by Mel Odom
Helen turned a final corner and stopped. She pointed at a room at the end and on the right. “He’s down there. I’ve already delivered a snack to him. Chocolate milk and Oreos. Decidedly and deliberately unhealthy. That kid can use the extra calories. He’s skinny as a rake handle.”
“I know,” Megan said. She took a deep breath. “Thanks, Helen.”
A troubled look twisted Helen’s features. “Something you should know.” Megan waited, guessing that she knew what the woman was going to tell her.
“I asked Dr. Carson to wait out of respect for you because I like you and I like how you do your job,” Helen said in a quietly serious voice. “And because I think it will help if you talk to Gerry about it before it happens.” He let out a breath. “The doctor and I are reporting his father this time, Megan.”
“For what?”
“For beating that child,” Helen said. She crossed her arms and lifted her chin. “I couldn’t do anything about the bicycle wreck Gerry claimed to have had. But this.” She shook her head. “I know he’s not telling the truth tonight.”
“How?”
“Those bruises and that dislocated shoulder are hours old. Even the blood on the scratches was so dry it was flaking. Gerry waited a long time before he came here.”
Megan digested that. The thought of the small boy lying in his bed, hurting and scared, waiting for his father to go to sleep to steal off quietly to the hospital hurt her. One of Boyd’s pet peeves, brought out in conversations with Gerry, was that his son wasn’t tough enough and got mollycoddled by his mother. It was things like this that Megan had seen in her practice that sometimes caused her to question her faith in God. Children were so innocent, and yet they were victimized in so many ways.
“I think his father beat him earlier,” Helen said quietly, “and I think Gerry knew his arm was hurt badly enough that he had to do something about it. He was in a lot of pain when he got here.”
“Is he afraid to go home?”
“No. As a matter of fact, he was ready to leave as soon as Dr. Carson finished putting his arm in a sling. I told him we were waiting on X rays.”
“He doesn’t know I’m coming?”
Helen shook her head. “I was afraid if we told him that he might panic.”
“He’s going to panic when he sees me.”
“Yeah. Probably.” Helen put her hands on Megan’s shoulders. “You’re a good counselor, Megan. I know you can handle Gerry and his fears just fine. The trick is to get him to tell the truth about his father.”
“That’s going to be hard,” Megan said. “As much as Gerry is afraid of his father, he loves him just as fiercely.”
“I know. But if you can get him to talk, do it. To save this kid, we’re going to need his testimony.”
“His dad is going to go ballistic when he finds out that Gerry came to the hospital.”
“I’m going to make sure we have MPs here when we have to deal with him,” Helen promised. The military police took care of all criminal matters that occurred on the base.
“How is Gerry now?” That’s the main thing, Megan told herself. Start there. Don’t think about Boyd Fletcher and how bad things are going to get when he shows up.
“The doctor has him stabilized and relatively pain-free. He’s even got him amused. ESPN runs twenty-four hours a day. There’s a big basketball game from out on the West Coast.” Helen smiled sadly. “Kids are incredible, you know? They go through so much, and they love so completely in spite of whatever bad things they endure.” She sighed. “I just can’t imagine what this world would be like without children.”
Megan thought of Chris, picturing her son sleeping in the borrowed bed as she’d last seen him. Before Goose, she’d never imagined having another child. In fact, she’d never imagined being happy again. Yet, here she was.
The fact that Gerry Fletcher was waiting for her darkened her thoughts. She looked at the other woman. “How long do I have before you and Dr. Carson file a report with the MPs?”
“I’ll give you thirty minutes.”
Megan winced at the deadline. “Thirty minutes isn’t enough time to prepare Gerry for the things he’s going to have to go through in addition to what he’s already been through.”
“Megan,” Helen said, “I’m sorry, but it’s what we’ve got. I don’t want to deal with this any more than you do, but I will. I don’t want to see Gerry taken away from his parents even for a few days, but Boyd Fletcher has to get some counseling.”
