She made a quick right while the trailer ship was still engaged, then came back around while Parish turned. They managed to keep the enemy pinned down this way for several minutes.
“Stinger!” Spence warned a split second before the warning went off in the cockpit. Parish’s Seahawk exploded in a ball of fire.
“Seahawk down,” Webb shouted.
Oh, God. Hannah breathed a silent prayer. “Where’d these guys get RPGs!” She banked the gunship to dodge a hail of bullets while trying to confuse the rocket-propelled grenades with chafe and flares. Metallic pings told her she hadn’t avoided all fire. “Status report,” she called to her crew. They were losing altitude. Fast. She fought the collective to keep the helicopter under control.
“We’ve been hit. Tail rotor,” Webb shouted.
“Mainframe tank,” Spence echoed, shutting off the fuel transfer from the wing tanks and switching to their remaining main tank. They needed more than the six hands, Hannah, her co-pilot and her crew chief had to operate the switches and toggles and sticks. Their gunner was busy with a fire in back and Wray was just in the way.
“TF fail.” She watched the monitors go black as they continued spiraling out of control. Hannah glanced over at the picture of her daughter tucked next to the screen. Her every correction had to be perfect, or it would be her last.
“Buckle in!” she ordered the crew.
“Stinger,” Spence warned.
Too late. They plummeted toward the ground.
CHAPTER TWELVE
MIKE RACED to the downed helos with one thought—to reach Hannah before al-Ayman did. He could smell the fuel even before he could see it.
Webb Emerson staggered from the wreckage, hauling Boomer out by the scruff. Boomer pushed to stand on his uninjured leg, and Webb assisted the gunner to the tree line before heading back with Mike after the pilot and co-pilot.
Spence had launched headfirst into the now-shattered Plexiglas windshield and hung half in, half out of the gunship. The man groaned as Webb eased his body through the opening. The mike had torn through his nose and mouth, leaving his face bloody and unrecognizable.
Mike crawled over him to reach Hannah, her limp body still strapped to the seat. He left her helmet on, as per standard operating procedure.
“Hannah,” he called to her, desperate for a response. He found a thready pulse at the base of her throat. She was still alive.
But she didn’t make a sound as he freed her from the seat, threw her over his shoulder in a fireman carry and scrambled out of the burning helo.
“We’ve got to move now,” Itch shouted.
“There’s one more,” Webb called to them. “An evac—”
Itch raced for the helo even as a series of small explosions started erupting around the wreckage.
“No!” Mike shouted, setting Hannah down to follow Itch at a dead run. He was not going to send another man home in a body bag just because his chief was hell-bent on being some sort of damn superhero.
Mike slammed Itch to the ground. The fuel tank exploded in one big fireball.
He ducked for cover from the hot shrapnel raining down. “You okay?” He choked back the black billowing smoke.
“Yeah. You?”
Mike checked the rip in his sleeve, just a graze. “Yeah.” A few more inches and the razor-sharp metal would have come close to taking his arm off. He pushed to his feet but didn’t bother dusting off. The game was just getting started.
He picked up Hannah again and carried her while Webb and Hazard supported Boomer in a five-legged race. Four of Mike’s men carried Holden, each holding a corner of the makeshift stretcher, a thermal blanket generally used for shock.
Itch guarded their exposed tails as they attempted to lose the guerrillas in the thick brush and darkness. The plants slapped at them and slowed their progress, but they didn’t have time to break out the machetes, nor did they want to leave a trail.
Nouri had been sent for a sitRep of the other gunship and crew, and he finally caught up to them. “The good news is all four of them walked away from the crash. The bad news is al-Ayman got there first.”
“Any sign that we’re being followed?”
“Al-Ayman is too busy celebrating their capture to care much about us. They’re headed back to camp. Not so much as a scout on our tail.”
“Itch,” Mike called out. “Let’s slow it down and pay a little more attention to covering our trail. Give it a klick or two, and we’ll stop to check on our wounded.”
