Crossing the Line Read online

This was it, then.

  It was time to kiss their boots goodbye.

  It didn’t take a degree in rocket science to know that seven tons of Army steel were about to drop out of the sky with all the aerodynamics of a slick brick.

  Pain.

  No…not pain, piercing agony. It sliced into Eve with each breath she took. Her lungs were on fire.

  No, not her lungs. It was her ribs that seemed to be splitting asunder. But her lungs were screaming too.

  Why?

  On her next breath, she knew why. The air searing through her nose and mouth contained the wrong ratio of gasoline fumes to fresh air. The jet fuel was way too pungent.

  Oh, God—they were leaking fuel.

  Eve forced her eyes open and struggled to focus.

  Shattered glass, shredded steel.

  Trees. The distinctive dark green of jungle undergrowth. Patches of dirt.

  Where the devil was the sky?

  Someone groaned. It wasn’t until Eve inhaled again that she realized the rasping sound had come from her own mouth.

  Good Lord, what had happened?

  And then she remembered. The crash. The chopper’s engine had stalled before cutting out altogether. She’d tried to pull pitch to soften the landing but then—

  Carrie!

  Eve twisted her head to the right and nearly threw up.

  Her crew chief was dead. His right arm was flung limply between the seats of the now-crumpled cockpit, his gut impaled by the thick tree limb that had punctured one of the windows imbedded in the side door of the chopper’s skin. Death had captured the stark horror of the crash within Sergeant Lange’s glassy gaze with eerie perfection. If she ever got out of this chopper alive, she would never forget that bottomless stare.

  She forced her gaze from her crew chief’s and struggled to scan what was left of the rear of the chopper. She couldn’t see Captain Bishop or his sergeant.

  Had the two been thrown clear?

  Had anyone else survived?

  Her answer came in a whimper and then a rasping choke.

  Carrie.

  Eve cried out as she pushed the chief’s arm into the rear of the chopper in order to see Carrie’s battered body. Her helmet had fallen off and the left side of her dark, gorgeous curls were now matted and soaked with blood…as was the torso of her flight suit. With each breath Carrie took, Eve could hear the tell-tale gurgling, sucking sound beneath.

  Sweet mercy. Carrie had punctured a lung.

  Eve wiped the tears from her eyes only to discover they were mixed with her own blood. She didn’t bother seeking out the source, just wiped her hand on her sleeve and gritted her teeth against the agony in her chest as she reached out to smooth her fingers down the side of Carrie’s frighteningly pale neck, automatically checking her pulse.

  It was thready, but it was there.

  Thank God.

  She swallowed firmly, nearly choking on her relief as she prayed her friend was conscious. “C-Carrie?”

  Nothing. Not so much as a groan. Just the soft scratching of a thousand rustling leaves and branches scraping against the outside of the chopper.

  “Carrie?”

  “Hmm?”

  Relief seared through Eve again. “Carrie, wake up. We have to get out of here. I smell fuel—” Eve winced as she risked a deeper mouthful of air. It hurt just to breathe. “The chopper must be leaking.” And given the twisted wreckage surrounding them, there was no way she’d be able to reach the fuel cutoff switch. “Carrie?”

  “You…go.”

  The whisper was so low she almost missed it. Carrie’s lips moved again, but she couldn’t make out the words that followed. Eve braced herself as she took another agonizing breath, this one cautious and shallow.

  Yes, shallow was definitely better. Manageable.

  Her chest still hurt like hell, but not nearly as much. “Carrie, please. The chopper could blow any second.”

  “Go.”

  Dammit, she didn’t have time to argue.

  They didn’t have time.

  Eve struggled to ignore the rasping gurgle coming from Carrie’s lungs as well as the agony slicing her own as she reached out to unlatch Carrie’s harness. She’d just have to find the strength to drag her friend out. Her slippery fingers found the buckle to Carrie’s harness. But just as she was about to release it, Carrie’s icy hands closed over hers.

  “Carrie, please. I can’t leave you. I won’t.”

