Picking Up The Pieces Read online

  “Ready, Junior?” she asked.

  “On your six, Boss,” came the calm response.

  Athon guided her chopper into the landing zone and set it down. Two medics jumped out before she settled and ran to help carry the wounded. She watched Junior land fifty yards to her right before she punched her safety harness release and left her seat. “Take the controls,” she told Ortega. She went to the side loading door and pulled the first stretcher into the chopper. “How many?” she yelled over the noise of her rotors.

  “Two more,” a crewman yelled back. “Junior can carry the other three.”

  “Prepare to lift off, Ortega,” she said. The words had barely left her mouth when she heard a loud whistling sound. “Incoming!” she shouted. She pressed her communications button. “Bug out, Junior. Now!” she ordered as she covered an injured man with her body.

  The concussion of a nearby explosion knocked her against the bulkhead and she heard the whistling sound of a second incoming projectile. “Godammit! Get ‘em off us, Frank!” she shouted into her helmet communications link. She saw sparks from ground fire strike Junior’s chopper as it banked away sharply.

  Stuttering shots from the Blackhawk’s fifty-caliber machine guns strafed the area from which the projectiles had been launched, but smaller machine gun fire continued to strike the length of Athon’s chopper. “Shit! Load that man!” Athon ordered as she jumped onto the pilot’s seat and refastened her harness. “Go, go, go!”

  As small arms fire pinged along the sides of the helicopter, she gasped when she felt a sudden sharp, stinging pain in her left side. She heard the side door slam closed and lifted off.

  Chapter Three

  Landstuhl Medical Center, Kaiserslautern, Germany January 2010

  “THINK SHE’LL MAKE it, Doctor?” a young nurse asked as she checked Athon’s vitals and prepared her for the long flight back to the United States.

  “She should, but with a head trauma, you never know,” Dr. Stephens said softly.

  The damaged body lying on the gurney in front of her was only one of hundreds that had passed through the hospital at Landstuhl. Dr. Stephens checked the tubing running into Athon Dailey’s body to assure there were no kinks in the lines. She noticed the rapid eye movement beneath the closed eyelids. “Looks like she’s dreaming about something,” she said. She placed her stethoscope to Athon’s chest and frowned. “Her breathing’s becoming rapid and shallow.”

  “Increase the sedation?” the nurse asked.

  Stephens nodded and stroked her patient’s forehead in an attempt to calm her.

  THE CHOPPER SUFFERED shrapnel damage from the rocket explosions as well as numerous strikes by small arms fire. A hole in the windshield let the cold night air rush into the cockpit, searing Athon’s throat and lungs as she banked away from the LZ. Her controls were sluggish and she struggled to keep the chopper from slamming into the ground. It took all the strength she could muster to level off, dangerously close to the desert floor. She tried to rub away moisture that had gathered inside her goggles. “Ortega, take the controls,” she told her co-pilot. “Ortega!”

  When she didn’t receive an answer she calmly ordered, “Get a medic up here.”

  “Pull up, Dailey!” Frank said.

  Hearing his voice, she responded. “I’m hit. I think Ortega bought it. Got a little control problem. I’ll keep us in the air as long as I can.”

  Athon was quiet for a few minutes. “Hey, Frank,” she grunted as she fought to remain airborne.

  “Yeah.”

  “Take care of Lauren. Tell her I’m sorry.”

  “Ain’t nothing gonna happen to you, Dailey. Now shut up and fly, woman.”

  “Roger that. Dailey out.”

  She cursed as the engine sputtered and glanced at the fuel gauge. Her arms felt leaden as she used both hands to keep the chopper level. She was closer to the ground than she thought as the left skid struck it. The chopper bounced once and sparks from the metal striking rock flew into the air. She freed her harness. She had to evacuate her crew members before there was an explosion. She limped to the back and wanted to throw up when she saw the carnage. Blood was everywhere. She fell to her knees and searched for a pulse on each man now lying on the floor of the medical bay. Holes from ground fire had torn through the tail section. She tore off her night vision goggles and threw them as she screamed out her anger.

