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by Cawdron, Peter

  Lee switched to internal coms, asking, “Guns or missiles?”

  “Sorry?” Park replied.

  “What do you think he’s carrying? Guns or missiles? If you’re right, and he was on night exercises, what armament would he carry? Guns, missiles or both?”

  “Guns,” Andrews offered, injecting himself into the conversation. “Bullets are cheaper than bombs and missiles.”

  “Is he left handed or right?” Lee asked.

  “I don’t know,” Park snapped.

  “Which way did he break last time? To the left or the right?”

  “Left.”

  “Then he’s right handed. When we break, we go right, we turn against his natural lean. We try and force another fly-over.”

  “What are you going to do?” Andrews asked.

  Lee ignored him. “Distance?”

  “Half a mile,” Park snapped.

  “Hold on,” Lee cried. He raised the collective control, arresting the forward momentum of the Sea King and adjusting the angle of the blades so the helicopter climbed swiftly.

  The Sea King shuddered.

  The airframe of the helicopter groaned under the strain. Lee could feel the blood draining from his head as he snatched at the collective, rapidly altering the pitch of the blades. He pulled back on the cyclic stick, forcing the helicopter to pitch back with its nose raised. The Sea King's initial momentum fought against the screaming engines driving them higher.

  Within twenty seconds, the helicopter approached vertical and began to stall. With its nose pointing toward the clouds, the helicopter's engines stuttered in the air. Lee slammed the stick forward and pressed hard on his right foot pedal. The aging helicopter was sluggish, slow to respond. Eight and a half tons of metal began falling from the sky, plummeting under the pull of gravity. Lee could feel himself lifting out of his seat as they plunged back toward the ocean. His stomach moved up into his throat. A burst of lightning lit up the night, illuminating the raging sea hundreds of feet below them. The engines whined.

  “Come on, you bitch!” Lee yelled, dropping the collective control while pulling on the control stick, fighting to level the Sea King as she plunged toward the ocean. Lee executed a 180 degree turn and had the helicopter racing north toward the MIG.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Andrews yelled, gripping the side of the cabin for dear life.

  “Reducing his angle. Cutting down his response time. Limiting his options.”

  The Sea King leveled out barely twenty feet above the waves, its engine whining as it tore through the storm.

  The helicopter shook with the impact of incoming rounds striking the airframe. The windscreen shattered. Soldiers screamed in agony. The MIG raced screaming overhead. Lee eased the cyclic control stick to one side, turning the helicopter back to the south as the cabin filled with acrid smoke.

  “Mayday, Mayday,” Park cried into his microphone. Although he was broadcasting externally, this time he was speaking in English, knowing the frequency was being monitored from Incheon. “This is Foxtrot Echo Sierra Four Zero declaring an emergency. We have a cockpit fire.”

  “Losing hydraulics,” Lee called out.

  “Losing hydraulics,” Park repeated, relaying their predicament over the radio.

  A calm voice replied over the airwaves, saying, “Foxtrot Echo-“

  “We’ve lost flight controls,” Lee barked as the power surged and the radio cut out.

  “Brace for impact,” Park yelled. “Brace—“

  Lee thought he was ready, but he wasn’t.

  The ocean seemed to reach up and snatch them out of the air, pulling them violently into the murky depths. The left float of the Sea King caught the top of the waves, causing the helicopter to wrench to the side as the float was sheared off by the initial impact. Although the front of the Sea King was designed as a boat, with a broad, curved, flat front, the angle the helicopter came down at was awkward, at almost thirty degrees, negating any design considerations as the chopper caught on the waves.

  The Sea King shuddered as it slammed into the ocean swell. To Lee, it felt as though he’d driven into a brick wall. His head snapped forward. His body strained against the harness holding him in his seat, while his seatbelt dug into his hip. His arms were flung out in front of him, striking the instrument panel.

  Water poured in through the shattered windscreen.

  The Sea King listed to one side as it was buffeted by the waves.

  For a moment, Lee couldn’t see anything, but not because of the loss of cabin lights. Although he was conscious, his vision had blacked out. Hazy red dots flickered before his eyes. His head pounded. Slowly, his eyes focused on the dim, flickering instruments before him.

