The Ocean Between Us (31 page)

In flight school, ejection criteria had been drummed into Josh’s head, but at the moment, only one factor mattered—the pilot’s judgment. His safety and that of the crew was the ultimate goal, but ditching the taxpayers’ high-tech airplane in the drink was not done lightly. Still, when you were losing altitude at a hundred feet per second, you didn’t have time to debate the matter. No amount of training could prepare you to come to the ultimate decision so quickly.

It was every aviator’s nightmare. He hadn’t lost control; he had no control. It was a subtle difference and one that was pushing him fast toward the inevitable decision. The key to survival was to make sure they could all reach their handles before everything got away from them. He could feel Newman, Turnbull and Hatch waiting for his command. He thought he could smell their adrenaline in the air of the cockpit.

He and the others were strapped to Advanced Concept Ejection Seats, 128 pounds of equipment with a twenty-one-pound rocket catapult. They had to take it on faith that the crew chiefs had strapped them in properly so they wouldn’t fall out of their seats on ejection. They had to trust that the chute packers
had stowed the parachutes correctly. One mistake made the difference between survival and death.

As he reviewed the ejection-process checklist, time turned to nothing: The blink of an eye. The turn of a rotor. The oscillation of the rudder he couldn’t control. Or the most fleeting thing of all—the thought of Lauren. She’d sent him an e-mail note, asking him to call her. And he hadn’t called. He was going to wait until after the mission. What an idiot. You don’t hold back when you’re in love.

I love you, Lauren.

He poured his whole heart into the thought. He imagined the ring safely zipped in his pocket. Then he assumed the position, pressing against the backrest, bracing his legs and neck. Finally, he gave the order he knew he had to give.

“Eject! Eject! Eject!”

The moment he yanked the handle, he detonated a sequence of violent events. The four seats were timed to launch at close intervals to avoid midair collisions. One, two, three… He heard the loud bangs of the crews’ seats in quick succession. The sharp upper edge of the first seat back breaker bar shattered the canopy. A mosaic of safety glass showered down on Josh. A tempest raged inside the cockpit, ripping his aerial charts into the atmosphere. The last rocket motor burned out, and there was an eerie breath of silence.

Josh’s seat didn’t move. Panic knocked in his chest as he grabbed for the yellow handle again. At that instant, the seat fired. It was a carnival ride, courtesy of the solid-rocket propellant motor that blasted him along the rails. Josh shot out of the cockpit, the trajectory automatically propelling him away from the aircraft to avoid hitting the stabilizer at the tail. His blood, eyeballs and innards were compressed by acceleration equivalent to fourteen times the weight of gravity. The icy wind ripped at him. The noise shrieked in his ears. He felt a blast of cold and a tearing sensation. A twist of fabric snaked past with a flutter like a flock of birds. Please God, let it work.

A second charge fired, this one programmed to shoot the seat away as the silk canopy popped open. Something hit him so hard he couldn’t breathe, strangled by the harness around his waist. Then a giant hand swooped him up into the night sky, lifting him to a quiet place he’d never been before. And finally…nothing. A pure silence, as cold and black as a vacuum. A few seconds later, he dared to look up and saw that he was under the chute.

He laced his gloved fingers into the riser cords as he floated in the cold dark. Was it only moments ago that he’d seen two shooting stars, that he’d told Lauren he loved her?

He forced away the random thoughts and focused on survival. His whole body felt numb from the trauma of ejection. Even behind his goggles, his eyes watered. He tasted blood from biting his tongue. His crotch had been savagely yanked by safety cords. His neck ached, but he didn’t think it was broken. He’d probably been snapped out of ejection position by the G-force of acceleration.

He saw no sign of his crew’s parachutes—not yet, anyway. A thousand things could have gone wrong for the crew members—incomplete ejection, fouled chutes, failed rockets. Please God…

He dared to look down, but couldn’t see where the Prowler had crashed. There was a glimmer of light on the water far below. Please let it be the ships of the battle group. He tried steering his parachute toward it, but the wind ran in the opposite direction in a raging, invisible current. He thought about how cold the water would be—fifty-five degrees, according to the latest briefing from the ship’s meteorologist. Inside the leather gloves, his hands felt like ice.

He deployed the ejection seat survival kit, and a small life raft dropped from the lower section, inflating instantly. His feet dipped into the water, dragged for a few feet, rose and then dipped again. “Show time,” he said through chattering teeth.

He disengaged from the parachute as quickly as possible to avoid being pulled underwater by the weight of the fabric. At the same moment, his vest inflated on contact with the water. The meteorologist had also reported “moderate seas”—ten-foot swells and the occasional breaker.

