Parallax View (10 page)

He ducked his
head, kept his body as low as possible to avoid breathing toxic fumes. He
turned toward the two victims still strapped into their seats. He already knew
the woman was alive, so he quickly reached across her body and pressed his
fingers under the man’s ear, feeling for a pulse.

There was none.

He tried again,
his fingers smearing sticky, half-dried blood around the man’s neck. Still
nothing. Time was running out. He could feel his hair beginning to singe and
his skin felt as though it might burst into flames at any moment.

And the fire was
still coming, passing over the body of the crash victim who had become wedged
into the wreckage. Shane knew the inferno was being fed by oxygen entering
through the smashed windshield. The very damage which had made it possible for
him to access the cabin was now turning a foolhardy rescue attempt into a
suicide mission.

Shane stood and
thrust his head through the broken windshield, breathing deeply of the fresh
northern Maine late-spring air. He took several deep gulps of it, finally
holding his breath and turning back inside the fetid, foul, superheated air of
the wreckage. He bent and fumbled with the buckle on the woman’s safety
harness, finally releasing the mechanism allowing the belts to spring free.

He reached around
her waist, grateful for her small size, and pulled her from her seat. He lifted
her over his shoulder into an awkward fireman’s carry and struggled to his
feet, hoping he wouldn’t accidentally force her head into the deadly black
smoke and kill her while trying to save her. The distance from the seat to the
smashed windshield was only a couple of feet, but debris covered the flight
deck, which was already tilted at an awkward angle, making solid footing
impossible.

Shane stumbled to
his knees. The woman’s body slipped off his shoulder and he caught her. He felt
weak and disoriented. The heat was intense and relentless, and he shambled
forward again. He thrust the woman’s head and upper body out the smashed
windshield, her lower body still trapped inside.

Behind Shane, the woman’s
cockpit seat burst into flames. He knew the male crewmember’s seat would follow
suit any second now, and his clothing would likely ignite next. He pushed
against the wreckage with his feet, his legs feeling rubbery and insubstantial.
He reached for the window frame and pulled his body through, wheezing and
coughing, choking down fresh air, amazed to still be alive.

There wasn’t room
to turn his body in the window frame like he had done on the way into the
plane; the female victim’s body took up too much room. So Shane wriggled
through the opening, dropping head-first out of the plane. He twisted as he
fell, trying to drop onto a shoulder, hoping he wouldn’t slice his head open on
the wreckage. He landed with a crash that jarred his body but left him
uninjured.

The night was
crystal-clear, and as he breathed deeply he felt as though his lungs had been
scoured with steel wool after sucking in the superheated air of the plane’s
interior. Coughing and hacking, he stood and reached back into the doomed
aircraft, grabbing the woman by the legs and trying to lift her clear of the
window frame. The left leg of her jeans was soaked with blood and he lost his
grip.

He wiped his hand,
smearing blood onto his clothing, and tried again. This time he grasped the
belt loops of her jeans and used them to pull her body upward. He was at an
awkward angle, making lifting her difficult. He glanced inside the cabin,
shocked at the sight. Flames engulfed the interior, tongues of orange racing
toward the unconscious woman’s legs.

He was out of
time. Giving up on lifting her clear, Shane locked his arms under her armpits
and dragged her body through the opening. He worried her already injured leg
would be sliced open further by shards of glass and metal but could not afford
to waste any more time.

Her body pulled
through inch by inch, the resistance substantial, as if the aircraft was
releasing its final victim only with extreme reluctance. Her knees cleared the
opening with a ripping sound that Shane could hear clearly even above the roar
of the fire.

Then she was free.
They tumbled backward, away from the wrecked plane, landing in a heap on the
forest floor. Shane rolled the woman’s body gently off his, then crouched next
to her and hefted her once more onto his shoulder. He struggled to his feet and
began moving as quickly as possible away from the aircraft toward the road.

He had lost his
flashlight in the confusion and pictured himself stumbling around blindly, lost
in the near-complete darkness, the woman dying because he might be within ten
feet of his car and never know it. At the edge of the clearing, Shane stopped
and took one last look at the devastation of the crash scene. It was a sight he
knew he would never forget.

