A Dangerous Leap (19 page)

Their helicopter arrived on scene at oh-one-hundred. Even with a circling C-130 providing coordinates, it took them twenty minutes to locate the floundering sailboat because of deteriorating weather. Their nightsun, a searchlight putting out thirty million candlepower, illuminated the wild arc of the boat’s twin masts as wind and waves pummeled it.

Kelly’s stomach plunged at the stark reality of the rescue scenario they faced. Rain, driven by forty-knot winds, slashed sideways. The boat’s erratic movements and rigging would prevent her from deploying to its deck, leaving the water her only option. Since night free-falls were prohibited, Joe would have to lower her by cable. It would be Georgia all over again, but with stronger winds and waves to deal with.

In fact, waves were pushing twenty feet. With those added to the Jayhawk’s violent bouncing, she’d feel like a pull-toy in the hands of a two-year-old. Muscles still sore from the Georgia missions protested at the thought of undergoing more punishment.

Ryan established radio communications with the boat captain and ascertained the conditions of the passengers, especially the man reporting a heart attack.

Kelly measured the arc of the sailboat’s masts and calculated the safe distance Caitlyn had to maintain. “Joe, if you deploy me here I can swim to the boat. Ryan, radio the captain and have him throw a line over the side. I’ll climb on board and assess the passengers. My first priority is the man complaining of angina. Once he’s on board the helo, Ian, you can manage his treatment while I go back for the remaining family members.”

Configured to support six evacuees and four crewmembers, they would be over by two, but well within the limits of the HH-60’s capability. Kelly pulled on her swim gear, and activated the chemical light on her face mask. Its green phosphorescence light probably wouldn’t be visible beyond three feet, but it was standard procedure for night deployments.

Joe pushed the sliding door open and the maelstrom of wind and rain sucked Kelly’s breath away. Before she moved into position behind Joe, Ian took her by the shoulders and searched her face as if memorizing it.

Without her headset on she couldn’t hear his voice, but she saw his mouth form the words “I love you,” then he leaned in and kissed her hard. Dear Lord, why had she thought she’d want to live without him in her life? He pulled away and Joe tapped her on the shoulder, indicating it was time to move into deployment position.

Her heart swelled with joy and she grinned and shouted, “I love you!” to Ian before scooting to the open doorway. Not even Gina could dampen her soaring spirits.

Chapter Thirteen

Ian’s heart lodged in his throat during Kelly’s descent. The violent swings of the cable, coupled with the incredible waves, battered her slight figure the whole way down.

“Swimmer in the water,” Joe announced calmly into their headsets.

With Kelly’s safe entry confirmed, Caitlyn moved the helo to a higher altitude, removing the rotor wash from the already horrific conditions.

Kelly would expend a lot of energy getting to the sailboat. Then she’d have her hands full once she reached it. Three men, two women and two children needed to be transferred to the waiting Jayhawk. And how the hell would she manage that? She hadn’t had time to fully recover from her work in Georgia. He’d heard enough from Joe to know it had taken a hell of a toll—physically and emotionally.

Ryan’s voice broke into Ian’s worry. “The captain’s going to deploy a RIB. They’ll tie it off on a hundred-foot line to the sailboat so they can haul it back and forth with two groups of survivors,” he said over the intercom.

Ian nodded in resigned agreement. Kelly could accompany each of the survivors up to the helicopter using a strop in a tandem hoist while the others remained in the Rigid Inflatable Boat, or RIB. Getting the RIB launched without rupturing it or losing it to the wind would require extraordinary effort. And more than a little luck.

Kelly was on board the sailboat within fifteen minutes, despite the waves attempting to slap her down.

“Shit, she’s tired,” Joe muttered.

Ian bristled at the implied cut. Before he could comment Ryan spoke, “Yeah, she worked her butt off in Georgia. But Kelly will get the job done.”

“Hell, yes, she’ll get it done,” Joe snarled over the radio. “Our Kelly-girl is the best of the best.”

Ian’s mouth fell open. Joe turned and caught his expression and grinned.

“Hey, what can I say? I’m a convert.” He punched Ian on the shoulder.

It took thirty long minutes before the RIB was launched from the sailboat. The first load consisted of the sixty-four-year-old male displaying classic angina pectoris, his sixty-three-year-old wife, who’d sustained a fall during the grounding, a thirty-eight-year-old male, and Kelly. The healthy man would try to control the inflatable while Kelly completed the evolutions of her injured survivors to the helo.

After a brief discussion, Joe and Ian opted to deploy the more compact rescue basket in place of the Stokes litter. Despite its smaller size, it swung violently in the strong winds as Joe lowered it to Kelly in the RIB. She tied a line to it, so the hoist up would be more controlled. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t have that luxury on her last hoist.

