Just as Ethan flattened out against the hard biting rocks beneath his lower body, he heard the bottle rocket sound and knew an RPG was being fired at them. He released his M4, pressed his hands against his ears and opened his mouth. The air pressure from any explosion could liquefy and destroy a man’s lungs if it wasn’t equalized with outside air. By opening his mouth, he was equalizing inner and outer pressure, avoiding ruptured lungs and potentially being killed through suffocation as the RPG landed.
There was a powerful explosion; the entire night erupted into orange-and-yellow fire. Dirt, rock and brush blew into the night, raining down heavily around him. Cursing, Ethan jerked his M4 with the scope and turned on the laser. The thin green beam shot across the valley between them and he settled his eye against the scope, getting a range. Quickly, he gave the bomber navigation officer the numbers. They’d be dialed in on the JDAMs. His laser light would have to remain steady and on the target.
Ethan couldn’t move and couldn’t stop what he was doing or the JDAMs would fly all over the place, maybe not hitting the target. Maybe hitting them instead. His heart pumped hard in his chest, the adrenaline pouring through him like a drug, giving him clarity and the ability to hold his focus.
The battle behind him was picking up in intensity. He heard yells and screams of Taliban in the wadi as the SEALs poured concentrated lead into the area. He wanted to hurry, to call in Apaches...anything to get them relief from this unknown force. But Ethan couldn’t do anything at the moment except work the radio with the bombers and hold the laser steady on the caravan across the valley. He felt helpless, knowing they needed support. Now.
* * *
Sarah was sleeping in the ready room at the medevac squadron when the alarm buzzer went off. Instantly, she jerked upright, knowing she and her medical crew had been alerted to fly an emergency night mission. Her copilot and crew would get their gear and run for the Black Hawk. As air commander of the flight, she had the duty to get the intel on the mission.
She glanced at her watch as she swiftly jerked on her flight boots, shrugged into her survival vest and grabbed the .45 pistol, jamming it into the shoulder holster. She picked her helmet bag and kneeboard up in one hand. It was 0130. Her mind flew to Ethan. Her gut told her it was him and his team.
After hauling her go-bag—a ruck that was filled with water, food, first aid supplies and six magazines of bullets for her pistol—Sarah raced out the door and ran down the hall toward the flight desk. She saw Major Donaldson was the flight commander for tonight. He was scowling.
“Benson, mount up,” he told her. “This is a nine-liner mission.” He handed her the GPS coordinates. “There’s a SEAL team pinned down just below a ridge near the Afghan–Pak border. They’re in the process of setting up to blow a fifty-man caravan a mile on the other side of a valley with laser-guided JDAMs. There’s an unknown-size force of Taliban about a hundred feet from where the SEALs are dug in on a hill. They’ve got two men down. One critical.” His eyes narrowed. “You got this mission.”
Her heart hammered, sending fear arcing through her. “Yes, sir,” she murmured, grabbing the paper. She made sure the target information was there, call signs, radio frequencies and status of the two patients. The good news was the weather was clear. That was a piece of good luck. “No Apache escort?” she demanded of the major. Usually, on a firefight, the Apache came in first to make the difference, make it safer for the unarmed Black Hawk to land and pick up the wounded.
“None available. You’re on your own. Your crew is already out there on the tarmac waiting for you,” Donaldson said. “Tait is your copilot. It’s his first night mission.”
“Got it,” Sarah said, turning and sprinting down the hall. She turned left and pushed open the door that led to the tarmac. The Black Hawk was already spooling up the engines, the blades turning faster and faster. She was relieved to see Pascal was her medic, and he held out his hand to help her up into the bird.
Sarah was all business. The crew chief slid the door shut. She squeezed into the right seat. Pascal handed her the helmet from her bag. Pulling it on, she quickly plugged into the ICS system and strapped it on. Tait’s hands were flying across the instrument panel as well as tweaking the overhead fuel throttles. He’d linked her to the SEAL radio operator on the ridge.
Her heart stumbled. She heard Ethan’s low, strained voice, calling for medevac over the radio.
Oh, God...
“Take us up,” she told Tait in a low, firm voice. “Pascal? You and the crew chief set back there?”
“Yes, ma’am. Door shut and locked. We’re strapped into our jump seats. We’re good to go.”
