“Can you tell me anything about him? You knew him in a different way. I never saw that part of him—the pilot, the soldier on deployment.”
He got a thoughtful frown on his face. “The man could fly a Black Hawk like no one else. I remember the first time my crew and I flew with him. He dropped us in the middle of nowhere, a few clicks from a village where AQ was stockpiling weapons. He gave us all a big grin and did a little flight attendant routine. ‘We’re going to be flying at ten thousand feet over some seriously fucked-up terrain tonight. If you look on the left side, you can see desert. On your right, yes, more desert.’ That kind of thing.”
Ellie found herself smiling, the person Jesse described definitely her Dan.
“He had a photo of you stuck to his dashboard, but I never got a look at it. He would point to it and call you his angel. ‘I’m on leave next month. I’m going home to see my angel.’”
Ellie’s throat went tight. “That’s what he called me at home, too. His angel.”
She listened while Jesse recounted everything he could remember about Dan—how he liked to poke fun at the other branches of the military, how he’d gotten a reputation for winning at poker, how he’d flown in under fire more than once to get Jesse and his men out.
“There was this time…” The color left Jesse’s face. His eyes lost their focus and went wide. “No. No!”
A chill shivered down Ellie’s spine. She got on her knees next to him, took his cheeks in her palms. “Jesse, talk to me.”
*
The IED explosion knocked him onto his ass, bits of rock, shrapnel, and sand spraying around him.
Christine!
Ears ringing, he dragged himself to his feet. “Christine!”
And then he saw her.
She lay gasping for breath about twenty feet to his left, blood pouring from a shrapnel wound in her throat, both of her legs missing below the knee.
Jesse ran for her, sand blowing in his face, AK rounds whining past his head.
He dropped to his knees beside her, ripped his medic kit from his pack. “Stay with me, Christine. Stay with me.”
“Don’t … let … me … die.”
Jesus. Not Christine.
“I’m not going to let you die. I’m right here.”
The ambush had taken them all by surprise, and everyone was pinned down.
He tied a pressure bandage around her throat, holding it in place with one hand while he gave her an autoinjector of morphine with the other. Then he tied tourniquets around what was left of both legs.
Thudthudthud.
AK rounds hit the sand behind him in rapid succession.
Fuck.
He reached into his kit again, pulled out a twenty gauge IV needle. She’d already lost a lot of blood, and she would die if he couldn’t get fluids into her. He turned her head to the side, searching for that external jugular, blood from her neck wound soaking through the bandage.
Son of a bitch.
“Hang on, Christine.”
A Black Hawk passed overhead, guns opening up, raining death on the enemy. Crash was here with his crew to haul their asses out of this mess.
Jesse got the line going, hooked it up to a bag of lactated ringers, and let those fluids run. “Stay with me, Christine. We’re going to take good care of you.”
Out of it on morphine, she smiled up at him.
Holding the IV bag between his teeth, he scooped her into his arms and ran through the hail of weapons fire toward the extraction point, trying to shelter her small body with his. Sand churned beneath his boots, making it hard to build up speed, wind-driven sand biting his skin.
The Black Hawk began its descent, landing two hundred meters ahead of him.
Hang on, honey.
The rest of his element was heading toward the bird, too. He could hear their M-4s laying down suppressive fire behind him, keeping these motherfuckers off their backs.
Just a little farther.
Two men leaped out of the Black Hawk, ran toward him, taking Christine’s weight from his arms, lifting her into the bird. Jesse jumped in right behind them.
But it was too late.
Christine was gone.
*
The memory washed over Jesse, shards of dread and pain piercing his chest, his stomach churning. “No.”
Someone squeezed his hand, arms sliding around him, holding him tight, a voice cutting through the waking nightmare.
“Jesse, I’m right here. Listen to me. I’m right here.”
“Ellie?”
“Yes.” She stood beside him now, her arms drawing him close, his head pillowed against her breasts. “I’m here. You’re okay. You’re okay.”
He was trembling, his whole body shaking. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Let’s go to the bathroom.” Ellie took his hand, led him down the hallway to the bathroom, her palm cradling his forehead while he threw up. “There you go. That’s good. You’re okay.”
When he was done, Ellie gave him a glass of water to rinse out his mouth, then flushed the toilet.
He sank to the floor, his back against the tub. “It should have been me.”
Ellie touched a cool washcloth to his forehead and cheeks. “You’re okay, Jesse. Whatever happened—it’s over. You’re here with me now.”
But Ellie didn’t understand.