The crew was soaked within seconds. Ian helped Joe maneuver their first patient into the Jayhawk, then concentrated on him while Joe sent the basket down for the man’s wife.

“Sir, I’m going to attach some monitoring equipment to your chest,” Ian shouted over the helo’s engine noise.

The white-haired man nodded and gestured for Ian to come closer. “Feels like…an…elephant is sitting…on my…chest.” He winked and added, “But can’t be…too bad off…at least I don’t see the…damn thing.”

Ian smiled and quickly removed the man’s rain gear and unbuttoned his shirt. A good attitude went a long way in patient recovery. He attached one of the AED pads to the man’s right chest, just below the collarbone and to the right of the sternum. He placed the second pad below the man’s left breast, on the ribcage wrapped toward the back. With the data card, he’d be able to record thirty minutes of ECG activity that could be downloaded to a computer later for analysis by a cardiologist.

A quick assessment of the man’s vital signs confirmed the angina he’d complained about. From their radio contact on the flight in, he knew the patient had no previous heart problems and considered himself in good physical condition. Ian’s cursory assessment confirmed that opinion.

A few minutes later, the basket arrived with the man’s wife. He leaned in close, not wanting his wife to hear. “Sir, I want to give you a nitroglycerin pill but I need to confirm you aren’t currently taking any drugs that could cause an adverse reaction.”

The man chuckled. “Don’t worry, son, I have no need for Viagra or any of its cousins.”

Ian grinned and popped the tiny white pill under the man’s tongue. “If this is simple angina you’ll feel better within minutes.”

Joe had the basket stowed and the man’s wife wrapped in a blanket by the time Ian could safely give her his undivided attention. It took only a few minutes to assess the minor contusion and mitigate the worry for her husband. Soon they were cuddled together under a shared blanket drinking hot tea from a thermos.

Kelly brought up the last man from the RIB using the quick strop in a tandem hoist. She stayed on board to help Ian while the captain reeled the inflatable back to the sailboat for the last four survivors.

“Jesus!”

Joe’s shout spun Ian around in time to see Kelly launch herself out of the open doorway.

“Shit, shit, shit! Swimmer in the water, swimmer in the water!” Joe shouted to Caitlyn.

It took a moment for Ian to register that Kelly hadn’t been attached to the cable. She’d done a free fall at night? He scrambled to the doorway as Joe shouted directions to Cait over the headset.

“Back thirty. Over sixty. Shit, we’ve got a child in the water. Ryan, radio the boat’s captain. Get everyone below. Repeat, get them off that fucking deck!”

Ian squinted into the driving rain. He could barely make out the sailboat wallowing in the brutal waves. Nothing showed in the water except white-capped foam. Cold fear squeezed blood from his heart and kicked him in the gut. Kelly was in the belly of that black, frothing monster.

* * *

Instinct more than training took over when Kelly saw the wave’s backlash suck the child from the sailboat’s deck. One moment the four survivors had been holding on to the railing ready to board the RIB, in the next second only three clung to the listing deck.

As she leaped into the storm’s fury, she assumed a defensive position, anticipating a long drop to the water’s rock-hard surface. Thankfully, another monster wave came up to greet her, and she rode it down into the trough. The wind and waves should bring the child around the boat—if it didn’t crush her against the hull first.

Kelly banished all such negative thoughts from her mind. Instead, she concentrated on establishing a rhythm that matched the ocean’s. The first lesson of open water: don’t fight it, work with it. Become the water.

Breathe when the opportunity presented itself, otherwise hold, kick, glide. She moved at an angle she hoped would intercept the child’s path around the grounded boat. Whenever possible, she swam beneath the violent, churning surface.

And prayed.

Her lungs burned and she swallowed, stalling the urge to breathe a little longer. She kicked to the surface, sucked oxygen in along with more than a mouthful of saltwater, and searched for any sign of movement. Without divine intervention, finding an object as small as a bobbing child would be—

There, something reflective moved on top of the wave. Another precious “bite” of air and Kelly dove beneath the surface, kicking hard, willing the child to be near, to be alive. She forced her strokes to slow, to be more powerful, more definite, to not fight the waves, but to once again find their rhythm.

Unable to hold her breath any longer, she fought her way to the surface. Breathe, dive, kick. She repeated it over and over again, losing track of time and space, driven forward by teasing glimpses of that elusive something in the black distance.

* * *

Ian split his attention between his two patients and the frantic search going on below. Caitlyn had immediately radioed for another helo to help in the search for Kelly and the child. The other crew would have to take over the rescue of the three remaining family members on board the sailboat. Every negative report Joe gave flayed Ian’s heart. Cait flew a search grid over the black unknown while everyone kept vigil.

