Hammerhead Resurrection (27 page)

Jeffrey sat beside the river, mesmerized by the fast water catching the moonlight in glittering whorls. Near him, the smoother surface reflected the stars, which spanned the gap in the trees like a cathedral ceiling between the buttressing branches.

“I heard what happened today.”

Jeffrey looked behind him to find Samantha standing at the trailhead, as if respecting the space. She held her flashlight down, illuminating a circle at her feet. When he motioned for her to sit next to him, she clicked off the light and approached. Turning back to the water, he watched its dark mass passing and felt its similarity to his heart, black with slight sparks of hope now and again.

Arms wrapped around him from behind, and cool hair spilled across his neck. Her head came to rest gently on his shoulder.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

He nodded, feeling unable to speak with his grief lodged right up against his throat.

After a moment, he risked saying, “I called him Soy Bean… did it on purpose. He was so damn arrogant. I was trying to take him down a bit…”

“You couldn’t have known.”

“I should have.” He let out a sigh. “It’s such a waste.”

“I suppose that’s war?” Her tone conceded her lack of understanding.

“When we commit to face death against all odds,” Jeffrey said, “we do so in the hope that, in fighting, we’ll move those who survive forward. We comfort ourselves with dreams of an heroic end, one with some kind of impact. No one wants to die like he did. No stories get told about men like Nathan Brooks. We shove guys who die like that deep, and keep ‘em down there.”

Her arms came away. Stepping over the buttress root, she sat beside him and took hold of his hand. “I almost died once.” She fell into silence, and he let that silence, in which the river slid by with silken sounds, remain as long as she wished. “It happened on a snowy mountain road. My ex-husband, driving too fast as usual, lost control and slid right through an already-damaged portion of a guard rail.”

“We launched,” she held out her hand as if it were the car, “into the sky. The river valley was about a thousand feet down.” Her tone darkened as though the memory still troubled her. “To this day I can close my eyes and see myself hanging in nothingness. For a moment, the snowflakes went still around us and seemed to fall upwards as we accelerated.” She looked down as if at the river valley below. “In that moment, I knew I was going to die… and I was… okay with it. It was a strange, peaceful moment.”

Jeffrey asked, “How’d you survive?”

She smiled. “A huge pine tree growing out of the cliff face caught us like a baseball in a mitt. I was hanging off my seatbelt looking down into the valley through the branches. When I perceived even the remotest possibility that I was going to live, the sense of peace vanished.”

“You were afraid then?”

“You bet I was… and furious with him. I remember hitting his shoulder. He yelled at me to sit still. Getting us to safety took sixteen hours after we called for help. They were so concerned the car would drop out of the tree, we had to wait for a military air lift. We sat there motionless for so long, I finally had to wet my pants. You usually don’t hear details like that in those survival programs. They welded lines to the car and lifted the whole thing back up onto the road. Being set back down on the road we’d launched off of was surreal.”

“One would hope your husband changed his driving habits.”

“Ex-husband… and I wouldn’t know. Putting me through that was the last straw. The moment the car touched solid ground, I threw my wedding ring at his face.” Her voice softened. “In the end though, I was glad he’d done it.”

A bit shocked, Jeffrey asked, “Why?”

“Coming so close to death… Experiencing that complete peace… When I stepped out onto the roadway, I wasn’t the same woman. I felt ready to be the person I was born to be. The whole world looked different.”

“How so?”

“More beautiful.”

“Beautiful,” he said in agreement.

“The world is gorgeous.” She held her hand out to the river and stars. “That day, freezing cold in wet jeans,” she laughed lightly to herself, “I fell in love with life all over again… and myself. I suppose that’s why I never remarried. In my line of work I’m surrounded by A-type assholes. Everyone I got close to wanted me to give up too much of myself.” She looked to Jeffrey. “You know what I believe?”

“What’s that?”

