Chapter 33

CHAPTER 33

Jen

I was still floating from my not-a-date at the range with Mark. It had been so much fun, and the more I was around him the more I could see a future with him. I had just about convinced myself that I could finish out the deployment like this. With my free time spent on not-a-dates with not-my-boyfriend.

But I was lying to myself. At least this time it was a good lie. I knew I was his. There was the technical detail that we were fraternizing, which was still not allowed by the army. That was a minor detail that we would work out. It wasn't anything I could hide behind. The only question was when was I going to tell him? This sort of flirty limbo was fun, though it wouldn't be fair to drag it on. I had the whole shift to think about it.

This shift was as boring as any other. The missions had slowed down again and we figured we were in for another day of waiting. I stepped out of my room and made my way across the base to the Operations Center, expecting to get the daily Operations and Intelligence brief before meeting up with the crew to preflight and stage gear. I got into the Ops Center, poured some coffee, and started to add some sugar in. The phone rang and Vasquez, our resident radio operator, answered. I took a sip of coffee and made my way to the briefing area. He stopped me before I got there. "Ma'am, you need to take this."

"Captain Walker," I said into the phone.

"Jen, it's Arial." I hadn't heard from her in a while. She didn't make calls to us just to say hi. "A Red Cross message just came in for Sarah. It's her mother. She's taken a turn for the worse. Have her call me as soon as she can. We're arranging for her to catch a flight out as quickly as possible. Once she talks to me, have her pack her gear and get her ass down to Bagram as fast as you can manage it. Don't worry about the MEDEVAC mission right now, a crew from Bagram will cover until Sarah gets back."

Red Cross messages were how family members notified soldiers on deployment of emergencies. It almost always ended with the soldier going home.

I hung up the phone and sent Vasquez to go get Sarah. My mouth went dry and dread pooled low in my belly. Such a horrible thing to have to deal with. ‘A turn for the worse.' We all knew what that meant. While waiting for her, I walked over to Ross. "We're going to have to get to Bagram tonight."

"That's not likely," Ross said. He opened up a weather radar map on his computer and put it on the projector screen. "Just north of Bagram is a wall of clouds. Every pass leading into Bagram is closed."

I didn't get the chance to respond. Sarah came in. "I heard you needed to see me Cap?" she asked. She twisted her hands in front of her in a nervous gesture. My heart broke for her. She knew it wasn't good news, even if Vasquez hadn't told her why I needed to see her. She knew it was something bad.

I walked over to her and grabbed her shoulders. Our eyes locked and I could see the fear shining there in response to the sympathy in my own gaze. "You need to call Arial. You have a Red Cross message. Your mom…needs you."

I didn't need to add any more details. Sarah knew before we deployed that this was a possibility. As her Captain, she'd warned me about her mother's failing health. That didn't make any of this any easier. I wrapped my arms around her and squeezed tightly. She hugged me back, trying to hold herself together. We stood that way for a moment and I tried to offer her all the comfort I could before I had to let go. I moved out of her way so that she could make the phone call.

I motioned to Vasquez, he came over with a look that screamed ‘how can I help'. "Go find Santos, have him meet Sarah in her room." He nodded and took off. Then I went back to Ross.

"Show me the map again." He pulled it up on the computer, and he was right, it looked terrible. I went over to Sarah's side, and when she was done, I took the phone from her before she could hang up.

"I'm going to pack my things," she said, her voice choked. She was holding it together relatively well considering the circumstances. I looked over at Ross and saw the pained look on his face. This was hard on all of us. We all cared for Sarah; she was a sweetheart. Not to mention no one wanted to think about getting that kind of message and not being able to go home when a family member needed you. But that didn't mean Ross could do anything to help. It was beginning to look like there wasn't anything any of us could do.

By this time Karolyn had come in, and I motioned for her to go with Sarah. Then I put the phone to my ear. "Arial, the weather has Bagram socked in. We won't be able to get through today."

"You have to," she said grimly. "If you get her here, we can get her out tonight straight to Germany, and from there direct to her mother's home in Nashville. She can be at her mother's side before she… Before it's too late. If we don't get her out tonight, the next flight out will be tomorrow, late morning. Then the next flight out of Germany is the next day. If it's not tonight…" She let the sentence hang. I felt sick to my stomach as I listened. "As it is, she'll be lucky if her mother can hold on for another day." Arial sounded as upset about the situation as I felt.

I hardened my resolve. We needed to figure out a way to get Sarah over to Bagram. Tonight.

"Fuck. Alright. Let me get back to you." I hung up the phone and cursed again.

"What's up?" It was Nick, I hadn't noticed but he was already here. I filled him in on Sarah, the need to get her out right away, and the weather.

