by G. H. Holmes
When she finally entered the glass escalator, she rode straight up to the second floor—which Ben had already passed by then. He was still climbing up on the metal rafters, shafts, and beams at a speed becoming an ape. This had to be hard work. She had no idea where he took his energy from.
On the second floor, 470 feet above Paris, Sharon went over to one of the brass-rimmed tourist telescopes. She meant to train it on Ben as she wanted to see his face. But an excited black family chattering in French had the same idea and beat her to it. She stood and waited for a few minutes, but the family's twelve-year-old wasn't about to surrender the telescope to anybody else and his father didn't make him. The kid was mesmerized by the crazy climber.
Sharon walked on. She leaned on the balustrade and gazed out on the sun-scorched city, which looked breathtaking from up here. The hot wind ruffled her short blonde hair.
In an attempt to humiliate her, the Syrians had cut off her long tresses. Their knife hadn't made for a very good haircut. In the mirror she'd looked awful. She had her hair done at the base in Ramstein and was currently happy with it, though Ben liked her hair long. Eager to please him, she'd decided to let it grow again.
"Il est abracadabrant!" a stout fellow said.
"Déliré," his wife affirmed.
They stared up at Ben.
Sharon saw that it wouldn't take long and Ben would reach the tower's summit. She strolled toward the escalator that would take her to the top.
The uppermost platform of the Eiffel tower is really a giant cage. Good thing, too. Because at 1,000 feet above the city, anybody who would accidentally—or not so accidentally—slip over the banister would meet certain death on the concrete below.
Sharon stood and stared far into the distance, her fingers grabbing the cage's chain-link fence—when she looked down and saw a head ascend by her feet—outside the cage.
Ben was coming up!
A collective shout went up when the others became aware of the climber. Soon they swarmed around Sharon.
Ben came and held on to the mesh wire on the outside. He looked through the squares at Sharon and smiled.
"You're not even out of breath," she said.
"Come closer," he said, which she did.
Her face met his and they briefly kissed.
Suddenly, Ben's hands let go of the wire mesh. He fell backwards and with his legs pushed away from the platform.
Terrified, Sharon screamed and the crowd backed away.
But she heard him laugh as he fell away.
Ben turned around in mid-air. Facing down, he immediately yanked on the rip-cord and the chute came out like a plume of silk. It opened with a "whomp" and Ben drifted through the summer afternoon like a strange rectangular dandelion seed.
Sharon saw him float across the Seine toward the western part of the city.
Below, police sirens were blaring.
"Madame, do you know this base jumper?" a man's voice next to her said.
She turned to see who spoke. It was just a tourist.
"Don't ask," she said. "Because I'm not going to tell you."
"Aaah," the man said knowingly, "love… He tried to impress you. Men are fools for love. Did he propose to you? Did he? You should marry him."
"I'll think about it," Sharon said.
Twenty minutes later, Sharon was down by the base of the tower again. The crowds had dispersed by then. Police was gone, too. Traffic was creeping along.
Undecided, she stood by the curb. What was she going to do now?
She had just decided to walk back to the hotel, when her mobile phone chirped.
It was Ben.
He'd come down in the Bois de Boulogne. His chute got caught in one of the high trees of the forest, so he had to surrender it and climb down without it. Watched only by a handful of butt-ugly queens of the night stalking the nearby walkway, he'd made a stealthy getaway.
"Want to come over?" he said. "It's a fine forest. Real nice. We could spend the night here."
"I don't want to sleep on lichen." Sharon sighed. "Before we sleep anywhere, we're going to have a candle light dinner on the Seine tonight, big boy. Seine's where I am." She stood on the bridge above the river by the Eiffel tower and was looking at its green water.
"Yeah, but what about after the dinner?"
"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," Sharon said.
