The woman, however, did not wear a flight suit. She was dressed in civilian clothing, a pair of jeans and a button-down blouse. Her eyes were closed and her head lolled on her shoulder. Blood oozed out of a deep gash on her left leg.
They were all dead. They had to be. The two crew members lying in the cabin, bent and broken like dolls after a child’s tantrum, were obviously beyond hope, and the other two must have been killed by the force of the crash. Fire licked at the small open doorway at the rear of the flight deck, the guttural roar of the blaze sounding to Shane like the shriek of some inhuman monster. Poisonous black smoke roiled at the top of the wreckage, accumulating fast. The suffocating heat radiated through the broken windshield.
Shane shook his head. Was there any point crawling into the plane and risking being trapped inside with the other victims? The damage was so extensive survival seemed unlikely in the extreme. In just the few seconds he had been checking out the interior of the cabin, the flames had engulfed the doorway and threatened to consume the cockpit.
It was time to get away from here before he perished, too.
He prepared to drop to the ground and the woman moved. She lifted her head off her shoulder and moaned, her eyes still closed.
This changed everything. Without thinking—he knew if he hesitated at all he would never be able to do it—Shane pushed off with his feet and hooked his arms at the elbows over the metal windshield frame. He pulled himself up and scrambled through the smashed-out windshield into hell.
He tumbled through the opening, landing face-down atop the body of the crew member with the missing arm. The man’s body slumped sideways from the impact and Shane could see that half his skull was missing.
He pushed off, sickened by the sight. Something had gone horribly wrong inside this airplane, something more than just a mechanical problem. Maybe the damage to this man’s skull had been caused by the crash. Maybe. But that strange injury, together with the bloody gauze bandage around the pilot’s head and the presence of a civilian woman where one of the crew members should be, set alarm bells ringing in Shane’s head.
But none of that mattered, at least not at the moment. The inferno was advancing, gaining momentum, racing toward Shane and the crash victims like an out-of-control demon. The intensity of the heat was excruciating. The flames greedily consumed the oxygen, making it nearly impossible to breathe.
He ducked his head, kept his body as low as possible to avoid breathing toxic fumes. He turned toward the two victims still strapped into their seats. He already knew the woman was alive, so he quickly reached across her body and pressed his fingers under the man’s ear, feeling for a pulse.
There was none.
He tried again, his fingers smearing sticky, half-dried blood around the man’s neck. Still nothing. Time was running out. He could feel his hair beginning to singe and his skin felt as though it might burst into flames at any moment.
And the fire was still coming, passing over the body of the crash victim who had become wedged into the wreckage. Shane knew the inferno was being fed by oxygen entering through the smashed windshield. The very damage which had made it possible for him to access the cabin was now turning a foolhardy rescue attempt into a suicide mission.
Shane stood and thrust his head through the broken windshield, breathing deeply of the fresh northern Maine late-spring air. He took several deep gulps of it, finally holding his breath and turning back inside the fetid, foul, superheated air of the wreckage. He bent and fumbled with the buckle on the woman’s safety harness, finally releasing the mechanism allowing the belts to spring free.
He reached around her waist, grateful for her small size, and pulled her from her seat. He lifted her over his shoulder into an awkward fireman’s carry and struggled to his feet, hoping he wouldn’t accidentally force her head into the deadly black smoke and kill her while trying to save her. The distance from the seat to the smashed windshield was only a couple of feet, but debris covered the flight deck, which was already tilted at an awkward angle, making solid footing impossible.
Shane stumbled to his knees. The woman’s body slipped off his shoulder and he caught her. He felt weak and disoriented. The heat was intense and relentless, and he shambled forward again. He thrust the woman’s head and upper body out the smashed windshield, her lower body still trapped inside.
Behind Shane, the woman’s cockpit seat burst into flames. He knew the male crewmember’s seat would follow suit any second now, and his clothing would likely ignite next. He pushed against the wreckage with his feet, his legs feeling rubbery and insubstantial. He reached for the window frame and pulled his body through, wheezing and coughing, choking down fresh air, amazed to still be alive.
There wasn’t room to turn his body in the window frame like he had done on the way into the plane; the female victim’s body took up too much room. So Shane wriggled through the opening, dropping head-first out of the plane. He twisted as he fell, trying to drop onto a shoulder, hoping he wouldn’t slice his head open on the wreckage. He landed with a crash that jarred his body but left him uninjured.
The night was crystal-clear, and as he breathed deeply he felt as though his lungs had been scoured with steel wool after sucking in the superheated air of the plane’s interior. Coughing and hacking, he stood and reached back into the doomed aircraft, grabbing the woman by the legs and trying to lift her clear of the window frame. The left leg of her jeans was soaked with blood and he lost his grip.
He wiped his hand, smearing blood onto his clothing, and tried again. This time he grasped the belt loops of her jeans and used them to pull her body upward. He was at an awkward angle, making lifting her difficult. He glanced inside the cabin, shocked at the sight. Flames engulfed the interior, tongues of orange racing toward the unconscious woman’s legs.
He was out of time. Giving up on lifting her clear, Shane locked his arms under her armpits and dragged her body through the opening. He worried her already injured leg would be sliced open further by shards of glass and metal but could not afford to waste any more time.