“I’ve looked through death’s doorway, and I really do believe there’s peace on the other side. I think Nathan Brooks is far beyond pain and pride. He holds no ill will toward you, and no regrets. He is at peace—true, wonderful peace.”

Jeffrey drew a breath and let it out, feeling the pressure in his chest let off. He took hold of her hand, and they sat in silence watching the river flow.

Jeffrey stood before the pilots he’d selected for the first stage. “While I’d love to let you rest, we don’t have the luxury.”

They looked horribly tired, their eyes bloodshot and shoulders slumped from the distress of the modifications. Still, the difference in their awareness was palpable.

“According to our
intel, several squadrons of Lakota fighters are in storage at Turnbull Air Force Base in southwestern Arizona. You fifty are my collection team. We’ll be transported to our location by Lieutenant Fields, Commander Zack’s V.O. I’d like to get more, but Fields’ Warthog has capacity for fifty… barely.”

“Forty-six of you will bring back Lakota. That will afford us two backups, which isn’t a lot. Because the Lacedaemon is not equipped to support aircraft, we have no fuel for algal-alcohol powered aircraft. To address this, we hope to bring back five, fully-loaded fuel tankers. I’ll fly back one of the five.”

“This mission is dine and dash. We go in the early afternoon and will reach our destination at sundown. That’ll put our travel time out of alignment with the orbiting Sthenos destroyer. On our return leg, everyone but the fueler groups will break into pairs. At all times we’ll fly low and fast to avoid detection. You’ll each be assigned secondary return points. If anyone is followed, the hope is that the Sthenos will hunt down and destroy only that group. If we’re lucky, they’ll assume the aircraft were operating alone. When you reach your secondary points, you’ll wait 48 hours before returning here. If, after forty-eight hours, a flight pair doesn’t return, we’ll carry on without you. If you are shot down, there will be no rescue attempt. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” the pilots said in a chorus.

Upon your return, you’ll find the majority of personnel gone. When the shooting begins, the Sthenos might seek out the Lacedaemon. Teams have already begun moving supplies to several separate camps a safer distance some twenty miles further down the valley.”

“Now I’ll assign flight groups.” He pointed to the Norwegian. “Kodiak, you and Stump will pair off.”

The Norwegian smacked the pacific northwesterner’s back. “Utmerket!”

Scowling, Stump shoved him. “Lay off fisherman.”

The Norwegian held his arms wide. “Who needs my hug?”

“Back off Kodiak.”

“Never my friend.” He shoved Stump’s hands aside and wrapped his arms around him. Stump struggled but, realizing he couldn’t free himself, went still.

Kodiak kept the hug on.

A slight smile formed on Stump’s face. “You can let me go now.”

“Tell me you love me.”

“Gentlemen,” Jeffrey said, “please.” However, even as Kodiak let Stump go, Jeffrey felt glad of the banter. It would play a critical role in bonding the group.

“Once you’ve completed your layover at your secondary rendezvous point, you’ll return to the Lacedaemon, not the new camps. On that day we’ll form our attack groups. Our saving grace has been their apparent lack of interest in us. The moment we flick their nose though, their interest will spike. We can play our hand only when we’re absolutely ready.”

He pointed out through the trees. “I have to assume what’s going on beyond those hills is bad. We have no idea what state humanity is in, but I’m going to guess that there’s no government, no law. As we travel, the Sthenos are not our only concern. People seeking to survive could cause problems. We must avoid everyone, no matter how desperate until our mission is done. At this moment, we can only help them by staying on goal.”

He looked over the faces before him. “Questions?”

The hand of a pilot from Canada went up, who with his thin shoulders, reminded Jeffrey of Maco. “Yes, Blue Line?” Jeffery asked.

“When do we stand the chance to earn a
new nickname? One like Whitetip’s?”

Jeffrey said with a smile, “If I were named after a mark on a hockey rink, I’d want a change too.”

Quiet laughter rose up among the pilots and even Blue Line smiled, his gaunt cheeks creasing.

