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  “Do you guys have everything you need for this?” Parson asked the senior load.

  “I think so, sir. We had to break out the books to make sure we did this by the T.O. I used to carry patients on the C-141 all the time, but I ain’t never done it on this thing.”

  Parson watched the crewmen slide the last pallet across the rollers. The loadmasters flipped cargo locks up from recesses in the floor, kicked the locks into place. An industrial scene of clanking metal, grease-stained checklists, commands shouted over the whine of the auxiliary power units.

  Once the aircraft was configured, a bus with a red crescent on the side backed up to the open aft ramp. A loadmaster stood on the ramp, guided the bus driver with hand signals. The loadmaster crossed his fists, and the bus stopped next to a stair truck positioned against the ramp. The aeromed team—two commissioned flight nurses and three enlisted flight medics—began hoisting their litter patients up the stairs.

  Other crew members continued their preflight checks. Dunne stood under the number four engine, looking up at the cowling.

  On the way into Bagram, the MADAR computer had spat out a fault code for abnormal vibration on number four. Parson had thought he was going to have to shut down an engine and declare an emergency. Turned out not to be necessary, but now he was suspicious of that engine.

  “Is that one going to be all right?” Parson asked.

  “As long as you keep her out of the vibe range,” Dunne said.

  Of course I’ll keep it out of the vibe range, Parson thought. Flight engineers seemed to think all pilots were idiots.

  With his flight suit sleeve, he wiped sweat from his face. Unlike his last trip, today it was hot at Bagram. Clear and a million, too: unlimited visibility. You could see all the way into the Panjshir Valley. Bagram lay in the flat part of a bowl: scrubby vegetation dotted rocky soil that stretched into a rim of gray mountains.

  It would be cooler at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, Parson’s new destination. Close to the military’s Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, one of the few hospitals in the world prepared to handle so many trauma patients at one time. Poor bastards. Most had probably never been out of Afghanistan. They had to get blown up and burned in numbers beyond what Afghan hospitals could handle to get out of this hellhole.

  Parson climbed the crew ladder into the cargo compartment. The aeromeds hovered over their patients, some hooked up to monitors, a few with chest tubes, some apparently unconscious, many wide-eyed with apprehension. Human wreckage. A medicine smell like rubbing alcohol overpowered the usual airplane odors of grease and hydraulic fluid.

  He found the medical crew director and introduced himself. Her flight suit bore the wings of an aeromedical nurse and the insignia of a lieutenant colonel. She wore rimless eyeglasses with a lanyard attached to the stems.

  “Ma’am,” Parson said. “My crew isn’t used to this kind of thing, but we’ll do the best we can.” Though Parson was the aircraft commander, he still owed courtesies of rank to the MCD.

  “And we’re not used to this airframe,” she said, “but a lot of these patients are in very bad shape, and they need to fly out on anything that’s available.”

  She sounded as though she didn’t like the arrangements any more than Parson did. But sometimes in war you had to improvise, make do with the resources at hand.

  A loadmaster handed Parson some paperwork.

  “Form F and manifest, sir.”

  Parson signed the weight-and-balance sheet, then scanned the passenger-and-patient manifest. Afghan names, mainly, blanks for Social Security numbers. A few Western names, perhaps advisers and trainers. He stopped on one: GOLD, SOPHIA L. SGT. MJR. No, not her—please. Not blown up, too, after everything else she’d been through. He had not seen her since that day at the Pentagon when they’d both received Silver Stars.

  “Is this one of your patients?” Parson asked the MCD. He showed her the form.

  “No. Her injuries are minor. She’s just traveling with some of the Afghans.”

  Parson stuffed the paperwork into a thigh pocket of his flight suit. He hurried through the cargo compartment, edged between litters, stepped over cords. Looked for anyone in ACUs. She wasn’t down here. Maybe upstairs, then. The C-5 had two levels: the flight deck and troop compartment were above the cargo bay. Parson climbed the steps to the troop compartment three rungs at a time.

  She was sitting in the first row. She looked up from her book, which appeared to Parson just a jumble of squiggly lines. She stared for a moment. Then, for the first time ever, Parson saw her smile broadly. He noticed her rank insignia. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been a master sergeant.

