Whole Pieces

by Ronie Kendig

  The ominous call for help skipped over the bullets and spent casings that flew around them.

  “Repeat, we are under attack and—”

  Crack! Hiss!

  A curse flicked into the air.

  Hawk focused on the dark night, on the tiny bursts of gunpowder that gave away enemy positions. He dared not look away, or he might put himself and the others in danger. Hawk guessed someone had shot the comms pack.

  “Yes!” Mack shouted. “We’ve got backup. SEALs to our eleven.”

  In the far distance, sparks against a black void, were the miniature explosions that must be the SEALs he’d seen. Were they fully engaged too? Change had occurred, despite the fact that what he’d tried had failed.

  “Didn’t I tell you I saw something?” Jensen shouted above the din of his M4.

  More fighters appeared on the hill, scrambling from one cover point to another. Hawk trailed one, waited till the terrorist broke out, then fired.

  As he lined up another shot, he felt a tug against his shoulder. He flicked a glance in that direction but saw nothing, just . . . wait. He angled his shoulder forward. The moonlight snagged a wisp of smoke that coiled up from frayed material. Someone nearly hit him. A bullet had grazed the top of his vest. Couple of inches to the side and it would’ve sliced his carotid artery.

  Adrenaline pumping, palms slick in his gloves, he honed every fiber of his fighting body to defeating this tragedy. Fire licked his arm. He hissed and shook his arm, feeling the warm trickle of blood sliding along his forearm.

  “Augh!” Strangled, a cry pierced the night. “I’m hit. I’m hit.”

  “Get down,” Stratham said, all business with his weapon and the fighters pouring over the incline.

  At least Mack hadn’t mentioned his mom, wanting to see his kids, and getting home to enjoy a famous hometown burger. It meant things had changed enough for hope to ignite anew in Hawk’s heart. Maybe he hadn’t failed. Now, having come back and reliving this heartbreaking night again, he knew he’d not made a mistake. Not in the way mistakes went.

  Dirt pelted his face. Hawk dropped his face against the dirt and felt his helmet vibrate. Augh! That bullet would’ve shattered his skull without the Kevlar dome.

  “Hold,” Stratham said. “Help is coming!”

  A warning buzzed at the back of Hawk’s brain.

  “Ain’t like we got a choice,” Jacobie shouted back.

  “I am not dying here.” Mack grunted as he threw a grenade. “I’m going home, gonna tell my mom I’m sorry for wrecking Dad’s bike.”

  Hawk’s heart misfired. Drenched with dread, the air caught in his throat.

  “Then going to spend time with my kids in the basement watching all those stupid cartoons and eating pizza.”

  Oh Lord, please . . . no no no.

  “And burgers—those fancy ones from Andy’s Palace.”

  Hearing hollowed, Hawk looked around. The familiarity was creepy.

  Heaviness coated the sky, pulling his gaze up.

  He hauled in a breath. Death hovered. Swooped. Dove.

  God, stop it! Please!

  To his left, a juicy thwat splatted against Hawk’s conscience. Then a thud followed by gasping. Someone had eaten a bullet.

  Hawk threw a glance over his shoulder, saw the body sprawled over the trench. Legs kicking himself backward. The master sergeant!

  “Stratham!”

  On his back, the guy held his neck and pushed out of the way. Hawk dove toward him. “Medic!” he shouted as he clamped a hand over the injury.

  “No good,” Stratham said.

  “Shut up.” Hawk grabbed the makeshift keffiyeh that now lay around Stratham’s shoulders and neck and stuffed the material against the wound. “It’s close, but I don’t think it hit the carotid.”

  Eyes wide and lips glistening with blood, Stratham grabbed the drag straps of Hawk’s vest. “You knew. . . .”

  Thoughts staggering, Hawk forced a smile. “Now you’re delirious.”

  “You knew.”

  Someone dropped to his knees beside Hawk. “Got it.”

  Yielding to the medic, Hawk shifted aside. “He going to make it?”

  “Probably. Artery’s not nicked. Gotta stop the bleeding.”

  Stratham wagged a hand toward the fighting. “Stop ’em.”