  “Must…doesn’t m-matter. He’s dead. It’s dead. F-feel it.”

  He?

  Sergeant Turner.

  Eve raised her hands to those dark, silky curls she’d always envied, desperately trying to ignore the blood as she smoothed them from Carrie’s cheek. “You can’t know that. He could be okay. I don’t see the passengers, just the chief. They must have been thrown free.”

  “W-was. See him…th-there.”

  Eve braced herself against the pain and turned to follow Carrie’s tortured gaze, and understood the deep keening within it. Sergeant Turner was five, maybe six trees away.

  Dead.

  Given the sickeningly odd angle in his neck, there was no way the man could be otherwise.

  Bishop.

  But Eve couldn’t see him. She could only pray the captain had been thrown free as well—and would live to tell of it. But right now, she had to get Carrie out of the wreckage. The searing stench of fuel had taken on nauseating proportions. At least, she was pretty sure the reaction in her stomach was due to the leaking fuel and not her own injuries.

  Either way, they had to get out.

  “Honey, I’m sorry he’s dead. But you have to live. You have to try. Sergeant Turner—Bill. Bill would want you to. You have so much to live for. You know you do.”

  But her friend just blinked back her tears.

  “Carrie, please.”

  “T-told you. It’s d-dead…gone.” She coughed. “I c-can…feel it.”

  “Don’t talk like that—”

  “The b-baby…ours…it’s gone.”

  What?

  Eve hadn’t realized she’d breathed her shock out loud until Carrie answered her. Or maybe Carrie had read her mind.

  “So s-sorry. I didn’t know h-how to…tell you. Please, m-make sure we’re b-buried w-with him.”

  No!

  Dammit, no. Carrie was not giving up.

  She wouldn’t let her.

  But before she could argue, Carrie started coughing again—and this time, she began hacking uncontrollably. Eve forced the panic down and held her friend’s hand until the coughs eased. “One m-more thing, p-promise m-me…” Oh God, Carrie’s whispers were getting weaker. The rasping gurgle in her lungs, louder. Frothy blood had begun to bubble and seep from the side of her mouth. She was losing her.

  She had to act.

  Now.

  Eve ignored Carrie’s gasps as she grabbed the buckle again. But again, Carrie’s hands found hers. They were beyond icy now. Almost white.

  “P-promise…me.”

  “Anything.” She’d promise anything in the world if Carrie would just let her help.

  “Don’t…h-hate me.”

  Eve’s mind and heart shrieked in unison. No! Dammit, no. This was not happening. Her best friend was not dying.

  But she was.

  Eve could feel it even as those icy fingers lost their grip and slipped away from her own hands altogether.

  Just do it. Promise her. Let the woman die in peace.

  Lie.

  She smoothed Carrie’s matted curls back one last time and kissed her shattered cheek. “I promise. I won’t hate you.”

  Carrie managed a smile, and then she was gone.

  Eve screamed.

  The loss was excruciating. Unbearable. So intense, she couldn’t even feel the agony wracking her ribs anymore. She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, shaking Carrie’s shoulders, begging her, shouting at her to come back, not to abandon her. But eventually, reality set in.

  The smoke set i
n.

  The sweltering flames.

  The leaking fuel had finally ignited. The Black Hawk was burning, its searing metal creaking and bubbling around her. The sweet stench of melting rubber filled her nostrils.

  She had to get Carrie out of here.

  Their crew chief, too.

  Dead or alive, she was not leaving them to roast in this fiery shell of buckling steel. Determination seared into her, giving her the strength to unlock her own harness and bash her aching shoulders and splintered ribs into the chopper door. She fell out into a whimpering heap on the jungle floor.

  But again, determination forced her to overcome the agony. She lurched to her feet and managed to stagger several steps. But in the pain and confusion that followed, it took several more before she realized she was moving away from the chopper and not toward it.

