as if a giant hand had smacked it across the hull.
The rim of the canyon was nothing but rocks and marshy ground. If they set down, the chopper was likely to sink in the mud and they’d never get it out. Landing on the floor of the narrow ravine was not an option, either, and a rescue party could take hours to get there.
The light kept blinking. It might have been Aidan’s imagination, but the signal seemed more rapid now. More desperate.
“I’ll go down and have a look,” he shouted into the mouthpiece.
“Too windy,” Powell responded. “You’ll get hammered on the rocks before you’ve gone ten feet.”
“Not if you get low enough. The canyon will act as a buffer.”
Powell cut him a look. “You like to live dangerously, don’t you, Campbell?”
He shrugged. “Is there any other way?”
Powell grinned and grabbed the joystick with both hands as he took the chopper down and tried to establish zero airspeed. After several minutes of bucking and pitching, the helicopter was finally situated over the mouth of the canyon.
Throwing off his headset, Aidan climbed into the back and fastened his harness. The JetRanger was specially fitted with an electric hoist that could be operated by the pilot, but until they knew the situation below, a quick insertion into the canyon was the safest bet.
Slipping his radio into his shoulder holster, Aidan opened the jump door to a blast of wind and rain. Balancing himself in the doorway, he threw down a rope and, then snapping his figure eight onto the cable, fast-roped down into the canyon.
Rappelling was the easy part. The canyon walls shielded him from the wind, but the moment he spotted the woman lying on a ledge about fifty feet down, Aidan knew they were in trouble.
She didn’t appear to be conscious, although he knew she had to be on some level in order to have sent the signal. She lay beneath a narrow outcrop of rock that wouldn’t have offered much in the way of protection from the storm. Her clothing was in tatters, her face covered in mud, and her hand, where she gripped the flashlight, was raw and bleeding. She must have tried to grab on to anything she could find to halt her momentum as she fell.
Aidan glanced up, his attention scaling the canyon wall. How she’d managed to survive a fall from that distance was a mystery. And a real testament to her will to survive.
Maneuvering over to the ledge, he unclipped from the rope and quickly knelt beside her. She opened her eyes when he touched her, and by the look of terror on her face, would have screamed if she’d had the energy. Instead, she tried to huddle even deeper into the overhang.
“It’s all right,” Aidan said to her over the rain. “I’m here to help you.”
When she didn’t respond, he said gently, “I’m not going to hurt you. But I have to find out how badly you’re injured before I can get you out of here. Can you move?”
After a moment, she nodded and, uncurling herself, scooted toward him.
“Good. Excellent.” He eyed her carefully. “Can you stand?”
“I…don’t know.” Her voice was barely a whisper, and she sounded so frightened and hopeless that it made Aidan want to wrap his arms around her right then and there. She was small, only about five-four or so, and he doubted she weighed much more than a hundred pounds soaking wet. Her hair was matted with mud, but he thought she was a blonde. Her eyes were dark blue and very intense.
He had the impression that she was an attractive woman, but he could see very little of her features through the mud and grime. Not that it mattered. Getting her out of the canyon and to a hospital was his only concern at the moment.
She tried to stand but couldn’t quite manage it even when he helped her. Her knees collapsed and he eased her back onto the ledge.
“Okay, no problem. We’ll do this another way.”
He turned and said into the radio, “Powell? I’ve got the woman, but she’s in pretty bad shape. I’m going to get her into a harness, and then you’ll have to hoist us out.”
“Copy that. Make it quick, Campbell. If we get caught in a down draft, we’re all dead meat.”
As quickly as he could, Aidan slipped leg rings over the woman’s thighs and tightened the harness belt around her waist. Grabbing the cable, he used another figure eight to fasten her harness to his, then he radioed Powell.
“All set! Take us up!” To the woman, he said, “Put your arms around my neck. Don’t worry. I’ve done this before,” he assured her when they lifted off the ground and she gasped.
The first moment of dangling in midair was always the worst. “Don’t look down,” he advised.
To answer, she tightened her arms around his neck.
He could feel her muscles tense even beneath her layers of clothing. She was very light in his arms, but he had a feeling she was a lot stronger that she looked. She would have to be, to survive what she’d been through.
They were about thirty feet from the mouth of the canyon when a gust of wind buffeted the chopper, knocking it forward. The hoist cable shrieked and went taut as it lashed against the JetRanger’s hull.
The woman screamed. The hoist moaned. And Aidan swore.
“It’s okay!” he yelled above the roar of the blades. “I’ve got you! Just hold on tight!”
Overhead, Powell forced down the helicopter’s nose to stabilize the aircraft, but the maneuver caused the cable to swing away from the hull, and all of a sudden, Aidan saw the wall of the canyon rushing to meet them.
He tried to twist around so that he would take the brunt of the collision. His left shoulder smashed into the rock, and as pain shot down his arm, he momentarily released his hold on the woman and they were jerked apart by the impact.
To Aidan’s horror, he heard the figure eight snap, and the woman screamed again as she began to slip free. For a moment, her arms clutched at him wildly, and then Aidan grabbed her. As their eyes met, he recognized the terror in her eyes. He’d seen it before, in another woman’s eyes, a split second before she slipped from his fingers and fell to her death.
He blinked, willing away the memory as he clung to the woman’s arm. Elena had struggled blindly in her terror. She’d twisted and flailed and begged him not to let her fall.
“I don’t want to die. Please, Aidan…”
That same plea was in this woman’s eyes, but amazingly, she didn’t panic, which would have made Aidan’s job that much more difficult. When he shouted for her to grab his other hand, she had the presence of mind to do exactly that.
“Just hold on, okay?”
She nodded, her focus never leaving his.
They dangled over the canyon for what seemed an eternity, but she never once lost her cool. She had to be in pain, not just from the fall, but from the way he clutched her arm. She didn’t so much as flinch.
When
