Hover (38 page)

I shake off the thought of Eric, my mind focused on the sea below. Frothy white waves, like milky teeth, accelerate beneath us.…

And then it hits me. I can't go through with it.

In another pilot's hands, this plan would work. They would get it done. But this coward is going to hand over the controls without so much as a hiccup, sending an assassination crew on their merry way, all because I don't want to get wet.

We pass one hundred knots. “Okay, your turn,” he says.

I continue accelerating.

But you're going in the water anyway.…
I don't know where this voice comes from, but it's absolutely right. I'm going to be pushed out anyway.

“Now!” he yells, like a bottle that's just popped its cork.

And I react. I drop the collective lever, raise the nose twenty degrees, and roll forty-five. By the time he realizes what's happening, I'm already pulling full aft cyclic and raising the collective to hook around a tiny spot in the sea. Anyone looking from the outside would see a helicopter rapidly decelerating, the nose pitching up and rolling over, turning 180 degrees in a pirouette movement that stops the aircraft on a dime, facing the opposite direction from which it started, tracing the shape of a buttonhook.

Jonas grabs for the controls now that we're in a hover, but it's too late. I let go of everything and unplug my radio cord. My plan is to exit via the cockpit escape hatch—remove it and step out before he loses control of the aircraft.

The bird pitches down and he overcorrects, pulling the stick back too rapidly. I try to locate my harness release and my hand swipes at nothing as I'm slammed backward in the seat. A quick glance to the left reveals a facial expression from Jonas that is anything but confident. He's frantic and furious.

He tries to nose it over, but the control input is too great. And just like that, I'm hanging in my straps, looking almost straight down into the ocean—a gaping maw, waves churning, lips smacking.

The aircraft pitches up violently when he tries to stop the nose dive, and the sudden movement slams my head into the side bulkhead. My helmet takes the brunt of the collision, but I feel the blood dripping down my face from the gash that cuts across my cheek.

We're sliding backward. Holy god. We're going to hit tail down.

The aircraft lurches, and with a sickening crack, the airframe torques mightily against the sudden stoppage of the rotors. An explosion of sound erupts as the rotors fly apart and the aircraft flips. I'm thrown forward hard against the harness straps, hard enough to expel my breath just before I'm pulled under.

I'm underwater.

I push against the cockpit floor, jerking and twisting, to free myself from the seat. The harness holds fast.

The harness! Release the harness!

I scrabble with the straps, searching for the harness release.
No! No! Wait! Wait …

Wait until all violent motion stops before pulling your harness release.

The instructions come back, just as they did in training three months earlier.

I stop thrashing and clutch the straps as the aircraft rolls over. I wait as long as I dare, probably only a few seconds, but I can't wait any longer. I reach for my harness release, my brain finally recalling its position, and pull, wriggling my way out.

At least I don't have to do the elaborate main cabin door exit. My escape is located less than one foot to my right—the cockpit escape hatch. I push down on the handle.…

I push down on the handle again.…
Come on! Come on!

It doesn't budge. I kick it hard. Nothing.

The water smiles as it presses against me. I lash out, slamming my fists against the hatch's window panels, accomplishing nothing. I smash at them again and again. With a crunch, my arm breaks through the glass of the smallest panel, which doesn't do me a lick of good, because it isn't large enough for me to fit through. I tug my hand backward, slicing my left hand in the process. Left hand … left hand.
Reach left hand behind you. Grab bulkhead. Right arm across torso to bulkhead on other side. Pull forward.

The instructions! You know what to do! Go out the back!

I reach in the direction my hands have memorized, still able to make out the walls to the upside-down passageway.

The light dims. The pressure increases in my ears. Oh, no. We're already sinking. The aircraft is pulling us under.

Jonas is struggling to release his harness. As I pull my way through, my eyes unexpectedly meet his … Ian's eyes … and I'm looking at myself nine years ago. Beyond all reason, I hesitate. Jonas is drowning. The fear, the panic … it's all there, reflected in his eyes and in his frantic movements. His harness is snagged on the seat lever.

