The Heart's Command

by Rachel Lee

  Within moments, the blades of the orange-and-white helicopter began to turn, faster and faster. The trembling and shaking was soothing to Brie; her raw nerves settled down and grew calmer as she relaxed, snugly ensconced in her seat. As the pilot, Niall sat in the right-hand seat. Normally, they'd have a swimmer and a crew chief on board. Because this was not a standard search and rescue, they had neither. They were alone in a tight little space, and Brie's heart was pounding unrelentingly in her breast. Niall was so close! Her heart screamed out in anguish, in need of him. Brie fought the feeling.

  Outside in the slashing rain, the crew chief gave the signal for them to taxi to the takeoff point. The Lihue Airport, which served civilian flights as well as Coast Guard aircraft, was well lit in the blackness as Niall notched up the power and the helo began to trundle slowly forward.

  Just the movement of the helo soothed more of Brie's fractious state. She was busy monitoring the dials, her gaze sweeping from left to right across the console. Her job as copilot wouldn't be too demanding on this trip. It would be a pretty dull and boring flight in one respect. In a way, Brie was glad this was a black ops mission because she didn't want the pressure and stress of a rescue at sea on top of everything else she was presently experiencing.

  Within minutes they were airborne and heading out over the inky darkness of the Pacific Ocean. Niall guided the helicopter to three thousand feet and leveled off. The aircraft rocked and jostled from the gusting fifty-mile-an-hour winds, which slammed into them repeatedly. His grip on the cyclic and collective was firm and steady. Rain slashed across the windshield. It was impossible to see very well and they were flying blind. Niall's constantly roving gaze never left the control panel in front of him. For now, they had to fly on instruments only. To try and fly visually in this deteriorating weather would be folly. Helicopters over water created a special visual illusion for pilots at the best of times, and if they relied on their eyes instead of their instruments, they could crash.

  "Bad night," Brie muttered unhappily, trying to defrost the icy tension in the cockpit.

  "Yeah, it is," Niall grumbled. In more ways than one. He yearned to say something neutral, something less acidic, but his anger was spiking, and hurt writhed within him like a wounded snake.

  Frowning, Brie felt a chill go through her, despite the special one-piece suit she, like Niall, wore over her normal flight suit. It was highly insulated and waterproof, so that in case they crashed into the chilly ocean, they wouldn't die of hypothermia—at least not right away. Even though the Pacific currents were balmier around the Hawaiian Islands, the sea wasn't that warm and a person could die of exposure. The suit was bulky and ill fitting. Normally, Brie sweated in it, but the chill working its way up her spine caught her attention. As she moved the flight log aside and placed it behind her seat, she couldn't shake the bad feeling she had.

  The pleasant green glow of light from the cockpit panel was the only illumination in the inky night surrounding them. Even though the helo shuddered and shook, the roar of the engines was muted to a degree by her helmet. Niall's profile was stern and tense looking. Flying in this weather was not easy. Every few seconds the helicopter would shimmy and shake, fighting the powerful up- and downdrafts created by the hurricane. Or it would slide sideways, to the right or left. Niall had his hands full trying to keep the, chopper on an even flight path.

  Tucking her lower lip between her teeth, Brie wondered if she should offer to help fly the mission. Usually, pilot and copilot would trade off on long flights. Especially on nights like this, when battling the storm took all of the pilot's attention, creating high stress levels. Even the best of pilots could become fatigued, their senses dulled. Then it became dangerous for everyone on board.

  To heck with it. She sighed and said, "If you want me to take over at any point, let me know."

  Niall responded instantly to her low, husky tone. Brie had a voice he'd loved from the moment he'd met her, so long ago. It was like warm, melting honey flowing soothingly, like a balm, across his tense body. Hearing her voice always calmed his fractious state. A Type-A personality, Niall was always highstrung and often stressed out. Brie was a Type-B personality—low-key and easygoing. She seemed to be able to cope with demands in a completely different way.

  "Maybe," he muttered. "I'll see how it goes."

  Well, at least he was talking to her. Brie felt a little of her tension dissolve. His tone was less abrasive. Less accusatory. "Nasty night," she commented, hoping to tamp down the tension still lingering between them.

