SEALs of Summer 2: A Military Romance Superbundle (79 page)

“Thanks. I don’t know what to say.”

“Nothing to say. Hurry and change. Your clothes smell ripe.” Ant grinned. “We wouldn’t want you stinking up the place when we get your lady out of there.”

Luke had never changed his clothes faster in his life. When he was ready, he jumped out of the back of the truck and noticed other teams were arriving.

Good. Go rescue my girl
, he mentally commanded.

“Hold up,” Ant said. He tore off a two-foot long piece of duct tape and cut it with his teeth. With a pen he wrote, ‘Ant’s Assistant’ on it and stuck it on the back of Luke’s suit. “There. Now there will be no question who’s in charge.”

“Great,” Luke mumbled. “Can we go now?”

“Not before you get the accelerated version of urban SAR training. I don’t want to haul your dead ass out of the rubble today. Got it?”

“I told you, I’m SAR trained.”

“More than two years ago?”

Luke nodded.

“Things change. I doubt you’ve ever seen crappola like this.” Ant found a sledgehammer. “Can you use one of these without breaking it?”

Luke rolled his eyes and yanked it out of Ant’s hand.

“Not smashing your foot with it would be a good idea, too. Oh, and keeping it away from my head would be ideal.”

“No promises if you keep giving me shit like this. Let’s go.”

Ant shook his head, clearly becoming annoyed with his student. “Here’s how it’s going to go down. The dogs are sent in first to locate the survivors. We’ve already got a couple of them sniffing out the spot where you heard voices. The dogs will trail a person’s raft—it’s the odor stream from a person’s skin cells and bacteria that waft up to the dog’s nose. Your raft a few minutes ago would have been amazingly easy. A dog with a cold could have found you in an avalanche.”

Luke rolled his eyes. “Can we go yet?”

“No. Your training is not complete, Padawan. Where was I, oh, yeah, when the dogs are hot for a person’s raft, their tails go up, their muscles tense, and they circle around. It’s amazing to watch. The trainer will mark the spot as a possible site to check again. But when the dogs go into full alert mode—rapid short barks full of intensity, we know that there is a person in there. Hopefully, alive.

“When we’ve found a survivor, we start systematically delayering the structure with our tools. This is where Ant and his trusty assistant will come in.”

Luke lifted his sledgehammer. “Gotcha.”

“It’s not going to be easy. In fact, we train for this, but this sort of rescue is one of the toughest. Worse than an avalanche, or searching the woods for lost hikers. It will be hard to find the survivors, even harder to get them out.

“This was a five-story hotel that collapsed quickly. One story smashed down on top of the next.” Ant demonstrated by clapping his hands. “Survivors will be in protected pockets. A counter in a lobby might be strong enough to deflect the collapsing floors. Maybe. I’m not going to blow smoke up your ass, this is destruction at its finest. We will find far more dead bodies than living ones.”

Luke nodded. “I won’t stop until I find her. As long as there’s a chance…” He let the sentence hang mid-air.

“Yeah.” Ant clapped him on the shoulder. “There’s a chance.”

‡

Forty-five hours after…

“O
ver here, Rook!”
Ant had taken to calling him “Rookie” and the last few minutes it had shortened to “Rook.” It beat his first choice which was “A’s Ass” for Ant’s Assistant. “Lift this corner.”

Luke had never been more exhausted. His arms felt like they belonged to someone else. It took all his strength to hook an edge of the rubble with his sledgehammer and pound. And pull. Finally, he ripped off a large chunk of concrete and tossed it out of the way. A good sized-hole, about two foot in diameter, was opened up.

“Nice,” Ant said. “Okay, everyone quiet!”

Ant fed a thin machine similar to a stethoscope into the hole and put his ear to it. Luke held his breath and prayed.
Come on, please…

“I hear them,” Ant whispered, and then louder, “I hear them!”

The USA-1 team members cheered. Luke sank to his knees, exhaustion and joy hitting him like a ton of bricks.

Ant turned to him. “You did good, Luke. You knew right where to look.”

He tipped his head up. “Did you call me Luke?”

Ant grinned. “Yeah, I’d say you passed the accelerated course. You still need to do what I say, but, Luke suits you better than Rook. Now, buck up your strength, ’cuz this is where the hard part starts.”

Three Search and Rescue guys, equipped with sledgehammers and jack hammers joined Luke. Together they yanked, pulled, tugged, grunted, and pounded to make the hole bigger. Every now and again, Ant would peak his head through the hole and yell words of encouragement to the survivors.

Luke was running on pure adrenaline. The image of Ysabeau’s sweet face kept him motivated. Over and over again he ripped away the wreckage and prayed.

She had to be alive.

*

Ysabeau woke to
the sound of cheering. She was confused.
Where am I?

Trying to move brought the familiar excruciating pain in her leg. She was awake now and whimpering.

A loud noise startled her. “Rescuers?” she whispered. “Help!”

Men cheered again. The sounds were next to her and above her. It had to be rescuers! They were going to be saved!