His muscles strained from the extra weight, but he’d carry Hannah all night if he had to. Still unsure of the extent of her injuries, he wanted to give her as smooth a ride as possible. He prayed there was no internal damage done.
Why the hell hadn’t she aborted when he’d ordered her to? They’d discovered the stingers, but in the process had been discovered themselves. Ground-to-air weapons made this group much more dangerous to the gunships than to his team.
After another klick and further confirmation that they weren’t being followed, Mike called a halt and lowered Hannah to the ground.
Boomer barely made a whimper in spite of his obvious discomfort, which was a good thing since it wasn’t life threatening. He had to wait until the corpsman could assess the damage to Hannah and Holden.
“Holden’s lost a lot of blood.” Hospital Corpsman Ryan “Doc” Brady reported. “He’s in shock. Otherwise in good shape, except for his face.”
“What’s his blood type? Does he need a field transfusion?”
“I don’t think so. Not yet anyway. I can keep him hydrated and the pain at bay with morphine. But if we’re going to be here for any length of time I’m going to have to stitch him up. You know how easy it is for infection to set in out here. I’ve got the antibiotics, but they won’t do much good for a gaping wound.”
“So stitch him up.”
“Mac, it’s Hollywood. His face…” Doc kept his voice to a whisper. “This guy needs a reconstructive surgeon. I’m just a field medic.”
“He can have reconstructive surgery after you save his life.”
“He won’t let me touch him until I’ve seen to Calypso. How is she?”
“Unconscious.” The weight of that one word felt heavy in his chest.
“Head injury, you think?” Doc knelt beside Mike so he could take a closer look. “She’s still wearing her crash helmet. That’s good.” Brady handed him smelling salts.
“Hannah,” Mike called her name as he held the salts under her nose.
She stirred, groaned. Her eyes blinked open.
She stared up at him with a dazed look on her face. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
She sprang to a sitting position and pushed his hand aside. “Parish’s gunship. Spence is hurt—” She didn’t wait for help to get up. She assessed the gathered group, removed her helmet and crawled toward Holden.
Mike tried to warn her. “Han—”
“Spence,” she said, taking his hand.
He opened his eyes. “Hannah,” he managed to say.
“I’m right here,” she said, brushing the blood-matted hair back from his forehead.
As Doc moved to clean him up, Holden batted at his hand.
“You’re going to have to let him sew you up, Spence.”
“My face—” He turned to spit blood, but coughed instead.
“Hollywood,” she said. “Trust me. Chicks dig guys with scars. Think of all that time you’re going to get to spend with your Navy nurse.”
“I love you, Hannah.” He lifted his hand to brush her cheek with his knuckles. She squeezed his hand. “I didn’t want to leave anything unsaid.”
“I love you, too.” She choked back a sob. “Hang in there, okay. Let Doc sew you up.”
“Don’t leave anything left unsaid.”
“Okay,” she promised as he closed his eyes to the jab of Doc’s needle. Instead of leaving his side, Hannah stayed until Doc finished the job.
When she pushed to her feet,
she almost collapsed against Mike. He steadied her. “Don’t read too much into that little love scene. All guys love their swim buddies after some morphine.” He knew the I love yous came before the morphine, but maybe she didn’t.
Hannah held on to him as she reached for the nearest tree. Then she let go and threw up on his boots. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “Where’s Wray?”
“Wray who?” He wiped his boots on the underbrush.
“Our pickup,” she said, swaying on her feet.
“Dead,” he said without mincing words. He handed her his canteen.
She took a swallow and spit. “And Parish?”
“Alive.”
He saw the hope in her eyes.
“Captured,” he said. “Whole crew.”
“We’re going after them.”
“We doesn’t include you.”
She staggered back a few steps, drew her handgun and fired.
“What the—” Mike was still patting his chest in amazement, looking for bullet holes long after he realized she’d fired over his shoulder.
