Nickels (19 page)

Maybe he felt a little guilty for not staying as long as she
did.  He didn’t have the stamina or energy to pull a stunt like that.

But, that wasn’t it.

He did care for her.  A lot.  Even more now that he knew
her—the real her.  He had let go of the image he created from high school. 
That disappeared weeks ago.  Instead, it was replaced by the reality of who she
was now.  A strong, capable, driven woman who would stop short of nothing but
her best.

Only she couldn’t even see that she was too sleep deprived
to be giving her best now.  If she wasn’t careful, she would make herself sick
or end up in the hospital.  He refused to stand by and watch her do it.

Hopefully, she took his warning seriously and would stay at
the hotel until he came back for her this afternoon.  It was her best interest
he had in mind.  He wasn’t trying to be a controlling jerk, though he thought
she may have taken it that way.

Chapter 17

Niki smiled as she walked back into the Helitronics’
building shortly before one in the afternoon.  She called Jake at noon, asking
him to pick her up at twelve-thirty on his lunch break.  Take that Kyle Jacobs.

She shouldn’t get too upset.  He was right about her needing
some sleep.  But with her venti iced mocha, and a few hours of sleep, she felt
much better.  She was even more pleased with herself when Kyle walked out of
the break room right as she walked by.

“Kyle,” she greeted coyly.

“Nicole.”

No way was he going to get a rise out of her that easily. 
She dropped her stuff off in her cube before going to see Doug.

“Where are we at?” she asked.

“I’m not supposed to talk to you,” Doug replied.

“Says who?”

“Kyle.”

“We don’t have any time to waste.  Where are we?”

Doug caved, giving her the rundown of their status.  “We’re
getting ready to load up the simulator now.  Should be ready in ten minutes. 
Then we all get to stare at Kyle while he flies this thing and we take notes.”

She beamed.  Thank goodness they got so far along.  That
would give them tomorrow to work out a few kinks before the final test on
Friday.

Kyle made his way to the simulator room.  The time had come
for him to face this.  He’d been avoiding it for as long as he could.  But,
Niki’s team would be loading their code into the simulator in the next half
hour.  It was time for him to get familiar with the controls.

As he slid into the pilot’s chair, he swallowed hard.  He
could almost hear Brad’s voice sitting next to him reading off the preflight
checklist.

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the
seat.

“You’ll be my best man, right?” Brad said with excitement
coating his words.

“Of course,” Kyle replied before continuing through the
checklist.

“Amy can hardly wait.  She wants a fall wedding, but I
can’t get leave until spring.  She’s disappointed.”

He read off the next set of checklist items.

“I asked her if she wanted to wait until next fall.  She
told me, ‘Babe, if it ain’t this fall, then it’ll be the day after you come
home.’”

“Sounds like she’s handling it fine.”

“Yeah.  Just wish I would have married her before I
left.”  Brad’s voice took on a far-away tenor.

Kyle finished up the checklist and started the engine.

“Mount up guys,” Brad shouted to the rest of their CSAR
team.  “We’ve got work to do.”

The flight to the northern mountains of Iraq passed
uneventfully.  There were several congratulations to Brad on his pending
nuptials.  Then the crew settled down.

“I have visual,” Brad said.  “Twelve o’clock right at the
base of that cliff.”

“I see him,” Kyle replied.

Carefully, he maneuvered the helicopter as close to the
cliff as he could while still maintaining a safe distance.  The first rescuer
dropped the zip line and went down.

“Unconscious.  Air Force Lieutenant.  Name on tags says
Davenport.  This is our guy,” the man on the ground said.

Two more men repelled down to the ground.

Kyle suddenly felt the hair on the back of his neck stand
on end.  He hated the feeling that something was off.  Quickly, his eyes darted
over the instruments.  Everything looked fine.  But, he still couldn’t shake
the unsettled feeling.

“You’re drifting!”

If Brad said anything else, it was cut off by the sound
of metal blades breaking against the slide of the cliff.  The weight of the
helicopter plummeted to the ground, meeting its destiny with loud abandon.

Kyle took a shaky breath and opened his eyes.  It wasn’t
real.  Brad wasn’t here.  The team wasn’t here.  Only Kyle.

The guilt of being the sole survivor pressed in on him.  He
clamped down his jaw to hold the tears back.  He had to get past this. 
Lord,
please help me.

Niki’s voice sounded from somewhere behind him followed by
the sound of several pairs of feet clanking up the metal stairs.

“Ready?”  Her voice came over the loud speaker.

No.

He swallowed hard.  “Sure.”

