Clear to Lift (6 page)

“We're not gonna be able to land,” I say. “Are you good if we one-skid it?”

“Yeah,” the EOD officer says, “if you could just help us unload the gear.”

“No problem, sir,” Beanie says.

“How about that large, flat rock right there?” I ask Boomer.

“Perfect,” he says.

And then he sits back, looking overpleased, as I make my approach.

“Yep,” he says. “One-skids are a great maneuver when you have no place to land. We have these slick ski-like things called skids under the aircraft. If we can get close enough, our passengers can embark and debark the aircraft, just like climbing a set of stairs. It's fast
and
efficient.” He looks at me pointedly. “You can't do
that
in an H-Sixty.”

I look away so he can't see my face—don't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing I agree with him—as I pull into a hover.

“Men are exiting the skids, ma'am,” Beanie calls. “Steady right there. I'm goin' up hot mic, while I unload.”

The huffing and puffing is loud in my ears as Beanie hauls equipment and duffel bags out the cabin door.

“All right, ma'am,” he says, breathing heavily. “That's the last of it. Men are clear. We're clear to go.”

“Copy,” I say, pulling collective, lifting, and accelerating away.

“Longhorn Seven, EOD Eleven, recommend at least one mile clearance while we defuse, over.”

“One mile, copy,” I say, before switching to our internal radio. “Sir, did you want to return to the helipad?”

“Helipad? Come on, Malone, we've been through this before. Why not right there?” Boomer says, pointing to a stretch of desert flats below us.

“It's not navy property, sir.”

He turns in his cockpit seat. “Malone, seriously. Think. Outside. The. Box. We're in the conduct of official military business, a mission that's critical to the safety of civilians, and we need to be in a position to see our guys in case they need our help.
Capisce?
”

I let out a huff. “Yes, sir.”

Beanie calls me in to an easy flat landing, a good mile away from the EOD team, who we're still able to see once we've touched down.

“Might as well shut down and save some fuel,” Boomer says.

“Shut down? Out here? But—” I say.

“But what?”

“But you don't have a fireguard. I mean, for the restart. You don't—”

“And…”

“Sir, this goes against everything I've been taught. It goes against
this
very manual,” I say, lifting my H-1 pocket checklist and waving it in the air. “No matter the aircraft, no matter where you're stationed, a person acting as a fireguard and in the possession of fire-extinguishing equipment is
required
to be posted prior to an engine start. Just so you know.”

He laughs, a deep belly laugh, one that seems to go with his six-foot-two, 250-pound frame. Or maybe he's up to 260. Regardless, it's up there. “Well, you're in a new schoolroom now. New teacher, new rules. Get used to it.”

What do I do? Roll my eyes, of course.

“Cutting throttles,” I say.

As I do, Boomer reaches up with his ungloved hand and kills the battery switch. The aircraft rocks from side to side, as the rotors slow, until it comes to a silent stop. I pull my helmet off with a loud exhale.

“You gonna live, Vanilla?”

“No,” I sigh.

I look out over sand and sagebrush that stretches for as far as the eye can see, as Boomer, Beanie, and Hap bounce out of the aircraft. They meet in front of the bird, laughing and yukking it up, not a care in the world.

No. No, I'm not sure I'll make it.

 

6

“Remember the pocket doors I ordered for the entrance to the laundry room and the pantry?” Rich says. “The contractor is scheduled to come in tomorrow to install them.”

“That's great,” I say, sitting at the kitchen table, absently stirring my rapidly cooling oatmeal.

I glance at the clock. 0620. Ten minutes until I need to leave to brief for my flight, which is avalanche training today. I was thrilled when Rich called at 0530, knowing we'd have almost a full hour to talk. To catch up. To vent …

In these fifty minutes, I've learned not only about the pocket doors, but about the drywall guys he contracted to enlarge a nook area in the living room so he can fit in a larger flat screen, the deposit he put down for the wedding reception, a new fixed annuity that guarantees interest rates as high as 3.65 percent, and the honeymoon package he's working on with the travel agent, which includes hiring a sailboat captain to tour us around the Bahamas. He's even arranged for a guided snorkeling trip.