“I know.”
Helen pushed her breath out. “Hey, I’m not mad at you.”
“I know that, too. This is just a bad situation all the way around.” Megan glanced at her watch. “Thirty minutes. Starting now?”
Helen nodded. “If you need anything, there’s an intercom in the room. Let me know.”
“I will.” Megan turned and walked toward the room. She focused her thoughts, drawing in a deep breath then emptying her lungs. She wished she were less tired, more awake. She wished Joey and Chris were both home. She wished Goose was safe. Then she prayed that what she could do tonight would be good enough to change Gerry’s life for the better.
7
Turkey
30 Klicks South of Sanliurfa
Local Time 0707 Hours
Working with the quick efficiency that military life had trained him for, Goose divided his team into two five-man units that began organizing the rescue and evacuation. Each team was equipped with a complete medkit from the RSOVs. He placed Dean Hardin, a no-nonsense Texan with more than a decade of service—including combat experience—in charge of the second unit. But Goose kept Bill with him.
Hardin’s group took the east side of Glitter City while Goose’s took the west. “Keep your weps up at all times,” the sergeant told his men. “Until we’re told otherwise, we’re going to believe we’re in a hostile zone and the Syrians are just about to top the ridge.”
Despite the cries of the wounded, the sounds from burning vehicles and structures, the exploding thunder of artillery in the distance that spoke of continued conflict along the border, Goose heard silence. He missed the constant flow of information that streamed down through military channels over the headset. That noise had been with him for years, at once aggravating and reassuring. Although his father didn’t often talk about his own tours as a special forces Green Beret, Goose had always been aware that he fought a different battle than his father had. The modern fighting warrior lived and died by the flow of information.
From what Goose could tell on his preliminary survey, nearly 80 percent of the people who had been in Glitter City at the time of the attack had been wiped out. Goose guessed from the craters in the hillsides as well as the SCUDs lying around that hadn’t detonated that less than half the missiles had struck the town. But the ones that had made it had almost been enough to do the job.
Nearly half of those who had survived the attack were wounded. Most of the injuries were serious and would require hospitalization. Sanliurfa, the closest city with medical care, lay thirty klicks to the north and east. If a medical convoy took care, they could make the trip in twenty to forty minutes, but they were already twenty-four minutes into the ninety-minute window of opportunity they had to escape the next wave of SCUDs.
And that was only assuming the Syrians had fired everything they had loaded in the first attack. Goose wished again that the communications were back on line. They hadn’t received any reinforcements to help handle casualties, and that—along with the constant rolling barrage of artillery—led him to believe that fighting along the border was hot and heavy. The need inside him to be back out there on the front lines with his men was almost overwhelming.
“Over here,” someone yelled. “I’m trapped.”
Goose swiveled, tracking the voice. A coughing fit followed, breaking up the repeated cry. The haze of dust continued to eddy around the area. Goose was beginning to doubt that the dust would ever settle entirely.
Eight people had
joined Goose’s five-man team. Thirteen was an inauspicious number, and he couldn’t help thinking that most people thought the number had become unlucky as a result of Jesus’ last supper with the apostles. Judas Iscariot had been the thirteenth man at the table, and Judas had betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. The number bothered Goose a little. He didn’t consider himself overly superstitious, but that number of able-bodied men seemed to stay the same and never grow.
Further irritation came when some of the cameramen and reporters refused to help aid the wounded and search through the dead, choosing instead to shoot footage of the bombed town. Some of them claimed to be concerned about the possibility of AIDS, while others simply couldn’t deal with the reality of sorting through corpses for survivors. Goose wanted to order the men to work, but he knew his likelihood of success in getting them to help was remote.
By now, Goose carried a crowbar in addition to the M-4A1 slung over his shoulder. His knuckles and palms were torn and bleeding, barked raw from handling broken rock, jagged metal, and shattered glass.
