environment. Besides, he was ready to crash and didn't feel like screwing around with gear.
With pistol at arm's reach, protective mask on, and the sleeping bag pulled over but not zipped, he could finally let his mind go. The enormousness of the events of the day quietly slipped away. But in their place, personal concerns crept in, concerns and thoughts that had been pushed aside by the needs of Team Yankee. Now, with Team Yankee's needs taken care of for the moment, Bannon's concern about the safety and welfare of his wife and three children could no longer be denied. Where was his family? Had they made it out? Were the air fields still open? Was someone protecting them and caring for them? When would he find out about them? Only sleep quieted the Team commander's troubled mind.
CHAPTER FOUR
Into the Vacuum
The quiet chatter of the evacuees watching the loading of the C-141 was drowned out by the blast of air raid sirens. Everyone froze in place, looking at her companions to the left and right, not knowing what to do. An Air Force sergeant began to run up along the window yelling for everyone to get back and down on the floor facing away from the windows. The Air Base would be under air attack in a minute.
Like a deer in a forest fire, Pat turned and looked for a way to safety. She noticed that the stairs leading down to the flight line had a solid wall on both sides. While not offering complete cover, they would be protected from flying glass. Pat yelled to her group to follow her, grabbed Sarah, and ran for the stairs. At the top of the stairs, Pat told everyone to go halfway down and get against the wall on the air field side. When everyone was accounted for and on the stairs, she followed.
The children huddled against the adult they were with and held their hands over their ears.
They all had a look of sheer terror on their faces. Kurt, Sarah, and Jane's baby were crying, Kurt pleading with his mother to make the noise stop. Pat and the other women were barely able to hold back their screams.
From outside in the distance soft muffled explosions of air defense weapons could be heard above the wailing of the siren. The detonations grew closer at an alarming rate. They were joined by the pop-pop-pop of more antiaircraft guns. Just outside the terminal the report of a gun that sounded like a chainsaw joined in. Then, the first bombs impacted. A series of crashing explosions outside was mixed with the sound of shattering glass and screams of women and children on the second floor. Now all the children were crying and screaming.
Fran pulled Sean and Debby in closer. Sue, tears running down her face, held on to Kurt, trying to cover his ears and face. Jane and Pat did the same with their babies. Just as the tinkling of glass and the screams from upstairs began to subside, another series of bombs went off closer to the terminal, blowing out more glass and causing the screams to begin anew.
They were going to die. They were all going to die. This trip was no longer one of inconvenience and discomfort. It had become a life and death ordeal. Any second now the next series of bombs could hit the terminal and they would all be dead. Pat was horrified.
What had she ever done to deserve this? What harm had her children ever done to anyone?
What purpose would their deaths serve? It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. Pat began to weep and rock Sarah in a vain attempt to comfort her baby.
At the height of the bombing, an Air Force officer without a hat came running in from the flight line and began to run up the stairs. He noticed the group and stopped. He looked at them for a moment, then yelled, 'YOU PEOPLE, FOLLOW ME. QUICKLY!'
Pat looked at the officer, the other women looked at Pat. The officer reached down and grabbed Pat's arm. 'COME ON. FOLLOW ME. I'M TAKING YOU OUT OF HERE NOW. '
Pat thought anywhere would be better. There must be a shelter the officer was taking them to under the terminal. Pat got up and yelled to her group to follow the officer. Fran told him to carry Sean while she picked up Debby and began to follow. Pat waited to make sure that her group was in motion before she followed, taking up the rear.
Pat reached the bottom of the stairs and turned the corner. To her horror she saw that the officer had gone out of the door and was running out onto the flight line. The rest of her group was following obediently. What were they doing? Was that man mad? Why are we going away from shelter? After a brief moment of hesitation, she ran after them. She had to. The officer had Sean and Sue had Kurt. She had to go.
Once outside the pop-pop-pop, the detonations, and the gun that sounded like a chainsaw became louder. The giant C-5 that had been taxiing up to the terminal had been hit and was now burning and shaking from explosions, its huge wings drooping down to the ground like an injured bird: Together with the siren, it drowned out the officer's voice when he turned to scream something to them. Pat saw the C-141 beyond him. He was running straight for it.
He was going to get them out of here. Pat's heart began to beat faster as she picked up her pace. A chance to survive. A chance to escape this madness. This was it. She would use whatever reserve she had left on this one last effort. All or nothing.
The group ran. The officer began to swerve to avoid a shell crater on the flight line. The line of women followed. As they swerved around the next crater, Fran suddenly stopped dead, causing Sue to ram into her from behind. The officer saw her stop, turned, and ran back. Pat caught up and looked down.
There in front of the women were the remains of several bodies tossed about the flight line.
The brightly colored clothing was civilian, not military. Some of the people headed for the C-141 before the attack had been caught in the open and killed. The officer had come back for more evacuees to take their place.
Pat looked up, saw the officer coming back with Sean. No, she wasn't going to let anything go wrong this time. Every step of the way during this evacuation had been screwed up.
Now, when they were only a few feet away from their means of salvation, Pat was determined they were going to finish this trip. Pat pushed Fran and yelled at her to go. When Fran began to run, Pat pushed Sue along behind her. Jane followed. The officer stopped, let Fran catch up to him, then grabbed her with one arm and pulled her along. The crew chief of the C-141 came down the ramp and helped the women up. Another airman inside pushed them over to some empty nylon seats arranged along the sides and middle of the aircraft's cavernous body. As soon as they were all on board, the officer handed Sean to the crew chief who threw the boy on a seat and buckled him in. The officer then ran down the ramp and back to the terminal. He was halfway there when the closing ramp shut out the view of the shattered flight line.
The crew chief and airman buckled in the new arrivals as the plane began to roll. The dark interior of the aircraft was full of women and children. Their sobs inside and the sound of the air attack outside were drowned out by the roar of the engines. It sounded and looked as if they were inside of a huge vacuum cleaner.
The plane picked up speed. The pilot was just as anxious to leave as Pat was. The lift-off was quick and steep, causing a chain reaction as everyone was thrown sideways into the person seated next to her. When the pilot quickly leveled the plane, everyone was thrown back towards the front. The climb hadn't been much. Pat turned and looked out a small porthole-like window behind her. The plane was skimming along at tree top level and moving fast. The pilot apparently didn't want to go high and become mixed up in the air battle.
Pat turned and surveyed her little group. There was a blank, emotionless stare on the face of every woman and child. They were drained, exhausted, listless. The climax of their ordeal had finally succeeded in beating the last bit of energy and emotion out of them. The long flight home was made in silence, only the steady drone of the engines filling the cavelike interior.
Bannon was not ready to wake. It was too soon, far too soon to end his retreat from reality and misery. Even with the protective mask on and lying on the hard turret roof, the sleeping bag was too comfortable to surrender without a struggle. It was too damned soon to get up.
But Folk was persistent. As soon as he registered a muffled obscenity and some independent movement on his commander's part, he stopped shaking. In less than thirty minutes it would be dawn. The second day of World War III; and just as difficult to greet as the first had been.
The pain from sleeping on a hostile surface, the dullness of the mind from too little sleep, and the realization that this day would be no better than the last was a poor way to begin the day.
