Behind Enemy Lines (27 page)

The ambassador didn’t mince any words. “Not yet, but we’re going to lose him soon. Can you lift his legs if I get his head?”

“Sir!” Annie protested.

“We’re all going to die if we stay here. Do you propose to leave this fine soldier behind after he saved all our lives, Captain?”

“No, sir.”

“Then help me pick this boy up.”

Annie jumped to obey.

They managed to half drag, half carry Tom to the helicopter and dump him inside. A pool of blood formed under him in a matter of seconds.

Annie’s heart flew into her throat.

She raced around the helicopter and climbed into the seat. A red beret poked over the wall in front of her.

Oh, no.

She didn’t even wait to strap in, but yanked back on the controls. The helicopter lurched into the air. To her utter shock, gunfire started from the back of the helicopter. She glanced back to see the ambassador—and Tom—wielding pistols.

Their burst forced the rebels to duck for a split second. But it was enough. She was up and away from the roof.

A hail of gunfire raked their belly, but Annie was too focused on flying to notice the holes in the floor, inches from her feet.

The helicopter lurched. She pushed the craft forward faster and climbed higher. It bucked again.

A quick glance at the engine gauges showed the hydraulic system was hit. Her flight controls were going to be compromised soon. She wouldn’t be able to command the Huey to go up or down, left or right.

She couldn’t come this close to saving Tom only to crash now.

He climbed up into the cockpit beside her, and she stared at him in shock.

“What are you doing up here? Get back there and lie down so the ambassador can help you.”

“I’ll be okay. What in the hell were you thinking, coming back for me? That was insane!”

“Do you want me to turn around and drop you back on that roof?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “Inside this bird, I’m in command. So cut the small talk.”

A pause. One side of his mouth turned up in a grin. “Yes, ma’am.”

She wrestled with the cantankerous helicopter for several minutes in silence.

Tom spoke from beside her. She couldn’t tell if he knew what he was saying or not. His head lolled drunkenly on his shoulders and his color was terrible. “I told you to leave the embassy. You disobeyed my direct order!”

“I did leave. And you never ordered me not to come back.”

“I didn’t think I had to. This was a damn fool maneuver.”

The coastline came into view. The helicopter bucked harder this time and fell off to the right slightly.

She corrected with the rudder and eased back on the throttle. The helicopter shuddered again.

“Look, Tom, I don’t have time to argue with you. This bird’s getting unruly, and we’ve still got a few minutes to go. Go lie down.”

“Like hell—”

“I give the orders here. Get back there, get horizontal, and don’t you die on me. Got it?”

He lifted an eyebrow at her. “Got it.”

He crawled out of the seat and into the back of the helicopter. A sudden lurch threw him against the back wall, and he grunted in pain as he collapsed onto the floor.

Annie muttered to herself, “I went to a lot of trouble to fetch that lout’s worthless hide. If he dies, I swear, I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Tom’s voice came over her earphone, amused.

She started. She hadn’t realized she was transmitting over her throat microphone and that it was still set to the same frequency as Tom’s gear.

“You’ve got a stuck mike, darlin’. That dive you took into the fox hole must’ve jostled something.”

“Great.”

She didn’t have any more time to argue with him because the silhouette of the
Independence
carrier leaped over the horizon in front of her.

The helicopter was really becoming a handful. It crow hopped and jigged like a bronco trying to toss an unwelcome rider. She babied the controls and coaxed it to cooperate long enough to get them over the carrier’s deck.

But setting the bird down was another matter. Her vertical control was all but gone, and she swooped and dipped like a swallow in flight. Her tail winged around in a sickening 360-degree arc, almost taking out two flight-deck crewmen. But finally her right skid impacted the deck. For a second the helicopter tipped up on its right side. She chopped the throttle, and it rocked down to the deck with a hard thud.

Annie cut the engine and leaped out of the craft, screaming for a medic.

A team must’ve been standing close by because in seconds Tom’s unconscious form was surrounded by paramedics. Some of them poked needles into him and hung bags of blood and plasma around him, while others worked on stemming the flow of blood from his wounds.

