by Mel Odom
“Understood, Base.”
The walkie-talkie connection hissed sparks in Remington’s ear. He strode again, seeking to neutralize some of the nervous tension that filled him. More than anything, he wanted to hear from Goose. The first sergeant was more than just a friend; Goose was Remington’s third hand, the man who could see that things Remington wanted done got done, and that they got done Remington’s way.
Remington stepped in behind Private First Class Foster. The private had been on the second team, a step down from the individuals the captain had worked with in the past, but Foster was good with the computer.
“Let’s see the archived footage of the helos again,” Remington said. “A few seconds before the impact.” We’ve missed something. We had to.
“One monitor or both?” Foster asked.
“Both,” Remington replied. “Post four quadrants on the screens. All in one-third speed slo-mo.”
“Yes, sir.” Foster tapped the keyboard. Both monitors ceased struggling with the grainy digital video they were puking over at the moment. The images became crystal clear again, going back to the kind of performance Remington desired and was accustomed to.
The captain stood behind the computer operator and opened his vision. Remington had always been good at tracking more than one thing at a time. That was one of the abilities that had helped him get into OCS and had later helped him make the jump to captain.
The images scrolled again and again, changing by flickers. Besides the ground cams that had been assigned to the Rangers, the U.N. peacekeeping teams, and the Turkish army, several of the arriving helicopters and gunships had been equipped with cams as well. The satellites governed by NORAD’s command center had pumped the video and audio transmissions to Wasp and to Remington’s intelligence teams.
The offered views included ground viewpoint shots as well as shots from inside the helo cockpits.
Remington eyed the screens, blurring his attention and his peripheral vision, not looking at the individual action, but looking through the surface motions for the incongruent actions that didn’t fit. Something had gone wrong as the helos had swooped into the LZ, and he was going to see it this time.
The exterior views of the Sea Knight contingent showed the helos descending toward the LZ in perfect formation. The crimson haze from the smoke grenades Goose had used to establish quick visual sighting blossomed against the tops of the smoke clouds from the explosions like blood surfacing from the ocean during a shark attack. In the next instant, some of the helicopters suddenly veered into others.
Two Sea Knights in the lead collided and set off a chain of violence that whipped through the formation. Other helos slammed together in a string of aerial wrecks. Often, the blows were only glancing, or a brief meeting of rotor blades that shattered against each other, not full-blown collisions. Shards of carbonized steel ripped through the helos like fragmentation grenades, slashing through the metal sides and Plexiglas windows like tissue paper. Men died in that moment, and others died immediately afterward as the helicopters broke and went to pieces against the hard earth. Black, oily smoke mixed with flames and obscured the views of most of the few ship-carried cameras that had survived the impacts.
In a brief, frozen split second, the image of Goose on his knees beside a man who had been impaled by a long shard filled one of the helo cams as the Sea Knight heeled over out of control. The image was so stark, so unforgiving, that for a moment Remington was afraid Goose had been killed. He forced himself to remember that he had talked with the first sergeant just after that. When the helicopter made contact with the ground, the camera screen went black.
But Remington had seen something else. The image played at the back of his mind, gnawing like a terrier. He leaned forward. “Stop.”
Foster hit the keyboard. All the cycling images left onscreen halted, becoming silent, frozen images of destruction or impending destruction.
“This one.” Remington pointed to the lower left quadrant of the left monitor. “Can you identify this helicopter?”
Foster tapped keys and floated a legend into view on the screen. “Yes, sir. That was Lieutenant Briggs’s aircraft.”
“Can you isolate Lieutenant Briggs’s aircraft in that formation?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then show me footage of the approach toward the LZ again and let’s see what that helo did.”
After a brief intermission for serious keyboarding, Foster put the results up on the right monitor. The helicopters froze onscreen. “This is fifteen seconds before the first crash,” Foster said. “And this is Briggs’s Sea Knight.” The private tapped a few more keystrokes.
A circle, as bright yellow as a tennis ball, surrounded the helicopter.