  "Yeah, helluva night." Giving Brie a quick glance out the side of his eyes, Niall saw her face soften as he spoke to her. She was so damned attractive. All woman. He remembered holding her—how rounded and soft and velvety she felt in his arms. Stop it. Stop remembering. Niall fought himself. Fought the past, which was now glaring into his present world and life. He wanted to run, but there was no place to go, no place to hide from her or their unhealed past.

  Spreading the map across her thighs, Brie studied it in the pale green light. Green was restful on the eyes, the best color for night work. To use a flashlight would destroy their night vision. On this flight, she was the navigator, and she gave Niall coordinates and told him to change course. "You ever been over Tortoise Isle?" she asked then.

  Shaking his head, he said, "No. Closest I've come to it was an SAR about six months ago, roughly twenty miles south of it. A yacht got in trouble in heavy seas in that area, took on too much water and called in a mayday to us."

  "You ended up rescuing the crew?"

  "Yeah, parents and a kid."

  She smiled slightly. "I'm sure they were glad to see you show up."

  Nodding, Niall tried to keep focused on his flying, watching the instruments. He didn't want to engage Brie in conversation. A sudden, violent gust of wind slapped into the helicopter. Hissing a curse, he got the chopper back under control, but only after they'd dropped a good fifty feet. His stomach had lurched up into his throat. He'd heard Brie gasp. Did she question his ability to fly now, too? Anger riddled him.

  "Stop acting like a greenhorn student pilot, will you? I don't need any jeers or cheers from my copilot."

  Brie glared at him. His face was set like stone and she saw perspiration dotting his furrowed brow. A memory of how they had argued came back to her. Lips tightening, she withheld the angry salvo she was going to fire at him.

  Brie knew this flight would be tough on any seasoned pilot. Looking down at the map, she continued to give him navigation information, as appropriate. Looking at her watch, she saw that in another thirty minutes they'd be at the twenty-mile mark they were heading for. On the console she saw a small black box that had been hooked into their electrical and electronic systems. Turning the dial to the specified position, Brie switched the machine on.

  Their fuel was being eaten up rapidly by having to fight the massive headwind, but Brie knew Niall had calculated how much would be needed for the flight. Still, she thought, studying the gauge, the fuel was lowering rapidly. That worried her, but she said nothing. The heater was on in the cockpit and that, plus the all-weather suit she wore, kept her warm.

  "We're going to arrive at Alpha in ten minutes," she told Niall as she looked at her watch. Alpha was the twenty-mile limit point. If there was no signal detected, it meant they could turn around and fly back to base.

  "Okay," he grunted. The helicopter was wobbling and shaking in earnest from the constant beating of the hurricane's winds. "If I didn't know better, I'd say we're hitting seventy- or eighty-mile-an-hour gusts."

  "Yes, I agree." At eighty miles an hour, a search and rescue was called off. "Want me to contact meteorology?" Brie knew that if she did, and they confirmed that the winds were at maximum, the mission would be canceled. They were almost on target, and to turn back now would be such a waste. But that was Niall's call to make, not hers.

  Shaking his head, he said, "No. Just send a radio report of our position now."

  "Roger." B
rie picked up the radio and gave their position in latitude and longitude, then signed off.

  As her gaze flicked across the panel, she saw the needle that indicated engine heat shooting into the red zone. If an engine overheated it could burst into flame or worse, the power of the hurricane was a terrible stress on the engine. "Niall..."

  Before Brie could say anything more, there was an explosion, the sound like a cannon going off around them. Automatically ducking her head, Brie saw sparks and then fire shooting out above the cabin. Instantly, the helicopter began hurtling downward.

  A curse ripped from Niall's lips. He grabbed the cyclic and collective hard and frantically worked the yaw pedals beneath his booted feet. "Call in a may-day!" he croaked. His mind whirled. A bad ball bearing could have caused this situation.

  The engines stopped. The chopper's blades floundered, then waffled unsteadily in the gale-force winds.

  They were going down. Down into the black, unseen ocean below.

