Chapter 32
THIRTY-TWO
It was thirty-two days after her crash. The therapy room was warm, intentionally underlit.
There were no windows, just a tall plant in the corner and soft, muted upholstery in blues and creams. A carafe of water sat on a tray nearby.
A thin blanket had been folded neatly on the arm of the chair, as if to say, you might need this.
Shannon sat with her left leg elevated slightly, the surgical hip still stiff, though the swelling had finally begun to subside.
Across from her sat Dr. Tara Teslow, the trauma therapist Hunt recommended.
She was a civilian, forty-something with no visible rank or badges.
She was a woman who listened for a living.
“I don’t feel like talking,” Shannon said.
Dr. Teslow didn’t react. “Then don’t.”
Shannon added, “I’m not going to cry, either.”
“No problem.”
Another silence. Longer. Shannon adjusted her posture, wincing as the movement tugged too fast.
Dr. Teslow watched, not unkindly.
Shannon finally said, “You know I was flying with her. Mara Esten. She was my crew.”
“I know.”
“She didn’t get a funeral. Just… a closed room, evidence bags, and her name on a file. I haven’t even seen her family.”
“You want to?”
Shannon looked away. “What am I supposed to say?”
“That’s not the question,” Teslow said gently. “The question is what do you need to say?”
Shannon’s throat worked. “I told her to trust me. That I had her six. And then she died.”
“She was drugged, Shannon. You couldn’t have—”
“I should have known,” she snapped, louder than she meant. “I flew with her. I felt her next to me. I should’ve noticed.”
Shannon’s shoulders curled slightly, like she was trying to fold inward. But the brace wouldn’t let her. Her leg throbbed, and her back ached. Her throat felt too full. “I miss my mom,” she said finally, voice rough. “I didn’t used to say that. Not out loud.”
“She flew helicopters too?”
“Black Hawks,” Shannon said. “She made it look easy.” She took a long breath. “I didn’t cry at her funeral. Everyone said how strong I was.”
“Were you?”
“I thought I was,” Shannon stared hard at her knees, “but now I think I just forgot how to feel.”
There was another long silence.
Dr. Teslow said, “Would it be all right if we paused here? I want to give you something.”
Shannon hesitated, then nodded once.
Teslow passed over a small envelope. Inside was a handwritten note, folded neatly, with a familiar angular signature at the bottom.
Warrant Officer Mara Esten, in-training evaluation.
The major wrote, Strong instincts. Calmer with Johnson. Could follow her into the storm and not worry about coming out.
Scrawled next to Mara’s signature, she wrote, If anything ever happens, tell her I said thank you.
Shannon stared at it. She didn’t cry. But she stopped breathing for a full ten seconds before her shoulders shook once. Just once.
PRIVATE SUITE – RECOVERY WARD – 2204 HOURS
She didn’t say anything when Dante entered fresh from a debrief with Ford and Mike, his black hoodie half unzipped, hair damp from the shower. He looked exhausted. She was sitting upright in bed, overhead lights off, reading the same damn note for the fifth time.
He paused at the doorway. “You okay?”
Shannon nodded but didn’t look up.
He moved closer as if approaching a wounded animal. “Therapy today.”
She folded the note, fingers steady. “Yes.”
“And?”
“It was like bleeding without getting cut.”
He nodded. “Good therapist, then.”
Finally, she held out the note. He read it, then folded it carefully and set it on the table. He sat beside her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders.
She let herself lean into him. This time, she didn’t fight the tears. Not for her mother.
Not for Mara. Not for the girl she’d been before the crash. Just for now. For the man who hadn’t left.
RECOVERY CENTER – 0702 HOURS
The rehab gym smelled like chlorine and rubber mats, faintly antiseptic.
Shannon stood, thirty-five days after the crash, at the treadmill, fingers curled tight around the side rails.
Her legs were tense and braced. The pressure sleeve on her left hip was snug, the fabric pressing into healing tissue.
Mack Browning, her assigned PA, stood two feet away, hands resting loosely behind his back, watchful and quiet. Dante sat nearby, his posture relaxed but only at first glance.
The treadmill’s belt hadn’t moved yet. She stared at the blank display.
“You don’t have to do this today,” Mack said gently.
“That’s not true,” she said without looking at him.
Dante’s eyes tracked her, not pressing, not offering comfort, just present.
She pressed the start button, and the belt engaged with a soft hum. Slow. Barely a walk. She placed her right foot first. Then the left, heel gingerly touching the surface. A hitch. A wobble.
Mack tensed slightly. But Shannon steadied. Right. Left. Right. Again. The ache burned from her lower back down through her thigh. The joint was tight, the scar tissue stiff. Every step sent an echo through her system.
She gritted her teeth. Didn’t stop. She walked a full minute before she adjusted the speed.
