Authors: Kim McMahill
With one step into the river, he was already in up to his waist. He struggled to take another step and nearly lost his footing. As he tried to turn back around, he was pushed several yards downstream, but managed to regain his balance.
Jessica jumped to her feet and raced to the bank. She grabbed on to a sturdy branch and leaned out toward Jack as far as she could. Their fingers were still several feet from touching, so there was no way she could reach him. Jack shuffled closer to the bank, but she was still unable to grasp his hand.
Jack stood still in the current, trying to keep from going down. The water was moving so fast he wasn’t sure how much longer he’d be able to fight it. He wasn’t afraid of drowning, but he didn’t want to scare Jessica and Megan. If he went down, he would just work with the current. He was confident he could ease his way out downstream, but if he was gone too long Jessica and Megan might panic and try to look for him and they could get separated.
“Here, hold this limb out to him with both hands and lay on your belly. I’m not very strong right now, but I can sit on your butt to keep you from getting pulled in,” Megan said.
Jessica grabbed the thick stick firmly in both hands and lay down on the bank. Megan sat on her and the weight took her breath away. Even though she looked slim, Megan was tall and muscular, and her weight was more than enough to pin Jessica in place.
“Grab hold,” she shouted to Jack.
He clutched the limb and as Jessica tugged, it gave him just enough extra pull to help him fight his way to the bank. He grabbed on to whatever he could reach and struggled against the current until he was on dry ground. He rolled over, gasping for breath.
“We’ll need to find a bridge,” he panted, then fell silent.
Megan scooted off Jessica and lay on her back. She faced skyward with her eyes closed. In minutes, she had drifted off to sleep.
Jessica managed to roll over, but didn’t move any further as she tried to calm her elevated pulse. The sun felt good and its warm rays soaked into her aching limbs as she stared up into the blue sky. Jessica listened to the birds for a while and then eased herself up to a sitting position.
She stared at the river and cringed. It had been deceiving. The water was deep, but the current hadn’t looked strong. She had been nervous about crossing and figured they could probably swim it if it was too deep to walk, but there was no way they would be reaching the other side, even if Megan hadn’t been weakened by malaria.
Jessica glanced at Megan and could tell she had fallen asleep. She was amazed at how well Megan had been sleeping under the circumstances, and with the parasites also draining her strength, she was almost asleep on her feet.
Her gaze left Megan and came to rest on Jack. His eyes were closed and he didn’t move. She peered closely, but couldn’t see him breathing, which terrified her. He seldom slept, even at night, so she doubted he could have fallen asleep within fifteen minutes of lying in the sun.
Jessica quietly rose to her feet and crept over to Jack. If he was sleeping, she didn’t want to disturb him, because he needed the rest. She knelt down beside him, but still couldn’t see his chest move. She leaned closer and turned her head to listen.
His arms snaked up, wrapped around her and flipped her before she could register that he was indeed alive and had been sleeping. As she landed on her back, the motion knocked the wind out of her. Jessica gasped for breath. Jack straddled her and pinned her arms above her head, his eyes dark and dangerous. His expression sent fear coursing through her body.
“You shouldn’t sneak up on people when they’re resting.” He released her wrists.
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t see you breathing. I thought you were dead.”
“And, why would I be dead?” Irritation tainted his voice.
“I don’t know, maybe some deadly snake bit you while you were in the water. All I know is you seldom sleep and it didn’t look like you were breathing. I was scared.”
Jack combed his fingers through his hair and looked up at the sky. He wondered if he would ever be able to sleep without nightmares or live like a normal person. He hated hearing every noise and sleeping so close to the surface that true rest seldom came. What if he had hurt her? He never would’ve forgiven himself.
He looked down into her eyes and the fear was still there. He wasn’t sure if she was afraid
for
him or if she was afraid
of
him. The possibility of the later tore at his heart.
He scooted off Jessica and pulled her up into his lap. She was trembling, so he wrapped his arms tightly around her and whispered into her ear. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you and I never want to hurt you.”
Jack continued to hold her as he watched Megan sleep. He couldn’t help but wonder what they were going to do. He wasn’t even sure anymore how long they’d been missing and with each day that passed it looked less and less as if they could possibly survive. He knew what kind of skills and training their pursuers possessed, but that knowledge did little good when the odds were stacked so greatly against them.
When Jessica stopped shaking and looked up at him, he could see the fear was gone, the look replaced by emptiness. He wasn’t sure which was worse. When he first met her she had been angry, feisty, confident, and he had even seen glimpses of happiness, now she just looked beaten down. He brushed the hair out of her eyes and ran a rough hand along her cheek. He felt a need to explain.
“I spent eight years in the military as an Amy Ranger. Most of it was a good experience and I learned a lot, but I was on one mission that went wrong—very wrong.”
Still nestled in his arms, his grip on her tightened to the point it was no longer comfortable, but she said nothing. Jessica sensed he had gone far away, so she sat quietly and waited for him to continue.
“We were sent to evac some foreign aid workers out of two small remote villages in Liberia. The civil war was out of control and there was no way to get them out by road. No danger had been detected as our two Black Hawks landed. We quickly loaded up the civilians and had just taken off when our helicopter was hit by a shoulder-fired missile. The other Black Hawk was already in the air and heading out. At that point, there was nothing they could do to keep us from going down and they had civilians on board, so they left the area, dodging an onslaught of missile and gunfire as they went.”
Jessica wanted to reach out to him, but didn’t want him to stop. Jack said so little she felt this might be her only opportunity to learn what was troubling this complex man.
