Craig’s mouth tightened, and he turned onto his side, burying his head in the soft pillow. Maybe if he pretended Sabra was in his arms….
Chapter Six
By concentrating on the image of Sabra’s face and recalling her soothing voice, Craig found an element of comfort in his usually chaotic night. Soon his fear of the nightmare returning had dissolved, and he plummeted into a deep sleep. He’d always been a vivid dreamer, but this time his dream visions were of something beautiful: Sabra. Her expressions fascinated him—the quirk at the corner of her mouth when she was irritated or didn’t quite agree with him, the lowering of her thick, black lashes when she was shy, and, more than anything, the changing of her gray eyes from light to stormy and dark.
He was lost in her small gestures and the way she used her hands when talking. Moment by moment, he reexperienced her touching him, massaging the tension from his shoulders and back. She’d been strong yet gentle, monitoring the pressure as she coaxed the rigidity out of his muscles….
On some far boundary of his peripheral senses, Craig heard the blades of a helicopter. No. It couldn’t be. In his sleep, he struggled to shut out the approaching sound, which sent an icy shaft of fear through his gut. Sabra’s touch, her face, began to dissolve, to be replaced by the whap, whap, whap that grew louder, closer with every passing moment.
Groaning, Craig turned over. Not again. No… The sound intensified, and he began feel the tiny tremblings a helicopter pilot experiences when his bird starts up. The vibration began in his booted feet and, like small currents of electricity, moved up his legs, into his thighs. As the blades whirled faster and faster, he could feel his whole body swinging in time with them, until he became a part of the machine and it a part of him. Where did flesh and blood leave off and cold steel begin?
Craig felt sweat running down his temples from beneath his helmet. He was gripping the controls through wet Nomex gloves. He always sweated on a dangerous mission—everyone did. Lieutenant Brent Summers, his copilot and one of his best friends for three years, called off their altitude.
It was dark, so dark out. The reddish glow of the control panel glared up at him, while before him stretched endless desert.
“We’re in Iraqi territory,” Summers warned.
“Indian Country.”
Summers laughed, but the sound was strained. “Yeah. Got to watch for those arrows, buddy.”
Wasn’t that the truth? Only this time the arrows were rocket grenade launchers. Craig compressed his lips, feeling moisture form on his upper lip. He had a wild urge to scratch at his temple, where the sweat tickled unmercifully. He couldn’t, of course. Both hands were fully involved on keeping his aircraft straight and level.
The machine vibrated around him, vibrated with him, and he felt the heart of it beating in time with his own pounding heart, which was throbbing with unleashed adrenaline and fear. Behind him was their precious cargo: two marine reconnaissance teams they were to drop close to the enemy line. Their mission: to destroy their defenses and put such a scare into them that they’d hightail it and run. What Craig had heard about the elite Republican Guard was that they weren’t cowards; they’d stand and fight.
They flew lower, and Craig strained his eyes, trying to focus on the screen located at the front of his helmet, revealing through a series of radar images the rolling desert dunes, now dangerously close. He could hear Summers’s altitude information, the twenty-five-year-old’s voice tighter than usual. This wasn’t a practice run. No, this was for real. They’d already made one run—and had a harrowing close call—but had managed to drop their human cargo at precisely the right place and time.
This was the second run, different and more dangerous, as far as Craig was concerned. He knew the men of these recon units. They had come from CampReed, where he was based, and he’d trained nearly a year with them—dropping them off, picking them up. Always before they’d been training runs, with no real danger beyond him screwing up at the controls and crashing them into a hill. It was his greatest apprehension—his only one. Still, he was known as the pilot in his squadron who took the most chances.
He’d been the only pilot willing to dangle his chopper dangerously close to some high electric power lines in order to rescue a Recon who had busted his leg in the middle of nowhere. He’d hung in midair as the man was hoisted to safety, then had flown him to medical help at the nearby base hospital.
Craig concentrated so hard on the all-terrain monitor in front of him that he felt as if his head might explode with pain. The hills of CampReed were far different from the shifting sand dunes of Iraq. The winds here were haphazard, constantly changing the dunes’ height and size. There was no such thing as stable terrain in this war, he thought as he felt the harness bite deeply into his shoulders, his hands cramp as he gripped the controls. Desert Storm was a crap shoot, in his opinion.