“We’re all set up.  Whenever you want to start, go ahead.”

He let out a quiet sigh.  Then he flipped on the recorder. 
Speaking through the microphone on his headset, he recorded voice commands
explaining what he was doing to help them narrow down any problems quicker.

“Hawk-oh-niner taking off,” he said into the radio.  Heat
rushed to his face.  The team in the booth must think he was silly using a call
sign for a simulation.

He stated his speed and direction of motion.  As he climbed
altitude, he read off that as well.

“Banking right.”

He stiffened.  Something was wrong.  He was trying to bank
right, but the instruments didn’t look right.  For two seconds he allowed doubt
to creep in.  Maybe it wasn’t the instruments.  Maybe it was him.

“Everything okay?”  Niki asked through the speaker.

“This doesn’t feel right.”

“What’s not right?”

Kyle returned the helicopter to a hovering position then he
repeated the maneuver.  “My instruments don’t make sense.  It’s almost as if
they are reading a left bank instead of a right bank.”

“Okay, we’ll log it and take a look.”

When Kyle banked left, he reported a similar problem, like
the instruments were reading a right bank instead.  Then when he dropped the
simulated zip line and held a steady hover, he reported the instruments showing
slight forward movement—almost identical to what he experienced before the
crash.

He shook his head, as if it would help shake off his
anxiety.  It didn’t.

He reported all of his findings and repeated the maneuvers a
second time as the copilot.  When he finished, he said, “I’ll still need to
review the video to double check the angles, velocity, altitude, etc.”

“When do you think you’ll have that ready?” Niki asked.

“Probably not until after our run through for Todd.  I want
to record that session, too.”

He took off his headphones and set them on the simulator. 
He waited until Niki’s team left before resting his head in his hands.  This
was much harder than he thought it would be.

Niki smiled as they left the simulator room.  None of the
issues reported were too severe.  Even though it was five in the afternoon, she
and the team went to work on them—just to make sure.  She took a few of the
minor issues and divided the biggies among the team, two engineers per issue.

By eight o’ clock, they made good progress towards resolving
the issues.  She sent the guys home then she gathered her things.  As she
neared the entrance to leave, she saw Kyle’s truck still in the parking lot. 
Turning around, she walked down the hall to the simulator room.

“Now who’s working late?” she teased as she pushed the door
open.

Kyle grunted.

“It’s eight.  Go home.”

“Funny you should be concerned.”

She dropped her stuff in a pile on the floor and sat down in
the copilot’s seat.  He quickly looked away.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, concerned by his odd behavior.

He let out a stuttered breath, but remained silent.  He
stared at the controls then closed his eyes.

“Kyle?”

He cleared his throat.  “It’s the first time I’ve been in
the cockpit since…”

“Since?”

He put his head in his hands.  His voice was barely audible
when he spoke.  “Since the accident.  Since I lost my entire crew… When the
helicopter I was piloting went down.”

Tears rose to Niki’s eyes but she blinked them away,
suddenly filled with compassion for him.  How hard this must be, even in a
simulator, to face this again.  She slipped out of the copilot seat and knelt
next to him.

“I’m sorry,” she said as she gently pulled his hands from
his face.  The pain she saw reflected in his eyes broke her heart.  She didn’t
know anything about the circumstances of the accident, other than what he just
shared, but it was clear he blamed himself.

Haunted eyes stared back at her.  “I don’t think I can do
this.  What if… What if it’s not the code?  What if it’s me?  What if I’m
wrong?”

Her heart fluttered at his unexpected openness.  This was a
side of him she had never seen before—and she couldn’t believe he was admitting
his fear to her.

“And, what if you’re right?  You’ve logged how many
thousands of hours in training, and then in flight, and then in combat?  If
Helitronics didn’t have faith in you, they would not have hired you.  I know
you can do this.”

He looked at her, searching her face, as if he was weighing
the sincerity of her words.

“Don’t quit on me now.  I need you.  I trust you.”  She
sucked in a sharp breath, surprised by her own words.

A hint of a smile played at the corners of his mouth.  “So
when did you start trusting me?  Sometime after one this afternoon when you
decided you weren’t waiting for me to pick you up?”

Niki stood and play punched him in the arm.  “I’m sure it
was something like that.”  She laughed nervously.

As she picked up her things, she asked, “Ready?  I think
it’s time to go home.”

Kyle stood and picked up his things from a corner of the
room.  “Can I trust that you’ll actually go home?  Or should I come chaperone
you?”

She pushed the door open then let it fall back in his face. 
“I don’t think I trust you
that
much.”