“Let’s go,” Remington said, leaning more closely. He watched with interest as Briggs’s aircraft suddenly veered out of control and locked rotors with the nearest Sea Knight on the left. Both aircraft fell to the ground like broken birds. “Briggs’s craft was one of those that went out of control.”
“Yes, sir.” Foster nodded. “I’ve got a list of the others. I can isolate their cameras, too, if you want.”
“We’ll see. For now, run the footage from the interior camera in Briggs’s helo backward. Frame by frame from the impact. You can cross-reference the time-date stamp on the videos, can’t you?”
“Yes, sir. That won’t be a problem. All the cameras and transmission equipment were calibrated for exact timing.” Foster shifted nervously.
“What is it?” Remington asked.
“It’s these cameras, sir. The ones used in the helos and by the ground teams? They shoot four thousand frames a minute. Even if you go back thirty seconds, that’s two thousand pictures to look at. Frame by frame is going to take some time.” Foster sounded apologetic. “Didn’t mean to interrupt, sir. Just thought you should know.”
Remington nodded. “I needed to know, Private. Can you sort the frames?”
“Sure.”
“Let me see every hundredth frame.”
Bending to the keyboard, Foster entered the parameters of the search. A new window opened on the monitor, filling with the frozen image of the interior of the Sea Knight’s cockpit.
The camera had been mounted inside the helicopter’s cockpit roof and peered over the pilot and copilot’s shoulders, cutting them out of the picture and not giving a clear indication of what had happened that had made the helo break formation. On normal operations, the Sea Knight carried a crew chief and a mechanic in addition to the pilot and copilot. During hot drops that entailed possible engagements with hostile ground forces, the mechanic was replaced with two door gunners.
Remington guided Foster by voice, flipping to every hundredth frame. Onscreen, the view changed dramatically as the Sea Knight had pitched and yawed in the air. One of the nearby helicopters hung in mid-destruction, the flames and debris hurtling from the craft as steel bent and ripped loose. A hundred frames back, the helo was struck by another helicopter. The copilot’s face in the other aircraft was frozen in surprise, one hand pushed to the glass as if to ward off the other helo.
Four pictures—four hundred frames—back, the captain figured out what he was looking for. “Stop here.” Remington gazed at the screen, then tapped it. “Can you reimage this? Zoom in and blow it up?”
“Sure.” In seconds, the picture grew larger and larger at Remington’s direction.
“Do you see it?” Remington stared at the image and felt a cold gust of wind across the back of his neck. He knew that feeling was only his imagination, though. There wasn’t a cold wind anywhere in their vicinity.
Foster studied the picture and shook his head. “I see the helicopter that Briggs’s aircraft ran into.”
“Here.” Remington ran his finger over a section of the screen. “Look here and you can see a reflection of the copilot in the Plexiglas.” The image looked like a grayed-out photograph against the Plexiglas. “What do you see in the seat next to him?”
�
�The seat is empty,” Foster said in a hollow voice.
“Yes,” Remington said.
Foster worked the keyboard, pulling up and scanning Wasp’s crew lists on the left monitor. “No, sir,” the private said. “That seat wasn’t empty. At least, it wasn’t supposed to be empty. Lieutenant Briggs was definitely aboard that aircraft. The copilot was Sergeant Julian Mahoney.”
Keen-edged interest sharpened Remington’s focus. “Go back a hundred frames.”
Foster did. The seat remained empty.
Three hundred frames back, passed in increments of one hundred, the view inside the cockpit changed, and the reflection of the interior wasn’t displayed against the Plexiglas. Four hundred frames back, the seat was still empty when the reflection formed against the Plexiglas again. A hundred frames back from that point, Lieutenant Briggs, looking dangerously cool despite the immediate pressure he had flown into, sat in the seat with his hand on the control yoke.
“There he is,” Foster said.