Being married to Ben was an adventure and most of the time she was more than willing to go along with his silly ideas. As it was, serious downrange time and their conflicting schedules forced them to be apart way too often. It made the times they had together all the sweeter. Their days were limited. Therefore they inhabited them more fully. Other couples lived life with occasional high points in it. If for no other reasons than lack of time, Ben and Sharon had to leave the boring stuff out.
Ben took his high-stemmed glass and swirled the wine in it. He lifted the glass to his nose and inhaled its aroma.
Sharon watched him. She took hers, too, and they clinked glasses while looking past the candle into one another's eyes.
Even at night her eyes had that radiant blue tint to them that first captivated Ben four years ago. In a way, her month in Syria had given them an even greater mystique.
The water of the Seine River lapped against the moored restaurant ship on whose deck they sat. Small tables for two dominated the place. Other patrons were holding hands, talking. Somewhere, an accordion gave a melancholy tune.
Ben reached for Sharon's slender hand and squeezed it gently.
"Babe, I love you so," he said. "I hate those times away from you. Now, if you want me to, I'll retire from the service and we settle into civilian life. With your credentials, you'll get a job in any hospital. With your expertise, you'll make those doctors look small."
"Ben…"
"No no. I mean it." He leaned forward. "You can work as a nurse and I get a desk job somewhere, selling cars or whatever. We'll see one another every day. We'd be wakin' up next to one another in the morning. I'd be cooking you tea, help you do the dishes."
"What a guy," Sharon said.
"Got that right," Ben said and fell silent.
"Ben…" She cast her eyes down. "For some reason I dread going to Bragg."
Why was that? he wondered.
"We're not going to stay there long," he said. "It's just for a day or two. Then they'll split us up again anyway. You'll go to Bethesda for a bit and I…" He'd be going back to Iraq.
Sharon sighed.
"At least we'll be together while we're in Bragg."
She shivered, even though it was still pleasantly warm right now. "For some reason I can't stand thinking of the place."
"Why?" Ben said.
"Don't know. It's like a cold place in my mind these days. It's like there's something there that has it out for me."
"Syria is far away, babe."
Ben leaned back. Maybe this was her way of hinting at post-traumatic stress disorder. If so, he needed to create as much of a sense of security for her as he could. Now he regretted having jumped off the Eiffel tower. He'd put stress on her when she needed rest.
He thought of the seedy women in the Bois of Boulogne.
"We're not going to sleep in the forest tonight," he said. What a goofy idea that had been. "We'll sleep at the hotel. You need a good rest on a decent pillow. I think I aggravated you enough already. And we'll see what we can do about staying at Bragg. Maybe they'll let us exit Pope by ourselves. Then we can stay at a hotel in Fayetteville."
"That'll be expensive."
"Well," Ben said. "We're in Paris tonight, Sharon. Let's just forget about Bragg for the time being. Let's have a good time while we're here."
"You're right," she said and cast him one of her million-dollar smiles.
Their hotel room was small. The queen-sized bed barely fit into it. The bathroom was out in the hall, as was the shower.
But Ben and Sharon didn't care.
After weeks apart and a daring rescue,
they now clung to one another like drowning souls in a dark lake. None wanted to let go of the other as if they were afraid that the other might vanish for some reason, never to be seen again. They reassured one another a thousand times of their love, and Ben promised to go to the ends of the earth to save her again, should that become necessary for some reason. Sharon soaked it up and in the end they finally rested, at ease with themselves and the world. That night in Paris the couple got closer to one another in spirit, soul, and body than ever before.
"What a wonderful night," Ben said in the morning. He got up on one elbow. "What a memory. Now we can say, 'We'll always have Paris.'"
"You sound like Humphrey Bogart," Sharon said.
"And you look like Ingrid Bergman," Ben said. "Only better. And you're married to me and not that Laszlo guy."
He reached under the blanket and pulled her close again.