  Bolstered by the master sergeant’s words, Hawk nodded and returned to his position. Fighters rushed over the rise. Hawk eased the trigger back. His weapon fired. Again and again and again.

  Everything was repeating. In a second . . . Merciful God, stop this massacre.

  Keep your mind. Keep your mind. He had to shut out what he knew. And just do.

  They were down there, somewhere. The men who would launch the grenade. Kill the team. From his pack, he pulled out a grenade. Maybe he could stop this. Pin pulled, he drew back and launched his arm up. Released the spherical device. Sent it spiraling toward the enemy emplacements.

  Fire exploded through his arm. Hawk jerked, feeling a gush of warmth. Holding his arm close, he glanced down and saw a chunk missing. He tugged off the bandanna from around his neck and, using his teeth, tied it off. Not tight like a tourniquet, but enough for him to function. Tugging the ends, he secured the knot. Light glinted off his watch.

  The world swirled into a slow-motion nightmare. Hawk blinked and drew up his head. Time had fallen off the clock, as if it’d stepped off a cliff and was falling lightning-fast. It was time. Time for the incoming grenade, the one that would kill the first of his team.

  Seconds ticked with each boom of his heart. Each tat-tat of machine-gun fire.

  His pulse whooshed through his ears, deafening, terrifying.

  Thoughts ramming through the warped second in time, Hawk felt clutched in the grip of Time, of Thomas Constant. Was Constant going to make him relive all this? Would he survive and wake up, as he had before, to Ashley crying over him in the hospital? Oh, he hoped so. He desperately hoped so. And Abda . . . what would become of the boy?

  Wind squawked in his ears. The concussion of the weapon’s fire thumped against his mind. He turned to the side, lifted his gaze to the sky. It’s time.

  Hot and cold battled for control of his limbs. Adrenaline increased his pulse. The roar in his ears worse than before.

  And here it came. What should take a second or two seemed to take an eternity.

  Ten feet.

  I want to see Ashley again.

  Seven.

  The men have a right to live.

  Five.

  No, he didn’t want to just see Ashley. I want to marry her.

  Three.

  I’m tired of being angry.

  Two.

  Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to die. Right here. Right now.

  One.

  As if disembodied from his will, his arm snapped out. His hand coiled around the incoming grenade. He snatched it from its path. Leaned back. Flung it on a return path. Two thundering heartbeats later, an explosion rent the night.

  Light shattered darkness.

  Fire rained down.

  Hawk stared. Had that really just happened? A strange noise bubbled up his throat. It came out sounding a lot like a giggle. But Green Berets didn’t giggle.

  I did it!

  Another bubble. This time laughter. He jerked around. Saw the men. Still fighting. Some wounded. But alive. They’re alive!

  “Yes!” He pivoted.

  His legs tangled. Hawk flung out his arms, trying to catch his balance. “Whoa!” He wobbled. Stepped to the side. Landed crooked on someone’s leg. He felt their muscle roll. His foot slipped. Momentum shoved him down.

  Even slamming into the ground, his head thudding hard against it, Hawk wasn’t shaken. His joy wasn’t damaged. Staring up at the sky, he laughed. Thrust his fists in the air. “Yes!”

  The massive adrenaline dump left his arms heavy and weak. He breathed deeply, wiping the warmth of tears from his cheek. He did it. He’d stopped the trigger that ended the lives of his m
en. His team. Those he called brothers.

  He closed his eyes and blew out a long, steadying breath. Okay, fight’s still on. Let’s get it on!

  Hawk opened his eyes and lifted his shoulders. Then froze.

  Time slowed, but not the way it had a minute ago. Just enough for him to look up, see the device sailing in a high arc and flying straight toward him. God, no! Help! Not another one.

  “Grenade!”

  “Take cover!”

  Planting his hands on either side, he lifted his hip. Then swung his foot. Swung hard. Connected with the grenade.

  Steel jarred the bony part of the top of his foot. The sensation carried up his nerve, into his leg . . . knee . . . hip . . .

  Click!

  A thunderclap punched his eardrums. A sound he knew. Knew well from combat. The signal of a detonation.

