Impact (8 page)

Frost tentatively reached forwards.

Pinback took a shuddering breath.

She jumped back.

A gasping, heaving convulsion.

‘Cap? Hey. Daniel. Can you hear me?’

Tentative approach. She reached out a hand and slowly lifted his visor.

He raised his head, groggy like he was waking from deep sleep. Blue, unclouded eyes. Free from infection.

He stared at her face, struggled to focus.

‘Christ. Can you hear me? Can you talk? How bad are you hurt?’

Right arm folded across his belly. He lifted it aside. He was sitting crooked in his seat, lower body twisted like he’d been cut in half and jammed back together at a weird angle. Shattered spine.

‘Jesus. Hold on, Captain. Just hold on.’

Pinback pawed his shoulder, tried to reach his sleeve pocket. Wild eyes. Contorted face. Feverish pain.

‘Hey,’ said Frost. ‘Let me.’

She unzipped the pocket, uncapped a syringe and jabbed his shoulder.

She released his oxygen mask.

‘Breathe slow. Let the dope do its work.’

Convulsive breaths began to subside. His head drooped a little.

Soothing, like a mother:

‘Yeah. That’s right. That’s the good shit. Ride it all the way.’

Pinback. Fourteen-year veteran. His resolute, hard-ass demeanour replaced by pain and confusion.

She’d hoped to find him unhurt, hoped he would take charge, think on her behalf. Instead, here he was, helpless.

She lifted the blast screens to get more light.

She stood over the pilot seat, unbuckled his chin-strap and lifted his helmet clear.

She ran fingers through his hair.

‘Take it easy. Just got to sit tight until Trenchman decides to show up.’

His lips moved.

She leaned close.

‘Get me out of here,’ he whispered.

‘Help will come soon.’

‘Get me out of this fucking chair.’

‘Not such a great idea. You’ve suffered a significant thoracic injury.’

‘I don’t want to die strapped to this fucking thing.’

‘You’re not dying anywhere, sir.’

Pinback impatiently swiped his hand as if her bullshit, you’ll-be-fine platitudes were buzzing his head like mosquitoes.

‘Help me up, Lieutenant.’

‘You’ve hurt your back, sir. Probably broken. Don’t want to make a bad injury worse.’

‘I’m fucked beyond repair. Moving me around won’t make a damned difference.’

‘Best wait for the EMTs.’

‘Do as you are told, airman. Get me out of this chair.’

‘Afraid I cannot comply with that order.’

‘Come on. Don’t leave me scrunched like waste paper. I’m done, anyway you cut it. Lay me out, let me have a little dignity.’

She thought it over.

‘I’ll get the WALK.’

She fetched the trauma kit. Brought it up from the cabin below slung over her shoulder.

She threw it down.

Headrush. She lay a while and tried to recover her strength.

The back-frame of the WALK pack was a bunch of self-locking aluminium rods which snapped together to form a litter.

Frost assembled the stretcher and laid it on the flight-deck floor behind the pilot seat.

‘No two ways. This is going to hurt.’

‘Just do it,’ said Pinback.

‘Internal injuries, sir. It’s a concern.’

Tabloid horror stories from the New York subway. Commuter slips and falls as a train pulls into the station. Gets pinned between the subway car and the platform. Twisted at the waist like a corkscrew. So there he is, the besuited commuter, trapped but feeling fine, trading wisecracks with first responders. He waits for the fire department to show, tilt the train with a Hurst tool and pull him clear. He wants to call his employer, let them know he has been delayed, promise to work late to make up the time. It’s a glitch in his day, an anecdote to tell co-workers when he reaches the office. But MTA cops lay the hard truth: ‘Dude, you’re beyond help. Your spine is shattered, your insides are messed up. Moment we tilt this train, you’ll bleed out and die. Anyone you want to call? Any message we can pass on?’

‘Reluctant to move you around, Daniel. Might have repercussions.’

‘Want me to beg? I’m all-the-way fucked. Help me die, Lieutenant. Least you can do.’

Frost leant over the injured man and unclipped his harness.

‘Got to ask one last question, sir, before I pull you out the chair. Did you transmit a Mayday? As they plane went down, did you broadcast a distress?’

‘We were squawking on all channels.’

‘Did you get a response? Do they have our grids?’

‘No. Couldn’t raise a soul.’

‘Christ.’

‘Come on. Get me out of here. Make it quick.’

She put a hand between his shoulder blades and pushed him forwards. He barked in pain.

‘Want me to stop?’

‘No.’ Panting through clenched teeth. ‘Keep going. Get it done.’

She stood behind him and hooked her hands beneath his armpits. She slowly toppled sideways dragging him from his seat, across the centre console and onto the floor. They both screamed. His back. Her leg.

She caught her breath.

‘Finish it,’ he hissed.

She dragged him onto the litter. More screams.

She arranged tie-down straps, got ready to buckle him tight. He pushed her hands away.

‘We ought to get you rigid, sir. Put you in a neck brace.’

‘Forget it.’

She unclipped the drogue chute from his seat and put it behind his head as a pillow.

She crawled across the deck and sat with her back to the cabin wall.

Both of them pale, sweating, exhausted.

‘What’s the time?’ asked Pinback.

Frost looked out the cockpit windows. Long shadows. The sun heading for the horizon. The sky tinged red.

‘Late afternoon, heading into evening.’

‘What day? How long have I been here?’

‘The plane crashed this morning.’

‘This morning?’

‘You’ve been here fourteen hours, give or take.’

‘Feels like a lifetime.’

‘Yeah. Yeah, it does.’

‘What happened to your leg?’ croaked Pinback, gesturing to the splint clamped to her calf.