“Moderate my ass,” he choked out as a swell ripped at him.

He swore, earning a mouthful of seawater. Shit, it was cold. His flight suit had antiexposure features. He supposed it was keeping him dry. But as he fought the waves in the dark, he felt a cold dampness seeping in places that were supposed to stay warm. His initial notion that he was in a survivable situation slipped a notch.

“Get over, you son of a bitch,” he said, kicking his leg up. The half-inflated raft was too soft, and it filled with water. A constant stream of swearing issued from Josh. He couldn’t tell if it had quit inflating, or if it wasn’t done yet. “Come on, come on,” he said, his ice-cold hands feeling the bladders. Lying back in the raft, Josh bobbed for a minute, panting with exhaustion, his head flung back, his eyes turned to the sky.

He’d undergone hours of survival training, but that was in a swimming pool. Emma had been at one of the training sessions, trying not to laugh as fully geared-up pilots struggled to stay afloat. Emma, his sister. His friend. He’d been encouraging her to choose this path. Now he wondered if he was wrong. He wouldn’t wish this shit on anybody.

It was out of his hands, though. She’d made up her mind weeks ago. She was even starting to look like a warrior princess, with that hacked-off hair and fire in her eye.

He jettisoned his helmet and donned the rubber cap from his survival kit. He exchanged the useless leather gloves for rubber ones and pinpointed his location on his Garmin GPS locator. Then he found what he needed most—a VHF survival radio. He sent out a call for aircraft on the international military survival frequency. No response. Either that or the thing wasn’t working. Next, he set off a flare, a blinding green-white flash followed by a plume of smoke.

Water seeped into his survival suit. He had to keep bailing. His teeth were chattering violently. That was a good sign, he told himself. It meant his body was still responsive to the cold. He wondered how long that would last. He called repeatedly on the
radio and looked constantly for the others, but there was nothing. Only the cold, and the endless sea, and the darkness.

A rhythmic thud broke the silence. Josh came to full alert, recognizing the pulse of rotor blades. White beams swept over the water, illuminating the churning swells.

The stars held a peculiar brilliance, and some of them pulsed in the blackness. A strange and quiet sense of reverence overtook Josh, and he didn’t know who he was talking to when he said, “Thank you.
Thank you.
”

The rescuers arrived on a tempest induced by the swirling blades of the chopper. As strong arms buckled Josh into a harness, he used the last of his energy to shout at them, “My crew—Newman, Hatch and Turnbull. Are they okay?”

“Yes, sir. They’re back aboard the ship.”

The good news infused him like a shot of warm saline. “Injuries?”

“Nothing major, sir.”

Josh surrendered then, going limp as the rescuers signaled to the chopper. His eyes stung with salt water and tears of gratitude, and then a long nothingness overtook him. He had no memory of being hoisted to the helo, but returned to pulsing awareness as he felt a solid surface under his back and heard the crackle and beep of radios.

Slowly an oxygen mask lowered over his nose and mouth, and a needle stabbed into the crook of his arm. With his free hand, he unzipped the smallest compartment of his G-suit, his numb fingers probing until he found what he sought—the delicate diamond ring.

Still there.

Grace stood on the front porch after the Navy officials departed. She held the CACO call card in her hand, but she didn’t read it. They had wanted to stay, of course, or to call someone to come and be with her. But she had looked at the men and lied. “I’ll be all right.” They promised to be in constant communication with her.

The kids would be home from school any minute now. She would have to tell them.

A mishap, the Navy was calling it. A
mishap.

They might have lost their dad. How would Grace tell them that?

Be honest. Don’t hold back. Keep the explanation simple and avoid speculating or making promises. She had learned the next-of-kin notification procedure in a Casualty Assistance Support training class.

She had no idea how it was possible that she could be standing here, feeling the sun on her face and hearing the twitter of nesting birds, while Steve was missing an ocean away.

She knew that in a moment the phone would start ringing. It would do so without stopping for hours, maybe days on end. When something bad happened, everyone in the community heard in a matter of minutes despite all official efforts to control
the situation. Information seeped out into the world like a chemical leak.

Springtime flavored the light breeze that blew across the empty yard—lilacs and cut grass, the warm promise of summer. A rusty creak drew her attention. The front gate under its arch of climbing roses had swung free of its latch. Her eyes followed the lazy movement of the old gate, and the numbness of unreality suddenly let go. The mishap was not an abstraction. It took hold of her heart and she felt the sharp, breath-stealing physical pain of terror.

