She had no concept of passing time.
When Rudy finally eased her from his shoulder, she groaned as she lay on the ground. Her entire body throbbed. She tried not to vent her discomfort with audible sounds. Rudy had enough to worry about. And she wanted him to get her out of there.
She saw him dig into his rucksack and pull out a handheld radio. He lifted it to his mouth and depressed a button with his thumb.
“Dasher, this is Rudy. Do you read?”
The names he’d called his teammates penetrated her awareness. Comet. Blitz. Was that short for Blitzen? Now Dasher. Was Rudy short for Rudolf? Was that his code name?
“Dasher, come in.” There was a short crackling noise followed by nothing.
Rudy wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
The radio crackled. “Rudy, this is Dasher. I read you. What happened? Over.” The radio crackled again.
“I’m going to set a flare. You have to get here before anyone else finds us. Over.”
“I don’t see any movement near the crash sight. I’ll find you. Over.”
“Hurry.” Rudy tossed the radio into the rucksack and dug for something else. He stood when he found the flare and moved away from Sabine a few steps. He was efficient and fast with his hands as he lit the flare and sent it into the night sky.
Sabine watched the flare illuminate the landscape. She could see nothing that suggested anyone was after them, but she rubbed her arms anyway, afraid of the possibility, so afraid. She would not survive if she had to face more torture. Not after tasting freedom again.
Her gaze shifted to Rudy. He stood with his feet slightly parted, searching the landscape. Only then did she notice he held a pistol at his side.
The sound of a helicopter broke the silence. Rudy tipped his head back and closed his eyes. She felt his relief, and it sparked hope along with a fresh threat of tears. Were they really going to make it?
The helicopter neared. Soon it tossed up dirt as it landed and Rudy helped her to her feet, carrying the rucksack in his other hand. She leaned against him as they made their way to the helicopter, Rudy bearing most of her weight. He boosted her inside and she crawled into the pod. Leaning against the far side, she watched Rudy climb in as the helicopter lifted into the air.
He lay on his back and draped his arm over his forehead, his massive chest rising and falling from more than exertion. Sabine knew he was thinking of his men. Remorse overwhelmed her. It was so unfair.
She folded her arm over her ribs, wishing the pain would ease. She closed her eyes to ride it through. Hearing movement, she opened her eyes and saw Rudy rolling to his hands and knees. He stood and crossed the small space of the helicopter.
Crouching before her, he asked, “How badly are you hurt?”
He must have noticed her holding her ribs. “I’ll be all right.” As long as she was away from those terrible men, she was fine.
Rudy pulled her arm away from her body. “Is anything broken?”
“I don’t think so.” She had her big-boned grandfather on her mother’s side to thank for that. She’d never met her grandparents on her father’s side. “Except maybe my ribs.” Her injuries would fade. It was what she’d witnessed that would haunt her the rest of her life. The memory of Samuel.
She winced when he tested her ribs with his hands, unable to suppress a moan.
The furrow between his eyebrows deepened, and he pulled her T-shirt up to her breasts in a purely clinical maneuver. Only the tightening of his mouth revealed anything of his reaction to the expanse of bruises on her torso.
“Did your captors want anything specific?” he asked. “Did you hear any of them talk?”
“We never were told why we were being held,” she breathed through the sharp throbs in her ribs.
Dropping her shirt, Rudy stood and moved away.
She watched him reach into the rucksack and pull out a canteen. Wordlessly, he handed it to her along with two pills. She studied him as she took the pills and popped them into her mouth. Next, she took the canteen and lifted it to her mouth with an unsteady hand. He seemed to notice and crouched in front of her again. His hand covered hers as he helped her hold the canteen. She met his eyes while she drank, the striking gray of them momentarily capturing her. He didn’t have his helmet on anymore, and she realized she didn’t remember when he’d removed it. He had thick, dark hair. Something about it struck her as odd. Didn’t military men have close-cropped hair?
She wiped her mouth after she finished drinking, and he took the canteen from her.
“Who would want to keep you from leaving this place?” he asked.
The question gave her a jolt. Did he wonder if it could be someone other than her kidnappers? “I don’t know.”
“Someone must have. And it wasn’t your captors.”
She took a moment to absorb that. If not her captors, who would want her to die like that? Had they known she and Samuel were being held? And done nothing? Everything inside her rebelled against the idea. It was too awful.
“That helicopter wasn’t in any of the images I saw,” Rudy continued, his mouth a tight line of anger. “They knew we were coming.” And that missing piece of information had cost him three good men.
Who would go to such lengths to see her and Samuel dead? She didn’t have any enemies like that. Her father, but he had no reason to want her brutally killed. And if anyone had the means to orchestrate her rescue, it was he. She glanced at Rudy’s longish hair.
“Who sent you here?” she asked more briskly than she intended. “Who are you?”
His anger disappeared behind a guarded mask. He unfolded his legs to stand. “I’m bringing you home. That’s all you need to know.”
“Was it my father?” she asked anyway.
“No.” He turned away and went toward the cockpit of the helicopter, ending any further questioning.
Dust billowed into the air and the whine of engines drowned any other sound. Sabine hooked her arm over Rudy’s shoulder as he carried her to a waiting plane. The airstrip was crude and deserted. The plane was painted white with a horizontal blue stripe and no other markings. Rudy climbed some steps and took her inside. There were no seats and darkness filled the row of windows. He put her down and she sat on the floor, leaning against another metal-sided wall.
Rudy turned to speak to Dasher, who was apparently an accomplished pilot, since not only had he flown the helicopter, but also he was going to fly this plane out of Afghanistan. For the first time in two weeks, she felt her shoulders sag in relief. Soon she’d be home.
Home. That seemed like a foreign place to her now, where everything was normal. She felt anything but normal. She didn’t know the woman who’d survived what she had. How was she going to move on as though none of this had ever happened?
Samuel would never go home. He’d never see his wife again. The