  The sound of machine gun fire in the distance thrust her into flight mode. She wiped her arm across her face. She estimated her chopper only made it a couple of miles from the LZ and she had to put more distance between herself and the downed bird. The emergency lighting in the bay was dim and flickering. She managed to locate a towel and stuffed it inside her flight suit to staunch the bleeding before she lowered herself to the ground.

  She ran as fast as she could, hoping the blackness of the night in a place where they never heard of streetlights, would hide her retreat. She glanced over her shoulder and saw electrical sparks inside her helicopter. It wouldn’t be long before the area would be crawling with insurgents. If she had any hope of survival she had to increase the distance between herself and the crash site. The explosions at the LZ had been so loud her ears were still ringing. She stopped for a moment to wipe away sweat that, despite the winter weather, was running down her face. Her side throbbed and pain shot through it with every step. Push it away, she told herself. She heard a rustling sound behind her and reached for her revolver. A shot rang out and she fell to the ground as the bullet grazed her head.

  “GAS IT UP!” Frank yelled as soon as he landed at his base. “Tell Evans we have a chopper down! Did Junior make it back?”

  “Yeah!” a mechanic yelled back. “His bird was pretty shot up! What the hell happened?”

  “They were waiting for us and didn’t give a shit about the big red cross on the choppers. Dailey was hit and had to put down about a mile or two from the LZ. So put a rush on it.”

  “Fifteen minutes. Were you hit?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “We’ll check it out. Grab a cup of coffee.”

  Frank nodded and ran toward the unit command office. He flung the door open and strode inside. He rapped on the commander’s door and tapped his foot waiting for the door to open. Colonel Stanley was rubbing his eyes when he opened the door. “Hardesty, come in,” the older man said as he turned toward his desk.

  “Dailey’s down. They’re prepping my chopper for take-off now.”

  “What happened?”

  “It was an ambush. As soon as all hell broke loose, Dailey ordered Junior out of there. We laid down fire, but there must have been more than one group lying in wait. Dailey loaded as many as she could before she lifted off.” He cleared his throat. “Her chopper was shot up pretty bad. The last communication I had with her she said she’d been hit and Ortega was dead. She was having problems with her rotors and was flying close to the deck. She put it down a couple of miles from the LZ. I didn’t see an explosion so I’m assuming she’ll find a place to lay low until we get back.”

  “Not tonight, Captain. The area’s too hot and we can’t afford to lose any more choppers. Wait until first light,” the colonel said. “I’ll send some armed men with you. It’s too dangerous now.”

  “She’s been shot! She might not make it until dawn, sir,” Frank protested.

  “Major Dailey knew the risks, like we all do. Send a message to the nearest unit. See how fast they can get there.”

  “They were under attack which is why we were there, to pick up their wounded. They’re in no shape to send anyone,” Frank argued, raising his voice. “We’re the only chance Dailey and her crew have.”

  Colonel Stanley stood and leaned forward, using his fingers to balance his body. “Stand down, Captain,” he ordered. “It’ll be light enough in three or four hours.”

  Frank saluted and spat, “Yes, sir.” He slammed the door as he left the colonel’s office.

  ICE COLD WATER splashed on Athon’s
face. She coughed and pain stabbed through her side. Her body twisted as she struggled to get her feet under her and remove the burning pain from her wrists. Her hands were tied with a rough homemade fiber rope that was looped over a nearby tree branch. The rough fiber had rubbed her wrists raw. After an instant of relief her legs were kicked from under her. The rope dug deeper into her flesh as her body weight jerked her down. She bit back a wave of nausea as she remembered bits and pieces of the frantic attempt by her crew to evacuate the wounded and escape the area. She remembered staring into the lifeless eyes of her chief medic. She felt warm tears mix with the cold water running down her cheeks. She was responsible for the safety of her crew and she had failed to protect them. She remembered the assault chopper that accompanied the rescue mission, piloted by Frank Hardesty, laying down cover fire. How long ago had that happened?

