Wait Until Dark

Chapter 4

4

“Two days, maybe three.”

“You have until dark, about thirteen hours, to make her air-worthy.”

Big John slapped a hand as big as both of Connie’s on the table. “Dammit, Major. You gotta be kidding me.”

Major Emily Beale had signaled Connie to come over and sit at the table as the meal broke up. Now it was the three of them, with the dirty dishes still rattling on John’s tray.

“There is no damn way, Major!” Big John’s voice filled the chow tent, but the few people remaining didn’t bother to turn and watch. John’s booming voice was more of a constant than a surprise.

Connie considered the logistics of repairing the Black Hawk.

The Chinook was supposed to deliver a new set of blades in about six hours. She could hear the bird starting up for the three-hour run each way to go fetch a fresh set from the aircraft carrier. That gave them three hours to create a full parts list of what they’d need.

It would start with several panels on the tail boom that had been beaten up by the dragging of the second broken blade. And the star-cracked plexi window on the copilot’s side. The rotor head was the real issue. Until they tore it open to see what had been wrenched…

“Problem here?” Major Mark “The Viper” Henderson slid in next to Major Beale and kissed her solidly. It always made Connie blink. Their perfect ease about themselves and each other. They walked hand-in-hand from briefings to the flight line in thoughtless harmony, both absolute masters of their craft, two of the most accomplished and decorated helicopter pilots in the US Army. They clearly wasted no time doubting themselves or each other. From a place of such confidence, they flew where merely earthbound mortals must stumble along under gravity’s force.

“Major, you gotta talk some sense into your wife, sir.” John held his hands out like a supplicant. “We just flew a full mission and you know my bird took it hard, but she’s a good one and saw us through. Now Major Beale wants the Vengeance mission-ready in thirteen hours. It ain’t gonna happen. No how, no way. Please talk to her.”

“Mission-ready? Did I say mission-ready?” Major Beale spoke, all bright innocence.

John floundered at a loss for words, as if his pilot had lied to him.

Connie rolled the words back. “You said air-worthy, ma’am.”

John jerked around to face her and blinked hard. Once. Twice.

Emily Beale merely nodded an acknowledgment with a gentle swoosh of her straight blonde hair. As if she’d expected Connie to catch that.

Connie had always thought herself unobserved. Time to upgrade her assessment, again, so as not to underestimate the major’s capabilities.

“Air. Worthy.” Connie could hear Big John roll it around on his tongue. There was a huge difference. Making Vengeance flyable was quite different from ready to fly into combat.

Connie dropped the battered panels and cracked plexi from her mental list. She dropped the necessary checks of the backup systems. She dropped the two radios and the FLIR that had taken direct hits and needed replacement, alignment, and recertification. She juggled times and equipment layers. She put the FLIR back in but left off the fine recalibration. It meant working straight through the day, their night, but—

“It’s possible.”

“No!” John’s hand hammered down again on the table that groaned beneath the blow. But Connie could see his mind working as his body protested. Could see the calculations in his unfocused gaze.

“Wa-ell,” Major Henderson drawled in a horrid, fake Texas accent. “We could always give y’all another tow if ya can’t fix the Vengeance in time. You wouldn’t mind arriving at Kabul air base dangling from a Chinook’s underbelly like a limp piece of meat, would ya now? I know my wife, y’all’s commanding officer, couldn’t care no more than a snap of her fingers.”

John finished his calculations as the major finished his sentence. John nodded slowly, also rearranging the details in his head. Connie could read his acceptance of the challenge in the narrowing of his eyes, the firm set of his jaw.

“Thirteen hours. We can do that.” He glanced her way. The light emphasis on “we” was one of the nicest compliments Connie had received since arriving at Bati. Not that she doubted her own skills. But she knew her mechanical ability bothered Sergeant Wallace and this was the first time he’d acknowledged it directly as an asset instead of an irritant.

“Excellent.” Major Henderson rose easily to his feet and took his wife’s hand to help her up.

As they walked away, he drawled once more, “It’s just a-knowin’ how to motivate them thar troops.”

John looked from the departing couple to Connie. “Did he say something about Kabul?”