Edge of the Heat 6 (14 page)

“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 face 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?

“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.

"You can open your eyes a little," Dani said. “It's not so bad now."

Sara and JT looked around. Sara nodded. "We just need to get a little farther."

They walked out of the dust cloud, or it gradually dissipated, and finally they found themselves able to open their eyes wide and draw in a deep breath. Dani looked back over her shoulder and couldn't see anything but a massive dirt and dust cloud extending from ground to sky.
Almost like a bomb went off
, she thought stupidly, and then giggled at the ludicrousness of the thought. Sara cocked an eyebrow at her. Dani bit her lip to stop herself. She had a bad habit of thinking inane thoughts in bad situation, and then giggling at them like a schoolgirl. It was almost like her brain was trying to break the tension of any situation that made her nervous.

"Whose missiles were those?" JT asked, sounding dazed and worn out.

"The Navy," Sara said. JT nodded and looked over the desert in the direction the missiles had come from, like he could maybe see the ships, or worse, more missiles.

"Let's sit down here," Sara said. "If either of one of you hear a helicopter let me know and I will pop the flare."

JT's eyes narrowed. "A Marine helicopter?"

Sara studied him thoughtfully. "No, an Army helicopter — does it matter?"

“It could,” JT said in voice that sounded both hard and sad to Dani. Then he nodded, seeming satisfied.

Dani’s shocked brain tried to process his question and statement. She knew it was important. But her brain felt in danger of giving out. She looked around at the desert in three directions and the dust storm blocking all vision to the last direction. At the mountains looming on all sides, at the wide open sky. "Are we safe here?" she asked.

Sara nodded. "Yes, I think so. It's always smart to keep our eyes open, but there's not going to be any terrorists wandering around out here to deal with."

Dani’s weary brain accepted this eagerly.

Without warning, Sara pulled her black dress up and over her head. Beneath it, she was wearing light colored shorts and a white tank top. She had a lumpy black bag tied completely around her middle. But instead of that, Dani’s overworked brain noted the holsters strapped to each ankle, thigh, and arm. So she
was
Rambo after all. All she was missing was the bandoliers.

"Who
are
you?" JT asked, delight shining from his voice.

Dani felt a flare of what could only be jealousy burst through her chest.
Jealousy? Really? You are in the middle of the desert, you just saw 50 people get incinerated by a missile, you barely escaped with your life and you are jealous of the woman who saved you for hardly any reason?
Her weary brain then turned its vicious teeth on JT.
And who in their right mind gets excited by guns and knives and holsters anyway?
Dani frowned, aiming the frown at JT like a flashlight.
Your dad
, her brain whispered.
Your sisters
, it offered up.
Your Unc
— but that one hurt so she shut it down.
You too
, the little voice said, getting braver. You get excited by weapons too.
Every good killing machine does.
Dani’s frown slid off her face.
Killing machine?
Her eyes rolled to JT and wondered if that applied to him. Of course it did, he was a marine, wasn’t he? In fact, he'd already proved it.