Whidbey Island.
Not lost at sea.
“Please. Let me get there.” Her words came out as the tiniest of whispers.
She focused on the FE’s outstretched hand and dug deep for the core of her will, her remaining physical strength, to grasp it.
To save her life.
A wave crashed over her and made it impossible.
If she was going to survive, it would be on her own. She didn’t have control over the ocean any more than she did the memories that clawed at her.
The family room with its woodstove burning while the Christmas tree twinkled... She and Drew wrapped in each other’s arms in front of the fire.
CHAPTER ONE
Six months later
“YOU’VE GAINED TWENTY-SIX degrees in your mobility over the last six months, Helen.” Drew smiled at his prize patient and snapped his protractor closed. Helen Burkoven was sixty-two, and had presented with a frozen right shoulder, due in part to her competitive tennis practice of the past fifty years. She made a lot of his younger clients appear lazy.
“I can’t tell you how great it is to be able to pull weeds again, Drew. The brambles had taken over my rose garden!”
“As long as you keep doing the exercises we’ve gone over, you’ll be fine—but take it easy on the tennis court, okay?”
Helen grunted and walked over to the chair, where she waited while Drew got an ice gel pack out of the chiller.
He arranged the pillow under her arm to make her more comfortable before he placed the gel pack over her injured shoulder.
Helen groaned in pleasure. “Oh, that always feels so good after all the work you make me do.”
“Sit tight and enjoy. You’re free to go in fifteen minutes.” He set the timer near Helen’s chair and went to see his other client, Tom, who was doing leg exercises for his knee on a wheeled office chair.
Drew relished the modern layout of his clinic. One large room held the equipment and therapy tables for up to six clients at a time.
“How’s it going, Tom?”
“Fine, doc. But I feel like a crab on the beach, walking around while I’m sitting on this stool.”
“It’s going to help your knees, trust me.”
“Drew?” Serena Delgado, his receptionist, interrupted him.
Drew looked at her sharply, but his annoyance dissipated at the stunned expression on her beautiful face. Whatever it was, she wouldn’t express it in front of his clients. Serena didn’t normally interrupt his consultations. The last time she’d burst in like this—
Gwen’s plane had gone down.
That was well over six months ago, but damned if he didn’t tense up and expect Serena to give him more bad news.
There isn’t anything worse than knowing Gwen’s never coming home.
“You have some visitors. It’s very important.”
The dread that had simmered in his gut since the minute he’d learned Gwen was missing erupted into an all-out boil.
They’ve found her body.
As much as every piece of naval intelligence that he’d been told about, not to mention logic, indicated that Gwen had perished in the South Pacific six months ago, he’d held out hope. That she’d survived—that she’d come back. That, somehow, against all the odds, she’d made it.
He shook off the fantasy.
If she’d lived, if she came back, they’d only be the friends they’d become since the divorce.
“Drew?” Serena stared at him. He swung his gaze to Helen, his rotator cuff patient. She hadn’t said a word, but she wasn’t deaf. Her eyes sparked with knowing. Hell, the whole town knew what he’d been through. The P-3 ditch. Gwen’s role in it—she’d saved her crew. The entire damned crew had returned safely to Whidbey Island. To their families.
Except Gwen.
Gwen didn’t have a family to return to anymore. Only him, her ex-husband, and their shared pets. The island newspaper had detailed Gwen’s naval career as well as her personal bio, including their divorce. Her MIA status had been picked up by the national news, as well.
While locals like Helen knew an awful lot more about his personal life than he’d choose, they didn’t know the half of it.
“Go ahead, Drew. You’re done with me.” Helen’s eyes didn’t twinkle any longer, and her expression was gentle. Motherly. “We’re all praying for you.”
“Thanks.”
After a quick nod at Helen, he followed Serena to the back office, behind the therapy room.
He stopped at the threshold when he saw the occupants.
“Ro.”
Lieutenant Commander Roanna Mikowski, his wife’s best friend since they’d been midshipmen at the Naval Academy, stood with her hands clasped in front of her. She was still on active duty, but had put in her resignation so she could remain in the same place as her husband, Chief Warrant Officer Miles Mikowski. A stab of envy broke through his shock as he saw the obviously happy couple.
Why couldn’t Gwen have resigned, too?
It wouldn’t change who we both are. We’d still be divorced.
Miles stood next to Ro and offered Drew a slight smile. “Drew.”
“Miles.”
Silence stretched between them. They’d shared an awful lot of grief these past several months. Tension seemed to crackle off Ro and Miles. They were going to confirm his worst fears, the news they’d all dreaded.
“Do I need to sit down?” His voice sounded sane, steady, but he couldn’t feel his mouth move with the words.
“Yes.” They spoke in unison, then glanced at each other. It was the kind of look that only a couple who knew and deeply loved each other exchanged. Drew missed that kind of intimacy.
He sank into the leather office chair, unable to relax.
“Spit it out.” He wanted to run away, leave the office, leave Oak Harbor, charter a flight off Whidbey Island. Destination: Anywhere But Here.
It wouldn’t change the truth.
“Drew, they’ve found Gwen.” Ro’s voice was low and steady. He gave her credit for being so strong.
He couldn’t stop the tears that squeezed past his closed eyes. “Where?”
“Drew, look at me. You don’t understand.”
He opened his eyes and saw that Ro’s eyes glistened with unshed tears, too.
“She’s alive, Drew. She made it.”
“She—” His voice crapped out on him. Miles nodded in affirmation. Relief bloomed in his chest. And then common sense shut it down.
“That’s impossible.”
“Ro’s not kidding, Drew. She’s alive! She was caught by insurgents but escaped from their prison camp after two weeks.”
Gwen. Alive.
Drew jumped out of the chair and grabbed the edge of his desk. “Where was she for the past five months? Where is she now?”
“Apparently, she found a small village where she hid out until she had a chance to walk out of the jungle. She got to our embassy in Manila via the Philippine government, once she was able to reach them. She saved a baby’s life while she was out there.” Ro paused. “That, of course, is classified.”
He blinked, grateful that Ro was willing to risk telling him something she probably shouldn’t have.
“I appreciate it, Ro.” He turned to each of them. “Thanks for sharing this with me. I’ll call her mother.”
Ro shook her head. “She’s probably already called her. It’s going to hit the news any moment.”
“Got it.” Drew was grateful they’d come and told him in person, so he wouldn’t hear it first on the radio or see it on TV. Now he needed them out of here. They were waiting for a reaction he couldn’t give them. No matter what he’d told them when Gwen had gone missing, it didn’t change who he and Gwen were. They were friends. Exes who’d outgrown their youthful first love.
“She’ll be coming home in about a week. She’s being flown from Manila to Seattle, and examined down at Madigan for several days.” Madigan Army Hospital was three hours away, south of Seattle.
“I’m sure they’ll take good care of her,” he said. “She’s tough, we all know that.” He stood up as if to go into the therapy room. It had to be enough of a hint for them.
“No, Drew, stop.” Ro walked around the desk and put her hand on his arm. He stared down at her hand.
“She needs some time to come to grips with it all, to adjust to the reality that she got out of there alive.”
“You talked to her?”
“No, not yet. I’m telling you this ahead of the call you’re going to get from the commodore. I couldn’t bear the thought of you finding out alone. We wanted to be with you.”
He looked at Ro, then Miles.
“You know this doesn’t change anything,” Drew said. “We’ll never be more than friends.” He didn’t mean to say that out loud, but there it was.