  Her breathing became labored as she tried to ignore the pain in her side and the headache that pounded at her temple. Survival training had never seemed this real. She knew she wouldn’t die from the training, but reality wasn’t quite as certain. She saw movement off to her right and her breath stopped when she saw at least a dozen bearded men sitting in the snow around a small fire. She shook her head hoping it was a mirage or hallucination. She shivered slightly from the cold and closed her eyes. A voice in her head laughed. You ain’t got what it takes, kid.

  Chapter Four

  Duvalle, Texas September 1987

  SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD Lauren Shelton waited patiently while her mother filled out the registration papers to enroll her in a new high school. She hadn’t been particularly happy when her father accepted the position as the new pastor of the Eastside Presbyterian Church in the small Texas town of Duvalle, just outside San Antonio, but she knew the move was her fault. They had spent most of the morning registering Lauren’s younger brother, Devin, at the local middle school. The move from suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Podunk, Texas had not been well accepted by Devin. But, according to the Reverend Kenneth Shelton, God moved in mysterious ways which should never be questioned. Lauren’s mother, Toni, seemed resigned to the move. For as long as Lauren could remember, her mother had stoically accepted her husband’s decisions without question.

  The sound of loud voices in the front office caught Lauren’s attention as she watched a surly-looking girl with short, spiky blonde hair being escorted into the room and shoved into a chair. The teen was bleeding from a cut over her right eye. Blood ran down the side of her face and dripped onto a well-worn olive green t-shirt that advertised a product that had been popular several years earlier. Her eyes were heavily outlined by black eyeliner and drew attention to her pale skin. When she tried to stand and reach for a tissue box on the counter, an equally surly-looking man placed his hand on her shoulder and pushed her roughly back into the chair. She slapped the man’s hand away and glared at him. She saw Lauren sitting in the nearby registration area looking at her.

  “Whatcha starin’ at, sweet cheeks? Never seen a real live juvenile delinquent before?” the girl snarled at Lauren, who quickly averted her eyes.

  When her mother signed the last piece of paperwork, she smiled at Lauren and they both prepared to leave. On her way by the front counter Lauren grabbed a couple of tissues and handed them to the girl on her way out of the office.

  “Thanks,” the girl said as she looked up at Lauren and snatched the tissues. She pressed them against the cut over her eye.

  Although she had never seen anyone who looked like the girl, Lauren was struck by her looks. She had delicate, but angular features with a straight thin nose. Her face was framed by unruly short blonde hair. But it was her pale blue eyes that made her face interesting. Minus the blood, Lauren found her quite attractive, in a dangerous, untamed sort of way. She felt her stomach clench and then release as she followed her mother into the hallway.

  ATHON DAILEY HAD been trying to eat an undisturbed lunch when the fight broke out. Couldn’t even enjoy a stupid Brand Z store brand baloney sandwich without being provoked by some jerk jock who thought he was being cool. She hated this school and she hated this town. She hated the way she was forced to live. She couldn’t remember the last time she had actually spoken to her mother. Michelle Dailey spent her days sleeping off the night before and her nights stripping and getting drunk, strung out, or both, usually in the company of a drunken cowboy. She would never be a candidate for Mother of the Year.

  That morning Athon got out of bed before daylight, managed to find reasonably clean clothing, relieved her bladder, and put together a breakfast of cold coffee and burnt toast with the burnt parts mostly scraped off. It was a long way to Carver High School from the semi-abandoned trailer park they called home. An elephant could have stomped through the trailer and Michelle Dailey wouldn’t have noticed.

  Athon hated everything about her life. Duvalle, Texas had originally been envisioned as a bedroom community for San Antonio, but someone forgot to tell anyone its purpose before the city expanded in the opposite direction. When San Antonio expanded to accommodate its burgeoning population, legal and illegal, it had moved west instead of east. Duvalle now had a reputation for absolutely nothing of importance and the only people who lived there were migrants who hoped no one would notice one more illegal Mexican in an area where there were thousands of others and hopeless people like her mother who were hanging on to the fringes of life by their fingernails. The smell of hopelessness permeated everything, even the air. Eventually it became a haven for trailer park trash like Athon and Michelle Dailey.

