A Memory Between Us (41 page)

But where was she going? She didn’t have time to plug headphones into the rear interphone jack and call the crew, and the only exit led to Arctic waters five thousand feet below.

Cuss words pummeled her, nearer and nearer. Burnsey grabbed her left arm, and she stumbled. He yanked her around to face him. “Let’s get this straight. You hurt me and I’ll hurt you worse.”

With his eyes spewing hateful fire, he took her left wrist in one hand, her elbow in the other, and cracked her arm over the edge of a crate.

White heat blazed through her arm. Screaming, she crumpled to the floor and pulled her shattered arm to her belly.

“Why do you always make things hard, gorgeous? If you’ll be nice, we’ll both have fun. Either way, I will.”

Ruth opened one pain-scrunched eye to see Burnsey shrug off his jacket and loosen his tie. She crawled down the aisle.
Please, Lord. I trust you to stop him.

“Think you’re so high-and-mighty with those lieutenant’s bars, do you? Think you can boss me around? Well, look at you. Who’s in charge now, huh? Who?”

“God is.” She staggered to her feet and cried out from the pain.

“I’m in charge. I am.” He threw his arms around her waist.

A great wet bubble of a sob rose in her throat, but she swallowed it, even as Burnsey’s hands clawed at her chest, the buttons of her uniform jacket.

Ruth shivered from his touch. Not ten feet in front of her stood the medical chest, the lid open from her inventory. If only she could fit inside, could curl up inside and shut the lid.

“You need this. Put you in your place.” He spun her around, engulfed her in the dark cavern of his mouth.

She hated his kiss, despised it, not because of past memories, but because it was Burns, so rough and contemptuous. Why couldn’t she have given herself to Jack, to dear Jack, so tender and loving? She could have. She could have. But now it was too late. Now there was only Burnsey, his sickening hands up her shirt in the back.

“No …” She shoved him off and rolled away.

He clutched her jacket. Ruth tugged free, lost her balance, and reached for the edge of the medical chest. It tipped over with a crash of metal on metal, shattering glass. She screamed, banged her head on the chest, and landed—on her broken arm.

Pain curled her body, shards of ampules pierced her shoulder and side, medications seeped liquid ice through her clothes.

“Finally.” Burnsey threw himself on top of her and slammed her shoulders flat against the cold metal floor. “About time you get what you deserve. ’Bout time I get what I deserve.”

His weight crushed the breath and the hope right out of her. She couldn’t stop him. He was bigger and stronger. She was injured and trapped.

Trust me.

A glimmer of hope gave her strength to turn away from the slobber.
I do, Lord. I trust you to stop him.

No, trust me.

God would give her the strength. Ruth pushed against Burnsey’s chest, but he wrestled her arm down, continued grabbing and kissing and pulling.

Wet grief tightened across her chin and up her jaw. She swept away a vial under her elbow. Burnsey would hardly hold still and let her draw up a syringe, one-handed nonetheless. Maybe she could cut him, distract him.

No, the last time she hurt him, he broke her arm. Tears rolled across the bridge of her nose and down her temple.

Trust me no matter what.

No matter what? Even if Burnsey raped her? How could she bear it?

Trust me.

A sob burst out.
Oh Lord, that’s it, isn’t it? That’s trust. I have to trust you even if he rapes me. You’ll be with me. You’ll help me through somehow.

Tears flowed freely, not from the knowledge of what was to come, not from Burnsey’s loathsome touch, not from her wretched memories, but from a strange place of detached comfort.

Ruth squeezed her eyes shut.
I do, Lord. I do trust you. “They that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.”
The other day she’d read that in Isaiah, and now God brought it to mind when she needed his light most.

The storm would rage in torrential tears, thunderous humiliation, and lightning pain, but God had lifted her above the gray.

Burnsey shifted forward and ground his mouth into her neck. “That’s right, gorgeous. Relax. We’ll both have more fun.”

56

“Mayday. Mayday. Mayday. Cedar four nine. One, two, three, four, five. Five, four, three, two, one.” Jack repeated the distress call on Channel B of his VHF radio. The more he talked, the better fix Air-Sea Rescue could get on his position.