“Marisol! Do you hear that?” Ysabeau asked. Her voice wobbled, sounding strangely weak.

There was no reply.

“Can you hear me? Hang on. We are going to be saved.”

She listened intently, hearing only the pounding above her head.

Dear God, no!
Marisol had to be all right. They were being rescued. She couldn’t die, not now.
Let her be all right!

“Please, Marisol. Answer me.”

‡

Fifty hours after…

L
uke thought he
was going to die from the suspense. He was ordered to hang back while Ant and another rescuer crawled inside the tunnel to pull out the survivors. Nearly delirious from fatigue and anticipation, he swayed on his feet. He was dizzy and seeing spots while he stared at the hole. He couldn’t take his eyes off that black open mouth. Any second now, the first survivor would come out. Each second was an eternity.

“Come on, come on, let it be Ysabeau…” he mumbled.

Suddenly, there was a flurry of movement as several rescuers jumped in and helped to pull the first survivor out. They blocked his view.

Who is it?
He wanted to scream. Unable to stand back, he rushed in and saw…a man.

Covered in white dust, the guy mumbled, “Thank God…thank God…”

Leaning over the man, Luke asked, “What about the others? Was a woman with you?”

“Step back!” S. Mitchell demanded. “He’s injured. Give him air.”

The man blinked at Luke. “Six of us. One…one dead.”

“Take him to medical!” S. Mitchell shouted.

One dead?
Luke stumbled backward.
No. No!

“Here comes the next one!” Ant’s voice boomed from inside.

The Search and Rescue team scrambled to extract the next survivor, while Luke struggled to keep himself from knocking everyone out of the way and plowing head first into the hole to find Ysabeau.

It was brutal not know who was coming out next. Five men were pulled one by one out of the hole, like some messed-up birthing process. Luke paced as if he was an expectant father. When the single dead body was brought out and it wasn’t Ysabeau, Luke was both elated and crushed.

Where was she?

“Great start! Bring the dogs back. Let’s find more survivors!” S. Mitchell commanded. The rescuers were energized and the efforts were doubled.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” Ant trotted over to Luke. “Pulling out survivors never gets old.” He wiped the dusty sweat from his brow with the back of his glove. “You okay, man?”

Luke opened his mouth and closed it again. The world tipped, he struggled to not tip with it. He wasn’t okay.

“Dude, you look like you’re going to pass out or hurl.” Ant dragged him several feet away from the rescue scene to what used to be a low wall. “Sit. Put your head between your knees.”

As he sat, he noticed for the first time that it was getting dark. “My God, how long have we been at this?”

“The answer is forever and not long enough. Time passes strangely in this biz. The flood lights keep the scene lit up, so it is hard to remember you are working through the night. Feeling better?”

“Yeah. Let’s go back.” Luke started to stand but his knees buckled.

“Easy.” Ant caught him by the arm. “When did you eat last?”

The kid-cop had given him a plantain in the squad car. Before that? He couldn’t remember food before that. “I don’t need to eat.”

“Like hell you don’t. If you faint and crack open that thick skull of yours, the Commander will chew my hide. Let’s go.” Ant held onto his elbow and dragged him away.

“Where?”

“The Command Center. It’s a tent set up with supplies, food, water, chairs, cots…You’ll see.”

As they walked, Luke realized he’d been so focused on the lobby and the rescues there that he hadn’t noticed what was going on elsewhere. The Montana Hotel was crawling with people and dogs. Luke breathed a sigh of relief.

“Far cry from last night when I was doing this pretty much alone. How many teams are here?”

“Eight. I think. From all over the world.”

“Nice.”

Luke was amazed by the changes that had occurred in the last twelve hours. Someone had used black spray paint to draw the numbers one through five on the balconies. It took Luke a second to comprehend that the numbers demarked the various floors. His heart hurt when he saw how close those floors were to one another. If Ysabeau had gone up to floor five, where his room was…
No one would be alive in there.

He turned his head away.

“Look up there.” Ant pointed to the part of the building that reminded Luke of a great windowless dome.

Ropes had been attached and two rescuers had rappelled to the top. Camera crews were working down below. Luke heard many languages spoken at once. The Montana Hotel disaster was big news. He wished they’d all be reporting on the rescue of one Haitian woman. And one relieved American man.

They came to the makeshift tent Ant had called the Command Center. There were a tables and cots inside. A few men were looking at a map at the back of the tent. Ant went to the “kitchen” and snatched a premade peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “Okay, Luke. Eat, drink lots of water and rest a while. Ten minutes, at least.”

“But—”

“Argue with me, Luke, and I’m changing your name back to A’s Ass! You have my orders. Eat and rest.”

Luke sat at a plastic table and took a giant bite of the sandwich. He’d eat, but he wouldn’t hang around this tent for ten minutes. Not when every second counted.

“Good boy,” Ant said with a smile.

When he finished chewing he spoke the words that had been swirling around in his mind. The words he’d been afraid to ask. “Did you see her, Ant? In the rubble? Did you see Ysabeau?”