and that they’d been drunk out of their minds had occurred to the chief petty officer they worked for. They ended up with an ass chewing and an early curfew.
“Flight quarters, flight quarters. All hands man flight quarters to recover aircraft,” the 1MC bleated.
“Whose bird?” Trudeau asked.
“Rogers.”
“He getting any better?”
Smith shook his head. “Still one dangerous son of the bitch on the flight deck. He’s got no common sense, no matter how many times you tell him. He’s going to get someone killed someday.”
Trudeau got to his feet. “Well, it’s not going to be me. If it’s Rogers’s bird, I’m staying out of the way.” He started off toward the island.
Smith watch him go. That was probably the smart thing to do, although he found himself reluctant to leave the flight deck. Rogers and his bird were part of the squadron, part of the team.
Maybe he’d go over the procedures one more time with Rogers, see if he could knock some sense into him. At least he could keep an eye on the other airman while the engines were still turning, make sure he didn’t walk into the jet intake. Rogers was an accident waiting to happen, and everybody knew it.
Smith trudged aft, toward where Rogers would be waiting for his bird, careful to stay outside the green lines to avoid fouling the flight line. Halfway there, he felt a familiar elbow in his ribs.
“Guess we’re in this together,” Trudeau said as he fell into step next to Smith. “My luck, you’d get yourself killed and I’d have to haul twice as many chains alone.”
FOUR
Pain was her entire world, all-encompassing and demanding. It ate at the edges of her consciousness, blocking out everything beyond shattered nerve endings and damaged flesh. Time ceased to exist except as a continuum of the agony pounding in her body.
She heard words, could not make them out. One small portion of her brain insisted that she pay attention, that this was very important. She dismissed the thought, too consumed by the agony ripping through her. Nothing mattered but the pain.
But gradually, she became accustomed to it. Pain became a part of her, and faded, if not to the background, at least to a level that might — just might — be endurable
Now she could hear the words, the individual sounds. Someone touched her shoulder lightly, and she groaned.
“The morphine, it is working now?” the voice spoke English, although with a heavy accent running through it. She catalogued it immediately — Greek, probably from the northern area. It was not a conscious analysis, this instantaneous compulsion to peg accents and voices to nationality was just a reflex born of years spent overseas.
“You’re still in pain?” the voice asked. She tried to force an answer out between battered lips but could only manage another groan. There was a light prick on her thigh, barely distinguishable from the rest of the pain, and she felt coolness float up her body. “There. That should help.”
It did. She found she was at least able to open her eyes without screaming. “Yes, I can see it’s helping. It is, isn’t it?” the voice said, the words soothing.
“What…?” She heard the word come out, and was unable to recognize the harsh croak as her own voice. She tried again. “What happened?”
Evidently the man leaning over her was accustomed to listening to injured people try to talk. He nodded reassuringly. “There was an accident with your helicopter. Do you remember?”
She tried to think. Had she been in a helicopter? Lord, she seemed to spend half her life in the air, so it was entirely possible. But a crash? How? And why?
“Your helicopter went down,” the voice continued. “A mechanical malfunction, perhaps. We don’t know what happened.”
“How bad?” she asked, forcing the words out.
The voice was serious, though not unkind. “You are the only survivor.”
Mike. Brett. And the cameraman… she had never even gotten to know his name.
“You’re still in pain,” the voice said.
Pamela squinted, trying to bring his face into focus, but he remained a blur. She moved as though to touch the face and gentle pressure restrained her.
“Do not move,” the voice continued. It bothered her more than she could say that she couldn’t see his face. She made her living judging people by their body language and expressions, the way they looked away when they lied to her, the unflinching stare that was even more damning evidence of falsehoods.
“I can’t see,” she said.
“You’re badly hurt,” the voice said. “Please, do not try to move. We’re taking you to doctors, to the hospital.”
“Who are you?” Her curiosity gnawed at her, competing with the pain. A few details from the crash were starting to come back. They’d been coming back from taking some stock footage of the camp inside Greece where the rebels were supposedly headquartered. It had been an easy flight, no sign of trouble. No one was worried about the trip. As in many international conflicts, the news media seemed to have an unspoken guarantee of safety.
“You must not move,” the voice said, more sharply now. “There may be serious injuries. Please, you cannot — here.” There was another pinch on her thigh, then massive waves of cool blue relief spread throughout her body from that location. She could still feel the pain as a pressure, knew it was there, but it no longer matter. Nothing mattered except the velvet midnight blue darkness that drew her down.
“What…?” She tried to frame a question, but could no longer make her lips move. Nor could she remember exactly what she had wanted to ask. It wasn’t important, anyway. Nothing was.
A flash of strong denial inside of her. No, there were some things that were important. Tombstone Magruder. The face materialized in her mind again, a reassuring source of strength.
Tombstone would come after her, she knew. He always had. He always would. She slipped back down into darkness, comforted by that certainty.
Colonel Takia Xerxes, the commander of the Macedonian insurgents inside Greece, stared down at the still form on the stretcher. He was lean, with wiry muscles corded on a tall frame. His dark hair was clipped short but still curled into tight half-circles over a high forehead burned dark from hours in the sun. Brilliant green eyes peered out from beneath shaggy eyebrows.
“Why did you bring her here?” Xerxes asked. “Don’t you know how many people will be looking for her?”
The medic shrugged. “She was on her way here, wasn’t she?”
“Not to this location. To the other one, the one we let leak as our headquarters. No one is supposed know about this camp — no one except those who have to.”
“She’d been out there for almost two days. Another couple of hours and she would have died,” the medic said. He knelt down by her body, stroked a stray lock of hair back from the battered face. “Is that your idea of good relations with the international press? Letting Pamela Drake die when you could save her?”
Xerxes shook his head impatiently. “No, of course not. But there were other options. If you’d radioed ahead, even asked for instructions, I would have—”
“You would have chewed me out for breaking radio silence,” the pilot chimed in. “Admit it. Besides, as long
