CHAPTER ONE
Sixteen Months Later
“I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Toto,” Rick whispered into the swirling snow. He squeezed his eyes shut and focused on breathing in and breathing out.
So much to sort out.
Friday the 13th. Good grief. It wasn’t even noon yet, and this made it official. The mountain was closed for business. No one was going anywhere.
They’d gotten word of stranded climbers about nine last night. Daniel Fraser, the Search and Rescue commander for Yosemite, had scrambled a hasty team up in the dark. This morning, they waited for the helo for extraction. Weather was moving in fast, providing only a brief window to get PJs in there and get everyone out again.
Sgt. Bell had done a hurry-up preflight. Lt. Morrisett was waiting when Rick got to the bird. The kid would co-pilot. He was damn good for his age and flight time.
Rick circled his gloved finger in the air as he jogged to the bird, and the kid fired up the engines.
D’Onofrio and Wiley threw their packs in back and hopped on board. If he didn’t know the way each man moved, he’d have not been able to differentiate between them—they were covered completely.
Rick’s radio crackled. “Sir, you need to shave fifteen off this deal. Your weather is moving faster than we thought.”
“Dandy. Head ‘em up, move ‘em out.”
Minutes later, they’d hoisted Nic and Matt, along with the Stokes litter down to Daniel and his crew. The report was that one of the climbers had a broken ankle and the other was in good shape.
Rick let the lieutenant find a place to put down to wait for the ground crew to be ready for extraction. Everything seemed okay. Yeah, the snow was falling harder by the minute, but this wasn’t some wimpy whirlybird used by the Flight for Life guys. The Hawk could handle anything.
Within reason.
Glen Morrisett lowered the collective and started the descent to the large flat spot he’d picked. Upslope, a wisp of snow swirled down the hill on fickle mountain wind.
“Watch your rate of descent, Lieutenant. Looks like we have a downslope.”
The lieutenant was on course. Angle looked right, but the rate of descent was a little high. Rick’s shoulders tensed and his gut tightened. Something didn’t feel right, didn’t sound right.
Rick looked quickly at the power. It was taking too much to hold the approach. His ear picked up another ominous warning: the rotors were slowing down. Something was wrong and getting worse. Bad. But not too bad. . . yet.
“I have the aircraft,” Rick said, glancing to his left, smiling to reassure the kid. “Nothing personal.”
“Yes, sir. You got it.”
Rick needed to arrest the descent. He eased the nose down slightly, trying to trade a little of the remaining altitude for air speed. The lieutenant continued to call out the rate of descent every fifty feet.
Landing was the only option now. They were too low, too slow for another go around.
“Sink eight, we’re too fast,” Glen reported, his voice tense.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Normal descent rate at one hundred feet above the ground should be three hundred. That made their current eight hundred a shitload too fast.
Fifty feet above the ground, Rick tried to flare the helicopter and pick up any ground cushion, but it just wasn’t there today. What else could he do? His mind scrambled for options.
Fuck, fuck.
“Everyone, brace.”
Slow motion…
The right main landing gear buckled under the initial impact, driving the nose deep into the powdery snow.
Wracked by spasms, the helicopter’s frame bowed beneath his feet.
The fuselage twisted violently to the right as the rotors bit into the snow pack. Instinctively, Rick ducked his head to avoid the rotors’ mad flex slicing through the cockpit.
Shattering glass was overwhelmed by the scream of metal on metal.
The entire aircraft wrenched savagely as the engines shattered from catastrophic failure of the high-speed compressor.
Red-hot shards of metal shot through the air and sizzled in the snow on impact.
The grinding of each small part gave way eventually to silence.
Fuck.
True Courage – Book 2 in the True Heroes Series
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