  Darkness ruptured by brilliance. Pure. White. Nothingness.

  Epilogue

  “Hawk?”

  Drifting from the greedy claws of sleep, Hawk rolled his head to the side. Fastened onto the soft brown eyes that had been in his waking vision and last sight for the past thirty years. A weary smile trembled across his lips.

  She’d aged well. A few laugh lines around her eyes. Smile lines that marked the amazing triumph of time together. As beautiful today as she was that day he’d first met her. She pressed her lips to his forehead, the scent of roses wafting around her like a halo. He loved that smell. Reminded him of heaven.

  “The kids are here, Hawk.”

  To say good-bye. He knew what she did not say.

  When she shifted aside, he saw his eldest son standing behind her. “Thom . . . asss.”

  Strong, powerfully built, Thomas Kelley had followed in his footsteps and spent most of his days in uniform. “Dad.” He knelt at the bedside. “I love you.”

  He’d taught him well. Taught him that love and warrior went together. Passionately.

  “Quite a difference, eh, Haytham?”

  Hawk looked to the side, choking back the emotion that made his throat raw. “Constant?” He frowned and felt a jolt as he took in the bed—which he occupied—and his son kneeling. “What’s happening?”

  “Just wanted to say good-bye to an old friend.”

  “Old. I’m definitely old,” Hawk conceded. Then watched as more dialogue passed between him and his son before Thomas rose.

  “My namesake is quite the man.”

  “Yes, indeed.”

  “Already a decorated war hero. And little Kate there . . .”

  “Just like her mother,” Hawk said, feeling the heat of tears but not caring.

  “So you’re not afraid of dying?”

  Hawk sighed. “No. I’ve had a full, good life.” He sighed. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me. You did this. You made the choices.”

  “But I wouldn’t have had the choice if you didn’t give me the chance.”

  “Yes, well, dying in peace is far better than the way you were checking out last time, don’t you agree?”

  “Definitely. I can now die without any regrets.”

  After the grenade detonated and took Hawk’s legs with it, he’d spent two weeks in an induced coma before regaining consciousness. But this time around, even the loss of two limbs was not enough to destroy what was left of his life. He’d seized the chance to make things right with Ashley, legs or not.

  Of course he wasn’t sure she would still want him. Broken now. But he’d been broken for a long time. Angry. Contemptuous toward everyone and everything. At least, in the original time strain he had been.

  This time, grateful for the second chance he’d been given, he had found the courage to tell her he was sorry. He could still remember her rich-brown hair tumbling over her shoulder as she leaned close and sniffled. “You hardheaded soldier.” She touched his face. “I’m so glad you came back to me.”

  “Broken.”

  More tears rushed down her cheeks. “You came back, Hawk. That’s all I care about.”

  “I . . .” He swallowed, feeling the parched desert of his throat. He cleared his throat, noticing the doctor slipping out of the room. “I . . . Ashley . . .”

  She eased onto the bed beside him. “I’m here, Hawk. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “C’mere.”

  Brows, perfectly arched, wrinkled as she bent in.

  “I love you, Ashley.”

  Her chin trembled. And he knew why. He’d never uttered those words the first time around. Wanted better things, better times, better options. And then he spent thirty-two years hating himself. Hating the world. Hating Ashley for being so perfect, so true. Hating himself for not living up to her expectations.

  Hawk remembered how he had cupped her face. Tugged her closer. “You deserve better, but I am glad you will put up with me.” He pressed his lips to hers, savoring the sweet changes of life. And he had savored them ever since.

  No, he hadn’t been able to save the lives of all of his unit. But there was one notable exception: Stratham had lived. He had a hideous scar on his neck, but he had his life back.

  “He looks like another seven-year-old you once knew.”

  Hawk blinked, jerked back to the present. He looked in the direction Constant nodded. “Brian.” His grandson. “He’s six.” Abda had been seven. “Hey—whatever happened to him?”

  “Alive. Very strong. Talks about being patient instead of a warrior, yet he is a warrior.” Constant shrugged. “Of sorts.” A strange smile overtook the normally stiff and stoic face.