“The truth of the matter is,” Jeffrey said, “you’ll earn them when you no longer want them.”

They lifted off in the early afternoon, Jeffrey sitting beside Marco. Strangely enough, Captain Donovan had argued that Jeffrey shouldn’t go, saying they shouldn’t risk the central authority. Jeffrey felt sure that Donovan would love to see him out of his way for a few days, but Donovan, while taciturn, could surprise. Jeffrey assumed Donovan didn’t care about Jeffrey as much as he cared about overall success. He seemed fully committed to that. Yet still, there had been something beyond efficiency in his tone, something along the lines of personal concern. As Marco accelerated over the dense treetops, Jeffrey turned Donovan’s motivations over in his mind.

Perhaps I haven’t given him enough credit.

As Marco flew, Jeffrey watched the trees and rivers ranging away to the distant horizon. The deep-blue sky hung faultless above the sun drenched trees. For the first time in a month, looking on the broad expanse of the world, he realized how cooped up he’d felt.

Staying close to the tree tops, Marco, flew below the speed of sound. Their flight would be just over 4300 miles and would take some six hours at sub mach speeds, but unnatural signatures, radio waves, sonic booms, anything, were to be avoided at all costs.

While Jeffrey felt positive about the mission, he regretted having to fly a heavy fueler home while his pilots returned in Lakotas. He’d never flown one and found himself seduced by aircraft touted to outperform Kiowas.

Looking into the mirror mounted on the windscreen frame, he looked down the short passage to the cargo/passenger area. He could see Whitetip talking to Springbok, her hands moving in arcs, one following the other. In the next few months, they’d both likely
be dead. They said they were okay with it, but Jeffrey knew that each harbored visions of the battles to be fought, and if they were anything like him, in their minds they’d somehow get the upper hand or they’d help someone else do it. Yet, that often wasn’t how war worked. Like juggling bombs, even the brightest and best can keep them in the air for only so long. When they dropped, it was more often ugly than not.

Marco lifted the transport over the far ridge. More trees ranged away to the newly visible horizon. Flying in silence for some time, Marco’s eyes scanned his instruments and the world beyond as his right hand gave light, endless adjustments to the flight yoke. Jeffrey hoped flying low would be a good tactic, but in truth, they understood little about how the Sthenos detected vehicle signatures.

Jeffrey drew a deep breath, let it out, and stretched his arms and legs, being careful not to touch the controls at his feet.

He felt sleep drifting i
nto his eyes and had to do something to stay awake.

“Lieutenant Fields, where are you from?”

“I grew up in a mountain village about one hundred miles north of Mexico City.”

“When did you emigrate to the United States?”

“When I was seventeen, sir.”

Jeffrey put his hands behind his head. “Did you come stateside with your parents?”

“No sir, I ran away from home with my future wife.”

Jeffrey brought his hands down. “Really?”

“It isn’t a very interesting story, sir. I wouldn’t want to bore you.”

“We have six hours to kill, but if you don’t want to talk about, I don’t mind.”

“Not at all, sir. As world population dropped, my village became isolated, which I didn’t mind. It was a peaceful place. Quiet nights with a lot of stars, if you know what I mean.”

“I do.”

Marco, eyes on the blurring trees a few hundred feet below the belly of the transport, said, “I grew up wealthy. My parents farmed agave and ran a distillery. I had an easy life until the day she caught my attention. I’d known her my entire life, but that day it felt as though I’d seen her for the first time. Something had changed either with me or her… both of us I suppose. She was the daughter of the launderer, who had died years before, leaving her mother to struggle with the business. One day, she came out of her shop, my friends and I were kicking a football around in the street… a soccer ball, you know?”

“I understand.”

“I stopped in the middle of the street, staring at her. I hadn’t realized how beautiful she was until that moment.”