Ian didn’t think their situation could get any worse until it did.

“We’re five minutes from bingo,” Caitlyn announced over the COM radio.

Ian snapped up his head, meeting Joe’s grim expression.
No! My God, they couldn’t just leave her
.

“We’ll stay until Phillips and his crew arrives. Their ETA is ten minutes,” Cait added.

Caitlyn was taking a calculated risk, staying past the safe fuel reserves for their return flight, but all Ian could think about was Kelly out there, alone. Could they have devised anything closer to her worst-case scenario? Abandoned with a lost child. Oh, yeah, let’s not forget the damned hurricane barreling down on them. Hell, for all he knew, there were sharks in the water with her.

Ian scrubbed a hand down his face. Get a grip, sharks were too damn smart—they would have headed for deeper water with the approaching storm. No one talked as Caitlyn continued to fly over the black void. The nightsun reflected off the driving rain, inducing vertigo if Ian didn’t keep his mind focused on which way was up.

Phillips arrived on scene and still no sign of Kelly or the child.

“Drop me in the water. I’ll stay behind,” Ian told Joe. Desperation, not logic drove him to make the plea.

Joe slammed the side door closed as if fearing Ian might fling himself out.

“I won’t bother to comment on that stupid idea,” Caitlyn said from the flight deck. “We’re going to the naval station off Key West for fuel. Phillips said Gina has picked up speed, moving at twenty knots. They’ve shut down the commercial airport and started evacuating people from the island, so we’ll deliver our survivors to Naples. Make sure everything’s stowed, and everyone’s buckled in, it’s going to be a bitch of a ride back.”

Ian’s stomach twisted inside out. That meant it would take even longer to get back to Kelly. He saw to his patients without conscious thought, his mind and his heart floundering in the depths of the Gulf.

Chapter Fourteen

Kelly saw the light of the second Jayhawk when it arrived on scene. She held no illusions that they’d be able to see her in the blinding rain. The nightsun would light up the raindrops, making them shimmer like diamonds, effectively blinding them to anything beyond their sparkle. NVGs, or night-vision goggles, didn’t offer any advantages either. Any way she looked at it, she was on her own.

Right now, all her energies were focused on the object bobbing in and out of her sight. Each time she surfaced, she spotted it, a little closer, a little more promising.

Please God, let it be that little girl.

Fortunately, the child was wearing a type-one life jacket, designed to keep her head above water even if she were unconscious. Its reflective strips, catching the searchlight’s powerful beam, were the only things guiding Kelly. At least she told herself that’s what she was seeing, what she was following with hope.

Breathe, stroke, kick. Kelly continued making her way toward the object, drawing closer inch by agonizing inch. She ignored the fact the closing rate was abysmal, just as she ignored fatigue pumping lactic acid into her muscles with each stroke. At one point she consulted her watch and determined she’d been in the water for over an hour. She refused to look again.

Settled into a steady rhythm, Kelly forced her mind to contemplate a life with Ian. Without realizing it, she’d been running from childhood ghosts most of her life. Her marriage to Peter had been wrong and she’d known it going in, but she’d blinded herself with foolish rationalizations. Hungry for a sense of belonging, she’d allowed Peter to blackmail her with an innocent child. Unlike Peter, Ian made her believe—in herself, in a future, in
them
.

Breathe, stroke, kick. Yeah, she even believed she could be a mom. Tonight, she hadn’t jumped out of the helo with any thought of personal gain or because she was competing with anyone. No, she’d leaped into the unknown with one thought only—save an innocent child from certain death.

Collin and Riley’s faces floated in the waves before her. If they were her children, would she treat them with less care than she did as Ian’s nephews? Hell no! Had she ever seen her mother give a child, even her own children, more than cursory attention? Hell no!

Maybe Matt was right. Maybe their mom simply hadn’t had any mothering genes in her. Maybe it was past time Kelly forgave her mom for not being the kind of mother she wanted, and accept that she’d loved her children to the best of her ability. After all, they had been blessed with the perfect father. Kelly grinned and promptly choked on a mouthful of saltwater.

Lord, Kel, don’t lose it now
. Not only did she have a little girl to rescue, she had a future husband and their half-dozen or so unborn babies to return to as well. She needed to focus on her breathe-stroke-kick routine.

She refused to think about the fact one of the helos had left already, taking Ian away from her. Sooner or later the one currently flying a search grid would hit bingo and have to follow. It didn’t matter, her job was to breathe, stroke, kick. And look—

Dear God, it was the child, only a few yards in front of her. Relief flooded through her veins like a drug. She hadn’t been following an illusion after all.

