“Just don’t give up. That’s all I’m saying. Write him a letter. Start.”
Jolene knew it was good advice. She believed in fighting for love; at least she once had. Lately, she had trouble remembering what she believed and who she used to be. “I’m afraid,” she said after a long silence.
Tami nodded. “He broke your heart.”
Jolene looked at her friend, sitting across from her in their dingy, smelly trailer, and she thought how lucky they were to have each other over here. “I’m glad you’re here with me, Tam. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Tami smiled. “I love you, too, Jo.”
Fourteen
“We’ve got an emergency situation that’s going bad fast,” the captain said. “We need to run search and rescue in a very tight spot. Reports give us a narrow weather window. We need two helicopters in the air in fifteen minutes or less.” He turned to point at a map. “Here. We’ve got two army rangers trapped by enemy fire.”
“We can be up in ten,” Jolene assured him. She looked at Tami, who nodded sharply, and led the way to the tarmac. There was no conversation along the way.
As they walked across the base, a sharp wind blew up dust that bit into skin and eyes; it raked the flag overhead, whipped it into a frenzy. After a quick check of her craft, Jolene climbed into the left side of the cockpit and took her seat.
She was the first one inside, but within seconds, the crew was all in place. Jolene ran the preflight check, cleared departure with the tower, and started the engine.
The aircraft climbed slowly into the air as she worked the controls—her hands and feet in constant motion. With each mile flown, the dust storm intensified. Wind smacked their windshield.
“Deteriorating viz,” Jolene said. She reached over, flipped a toggle switch, and glanced at her instrument readings. Wind gusted against them, pushed the Black Hawk sideways. A pothole of air sucked at the rotors; the helicopter dropped two hundred feet in a plunging, heart-stopping second. “Hold on, guys,” Jolene said into her mouthpiece. She clung to the bucking, jerking controls and steadied the Hawk.
At the search vector, it took all of Jolene’s upper-body strength to descend evenly in the maelstrom. Below them, the land was craggy, broken.
“There’s nowhere to land,” Jamie called out.
“Roger that,” Jolene said. She worked the two foot pedals, finding the delicate balance between the tail and main rotors.
“There!” Smitty said. “At one o’clock.”
Jo held the helicopter in a hover, but every second was a fight. Wind clawed at them, kept battering the aircraft. On the rugged desert floor below, she could just make out the two soldiers. They were obviously taking heavy fire. Bullets pinged off the aircraft.
Jamie shoved the door open and laid down a heavy cover of fire.
“All clear,” he said after a few seconds. “Good to land.”
A blast of dust and wind gusted through, swinging the Hawk side to side.
“Low and slow,” Jolene said into her mic. She lowered the aircraft slowly to the ground. The other helicopter remained in the air, covering them.
Jolene watched her gauges closely as they rescued the two army rangers.
When the soldiers were safely loaded in the back bay, Jolene finally breathed a little easier. In seconds, they were back in the air, flying toward the base.
There, they heard about another helicopter that had gone down near Baghdad, killing the whole crew.
That night, she couldn’t sleep. Everytime she closed her eyes, she saw helicopters hurtling to the ground, heard people screaming. She saw children, dressed in black, huddled around a flag-draped casket; a soldier in dress uniform walking to her front door … Finally, she gave up trying. Turning on her small light, she reached for her journal.
AUGUST
I love flying. I’ve always loved it, and I’m proud to be here, doing my job, helping my country. But there’s this fear in me lately, a terrible, frightening thing, like a bird flapping to get out of my chest. I have a bad feeling.
The things I’ve seen stay with me. Even in sleep, I can’t get rid of them—arms and legs blown off, soldiers dying, pictures of children pinned to trailer walls, curling in the heat. Every time I take off, I wonder: will this be it? I imagine my family getting the worst news.
Tami keeps telling me I need to reach out to Michael. She tells me how much Carl is helping her cope with what we’re facing. She says I am being stubborn and playing chicken with my marriage.