As Marco spoke Jeffrey felt the familiar darkening of his heart that came to him when he became familiar with someone. It had been that way ever since the first war and was the reason he had so few friends. One more person to know, one more person to grieve. Jeffrey glanced into the mirror again, back to the pilots. Maybe this time he wouldn’t have to survive them.

“You all right, sir?” Marco asked.

Jeffrey patted Marco’s shoulder. “Fine. Tell me about her… please.”

But Marco didn’t continue. His expression grew distant and Jeffrey understood he was wandering back to a time and place to which he couldn’t return.

“You miss your hometown?”

Marco pursed his lips before saying, “Yes, but I haven’t returned. My mother and father have disowned me for marrying Sofía.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Marco.”

Marco asked in a frustrated tone, “Why must people have so much pride? Why can’t they accept life as it is?”

“Because they don’t understand how fragile it is. They believe they have control and feel angry when they don’t get what
they want. If they knew what I know, they’d celebrate every moment of their lives just as they have it.”

“What is it that you know, sir?”

“When someone you care for dies, when you witness their last breath leave their body, all you want is another moment with them, one more word, an afternoon—” Jeffrey’s words caught in his throat, and he fell silent.

“I’m sorry sir, I didn’t mean to—”

Jeffrey held up a hand. “It’s all right. People so often push their friends and family to be other than they are, but when they’re gone we never miss the person we wished they’d been, we only miss them.”

Marco lifted the nose of the transport to clear a ridge. Beyond it, the broad plane of the Amazon basin ended in rugged mountains.

“We’re in Columbia now,” Marco said, as he pointed to a large peak rising up beyond the horizon. Its rough-hewn sides ranged up to a domed, snow dusted peak. “That’s Nevado del Ruíz. We’ll cross the northern Andes soon.”

Jeffrey leaned forward, squinting into the bright sunlight. “Tell me more about Sofía.”

“As she walked to one of the vegetable seller’s stalls, I could not take my eyes from her. She moved so gracefully… long legs.” He laughed. “She’s an inch taller than me. When we go out, she wears flats and makes we wear shoes with thick soles. She is very conscious of her height but shouldn’t be. She says she looks like a stork, all knees and bones, but it’s not true. She’s like a white crane, beautiful…” at that he fell silent.

Jeffrey gave him time. When Marco still said nothing, Jeffrey said, “You love her very much.”

“Yes.” Marco’s expression had gone flat. “When this,” he held his hand out to the world before them, “happened, she was in Los Angeles. We had an apartment at the base of the Hollywood Hills…”

Jeffrey waited to see if he was going to finish the thought. When Marco remained silent, he said, “She’s alive.”

Marco looked at him with a mixture of worry and irritation in his eyes. “You can’t know that.”

“That’s all there is to say, Marco. She’s alive until you find out otherwise. If we lose hope, we lose everything.” Jeffrey said the next words one at a time, “She—is—alive.” He took hold of Marco’s shoulder, “Clear?”

Marco said in an unsure tone, “Yes, sir.”

“Now, what happened that first day at the vegetable seller’s?”

“She was trying to buy vegetables, papas and such. I saw the woman fill her bag. I can remember that old woman like it was now. She had a broad nose and ugly teeth.” Marco’s tone turned regretful. “When I was younger, I judged her for that. She held up her hand to Sofía, who looked to her hands and said something. A truck pulled up, blocking my view. I walked to where I could see again. The woman took two cucumbers, an onion, and two potatoes out of the bag as Sofía’s youngest brother Javier, maybe only eight then, came up to her. She was fifteen at the time, I was sixteen. As Sofía paid the woman, Javier tugged at her sleeve, pointing to a stack of oranges. As the woman gave Sofía the bag, Javier tugged at her sleeve again. She yelled at him, her voice coming over the sound of the idling truck saying, we cannot afford it. The old woman said something that calmed Sofía and handed a small orange to Javier. Sofía looked at the palm of her hand as if there might be some more money. When she spoke, the woman shook her head and closed Sofía’s hand with hers.”