“Here,” Bill called, crouching beside a tumble of rock that had once been a building.
Goose joined his friend, listening to a reporter’s voice breaking in the background as the man tried to relate what had just happened to a cameraman. Shifting his LCE, Goose slid his M-4A1 from his shoulder and handed the weapon to Steve Dockery, a battle-seasoned corporal. Taking a moment to survey the pile of debris, Goose hefted his crowbar.
“Gonna have to be careful,” Bill advised. He hooked a finger into his kerchief, brought it down past his chin, and shook off the mud that clung to the material. His face, protected by the kerchief, looked clean and white against the dirt that covered his goggles and the rest of his face. “We move this wrong, the whole thing’s gonna come down.”
Goose nodded in agreement. He turned to his group. “Dockery, Cusack, stand guard. Evaristo, you’re with Bill and me. The rest of you people form a line. We’re going to shift the small stuff, then try to pull this wall section back without toppling it.”
The eight civilian volunteers, two of them women, formed a line. During the last few frantic minutes of rescue operations, they had learned the drill.
Bill took point on the salvage, having the steadiest and surest hands, the quickest eye, and an unshakable faith that they were going to be able to rescue the people who were left. He selected rocks from the jumbled stone and started passing them back, uncovering the wall section that had fallen precariously into the V-shaped corner of the building that remained.
Sand had rushed down the hillside in a wave, running over the back of the building and flooding the interior through the windows. The sand had become a threat to the person inside, but it was probably the only thing that allowed the man to survive.
Bill handed rocks back like a machine, able to make his selection from the myriad of stones before him, seize it, heft it, and pass it to Goose.
Standing almost knee-deep in the loose sand, Goose grabbed the chunk of rock. His hands burned and ached with the effort. Muscles cramped in his back. Sand and small debris had managed to get inside his BDU and under the Kevlar vest. Anchored by the constant stream of perspiration that covered him, the sand and grit chafed at him. He pushed himself past the discomfort, thinking of the people they had yet to save and the ones who would be lost if they didn’t hurry.
The next person in the rock removal line was a woman in her late twenties. She was a brunette with dark eyes, dressed in torn khakis and a light purple blouse. Her hair was cropped short, ending at about the nape of her neck. She was slender, and the way she handled herself told Goose that she kept in shape.
She took the chunk of rock from Goose’s hands. Pain and fear registered in her eyes as she looked at his face. The rough use had torn skin from her hands and forearms. Bloody patches held clots of sand that Goose knew had to be uncomfortable. But she kept at the work, swinging around and passing the rock to the next person in line.
Goose took the next rock Bill handed him. He handed it to the woman.
“Danielle,” she said as she took the rock. She turned to pass the stone on, then turned back to Goose. “My name.”
“Oh.” Goose handed her the current rock, swiveled, and reached for the next.
“Danielle Vinchenzo. I’m a reporter with FOX News.” Danielle coughed, choking on dust.
“Sergeant Samuel Gander, ma’am,” Goose responded.
“I work this hard for you, Sergeant,” Danielle said, “I’m going to want an interview.” She coughed again but kept shifting rock.
“If we get out of here alive,” a heavyset man with a florid face said.
“We’ll get out alive,” Goose said with conviction.
The man made a show of looking around at the carnage that had been left of Glitter City. “A lot of people haven’t.”
Goose didn’t have anything to say to that.
A few minutes later, Bill had finished clearing the leaning wall section. He surveyed what was left, then looked at Goose. “We could try to dig him out, Sarge. Sand’s loose enough, and it would make quick work.”
“But the sand’s helping hold the wall back,” Goose said, realizing the difficulty they faced.
“Yep.” Bill took his helmet off, wiped his forehead with a grimy arm, and clapped it back in place. “We’re gonna have to get it off.”