His mind shifted back to the cabin and his precious cargo. He’d gone drinking and carousing with these Recons. The man who had broken his leg last year was Captain Cal Talbot—not related, but since they shared a last name, Craig had volunteered for the rescue. It had been a windy day, and a gust could easily have thrown his chopper into the high-tension lines. After the delicate rescue, his friendship with Cal had begun. Now they were closer than brothers, and Cal was back there with his men, greasepaint concealing their white skin, wearing the most technically advanced equipment in the world, ready to be dropped behind enemy lines.
Cal was married. Craig had visited him at the CampReed hospital when Cal’s wife, Linda, had delivered their second beautiful red-haired daughter. Craig had stood outside the window of the maternity ward with Cal while his friend cried and laughed, pointing to the tiny girl wrapped in a pink blanket. He’d stood, big hands pressed against the glass, smiling with pride and telling Craig they were going to name her Claire, after Craig’s mother, with the middle name Lynn, after Linda’s mother.
Craig had been dumbstruck that Cal and Linda would name their new baby in his honor. But Cal had laughed, brushed the tears out of his eyes, and put his hands on Craig’s shoulders and told him they’d wanted to do something to thank him for rescuing his miserable neck that day he’d broken his leg and nicked an artery out in the bush.
“But,” Craig rasped, shaken, “I didn’t do anything anyone else wouldn’t have done.”
“Hey,” Cal chided, sliding his arm around his friend’s shoulder and pointing to the baby in her crib, “if it hadn’t been for you, Talbot, I wouldn’t have been here to make that kid, much less see her born. No, Linda and I wanted to surprise you. We can’t name her Craig, but when I found out your mom’s name was Claire, we thought it was the next best thing.” Cal turned, tears in his eyes. “To remind us of the man who risked his life to save mine.”
Craig stared openmouthed at Cal, not knowing what to say or do. “Well…no one has ever done something like this for me…”
Patting him on the shoulder, Cal released him. “That’s okay, pardner. In my book, you’re the best damn leatherneck pilot there is. There are three things I love more than life in this world, and that’s my wife and my two daughters.” He poked a finger at the window, becoming very serious. “Craig, you don’t get it, do you? You’re standing there with that funny look on your face again. There are pilots and there are pilots. I’ve flown with you nearly two years now at Reed, and you’re the best. Why shouldn’t I honor you in some way? That little girl will know why she’s named Claire when she can understand it all. She’ll be proud, too, the way Linda and I are of you.”
Craig felt embarrassment mixed with a deep satisfaction as he stared down at the tiny baby with the thick thatch of red hair. Cal stood by him, sharing a profound, awed silence as they watched his daughter sleep.
“You know,” Cal said in a low, off-key voice, “I was never much one for kids. At least, not until I met Linda and married her. I came out of a pretty rugged family—my folks got divorced, and I was a pawn between two war camps after that. I told Li
nda I was afraid to have children, but she convinced me otherwise. She came out of a real stable family, just the opposite of mine. She was one of six kids. Can you imagine? Six kids?”
“No, I can’t,” Craig answered.
“Big family,” Cal said with a laugh, “and a happy one. When Linda got pregnant with Samantha, I freaked. I was afraid I couldn’t be a good father. I was afraid I’d end up like my old man, a kind of absent shadow, you know? Linda just laughed at me. I remember the first time she took my hand and pressed it against her belly to feel Sammy moving. I was kneeling next to the couch, and I just busted into tears, of all things. I mean, to feel that little thing inside her moving around…Man, it was a miracle or something.”
Craig stole a look at his friend’s somber profile. “What do you mean?”
Chuckling, Cal said, “From the moment I felt Sammy kicking, I began to lose my fear. Linda had a lot of long, serious talks with me. Yes, I’d be absent from time to time because of my Recon work. But at least I’d be home after my watch. By the time Sammy was born, I wasn’t panicking anymore.”
Propping his hands on his narrow hips, Cal grinned proudly. “Linda helped make the transition from wild bachelor to father easy for me.”