“Sofía walked away with tears in her eyes. I had to do something. When she’d moved off, I ran to the old woman and asked what the girl had been unable to buy. She told me, and I bought the items. When she handed the bag to me, its lightness dumfounded me. How could she not afford such a small amount of food?”

“I told the woman to fill two bags with produce. When she had, I paid her. I knew my father would be angry with me for spending all my money, but I did not care. I ran after Sofía. As she left the market, she had her two brothers and one sister with her. The half-full bag in her hands seemed pitiful to me. I wanted to go to her, to say something witty, make her laugh. Up to that moment, I’d always had something to say, but I could not get myself to go to her. I worried that she might be angry with me or think I expected something for what I was offering her,” his expression became serious, “which I did not.”

“I’m with you.”

“They did not notice me as I followed them to their house, a tiny thing with an ancient eucalyptus tree in the front,” Marco held up his hand curling his fingers, “which hung over the front door as if it were trying to shelter the house from the world. As I stepped onto the porch, I heard her mother berating her for not having brought home enough. Sofía was crying, saying the lack of rain had raised prices. She’d bought as much as she could afford. Her mother asked about the orange, accused her of wasting money.”

“I wanted to save her from the argument, so I knocked on the door as loud as I could, but the moment I did it, I felt as though my heart had stopped. I couldn’t face her mother.” He laughed. “Mothers always see right through young men don’t they? I set the bags down and ran as fast as I could. Hiding across the street, I heard their door open. Watching through fence slats, I saw Sofía and her mother come out to find the bags. Her mother looked up and down the street as though something had been stolen from her rather than left, but she brought in the bags. Sofía remained a moment. When her eyes passed the fence, they stopped on me. I thought to come out, to show her who I was, but instead I ran.”

Jeffrey began laughing. “That strikes me as evidence of humility.”

Marco laughed as well. “More likely cowardice.”

“How many times did you bring groceries to their house and run?”

“So many times, man,” Marco said with a laugh, before his face snapped to a seriousness. “I mean, sir.”

At that Jeffrey wanted to tell him to let it go, but he couldn’t. The price of his authority was never being able to be just one of the guys.

“How many times?”

“All summer. I spent my entire summer’s wages from the distillery on groceries for them. I had to go without lunch. It was no problem though, I’d eat as much as I could at breakfast and dinner. After work as I sat at the café with my friends, they’d asked me why I didn’t buy a drink. I would tell them I was saving for something.”

“You were spending it on a beautiful girl,” Jeffrey said. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“If only I could have been that honest. If I’d been found out… my parents had other plans for my future and would have been furious at my interest in a lower-class girl. Once a friend stopped me with the groceries. I told him I was taking them to my mother. My mother once found me with the bags, and I told her that my friend’s mother had asked me to carry them.”

They now flew over high desert, fields of windswept brown grasses. Clouds hung over the shoulders of the mountains, and choppy air buffeted the ship. The high desert meadows and peaks made Jeffrey feel cold.

“That went on through the entire summer until school was about to begin. In September, in the shade of the market trees, the air was wonderfully cool. In the evening, I went to her house, set the bags down, knocked, and ran. I hid where I always had, behind the fence, and watched. The mother came to the door, took up the bag, looked around and went inside. Someone tapped me on the shoulder. With a shout, I turned to find Sofía glaring at me. She had me cornered. Having no idea what to do, I pushed past her to escape. As I did that, she took hold of my arm, pulled me close, and hugged me.”

Marco’s voice went quiet, as he said, “There are moments in life that we will remember forever. We often do not realize their
significance until years later. However, every so often we are actually aware that the thing we are experiencing right then is going to be a treasured memory.”

“I know that very feeling,” Jeffrey said.

Marco snapped his fingers. “That’s exactly how I felt at that time. She felt perfect in my arms, as though they had been measured out by God to hold her. The softness of her hair on my face… and the lavender… the scent of her was like a drug.”