If they could get a fix at all. Jack didn’t think he’d drifted west of the temporary fixer station at Exeter, but he had little idea of his bearings.

He guided the Fort parallel to the ugly swells below. In a ditching, each crewmember had designated tasks, but since Jack was alone, he couldn’t transmit his exact coordinates or jettison the roof hatch in the radio room.

Jack hated to lose
My Macaroon
, but somehow it was appropriate to lose the plane named after the girl he’d already lost. But why did it have to be in water? He wanted to think the sweat tickling his neck and sides came from his struggle with the controls, but his choppy breath and quivering muscles betrayed him.

It was fear. Pure, cold fear.

Landing gear stowed, flaps to medium. Jack picked a trough to land in, only a few feet below. “Lord, please.” He’d never prayed with more fervency.

Airspeed ninety miles per hour. He let the plane settle about a foot from the water, cut the ignition switches, and lost the reassuring throb of engines in his ear. He muscled the rudder and wheel to keep level. If the tail hit first, the fuselage would snap in half. If one wing hit first, he’d cartwheel.

He grimaced as the valley of water rose before him.

A hard jolt. The plane jostled down the trough. Jack bounced off the control wheel, coughed to get his breath, bumped his shoulder. The Fort shuddered to a halt.

Now the plane rose and fell, rose and fell. Sickening.

Jack whipped off his seatbelt. The side window of the cockpit was the fastest way out, but he wanted a life raft, which had to be released from the radio room.

He bolted from his seat, tripped over the platform of the top turret, rammed his knee. He cried out in annoyance more than pain. At most he had thirty seconds, and he couldn’t afford mistakes.

He yanked open the door to the bomb bay and slipped as water lapped over the aluminum catwalk. With a full bomb load and warped doors, she’d sink fast.

Jack pushed on the door to the radio room, but it was jammed. Cold water soaked his ankles, down into his shoes and into his soul.

“Oh Lord, no.” He whipped around. If he hurried, he could make it back to the cockpit and out the window.

Without a life raft.

With a furious cry, Jack drove his shoulder against the door like a defensive lineman. Again. He fell through, landed on hands and knees in a foot of water, and recoiled from the icy splash in his face.

Up to his feet. He sloshed forward, gripped the life raft release handles in the ceiling and pulled down hard. The water covered his knees. “Why water? Why does it have to be water?”

The plane creaked and shifted under his feet. He grabbed the radio desk. His heartbeat boomed in his ears.

Now to open the roof hatch. Stupid, double-crossing hands wouldn’t cooperate. Took too long to pull the first two red handles, then the last two. The hatch was heavy and awkward, designed to fly off in the slipstream during flight, and Jack lost leverage as freezing water rose to his belt.

With a giant heave, he shoved it aside. It scraped down the side and splashed into the ocean.

The next splash would be Jack. He wrapped his fingers around the rim of the hatch, but his arms shook so hard he couldn’t hoist himself up.

The plane pitched forward. Jack slipped, yelled, fell underwater. He shut his eyes against the sting of salt water and shut his mind against the terror of drowning, trapped in a sinking plane.

No! He had to get out. Jack planted his feet, pushed off, and banged his head on the ceiling. The Fort was submerged.

Lord, no!
Panic swelled like the breath in his lungs. Jack groped along the ceiling until his hand plunged through the hatch. He hauled himself out, kicked upward. He broke the surface and gasped for air. Only the tail fin of the plane was still visible, coming straight at him like a giant silver shark.

Jack cried out and dived to the side. Sharp, hot pain exploded in his right foot. He grabbed his ankle, screamed, swallowed seawater, spat it out. When he kicked to tread water, pain ripped through his foot. He must have broken something.

He had to get to a life raft. A swell lifted him. Two yellow patches bobbed over a hundred feet away. “Oh, great.”

Jack reached for the tab to inflate his life vest. Where was it? He tore off his gloves and felt under the straps of his parachute harness.

Parachute harness? Oh no. He was supposed to take it off before ditching, but he’d been occupied with the controls.

Jack dropped under the icy water, weighted down by sodden sheepskin. He kicked for the surface, wincing at the pain in his foot. He couldn’t survive long in the water, but without the life vest, he’d drown before hypothermia overtook him.