“I wasn’t aiming for you, McCaffrey. If I had been I would have aimed lower,” she said before she fainted.
MIKE BARELY HAD TIME to catch her before she hit the ground. He settled her there then raised his weapon. Kip and Itch already had their weapons pointed. Itch ventured farther into the jungle, then lowered his rifle.
Mike came up beside him. A Filipino with two holes in his head lay lifeless.
“He’s dead,” Itch said.
Mike checked—no pulse. Two holes—no kidding.
“Wray,” he read the name sewn to the man’s uniform and let out an uneasy breath.
“She was obviously delirious,” Itch said. “His weapon was drawn. She saw movement, an honest mistake.”
But a mistake just the same. There’d be hell to pay for killing an allied soldier. In a training accident no less.
“Did you see him draw his weapon?” Mike asked Itch.
Itch shook his head. “But come on…he’s armed—”
Mike unholstered his handgun and, without hesitation, shot off two rounds into the nearest tree trunk. He looked both Itch and Kip in the eye. “She didn’t kill him. I did.”
Both men offered a solemn nod, as good as their word. They might not like it, but they’d back up his story.
Mike digitally recorded the man from the shoulders up. The evidence he’d take back would show two bullets to the head. By the time the body was recovered, if at all, no one would bother to dispute his story.
He took one of Sergeant Wray’s dog tags and pocketed it. “Bury him in a shallow gave. Mark the location for recovery. But try to conceal it from al-Ayman,” he instructed without ceremony.
Hannah sat a few yards away, her face covered by her hands. He tugged them free. “Move out,” he ordered. He had to get her moving before shock took over, if it hadn’t already.
“I killed a man,” she sobbed. “I looked him in the eye, just like you said not to, and I killed him.”
“You missed him by a mile. I killed him.”
She stared at him with a blank look on her face. “I—”
“I did,” he insisted.
“Why would you say something like that?”
He looked her in the eyes. “Because it’s the truth.”
WHAT DID MCCAFFREY THINK he was protecting her from? The truth? She’d killed a man, an ally, and she had to live with that, even if it meant going to prison. Under the same circumstances, she’d do it again. When Wray had appeared out of the bushes and aimed that handgun at McCaffrey’s back, countless regrets had flashed in her mind, not the least of which was that she’d never told Mike about their daughter.
The timing would never be perfect, so why not now?
Now, when his jaw held that foreboding line. Now, when he pushed them through the jungle in the opposite direction of the guerrilla camp.
Now.
She had really lousy timing.
Hannah raced ahead to speak with Webb and Boomer. “Chief, Boomer, you both still have your handguns?” It was obvious when she approached that they both still wore their holsters with their sidearms in place. But they verbally confirmed it. “What about Spence?”
“Doc—” Webb used a headset given to him by the SEALs “—does Holden have his 9mm with him?”
“Negative.”
Hannah heard the exchange as well as everyone else in their group.
“Did you catch that?” she asked McCaffrey.
He gripped her by the elbow and kept her moving. “Doesn’t mean a thing.”
“You think I killed an innocent man, but don’t you see…that proves my case. He stole a weapon and disappeared, until he reappeared to take aim at your back—”
“Any trained soldier is going to reach for the nearest weapon. We didn’t know he was there so we overlooked him in the confusion of pulling your crew from the wreckage. If he was trailing us, he could have shot me at any time. Instead he waited until we stopped and popped up to let us know that he was there. You’re the only one who saw him take aim. And Hannah, you’re in no condition—”
“He lied to us. He said Americans had been captured.”
“Maybe we’re not the only Americans on the island. Maybe al-Ayman captured Americans on another island and brought them here. We don’t know he lied until we can check out the Tango’s camp. And you’re overlooking one very important fact—he’s Filipino, not Arab. Al-Ayman is made up of Arab Muslim Extremists.”