  Patient . . . not a warrior. . . . Did that have anything to do with what Hawk had whispered into that MP3 player decades past? He locked gazes with Constant. “So he lived. But I don’t get it. Everything went wrong. The kid told his parents. The fighters came after us.”

  “In fact, the boy did not tell his parents.”

  “But they hit us. Knew where we were!”

  “That is because of your genius—the gifts you bestowed on Abda.”

  “The gifts—”

  “Yes, the patch, the necklace, the MP3 player . . . the effects were unavoidably wretched!”

  “What effects?”

  Constant sat up straight. “It’s like this—no, you couldn’t change things. Not on the grand scale you wanted to. Rarely can that truly be accomplished. But the minute things made the grand difference. Time gifted to you, gifted to the boy, ended up gifted to your team. Don’t you see?”

  “Was that supposed to make sense?”

  Lips flattened, Constant worked his jaw muscle. “It’s quite simple, really.”

  After so many years, Hawk had missed the oh-so-proper accent and the banter. “Please enlighten me.”

  “You and the men on your team gave Abda gifts, yes?”

  Hawk nodded. “I thought it was better to be friends than to be threatening.” He shrugged. “A small change.”

  “Exactly! But giving him those gifts cost time.”

  “Okay.” Hawk could buy that. Made sense. “Sure.”

  “Which caused the boy to return to his home later. That lapse of time allowed him to see the fighters.”

  “Fighters?”

  “They were there to slaughter his family—and they did that before you went back. In the original time strain, Abda died that night with his sisters, mother, and father. Thanks to your gift of time, he lived. Saw the men and went screaming to his father.”

  Floored by the words spoken, the life he’d altered, Hawk shook his head. “I thought—”

  “Yes, well, we have deduced that thinking’s not your strong suit. Stick to fighting.”

  Hawk smiled. “Agreed.”

  “But that’s not the end of it, Haytham. You see, then the colonel knew Abda had been with Americans because the poor child dropped his treasure box in his haste to get to safety.” Clucking his teeth, Constant shook his head. “That’s why your men faced the fighters again.”

  “But how had they found us the first time?”

  “Abda�
�s fear of you after your brutal warning the first time shone all over his face—that, along with his fear for you. His parents demanded that he tell them what was wrong.”

  “He told them.”

  “Indeed.”

  Blown away by the repercussions, the difference one act of friendship had on the team, on a little boy’s life . . . Losing his legs was a small a price to pay to relive his life the right way. Things were good. Stratham was alive.

  A form filled the doorway. “Ah, look!” Constant said. “Your old war buddy.”

  “Old codger got ugly. What’s Stratham doing here anyway? I haven’t seen him in twenty years or so.”

  “Word of your failing health has spread. It was on the news.”

  Surprise tugged at Hawk. “How? Why?”

  Constant frowned at him. “You still don’t know . . .”

  “Know what?”

  Snapping his gaze down, Constant hesitated. “Well, friend, you’ll soon find out.” He donned a top hat, checked his watch, then gave a curt bow. “I bid you adieu, Haytham. A life well lived is worth honoring.”

  Though on the three occasions Hawk had seen “Mr. D.,” seeing him now, hovering in the hall beyond his room, gave him no cause for concern. Because that wasn’t his ticket out of this world. He knew it wasn’t. He’d lived a good, full life, but he’d also surrendered his anger, his fears, a future unknown to One who could handle it.

  In the corner, as his grandchildren drifted in and out of view—man, he’d done good, hadn’t he?—Hawk gave a nod to Constant.

  “Hawk?” Ashley’s creaking but soft voice caressed his lessening heart.

  Returned to his body—his bed . . . whatever—he looked up into those soft eyes he loved.

  “You have one more visitor.” Ashley’s face was glowing. As if lit by a spotlight. “You’re not going to believe this.”

  “Who . . .?”

  She shifted aside, and a man in his late thirties entered the room, surrounded by a least a half-dozen other suits. Guards. It’d been three decades since he’d been discharged, but he knew how to spot soldiers, even out of uniform. Dressed in a very expensive suit and taller than Hawk’s son, the man entered.

  Inclining his head, the man offered his deference.