“Yes,” Remington agreed. “Now we roll forward, Private. By tens.” Thirty frames later, Briggs’s seat was empty. After a frame-byframe search, Foster located the two frames in sequence that showed the Marine helo pilot had been in his seat, then gone. Except for the pile made by a uniform, headgear, and boots. The helicopter had gone out of control from that moment and swiftly collided with the nearby helicopter to start off the string of destruction that had rained from the sky.
“Put up both frames,” Remington said in a calm, controlled voice. “Side by side. I want to look at them.”
Foster tapped keys. The two frames popped into view.
Remington studied the two digital images. Except for the fact that Lieutenant Briggs was missing and his uniform was on the seat, the scenes didn’t look different in any way.
Somewhere between the two images, Lieutenant Briggs had managed to strip off his clothing and gear and leave a helicopter 338 feet above an LZ in hostile territory. Remington thought about that, wondering if the lieutenant’s body would turn up on the battleground. He glanced at the corporal’s clothing in the nearby chair and felt certain there would be no body.
When Dockery’s hand relaxed in his, Goose felt certain the man had died. However, when he checked the corporal’s pulse, he found a flicker of life. The anesthetic had flooded his nervous system and left him limp on the shard of metal that had ripped through his body and now supported him. Dockery’s eyes remained open, but Goose doubted the man saw anything.
Goose released Dockery’s hand. God, look over him. Keep him safe till I can get help here, or take him home with You if that’s what You feel is best. Whatever was done needed to be done quickly.
Pushing himself to his feet, Goose looked at Bill’s empty uniform. Goose’s mind reeled as he tried to accept the evidence lying on the ground.
Bill is gone.
That was the bottom line. No matter how Bill had been taken or killed—God, please let Bill be alive—he was gone, and he wasn’t there to help Goose now as he had for so many years as a friend and a fellow soldier. The flutter of the wet, dust-encrusted kerchief Goose had tied around his lower face pulled in tight against his lips as he took a deep breath. In that breath, he centered himself, putting on the mental armor of the professional soldier. He spoke calmly into the headset microphone.
“Base, this is Phoenix Leader.”
There was no reply.
With effort, Goose turned toward the LZ, where the stricken Marine wing lay shattered. Flames leapt up from the broken helicopters, and the heat created pockets of shifting mirage effects in the air, swirling through the heavy black smoke. A few men stumbled and staggered from the wreckage.
There are survivors. The realization electrified Goose. The fatigue and pain sloughed away from him as the need to act gave him a second wind. He pushed himself into a jog and gazed back along the border.
Two Harriers and one Whiskey Cobra roved through the air, cutting through the ocean of haze that cycled through the air. Roiling waves of fire still scoured the no-man’s-land that had been forcibly declared on the Syrian side of the border.
Goose switched his headset over to the general frequency in use by the Rangers. “Phoenix Team, this is Phoenix Leader. Count off.”
In quick succession, the team counted off, letting him know that five of the Rangers were still at hand. Dockery and Evaristo were too wounded to help with a rescue effort. Bill Townsend and Neal Clark were missing.
Goose ordered the men to help with the rescue operations among the downed aircraft, then turned his attention to the front line. The Turkish military were still in position there, but he knew he’d feel more comfortable with his teams in place. And he knew that Cal Remington would demand that. “Echo Two. Bravo One.”
“Echo Two here, Phoenix Leader,” Bernhardt replied.
“Bravo One reads you, Phoenix Leader,” York said.
“Hold your positions,” Goose ordered. “We’ve lost com with Base. For the moment, we hold what we have.”
Both rifle company leaders agreed.
“Echo Two, is Six still intact and with your unit?” Echo Six was Rick Means, one of the best point men Goose had ever seen.
“Affirmative, Leader.”
“Get Six and two men forward,” Goose said. “His choice. I need spotters in place. With the com out, we don’t have eyes that can see through that haze. I want as much intel incoming as we can get.”
“Affirmative, Leader.”
“Phoenix Leader, this is Alpha Two. We’ve lost men, Goose.” Sergeant Gunther Slade, the number two in Alpha Rifle Company, sounded hysterical. A ragged breath rattled over the com. “They’ve disappeared! There are empty uniforms everywhere!”
