by Zoe Sharp
I looked out through the canopy and the Plexiglas panel by my feet, trying to ignore the jerkiness of the ride. Below me were swathes of destruction, buildings knocked flat as if a petulant child had gone rampaging across a beach full of sandcastles wearing bovver boots. From up there the whole scene lacked a sense of reality.
Most scary to me were the gaping holes that had opened up in the roads, fields and where the houses used to stand. I shivered. Having a building fall around your ears was one thing. Having the earth open up underneath your feet to sending you plummeting into the bowels was quite another.
The ground had contracted as well as split. I saw a wooden fence that had once been straight and was now an absurdly wiggled line, and a section of railway track that was distorted as a painting by Salvador Dali.
“How bad are the casualties?”
Riley shrugged. “Over three hundred confirmed dead so far. We haven’t really started digging out the bodies yet - still concentrating on finding survivors, y’know?” he said in a flat voice. “But if they don’t get their supply lines sorted soon, that figure’s going to rocket. There’s already trouble about aid distribution, been some looting, stuff like that. Can get a bit hairy out there.”
One of Wilson’s tasks, so he’d told me on the flight, was likely to be ironing out those distribution kinks and maintaining order. I’d lay bets the big Scot would be good at it, even if he was going to have his work cut out.
“In that case I’m surprised you came in-country without a security advisor in place,” I said as casually as I could manage.
Riley flicked me a quick look and gave another shrug. The action caused us to sideslip wildly to the left. “Never know how bad it’s gonna be ‘til you get here,” he said, overcorrecting. “Besides, we lost our regular guy last time out.”
“‘Lost’?” I echoed. “‘Lost’ as in ‘misplaced’? What happened?”
Before he could reply the cockpit radio squawked. Riley cut the intercom connection between us to answer it.
“Yeah doc, go ahead,” I heard him say, only just audible to me over the roar of engine and rotor. “Not far. I’m giving Charlie the ten-dollar tour.” There was a pause while the person on the other end clearly asked who the hell he was talking about. “Our new security expert,” he said then, flashing his yellowed teeth. “Yeah, that’s right. I tell you, I feel safer already.”
I turned my head deliberately to stare out across the ruined cityscape. Columns of smoke still rose from the sporadic fires that had yet to be dampened. I could see groups of people scattered about the debris. Most wore fluorescent jackets or bibs. I knew it was a co-ordinated effort but their movements seemed small and futile against the sheer scale of the disaster.
There was a click in my ears and Riley’s voice was back.
“Gotta make a small diversion,” he said.
“As long as the meter’s not still running.”
He laughed again. I waited in alarm for one of his lungs to make an actual appearance but he managed to choke it back down. “No worries,” he said. “This one’s on doctor’s orders. Wants me to pick something up for her on the way in.”
He swooped the Bell into a sudden stomach dropping right-hand turn that tipped my side of the cockpit over by almost ninety degrees. It was like being back in the Hercules all over again.
I made another grab for my seat and realised, as the Aussie’s wheezy laughter echoed in my ears, that he had just very neatly sidestepped answering my last question. The one about what had happened to my predecessor.
Perhaps, if I survived this flight, I’d get to ask him again.
Four
“When you said you were going to ‘pick something up’ on the way, I thought you were talking about a pint of milk,” I said.
“Jeez, don’t put that idea in the doc’s head for Christ’s sake or she’ll have us running all over this bloody city looking for unsweetened organic soy or some shit like that.”
Riley put the Bell into a clumsy hover above a cracked roadway that curved dangerously close to the edge of a steep drop-off. He held it there for a moment or so while he checked around him and then didn’t so much land as dump it onto the skids. We hit hard enough to loosen a few fillings - and the teeth that contained them.
If this was all part of his act to scare the newbie, I decided, it was getting very old very fast.
Still, better that than the alternative explanation - that he really was a dreadful pilot.