  Ice cold water flooded the cabin, swirling around his legs and up over his thighs. He struggled with his harness release, but the lock was jammed. In a panic, Lee fought with the locking mechanism. His gloved fingers slipped on the slick metal clips. Water rose over his chest, soaking his uniform.

  Lee tugged at the seatbelt, but the more he pulled, the tighter the harness seemed to hold him. He could feel the icy cold water creeping through his trousers and into his boots. The shock of the water running from his neck down his chest and around his waist caused him to gasp.

  The sinking helicopter continued to twist, leaning heavily to one side, leaving him with a triangular pocket of air around his head as the canopy began to slip beneath the waves.

  Lee struggled to keep his head above water as he yelled out, “Park? Andrews? Anyone?”

  The wind howled outside. Rain pelted the sheet metal, but there was no sound of life, human or mechanical.

  “I need help!” he cried. “Is there anyone there?”

  Waves broke against the sinking hull of the Sea King.

  “I'm stuck! I can't get loose!”

  The frigid water swirled around his chin, forcing him to take a deep breath as the salt water lapped at his mouth. Within seconds, the ocean claimed him entirely, covering his eyes, his forehead and his helmet. Lee tried not to panic. He had to stay calm. If he could remain calm, he had a good minute or so to get out of his seat. If he panicked he’d be dead in seconds, burning up what little oxygen there was in his lungs.

  A light flickered beneath the water. Through the murky gloom, Lee could see that his co-pilot was dead. Park’s lifeless body was pinned in his seat. Blood blossomed in the water from a shard of glass embedded in the side of his neck.

  Seconds were the enemy.

  He had to get out of his seat.

  Lee pushed himself back against the cushion, relieving pressure on the belt. He twisted the release as gently as though he were sitting in the cockpit on the tarmac back in Incheon, having just finished his shift.

  Deep inside the steel lock he felt something click and give. Pushing off gently with his feet, he drifted out of the harness. Lee reached out with his hands, pulling himself through the sinking wreckage.

  The side cargo door was submerged, but open. His lungs were burning. He kicked toward the door, pushing off the bulkhead and reaching for the opening, but his boots were heavy, his helmet was bulky, and his clothes weighed him down.

  Lee fought to clear the wreckage as the Sea King slipped into the depths. He managed to get his helmet off. His ears stung with the pressure of the water weighing down on him, telling him he had to be at least twenty feet below the surface already. He tried to equalize his ears by stretching his jaw out into a forced yawn, but the pressure of the water around him was changing too quickly as the chopper slipped into the depths.

  In the darkness, Lee had no way of knowing how deep he’d been dragged beneath the waves. Feeling with his hands, he tugged at the drawstring on his life vest. Immediately, a tiny gas cylinder inflated his vest, propelling him toward the surface.

  His ascent seemed never ending.

  Lee convulsed.

  He couldn’t stop himself. He was suffocating, dying. He had to breathe. The urge was primal, instinctive, overwhelmi
ng. His lungs demanded air. They would be deprived no longer. A reflex reaction took over and he inhaled, coughing on a mouthful of sea water.

  In those final few seconds, with his brain starved of oxygen, Lee’s mind drifted. Memories flashed before him in muted scenes. Far from seeing his life in miniature, Lee saw only one image, that of a young girl terrified of leaving him. Her arms were outstretched. She was frozen in time, etched in his mind. Bereaved of her entire family in a single night, and now forcibly taken from her rescuers. Her eyes begged for compassion, for understanding, for respite, but the past could not be undone.

  The surface never came.

  Darkness washed over him.

  Chapter 02: Present Day New York

  Jason loved New York. He sat at an old wooden desk overlooking the intersection of Columbus and West 67th, barely a block from Central Park. His rundown apartment was small—a single room with a kitchenette and a bathroom/shower barely larger than a closet. The carpet was worn and paint peeled off the walls, but it was home.