“Understood, Alpha Two,” Goose stated calmly. “Treat them as MIAs for now. Get me a list of missing personnel. Secure any loose weapons and gear. We don’t know how soon it will be before we can restock. Charlie Leader, do you copy this com?”
“Affirmative, Phoenix,” Lieutenant Harold Wake’s deep voice replied. Harry had six years in the Rangers. He was still young in some ways, a graduate of OCS after getting a doctorate in marine biology in Seattle. He’d attended school with the intention of putting in his time in the military to pay off his college tuition, then get back to the work in the oceans that he loved. Instead, he’d gotten hooked on the Ranger life, drawn to the adrenaline and sense of family that was missing after being raised in state institutions.
“Charlie One,” Goose said, “I need you to fall back with your people to aid in the search and rescue among the Marine wing. Grab all the medkits you can get your hands on and head this way.”
“Roger, Phoenix,” Harry replied.
Goose reached the first Sea Knight. Black spots danced in his vision from the lack of air.
The helicopter sat on the rough land canted over on its right side. A rotor blade had chopped into the hard earth, looking for a moment like it had buried itself several feet with the impact. Then Goose noted the broken stubs of the other rotors and knew that the rotor blade the craft rested on had shattered, too.
Smoke coiled like fat, restless snakes from the helicopter’s interior. The Sea Knights carried ordnance, but most of that was secured with the Marines. The downed Whiskey Cobras would be more dangerous. Dead men lay strewn before the Sea Knight. He forced himself not to dwell on the fact that until minutes ago these men had been alive.
Despite the amount of death he had seen in the past two hours, he couldn’t distance himself from the horror of it.
And God help me if I ever do, Goose prayed.
After ascertaining that none of the men lying outside the helicopter were alive, Goose ducked down and prepared to enter the open side cargo door. A flash of movement caught his eye, and he was in motion before he recognized the Beretta M9/Model 92F that came up in the hand of the dazed Marine on the other side of the cargo area.
The gunshot filled the tight space inside the cargo helicopter but hardly made a dent in the
cacophony of noise that rolled over the battlefield. The bullet slapped into the ground just outside the cargo area.
Goose spun and went to the ground, keeping his assault rifle in his right hand while his left clapped instinctively to his helmet. “Stand down, Marine,” he ordered in the voice of authority he’d cultivated while stepping up through the ranks. “I’m Sergeant Gander. With the 75th Rangers.”
A choked sob came from inside the helicopter. “Sorry, Sergeant. I’m sorry. I’m hit. I’m hurt bad.”
Goose pushed himself up and put his back to the helicopter’s body. He kept the M-4A1 canted up. “What’s your name, Marine?”
“Lance Corporal Kenny Pierce, Sergeant.”
Goose pushed out his breath and stared down at the arm that stuck out from under the helicopter’s body. The limb was the left arm. A gold band glinted around the ring finger. Married. The realization slammed home to Goose like a hammer falling. Thoughts flickered through his mind, images of Megan, Joey, and Chris. He walled them away with effort. He was a soldier on the battlefield. He would always be a soldier on the battlefield.
“Lance Corporal Pierce,” Goose said, “I want you to put your sidearm down.”
“Done, Sergeant.”
With a quick prayer, Goose heaved off the side of the helicopter, stepped around the dead man’s arm, and hunkered down in the cargo door. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the dark interior.
The Marine corporal was young with a kid’s features that time in the service hadn’t yet erased. Dark brows hung over pain- and fearfilled eyes set in dark hollows. He sat with his back against the opposite side of the helicopter. Blood stained his BDUs. Dead men lay around him. Fuel stink filled the air and let Goose know they were potentially sitting on top of a bomb.
“They’re dead, Sergeant,” Kenny croaked.
Goose shouldered his rifle and crept forward. The helicopter creaked as the weight shifted but didn’t move more than a couple inches. “I know. I lost a buddy of mine.”