I shake my head, turning away, and pull myself through the passageway. Halfway, I stop.
Damn it.

I shove myself back in the cockpit, reach my hand out, and in a what-the-hell-am-I-doing moment, lift Jonas's harness strap over the seat lever.

Without looking back, I thrust through the passageway and into a scene straight out of a horror movie. Bodies are tangled in cargo netting and pinned against the bulkheads by floating crates. The life has left most, while others thrash in the dying throes of a drowning panic.

For the first time in my life, I say a silent thank-you to the navy for the helo dunker. These men don't know what to do. They don't know how to egress, how to escape, while I'm acting and reacting automatically.

Using the bulkhead for leverage, I yank myself forward. My air has long since run out and the pressure descends on my chest, squeezing.

Left hand down to crew chief's seat. Hand-over-hand to main cabin door.

My hands take me to the exit. I pull myself through and turn upward. My arms and legs push and pull, but they're heavy, so very heavy. I'm swimming through syrup.

Come on, Sara! Come on! There's the light! It's right there!

The seawater lightens as I near the surface, but this ascension is endless. The light bends and deflects from its straight path in the air as it travels through the aquatic medium, making it almost impossible to judge depth. The surface that is
right there
is probably still more than twenty feet away. My body wants to turn inside out. All of me is being sucked inward and I'm not going to be able to do this. I'm not going to make it.…

Come on! Five more seconds! You can do this!

Ian…? His voice resonates through me, unlocking a final surge of power from I don't know where, until my arms and legs are pulling and stroking as one.

My head breaks through the surface, my mouth opening a second too soon. The act of inhalation almost sends me into shock. The water rushes in. I vomit seawater and enter a fit of coughing spasms. My throat sears with pain as my lungs attempt to do two things at once—expel the water inside and bring the air in.

It's okay. It's okay. It's okay
.

As I cough more water out, my inhalations grow deeper. My lungs are working to bring air in now, working harder on this than to cough water out.

Relax. Relax, Sara. Just breathe. Relax.

The heaviness in my muscles begins to dissipate. My arms scull and my legs tread. I breath more deeply.

You can float here. Just float.

I lie back, stretching out my arms and legs, and look to the sky.
You're safe. You're not going to drown. It's okay. Just float here.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Another breath in. Another breath out. Lying on a liquid pillow of salt water, my muscles release, exhausted, unable to carry the tension any longer.

You're safe. You're okay.

My body undulates with the sea. Easy breath in. Easy breath out. The Arabian sky is pink. A beautiful sunrise-pink.

 

46

The distant purr of an outboard motor brings a smile to my face. As I stare upward into the lightening morning sky, I realize I've actually made it through this nightmare. I picture the small navy rescue craft on its way to pick me up just ten minutes after crashing, wondering which ship it came from and how it could have gotten here so fast. I scull with my arms to bring myself upright, but as I raise my head, the smile is wiped from my face. The behemoth luxury yacht,
Twister,
barrels toward me. I'm so stunned by the sight, I fail to see the Zodiac that approaches from behind.

I turn just as it moves alongside. Rough hands grab my shoulders and drag me aboard. At gunpoint. Two Middle Eastern men stand above me, their semiautomatic weapons pointed directly at my heart. One begins shouting to a third man, the driver, in harsh, abrupt words, giving the order to move, I think.

Lying on my back on the floor of the Zodiac, I spread my arms wide to brace myself as we accelerate. The nose of the raft lifts into the air as it catches a wave, then hurtles down the other side, skipping, bumping, and crashing again.

An eerie snarl alerts me that someone else is aboard the raft. I slowly turn my head.

Jonas, his face bloody, wears a murderous look.

“If I didn't need you, I'd kill you right now, bitch,” he growls.

Instinctively, I scooch away, until one of the gunmen steps down on my shoulder with his heavy black boot, pinning it to the deck. I look up, he scowls and presses harder.