  “Congratulations on your promotion,” he said.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  She stood, offered her right hand, and Parson shook it with both of his. She winced in pain, and Parson let go. He wanted to embrace her, but not if it would hurt.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Are you okay?”

  “A couple cracked ribs. Nothing serious.”

  Parson noticed scrapes and minor cuts on her face and cheek. He decided not to ask her about it. He caught her looking at the fingers of his left hand. The tips of three of them had been lost to frostbite. The same with two fingers on the other hand, and four of his toes. A memento of his last trip to Afghanistan, with her. Because of his injuries, it had taken a medical waiver to let him go to pilot training.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  Gold explained about her literacy program, her students, Mahsoud. Her smile vanished. She seemed beaten. Or was it just worry? Plenty of reason for that in Afghanistan, any damned day of the week.

  “I promise I’ll get you to your destination this time,” Parson said.

  “I’ll hold you to that.”

  “But you’re not riding back here in coach.”

  There was no direct access from the troop compartment to the cockpit, so Parson led her downstairs and through the cargo compartment. On the way, she stopped at one of the patients, an Afghan missing a leg. A DD Form 602 Patient Evacuation Tag hung from one of his buttonholes. He seemed to be sleeping or doped out. Gold spoke to him, anyway. She touched his arm and whispered in Pashto.

  “How’s he doing?” Parson asked. In the 602’s Diagnostic block, it read LEFT LEG AMPUTATED IN FIELD, CRUSH INJURIES TO RIGHT HAND, SMOKE INHALATION, BURNS.

  Gold shrugged. “If there’s any hope for this country, it’s in guys like him,” she said. “And look at him now.”

  Parson was surprised she used the word “if.” He decided not to have that conversation. Her friends had just been blown up.

  On the flight deck, Parson showed her the cockpit, explained how he’d cross-trained from navigator to pilot. Then he led her down a narrow hallway to the relief crew area, with its seats and bunks.

  “This is Sergeant Major Gold,” he told his crew. “She’s going to ride up here with us. Give her anything she wants. There’s coffee in the galley. And, Sophia, you’re having dinner with us, on me, when we get to Ramstein.”

  Parson left Gold in the aft flight deck. He planned to let her visit the cockpit after takeoff, but for now he wanted to put her in a more comfortable seat, near the coffee and food. For a moment, he kicked himself for using her first name in front of the crew. First names were common in the Air Force, at least when away from wing commanders and check ride evaluators. But it wasn’t the Army way, certainly not Gold’s way. She allowed few people to call her “Sophia,” and she tolerated “Sophie” from no one. He figured she’d understand he was just excited to see her.

  As he settled into the pilot’s seat, he felt the warmth of meeting an old friend, but with a twinge of regret. How great to run into her again, but what horrible circumstances. Such a small world in the military. Dunne handed him TOLD cards, and he posted them on the instrument panel where he and his copilot, Lieutenant Colman, could see the takeoff speeds.

  Colman entered the flight plan into the FMS. Colman, just o
ut of flight school, took forever to check the waypoints. Parson let him finish, resisted the urge to take over the job. You couldn’t blame a new copilot for acting like a new copilot.

  “Before starting engines checklist,” Parson called.

  His crew began the clipped ritual: terse commands, the snap of switches, the whine of pumps and fans. Parson appreciated the choreography, felt like an orchestra conductor. His crew.

  One by one, the four TF-39 engines came on speed, thunderous even at idle. Parson taxied for departure, left hand on the steering tiller. When he received takeoff clearance, he turned onto the runway and said, “Advancing throttles now.”

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Dunne punch a clock on the engineer’s panel. The aircraft inched forward, thousands of pounds of thrust fighting the inertia of tons of steel and fuel. The jet moved at walking pace, then accelerated more quickly until the airspeed indicators came alive, then hurtled down the centerline like a gigantic missile.

  “Fifteen,” Dunne said. “Twenty. Time.”

  “Go,” Colman called.