“I've also chartered a private fishing boat for deep-sea fishing,” he says. “You don't even have to do anything. They rig the lines, put the bait on the hooks, and clean the fish after you catch them.”

“That's … wow, yeah, that's great.”

I put down my spoon, and reach for my mug of coffee, the mug my mom bought me when I was twelve. I had fallen off the balance beam midroutine at the gymnastics regional championships that year and missed qualifying for finals. So she bought me a pep-me-up gift—a motivational cat poster, but on a mug. This poor cat is hanging by its front paws, clinging—barely—to a thin metal bar. Underneath, the caption says,
Hang in there, baby.

“I know that might sound like a lot,” Rich says, “but I was thinking of it as a honeymoon with an adventure theme. I thought you'd like it. You know, something different.”

“Oh, yeah, guided tours … of so many different things. For sure, Rich. Thanks. It sounds spectacular.”

I need to call Celia back. Oh, and damn it, I need to call my mom, too.…

“Is it all right? Are you sure?”

“Yeah, really. You're putting so much thought into this. It's great.”

“So how about you?” he asks at 0625.

“Oh, just…”

“I'm sorry,” he says. “God, I've been shooting my mouth off this whole time. I just wanted to make sure I kept you in the loop on everything.”

“No, that's fine. You're right. It's nice to be back up to speed.”

“Well, we'll have more time to talk when I visit, right? Only three more weeks. Actually, less than three weeks.”

“Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it. I just…”

I look at the mug in my hand, staring at the cat.

He hangs there, wide-eyed, little paws straining to hold on to the bar, at the limit, about to fall …

“What's up?” Rich asks.

“Well, just lots of things,” I say, looking at my watch. Not enough time … crap.
Just say it, Ali. Get it out there. Something …
“I can't sleep, the rules are crazy up here, actually, not crazy, there
are
no rules, and the stuff we're doing is risky as hell, and I feel like I'm standing on the edge of a cliff, and it's like I can't come down, and I'm in danger of falling the whole time, but it's terrible and wonderful at the same time, and I just—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold on, Ali. Hold on.”

I breathe in deeply, then release the air in one giant
whoosh
.

“So wait. What's going
on?
”

“I don't know. I just … I don't know.”

“Okay, so let's just think about this. We know Commander Bigelow's working on getting you transferred early. And then you can—wait, what did you just say? Wonderful?”

“What?”

“Wonderful. Just now. You said it was terrible and wonderful at the same time.”

“I did?” I pick up my spoon and begin rolling it through my fingers, under and over, under and over, watching it travel down to the pinky, and then rolling it back toward my thumb—a nervous habit picked up in flight school. “See, I can't even think straight.”

“Well, when's the last time you talked with Commander Bigelow? Maybe he's got an update for you. If he can make it happen, you can get back to San Diego. To some stability … which I think you need.”

“I do need some stability. I really do. He left a voice mail a few days ago. Said he was making progress. Sounded optimistic.”

“Well, you should be optimistic, too, then.”

I start stirring again, not able to muster up anything even remotely close to optimism. A weird silence stretches the seconds.

“You seem so anxious,” he says finally. “I don't think I've ever heard it this bad before.”

“I'm sorry,” I say, putting my spoon down, now fidgeting with my flight suit zipper. “It's not as bad as I'm making it out. I'm not even sure what I'm saying.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I'm sure. Really.” I look up at the clock. 0630. “Rich, I'm sorry, I have to go.” I rise from the table, pouring my uneaten oatmeal down the drain. “I'll try to call tonight.”

“Well, in the meantime, just try to relax. We'll figure it out, okay?”

“Okay,” I say.

I hang up, wishing I could believe it.

 

7

“Lieutenant Malone? Lieutenant Malone?” Will says, waving his hand.

I tune in as the aircrewmen chuckle.