“What about his being a sympathizer? Or a brainwashed soldier? Or one of a dozen other explanations?”
“I’m open to the possibility. But it’s my job to report the facts.”
“I’m the one who shot and killed Sergeant Wray,” she said.
“The facts are Wray was Filipino. He was wearing the uniform of the Philippine army. He came up on me from behind, weapon drawn. I turned and fired, putting two bullets in his head. And you are not the one going to Leavenworth for this.” He said it with conviction. Who wouldn’t believe him?
She grabbed his forearm and pulled him to a halt. “You can’t protect me from something I did.”
“Han, it’s not up for debate.”
She didn’t doubt that he’d put his life on the line for her. She’d do the same for him. But a federal penitentiary? For a crime he didn’t commit and she did? One of them had to watch his back.
And both of them had to be there to look after their daughter. Spence was right. She shouldn’t leave anything left unsaid.
She could have died today. She could still die today. And Mike could die. But the only real risk was that Fallon would never know her father.
That wasn’t going to happen.
“Can we fall back. There’s something—”
“Now is not the time or place for confessions. The touchy-feely crap is going to have to wait. I have two things on my mind. The first is keeping you safe, the second is rescuing your cr—”
“You have a daughter. We have a daughter.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MIKE HAD THREE THINGS on his mind now. The low blow Hannah had delivered did what the hike had been unable to do—knock the wind out of him. But he kept walking, picking his way through the dense undergrowth and rugged terrain of the jungle. This load was heavier than a hundred-and-thirty-pound woman, and all of it was in his head. Amazing what that extra burden could do to a man.
Hannah had given birth to his child and hadn’t even bothered to tell him. It seemed shooting men in cold blood was something the woman excelled at.
Mike twisted the watch on his wrist. The Chase-Durer had no place here, but he’d finally decoded the message.
No regrets. Fallon.
What an idiot he’d been. He’d forever regret not taking a closer look at the little girl when he’d had the chance. He remembered her as pink. But what color were her eyes? Her hair? Did she look like him, even a little? Or did she look like Hannah?
“Say something
,” she said.
He kept walking. He had to keep walking until he distanced himself from feeling. He had a job to do.
“Mike—”
“That’s Commander McCaffrey, or Mac to you. There is no Mike on this mission. Your timing could have been better, Stanton. Work on that!”
By the time they reached their staging area, a WWII bunker built into the side of a cliff by the Japanese, Mike had managed to tuck away his feelings into a neat little pigeonhole, just like the mail awaiting his return.
If they got out of this, he’d deal with everything Stateside.
Their command post had no door, except the vines that had grown over the opening. Mike upended his flashlight, giving the bunker a soft glow. Another gave off enough light to see by, but in the interest of conserving batteries they were only using the two. His SEALs had already spent three days on the island; supplies were running low.
“Set him over there.” Doc had the stretcher bearers lay Holden on one of two tables in the room. While Doc tended to the wounded, Webb and Hannah joined his men in going over their hand-drawn maps of the island.
Mike couldn’t even look at Hannah, so he addressed Webb. “Where did Wray say that guerrilla camp is supposed to be?”
“To the southwest,” Hannah answered.
“That’s the direction we were headed when we stumbled on those stingers,” Nouri said, setting aside his sniper rifle and easing out of his pack. Overeager and always the first to speak up, even when he shouldn’t, Ensign Kip Nouri was the new guy. A blond beach bum and champion surfer, who’d made it through BUD/S, but still had six months of on-the-job training before he earned his budwiser.
“The guerrillas retreated in that direction,” Itch added his own commentary to Nouri’s.
The exact opposite end of the island, with only a few hours till sunup. Mike stood with his arms folded. “We can’t afford to sit out the day in this bunker. The clock is ticking.”
If the crew was in fact still alive, and he believed that was a strong possibility, considering the enemy’s game plan. Four hostages would get them more attention than four dead men. But when the guerrillas were done with them, what then?
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