  From the second floor, he looked out across the street at an Italian deli on the far corner. He could hear an old woman singing some archaic, operatic song as she set up a wooden stall outside the deli, loading it with bagels and freshly baked sourdough bread. Her voice carried on the wind, drifting above the cars and trucks speeding by. She was irrepressible, and he loved the sense of character she brought to the neighborhood.

  The smell of coffee drifted up from an independent coffee shop on the ground floor below his apartment. Originally, the shop had been a Starbucks and the smells had been predictable, but there were so many other independent stores and restaurants in the area that they could encourage consumers to boycott big name chain brands. It was Jason's claim to fame. That he lived above a failed Starbucks. Thankfully, the 7-11 across the street had fared better or he would have had a three block walk to the nearest grocery store.

  The new owners of the coffee shop were Moroccan. Hints of cinnamon, cloves and cardamon floated on the breeze. The allure of freshly roasted Arabica coffee beans brought customers in from miles around. The line for a morning cup of coffee stretched around the corner. Jason smiled. Although it was the smell of the dark coffees, the espressos and cappuccinos that brought people in, most customers left with a latte or some other weaker coffee. For him, the smell was enough to get his synapses firing. He sipped at his generic brand instant coffee, smelling the Moroccan coffee wafting through the open window, trying to fool his taste buds.

  Jason looked at his phone: 7:10am and already 85 degrees. It was going to be another scorcher.

  Jason was a first generation Korean-American. His parents adopted him from an orphanage in Seoul. He was too young to remember anything other than their warm, smiling faces, but on coming to America they never let him forget that they regularly endured humid summer temperatures of 100 degrees without air conditioning. In Jason’s family, you weren’t allowed to complain about how hot it was until you’d baked under a ceramic tile roof on the Korean peninsula.

  He was doodling when his cellphone rang. Jason was absentmindedly drawing symbols and equations on a scrap of paper. He put down his pen and picked up the phone. Before he could say anything a deep, husky voice said, “Hey, baby.”

  Jason didn’t bite.

  A male voice that sounded like Barry White with a chest cold asked, “What are you wearing?”

  Jason shook his head without saying a word.

  “Come on, baby,” the caller continued, speaking with slow deliberation. “Talk dirty. Tell me what you’re wearing. Don’t make me come over there. I swear, I’ll bring riding whips and chains.”

  Finally, Jason laughed, saying, “You are sick. You know that, don't you? You need professional help.”

  The voice on the other end of the phone laughed. “You know you love it, you gigolo!”

  Jason couldn’t help but grin as he replied, playing along with the charade as he added, “Whore!”

  “You sexy minx!”

  Through tears of laughter, Jason forced a reply with, “Tramp!”

  “I know your kind,” the rough voice continued, “You need a good spanking!”

  Jason was out. He'd been beaten. He had nothing else to come back with. The provocative voice on the phone added, “I'm going to slap some fluffy cuffs on you and stretch you out naked on the table.”

  “So what's up, man?” Jason asked, fighting through his laughter. “Why did you call?”

  “Sugar daddy doesn't need a reason to call. So what are you wearing?”

  “All right,” Jason replied, sitting there wearing gym shorts and a Nike T-shirt. “I'm naked.”

  “Liar,” the voice said in rough, sexy tones. “You’re wearing leathers, aren’t you? Skin tight black rubber latex?”

  “All right. You win, Mitch!”

  Mitch loved playing the fool. Anyone listening in would probably have been offended, but Mitchell was just being silly. A little banter between friends kept things lighthearted.

  The voice on the phone lightened, no longer dark and mysterious. “Hey, so are we on for our wild Fourth of July weekend down in Atlantic City?”

  “I can’t, Mitch,” Jason replied. “I'm doing Fifty Shades of University Catch Up over here. I’ve got to finish this paper on M-Theory.”

  “M-Theory my ass,” Mitchell replied. “It’s a goddamn national holiday tomorrow; birth of a nation and all that crap. Don’t tell me that bully Lachlan has you working through your Independence Day! What would Thomas Jefferson say?”

  “It’s my fault,” Jason confessed. “I missed the deadline. He gave me an extension, but I’ve got to have my paper on his desk by noon tomorrow.”

