Page 12 of Save Me

“She’s probably just out shopping,” Greg said, but Tina jumped out of the car and ran, her hands trembling as she unlocked the door.

The first thing she saw when she opened it was a gold key on the floor. She picked it up and turned it over.

“Lainie’s house key. It has that little spot of pink fingernail polish on it,” she said, and ran up the stairs and down the hall to Lainie’s old room.

The door was wide open. Closet doors were ajar. Dresser drawers were half-open, and everything that had belonged to their daughter was gone.

Tina let out a shriek that sent a chill all the way to Greg’s soul. The last time he’d heard that sound was the second before their baby crowned during delivery. It appeared the pain of a mother’s delivery was equal to the pain of that same child’s death. Lainie might be alive in the world somewhere, but she was dead to them, and Tina knew it. He turned his head and walked away.

HUNT’S ARMY APTITUDE tests had labeled him proficient in all the things it took to be a pilot, and the thought of flying Army helicopters was his first choice. Over the ensuing months, he went from Basic Combat Training to Warrant Officer Training School, then to Basic Helicopter training to learn how to fly. At the end of that course, he received his wings and went on to in-depth survival training.

By April of the next year, he was on his way to Fort Bragg for training on the Apache simulators on base. His hand-eye coordination, which had made him a good quarterback, his attention to detail, and a near photographic memory soon put him at the head of the class.

Nearly three years after leaving New Orleans, Warrant Officer Gray was now fit to fly Apache Longbows, the most formidable attack helicopters the US Army owned. But the new had barely worn off his rank when the US Army received new orders.

Troops were being deployed back to Iraq, this time to join in the fight against ISIS. It was a sobering moment of Hunt’s existence, and on the day of their company’s deployment, he was quiet and withdrawn.

He’d made friends, but none of them knew his story. All they saw was what the Army had made of him, turning body bulk to hard muscle. He rarely smiled, and a quick glare ended the beginning of any argument.

They called him Gator, because of his slow, Louisiana drawl, but it remained to be seen what would happen over there. Would they live to come home? Would they come home scarred and missing limbs? Or would they come home in a coffin?

And that was Hunt’s mindset. He guessed he might die there, or come home crippled, but without Lainie, he didn’t really care.

CHAPTER TWO

The troops hit the ground running upon arrival. Base camps and communications had already been set up in a vast desert basin surrounded by mountains. The layout was not unlike a wheel, with the helicopters in their own space in the middle, then tent cities and portable buildings laid out accordingly. Medical and medics in their own area. Troops in their areas next to motor pool, and pilots bunking near the choppers that they flew. The entire base camp was fenced, with a single-entry point and rotating guards.

Nearby villages were still inhabited by locals, but after so many homes and buildings had been destroyed by the wars, the survivors lived in little more than hovels cobbled together from whatever was left.

When the pilots weren’t in the air, their time on base was about strategy sessions and daily updates from their commanders. Waiting for intel, plans changing on a dime to take down the next group of insurgents.

Troops on the ground dealt with snipers and IEDs, and when soldiers on the ground needed air support, they called in an air strike. For them, the blade slap of Apache Longbows was better than the jingle of Santa’s sleigh bells on Christmas night.

The quick strafe of ammo from the choppers always sent the enemy scurrying for cover. The precision launch of radar-control Hellfire and Stinger missiles blew up enemy tanks and insurgent strongholds.

Hunt’s near-perfect record for hitting targets in the simulator had given him the gunner position, which put him in the front seat of an Apache as both gunner and copilot, while the pilot steered from the back seat.

Hunt’s pilot was a man they called Preacher. He got the name by quoting Bible verses instead of curses during times of stress.

As the months passed, the violence of where they were had begun to smooth the rough edges of Hunt’s grief. Surrounded daily by death, the hunger and hardship of the people of this nation took him out of his own sadness. Humanity was at war with inhumanity, and he was just a heartbeat in the middle of the roar. He still dreamed of Lainie, and made love to her in his sleep. He could still remember the scent of her and the sound of her voice. But he had no tears left to cry.

As the months passed, his dreams became rehashes of battle and bombs, of snipers and death. Of children laughing in a street one moment, and running from gunfire the next. Of witnessing a woman approaching the gate of their base with a child in her arms. They could hear the woman praying aloud to Allah over and over in a high-pitched shriek, while wearing explosives strapped to her body.

The guards had been given orders to fire when she suddenly stumbled, falling shy of the gate by about a hundred yards. The explosion blew her and her child to kingdom come. It rocked the entire compound. Blew the guards off their feet, and left a hole in the land where she fell.

The sadness and madness of war was never-ending, and whoever was still alive when night came lived to fight another day.

LIKE EVERY SOLDIER, Hunt had long ago accepted that what he did in the air also killed whatever was on the ground. He tried not to think of innocents caught in cross fire, or of the children they sacrificed as human shields.

He dreamed of the hot, humid heat of the Louisiana swamps and woke up to blowing sand and a land so dry the sky looked yellow. It was cold in the winter, with snow and rain in the northern mountains, but cold weather didn’t ever stop war.

He missed the drawl of the Deep South, and the Cajun accents from the streets. He missed the taste of Creole gumbo that started from a rich dark roux. It bubbled with tomatoes and okra, had thick, fat shrimps and chunks of andouille sausage, and was seasoned with filé gumbo powder that cooked down to a heavenly stew, then was served over a big bowl of rice. He dreamed of promising Lainie the world on their last Mardi Gras together, and woke up wondering where she was.

There was only one real rule that mattered in war, and that was never for a second forget the constant danger you are in. Forgetting could get you killed. Even during a pickup basketball game on base, on a hot windy day.

HUNT’S T-SHIRT WAS drenched with sweat and stuck to his body. Because of his long arms and ability for high leaps, he’d just blocked a shot from a gunner they called Rat. Rat had retrieved his own rebound and was dribbling back out for a long shot.

Preacher was on Hunt’s team. He saw Rat dribbling out, and when he turned to make a long shot, Preacher came running up behind him to steal the ball.

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