  With three fingers, Parson pulled at the yoke, and his airplane, the size of an apartment building, lifted into the air. There was a hammering roar from the General Electric turbofans. The plane’s own shadow chased it along the runway, grew smaller, vanished.

  “Air Evac Eight-Four, Bagram Tower,” called the controller. “Contact departure. Have a safe flight.”

  Parson pitched for climb speed, enjoying the smooth air. When the landing gear came up, he said to Colman, “Warm up the autopilot for me, will you?” Built in 1970, the plane still had some Vietnam-era electronics.

  The crags and ridges of the Hindu Kush dropped away as the aircraft climbed. Parson looked out his side window at the ground where he and Gold had suffered through so much. Gold had been a passenger on his C-130, escorting a high-value Taliban prisoner. After they were shot down, the two of them went through a winter hell and back to keep that prisoner in coalition hands. And then they’d parted. But the experience had imbued Parson’s spirit in permanent ways, like metallic changes in the turbines of an overtemped jet engine. Little difference to the eye, but an altered chemistry that could never be put back the way it was before.

  Now the sky seemed to open in front of him, a cerulean infinity. Pale disk of moon over the mountains. No clouds but the wisps of horsetail cirrus in the upper atmosphere. Sunlight glinting off the windscreen. He found his aviator’s sunglasses in his helmet bag and put them on.

  At that moment, a screeching warble sounded in the cockpit. Parson tensed, felt his palms grow slick and his throat turn dry. Then the fear passed and left jangled nerves in its wake. Not a missile warning, just a stall tone. False alarm, since the plane was flying well beyond stall speed.

  He reached overhead and clicked off the two toggle switches for the pilot and copilot stall limiters. The noise stopped. He looked to his side panel and saw the STALL light. So it was his side that had malfunctioned. He reached up and turned the copilot’s stall system back on. Felt the sweat on his upper lip and under his arms.

  Whoa, boy, he told himself. Don’t let coming back to Afghanistan spook you. Just a nuisance warning. The airplane is old. These things happen.

  “Maybe we can get that fixed at Ramstein,” Parson said.

  “If they have the parts,” Dunne said.

  The flight engineer had a point. Last time Parson and crew had broken down at Ramstein, they’d had to wait several days for a fuel control. One night during the layover, Parson came back from the officers’ club to find Dunne in the lobby at billeting, strumming a weird all-metal guitar. Dunne played it with a slide, and he called it a National Steel. Not your typical hobby for a flight engineer, Parson thought, and the guy turned out to be a pretty darn good musician.

  Now Parson cracked the throttles back from the takeoff setting to normal climb thrust. He hoped Colman and Dunne didn’t see that his hand was still shaking. Then he moved his hand down to the center console and pressed VERT NAV, engaged the autopilot.

  When the airplane leveled at thirty-four thousand feet, Parson felt better. Germany was just seven hours away. And today would be a short day by C-5 standards. With only one hop to fly, the gear handle was the hotel switch.

  “Tell the sergeant major she can come up here and look around,” Parson said over the interphone. Unlike with civilian passenger planes, the C-5 had no secure cockpit door. Most people with any business on a military transport would have a security clearance or some other form of background check. Letting friends and VIPs ride in the cockpit remained a frequent courtesy.

  Gold came forward and sat at what used to be the navigator’s seat. C-5 navigators had been replaced by inertial navigation units, three black boxes in the avionics bay, so now there was an unused seat on the flight deck. Dunne handed her a spare headset, and when she put it on she said, “Nice view.”

  Parson turned to look at her. Four years had made little difference. She was still fit, still looked like she’d be attractive in civilian clothes. No gray yet in the blond hair. Lines around her eyes a little deeper, though. She didn’t seem especially awed by the cockpit.

  “Feel free to take pictures,” Parson said. He couldn’t wait to get a chance for a real chat with her. If he got a day or two off at Ramstein, maybe he could rent a car, pick her up at Landstuhl, and do some touring. That wouldn’t be fraternization, he figured—just giving her a break if she got stuck at the hospital without wheels.