Annie hovered protectively over the whole proceeding, keeping up a constant stream of conversation with Tom, begging him to stay alive and keep fighting. She held on to his hand with bruising force, as if she could will her own life energy into him.

When he was stabilized enough to move, four men picked up the stretcher and lifted him out of the helicopter. They took off running for a doorway with Annie still grasping Tom’s cold fingers.

“Excuse me, Captain. You need to come with me.”

Annie shrugged off the hand that tapped her shoulder. “I’m staying with him,” she replied.

“I’m sorry but that won’t be possible. The admiral wants to see you right away. And besides, the doctors won’t let you stay with him while they work on him.”

“I’m not leaving him!” Her voice climbed on a hysterical note.

The flight-deck officer took her upper arm in a strong grasp and forcibly guided her away from the stretcher. Tom’s fingers fell away from hers, and it was as if a piece of her heart had been ripped out. He couldn’t die. He just couldn’t.

The officer spoke forcefully to her. “You’ve got to let him go, Captain! He needs medical attention, and you’d be in the way. Besides, you have an appointment with the admiral.”

She tried one more time to follow Tom’s retreating form, but the flight-deck officer was having none of it. Like it or not, he steered her across the deck and into a different part of the ship.

In a daze she allowed herself to be led through a maze of corridors and hatches. She only vaguely registered the flight-deck officer’s tirade about snot-nosed pilots who disobeyed orders and endangered his crewmen. Fortunately, he wound down before they got to the admiral’s office.

She was directed to a wooden chair in the admiral’s outer office to wait. Slowly awareness of her surroundings came back to her. It was all well and good to have disobeyed orders and to have done her darnedest to save Tom’s life, but now it was time to pay the piper.

Sick dread filled her. She’d worked hard to be a good officer and, to date, had led a distinguished career. But this episode had pretty much blown it.

A sailor finally led her into the admiral’s beautifully appointed office and left, closing the door behind him with an ominous click. She stood glumly at attention.

Her knees were shaking. It wasn’t from fear of the butt-chewing she was about to get, though. It must be shock setting in.

As she’d expected, the admiral worked up a good head of steam and ripped into her hard for disobeying his officers. She put on an appropriately remorseful expression and rode out the storm in silence.

Her thoughts wandered. Getting court-martialed would be worth it if Tom lived. Even if she spent the next ten years in jail at Fort Leavenworth, at least she’d know he was alive. She could live with that.

Finally the admiral stopped shouting and came around from behind his desk, his face thunderous. She braced herself.

But then he broke into a big grin. And walked right past her to greet someone who stepped into the room behind her. She looked over her shoulder.

Ambassador Kettering shook hands warmly with the Navy flag officer. “George, long time no see! How the hell are you?”

“I’m fine, Jack. But what in the hell were you doing in a firefight on top of the embassy?”

“Just doing my job. Defending the good old U.S. of A.”

“Hell, you got out of the Navy thirty years ago. Aren’t you a little old for playing soldier?”

Annie stood by quietly as the two men traded quips.

Finally the admiral remembered her presence and turned to the ambassador. “So what am I supposed to do with this young captain? She disobeyed a direct order from my flight-deck crew not to take off and go rescue your crusty old hide.”

“Actually, sir,” Annie replied, “I disobeyed several direct orders.”

The ambassador’s mouth twitched, but the admiral looked stony.

“I ought to have you court-martialed and strung up from the yardarm, Captain.”

“Yes sir, you should,” she answered.

“But seeing as how you just pulled off one of the most damned heroic pieces of flying I’ve ever seen, I think I’m going to have to shake your hand and tell you to get yourself down to the infirmary to visit the man you love.”

Annie blushed. He’d heard about that, had he?

“Uh, thank you, sir. If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen…” She looked back and forth between the two men, not sure which one would give her permission to leave.

“Go. Go.” The admiral waved his hand at the door.

She whirled and managed not to sprint from the room. The admiral’s executive officer showed her through the maze of passageways to the infirmary.

A sailor gestured her to a seat in the outer office.