  The next thing she knew, something hot and hard slammed into her body, shattering her eardrums and ripping the very breath from her lungs as she went flailing backward into the choking gray mist. But the moment she smashed into the tree she also knew that, dead or alive, it was too late for Carrie or anyone else in that chopper.

  Because it had just exploded.

  Chapter 2

  C hrist Almighty, his head.

  Rick groaned. He hadn’t had a hangover like this since he and his brother had polished off half a bottle of Jack Daniel’s back on their father’s farm in the tenth grade. Ah, cripes, he was going to throw up. A second later, he almost did. Rick thrust his hands out, searching for something to grab on to as he worked to steady his aching, spinning brain. He pushed himself up from what appeared to be a rock to suck down a mouthful of air, but what he got along with it was the distinctive sear of smoke.

  This was no hangover.

  The crash.

  He tried scrambling to his feet but ended up on his knees, cradling his forehead as he struggled for balance…and something was wet. But why? It wasn’t raining. He pulled his hands down and forced his gaze to focus on his shaking fingers. They were covered in blood.

  His?

  It had to be. He didn’t see anyone else around him.

  Sergeant Turner.

  Where was he? Where was the chopper for that matter?

  Once again Rick used his hands to steady his throbbing skull as he twisted his battered torso about, searching. If his eyes were cooperating as well as he hoped, those were trees wavering in and out of his view. Hundreds of trees.

  But no chopper.

  The smoke. Follow the smoke.

  He could still smell it.

  He braced himself against the nausea and lurched to his feet, grateful he managed to remain upright despite his drunken weaving. At least his vision seemed to be clearing. Wary of his tenuous grip on his balance, he began a slow, systematic three-hundred-and-sixty-degree search of the dense jungle undergrowth. He made it to the one-ninety mark before he spotted the small clearing Paris had tried landing the chopper in. It was a good twenty yards into the brush. He caught a flash of something else through the trees, too.

  Was that red? Or orange?

  He couldn’t be sure. It was just a flicker.

  He advanced anyway, determined to check it out. Grasping vines and thick foliage snapped back at him as he moved, lashing around the legs and sleeves of his jungle fatigues with enough tenacity to topple him. He definitely could have used his machete because twice they succeeded. In the end, it was the red that kept him going.

  Flames.

  He was sure of it now.

  He could hear them consuming the chopper, devouring the steel with a vicious rumble that kept him staggering forward until he was almost on top of the tiny clearing. But as he stumbled past the final trees, it wasn’t the chopper that brought him to his knees.

  It was his sergeant.

  Rick swallowed the roiling bile as it threatened once again, knowing it was hopeless even as he slid his fingers down his sergeant’s throat and pressed them into the man’s carotid artery. The soldier he’d entrusted with his life for nearly three years was gone. Given the angle of the break in Turner’s neck, it would have been a miracle if the man had been otherwise. Guilt seared through Rick, burning the pain from his head, leaving only the anguish in his heart as he cupped his hand to his sergeant’s face and gently closed those dark, unseeing eyes.

  Dammit, why had he brought Turner along?

  As soon as he realized Carrie was on that chopper, he should have sent his sergeant back to the rest of their men. Sure, Turner would have figured out the real reason Rick had ordered him to come along this morning. But even that would have been better than this.

  Rick stared at the almost peaceful expression on Turner’s face, remembering. The good of the last three years far outweighed his sergeant’s distraction these past five months. Turner had saved his ass more times than he could count. In training and in the real thing.

  What a waste.

  His waste.

  Dammit, there was no time to mourn.

  The chopper. Her crew.

  Once again, Rick hauled himself to his feet, grateful his strength was coming back. He’d need it. For himself and whoever else had survived the smoldering hell thirty feet away.

  Please, God, let the rest have survived.

  He murmured the prayer over and over, holding fast to the mantra as he crossed the clearing and reached the blackened, shattered shell on the other side. The prayer died on his lips as he spied the remains of the two forms inside the wreckage.

  Carrie Evans. The crew chief.

  Like Turner, both were beyond hope.

  He sent up another prayer for each, saving his last for the soldier he’d yet to find.