A wave rose up and separated them, but Kelly filled her lungs and slipped below the surface, her kicks stronger, her mind clearer. Kick, stroke, kick, yes, the girl’s legs were moving!

Kelly surfaced in front of the child but couldn’t make out her expression in the dark. She spit out the mouthpiece of her snorkel so she could speak. “Are you okay?” she shouted against the noise of the wind and rain. The little girl jerked then launched herself at Kelly, wrapping her short arms around Kelly’s neck, her legs around Kelly’s waist.

Water swamped them both before Kelly surged up, breaking the terrified girl’s hold. “You’re safe now, and not alone,” she crooned into her ear. “I’m Kelly. What’s your name, sweetie?”

“S-Stephanie,” the girl said in a hoarse voice.

Chills racked her small body and Kelly realized the child was hypothermic. Now that she’d found the girl, she was determined to get her out of the water.

Her new priority was to make sure they both were found—the sooner the better.

* * *

When the Jayhawk crew landed at Boca Chica Key West, flight ops confirmed they’d be flying north to Naples to deliver the three survivors to a local hospital. Key West, along with all the Keys, was in the midst of a mandatory evacuation in anticipation of Gina’s landfall.

Ian stood in the doorway of the hangar watching the Navy lineman fueling the helicopter. It shuddered and swayed in the fifty-mile-an-hour wind. How the hell could Kelly last in the open water in these kinds of conditions?

Caitlyn joined him in the opening. “Phillips picked up the remaining family members, they’re all okay, but he’s still searching for Kelly and the child. He’ll stay on site until they hit bingo,” Caitlyn said. “Come on, let’s get these people to Naples.”

The crew and survivors were all subdued on the flight north. Ian saw to the comfort of his patients but they were as fearful for their lost grandchild as Ian was for Kelly. The only good thing about the flight was the weather improved the farther north they went.

The landing in Naples was smooth. But Caitlyn had to cut the engines and Ian had to wait impatiently for the rotors to stop before he could unload his patients. An orderly and nurse along with a gurney and wheelchair were waiting for them inside the glassed-in wing near the landing pad at the Naples regional hospital.

“Don’t give up hope, son. I’ve learned over the years to never give up hope,” the girl’s grandfather said. Ian helped transfer him to the gurney. His wife patted his cheek, even as tears flowed down her own.

“Yes sir, I agree. We’ll find your granddaughter,” Ian said with more conviction than he felt. Finding Kelly would be a miracle in itself, finding the little girl…that would take more divine intervention than he could contemplate on a night like this.

Caitlyn opted to fuel up again. Winds aloft were shifting radically as the hurricane drew closer. Ian fumed, his hands stuffed in his flight suit as the Jayhawk was topped off at the local base. The deteriorating weather was hampering everyone, including getting the go-ahead to launch again. He squinted up at the black night. Hell, he’d beg, borrow, or steal a boat if he had to, but there was no way he wasn’t going back out for Kelly.

“Ian!” Caitlyn shouted, wrenching him from his desperate rescue plans.

He turned and she motioned him over to the ready-room where the rest of their crew waited.

He jogged through the hangar, the night mechanics busy servicing their flying machines. Their faces all looked grim as he went by, adding to his fears. Did they know something he didn’t?

When he joined his crew in the ready-room they looked just as defeated. “Is flight ops telling us we can’t launch?” He fisted his hands in his pockets. No way he’d abandon his search.

Cait frowned at him. “No, but it’s volunteer only at this point. Winds are approaching the maximum my bird’s capable of flying into, but I’m good to go,” she said.

Ian scanned the faces of his fellow Coasties. Ryan and Joe nodded their agreement.

“We’re in. No way would we abandon her out there,” Joe said.

Ian’s throat closed. Joe’s support, in particular, spoke volumes about the impact Kelly had on her team members.

Caitlyn stood at parade rest, her arms behind her back, her feet spread apart. “Phillips is headed to Boca Chica for fuel right now. His crew’s willing to go back out as soon as they drop off the remaining survivors here in Naples. Based on current weather predictions, we won’t be able to return to Boca Chica on our way back. So this will become our closest fuel base.”

What she didn’t say was that meant their fuel window had shrunk by a good hour.

She rapped her knuckles in a quick one-two on the gunmetal conference table. “Let’s saddle up and go get our Kelly-girl back,” Cait said. She grabbed her flight bag and headed to the hangar with long strides.

As Ian followed, Kelly’s words came back to haunt him. “I came into the world in the water, and if I’m lucky, that’s the way I’ll leave”