Page 25 of Fire Meets Fire

“Tell me what happened,” he cajoles in a gentle voice. “I presume you crashed or something? Got injured and left with fainting problems you now have.”

“It’s classified,” I remind him.

“Woman,” he snorts, “I’ve probably dealt with more classified information than you have, though it might not be at national security level. Brothers wouldn’t last long in an MC if they didn’t know how to keep their mouths shut. It’s why prospects have to show us they’re trustworthy before they patch in. Might not deal in State secrets, but what I carry up here,” he taps his head, “could end up in people doing serious jail time.”

I don’t have to try hard to believe it.

It’s his gentle tone. If he’d demanded, I’d keep quiet. There’s something about him that makes me believe if he says he’ll carry my secrets to the grave, I can trust him. And for some reason, after all this time, I’m ready to share my story. Placing my head into my hands, I rub at my temples, trying to summon words to use that will give him the bare facts without making it too hard on his ears. What happened still plays like a constant loop in my mind, invading my waking thoughts and plaguing my nightmares. It was hard to live through at the time, and sometimes I wish I hadn’t survived. I glance up at him, seeing him watch me gather my thoughts, and patiently giving me time. What is it about this man? Anyone else and I’d have raised my middle finger and told him I wasn’t going to say anything. But Chaz?

Fuck knows why, but I want him to understand my story. Maybe I’m just tired of running.

Eventually his patience starts to run out, and I see him fidgeting. It gives me the impetus I need. Turning to stare at the Wretched Soulz logo on the wall, I let out a long breath, and begin to give up my secrets.

“I can’t tell you where I was, or why.” I notice he’s stilled again at my opening words as I check that he accepts the secrecy that surrounded my last mission. His lips thin, but he doesn’t pry. “I flew a Black Hawk.” That part’s easy. It’s a matter of record, and up to that fateful day, an occupation of which I was proud. I loved my work, loved the adrenaline, the feeling of a job well done when I dropped off or rescued whoever needed transporting, or when we entered the fray ourselves to take down the enemy. Every time we flew was exhilarating. For a moment, my thoughts are lighter as I think about the good times, then I swallow twice before I go into the details of my last flight. “The call came in. A team of SEALs needed extraction.” All in a day’s work, nothing unusual about it. “Unfortunately, there was a sandstorm enroute. My co-pilot, Karen, wanted to delay takeoff.” My voice trails off as memories fill my mind.

“And you didn’t?” Chaz interjects to prompt me.

“I took note of what he said.”

“He?”

A half-smile comes to my lips. “Yeah, Karen was his handle, like Helo was mine. Well-earned as he was a Karen about everything. A serial moaner if you like.” I shrug. “He’d gained his nickname long before I met him, it suited him. But in many ways, he balanced me. I could be too gung-ho. There were times I could do with being more cautious.”

“And this was one of those times?”

Raising and dipping my chin, I agree. “Probably. I thought there was a chance we could have flown around the storm, but Karen was risk adverse, or as much as a helo co-pilot was allowed to be. Our departure was delayed by an hour.” Sixty minutes which changed everything. Three thousand six hundred seconds that ended my war. Again, I swallow, trying to moisten my throat. “The delay had consequences. Once in flight, we lost contact with the SEALs, but carried on anyway. We had no wayof knowing how long they’d been out there, and it was likely their radio batteries might have failed.”

Chaz shifts awkwardly. “That sounds risky.”

In hindsight, it was. Even at the time, I had an uneasy feeling. Grimacing, I confirm, “Yeah, but what could we do? Leave the team there, or carry on and get them out?” It’s a rhetorical question, and I don’t wait for the answer. For me, both at the time, and now, it was a no-brainer. It didn’t matter that Karen, Bosh, my crew chief, and Jaxson, my aerial gunner, all felt the same unease. No one objected to continuing the mission. We weren’t going to leave any man behind. Night Stalkers aren’t quitters. Even now I recall that with only raised chins, grunts and nods, we’d discussed and simply agreed on extra vigilance.

Lost in the past, I relate the bare facts to Chaz. Explaining how the flight had already been tense as we approached the target area. I’d circled once, getting the lay of the land. In this mountainous region, there was no place to set down. No problem, we’d employ the SPIES system, a single rope with rings to which special harnesses would be attached to winch up the men from the ground, but first Bosh and Jaxson would fast rope down to make sure none needed additional assistance. Without communication with the SEAL team, we didn’t know what we would find, whether we were also recovering dead or injured.

A flare had gone up from the ground. Grinning at Karen, I’d said, “They’re almost home”, not knowing my thought was premature…

“Queenie?” Chaz prompts, noticing I’ve been lost in my head.

I blink, for a second needing to take in the shoddy but practical office I’m sitting in, the whack of the rotors fading away. Unable to suppress a shudder, I relate what happened next. “We were in position for the extraction. Bosh and Jaxson were ready. They’d already unclipped their harnesses. Themissile warning system went off.” I swallow rapidly, bile rising in my throat now, just like it had then.

The loss of directional control and my inability to maintain stable flight immediately told me our tail rotor had been hit. I didn’t need to think of the devastating consequences as they were already happening. The aircraft began to spin out of control and I could do nothing to stop the rapid descent. Combined with the wailing of the alarm, I could hear the screams and thumps as the men who’d been preparing to exit lost their battle to hold on to anything and were tossed out.

There was nothing I could do.

There was nothing Karen could do.

It seemed to take hours, but it was a matter of seconds until we hit the ground.

Chaz clears his throat, and again, I come back into the present with a start, unaware of how much I told him, and how much I’d kept in my head. It must have been enough as he sums up succinctly, “You were hit. You crashed.”

I glance down at my hands, seeing they’re shaking badly, grasping them together to try to get them to stop. My whole body ends up trembling as I confirm, “We crashed.” I try to pull myself together, consigning the memories of the terror I’d felt to the past. It wasn’t the crash. Fuck knows we’d gone through enough simulations in our training. At the time, I’d been calm, the professional in me fighting to minimise the damage and give us and the SEALs we were there to rescue the best chance.

Chaz’s hand moves as if to comfort me, but thinking better of it, he takes it away. I take a breath into lungs that feel starved of oxygen then force myself to resume my story, relating it in a monotone as though describing something that happened to someone else.

“The Black Hawk came down hard on one side. I knew immediately Karen was gone. He’d cracked his head against theside window and his eyes were wide open and staring. I was trapped, pinned by the harness and the cyclic.” My mouth’s gone dry. I work to get saliva into my mouth. “It wasn’t long before I was freed, but it was by no rescuer. That’s when I found out Bosh had fallen to his death. Jaxson was badly injured but alive.”

“The SEALs?” Chaz asks, as my voice trails off.

“They’d been ambushed.” I thump one fist into the palm of my other hand. “If we’d taken off on time, we’d have been able to save them. Four were still alive, but they’d lost two more of the team.”

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