‘Took a knock when I punched out.’

‘Broken?’

‘No idea. Hurts like a son of a bitch.’

‘Cry me a fucking river. Give anything to feel my legs right now.’

‘Yeah. Well. Looks like we’ll both be eating hospital food a while.’

He nodded. Eyes struggling to focus, like he was fighting sleep.

He raised his hand and fumbled the zip-pull of his sleeve pocket. Frost leaned forward, gently pushed his hand aside and took out his two remaining morphine injectors.

‘What’s up? Need another shot?’

He shook his head.

‘For you.’

‘You’re messed up, sir. You’ll need them.’

‘No,’ he said. Sad smile. ‘No, I won’t.’

Frost unscrewed her canteen. She lifted his head, held capfuls of water to his lips and let him sip.

He lay back, nodding gratitude.

‘What about the others?’ he asked.

‘Guthrie’s dead. Infected. Must have been hiding it the whole time.’

‘Infected. Jesus. When?’

‘Vegas, at a guess. Someone in the camp wasn’t quite what he seemed.’

‘Anyone else make it?’

She shook her head.

‘Far as I can tell, just you and me.’

She gently wiped his face with towelettes.

‘So what happened up there?’ she asked. ‘Why did the engines fail?’

‘Wild guess: tainted fuel. Simple as that. Sediment in the tanks.’

‘Yeah?’

‘You saw the situation back at Vegas. Place was falling apart. Barely enough guys to man the wire. Some poor, half-trained bastard filled the tanks with sour JP8. Fuel must have been sitting in that truck a long while.’

‘And that was the flame-out?’

‘Sure. Pod two choked and blew, peppered the wing with debris. Took out the firewall isolator valves. Ruptured the lines. We were fucked from that point on. Losing fuel, losing oil pressure. Pod one starts to burn, and suddenly we had electrical fires all over. Pods two and three die in a matter of minutes. Pointless to apportion blame. We caught a dose of bad luck. Leave it at that.’

‘Yeah,’ said Frost, thinking it over. ‘I buy it.’

‘Cascading system failures. It’s like you said. This bird belongs in a museum. She shouldn’t have been in the air.’

He winced.

‘Sure you don’t want a shot?’

He shook his head.

‘You should have punched out,’ said Frost.

‘Thought I could bring her level. Thought I could bring her home.’

Frost gave him more water.

‘So what was the objective? Why were we out here, in the middle of nowhere, prepped to bomb dirt?’

‘Classified.’

‘Come on, Cap.’

‘Classified. Seriously. They gave me coordinates. A map with a cross. That’s all. It was Hancock’s deal. He was running the show. S2 intelligence. That’s why they put him aboard the flight.’

‘Where’s the target data?’

Pinback gestured to a soft vinyl document wallet propped beside the co-pilot position.

‘There are the particulars. Be my guest.’

Frost retrieved the wallet.

Cover stamp: RESTRICTED ACCESS. CO-PILOT ONLY.

Zipper.

She thumbed pages.

Latitude/longitude.

A grease-pencil flight path plotted on a map.

A sheaf of National Recon Office aerial photographs: dunes and a limestone escarpment.

‘Doesn’t make sense. A ten kiloton strike on absolutely nothing. Sand. Rocks.’

‘Think of the effort that went into this operation. Trying to marshal the resources for a nuclear drop while the word falls apart. Didn’t happen on a whim. The continuity government, bunch of generals and politicians, wanted to hit this site real bad. Sealed in their bunker, shouting orders down the phone. Expended their remaining assets to see the mission carried out. Must have been a big deal.’

‘Crazy.’

‘Rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight. Same as it ever was. Above our pay grade, Frost. Don’t sweat it.’

Pinback suddenly gripped the side-poles of the litter and screamed through clenched teeth. Frost punched another morphine shot into his neck. He slowly relaxed.

They sat a while and watched sunset turn the cabin interior gold.

Pinback started to shiver.

‘Damn,’ he murmured. ‘Freezing in here.’

She checked him out. His face was white. His lips were blue. She put a hand on his forehead. Running hot.

‘Guess it’s the evening chill,’ she lied. ‘Night falls fast in the desert.’

He exhaled, like he was trying to see his breath steam in cold air.

‘Got a blanket or something?’

‘Think I saw a coat down below.’

‘I’d be obliged.’

Frost gestured to her injured leg.

‘Got me running all over the damn place, you sadistic fuck.’

He smiled.

She climbed down the ladder to the lower cabin. An NB3 parka wadded and lashed to the wall.

Easiest way to carry the heavy coat up the ladder was to wear it.

When she got back to the flight deck Pinback was dead.

She took off the coat and laid it over his body so she wouldn’t have to look at his face.

A backpack stashed in the EWO footwell.

Frost sat in the pilot seat, held the bag in her lap and unzipped the main compartment. Noble’s stuff:

A handful of snack bars.

A video camera.

A copy of
The Little Prince.

She examined the book. She flipped pages.

To Malcolm, Have a very happy birthday, All my love, Dad.

She’d met a bunch of military personnel in the past few months. Most ditched keepsakes. Eschewed reminders of all they had lost. Kids, partners, parents. Out of contact, almost certainly dead. Hard to think of them without succumbing to suicidal despair. Better to be surrounded by impersonal PX-issue clothes and accoutrements. Olive-drab, mil-spec gear that held no evocative power.

She turned the camera in her hands.

Noble had been ordered to film the blast.

How it should have played out:

The target run.

Frost, strapped in her seat at the radar navigation console. She and Guthrie plot course; make sure the aircraft reaches the precise drop point.