We rocket forward, the bounce of the Zodiac slamming my back into the floorboards over and over again. Then, with a rapid whirl and a wide spray of water, we stop abruptly.

Angry voices fill the air and Jonas's is one of them. I'm snatched upward by the men inside the Zodiac and summarily deposited in a heap on the low wooden running board on the aft end of
Twister
.

Two men with semiautomatic machine guns slung over their shoulders “greet” us. An argument ensues and as I listen, the wake behind the ship begins churning in earnest.
Twister
is soon flying. And based on the position of the rising sun, we're headed almost directly west, toward land, toward Kuwait.

My head hurts. I rub my eyes and they start to sting. When I pull my hands away, they're covered in blood. The gash on my face, my hand … I'd forgotten.

With a jerk, Jonas grabs my arm and wrenches me upward, shoving me through a hatch and into a passageway that leads to the forward part of the ship. As we move, his grip is tight, and my arm throbs. Another rough push through a final hatch and I stumble into the cavernous cargo bay.

On the far bulkhead, I recognize the cutout shape of the wide cargo bay doors that I had spotted from the outside. Scanning the side bulkheads, I see crates and boxes, similar to those that were loaded in our helicopter, sitting in neatly stacked, ordered rows. Jonas stated we had explosives onboard the aircraft, and there's more of the same here.

A Toyota Land Cruiser, chocked and chained to the deck, occupies the center of the space. Next to it, a workbench scattered with tools and wiring.

Jonas drags me to the car and shoves me into the backseat. The doors click simultaneously as they lock around me.

Jonas disappears out a side hatch and now the cargo area appears to be empty. I slide over to the door to open it. If you're inside, you just open the handle to unlock it, right? Wrong. Maybe that's what the wiring was for that I saw on the workbench outside.

I detect a new car smell, but there's something else … like burning rubber. Bits of memory from my time on the USS
Flint
remind me that I'm smelling fumes from a soldering iron. My running mate, Petty Officer Franklin, showed me how to use it when we put together a shortwave radio on that cruise.

I look forward, peeking my head over the front seat, and spy the origin of the strange odors and the more profound reason for the wiring. The dashboard has been removed and rows of shelves behind where the glove box would normally sit are lined with cubed packages. Wires run out of the cubes.… Oh my god.

I look up when I hear a familiar whopping sound—muffled, but instantly recognizable. An H-46. The sound grows steadily louder as the rotors beat hard against the air, the pitch change announcing a sudden halt in movement.

Gunfire. Shouts and scuffling. More weapons discharging. And finally, the
whop-whop-whop
of the H-46, growing quieter as it flies away. All sounds indicate a SEAL team has just been fast roped to the deck.

But that can't be. Our team couldn't have gotten here that fast. And the 46? There's only one other in the battle group and she's sitting in a hangar on the
Kansas City
over four hundred miles away.

Rapid footsteps. Scraping and banging. More gunfire. I drop to the floorboards and lay flat. I'm shaking—for a lot of reasons—but mainly because I'm wet and cold. I touch my gloved hand to my cheek and pull it away, bloody, which explains the blood droplets spattered across the leather upholstery. My right hand bumps into my helmet. I still have it on. I remove it and place it on the seat.

Shouts in Arabic. Shouts in English.

This is an awful feeling. Waiting. Hiding. Doing nothing to help myself.

I press up and look about the car, chancing a glance through the tinted windows. The windows … I look at my helmet and back to the glass.

Worth a try.

I secure the neck strap to the helmet to make a handle and hurl it across me. I wince and jerk backward as the window shatters—wincing not just to avoid thousands of shards of flying glass, but due to the earsplitting car alarm that now screams through the cargo bay.

I shimmy through the window and begin to run. To where? God, where am I running? Where do I go?

I never have the chance to answer that, as a hand grabs me from behind. I shudder with a surge of adrenaline when I look into Jonas's manic eyes. He wraps his left arm across my chest, twisting me around to face away from him.