  Brie grabbed the mike on the radio and thumbed it on. She made the call.

  The helicopter was sinking like a rock! They were at thirty-five hundred feet. She heard Niall grunt. Valiantly, he worked the yaw pedals to straighten out the flailing helicopter. Brie found herself jerked violently back and forth as he fought to gain the upper hand on the plummeting aircraft. They were going to crash! The thought was the last one Brie entertained. After making the call, her mind went into overdrive. The station had a last mayday fix on their location. They would send someone out to rescue them.

  But first they had to survive the helicopter crashing into the ocean, and climb out before it sank and took them down with it. A helicopter didn't float. It was like a huge boulder in the sky, with four blades to keep it aloft.

  Brie's mind flicked over egress procedures. Escape from a helo was via the sliding door on the starboard side of the fuselage. She would be responsible for getting out of her harness first, to make her way back to it before they sank and couldn't escape. Her other responsibility was to not only open the door, but retrieve the uninflated life raft hanging on the bulkhead opposite it.

  Abruptly, the instruments went dead, because there was no electricity being generated by the spinning blades and engine. The cockpit went black. They were being slammed around. The harness straps bit deeply into Niall's tense shoulders as he tried valiantly to pull up the nose of the helicopter. They were sinking fast! He had no idea of their altitude or when they'd hit the water. He could see nothing out the windows. Rain slashed around them, preventing him from a visual. They were blind. Completely blind. And they were going to crash. Would they survive? Suddenly, in that second, all his anger toward Brie was ripped away. Niall didn't want her to die! She was too beautiful. Too kind. Too loving... In the next moment, he bitterly regretted how their marriage had turned out. If only... If only they'd had a second chance! But that was impossible now.

  Brie sucked in a breath as the helicopter, nose up, slammed into the Pacific Ocean. The aircraft screeched and grated as it hit that massive and invisible wall of water. A second later, pain shot up her back and into her head from the crash.

  "Get out!" Niall roared.

  Instantly, Brie fumbled with her harness closures, trying to release them with her gloved fingers. Seconds dragged like hours. Come on! Come on! Lips pursed, she scrambled to find the openings.

  The helicopter lurched and her hands flew away from her body. Slamming into the side panel, Brie gasped. Quickly, blindly, she sought the harness closure once more and tugged at it, trying to get it open. Yes! Unsnapping her harness, Brie twisted around and lurched between the seats toward the cargo area behind.

  Landing hard on her hands and knees, she found saltwater splashing up around her. Gasping again, she struggled to stand. The aircraft was turning slowly, like a wounded whale. It was listing to port, groaning. She could hear the metal being torn by the fingers of the greedy, grasping ocean. Water sloshed ankle deep around her boots. Unable to see anything, Brie fumbled along the fuselage panel, hunting wildly for the door latch. There! Hands shaking, she pulled on it.

  Jammed! It was jammed from the crash. "No!" Brie cried. "It's jammed! I can't open it, Niall! Help me! Help!" Her voice was swallowed up by the burping, gurgling sounds of water entering the wallowing helicopter, which listed even more as it bobbed in the waves.

  Behind her, Brie heard Niall groping his way out of the cockpit in the unforgiving blackness. His hand hit her hip and he gripped her hard. The aircraft tipped more to port, almost upside down.

  "The door!" Niall gasped. "Open it!"

  "It's jammed!" Brie cried. "Help me!"

  Fumbling, Niall held on to her, wrapping his left arm around her waist to stop them from being thrown against the side of the chopper. Thrusting out his right hand, he followed her arm to where she was holding on to the door, and slid his gloved fingers through the latch.

  "Let go," he ordered, breathing raggedly.

  Instantly, Brie pulled her hand away, and fell backward. Slamming into the port side of the helo, she practically had the wind knocked out of her before she fell to the deck.

  Cold and numbing saltwater enveloped her. Briefly, she was underwater, but getting her feet under her, she surged upward. Coughing violently, eyes stinging, she tried to stay upright. If they didn't get out of here in a few seconds, they were going to drown. The helicopter was beginning to sink.