“Is he all right?” she asked.

“They’re still working on him, ma’am” was the impassive reply.

Each minute that passed was agony for her. He had to be all right. He just had to be. They’d been through so much together. They’d made it out, just as he promised they would.

Images of the past few weeks floated through her mind in a collage of memorable moments with Tom. It seemed unreal to be sitting in a sterile, quiet doctor’s office as if nothing had ever happened. As if they’d never been shot at, as if they’d never had to fight tooth and nail for their very lives.

It all started to feel like some sort of dream, insubstantial and fleeting. Had her relationship with Tom been part of that unreal time? Was there anything left for them, now that the mission was over and they were out of Gavarone?

An officer stepped through the inner door and walked over to her, a sober expression on his face.

Dread clogged her throat. They had to have saved him. They just had to.

She wasn’t very familiar with Navy uniform insignia, but she thought she recognized a medical corps badge.

“You must be Annie,” the doctor said.

“I am. How did you know?”

“My patient’s been demanding to see someone by that name, whom I gather is a rather independent-minded pilot of the female persuasion.”

Tom was alive.

Annie smiled widely, relieved to the point of tears. “Can I see him?”

“Please do. Maybe he’ll stay in bed if you’re here. He’s been threatening to get up and search the ship until he found you.”

Annie stepped through the oval door. Tom lay in a bed, eyes closed. His chest was bare, and a white sheet was pulled up to his waist. His left shoulder was swathed in a white bandage.

She hesitated in the doorway, unsure of what to say to him. He looked different, somehow. More authoritative, more an officer. Less her lover and companion of the last weeks.

“Hi.”

His eyes opened. “Hi.” His voice was gruff.

“I hear there’s a soldier in here who needs to be convinced to stay in bed,” she said lightly.

He gave her a long, inscrutable look. His eyes were that stormy shade of gray blue they turned when he was angry.

“We need to talk, Annie.”

“About what?”

“About your suicidal tendencies.”

She blinked. “My what?”

“You heard me.”

He wasn’t joking. She stepped fully into the room and shut the door behind her.

He continued, “I didn’t put it all together until a few minutes ago. You’ve been running around trying to be Superwoman the last few months because you felt guilty about dragging me through the jungle.”

She frowned. “And your point?”

He stared intently at her, his direct gaze cutting straight into her soul. “You were right about Simon Pettigrew. I have been running around trying to be a hero to make amends for getting him killed.”

Annie started. She hadn’t expected ever to hear such an admission out of him.

“But you’re doing the very same thing, Annie.” His voice took on a sense of urgency. “You’ve got to stop it. You made a reasonable decision under the circumstances out in that jungle.”

“But—”

He cut her off. “I didn’t die. You
didn’t screw up.
“

“But—”

He waved his good arm, silencing her protest. She stepped forward involuntarily when he winced at the movement.

“No buts. If we’re going to have a future together, you’ve got to let go of your guilt. I forgive you. Now get over it.”

She stared at him in silence. As hard as it was to hear his words, he was right. She had started doing the same thing that she’d watched him do to himself. He’d all but destroyed himself from the inside out. Was that really the path she wanted to go down, too?

She looked at Tom, lying in his hospital bed, his leg in an unwieldy cast, a gunshot wound in his chest, perilously near his heart. It was a miracle he’d survived as long as he had with a death wish ticking away inside him like a time bomb.

She stepped close, staring down at him intently. “Tell you what, Tom. I’ll let go of my guilt if you’ll let go of yours.”

He frowned up at her. “Explain.”

“You’ve been trying to get yourself killed ever since Simon died, right?”

He shrugged and then gasped in pain. She waited until the white line around his lips disappeared before she continued.

“But you’ve been carrying around something else inside you even more deadly than that.”

One dark eyebrow raised. “Do tell.”

“Tom, you’re afraid of love.”

He reeled back, staring at her, a stunned expression in his eyes.

She plowed on. He’d given it to her straight; she owed him nothing less in return. “You fell in love once. With a woman who betrayed you and your men. Have you ever loved another woman since then?”