Damaged (
by Alex Kava
TO PHYLLIS GRANN,
for your patience, your perseverance, and your wisdom.
Here's to new beginnings.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 22
CHAPTER 1
PENSACOLA BAY
PENSACOLA, FLORIDA
Elizabeth Bailey didn't like what she saw. Even now, after their H-65 helicopter came down into a hover less than two hundred feet above the rolling Gulf, the object in the water still looked like a container and certainly not a capsized boat. There were no thrashing arms or legs. No bobbing heads. No one needing to be rescued, as far as she could see. Yet Lieutenant Commander Wilson, their aircrew pilot, insisted they check it out. What he really meant was that Liz would check it out.
A Coast Guard veteran at only twenty-seven years old, AST3 Liz Bailey knew she had chalked up more rescues in two days over New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina than Wilson had in his entire two-year career. Liz had dropped onto rickety apartment balconies, scraped her knees on wind-battered roofs, and waded through debris- filled water that smelled of raw sewage.
She dared not mention any of this. It didn't matter how many search and rescues she'd performed, because at the moment she was the newbie at Air Station Mobile, and she'd need to prove herself all over again. To add insult to injury, within her first week someone had decorated the women's locker room by plastering downloaded photos of her from a 2005 issue of People magazine. Her superiors insisted that the feature article would be good PR for the Coast Guard, especially when other military and government agencies were taking a beating over their response to Katrina. But in an organization where attention to individual and ego could jeopardize team missions, her unwanted notoriety threatened to be the kiss of death for her career. Four years later, it still followed her around like a curse.
By comparison, what Wilson was asking probably seemed tame. So what if the floating container might be a fisherman's cooler washed overboard? What was the harm in checking it out? Except that rescue swimmers were trained to risk their lives in order to save other lives, not to retrieve inanimate objects. In fact, there was an unwritten rule about it. After several swimmers who were asked to haul up bales of drugs tested positive for drug use, apparently from their intimate contact in the water, it was decided the risk to the rescue team was too great. Wilson must have missed that memo.
Besides, rescue swimmers could also elect not to deploy. In other words, she could tell Lieutenant Commander less-than-a-thousand-flight-hours Wilson that 'hell no,' she wasn't jumping into the rough waters for some fisherman's discarded catch of the day.
Wilson turned in his seat to look at her. From the tilt of his square chin he reminded her of a boxer daring a punch. The glint in his eyes pinned her down, his helmet's visor slid up for greater impact. He didn't need to say out loud what his body language said for him: 'So, Bailey, are you a prima donna or are you a team player?'
Liz wasn't stupid. She knew that as one of less than a dozen women rescue swimmers, she was a rare breed. She was used to having to constantly prove herself. She recognized the stakes in the water as well as those in the helicopter. These were the men she'd have to trust to pull her back up when she dangled by a cable seventy feet below, out in the open, over angry seas, sometimes spinning in the wind.
Liz had learned early on that she was expected to perform a number of complicated balancing acts. While it was necessary to be fiercely independent and capable of working alone, she also understood what the vulnerabilities were. Her life was ultimately in the hands of the crew above. Today and next week and the week after next, it would be these guys. And until they felt like she had truly proven herself, she would continue to be 'the rescue swimmer' instead of 'our rescue swimmer.'
Liz kept her hesitation to herself, avoided Wilson's eyes, and pretended to be more interested in checking out the water below. She simply listened. Inside her helmet, via the ICS (internal communication system), Wilson started relaying their strategy, telling his copilot, Lieutenant Junior Grade Tommy Ellis, and their flight mechanic, AST3 Pete Kesnick, to prepare for a direct deployment using the RS (rescue swimmer) and the basket. He was already reducing their position from two hundred feet to eighty feet.
'Might just be an empty fishing cooler,' Kesnick said.
Liz watched him out of the corner of her eyes. Kesnick didn't like this, either. The senior member of the aircrew, Kesnick had a tanned weathered face with crinkle lines at his eyes and mouth that never changed, never telegraphed whether he was angry or pleased.
'Or it might be cocaine,' Ellis countered. 'They found fifty kilos washed ashore someplace in Texas.'
'McFaddin Beach,' Wilson filled in. 'Sealed and wrapped in thick plastic. Someone missed a drop-off or panicked and tossed it. Could be what we have here.'
'Then shouldn't we radio it in and leave it for a cutter to pick up?' Kesnick said as he glanced at Liz. She could tell he was trying to let her know that he'd back her if she elected not to deploy.
Wilson noticed the glance. 'It's up to you, Bailey. What do you want to do?'
She still didn't meet his eyes, didn't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing even a hint of her reluctance.
'We should use the medevac board instead of the basket,' she said. 'It'll be easier to slide it under the container and strap it down.'
Knowing he was surprised by her response, she simply removed her flight helmet, cutting off communication. If Ellis or Kesnick had something to say about her, she dared them to say it after her attempt at nonchalance.
She fingered strands of her hair back under her surf cap and strapped on her lightweight Seda helmet. She attached the gunner's belt to her harness, positioned the quick strop over her shoulders, made sure to keep the friction slide close to the hoist hook. Finished, she moved to the door of the helicopter, squatted in position, and waited for Kesnick's signal.
She couldn't avoid looking at him. They had done this routine at least half a dozen times since she started at the air station. She suspected that Pete Kesnick treated her no differently than he had been treating rescue swimmers for the last fifteen years of his career as a Coastie flight mechanic and hoist operator. Even now, he didn't second-guess her, though his steel-blue eyes studied her a second longer than usual before he flipped down his visor.
He tapped her on the chest, the signal for 'ready'--two gloved fingers practically at her collarbone. Probably not the same tap he used with male rescue swimmers. Liz didn't mind. It was a small thing, done out of respect more than anything else.
She released the gunner's belt, gave Kesnick a thumbs-up to tell him she was ready. She maintained control over the quick strop as he hoisted her clear of the deck. Then he stopped. Liz readjusted herself as the cable pulled tight. She turned and gave Kesnick another thumbs-up and descended into the rolling waters.
Without a survivor in the water Liz quickly assessed the situation. The container was huge. By Liz's estimates, at least forty inches long and twenty inches wide and deep. She recognized the battered white stainless
