it was too late now.
The crew chief slid the chopper’s side door shut as the officer he’d snubbed settled in the pilot’s seat and powered up the Black Hawk. Rick tugged off his field cap and scrubbed his hands through his shorn hair as he sank down into the webbed bench at the rear of the bird.
Another bad move.
His sergeant promptly took advantage of the forward empty seats, commandeering the one directly behind the pilot’s. In doing so, Sergeant Turner had afforded himself a choice view of the copilot—the same copilot Turner had been preoccupied with for five of the last six months. Rick tried scowling at the man as the chopper’s crew chief moved to the rear instrument panel to busy himself with the takeoff checks. Unfortunately, Turner’s attention was already focused on Carrie Evans.
As usual.
The bird took off smoothly, thundering over the trees where Rick had spent the last eighteen months training San Sebastián’s soldiers. He allowed his gaze to stray to the back of Captain Paris’s helmet. Eve. A good two inches of dark-gold curls spilled out from beneath the bottom edge of the Kevlar bucket, curls that were a shade lighter than the smooth brows framing those striking emerald eyes. He’d seen them for all of five seconds as the woman initiated their introduction. Thickly lashed, her eyes were unusually large…until her gaze had narrowed.
For the first time in a long time, he pushed aside regret.
In the end it wouldn’t matter how professional the woman was. In twelve years in the Army, he had more than enough experience to know that a woman that stunning was nothing but trouble out in the field. Take Carrie Evans. The captain was already paying more attention to his sergeant than to the aerial map spread out on her lap. It’d be a miracle if they reached the presidential compound on time. If at all.
Just then, Paris turned to say something to her copilot. Unfortunately, Rick couldn’t make the words out over the pounding of the chopper’s blades. If only the extra headset wasn’t down. What he wouldn’t give to listen in on that conversation. Rick had the distinct impression Captain Paris hadn’t been any more thrilled with Carrie’s familiar behavior toward his sergeant back at the LZ than he’d been. The suspicion bit into him again as the curve of the woman’s jaw tightened. Especially when Carrie jerked her gaze from his sergeant’s and fused it to the aerial map.
Way to go, Paris.
Evidently an apology was in order when this bird landed because at least one of the women was intent on the mission at hand. His sergeant, however, had an ass-ripping coming as soon as he shifted that blasted lovesick-puppy gaze of his to the rear of the chopper long enough for Rick to catch it.
Of course, his sergeant didn’t.
Nor did Paris’s reproach last.
In the next fifteen minutes, Rick caught Carrie Evans’s gaze sneaking back to his sergeant’s at least that many times. And given Paris’s concentration on her own tasks—that of flying this blasted thing, she didn’t seem to be aware of the majority of the glances. That last gaze, however, she did catch. It sent her head snapping to the right once more and, this time, that delicate jaw locked. Again, Rick couldn’t make out the words, but from the slump in Carrie’s shoulders as she refocused her attention on the map, they weren’t any kinder than the ones he’d have fired off.
Unfortunately, Paris’s latest rebuke was too late.
Rick was certain the second he glanced out of the chopper’s oversized side windows. Differentiating one section of jungle canopy from the next was about as easy as squeezing a platoon of soldiers into a one-man foxhole. But even he knew from that fifty-foot waterfall they were now flying over, the chopper was a good eight kilometers off course. If they didn’t get back on course soon, there’d be hell to pay—from San Sebastián’s neighbors.
“We’re losing power!”
Rick jerked his gaze forward, certain he’d misheard the crew chief’s shout. After all, it had barely registered above the roar and vibration of the chopper’s blades before the chief spun around to his instrument panel.
But he hadn’t.
By the time Rick snapped his gaze to the cockpit, both women were frantically flicking levers and switches. Once again he found himself wishing the spare comm headset wasn’t busted.
Suddenly, he didn’t need to hear their frantic words.
The choke of the engine as it cut out altogether confirmed his suspicions, as well as the sudden fisting in his gut. Especially when the comforting roar of the chopper’s blades gave way to the chilling whoosh of a rotor no longer under man-made power, but that of Mother Nature.
This was it, then.
It was time to kiss their boots goodbye.
It didn’t take a degree in rocket science to know that seven tons of Army steel were about to drop out of the sky with all the aerodynamics of a slick brick.
Pain.
No…not pain, piercing agony. It sliced into Eve with each breath she took. Her lungs were on fire.
No, not her lungs. It was her ribs that seemed to be splitting asunder. But her lungs were screaming too.
Why?
On her next breath, she knew why. The air searing through her nose and mouth contained the wrong ratio of gasoline fumes to fresh air. The jet fuel was way too pungent.
Oh, God—they were leaking fuel.
Eve forced her eyes open and struggled to focus.
Shattered glass, shredded steel.
Trees. The distinctive dark green of jungle undergrowth. Patches of dirt.
Where the devil was the sky?
Someone groaned. It wasn’t until Eve inhaled again that she realized the rasping sound had come from her own mouth.
Good Lord, what had happened?
And then she remembered. The crash. The chopper’s engine had stalled before cutting out altogether. She’d tried to pull pitch to soften the landing but then—
Carrie!
Eve twisted her head to the right and nearly threw up.
Her crew chief was dead. His right arm was flung limply between the seats of the now-crumpled cockpit, his gut impaled by the thick tree limb that had punctured one of the windows imbedded in the side door of the chopper’s skin. Death had captured the stark horror of the crash within Sergeant Lange’s glassy gaze with eerie perfection. If she ever got out of this chopper alive, she would never forget that bottomless stare.
She forced her gaze from her crew chief’s and struggled to scan what was left of the rear of the chopper. She couldn’t see Captain Bishop or his sergeant.
Had the two been thrown clear?
Had anyone else survived?
Her answer came in a whimper and then a rasping choke.
Carrie.