0
It was dark when Ben and Sharon arrived at Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina two days later. Their Hercules transport plane belonged to the 778th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron. It touched down on the east-west runway and taxied to the parking lot on its western end. When the craft came to a halt, the thrum of rain became audible on the hull. The ramp came down in the back of the aircraft and a cold wind rushed in. Rain whipped the tarmac outside.
They unbuckled and stood. Ben saw how Sharon hugged herself. She shivered.
He handed her her jacket.
"Almost home, babe." Their home for a day being a matchbox in one of Bragg's housing editions.
Sharon gave him a brief and feeble smile. Then she stared at the ground again.
Ben watched her walk toward the ramp. She still sensed bad vibrations, he was sure. She hadn't mentioned her dread of coming to Bragg any more. But it was still there. He could see it in her face. With a sigh he swung his rucksack onto his back and picked up Sharon's sea-sack. He followed the flow of troops around him—paras from the All American and a few Rangers—and he and Sharon went over and entered the Green Ramp facility.
The kids around them were laughing and horsing around, obviously glad to be home again.
But Sharon didn't catch their mood. "This place looks decrepit," she stated matter-of-factly after they sat down on a bench to wait for the bus that was to take them over to Fort Bragg. "Like a haunted house. Halloween's early this year."
Ben looked around. She had a point. But he'd been to installations much worse. He decided not to reply.
Sharon reached for his hand. "I hope this doesn't take forever. I'm dog-tired."
Ben grunted an acknowledgement.
"I want to take a shower. Then I'm going to bed."
A few minutes later they sat on the narrow seats of a rocking bus and were on their way. The rain slapped the car's windows. When Sharon began to shiver even more and goose bumps broke out on her arms, Ben got concerned.
"Want to see a doc, babe?"
"No more doctors," Sharon said.
Ben sighed. She'd seen her share of them at LRMC the last few days. Maybe her emotional state was due to jet lag, he consoled himself. He personally was pretty immune to it. His training in Coronado had knocked out all propensity for it, but that was not normal, of course. Surely, she suffered from jet lag. Tomorrow she'd be done with it.
Or the day after that.
Ben fumbled the key out of his pocket and unlocked the door of the small frame house they'd been issued for the night. Since it was still drizzling, the friendly sergeant behind the wheel let Sharon wait in the jeep while Ben opened the house. When he disappeared inside with their luggage, she said good-bye and dashed out.
Sharon splashed through the rivulet on the street and had just reached the three concrete steps leading up to the entrance, when she heard the very upset voices of a man and a woman. He screamed and she screamed back.
The couple in the house next door was quarreling.
Loudly.
A natural peacemaker, Sharon was intrigued immediately. Instead of following Ben and going inside, she continued on the sidewalk and went toward the voices of her clashing neighbors.
Before she'd reached the steps that lead up to their house, the door was thrown open. A young woman with big hair staggered out on high heels, her arms up defensively, her gaze on the ground. Her blue dress clung to her and revealed a curvy body. Sharon decided that the girl's looks were not the reason why her man was shouting so.
She yelled back at him.
But the girl somehow looked guilty, Sharon felt.
Now the lady's husband was following her out of the house and down the steps into the wet street. Not very tall, he wore uniform pants, boots, and a gray sweat shirt. Nervous anger seemed to crackle around him.
Both quarrelers were too taken up with one another to notice Sharon, who could barely make out what they were screaming. She gathered that the soldier, whom the girl pleadingly called Antoine, had just returned from downrange. Soon she realized that he was accusing his wife of infidelity.
Oh boy.
This could get ugly.
She decided to get involved.
"Sir," Sharon said, "I'm an officer's wife. If I may…"
Antoine ignored her. Demanding an answer for something, he pushed his wife. When she shrieked the wrong reply and shoved his hands away, he slapped her.
"You lie!" he yelled and their quarrel got even more heated. One word gave the other, until Antoine had enough. He suddenly wielded a pistol—his service Beretta, Sharon figured—pointed it at his wife, and fired.