“Are we drifting, Vanilla?” Boomer says.

“No, no. I'm sorry. What was that?”

Will stands on a mountain slope, which is covered in three feet of snow, on the grounds of the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center, located high in the Sierra. He's training fifteen members of our SAR team, along with a platoon of thirty marines, on the basics of avalanche rescue. I never knew this about Will, since he was gone during my first months here, but he is
the
go-to guy for anything mountaineering-related at this base.

“I asked, what are the three modes of use on your avalanche transceiver?”

“Uh…,” I say, clearing my throat.

My brain has not been present today. I forgot to call Celia back, for one. My phone call with Rich this morning was … okay, but not okay. And then, I didn't call my mom, either. I make it a point to call her every Sunday, at a minimum. But we spent all morning in Bishop yesterday, and flew with the EOD team all afternoon, and I collapsed when I got home, not waking up until two a.m.—I tell you, like clockwork—and then it was too late to call her.

“Off, transmit, and receive,” I say.

I pull the answer out of who knows where, and Will knows it. If eyes could laugh, I'd swear that's what his are doing. He starts toward me. “I'd like you to switch your transceiver to the transmit mode.”

Oh, boy. Please let this device be intuitive.

I look down. Thank god. Easy-to-read labels.

I turn the dial to transmit, but when I look up, Will has moved to stand just in front of me, so close his breath wafts across my forehead. He switches the dial on his transceiver to receive, then extends his arm so his transceiver almost touches mine—to ensure it's my signal he's recognizing.

Beep … beep … beep … beep. His unit picks up the audio signal my transceiver is producing.

He raises his eyes to meet mine, and his mouth curls upward ever so slightly. “Yours checks good.”

He moves away to test the rest of the group's transceivers, continuing his instructions to the class as he goes. “Your transceivers are now emitting a pulsed radio signal, just like the skier's would.…”

But my thoughts linger in the moment just before. I look down toward my buried mountaineering boots, my ski pants disappearing into snow that comes up to my knees. That energy. That crazy, intense energy. It was here. And now it's gone.

Beep … beep … beep … beep.

“What if the avalanche is happening, and you're watching it?” Will asks.

Well-spoken, intelligent, humorous. Will is all of these things. As he moves from person to person, testing each transceiver, instructing, joking, laughing, I find myself furrowing my brow, trying to nail down his most obvious trait, something difficult to define. So I listen—mostly—as he transitions from the steps for transceiver usage to quizzing the group on what we covered this morning.

“If you're in a safe place, watch the victim, and note their last known position,” Beanie says.

“Outstanding! Now, Lieutenant Melley, what goes along with watching the victim?”

Clark Melley is the only other aircraft commander in our group. The blond-haired, blue-eyed, should-be-on-a-recruiting-poster-somewhere Texas A&M grad is an H-60 transfer, like me. And also like me, he's none too thrilled about being stationed in Fallon, far happier flying off an aircraft carrier. So we've clicked, routinely commiserating about the unfairness of it all.

“Look for visual clues sticking out of the snow, like a glove or something,” Clark says.

“Very good!” Will says. “Remember—and I've seen this several times—the gear you see on the snow could still be connected to the victim, like a hand in a glove. It's easy to jump right to the avalanche transceiver and the search patterns we'll cover today and miss the obvious signs of the location of a buried victim.”

My brain ticks and spins, mulling over that elusive quality of Will's. That
je ne sais quoi.
Innate leadership? Definitely. But something else … Charisma? Yes … Yes, I think that's it. A magnet that draws people to follow. I'm sure this comes in handy in his position as a mountain guide, and it's probably another reason our aircrewmen think so highly of him. I suspect it's also the source of that energy I felt earlier. I steal a glance side to side at my squadron mates, as they look on, riveted.

“… with the exception of Lieutenant Malone,” Will says. My head snaps up; I heard my name, but not the instructions before it.

He looks at me with a hint of mischief in his eyes.

Not only did I not hear what he just asked me to do, but I sort of checked out on this entire last bit.