  As he spoke, Jason’s attention wandered. He found himself staring at a beautiful Asian girl across the street by the deli. She was standing on the street corner by the lights, but she didn’t cross as the lights cycled through. She had been standing there for a while. She must have been lost.

  “Tell me you’re sticking to the study material,” Mitchell said. “Tell me you’re not going off on your own theories again.”

  Jason screwed up the piece of paper he’d been doodling on, feeling guilty and tossing it in the wastepaper basket beside his desk. That he didn’t answer seemed to tell Mitchell what he wanted to know.

  “You can’t keep doing this,” Mitchell continued. “You’ve got to walk before you run. You can’t go proposing some J-Theory just because you don’t like M-Theory.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Jason replied sheepishly.

  “And quit with the doodling,” Mitchell continued. “Lachlan will flunk you. He doesn’t care how smart you think you are. He cares about the curriculum.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Jason repeated, staring at the scrap of paper in the bin. The crumpled paper was covered in multiple formulae and calculations, hastily scribbled over the top of each other.

  “OK, listen,” Mitchell said, “Forget Atlantic City. Let’s do breakfast at Mario's Diner tomorrow.”

  “Sure.”

  “And no more distractions. Promise?”

  “Promise,” Jason agreed.

  “All right, catch you later, bitch!”

  Jason smiled as he ended the call. Mitchell was right. He needed to knuckle down and finish his assignment. He grabbed his notes, pulled out his laptop and got to work.

  After several hours, a rumble in his stomach told him it was time for a break. The aging clock on the wall of his rundown kitchenette surprised him with 1 PM. He’d made good progress, having cranked out seven pages of theoretical discussion points.

  Beside his computer, though, sat a pad of legal paper covered in symbols and drawings. Jason was barely aware he’d been scrawling on the pad as he immersed himself in the assignment. To the casual observer, his scribbles would be meaningless, just a bunch of Greek letters and math symbols. Even Professor Lachlan would have struggled to comprehend his notation, as it was an abstract representation A bunch of placeholders he’d arbitrarily assig
ned to explore different physical properties of subatomic particles. Ultimately, he knew calculus was a means of quantifying relationships, the only problem was that no one agreed with his notation.

  Sweat dripped from his forehead. He got up and grabbed a Coke from the fridge and made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch. As he sat down, he noticed the girl again, still standing on the far corner of the intersection.

  The sun was relentless, baking the city. Heat shimmered from the scorching concrete.

  There was no shade on that corner, but there she stood looking the wrong way down a one-way street like she was waiting for someone to drive like a salmon against the flow of cars and pick her up. Her dark hair, pale skin and petite body seemed to be wilting in the heat like flowers left out of a vase.

  Jason bit into his sandwich, wondering about her, curious about where she was from and where she was going. She clearly wasn’t a local. What was she doing in New York? Who was she waiting for? Why didn't she stand back in the shade? Curious, he wondered what the story was behind her vacant stare. He popped open the can of Coke and sipped at the cool drink, enjoying the brief respite from the heat.

  Jason had work to do. Staring at eye candy wasn’t going to help him get his master's degree in physics. He focused his mind, having enjoyed the brief distraction, and got back to work.

  Hours drifted by unnoticed.

  The sun was setting when he next glanced out the window. Although he expected she would be long gone by then he half hoped to see her again. She had sparked his curiosity. For today, at least, she was his mystery woman.

  Several pages of legal paper lay strewn on the ground, covered in apparent gibberish.

  There she was. She looked like she hadn’t moved from the one slab of concrete he’d seen her on earlier that morning. In the back of his mind, he’d been vaguely aware of her standing there throughout the day, catching her occasionally out of the corner of his eye.

  Jason checked his phone. It was half past six in the evening. He’d completed an intellectual marathon, or so he felt. His paper was finished. Well, he mused, physics revolved around relativity and uncertainty, and finished was a relative term, one that in his case carried a high degree of uncertainty. He knew he needed to spend at least a couple of hours reviewing his work before he was really finished.