Sarah pulled her NVGs down across her eyes, and flicked them on; the world became a grainy green in the blackness of the night. “Tait, I’m putting in the heading on the computer,” she told him, punching in the latitude and longitude of some unnamed ridge in the Hindu Kush mountains, where Ethan and his men were fighting for their lives. The computer would then give her the waypoints, invisible positions that would be route markers to get her to the hill in the shortest amount of time.
“Yes, ma’am,” Tait murmured, his Louisiana Cajun voice a combination of fear and adrenaline.
Sarah’s job was to ensure everything in the cabin of the shaking, shuddering Black Hawk was ready to receive wounded. She worked with Pascal, who knew the drill. The aircrew chief, Potter, verified two litters were attached to the wall and ready to receive the wounded. Her mind revolved around Tait’s being scared. Her crew chief would handle any emergency in the rear, behind their seats. Pascal was the best in any medical emergency.
She had a green copilot up front with her on his first night flight. It wasn’t a good formula to have under the circumstances. Night flying was the most dangerous of all because the NVGs did not give the pilots depth of perception. All a pilot saw was a flat, two-dimensional surface, when in reality, it could be anything but that. Sarah wasn’t going to let Tait do the actual landing. There was no way.
Not tonight.
Ethan was out there. Was he wounded? His voice had sounded harsh. It took everything Sarah had to push her own personal feelings out of the way. Why had she run away from him?
After receiving permission from the tower, the Black Hawk lifted off; gravity pushed them down into their seats. She’d let Tait fly them in. No harm in that, but Sarah still watched the instrument panel, the FLIR, which was infrared radar that showed elevation of the mountains, and she constantly checked their altitude.
Many young pilots unused to night flight could lose the horizon, lose their sense of up and down. It was called spatial disorientation. And when that happened, and it would sooner or later to a new pilot, they had to trust the horizon indicator in the helo to stop them from crashing. She switched radio frequency to TOC, Tactical Operations Center, at Bagram Air Base. They would be their clearance and where they’d get their final orders.
She switched another channel, connecting with the SEAL team. “Gator Actual, this is Falcon Actual. Over.” Her heart pounded, waiting for Ethan to reply. When he did, she heard screams, yells and bullets being fired in the background.
“Falcon Actual, this is Gator Actual. Over.”
Ethan sounded so damned unruffled. As if he were talking to her over a meal at the chow hall. SEALs had nerves of steel. Closing her eyes for a moment, Sarah heard a massive explosion. Her ears rang from it. An RPG had exploded nearby, and she waited seconds for the booming sound to dissolve. “Gator Actual, we’re on our way to your position.” She read him off the coordinates, making sure they were the same as what Donaldson had handed her earlier.
“Roger that, Falcon Actual. GPS position is accurate.”
“Our ETA is thirty-one minutes. Over.”
“Roger.”
She heard the calmness of Ethan’s voice, but the strain was there. Sarah could feel his worry, his attention elsewhere. “Gator Actual, give me a tally of wounded? Over.”
“Two down, one critical. Head wound. Thigh wound, no broken femur. Over.”
Her heart tore over that information. “Roger, Gator Actual. This is a casevac. Will radio Bagram hospital with details. Over.” Sarah wanted to say so much more. So much. God, if she could only apologize for being so afraid of a relationship with him. Mouth tightening, perspiration popping out on her upper lip, Sarah knew all their transmissions were monitored by all parties back at Camp Bravo as well as SEAL HQ at Bagram Air Base. She could say nothing. “Gator Actual, will apprise you five minutes out from your position. I’ll need landing GPS coordinates from you. Over.”
“Roger that. It will be ready for you. Gator Actual out.”
She wondered if that would be the last time she heard Ethan’s voice. Terror gripped her heart, but Sarah automatically watched the instruments. She gave a swift glance at Tait, who seemed all right now. He knew how to fly this bird. She glanced over her shoulder. Pascal was sitting at the rear of the cabin in one of the jump seats, his hands draped over his drawn-up knees. He’d heard the transmission and already had supplies laid out nearby for both types of wounds on the individual litters. Sarah was proud of her crew. She trusted Pascal. Often, on firefights, the two medics who normally flew in would reduce to one. The helicopter could only carry so much weight, and Donaldson had made the decision tonight to carry one medic. That way, if other SEALs became wounded, they could be brought on board and safely carried out. Weight was always a contentious beast in a Black Hawk. Sarah was glad Donaldson had made the decision he did.