Sharon blinked every time as she witnessed five quick flashes from the gun.
On each impact the big-haired girl in her tight blue dress jerked. She fell down hard and one of her super-high heels flew away.
Without thinking, Sharon Harrow rushed forward and fell on the man's gun-wielding arm to arrest the weapon. But Antoine shoved her away and Sharon, light as a feather, fell, too. The street's rain water soaked into her clothes.
Barely a yard away, the shot girl lay writhing.
Sharon got up on her knees in front of Antoine. She blinked, trying to sober up—when a boot came down on her and Sharon lay on her back. A second later she looked into the muzzle of Antoine's Beretta. It hovered right before her face. She saw the fingers of the fist holding the grip. Saw the finger around the trigger.
Saw how it squeezed the trigger.
An explosion rang out.
Sharon's world turned black in an instant.
Ben saw what happened from the door of his house. A chill ran down his spine when Sharon went down. His heartbeat throbbed in his ears. His veins seemed to pump ice water. Craning his neck, he saw no blood. But she no longer stirred. Motionless, she lay in the rainy street.
The aggressor left Sharon and now stood over the other woman he'd gunned down, who still squirmed. The rain was washing her blood away toward the gutter. The man shot twice more at her torso—
—then Ben was behind him. He kicked the gunner's pistol hand in a soccer kick and the gun flew away in a wide arch. Before Sharon's killer could turn around, Ben had rammed his fist into his kidney. Startled, the man arched his back and Ben's arm came around his exposed neck. Ben interlocked his hands, closed the vise, and began to strangle the killer. Sitting down, he forced the man onto the ground, too, where he rolled over until the killer lay on his belly. Ben, still squeezing windpipe and blood vessels, lay on the man's back. The killer was now immobilized.
More than a minute Ben held on to the writhing soldier, until the man's air went out and he finally fell slack.
By now the others in the houses around had heard what was going on. Several men rushed up. Soon they surrounded the crime scene.
When Ben looked into the muzzles of several service pistols that were pointed at him, he finally left the limp body of his wife's murderer and crawled over to Sharon on all fours.
The rain slapped his back.
Sharon…
This idiot hat shot her in the head, had shot Sharon in her head
. This idiot had—
Holding his breath, Ben studied her ashen face. Her eyes were closed. Only on second glance did he notice the hole in her left cheek bone. His nose dipped closer. It was really there. That was where the slug had entered her head.
He studied the street below her. There was still no blood.
Gingerly he reached out and felt for the back of her head. It was round and unmolested. Her hair remained unstained. Her skull was intact. Ben's heart began to pound.
Was she still alive?
Perhaps there was still hope.
Gently, Ben put her head back down and stood. "Ambulance," he shouted. "Get me an ambulance!"
All around, men just stood and stared at him. Nobody moved, so he shouted, "I'm Lieutenant Commander Harrow, USN. I'm a Navy Seal and my wife right here was gunned down by one of your men a minute ago. Now get me an ambulance! On the double!"
Ben sat on a plastic chair in the ER-waiting room of Bragg's Womack Medical Center, his face in his hands. Sharon was still alive. A team of surgeons worked on her right now.
Ben sighed. She'd known it.
This was what her premonitions had been about.
He was such a fool to bring her here when she didn’t want to come. But then, he'd never been one to go on premonitions much. His was the world of hard and cold facts, he figured. Those he'd learned to trust, glad that God had put laws into nature that were predictable and dependable.
Women were different in that respect. They put more of a store in hunches and such, and called it intuition. Sharon wasn’t one to argue with him. But if asked, he would have known a hundred reasons why Fort Bragg was the safest place on earth and why her trepidation was irrational and unreasonable. She hadn't asked and he hadn't told her.
But now look what happened.
She'd been right all along.
And he had not.
Ben ruminated. Shaken to the core, he decided that there was more to life on earth than met the eye.
God, let her survive this…
