Page 8 of Mending Fences

Forty minutes from the Peleliu, she carved such a hard turn for the coast that the main rotor must be under a meter from slicing into the waves. When she leveled out, he’d swear that her wheels would be breaking the wavetops, if they hadn’t been raised. Unlike any other Black Hawk, the Stealth Hawk had retractable gear to cut down on its radar signature.

He realized that his butt was clenched so tight he probably didn’t need the five-point harness to remain pinned to his seat.

Efforts to relax failed miserably.

“Thanks for the heads-up,” he said as if that’s exactly what she’d given him. He was not going to screw up flying with the Fin. Now that he’d had a taste of this world, would he ever be happy flying in his mere Seahawk again? Maybe not.

A glance aft, the two Killer Egg Little Bird helos hadn’t taken the turn. The DAP Hawk now hung half a kilometer off their tail. No longer the lead—they were now on their own?

“What did I miss?”

“Sorry. It’s a trained maneuver we call a Rock Killer.”

Now that she mentioned it, he recalled hearing the phrase go by during the briefing. They had their own shorthand.

“I forgot that it wouldn’t mean anything to you. No one’s sure of the origin, but the scuttlebutt is a hot-shot Night Stalker, on a hairy-as-facing-the-Whiney Point Eagles mission, shot up a whole ridgeline of innocent rocks over there so that the enemy’s attention wasn’t aimed where the action is. Basic distraction—Night Stalkers style—we call it a Rock Killer.”

“But they’re stealth so?—”

At that moment, the sky behind them lit up with gunfire. Infrared tracers glowed bright in his night vision. Not just in the sky, but well up in it. High enough to be easily visible to the Chinese base and definitely to any of their patrol boats. The gunfire was directed east, as if an attack might be coming from Yemen, but he’d bet it wasn’t. The Little Birds were making a big show of killing waves. Being stealth, no radar would discern who or how, but it would draw everyone’s attention aloft—away from their lone bird.

Go on, folks. Watch the show. While their Stealth Hawk rolled up to the beach three kilometers west of the Chinese base.

No Fast Ropes, they weren’t high enough for that. With her wheels still up, Fin slid over the waves and onto the beach. If there’d been a kid’s sandcastle, she’d have smoothed it flat without ever touching the beach itself.

Both side doors of the cargo bay slammed open and the oppressive night heat rolled into the cabin along with all the coastline smells that never reached the Peleliu. Seaweed, salt of spray from the small waves breaking on the fine sand or stirred up by the big main rotor, and beach sand pumping a day’s scorching heat back into the cooling night sky.

And she never stopped. Swung over the beach in a smooth arc, and six D-boys tumbled out three to a side. By the time she finished her arc and was again feet-wet over the waves, he couldn’t see any sign of them. Another thing he never got to witness from his Seahawk.

“Well…damn!” He breathed a sigh once they were again five kilometers out and three meters up. “Or am I peaking too soon?”

“Don’t recall that as being a problem.”

He felt the heat rise to his face, even though he saw they were on a Pilots-only channel. “Some women are worth taking the time with.”

“Well, take your time enjoying this. For now we circle very quietly. Up to you to make sure we don’t stumble on any patrol boats or big ships. Go to Option Five on your visor controller. We have two hours until the scheduled pickup, but we have to remain within ten minutes in case of an emergency evac.”

He changed his view. It took only a moment to pick out what was going on. Somewhere high above them, Kara Moretti was flying her unmanned, or rather unwomanned, drone. It offered a precise map of all the shipping in the area, probably all the way down to canoe-sized. He realized that Fin had been using that map to plan her approach to the coast in ways he’d never been aware of.

As they circled one way and dodged another, it was like they were walking backward through layered time.

First, they each traced their military careers through ranks from present day to boot camp. They followed that right back through college and her move, turning aside only as they reached that fateful prom night.

Next, they’d traded stories of particularly memorable flights. Not the classified missions, but tracking through how they’d each discovered rotorcraft then exploring why which birds were their favorites. Fin drove a Prius and he a Ford Ranger pickup; since flying exotic birds neither of them had needed exotic vehicles.

Mirroring the wending path which kept them close offshore but out of sight, they ducked as carefully into relationships.

“What the hell, Fin?”

“No one over six months,” she repeated. “The Army?—”

“No, don’t go blaming that on the service. Why, Fin? I mean…you’re awesome.” And why had he said that? One moment he knew her so well, but the next she was a complete stranger. Finella the bookish Irish girl he knew; Fin the warrior had no place in his experience.

She was so long in answering that he had time to wonder if she ever would.

“I…don’t know. There was always so much to do, so much to learn. With the 101st I was mainly in the Dustbowl of Iraq and Afghanistan, but that all ended about the time I came on board with the Night Stalkers. You wouldn’t believe the places I’ve flown with them.”

“Is that what you did with all those books you were always reading?”

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