“Steve.” She spoke his name, whispered it once. She wondered if he was hurting somewhere, if he was cold. Her mind raced with all the terrible possibilities of what might have happened to him. She nearly doubled over in agony, but forced herself to stand tall. She had to focus on the children. They would need her to be strong for them.

She waited. Daisy pawed at the door and Grace let her out. The dog must have sensed something because she wouldn’t leave Grace’s side even when Grace paced back and forth on the porch. Some of the older houses along the shore had a widow’s walk. Today, she deeply understood that the structure was not a simple decoration. She felt the pain of every woman who had ever waited for a man gone to sea, and the restlessness that drove her to pace the walkway while awaiting ill news while her mind filled with memories.

She only had to shut her eyes and she could see her whole marriage in a collage of images—their wedding in the chapel at Pensacola NAS, how handsome and proud he looked in uniform. Their first home together, a modest bungalow one block from the beach where they’d made love like overheated teenagers. The way he smiled at her when she opened her eyes in the morning. The misery of fighting with him, the bliss of making up. The excitement of arriving in a new place together—Italy, Texas, San Diego, Guam. Their wonderful, funny, difficult children who meant the world to them both.

I almost threw that all away.

She gasped aloud at the thought and forced herself to breathe and resist the urge to scream. She barely had herself under control by the time the Bronco turned into the drive, the stereo thumping out “Paint It Black,” which was on one of the CDs Steve had made before his deployment. Brian was at the wheel. Katie jumped out of the back seat. “Wow!” she said, her eyes practically bugging out. “What happened?”

Grace dragged in a deep breath. “Well, I—”

“You look great, Mom,” Emma said.

“Fan
tas
tic,” Katie added. “You’re so…
blond.
”

“You look totally different,” Brian stated. “I’ve never seen you with short hair before.”

Grace took a second to regroup and force herself to remember the way her day had started out. She looked down distractedly at the new outfit and said, “Thanks. Come on inside, guys. I need to tell you something. There’s been a mishap on Dad’s ship.”

They were Navy kids. They understood what the word “mishap” meant. To civilians, it was a bit of bad luck. To Navy families, it meant nothing would ever be the same. But the children didn’t get hysterical. They didn’t interrupt or bombard her with questions. They simply sat on the sofa in front of Grace’s view of the sea and listened while the tears rolled down their faces.

“Is Dad okay?” Emma asked.

“We’re waiting to find out.”

“What happened?”

“There was an explosion and fire on the flight deck. It had something to do with a flare. Your dad saw that a fire was starting, so he threw the flare container overboard to prevent an explosion and a chain reaction on the bomb farm. If the ordnance had caught fire, explosions could have caused huge casualties.” She looked at their dear, pale faces and went on. “He, um…oh, God. He fell—or was blown—overboard.”

Katie covered her face with her hands and whispered, “Daddy.”

“Did the safety net catch him?” asked Brian.

“I’m afraid not.”

“But his float coat would save him,” Katie said, looking up. “They’ll use the transmitter to find him.”

“According to the report, he wasn’t wearing his float coat.”

“No way,” Emma snapped. “He would never be on the flight deck without it.”

“They said he used it to put out a fire.” Grace’s temples pounded. “There was…another man was on fire.”

“Who?” asked Emma.

“We don’t know. I’m sure his family is waiting like we are.”

“When will we hear something?” Brian demanded. “When?”

“No one knows. There’s…a lot going on. They were in the middle of a landing sequence on the carrier. The incident caused a wave-off, and four men were ejected from their aircraft. Five men are Status Unknown—your father and a Prowler crew. For the time being, a communications blackout has been ordered.”

“So where
is
he?” Brian asked. “Why haven’t they found him?”

“It’s dark. The search-and-rescue team is looking, and we’ll get a call as soon as they find him.”

“
If
they find him,” Katie whispered.

“Shut up, dipshit,” Emma said. She glared at Grace. “This wouldn’t have happened if you and Dad hadn’t been fighting.”

Grace felt the blood drop from her face. “What?”

“Maybe Dad took unnecessary chances because you’re dumping him.”

“I can’t believe you said that, Emma.”

“You shut up,” Katie yelled. “You’re wacko, Emma.” She drew back her hand to slap her sister. Brian caught it in midair.

Grace sent him a grateful look. “Listen to us,” she said. “Dad would want us to be good to one another.” She caught Emma’s eye. “Wouldn’t he?”

Emma nodded. “Yeah. All right.”