  Athon lived on the edge of prosperity, but wasn’t allowed to touch it. The only successful part of town was the original affluent subdivision surrounding the East San Antonio Country Club. New additions to the subdivision bulged into the Duvalle City Limits. Carver High School was constructed near the zone separating Duvalle and San Antonio and had an excellent academic reputation. Although Athon didn’t live in Carver’s attendance zone, she had discovered an ill-thought out Texas law that allowed homeless students or unaccompanied minors to attend the school of their choice, regardless of where they physically resided. Another section of the same law let a student declare themself homeless. She declared herself an unaccompanied minor and enrolled at the affluent school. She doubted her mother knew if she went to school, let alone where.

  It was economically a long way from Buena Ventana Trailer Court to Carver High School. Now seventeen and entering her last year of high school, all Athon wanted was an uneventful year. She usually walked the three miles to school or hitched a ride if the weather was bad. She did everything she could not to draw unnecessary attention to herself, but it was becoming more difficult. Most of the students at Carver High School came from upper class families and there was no denying that Athon stood out in the preppie group. Her obvious Goodwill wardrobe clashed with the Neiman-Marcus clothing most of the other students wore. But only one year remained before she could leave everything she hated behind and make her own life without everyone and their damn dog telling her how worthless she was. She didn’t need to be reminded about that. She knew it every morning when she rolled off that piece of shit her mother called a mattress. It was an old, ripped up twin mattress they had found on the curb and stank like pee. She’d tried everything to remove the odor, but nothing worked. It had probably belonged to a much younger kid who wasn’t potty trained and it was too short for her thin five-ten frame. She looked down at her old t-shirt. It was one of her favorites, but it was ruined now.

  “What did you do now, Athon?” the secretary asked.

  “Nothin’,” she said. “He attacked me.” She smiled at Mrs. Fortenberry and added, “But I kicked his lily-white ass.”

  The man standing next to her smacked her on her shoulder. “Watch your mouth,” he ordered.

  “You know you’ll be suspended for fighting,” the older woman said, shaking her head. “Not a good way to start the new school year.”

  “I got things I need to do anyways,” Athon said with a sh
rug.

  “Your mama get a phone yet?”

  “Nope. Things have been a little slow lately.”

  “You need to learn to control that temper of yours, Athon.”

  “Yeah, I been told that once or twice.”

  The teacher who escorted Athon to the office stepped out of the principal’s door and motioned her inside. She dusted off her pants and sauntered into the office, keeping her defiant, don’t-givea-shit attitude in place.

  “I hear you were involved in a fight at lunch, Athon,” Mr. Tucker, the principal, said as he leaned back in his chair.

  “Takes two to have a fight and I don’t see the other participant in here,” Athon said. “Why is that?”

  “Coach Larsen says you provoked it.”

  “He’s a liar,” Athon stated.

  Mr. Tucker sat up. “Why would Coach lie about it?”

  Athon looked over her shoulder at the middle-aged man with the crew-cut and the prominent beer belly. “Probably because one of his pretty boy jocks let a girl give him a bloody nose.”

  “Who was the other student involved, Coach Larsen?” Tucker asked.

  “Craig Hickson. He’s a good kid,” Larsen answered with his emphasis on the word good.

  “As opposed to a baaad kid like me, I suppose,” Athon smirked.

  Larsen stepped closer. “That’s right, Dailey. You’ve been nothing but trouble since the day you enrolled at Carver.”

  Athon turned to face Larsen. “But I still manage to make the honor roll every freakin’ semester and can even count to twenty-one without using my fingers, toes, and dick.”

  Larsen’s hands started to come up, but he stopped himself. “Can I return to my lunch duty, Mr. Tucker?” Larsen asked, never taking his eyes from Athon’s.