The Aussie climbed out and staggered for a few strides until his joints began functioning normally, leaving the Bell’s engines on tick-over and the rotors turning lazily overhead. He was small enough that he didn’t bother to duck.
I hopped out to join him without waiting for an invitation that clearly wasn’t about to be issued. I assumed he left the helo in Park with the handbrake applied.
By the time I caught up, Riley was standing a foot or so back from the precipice next to another man. The newcomer was maybe a few years younger, his hair dark but flecked with grey. He wore coveralls with a rappelling harness and fluorescent bib over the top, and carried heavy gloves. There was a large coil of climbing rope at his feet.
Even without the high-and-tight buzzcut and the unbending stance, I would have pegged him as ex-military. There’s an air about former US Marines they never seem to lose.
Both men were peering downwards. I moved alongside and did the same.
It immediately became clear why the narrow road appeared to run so close to the edge. Before the quake, it had been a dual carriageway positioned what should have been a safe distance back.
Now the entire left-hand lane and shoulder - plus a good chunk of safety fencing - were about sixty feet below us, balanced precariously on the slope. It must have been at least another hundred feet to the valley floor below.
A truck and two cars had been on the breakaway section when it fell. They lay jumbled on the makeshift ledge. Fluoro-jacketed rescue workers swarmed around them. I saw four people on stretchers and three zipped body bags.
“The doc wants him out of there yesterday,” the former Marine was saying in a soft American drawl. “Day before that would be even better.”
“Why not strap him in and drag him up the cliff wall,” Riley suggested, frowning. “Bumpy ride but safer than me going down there that’s for bloody sure.”
The former Marine gave him the kind of stare that must have had raw recruits shivering in their boots.
“We drag the kid up the cliff face and he loses the use of his legs.”
Riley took a step closer to the edge, leaned out cautiously. As he did so, the former Marine seemed to notice me for the first time. His eyes narrowed. I gave him a nod of greeting he didn’t return.
Riley stepped back between us. “Shit, boss. I got a half-load of cargo in the back of the old girl. She must weigh in at about eight thousand pounds. The downdraft alone could send the whole bloody lot heading for the bottom of the hill like a giant rock toboggan.”
The former Marine raised an implacable eyebrow in a So? gesture.
Riley scowled. “And it’s bloody close. I’ll practically be weed whacking with the main rotor to get far enough in.”
“Nothing you haven’t done before,” the former Marine said, and added, “By accident or design.”
“What about winching him up?” I asked, nodding to the Bell.
“Ah.” Riley looked embarrassed. “Local cops ‘requisitioned’ my winch yesterday. Bastards. I’m still trying to steal it back.” He passed me a sour look and muttered, “Wouldn’t have happened if we’d had decent security.”
“Hey,” I said, “yesterday I didn’t even know I was coming.”
The former Marine swung toward us in exasperation. He pointed a finger at me but his eyes were on Riley. “Excuse me,” he said, “but who is she, exactly?”
“Stephens’ replacement.” Riley said with deliberation. He gave a leer. “Smaller muscles but bigger ti - “
“Yeah,
I guess I can see that for myself,” the former Marine cut in dryly. He held out his hand and we clasped briefly. He had a steel grip. “Joe Marcus.”
“Charlie Fox.”
He gave me a fractional nod then dismissed me from his mind and turned back to Riley. “You gonna to get your ass back in that heap of junk, fly down there and pick up our casualty, or do I just kick you over the edge right now, save us all a heap of trouble?”
“Might cut out the middle man,” Riley grumbled.
He took a final look over the precipice and spat for good measure, as if timing how long it would take the gob of saliva to reach the bottom.
“Ah, shit mate, why not?” he said at last. “Gotta die of something, right?” He started ambling toward the Bell, calling cheerfully over his shoulder, “Just in case the worst happens, I leave all my debts divided equally between my ex-wives.”