0.9. Then 1.2.
When Dante stood, her eyes flicked to him. Slowly, deliberately, she hit the 1.8 mark. Not a run, but not a walk. She jogged. Three strides. Four.
The pain spiked high behind her eyes, her breath catching in her chest, but she didn’t stop. She didn’t even blink. Ten strides. Twelve. Until finally, her leg buckled.
Dante moved fast, hands on the rails. “Got you.”
But she didn’t fall. She caught herself and stood upright. The belt slowed beneath her.
The machine beeped once. She stepped off on her own.
Mack exhaled. “That’s it. You’re officially airborne again.”
Shannon wiped her brow with the hem of her shirt. Her hands trembled faintly as she turned to Dante. “I want the flight file,” she said. “Everything Krueger touched. Every second of the sim, the preflight, the comms. All of it.”
He nodded. “You’ll have it.”
Her eyes were steady now. “I’m not finished.”
Dante reached for her hand. “No,” he said. “You’re just getting started.”
NORTHERN MALI – SAHEL REGION
The wind off the flats came sharp and dry, threading through the ridge like a whisper meant to slice. Marcus “Friend” Chandler lay half prone behind a coil of shale, optics steady. He hadn’t blinked in thirty seconds. Ahead, a shimmer off the sand blurred the horizon just enough to hide movement.
To his right, Twee and Sabra moved silently into cover, boots pressing shallow tracks into the stone. The comms rig on Sabra’s back barely rustled, but her eyes were locked west, where the faint line of smoke spiraled skyward like a question mark.
"Smoke line, west," Chandler murmured. "Could be trash."
Chava scanned again through thermal. “No plastic burn. That’s oil. Fuel fire that’s slow, controlled.”
Chandler adjusted the zoom on his scope. “Or cover.”
Their comms cracked softly. Sean Paulsen’s voice came in low but crisp from the OP. “Update.”
“We’ve got crates at the base of the ridge,” Chava said. “Metal. Half-buried under mesh. No markings.”
“Eyes on crew?”
“Not yet.”
On the far edge of the perimeter, the healed Gary “Beach” Sands reported, “I'm inside visual on the burn site. It's surgical. Fire’s a scrub job. One torched Hilux, no brass, no bodies. But they left something.”
Chandler’s voice sharpened. “Left what?”
Beach held up a charred satellite radio fragment, visible on his cam. “Not local kit. Burnt, but NATO build. Whoever ran this, they were cleaned out fast.”
Paulsen was quiet for a second. “This ties?”
“Hard to say,” Chava said. “But the coordinates Krueger referenced… these are damn close.”
Chandler added, “We’ve got twelve crate shapes that match the recon intel forwarded from DC. Short-range rocket launchers. Russian tech. And not black-market knockoffs. New.”
“Confirm?” came Paulsen again.
“Confirm,” Chava said grimly. “They’ve been camouflaged for weeks.”
Joseph “Red” Canal cut in, voice low and dry. “So that bastard was telling the truth.”
“Not all of it,” Chandler muttered. “But enough.”
Beach added, “Lobo called this before he was hit. He clocked this crest—wolf over sword. We’ve got the same one here. Black and red.”
Chava’s breath hitched faintly. “Same as the one Krueger drew in his debrief.”
Paulsen's voice returned, sharper now. “We pull back. Get footage. Roadie, Crown, Friend, you fall back northeast. Sabra, you’re with me. Full extract in fifteen. No hero shit.”
“Copy.”
But then…the rumble. Low and slow, like thunder with a mind of its own. Engines. Three unmarked trucks crested the rise from the west, dust-choked and too clean to be local militias. Lights off. Windows dark. No flags. No plates.
Chava’s whisper came tight. “Those aren’t scavengers.”
“Nope,” Chandler said. “That’s a cleanup crew.”
The convoy circled the crates without stopping, precisely and too practiced. And on the side of the lead truck, just for a second when the dust cleared, they saw the crest: black and red, wolf over the blade.
CHASE RECOVERY CENTER – 1410 HOURS
The sun was high outside the bay window, but Shannon’s room was quiet. A breeze moved through the crack in the window, fluttering the edge of the medical folder sitting in her lap. She stared at it but didn’t open it.
The seal was already broken. Dante had done that earlier, but he hadn’t flipped a single page. He brought it to her and left it on her knees. He was letting her come to it on her own.
Shannon finally touched the first sheet. The paper rasped under her fingers.
SIM brIEF—1104Z
FLT COND: WX-CLEAR / WIND VAR
LOAD: 2 SOULS / TRAINING MISSION
PILOT: ESTEN, M. / COPILOT: JOHNSON, S.
She skimmed the checklist annotations. Normal startup. Torque readings. Fuel logs. Nothing was odd until the signatures.
Daniel Krueger: Preflight Ground Clearance Officer
Her breath caught. He’d cleared them. Of course he had. She turned the page and read the logs from the diagnostic readout.