“The pilot and all four civilians aboard died on impact. Our four-member team survived the crash, only to be captured before we could get away. We were given no food or water and beaten with a length of chain for what seemed like around the clock, for several days. Our captors cut off the arm of one of the members of our team, which was a pretty common practice among some of the rebels. We were forced to watch him slowly bleed to death. Eventually, we managed to escape, but were hunted mercilessly. We eluded the bastards and destroyed one of the ruling warlord’s training camps, but it was little vindication for what had happened. By the time we were able to tie in with some peace-keeping troops, one more of us had been killed. Out of the nine people on our helicopter only two survived, myself and Ted Martin. I’m thankful there was at least one other survivor, but still after all these years I question why I lived when so many didn’t.”
“Sometimes I think we’re spared so our families won’t suffer.”
“I’m an only child and my parents died in an auto accident when I was eighteen. The other Rangers and some of the civilians killed had wives, kids. The whole deal. So why am I here?”
Jessica didn’t know what to say. She had heard of similar situations on the news, such as what had happened many years ago in Somalia, but she had never known anyone who had lived through such horrors. From her life in the inner sanctum of the political arena, she possessed a pretty good idea of how these things worked. The U.S. military was not actively engaged in Liberia, so when Jack’s team was hit, they were on their own. She imagined there was a discreet effort to rescue them by fellow soldiers, but everything that happened was kept as quiet as possible and out of the news.
“Your story explains a lot. I was starting to wonder what made you tick. I was almost afraid you were a hit man for the mob or a terrorist or something. I don’t know many people capable of killing someone with their bare hands.”
“Is that why you looked so terrified when I had you pinned?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t really think you’d hurt me after everything we’ve been through, but the possibility that maybe you’d snapped did cross my mind.”
For years Jack was afraid he would do just that, so he stayed away from people as much as he could. He took up mountain climbing as a way to escape and eventually it had turned into a job and he slowly began to trust himself with people again. He met Dave and Zach and they had taken him in and were like brothers to him and then there was Elaine. She’d opened him up and changed his life, but then the door slammed shut in his face once again. He wanted to tell Jessica about Elaine, but couldn’t. That pain was still too fresh.
Jessica searched his eyes and could see the agony and she desperately wanted to make it go away. What could she possibly say to ease the pain? In her sheltered life, there was no way she could claim to understand what he had been through and if she tried, she would be a fraud and he would know it.
“Have you and Ted stayed in contact?”
Jessica felt tension grip his body and feared she had hit on another subject best left alone. She hated seeing the pain etched on his face and wished she could take back her last question.
“He’s dead. Within a year, he died in a house fire. The investigators insisted it was an accident.”
Jessica tried to wrap her mind around not only what he said, but the way in which he spoke of certain incidents, but couldn’t. She reached up and placed her hands on each side of his angular face. She touched her lips to his and lingered.
She kissed him so gently Jack thought he might melt. No one had ever shown him such tenderness and understanding. Life had always been hard and he had never questioned whether or not it was supposed to be any other way. He had no doubt Elaine had loved him, though she wasn’t the marrying type. She’d been an independent adrenaline junkie. With her, everything was fast and rough, a race to the next rush. He had never told Elaine about Liberia, because he didn’t want her pity and wasn’t sure how she would react. She wasn’t the sensitive type, which was why he had been drawn to her and so comfortable with her. Elaine never talked about her feelings and emotions and she didn’t expect him to either. He thought that was what he wanted—until he met Jessica. He didn’t feel like Jessica pitied him when he told her his story, only that she accepted him.
When Jessica finally eased away, she could see the pain was gone. She was almost disappointed, because now she had no excuse to repeat the action and for some reason, she really wanted to.
“What was that for?” he asked with a smile on his lips so innocent that she had to fight to not kiss him again.
Jessica wasn’t sure how to answer his question since she wasn’t certain if she had done it for him or for herself. Before she had to decide, they were interrupted by the unmistakable thwack of helicopter blades. Jack jumped to his feet, dumping her on the ground as he rushed toward the thinner vegetation hugging the bank of the river. She scrambled to follow and Megan struggled to rise.
“It’s an American UH-60 Black Hawk,” Jack shouted as he waved his arms over his head. “Damn. They’ll never spot us through the trees. From above, I’m sure all they can see is a carpet of green with a little ribbon of water snaking through.”
Jessica ignored his pessimistic comment and jumped up and down, waving her arms frantically. She refrained from screaming since it would do no good and they had no idea if their pursuers were nearby.
Megan collapsed onto the ground with her head in her hands. She sobbed and her shoulders shook. She hadn’t thought about being rescued, had assumed from the start that it was up to them to save themselves, but the helicopter had given her a brief glimmer of hope and then it was snatched away.
Jessica knelt down beside her and draped an arm around the young woman’s convulsing shoulders.
“It’s okay. Maybe they’ll come back. I can’t believe it’s a coincidence they flew over. They have to be looking for us and must have some reason to be here instead of closer to where we were abducted.”
“I just want to go home. I’m sorry, but I’m just so tired and weak and I’m afraid I’m putting you and Jack in more danger. He shouldn’t have gone back to the village for medicine
¾
he could have been killed.”
“Apparently it’s not easy to kill me, so don’t worry. Believe me, better men have tried and failed.” Jack knelt in front of her and placed a hand on her forehead. “Let’s get you more comfortable and we’ll rest for a few hours. Your fever’s back.”