Nick thought about it for a minute, he walked over to Vasquez and asked him to put the weather radar map on the projection screen. "Hmmm… what about the Bamiyan pass? The mountains are higher and the river base wider. It should take longer for the fog to settle in."

Vasquez looked up at him, "I'm sorry, Sir, but I can't change the weather. The Bamiyan pass is socked in as well. Clouds from the surface all the way up."

Nick turned to me "Can we get a flight out first thing in the morning?" he asked.

"Next flight out of Bagram is tomorrow morning, but by then it'll be too late. If we could get her there now, she could be on her way home tonight. Even that might be too late. But waiting ‘til tomorrow is a guarantee that she won't be there for her mother. It'll cost her too much time to wait for the weather to clear."

My heart dropped. We were running out of options. The only thing that could be worse than being away from family is that they wouldn't be there when you returned. Sarah was barely twenty-two-years-old. She's too young to have to go through this, and to wait it out here. It was unbearable.

"What else can we do?" I asked Nick, unwilling to give up until all possibilities had been explored.

Ross answered, "There's nothing you can do. You need at least one thousand foot ceilings for the Colonel to approve you to launch, and right now you'd be lucky if they were two hundred feet. There is no way that the Colonel will approve this flight." His face was grim as he made this declaration. It was hard to tell how this news was affecting him. Despite his regular arguments with the attack guys, he was still a rather stoic man.

Nick frowned again and walked out. He hesitated at the door and made a ‘follow me' motion with his head. I hurried after him.

"Come on Nick, you've been through this before. There's got to be something we can do." What exactly was I hoping for? I didn't really expect him to be able to change the weather.

Nick stopped and stood silent for a minute. He pursed his lip and balled his fists at the same time. He had an idea. And clearly, he didn't like it. "The weather map is wrong, The Bamiyan pass always has higher ceilings. I can get there under the clouds. I can follow the river through the Bamiyan pass and stay under the clouds, that's no issue. I've flown that river a hundred times. I know every twist and turn. It's getting approval to launch to begin with."

"Not to mention that we would never be approved to fly that low under any conditions. We'd be an easy target," I said in a thoughtful tone.

"Not really. We'd be so low and fast that by the time they saw us we'd be out of range of any small arms fire."

"Then it's back to the original problem. How do we get approval to launch?" I couldn't bring myself to get my hopes up. Not yet.

"We only need Ross to think the weather has cleared, then we'll be good to go." With that he seemed to have made up his mind and nodded. "Come with me, I have an idea on how we can get through this."

I followed him down to the Apache office. Despite my growing relationship with Mark, Nick still wasn't held in high regard with the Apache crew. When we walked in the room the tension was instant.

"You lost?" That came from Brady, he was sitting back with his legs up on a desk. It was more a challenge than a question. Possibly a threat.

Nick ignored him and stopped in front of Mark. "One of our crew needs to get to Bagram today. The Bamiyan pass is blocked by low clouds and I can't get clearance to launch."

"Yeah?" Mark's face was an unreadable mask. I could hear the unspoken words ‘ sucks for you, what do you expect me to do about it?' His eyes flicked over and watched me as Nick spoke next. I licked my lips nervously as his eyes roved over me.

"It's Sarah. She got a Red Cross message about her mother. If she doesn't get out today… There'll be no rush. No point in hurrying to get her out tomorrow."

It was barely noticeable, but at the mention of Sarah being in trouble, just for the briefest second, Mark's eyes went soft. I knew how much he tried to protect her. Mark raised his eyebrows, still silent. ‘ You got something in mind?' Again, the unspoken words were loud and clear, but now he was focused on Nick. A trickle of hope started to thread through me.

Nick continued, "I need you to go out and call the clouds at one-thousand-feet so that I can get clearance to launch. We can handle the rest from there."

Mark stood up and motioned to his team. Brady, Laura, and Artie all hopped up and started to grab their things. Santos was gone already, out with Sarah helping her pack and consoling her any way he could. Laura gave me a small, sad smile as she passed by.

There was no hesitation, no second guessing. Mark held the door open for them. When they were clear he turned back to Nick. "Are you sure? About the rest?" He shot both of us with a calculating look.

"I've flown that pass hundreds of times. I know the valley by heart. Besides, the Captain here will have the GPS to back us up. Just… be you. Get me clearance to launch." Mark nodded and left without another word. It was saying a lot that he was taking Nick at his word that he could handle this. Especially after the way Ross and Nick had messed up before. It gave me hope that they might make amends, finally. Even more, it gave me hope that we were going to be able to get Sarah home.