Then he turned and
plunged into the darkness.

18

May 31, 1987

12:02 a.m.

Bangor, Maine

Shane was panting like a dog when
he finally reached the road. His legs burned and his back throbbed and the dead
weight of the unconscious woman slung over his shoulder felt like a thousand
pounds, rather than the one hundred or so she probably weighed.

He stumbled out of
the thick brush, grateful to have found his way out of the wilderness. The road
was brightly lit by the full moon, in stark contrast to the impenetrable
blackness under the canopy of trees. Shane peered in both directions, looking
for his car. There were still no rescue vehicles in sight, although he could
hear sirens off in the distance. Whether they were heading in this direction,
he couldn’t tell.

Far to the north,
Shane spotted an indistinct lump at the side of the road and decided it was
probably his car. He had taken great pains to walk as straight a path as
possible on the way back to the road and had still missed the Bug by at least
an eighth of a mile. He sank to one knee, gulping fresh air, trying to catch
his breath while still holding the crash victim.

He wondered how
much damage he was doing to the young woman by carrying her. Moving her at all
was a calculated risk—if she had suffered a broken neck or back, he could be
causing irreparable damage—but leaving her at the scene of the crash and
waiting for rescue vehicles that might arrive too late had been out of the
question. If her injuries didn’t kill her, the northern Maine chill might. Even
this close to June, on a clear night like tonight the temperature could easily
dip below freezing.

Shane staggered to
his feet. He half-walked, half-trotted to his car, reaching it after what felt
like half an hour but was probably no more than five minutes. He yanked the
passenger door open and lowered the young woman onto the seat as gently as he
could. Blood dribbled out of the gash in her leg, but the flow seemed to have
slowed. He lowered the seat back as far as it would go and reached into the rear
of the vehicle, feeling around until he found the heavy winter coat he kept for
emergencies. He secured the still-unconscious woman with the safety belt, and
then propped her injured leg on the coat. He slammed the door closed and
sprinted around the front of the car, dropped into the driver’s seat and fired
up the engine.

He wheeled onto
the empty road, then glanced at his injured passenger and blinked in surprise.
She had awakened and was staring at him. Her eyes were open and she watched him
intently, but she had not moved.

“It’s okay,” he
said softly, not wanting to frighten her. “You were in a plane crash and I’m
taking you to the hospital.” He cranked the temperature knob to the right,
knowing the resulting rush of air would barely qualify as lukewarm.

Her eyes fluttered
and Shane thought she was about to lose consciousness again but she didn’t.
“Major Wilczynski,” she said weakly.

Shane shook his
head. “You were the only survivor. Everyone else in the cockpit was dead. I’m
sorry.”

She lay back on
the seat, eyes closed, then bolted upright in a panic, groaning and holding her
head the moment she did. She steadied herself and reached into the back pocket
of her bloody jeans and withdrew a tattered envelope. “Thank God,” she
muttered, collapsing back onto the seat.

In the distance
Shane could hear the scream of sirens growing steadily louder. The rescue
vehicles were beginning to home in on the crash site. Shane wondered whether he
should turn around and wait for them. Maybe handing this woman off to an
ambulance crew would be wiser than driving her to the hospital himself.

But they were less
than five minutes away from Bangor proper, less than ten minutes from the
hospital, and as someone who had grown up in this remote area, Shane knew how
vast the wilderness really was. The rescue crews could be well within earshot
and still not find the site for twenty or thirty minutes. Or more.

He flipped on the
Bug’s dome light and glanced repeatedly at the injured woman as he drove. Blood
continued to leak from her thigh. Her jeans were covered in it, some half-dried
and crusted, the rest glistening wetly in the dim light. Her skin color was a
shocking white, not surprising considering her blood loss. He decided he was
doing the right thing.

Flipping off the
interior light, he said, “Don’t worry, we’ll be at the hospital in just a few
minutes.”

She mumbled
something in return and he missed it. “What?”