  With a curse, Niall wrenched back with all his weight and strength. The door was starting to give. Again he jerked at it. Water was gushing in past him now, nearly sweeping him off his feet. One more pull...

  The door finally screeched and slid open.

  "Brie!" he screamed. "Where are you?" He turned and clung to the door opening as the helo rolled completely over on its port side.

  "Here!" Brie scrambled upward, with the raft held tightly in her left hand. Somehow she'd managed to release it from the port fuselage. "The raft! Here's the life raft!" she yelled. "Take it! Take it!"

  Niall grunted as his groping hand struck the tightly rolled pack that contained the dingy. Brie's hand was locked beneath the strap. He hauled both toward him in a feat of strength that would have been impossible without the adrenaline beating wildly through his bloodstream now.

  Blindly, they leaped off the helicopter's lip and into the grasping, cold waters of the ocean. Niall had a firm grip on the shoulder of Brie's flight suit. He kicked out hard and fast to get away from the aircraft as it burbled and started to slide downward. The sucking, spinning whirlpool left in the wake of the sinking helicopter pulled powerfully at their heavy, waterlogged boots.

  Water deluged Niall. He went under, his hand still tight on Erie's shoulder. No way was he going to let her go! But his flight boots were like concrete weights, pulling him down.

  Instead of fighting to surface, he fumbled for the cord of his life vest. When he jerked on it, the vest instantly inflated. That alone helped pop him to the surface.

  The roar of the ocean surrounded Niall as he shot above water. Air! He could breathe! Sobbing for air, he anxiously tugged at Brie again, hauling her upward. When she surfaced, he heard her cough violently.

  "Inflate your vest!" he cried hoarsely. With it deployed, they wouldn't have to try and swim to keep their heads above water. He heard the hissing sound that told him it was inflating. Again Brie choked and coughed.

  Niall's fingers ached from holding on to the shoulder of her weather suit. But never would he let her go. Never. Raising his other hand, he pulled Brie against him, so they were face-to-face, body-to-body. If for even a second, he let her go he knew he'd lose her in this storm. The violent surging of the waves would quickly separate them and they'd never find one another again.

  "The raft!" Brie choked out. "We've got to inflate it!" And she fumbled for the releases.

  Managing to get the flashlight attached to his vest flicked on, Niall did the most important thing next. There was a special hook and nylon cord, located on the front of each vest. He took his
hook and fastened it securely to the front of Brie's vest, so that no matter what happened, they couldn't be separated by the angry ocean. With her attached to him, he trained his flashlight beam on the raft she was still holding on to with a death grip.

  Releasing the straps, he found the valve that would initiate inflation. The moment he pulled it out, a loud hissing began. Within minutes the flotation device blew up into a yellow rubber raft.

  Brie gave a cry of joy as the raft inflated fully. That meant it hadn't sustained any punctures or cuts during the crash or egress. It was a small, two-person raft with barely enough room for both of them, but with it, at least, they had a shot at survival.

  "You first," Niall shouted above the roar of the ocean. Wind and rain splattered his tense face. He helped Brie clamber awkwardly into the raft. She floundered drunkenly, the weight of the suit pulling her downward, making each of her efforts seem to be in slow motion. Her flight boots were filled with water, making it hard to maneuver. Setting his hand beneath her buttocks as she threw her arms over the side of the raft, Niall pushed upward with all his strength. Brie slid unceremoniously into the raft, arms and legs akimbo. The three-foot lifeline went taut as she turned and reached out to help him climb on board.

  "Give me your hand!" Brie cried, straining toward him. In the light of the flashlight tucked in Niall's vest she could see that his tense face was glistening with seawater. His eyes were hard and narrowed. Brie felt his large hand wrap around one of hers. In moments, he had hauled himself into the raft. Safe! They were safe!

  Gulping unsteadily, Brie watched as Niall maneuvered his bulk to balance the raft so it wouldn't overturn. There was a special hook and tether line that could be attached to their life vest. Hands shaking badly, Brie got the device and snapped it to the front of her vest and then Niall's. That way, if they were washed overboard by a huge wave, they wouldn't lose their raft.