Private

I put a pillow over my face, and more images of Da

Da

There was something so open about that kid, so gee-whiz about everything, that I had to love him. He had no guile. And while he was mostly i

I'd served with him for just six months before he died, but in those six months, he was the only one besides Del Rio I could talk to in the squadron. The only guy who didn't see me as privileged, just let me be myself.

I flashed ahead to meeting Da

I told Sheila that I'd been with Da

Sheila had clasped her hands across her distended stomach. She didn't sob, but the tears poured down her face.

"We're going to have another girl," she said.

The static filled my mind again. It was that blank in my memory that told me something was missing. Something else had happened. What was it? What didn't I know?

The damn telephone started to ring again.

Chapter 82

THE PHONE VIBRATED inside my fist. The faceplate read 7:04. Incoming call: T. Morgan.

I put the phone up to my ear, said to my brother, "Did you call here a minute ago?"

"I called last night. Didn't you get my message? My shrink wants to see us together. This morning at nine."

"Today? Are you kidding? I have a business, you know?"

"Sure. It used to be Tommy Senior's business," he said. "It's important, but hey, suit yourself."

Now I was sitting in a reception pod at Blue Skies Rehab Center, a pale blue windowless room with a wraparound ceramic tile mural of birds in flight and discrete groupings of streamlined Scandinavian furniture.

I was upset that I'd been summoned the morning of the meeting, but I'd be damned if I'd give Tommy any excuse to fail at recovery. With luck, I'd be in the office by 10:30. Schoolgirl was bubbling-and so was the NFL.

While I waited, I joined a conference call with one of our clients in the London office, then signed off as one of a half dozen doors down the hallway opened. A man stepped out and came toward me. He was lanky, gray-haired, wearing a yellow cardigan and pressed chinos, had reading glasses suspended from a chain around his neck.

He was also smiling. I stood to shake his hand, and he lurched and was literally thrown to the floor.

Suddenly everything was sliding sideways. I grabbed for my chair and fell into it, hard.

What the hell?

Light fixtures swung overhead, and shadows swooped over the pale carpeting. There was a roar, like wind-but there was no wind.

The floor rippled like the surface of a river.

I clutched the arms of my chair, which bucked as if it were alive and trying to shake me off.

The man in the yellow cardigan had covered the back of his head with his hands. The mural cracked up the center, and red flowers shot out of a vase like rockets. Glass shattered-and then the power went out.

A herd of people ran helter-skelter through reception, shrieking in the darkened room.

I hung on to the chair. It was as if I were paralyzed, but my terror was lashing around inside me like a downed power line in a storm. The room spun, and I was there again. The helicopter whirled in a death spiral, dropping out of the sky. I couldn't do anything to prevent the crash and all those deaths.

Chapter 83

I KNEW THAT the monstrous dog shaking the building like a rag was an earthquake. Had to be. But in the dark, as the chair jounced and the floor rolled in waves under my feet, I was clawed out of the present and hurled seven years back in time.

I was in the cockpit of the CH-46 when the surface-to-air missile tore through the cargo bay floor and took out the aft transmission. The sound as it blew through the cabin was like the howl of the world coming to an end.

As the helicopter whirled downward, I was pi

I held on to the cyclic, my shoulders nearly ripping out of their sockets, and tried to keep the aircraft level.

I had a single thought, to land the bird in one piece, and the machine was fighting me all the way. I held on to the stick, staring out through the dual tu

The landing gear tore up through the chin bubble by my feet as we hit. The force was stu

I released my harness, reached over, and shook Rick's shoulder.

He turned and grabbed my arm, said, "Bumpy landing, Jack. Very fucking bumpy."

The gu

I could have gotten out through my window, but I must have gone back to the cargo bay, because what I remember next was the sight of the ruined cabin, half of it ripped away by the missile. What remained was littered with dead Marines.

It was a horror show, the real thing.

Fourteen men who had been joking and cheering when we lifted off twenty minutes before were now broken and heaped against the left side of the cabin.

Da

I called Da

I inched my way through the aircraft, pulling Da

He was screaming in pain.

Fire had started in the cockpit. As the cabin brightened, my ability to see through the goggles washed out.

Jeff Albert twisted his head to see me. I made a life-and-death assessment. Jeff was not only pi

He screamed, "Get me out of here, Captain. Don't leave me here to burn."

"I'll be back," I shouted to Albert. "I'll be back with help. I'll be right back."

Albert shrieked, "He's dead, Captain. Da