“That’s saying a lot,” Craig teased. He knew Cal had been known by the nickname Wild Man, earned in his earlier years in the Corps.
Sighing, Cal pressed his hands against the glass again. “Look at her, Craig. Isn’t she tiny? So perfectly formed? Isn’t she a miracle? Claire lived nine months in Linda and look at her. She’s so pretty.”
It had been hell on Craig to watch Linda and Cal kiss one last time at the CampReed airport before he and his team had boarded the transport plane that would eventually take them halfway around the world to a staging area in Saudi Arabia. Craig had been part of that deployment, and he’d hugged Linda goodbye, too, feeling very much a part of her and Cal’s extended family.
“Bring him back home safe to me, Craig,” Linda had whispered as she released him, tears in her eyes. “Please take care of him—for all of us.”
Choking back tears that lodged in his throat, Craig rasped, “Don’t worry, Linda, I will.”
“Here, kiss the girls. You’re practically their uncle.” She lifted two-year-old Sammy into his arms.
Craig smiled at the carrot-topped little girl, who was a spitting image of her mother.
“‘Bye, Uncle Craig.” She’d thrown her small arms around his neck and hugged him as hard as she could with her tiny strength.
“‘Bye, sweetheart,” he’d whispered, kissing her on the forehead and blinking back tears as he gently set her down next to her mother. He didn’t dare look into Linda’s tear-swollen blue eyes as he eased three-month-old Claire from Cal’s arms. The tiny pink bow in Claire’s hair made her look even more feminine.
“Say goodbye to your goddaughter,” Cal had said, slapping him on the shoulder.
Babies, Craig had discovered, always smelled good. Sometimes they smelled of baby powder; sometimes their skin possessed a sweet fragrance like a newly blossomed flower. He never got over that fact, and he loved to hold Claire close, to inhale her special scent. Claire was wide-awake. Though she had Linda’s red hair, she had her father’s big green eyes and gorgeous smile. Craig couldn’t help smiling back as the baby reached up with one of her pudgy little arms, her fingers opening and closing against his shaven face.
“She’s going to be a beauty,” Craig confided in a strained voice.
“Just like her mama,” Cal murmured proudly. “A real heartbreaker.”
Craig pressed a soft kiss to Claire’s ruddy cheek. Her skin was so delicately soft, so unmarred by life. He carefully returned the blanketed form to her mother’s waiting arms. Turning on his heel, he’d whispered goodbye to Linda, unable to stand the look of anguish in her face any longer. As he walked toward the ramp of the plane, he knew Cal was holding her, saying goodbye to her one last time. He felt the weight on his shoulders, knowing that Cal’s life, and that of the other Recon teams, would be in his hands once they got over there. The fear of losing them, of destroying families’ lives, ate at him….
The shuddering, shaking of the helicopter continued to vibrate through Craig. He hated the darkness. He hated even more the unknowns of this second mission. The two teams were to be dropped very close to Republican Guard lines—much closer than the first teams. They were nearing the drop zone. The muscles in his body were so tight with tension that Craig felt like one huge, painful cramp. He kept praying that nothing would happen. Let them land safely. Let them—
“Look out!” Summers shrieked, gesturing to the right in warning.
Craig had only seconds to react. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flicker of light, the illumination of one of the thousands of sand dunes surrounding them. A grenade launcher! They were flying at five hundred feet, dipping up and over one dune, down into the valley then up and over the next. Called “flying by the nap of the earth,” it required hard, tense maneuvering. Crashing was always a possibility, and Craig counted on avoiding that by sheer concentration, flying as he’d never flown before. But the one thing he couldn’t avoid, and couldn’t allow for in advance was a direct enemy attack.
The grenade hit the chopper even as Craig jerked the controls, sending his aircraft up and away. Too late. An earsplitting explosion sounded above him, and he knew the grenade had struck the main rotor. He heard a sharp cry from Summers and the copilot slumped forward, held in place by the array of harnesses. Craig felt pain, shut his eyes and jerked his head to one side, away from the main explosion. Hot metal tore through the cabin, shredding everything in its path. The aircraft jerked upward, mortally wounded. And then it began to spiral, tail first, toward the desert below.