I glanced across at Joe Marcus but clearly he had heard all this before. I turned and jogged for the helo. By the time Riley reached the cockpit I was already climbing in alongside him. He favoured me with a brief stare.
“You fed up with us already Charlie? Aiming to go home in a body bag yourself?”
I strapped in. “A Bell Twin Two-Twelve has a forty-eight foot rotor diameter,” I said. “That ledge can’t be more than twenty-five feet out from the cliff wall. If you’re going to keep this thing out of the scrub you’re going to need someone to spot for you.”
For a moment he sat with his hands slack in his lap, then he shook his head and reached for the controls.
“Jeez,” he said. “Stephens would have shit his pants.”
“Yeah well, think of it as an added bonus,” I said. “And that’s on top of having bigger tits.”
Five
When it mattered, Riley flew like an angel. I’d kind of hoped that might be the case.
If I’d been wrong we would both have been dead.
But he juggled the manual throttle, the cyclic and the collective, and the anti-torque pedals with a sure and delicate touch. He carefully sidled us, a few inches at a time, toward the wreckage on the fallen section of roadway while I hung out of my open cockpit door and guided him in.
Below us, the rescue team crouched away from the spinning rotors and sheltered the casualties with their own bodies. The protection they offered was more psychological than actual. If we’d touched the exposed cliff face with the rotor tips the resulting explosive disintegration would have probably wiped out everybody down there. As it was, the vicious downdraft beat them flat and grit-blasted them while it was about it.
As we crept closer I watched the longer fronds of stringy vegetation clinging to the rock wall until they became whipped into frenzy by the displaced air. The Bell rocked and plunged like a small boat caught in a cross-current, dipping the main rotors perilously close to the cliff with every jagged roll.
“Is this as good as it gets?” I demanded.
“You think you can do better, sweetheart, you’re welcome to give it a shot,” Riley managed from between clenched teeth. “I’m losing half my bloody lift over the outboard side. Now then, hang about.”
His hands shifted. The Bell gave a lurch and then steadied with the pilot’s side of the helo maybe a foot lower. Instead of the aircraft having to cope with a long drop on one side and a very short one on the other, the space underneath us was more equalised. He feathered the controls just enough to hold station and grinned at me. It wasn’t exactly glass-like, but it was a big improvement.
“Hey, would you look at that? Piece o’ cake.”
I hauled myself back into the door aperture and watched the rotors. The angle opened up room for us to edge another vital couple of feet closer.
“OK, that’s close enough!” I ordered. The skid on my side was directly overhanging the mangled guard rail that had dropped, as one lump, with the rest of the section of road.
I straightened back into my seat, wedging the door ajar with my knee, and glanced at Riley. “Can you keep it steady right there?”
“‘Course, mate.” The Aussie even managed to sound a little bored. “There’s not a fart of wind. Long as it stays that way, no worries.”
“Good,” I said. “Because if I can get down there in one piece, chances are we can get the casualty back the same way.”
I pulled off my headset without waiting for his comments, shoved open the door again and got out.
I tried not to think about the hundred feet of nothing beneath me as I clambered onto the skid and used the guard rail as a stepping stone before jumping down onto the cracked concrete. And all the while I made sure to keep my head low.
A slim dark-haired woman half rose to meet me. Her face was perfectly calm, as if total strangers walked out of mid-air helicopters in front of her every day of the week.
“Doc?” I guessed, shouting to be heard. She nodded. “This is close as we get. Where’s your patient?”
She beckoned. Four people hurried forward carrying a stretcher between them. The boy strapped onto the stretcher was wearing a surgical collar to stabilise his neck. He looked no more than seventeen. His eyes were closed and there was a mess of blood tangling his hair. Another rescue worker jogged alongside the stretcher carrying a drip that was plugged into his arm, and pumping the resus bag covering his nose and mouth.
“‘Ow do you propose we do this?” the doctor asked. She had a heavy accent I couldn’t place with all the background noise.
