Page 16 of Confessions of an Apache Pilot

“Holy shit, they just shot an RPG at us.” Nick was craning his neck, looking out the back. His voice was a hoarse croak. “The Apaches are dropping a ton of rockets on the hill side. I think they got him.” The amount of explosions I saw in my periphery told me they got the whole mountain. Nothing could have lived through that. We almost hadn’t lived through that.

Shaking off the close call—there’d be time to worry about it later—I shot a glance over my shoulder. Sarah was working on our patient in the back, but he was still in critical condition and I needed to get him back as soon as possible. Loading him into the helicopter and the rapid maneuvering we did must have shaken loose his bandages. Blood ran like rivers off the gurney as she swiftly tied off a tourniquet and then began working on putting an IV in the man. Sarah was calm and steady despite the jostling aircraft. I always did my best to provide a smooth ride on the way back, but ultimately I was at the mercy of gunfire and air currents.

I pulled up on the flight controls, bringing the engines to max power. The helicopter screamed as the engines red lined, pressing us into the backs of our seats. My heart was threatening to beat right out of my chest. I shoved down the fear of the explosions and near miss and, with a tunnel vision like focus, hauled ass to the south, then back to base.

We landed at a helipad off the main runway where the hospital medics met us and took the patient straight to the hospital. Once they were clear we repositioned to the refuel point, refueled, hosed the blood from the helicopter, and shut down. Our part of the event was over. All we could do now was wait for the next call, or the end of shift, whichever came first.

Now that the danger was behind us and our patient was safely at the hospital, I could finally think. Sheppard was still out there. He and his team had saved us. I would have to thank him for that. It seemed he really did have my—our—best interests in mind and I was a little unfair to him. You were down right bitchy.

A few hours later Sheppard’s team landed. I was still out at the aircraft. Nick, Sarah, and Karolyn were already headed back to the barracks since our shift was over. My eyes itched from exhaustion, but I had a few things to get out of the helicopter before I could head back and wind down for the night. I refused to admit to myself that I was waiting for him to get in. Looking up, I watched them taxi into their parking spaces and start to shut down. The blades weren’t even done turning when I saw Sheppard jump out and head my way. I stiffened at the way he was storming forward.

Guilt, irritation, and gratitude had been eating at me all night while I waited for our shift to end. I’d started off annoyed that he’d tried to tell me how to do my job. A job I was damn good at. Then guilt had taken over when I’d realized that he had saved all our lives. I was irritated at the way he had micromanaged my exit. I shouldn’t be, but that delay had nearly been enough to cost our patient his life. Irritation mixed itself in with the gratitude that they’d been there and had done their jobs well, effectively helping us to save the injured soldier, and me and my crew. We’d gotten word a few hours prior that the man would live. We always tried to follow up and find out how those we transported fared.

As Sheppard got closer, his eyes locked onto mine with laser focus. I inadvertently took a step backwards as my heart started racing. His face was as dark as a storm cloud. Gritting my teeth, I waited for him to approach. I wasn’t about to back down from this conflict. Not that I wanted to go toe to toe with him.

“Captain, what the fuck was that all about? What part of ‘the landing zone isn’t safe’ don’t you understand?” He wasn’t yelling, not exactly. But his tone was enough to have the same effect. I stiffened further and glared at him. All the feelings of guilt and gratitude vanished under his verbal assault.

Truthfully, between a bad connection on the radio and tunnel vision on my injured patient, I hadn’t fully acknowledged his transmission. “Excuse me, Chief,” I spat his rank at him, since we were being overly formal. “You don’t get to tell me how to operate my aircraft.” This hadn’t been how I’d expected tonight to go. I’d been planning on thanking him for Christ’s sake. How were we here, yelling at each other right now?

“You flew right through the line of fire and blew into a firefight. You nearly got your whole crew killed,” his voice had dropped to a dangerous growl.

I had to repress the urge to back up. Goosebumps rose on my skin from the low timbre of his voice. I wasn’t sure if I was nervous or turned on. Shoving the feeling down deep, I let anger override it.

