Chapter Thirty-Seven Marion
thirty-seven MARION
Marion sat on the hard leather seat of the UH-1 Iroquois, wind shoving through the open door and whistling past her ears. She gripped her seat until her knuckles cramped, riding the sky as the helicopter angled one way then the other, curving over rice patties and mud-brown rivers, navigating the tangled, impenetrable chaos of the jungle. As they soared over tiny villages, Marion was painfully aware that some might shelter guns, even grenade launchers. When the helicopter angled sharply, she saw their clear, black shadow skimming over the jungle.
She was too scared to scream. Until a week ago, she’d never even stepped into an airplane, and now she flew two thousand feet in the air, deafened by the hum and thumpthumpthump of a Huey—God! She’d watched these helicopters on TV! In front of her, three men in camouflage sat on either side of the cabin’s open doors, their legs hanging over the edges, machine guns slung over their laps. In addition, a door gunner stood on either side, each manning an M60 machine gun. Long belts of cartridges spilled onto the floor at their feet. Attached to the outside of the Huey, just behind her and thankfully out of her view, was a pair of anti-tank missiles. Just in case, Daniel had said.
He sat on her left, craning over her shoulder to see what she saw, absently adjusting his eye patch. He pointed at something, but she couldn’t hear what he said over the drubbing of the chopper blades and the hammering of her pulse. She turned to ask, her eyes streaming tears from the wind, and her helmet bumped his chin. Without a hint of a smile, he pressed down on it, keeping it secure. She recalled the intimate feel of his fingers on her skin as he’d fastened her helmet under her chin before takeoff.
“Nothing’s gonna mess with that brain. Or that face,” he’d said, his tone earnest. “Never take that off.”
“Yes, Major,” she’d said, wanting to make him smile. She had been so afraid, standing by the rumbling helicopter. She needed to hear that reassurance again, the promise that, yes, he would take care of her. A reminder that this was more than a job or duty to both of them. This was him and her.
He didn’t smile, but he held her gaze, and she got what she needed.
Strands of her hair had escaped her braid and her metal helmet, and she swiped them out of her face. Dr. Marion Hart, known for her conservative suits and shoes, her perfectly styled, tight roll, and her punctuality, was now buzzing thousands of feet over Vietnam in camo, her hair like a fright wig under a tin can.
A sudden boom! to the west, and she felt Daniel shift with her, seeking out the source. Grey smoke ballooned in the distance, then again nearby, but that’s all she could see. Daniel was a statue beside her, his hard expression unchanging. The Huey’s shadow skimmed over the green of the trees below, and the copilot twisted backward, yelling something at them and gesturing beyond the open door. She saw his mouth move, but she couldn’t make out anything over the noise. Daniel could. He was nodding. He stuck out his fist, thumb up, then he brought his mouth to her ear.
“Almost there. Hold tight.”
He was shouting, and yet his voice still sounded far away. She wondered if the chopper noise could be harming her hearing long-term, then she rolled her eyes internally. Worrying about her hearing? That should be her last concern.
He pointed out the open door. “Do you see the old temple out there?”
She squinted, but she didn’t see anything that looked like a temple. She shook her head.
“It’s just broken walls now. I was here when they blew it up. I hate seeing history erased.”
He was trying to calm her, she thought. Talking about history when all that mattered to her was the present. “Yes, I think I see it now.”
Without warning, the helicopter angled sharply, and Marion’s stomach rolled with it. The men at the open doors hugged their weapons tighter, their legs stretching out with the Huey’s momentum. The door gunners were alert, fingers on the triggers. Then one fired, blasting seven hundred rounds per minute into the sky, and the other one started up, shooting at something Marion couldn’t see. The guns’ vibrations thundered in her chest, and the gunners’ bodies shook with the weapons’ motion, moving in a blur. Marion tried not to hyperventilate, tried not to sob with panic.
“What’s happening?” she shouted, gripping Daniel’s arm. “What’s—”
She screamed and ducked as bullets pinged! and ricocheted inside the chopper, then she grunted when Daniel’s arm slammed across her middle like a steel belt. One of the men on the side fell back, clutching his leg, and someone dragged him inside so another soldier could take his place. Then she heard a different sound, a kind of snap then crack, and the helicopter’s windshield became riddled with holes and fissures. The pilot was yelling into the microphone attached to his helmet when suddenly he slumped, and his head rolled sideways. Marion gawked in horror as the copilot took over, battling the controls and calling for help.
“We’ll be all right,” Daniel shouted, but she didn’t believe him.
A jolt knocked her forward, then the chopper lost control, turning on its own axis as it spiralled from the sky. The green of the jungle awaited them, the shapes and shadows giving way to individual leaves and branches. Far too close and coming closer.
“Hang on!” Daniel yelled, but she was already braced, hugging her knees, holding her breath, praying as hard as she could. Please God, please God, please—