“Bloody carefully,” I said. “We’ll slide him up and in across the cargo bay. I’ll go first. Be ready.”
She nodded again without argument. I turned back to the hovering Bell. From the ground, getting back into it seemed a hell of a lot more difficult than getting out had done. The vicious downdraft buffeted me and I couldn’t help the horrible feeling that the rotors were skimming my hair the same way as that vegetation.
I took a deep breath and leapt for the guard rail and the skid at the same time. I’d been aiming for the rear door but as I landed the helicopter gave a sudden outward lurch. My foot slipped off the railing. I hurled myself forward, grabbing messily for the cockpit door handle instead, wrenching it open. I tumbled back inside with my heart hammering against my ribs so loud it must have drowned out the noise of the engines.
Riley sat slumped and impassive in the pilot’s seat. Relief made me grin stupidly at him. “Miss me?”
Without waiting for an answer I squeezed between the front seats, staggered into the rear and tugged the cliffside door open. It slid back alongside the fuselage.
As soon as I’d done so the dark-haired doctor climbed up coolly onto the guard rail and put her hand out without waiting to be invited. I hastily clasped it and yanked her inside. In contrast with my own graceless efforts she landed with the ease of a dancer. Bitch.
The front two stretcher-bearers lifted one end high enough to reach the cargo deck and everybody pushed. The doc and I took hold and between us, with amazingly little further drama, we hauled the stretcher on board. I slammed the door shut again.
Riley didn’t need any further signal, moving away instantly.
The doctor nodded to me just once, then reached for a headset and gave Riley instructions about which medical centre to head for. As she spoke she checked the boy’s airway and worked the resus bag to keep him breathing. I hung the saline pouch feeding his drip line high enough not to become a drain instead and strapped down the stretcher.
When I was done I threaded my way to my front seat again and stuck my own headset back on. Riley flicked me a glance that was suddenly serious.
“Nice going, Charlie,” he said. “Thought I’d lost you for a moment there.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “You’ll have to try a damn sight harder next time.”
Just for a second he looked startled but then he grinned at me. “No way would old Stevo have given that a go.”
“Thanks,” I said. I re-fastened my belts, although after the last ten minutes it seemed an oddly redundant gesture. “You never
did tell me what happened to him.”
“He got careless,” Riley said. “And then he got unlucky.”
Six
The doctor’s name was Alexandria Bertrand and the accent I hadn’t been able to discern amid all the other distractions turned out to be French. She was a highly regarded trauma specialist who’d jacked in her career at one of the best hospitals in Paris and done five years with Medecins Sans Frontieres before joining R&R. So I surmised she’d seen the very worst people could do to each other anywhere TripAdvisor warned you not to go.
She was also a qualified forensic pathologist and as soon as the rescue efforts started to scale down she would begin the heartbreaking and laborious task of identifying the dead. Maybe she had more affinity with them than the living. She certainly didn’t impress me with her bedside manner. But, having a top class surgeon for a father I was only too familiar with that haughty clinical demeanour.
I found out most of her background from staff at the medical centre where we transported the injured boy from the roadway collapse. The centre was located in an area of the city least affected by the quake, although the sheer numbers of incoming casualties meant most of the injured were going through military-style triage and then being treated in a makeshift field hospital. Requisitioned tents and marquees stretched out across the parking areas.
Dr Bertrand saw her patient into the care of the surgical team and handed him over with a concise recitation of his injuries and the treatment he’d received so far. There was too much blood on his forehead for her to write the traditional ‘M’ there to indicate she’d given him a hefty dose of morphine and she made a pain of herself insisting they make proper note of it.
“I ‘ave risked too much to bring this boy ‘ere,” she told them in that icily exotic voice, “only for you to overdose ‘im on the operating table.”
“I have risked … “
So, not only a complete lack of bedside manner, but no concept of being a team player either.
