CHAPTER FOUR
Three weeks later
On the beach at Pinto Pena, Panama
The CH-47 Chinook helicopter sounded like it was straining, but given the fact that they were receiving heavy ground fire, that wasn’t unexpected. But it wasn’t a good thing, either. They hadn’t taken any major rounds yet but that was only a matter of time. One good RPG round into the tail rotor and that would be the end of them and their mission.
Kerk couldn’t let that happen.
It was a daring rescue of a group of CIA operatives who had blown their cover in Colombia. A SEAL Team had gone in to retrieve them, a land insertion from a nighttime parachute jump to find them but the extraction couldn’t be on Colombian soil. The Naval chain of command had been strict about that. With strained relations with Colombia as it was, the war department didn’t think that relationship could take the strain of Navy SEALs doing insertion and extraction ops in the country itself, so the extraction point had been moved to Panama.
The problem was that the same squad who did the insertion op was also the one to do the extraction, but that part of the squad had the shit blown out of them by FARC Colombian rebels, which is why Kerk and his men were there. They were to help with the extraction but, so far, they were having the shit kicked out of them, too. Small arms fire, beneath the half-moon sky, was beginning to take its toll.
But the end was near; they could see the rescue team on the beach, running for them as Kerk’s men on the chopper tried to keep the rebels at bay. Shane, Corey, and Michael were all part of his squad, hanging out of the back of the Chinook and returning fire. It was a madhouse of bullets, piercing both men and the helicopter. Overhead, he could hear the engine of the rear rotor as it ticked strangely and the pilots were shouting over the intercom that they needed to lift off.
But Kerk wouldn’t let them, not until the SEALs and the CIA operatives were aboard. More screaming from the pilots and Kerk rushed from the rear of the helicopter, running in the direction of the Americans emerging from the jungle towards them.
“Go!” he screamed over the small arms fire. “Get into the chopper!”
The CIA operatives were battered and struggling, so he grabbed one man and practically carried him to the rear of the helicopter. Michael had come out to help him, grabbing men and tossing them into the helicopter, but the bullets were flying so furiously that Michael got winged on the neck. Still, the man didn’t retreat. He remained at the base of the ramp, helping the last of the Americans into the chopper. Inside, Corey and Shane and the men were getting everyone strapped in for what would undoubtedly be a bumpy ride.
“Chief!” Corey yelled over the com. “Get in! We’re ready to go!”
Kerk was standing at the base of the ramp, making sure no one snuck up behind them and launched a round into the open rear of the helicopter. With his SCAR-L short barrel assault rifle, he was ready for anything. At least, he hoped he was. Other than the small arms fire they were taking, he didn’t see anything terribly threatening so he began to turn for the rear of the helicopter. He could see Michael waiting for him, ready to help pull him in, but the moment his foot hit the bottom of the ramp, he took two rounds in the back.
The bullets were armor piercing and blasted right through him, exploding out the front of him. Fabric and pieces of his Kevlar vest went flying as Michael grabbed him by the arm and yanked him into the helicopter. Someone was shouting over the com to the pilot, who swung into action and the Chinook began to lift.
Kerk was on his face on the floor of the helicopter as his men bent over him, flipping him over onto his back.
“Chief?” Michael sounded panicked. “Where are you hit? Let me get a look!”
Kerk was stunned by the blows but he wasn’t senseless. They’d knocked the wind out of him, but nothing more. He knew exactly what had happened and he also knew that Michael wouldn’t find any holes in him, which was going to take a bit of explaining. In all his years as a SEAL, he’d been hit several times but he’d always managed to talk his way out of it. In this case, however, he was going to have to do some fancy talking. Everyone had seen him get hit.
“I’m okay,” he grunted, forcing himself to sit up. “It just hit my vest. Got the wind knocked out of me, that’s all.”
Michael was looking at him with great confusion. “But – but I saw them hit you,” he said. “You must be in shock. Lay back down and let Doc get a look at you.”
He was waving over the squad’s medic, a short Hispanic man who was quite skilled. As the medic made his way over to them, no easy feat with the helicopter bouncing around all over the place, Kerk waved them off. “No,” he said firmly. “Really, I’m fine. No blood, see? The bullets only hit my vest.”
He was rising to his knees so his men could see that he hadn’t been injured in the least. Both Michael and the medic looked him over, fingering his vest as well as his shirt, seeing holes in the material but no holes in Kerk. He wasn’t even scratched. Michael looked at the medic, who simply shrugged his shoulders.
“Damn, Chief,” Michael said, astonished with what he was seeing. “I thought for sure you took it right through the back. You should have a hole in your chest the size of a cantaloupe.”
Kerk staggered to his feet and made his way over to the benches lining the side of the chopper. He sat heavy and fumbled for the straps.
“No holes,” he said. “I told you I was fine. How’s everybody else? Did you check everybody else?”
Kerk was doing what he did best, which was diverting the attention away from him. As he’d hoped, Michael and the medic turned away, looking over at the CIA operatives and the SEALs who had extracted them. The SEALs were focused on them now, leaving Kerk to breathe a sigh of relief that they hadn’t pushed him any further. He hated to lie to his men but he’d been doing it for so long that he’d come to know how far he could push the envelope. Soon enough, however, he wouldn’t be able to push it anymore and he’d have to retreat into hiding as he so often did until it was safe for him to come out again and join another fight for humanity somewhere else on the planet.
But it was a shame, really, because he enjoyed being a SEAL so much. Better than any job he’d ever had. All things had to come to an end but he would sincerely be sorry when this particular chapter in his life came to a close. But maybe it would give him an excuse to return to Karia as a civilian, to explore whatever was brewing between them and to take a chance on something that he’d dreamed about but never came close to achieving.
Love.
He’d never had the opportunity to focus on a woman in his life. So there was some excitement and mystery to returning to a woman that he hadn’t been able to get out of his mind since the day he met her.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t spoken to her since the sizzling encounter on her couch, but it wasn’t because she hadn’t called him. Maybe she had, only he didn’t know about it because of the call out two hours after leaving her. He’d been busy at his job ever since. He really hoped she’d called because the first thing he was going to check when they returned to San Diego was his phone. And then he was going to call her back and tell her how much he’d missed her.
He’d definitely missed her.
He was lingering on thoughts of Karia when the tail rotor took a hit with an RPG round from the ground and, suddenly, they were falling.
Nearly two hundred feet off the deck, the Chinook plunged into the sea.