  Before Parson could continue the conversation, Dunne said, “We have a satcom message.” Dunne tapped on a Toughbook bolted to the flight engineer’s table, accessing what amounted to an e-mail transmitted through space. “Now, that’s damned strange,” he said. He printed the message, tore off the strip of thermal paper, and handed it to Parson.

  The message read MAINTAIN ALTITUDE. DO NOT CLIMB OR DESCEND UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

  2

  Parson had seen some strange messages and requests from the Tanker Airlift Control Center at Scott Air Force Base, but nothing like this. Something screwed up with routings and clearances, maybe. Who left the fuckup switch in the autofuck position? Nothing for it but to call and ask.

  “Your airplane,” Parson told Colman. “I got the radios.” Then he spun a frequency into the HF, pressed his TALK switch, and said, “Hilda Contingency Cell, Air Evac Eight-Four.” It was a long way from the skies of Central Asia to a windowless room in Illinois. Parson hoped he’d make contact. He looked back at Gold and said over the interphone, “Sorry. I’ll talk to you once I figure this out.”

  Then he got his callback: “Air Evac Eight-Four, Hilda.”

  “Received your message on L band,” Parson said. “What’s going on?”

  “Eight-Four,” the flight manager said, “there’s no good way to tell you this. There’s a bomb threat against some of our aircraft, including yours.”

  What kind of nonsense is this? Parson wondered. We’re flying, aren’t we? Some Chicken Little in intel, probably. Typical Air Force. We make more problems for ourselves than the enemy does.

  “Where is this coming from?” he asked.

  “Jihadist websites are claiming that bombs have been planted on U.S. aircraft that departed Bagram today.”

  Well, Parson thought, you could scare yourself to death if you sat around reading those websites all the time. “They make all kinds of claims,” he said. “Why are we paying attention to this one?”

  “Because of its specificity. They say they had help on the base at Bagram.”

  “So why can’t I climb or descend?” he asked. Terrorists can say anything. Give me a break.

  “If there are any bombs, we don’t know the trigger. They could be on timers, or they could be barometric.”

  Or they could be in somebody’s imagination, Junior. And the timer, if there’s a bomb at all, could be set for any time. For now. Or in ten minutes. Or four hours. But if it was barometric, well, what then? Parson knew the bomb that destroyed Pan
Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, might have had an aneroid barometer trigger. The 747 climbed through a set altitude and into eternity.

  But we’re already at flight level three-four-zero, he thought. We’re probably fine, and more than likely the whole thing’s bullshit.

  “Hilda,” Parson called. “We’ll conduct a search. Call you back.”

  “Roger that, Eight-Four. If you find something, don’t move it.”

  Don’t move it, my ass, thought Parson. If we find something, we’re going to chuck it out the damned door. But we’re not going to find anything because there’s nothing to find. No one has ever attempted to hijack a U.S. military plane, and planting a bomb on one would be just as hard.

  “Eight-Four, do you copy?”

  “Yeah, Eight-Four copies,” Parson said.

  “We’ll be here for you, Eight-Four. Army liaison’s working on getting some EOD expertise on the line. We’ll also get a tanker set up to buy you some time.”

  “Thanks, Hilda,” Parson said. “Air Evac Eight-Four out.”

  A tanker to buy us some time, Parson thought. Not a bad idea if they’re going to insist on making us bore holes in the sky until everybody calms down. Won’t be the first time we’ve burned a lot of fuel for nothing.

  “All right, crew, you heard it,” said Parson over interphone. All the aircrew members on headset could monitor the radios. “We’re going to search every millimeter of this aircraft. I want one loadmaster checking the troop compartment, two for cargo, and one for the aft flight deck.”

  Parson looked at Gold again. She had her head in her hands, elbows on the nav table. Too bad she had to hear this nonsense. Probably hard to keep it in perspective when your building’s just been blown up for real.

  “Sergeant Major,” he asked, “are you all right?”

  She looked up. “What can I do?” she said.

  “Tell the patients,” Parson said. “Then help us look around, I suppose.”

  GOLD WONDERED IF IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO TELL THEM, then decided not to argue. Parson had enough on his mind. And it wasn’t fair to keep the Afghans in the dark. Besides, one of them might have noticed something.