“We’ll bring the section up with the crowbars,” Goose instructed, his mind quickly providing a possible solution to the problem. “Brace the section with rocks, then keep raising till we get the clearance we need.” He chose a relatively flat rock, hollowed out a place under the fallen wall, and set the rock into place.
Bill did the same.
“Hurry,” the man cried out from under the rock. “It’s getting … hard … to … breathe … in here.” The voice sounded weaker, and constant fits of coughing and retching echoed within.
When both crowbars were in place, Goose swapped looks with Bill. “On three,” Goose said. He counted. On three, he pulled up on the crowbar, straining everything he had. Black spots swam in his vision and he felt dizzy.
Slowly, inexorably, the wall section shifted, coming up a few inches. Sand flooded in from the sides, filling the cavity that had been left by the partial collapse.
The man inside screamed in terror. “It’s falling! It’s falling!”
United States of America
Fort Benning, Georgia
Local Time 12:18 A.M.
“Gerry,” Megan said softly.
The boy sat up in the middle of the hospital bed. His unruly auburn hair stuck out in places from uncontrollable cowlicks. Freckles spattered the bridge of his nose. His hazel eyes remained fixed in awe on the television suspended from the ceiling in the corner of the room. His right arm hung in a clean white sling. Gauze pads covered scrapes on his arms and legs. He wore sweat pants with the knee out and a long-sleeved sweatshirt.
Megan knew Gerry had worn the sweats to try to hide the bruises on his arms, legs, and back. She sat quietly beside the bed, trying to keep herself relaxed in spite of everything rocketing through her mind. Watching the basketball game on television was grueling when she knew Goose was in action—in danger, she amended. She wanted to switch over to one of the news channels, but she tried to convince herself that if ESPN wasn’t interrupting the live game broadcast with news of the military engagement in Turkey, things couldn’t be too bad.
“Gerry,” Megan tried again.
The boy pointed at the television screen. “Did you see that?” he asked excitedly. “Did you see that?”
During the past twelve minutes of the precious thirty Helen Cordell had graciously allotted, Megan had talked basketball with the boy, mostly listening. She had picked up some of the players’ names. Only a minute or two ago, Gerry had bemoaned the fact that the Knicks guard was scoring on the Lakers player. Gerry was a major Lakers fan.
“Gerry,” Megan said in a slightly sterner voice. “We’re going to
have to talk about what happened tonight.”
Without looking at her, Gerry drew away, curling himself into a ball. He drew his legs up, wrapped his uninjured arm around his knees, and protectively cradled his injured arm between his stomach and his thighs. His attention never wavered from the screen.
Thankfully, the Lakers called for a time-out and the station shifted to a commercial.
“Gerry, are you listening to me?”
“Yes, Mrs. Gander.” The boy reached for the half-empty bottle of chocolate milk on the tray beside the bed. He made certain the cap was on tightly, then shook the bottle vigorously.
The action reminded Megan of Joey at that age, and sometimes even now. When she saw him. Between school, his friends, and the part-time job at the small café in Columbus, whole days passed lately that she and her eldest son spent only minutes together. But where Joey took chocolate milk as a given, Gerry seemed to treasure the bottle he had, doling it out to himself in small sips.
“We need to talk,” Megan said.
“About what?” Gerry kept checking the television screen, but he was studiously ignoring her. He took an Oreo from the small pile of cookies on the paper plate and unscrewed the treat. He licked at the white filling.
“Your fall.”
Gerry shrugged. A twinge of pain flashed across his face, blanching his cheeks white under his freckles. “I just fell.”
“From the roof of your house?”
“Yeah.” He licked at the cookie again tentatively.
“What were you doing on top of the house?”
“Looking at the stars.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I guess because I like stars.”
Megan went with that patiently, knowing the clock was working against her and that the commercial on television couldn’t last forever. “What do you like about stars?”
“I don’t know.”
“Have you looked at them before?”
“Yeah. All the time.”
“You’ve never mentioned that in one of our sessions.”
“So?”