She switched to SEAL HQ at Camp Bravo and heard Master Chief Hunter’s calm voice speaking to Ethan, giving him intel. In the background, Sarah listened to the escalating firefight. The patrol was pinned down by a large, unknown-size force. The CIA was trying to get a drone into place over the ridge to give them thermal imaging capability of just how many Taliban were hiding in that wadi. Frustration moved through her.
They were twenty minutes into the flight and Sarah could now see the area ahead of them. The FLIR display on their computer screen showed the mountains and valleys in front of them. These were high-altitude, rocky, miserable areas to land on, and Sarah knew it.
Ethan’s voice came over her headset. “Falcon Actual, this is Gator Actual. Over.”
“Falcon Actual. Over.”
“Be apprised there will be JDAMs falling in two minutes.” He gave her the GPS coordinates. “Fly clear of that area. Over.”
“Roger, Gator Actual. Received the info and will redirect our flight.” Sarah turned and told Tait to bank right, away from that mountain ten miles away from them. She’d seen JDAMs light up the night and take out the whole top of a mountain before. The concussion waves of the bombs exploding would ripple through the air like invisible fists. If their helo was too close, it would cause hellacious turbulence, throwing crewmen around in the back and causing major and sometimes dangerous havoc. She quickly reset the GPS to create different waypoints that would still get them to that ridge, just a different flight route.
“I’ll take over,” she told Tait. “I have the controls. Potter, Pascal, strap in.”
“Strapped in, Chief,” Pascal confirmed.
“You have the controls,” Tait said, releasing them to her.
“I have the controls.” After wrapping her Nomex gloves around the cyclic and collective, boots on the rudders, Sarah felt better. She knew her bird as intimately as she knew her own body. Although she flew with instruments, there was another invisible connection she had to her Black Hawk and that was the seat-of-the-pants one. Sarah could feel the shuddering vibration running through her bird; she sensed its stability, the strains on the two engines, the sound and pitch of the blades above them. She melded, metal to human, with the helicopter. Now, they were one. Now she would feel subtle changes, shifts, stresses and anything else that would impinge on her bird. It was years of experience, intuition, that would keep them alive as they flew toward hell.
Tait gasped. “Man, look at
that!
” He pointed out the Plexiglas.
Sarah refused to look. The JDAMs had hit their target. Her hands grew firmer around the controls; her booted feet monitored the rudders. “Don’t watch,” she snapped at Tait. “It will destroy your night vision!”
“Damn,” Tait rasped, amazement in his voice. “What a helluva show!” He turned away and followed her order.
Sarah knew what it looked like. There would be massive yellow, orange and red roiling, fiery clouds bursting out into the night sky. It would resemble a nuclear bomb, lurid red, dirty orange and yellow colors and fire churning upward into the blackness.
“Make sure your harnesses are tight,” she warned her crew over the inter-cabin frequency again. Sarah knew what was coming. And so did Pascal and Potter. Tait didn’t.
Tait quickly tightened down his harness, pushing his NVGs up because watching the string of blasts had destroyed his night vision. It would take precious minutes for his eyes to readjust.
Sarah felt the concussion wave of the JDAMs’ energy stalking them. In seconds, the first one struck the Black Hawk. One moment they were flying level. The next, an invisible fist lifted the bird nearly five hundred feet straight up. Sarah wrestled with the controls. She heard Tait gasp and curse. The first wave rolled past them, and she got her bird straightened out once more, flying level and straight.
“Holy hell,” Tait gasped. “What was that?”
Sarah grinned a little. “Blast concussion waves. They travel faster than the speed of sound. And they tend to suck you
back
toward them.” Sarah knew he’d never experienced them before. “There’s more coming. Hang on....”
The Black Hawk shuddered violently as two more concussion waves struck them in a row. The helicopter’s engines changed, strained, and the bird got thrown sideways, sliding through the air on its starboard side. Tait was on the engine throttles, monitoring and changing them as demanded. Instantly, Sarah corrected with hard left rudder, jamming her boot down on it, swiftly making corrections with the cyclic and collective between her gloved hands. This was where physical strength counted. If she couldn’t stop the helicopter from wanting to roll, which would put them into an out-of-control situation, it was brute strength that would help right the bird. Gasping, Sarah tightened her grip, her arm muscles tensing. Her boot held down that left rudder to stop the skid, and her hands finessed the bird such that it would respond to her efforts.