“I said no
hospitals.”

Shane shook his
head. He must have heard her wrong. “You have to go to the hospital—you look
like death warmed over.”

“You really know
how to sweet-talk a girl.”

“Sorry about that,
but you definitely need medical attention.”

“No,”
she
repeated emphatically. “I said no hospitals.” The strength of her voice and the
intensity of her response surprised him, and he raised his eyebrows. “What are you
talking about? You were in an
airplane crash
—of course you’re going to
the hospital. Where else would I bring you?”

“Anywhere,” she
said. Her voice had returned to its previous weak volume, barely more than a
strong whisper. “This hick town have a bus station?”

“Of course.”

“Then you can drop
me there.”

Maybe this young
woman’s problem wasn’t a head injury. Maybe she was just plain batshit crazy.
“You think any bus driver’s going to let you board? Your leg is awash in your
own blood and you look like you just lost a gunfight. Besides, if you try to
stand on your own right now, you’re going to drop like a felled tree. I’m
sorry,” he said, “but you’re going straight to the hospital.”

The young woman
leaned forward, reaching down to her right ankle and fumbling around. What she
was looking for, he had no idea. The longer he rode with her, the more Shane
was beginning to believe she really was crazy. He glanced forward onto the
deserted road and when he looked back, he found himself staring straight into
the barrel of a handgun.

“No hospitals,”
she said.

***

May 31, 1987

12:10 a.m.

Bangor, Maine

Tracie concentrated on not puking.
Her head pounded relentlessly and unless she focused hard her vision insisted
on wavering, sometimes disappearing entirely. She knew she had suffered a
concussion—hopefully it was
only
a concussion—and the gash in her leg
throbbed with every beat of her heart.

She needed
stitches.

She needed sleep.

She wasn’t going
to get either.

She forced herself
to hold the gun steady on her rescuer. “No hospitals,” she said, and to his
credit, the guy didn’t even blink.

“O-kay,” he said.
“Then where to?”

“You’re right
about one thing; I can’t take a bus looking like this.”

“Tell me something
I don’t know,” he said drily.

“But they’ll be
watching the bus terminal before long,” she muttered, thinking out loud,
struggling to concentrate through the haze of pain and confusion. “They
probably don’t have any operatives in this tiny nowhere town—”

“Thanks, on behalf
of all Bangor residents.”

“—but they will
very soon, and then I’ll be trapped.
Dammit,”
she said, punching the
seat in frustration.

“What kind of
trouble are you in?” her rescuer asked. “And what were you doing on a military
plane out of uniform? You’re not in the military, are you?”

Tracie gazed at
the young man, thinking. He had reacted much differently to having a gun shoved
in his face than she had expected him to—much differently than most civilians
would—and she liked that. And he
had
risked his life by climbing inside
a burning B-52 in the middle of nowhere to haul her ass out of the fire.
Literally. She had been semi-conscious in the aftermath of the crash and
thought she was seeing things when his body tumbled through the smashed wind
screen, dropping like an angel from heaven as the fire worked its way through
the cabin.

And he seemed
genuinely concerned about her condition. She decided to take a chance.

“You’re right,”
she said. “I’m not in the military. My father is a State Department bigwig and
he’s dying. I was on an emergency flight home because he only has a few days
left, and I want to say goodbye.” She teared up, mentally congratulating
herself on her acting skills, even after a plane crash and with injuries.

“Bullshit,” he
said, and that was when she saw the sign approaching rapidly on the right.
NORTHERN MAINE MEDICAL CENTER.

“I told you, no
hospitals,” she said sharply, leaning forward to jam the barrel of the Beretta
under his chin, ignoring the resulting pain.

“We’re not going
to the hospital,” he said in annoyance, “although I think you’re making a
mistake. You’ve lost a lot of blood, that gash in your leg needs to be
examined, and it seems pretty clear you’ve suffered a concussion at the very
least. But what the hell, I’m not your guardian. You want to be a damned fool,
it’s none of my business.” The Volkswagen passed the hospital’s entrance and
continued along the lightly traveled road.