Her body pulled through inch by inch, the resistance substantial, as if the aircraft was releasing its final victim only with extreme reluctance. Her knees cleared the opening with a ripping sound that Shane could hear clearly even above the roar of the fire.
Then she was free. They tumbled backward, away from the wrecked plane, landing in a heap on the forest floor. Shane rolled the woman’s body gently off his, then crouched next to her and hefted her once more onto his shoulder. He struggled to his feet and began moving as quickly as possible away from the aircraft toward the road.
He had lost his flashlight in the confusion and pictured himself stumbling around blindly, lost in the near-complete darkness, the woman dying because he might be within ten feet of his car and never know it. At the edge of the clearing, Shane stopped and took one last look at the devastation of the crash scene. It was a sight he knew he would never forget.
Then he turned and plunged into the darkness.
18
May 31, 1987
12:02 a.m.
Bangor, Maine
Shane was panting like a dog when he finally reached the road. His legs burned and his back throbbed and the dead weight of the unconscious woman slung over his shoulder felt like a thousand pounds, rather than the one hundred or so she probably weighed.
He stumbled out of the thick brush, grateful to have found his way out of the wilderness. The road was brightly lit by the full moon, in stark contrast to the impenetrable blackness under the canopy of trees. Shane peered in both directions, looking for his car. There were still no rescue vehicles in sight, although he could hear sirens off in the distance. Whether they were heading in this direction, he couldn’t tell.
Far to the north, Shane spotted an indistinct lump at the side of the road and decided it was probably his car. He had taken great pains to walk as straight a path as possible on the way back to the road and had still missed the Bug by at least a
n eighth of a mile. He sank to one knee, gulping fresh air, trying to catch his breath while still holding the crash victim.
He wondered how much damage he was doing to the young woman by carrying her. Moving her at all was a calculated risk—if she had suffered a broken neck or back, he could be causing irreparable damage—but leaving her at the scene of the crash and waiting for rescue vehicles that might arrive too late had been out of the question. If her injuries didn’t kill her, the northern Maine chill might. Even this close to June, on a clear night like tonight the temperature could easily dip below freezing.
Shane staggered to his feet. He half-walked, half-trotted to his car, reaching it after what felt like half an hour but was probably no more than five minutes. He yanked the passenger door open and lowered the young woman onto the seat as gently as he could. Blood dribbled out of the gash in her leg, but the flow seemed to have slowed. He lowered the seat back as far as it would go and reached into the rear of the vehicle, feeling around until he found the heavy winter coat he kept for emergencies. He secured the still-unconscious woman with the safety belt, and then propped her injured leg on the coat. He slammed the door closed and sprinted around the front of the car, dropped into the driver’s seat and fired up the engine.
He wheeled onto the empty road, then glanced at his injured passenger and blinked in surprise. She had awakened and was staring at him. Her eyes were open and she watched him intently, but she had not moved.
“It’s okay,” he said softly, not wanting to frighten her. “You were in a plane crash and I’m taking you to the hospital.” He cranked the temperature knob to the right, knowing the resulting rush of air would barely qualify as lukewarm.
Her eyes fluttered and Shane thought she was about to lose consciousness again but she didn’t. “Major Wilczynski,” she said weakly.
Shane shook his head. “You were the only survivor. Everyone else in the cockpit was dead. I’m sorry.”
She lay back on the seat, eyes closed, then bolted upright in a panic, groaning and holding her head the moment she did. She steadied herself and reached into the back pocket of her bloody jeans and withdrew a tattered envelope. “Thank God,” she muttered, collapsing back onto the seat.
In the distance Shane could hear the scream of sirens growing steadily louder. The rescue vehicles were beginning to home in on the crash site. Shane wondered whether he should turn around and wait for them. Maybe handing this woman off to an ambulance crew would be wiser than driving her to the hospital himself.
But they were less than five minutes away from Bangor proper, less than ten minutes from the hospital, and as someone who had grown up in this remote area, Shane knew how vast the wilderness really was. The rescue crews could be well within earshot and still not find the site for twenty or thirty minutes. Or more.
He flipped on the Bug’s dome light and glanced repeatedly at the injured woman as he drove. Blood continued to leak from her thigh. Her jeans were covered in it, some half-dried and crusted, the rest glistening wetly in the dim light. Her skin color was a shocking white, not surprising considering her blood loss. He decided he was doing the right thing.
Flipping off the interior light, he said, “Don’t worry, we’ll be at the hospital in just a few minutes.”
She mumbled something in return and he missed it. “What?”
“I said no hospitals.”
Shane shook his head. He must have heard her wrong. “You have to go to the hospital—you look like death warmed over.”
“You really know how to sweet-talk a girl.”
“Sorry about that, but you definitely need medical attention.”
“No,” she repeated emphatically. “I said no hospitals.” The strength of her voice and the intensity of her response surprised him, and he raised his eyebrows. “What are you talking about? You were in an airplane crash—of course you’re going to the hospital. Where else would I bring you?”
“Anywhere,” she said. Her voice had returned to its previous weak volume, barely more than a strong whisper. “This hick town have a bus station?”