He had to get the harness off. If he inflated the life vest now, it would expand inward and crush his chest.

Jack worked at the clip, but tremors of fear and cold rattled his hands. Water sloshed over his head. He flung out his arms, pulled himself up, and sputtered out a salty mouthful of water.

With all the flight gear dragging him down, he needed all four limbs to tread water. But he had to get the harness off, and that would require both hands—which meant submersion. He needed to work fast. The cold numbed the pain in his foot, but it also numbed his fingers and wanted to numb his brain.

“Lord, help me.” Jack drew a deep breath. His fingers jerked, unfeeling, over the harness, and he slipped under the waves, cold and gray and impersonal.

So this was it. This was how he would die. Somehow it seemed right.

57

Burnsey fumbled with Ruth’s belt buckle, cursed at it, cursed at Ruth every time she squirmed.

Soon it would be over. He’d want her put together before they landed, but how would he explain away her injuries? This would strain even Burnsey’s skill at dissembling.

“Wanted you first time I saw you. Thought you were too good for me, huh? Well, I got you now.”

No, God had her. In her mind, a hymn played its unusual melody and comforting words.
“Under His wings my soul shall abide, safely abide forever.”

Still, the pain would come—flaming, ripping, pounding pain.

Ruth felt around in the sharp wet mess from the medical chest. Maybe she could find something to grip to take her mind off the pain. Off to the side she found a glass cylinder, a syringe. She rolled her fingers around its coolness, and then frowned.

The plunger of the syringe was halfway out, as if …

She craned her neck to see around Burnsey’s shoulders. The syringe was full. Pentothal—the Pentothal drawn up for poor Sergeant Whitman.

Ruth eased her head down, her lips tingling with incredulous hope even as Burnsey flopped her belt open.

Pentothal. The facts raced through her head. Onset of unconsciousness in ten to twenty seconds, duration of action thirty minutes—the perfect drug, but how could she administer it? An intramuscular shot would be easy, but the onset would be delayed and the required dose might be higher. No, she had to give it intravenously.

How can I, Lord? You gave me this syringe. Please show me how to use it.

Burnsey’s shirtsleeves covered the antecubital vein in the crook of his elbow. The only good-sized vein in view was the jugular, but that was crazy. She’d never heard of anyone administering a medication in the jugular.

Burnsey unzipped her trousers.

The jugular would have to do. Ruth clenched the syringe in her hand with her thumb on the plunger. She would have only one chance, one stick.

Burnsey raised himself on his knees, grabbed her waistband, and sneered at her. “Now you’ll have something to complain about.”

He was too far away. Ruth bucked her hips and rolled to her right side as if she were trying to get away.

He slapped her hard across the face and threw himself down on top of her.

She gasped from the pain but kept her hand steady on the syringe. Burnsey’s jugular lay only inches from her face. She wriggled her torso to keep him in position and raised her right arm above his shoulder.

Lord, this is my only chance. Guide me.
In one smooth move, she swung the syringe down, inserted the needle, and depressed the plunger.

Burnsey cried out and grabbed his neck. Droplets arched from the needle tip. “What the—? What’d you do?”

“Pentothal. Your Pentothal.”

He rose to his knees, a spout of expletives.

Ruth covered herself. “Count to ten, Sergeant.”

His face convulsed. He lifted one hand high and coiled it into a fist. Then he yawned, gave Ruth a look of furious disbelief, and collapsed to the side.

She kicked herself free, rolled to her side, and clutched her throbbing, swelling arm to her chest. She shuddered with cold and laughter and sobs.

“It worked. Oh my goodness, it actually worked. Thank you, Lord. Thank you.” Burnsey was out. He was unconscious. He wouldn’t rape her. The Lord would have seen her through no matter what, she knew it, she trusted him, but he had spared her. She lay soaking in God’s light, praising him until the shudders died down.

Then a thought seized her. Burnsey would wake in half an hour, maybe less, madder than ever.

She pushed herself up on wobbly legs. She couldn’t get help like this, couldn’t let anyone see her in such a state. After she made herself decent, she plugged the headset into the interphone jack in the rear of the plane. “Flight nurse to crew.”