Captured(74)

“INCOMING! INCOMING!” The pilot’s frantic voice over the headset jerks me back to reality.

The helo is banking hard, the rotors whining to full pitch as we accelerate. I catch a glimpse of a white trail, a dot of yellow. It feels like everything is in slow motion. The first trail streaks by, and the helo rolls, nose slewing around, rocking us in the opposite direction. I don’t see the second trail, but I hear the pilot yelling “mayday!” and feel the chopper banking so hard we’re almost tossed out, and then the craft jerks, judders, spins. I feel a blast of heat past the open doors, flames billowing. There’s a deafening roar, so close and so loud my ears can’t fully process the noise.

We go into a flat spin, dizzying, smoke black and thick following us in circles as we plummet. Sharp ridges and vertical rock faces flash past. I’m disoriented, and all I can see is ground-sky-mountain-flames-smoke-mountain.

Our impact is sudden and so deafening it’s almost silent. I feel forward momentum and pain. I’m thrown clear, tumbling. Hit the ground, feel something break in my leg. The pain is like the noise, too intense to process.

CRUMP—SILENCE—BOOM

Heat crashes into me as the Huey explodes somewhere close. A god-sized hammer hits my right leg, the one I felt break when I hit the ground. I catch a glimpse of something black and metallic whirling away.

The force of the detonation sends me rolling across the ground, rocks ripping at my face, elbow, and knees. I feel the ground beneath me tilt, vanish, and I’m falling again.

I wanted to make it home. The thought flits through my head in an instant of weightlessness.

SLAM. Breathless, wheezing agony. The sky above is a peaceful blue, a wide bowl of endless blue the exact shade of Reagan’s eyes.

Reagan. Looks like I’m breaking my promise.

I’m lying on my rifle. I can’t breathe. Right leg is starting to hurt. I can’t move.

Quickly the pain becomes a hurt so bad words are useless to convey the enormity of it. I think I’m screaming, but I can’t breathe, so it can’t be me. Breathing hurts. Moving hurts. My ribs feel broken.

A bloody face appears in my line of vision. American, at least. My ears ring, and I can see his mouth moving, but I can’t hear what he’s saying. He points, emphatic gestures at the mountain face above us. He lifts me, pulls my rifle out from beneath me. Unclips it from my webbing. I feel my hand being lifted and a pistol is put into my palm. Gotta fight? Shit. I look blearily at the weapon and thumb off the safety. I peer in the direction indicated. Searing pain lances through me at each twitch of muscle. I can see no movement, and I glance at my companion. He’s one of the guys from the fire team. Young fella, probably was a handsome sonofabitch once, except now he’s missing the left side of his face. Ear gone, skin…not skin anymore. I can see the bone at his jaw. Fuck, that’s gross. How the hell is he upright? Jesus, he’s a tough motherf*cker.

Crackcrackcrack. He’s firing. The sound of my M4 in his hands breaks through the ringing in my ears. I follow his aim; puffs of rock dust spurt from the mountainside. Then I see a turban, white against the stone. I squeeze off a single round, and I miss. I try to get my other hand around the butt for a better grip. Can’t shoot for shit one-handed under the best of circumstances. I see movement; I fire again. Blood sprays.

I’m dizzy.

God, the agony. I don’t want to look at my leg. It’s so, so, so f*cked.

And then…the welcome sound of a helo, the distinctive rotor signature of a SuperCobra. Rockets flash and whoosh. The hillside crumps and bellies out in fire and smoke and rock chunks. A disembodied leg flies past us. The AH-1W angles sideways, hovering, sliding horizontally, and raking the mountainside with M197 rounds.

Thank you, sweet baby Jesus.

He rotates in midair, floats toward us. He pivots, and I can see him looking at us. Reporting our location, hopefully.

Finally, I make myself look down at my right leg. It’s gone from the knee down. Just gone. I let my head thunk back to the dirt, wheezing, moaning. Breathe, breathe, breathe. I lift up again to make sure I didn’t imagine it. Nope. Still missing half my leg. Why isn’t it bleeding? I should be dead from blood loss by now. And then I remember the piece of metal flying by after the explosion. If it was hot enough and sharp enough, it’d just pinch and sear the vessels closed instantly. Or maybe I am bleeding out, and that’s why I’m so dizzy. So cold.

The sky narrows, a squeezing cone of darkness closing in upon me. What’s happening to the sky?

I’m passing out, I realize. Good. That’s good. It hurts too bad to be awake right now.

Then darkness.

When I wake up, the sky is rotating. Helo rotors dopplering overhead. A helmeted head peering down at me, lifting me up. The jolting on the floor of the helo hurts like f*ck. Someone is doing something to my leg. I look around me. My buddy, the one missing half his face, he’s there, getting a shot of something to the upper thigh, then treatment to his face, or what’s left of it. I manage to lift my hand toward him, fist closed. He touches his knuckles to mine. Our eyes meet. He nods. I fumble at my stomach, my chest. I locate my pocket. Cubby. Where’s Cubby? There it is. I clutch the plastic figure in my hand. I can’t even form the thought, the prayer, the hope to go home. All I can do is hold the toy and cling to life.

Darkness again.

Reagan….