“Of course.”
“Then you can drop me there.”
Maybe this young woman’s problem wasn’t a head injury. Maybe she was just plain batshit crazy. “You think any bus driver’s going to let you board? Your leg is awash in your own blood and you look like you just lost a gunfight. Besides, if you try to stand on your own right now, you’re going to drop like a felled tree. I’m sorry,” he said, “but you’re going straight to the hospital.”
The young woman leaned forward, reaching down to her right ankle and fumbling around. What she was looking for, he had no idea. The longer he rode with her, the more Shane was beginning to believe she really was crazy. He glanced forward onto the deserted road and when he looked back, he found himself staring straight into the barrel of a handgun.
“No hospitals,” she said.
***
May 31, 1987
12:10 a.m.
Bangor, Maine
Tracie concentrated on not puking. Her head pounded relentlessly and unless she focused hard her vision insisted on wavering, sometimes disappearing entirely. She knew she had suffered a concussion—hopefully it was only a concussion—and the gash in her leg throbbed with every beat of her heart.
She needed stitches.
She needed sleep.
She wasn’t going to get either.
She forced herself to hold the gun steady on her rescuer. “No hospitals,” she said, and to his credit, the guy didn’t even blink.
“O-kay,” he said. “Then where to?”
“You’re right about one thing; I can’t take a bus looking like this.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” he said drily.
“But they’ll be watching the bus terminal before long,” she muttered, thinking out loud, struggling to concentrate through the haze of pain and confusion. “They probably don’t have any operatives in this tiny nowhere town—”
“Thanks, on behalf of all Bangor residents.”
“—but they will very soon, and then I’ll be trapped. Dammit,” she said, punching the seat in frustration.
“What kind of trouble are you in?” her rescuer asked. “And what were you doing on a military plane out of uniform? You’re not in the military, are you?”
Tracie gazed at the young man, thinking. He had reacted much differently to having a gun shoved in his face than she had expected him to—much differently than most civilians would—and she liked that. And he had risked his life by climbing inside a burning B-52 in the middle of nowhere to haul her ass out of the fire. Literally. She had been semi-conscious in the aftermath of the crash and thought she was seeing things when his body tumbled through the smashed wind screen, dropping like an angel from heaven as the fire worked its way through the cabin.
And he seemed genuinely concerned about her condition. She decided to take a chance.
“You’re right,” she said. “I’m not in the military. My father is a State Department bigwig and he’s dying. I was on an emergency flight home because he only has a few days left, and I want to say goodbye.” She teared up, mentally congratulating herself on her acting skills, even after a plane crash and with injuries.
“Bullshit,” he said, and that was when she saw the sign approaching rapidly on the right. NORTHERN MAINE MEDICAL CENTER.
“I told you, no hospitals,” she said sharply, leaning forward to jam the barrel of the Beretta under his chin, ignoring the resulting pain.
“We’re not going to the hospital,” he said in annoyance, “although I think you’re making a mistake. You’ve lost a lot of blood, that gash in your leg needs to be examined, and it seems pretty clear you’ve suffered a concussion at the very least. But what the hell, I’m not your guardian. You want to be a damned fool, it’s none of my business.” The Volkswagen passed the hospital’s entrance and continued along the lightly traveled road.
“So, where are we going, then?”
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“My apartment’s not far from here. I’ll patch you up the best I can and you can crash there for a few hours while you figure out what you want to do next. Your story is complete bullshit, but I’m not going to just drop you off in the middle of this ‘tiny nowhere town,’ as you call it, injured and alone. I wasn’t raised that way. Maybe you won’t go to the hospital, but I can’t just leave you, either.”
Tracie said nothing, stunned. This guy was a complete stranger, he had risked his life to save her from a burning airplane, and by way of thanks she had threatened him with deadly violence. Now he was driving her to his home. And to top it off, he was cute as hell.
“Think you could get that gun out of my face?” he said into the shocked silence, and she lowered the Beretta to her lap. She was really starting to like this guy. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Name? Why do you care about my name?” She was instantly suspicious.
“Jesus,” he answered in exasperation. “I’m just making conversation. It’s what people do. For example: I’m Shane Rowley, it’s nice to meet you.”
Tracie stared at him, thinking, then chuckled despite the pain. She must be getting paranoid. There was no possible way anyone on either side of the geopolitical fence—USSR or United States—could have known that B-52 was going to crash-land in Bangor, Maine. Thus, there was no possible way this guy could be anything other than what he claimed to be: a Good Samaritan who had been driving past, seen the plane go down, and pulled her out of the burning wreckage.
She sighed and smiled. “My name’s Tracie,” she said softly, realizing with some surprise that she hadn’t introduced herself to a stranger using her real name in well over half a decade.
“See, that wasn’t so hard. We’re making progress.” He hung a left at a red brick bank building that was maybe five stories high—what passed for a skyscraper here in Nowhereville, USA—urged the Beetle up a hill, banged a couple more turns, and drove into an apartment complex overlooking a good-sized river. Small pools of sickly yellow light dotted the parking lot from poles spaced too far apart to do much good.
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