Frantically, despite the fires igniting all around him, igniting on his protective clothing on his arms, Craig tried to stop the flailing fall of his aircraft. He heard shrieks in his earphones. He heard Cal’s voice booming above the rest, yelling at his men to prepare for a crash landing. The bird tumbled out of the black sky toward the black ground. Wildly, Craig tried to use the controls to stop the tail-first slide toward the sand. It was impossible! The grenade had not only shattered the main rotor above them, but shrapnel from the explosion had cut through the cables that would have allowed him some control over the wounded bird.
Craig was jerked violently from side to side. He felt the bird inverting from the tail, falling slowly over on it’s port side. He heard the shrieks and screams of the men in the rear. They had no safety harnesses on them; they merely sat on nylon web seats, waiting, just waiting. He knew they were being thrown around in the cabin like marbles being thrown into a huge, empty room.
Below, he saw the fire highlighting the sand here and there. He saw hot pieces of metal plummeting down before them, lighting their way. Craig knew he was going to die. They were all going to die. In those seconds before the helicopter crashed into the three hundred foot sand dune, his entire life ran past his widened eyes, as if in slow motion.
Everything slowed as Craig tried to brace himself for impact, screaming at the others to do the same. The aircraft struck the sand on its left side. Craig was jerked violently downward, but the harness held him in place, probably saving his life. They had a lot of fuel on board for the long haul to the target drop zone, and it exploded on impact, hurling liquid through the rear cabin. In an instant, fire raged all around them…. The windows on the bird shattered inward, into the cockpit, sending glass projectiles hurling like bullets through his cabin. Droplets of fire rained down on him. Frantically, Craig tried to find the harness release. It was jammed! The heat in the cabin was intense. He heard the screams of men being burned alive all around him. The helicopter was still sliding downward, on the steep side of a large dune.
His Nomex gloves had been burned off his hands as he attempted to jerk the harness free. The heat and odor of fuel choked him. He gasped. The heat funneling up his nose into his mouth burned him. Both arms of h
is flight suit were on fire. Craig tried to think, but it was impossible. Out of instinct, out of hours of training, he reached for a boot knife that he always kept strapped to his right leg. Gripping the handle, he jerked it upward and laid the large blade against the harness that now held him prisoner. He had to get free to help Cal! The screams of the marines were pounding against his ears. The roar of the fuel fire was spreading. The heat was intense.
The aircraft jolted to a stop, and then slowly pitched over so that Craig was thrown upside down. It rested on its top, the metal wreaking and tearing as the weight of it sank downward. The fire engulfed everything. Sobbing, Craig sawed against the straps. One by one, they freed beneath the sharpened blade. He fell hard. Frantically, he worked to get Summers free. The heat was terrible, driving him out of the shattered cockpit window. Somehow, he got to his feet, ran around the copilot’s side and began to saw at the harness that still held Summers. The copilot was unconscious. Maybe dead. He didn’t know. He heard screams in the chopper. Heard men pounding against the metal skin and trying to escape.
Once he dragged Summers free of the cockpit, Craig drunkenly ran around the chopper to the door on the other side. The dune was steep, sucking at his boots, slowing down his forward progress. He heard men crying and screaming, banging on the door that had been jammed shut. The main fire was between the cockpit and cabin, stopping any escape attempts from it through the shattered windows of the cockpit. Sobbing for breath, Craig saw the burned, twisted metal that had once been the door. The grenade had landed between the door and the rotor above it.
Just as he launched himself forward to try and pull the door open, the second fuel tank exploded. There was a tremendous whoosh of heat, the sound of the explosion breaking his eardrums, and a feeling of being hurled bodily through the air. Craig remembered nothing more as he was slammed into the side of the dune, unconscious from impact.
He regained consciousness maybe fifteen minutes later. He felt very weak, disoriented, and his skin feeling like it was on fire. Barely raising his helmeted head, Craig saw his helicopter burning brightly down below him, like a torch in the darkness. A cry ripped from him as he sat up. When he tried to stand up, to run back down the slope to try and help his comrades, he fell flat on his face and lost consciousness again. Much later, he regained consciousness—only this time, it was at a field hospital behind the safety of American lines in Saudi Arabia.
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