  Eve Paris.

  Had she been thrown free as well? Her chopper door was open. There was a chance. He caught the impression her body had made in the grass beneath the dangling door and set about tracking her uneven footsteps. Ten feet away, the depressions suddenly stopped. It wasn’t until he raised his gaze and scanned the area beyond that he understood why. She must have managed to evacuate moments before the chopper exploded because there was nothing by way of a trail until he spied her body sprawled out a good twenty feet back.

  The blast had blown her smack into a tree.

  Despite his still-spinning head, he reached her limp form in record time and checked her breathing and her pulse, relieved beyond words to find both present, if a bit weak. Twelve years of combat training kicked in and he carefully checked her over before he dared to move her head and spine. Other than the bleeding knot at her temple and the swollen lump at the back of her skull, she appeared fine. But as he skimmed his hands down her torso, she groaned.

  “Don’t. Hurts.”

  “I know, Paris, I know.” Despite her protests, he unhooked her survival vest and unzipped the front of her flight suit, then peeled her T-shirt up her ribs. There was no blood, but she was sporting one hell of a vicious set of bruises across her right side. Most were already turning purple. He eased her shirt down. “It looks like you’ve cracked a couple of ribs. Any other injuries you’re aware of?”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  Despite everything that had transpired, his lips twisted at her sarcasm. True enough. Given the devastation behind them, not to mention the journey ahead, cracked ribs were definitely enough.

  She coughed and then gasped as he helped her into a sitting position. Tears began streaming from the corners of those huge green eyes, mingling with the blood streaking down her cheeks.

  From the ache in her ribs, no doubt.

  But he’d bet most were a result of the ache in her heart.

  Dammit, now was not the time to soften, let alone give in to the ache in his own. “Paris, we’ve got to get those ribs wrapped. Then we need to get out of here.” He held her down as she tried to stand. They definitely had to get moving.

  He glanced at the chopper.

  As soon as he buried the bodies.

  He swung his gaze from the wreckage as Paris touched hi
s temple. “What?”

  “You’re bleeding.”

  Considering he had to keep blinking to keep the blood from dripping into his eyes, he figured it was an understatement.

  “You need stitches.”

  “No time. I’ll wrap it.” Just as soon as he figured out what they were going to wrap her cracked ribs with.

  She looked ready to argue with him.

  He turned his back on her frown and took stock of their surroundings. By the time he’d turned back, she was staring at the remains of the chopper. Her eyes were red.

  “Your crew’s dead, as well as my sergeant. I’m sorry.”

  From her stiff nod, he wasn’t sure she’d really understood. She seemed a bit too controlled, too contained.

  Almost cold.

  Then again, it wasn’t like he knew the woman. Nor had the local rumor mill had a chance to circulate its findings. Eve Paris was too new in country. From her professionalism in the chopper as well as the way she’d appeared to stay cool during the crash, cold could well be the woman’s normal mode.

  Just as well. They had three bodies to bury and a two- to three-day trek ahead by his estimate. Given who was likely to be dogging their boots the entire way, it was past time to get started. But as he reached out to ease off her flight suit, she stiffened. In deference to her shock, he knocked back his impatience. “Please, I need to get a better look at your ribs, and then I’ll need to wrap them. You won’t make the journey otherwise.” He waited for a response.

  Nothing.

  She still wouldn’t even look at him.

  She just kept staring at that damned hulk of blackened steel.

  “Paris?”

  “I’ll do it.”

  For a moment, he considered arguing.

  What the hell. He’d probably insist on the same thing in her place. He nodded curtly. “I’ll see what I can salvage from the wreck. Then I’d better get started on the bodies. No—” He nudged her down again. “I’ll take care of them. You need to conserve your strength.”

  Another nod. This one even more stiff.

  Frankly, he wasn’t surprised. Cold or not, he knew full well she had to be taking the crash personally, just as he knew why. But there was no time for guilt.

  Hers or his.

  They had to get moving. “Eve?”