“We didn’t have time to fly around a mountain and hold!” I yelled. I was the only one of us raising our voices, but for some reason it felt like that was the only way to combat his cold calmness. “As it is, we barely got him back in time. It was a miracle that Sarah kept him together for that long. He dropped more blood on the bottom of my helicopter than can be healthy. It’s your job to clear the area, it’s your job to cover my ass. It’s my job to get him out alive. If we had held to the south like you wanted, he would be dead. Dead!” I yelled the last word and poked him in the chest for emphasis.

He was still red in the face, but I saw him relax a little. He was relieved, despite his anger. That cooled off my temper a little. He stood straight and composed himself. He studied me for a moment before responding.

“Do you fly like this for all your patients?”

His question almost completely disarmed me. The anger bled out of me, leaving only confusion about my reaction to him. I couldn’t seem to keep my composure around this man. The way he was looking at me right now, there was almost a hint of admiration there, and something else. Exhausted relief? Shaking my head in exasperation, mostly at myself, I answered, “Yes. Although that’s the first time someone has actually shot at us. Hurricanes and tornadoes, sure. But yeah, I always put my patients first.”

“Do you know who it was you picked up today?” he asked me, throwing me for another loop. I shook my head ‘no’. Sheppard continued, with a much softer tone. “Dozer. His name is Robert Doyle. He lives in western Kentucky and has a wife and three sons. This is his third deployment. I’ve been flying overhead of him and his team for five months. I know every one of those men.” He rubbed his eyes, the only indication of how weary he was, and continued. “I worked with Doyle out of Kandahar four years ago. Every year his wife sends me a Christmas card, with pictures of the family. I imagine that you’ll not only be getting a card every year, but a Christmas turkey to go with it. She’s not the type of woman to forget. You and your crew will be heroes to her for the rest of her life.”

Then why all the attitude?

He gave me a hard look as though he’d read my mind. “This isn’t a game. There’s no scorecard for reckless flights and narrow escapes.” He backed up a few steps and continued. I relaxed further as he moved out of my space. “His wife will be forever grateful. But your crew? You nearly killed them.” With that he turned and walked away. My cheeks heated with anger and embarrassment.

Sucking in an angry breath, I watched him stride away and fought the urge to scream my frustration into the night. He was right. It wouldn’t have helped anyone if that insurgent had blown us out of the sky. Then we’d all be dead. I understood that. I even understood his anger. What I didn’t get was why he got under my skin the way he did. I couldn’t even take an ass-chewing that I deserved from him without losing my cool.

I stayed in the aircraft for a little while longer, trying to calm myself. There would be no sleep for me for some time. Doubt plagued me. The last thing I wanted was to put my crew in harm’s way. That was the burden of being in charge. Sometimes, no matter what call you made, someone got hurt.

CHAPTER 10

Jen

After I calmed down, I walked back to the Tactical Operations Center to close out the day’s paperwork. When I got in there, I saw two TV screens pressed together, each one had a video playing. “What’s this?” I asked.

The specialist sitting in front of them turned around and looked at me as he spoke. “It’s the gun tapes from earlier. We’re playing them side by side to build an accurate timeline of events. Things get a little busy up there, sometimes the pilots forget the details,” he told me. “The one on the right is from Chief Sheppard. The one on the left is from Chief Cloward.” That was Brady and Laura’s helicopter.

“I’m sure it does get busy,” I said.

“Oh look, here’s your flight.”

I watched, looking back and forth between the two screens. I watched myself fly right past the intended landing zone to land next to the Green Berets. “Nice landing ma’am.” He looked over his shoulder at me and grinned.

“Thanks,” I said, returning the smile.

It was only a few seconds later that I saw the first barrage of bullets. They looked like lasers streaking past my helicopter. The one video snapped right to the shooter and fired. I listened as Sheppard guided his team through the fight. Then, I saw the RPG. Even though I knew it had missed, my heart began racing. The shooter was so much closer than I’d realized. I kept watching. Sheppard must have rolled the aircraft nearly upside down to have gotten on the target so fast. He fired a missile followed by half a dozen rockets into the mountain side.

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