With nothing to do but wait, Grace gathered her children close and braced herself.

It was Allison Crowther who disclosed the names of the others, though there was no further news about Steve. She sounded terrible on the phone, her voice heavy with the terrible weight of dread. A whole Prowler crew, she said. A crew of four.

Grace shut her eyes and pictured the memorial on the windy tip of the Naval Air Station. All those blank tiles waiting to be inscribed.

Then Allison read their names from a list, and the name of the burn victim. She invited Grace to wait with her and the squadron families.

“Thank you, Allison. There’s something I need to do right away.” She hung up and found the kids glued to the TV.

“Nothing yet,” said Emma.

“I need to go see Patricia,” said Grace.

Comprehension broke over Emma’s face. “Oh, Mom.”

“And then I need to see Lauren,” Grace concluded.

“Josh,” said Katie. Her face turned pale. “But we only just found him.”

Grace asked the kids to monitor the phone and computer, then grabbed her cell phone and headed for the door. Before leaving, she paused and looked back at her children.

“It’s okay, Mom. We’ll call you the second we hear anything,” Brian said.

“Promise,” Emma added, and Katie confirmed this with a nod.

Grace’s heart filled up. Her children were almost adults, and their steady courage humbled her. “I love you,” she said. “I’ll be home soon.”

She drove straight to Patricia’s and found the chaplain already there, along with the wife of Rivera’s commander. Patricia lay on the sofa, lost in terror and grief. A cordless phone receiver was perched atop her extremely pregnant belly.

Murmuring in Spanish, Patricia’s mother and sisters surrounded her like a flock of angels. They had come for the baby’s birth, but she needed them in a different way now.

“It’s a boy,” she said to Grace in a dull voice. “I found out this morning.”

Grace sank down beside her friend. “Oh, Patricia—”

“Michael didn’t make it,” Patricia said, letting the phone slide to the floor.

Grace felt sick, but she refused to let it show as she turned to Captain Prudhomme.

“He gave his life saving others,” the chaplain said. “He took it upon himself to dispose of an incendiary flare. Captain Bennett went to his aid, but Aviation Ordnanceman Airman Rivera sustained grave and extensive injuries. The medical team did their best to save him, but he died.”

Grace took Patricia in her arms. Patricia sobbed with the peculiar rough gasps of heart-deep grief. It was a sound Grace had heard only a few times, and its eerie quality never quite left her. She wondered if Steve knew the man he’d tried to save had died.
Oh, Steve.

“I sent Michael an e-mail, telling him about the baby,” Patricia said. “I’ll never know if he saw it.”

“He loved you and the baby so much.” Grace felt helpless. Patricia wasn’t the first young wife she’d tried to console, but Grace would never, ever get used to it. Every woman’s grief had a depth and cadence all its own. “He knows you and the baby will always be together, to comfort each other.”

After a while, she took Patricia’s hands. “I have to go see Lauren,” she said.

Patricia made the sign of the cross. She had not been a Navy wife for long, but she knew what that meant.

“I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Grace left in a hurry and fell apart in the car, convulsed by fear and rage and sadness. Maybe Steve was dead, too. She couldn’t stop herself from thinking it. Maybe he was dead, and she didn’t know it yet.

Regrets welled up, pounding at her. Why had she been so uncommunicative during this deployment? Why had she been the first to stop hugging on the day he left? It seemed horrible and petty now. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” she said over and over again. But it didn’t matter how sorry she was. It didn’t matter that, in
walking away from Ross Cameron and all he represented, she had embraced the task of finding her way back to Steve. Now she might never get the chance.

Tormented by the thought, she phoned home as she drove to Lauren’s house. No word, Emma reported.

As she pulled up at Lauren’s, Grace forced herself to get a grip. No one would have told Lauren yet. She might be the love of Josh’s life, but she was not his next of kin. The first word of the mishap would have to come from Grace. She knocked and waited, then noticed that she still gripped the cell phone in her sweating hand. Ring, she prayed. Tell me he’s all right.

Lauren’s appearance shocked Grace. She looked terrible, pale and puffy-eyed and immeasurably depressed. Dear God, had she heard something?

“Can I come in?” asked Grace.

Lauren nodded and stepped aside. A well-fed gray tabby cat slipped out the door as Grace stepped inside. The house was small and excruciatingly neat. It had a perfect view of Penn Cove. Evening light lay across the water, turning it to a mirror of pink and gold. Grace remembered a distressed-sounding message from Lauren on her answering machine. A hundred years ago, she’d been standing unsuspecting in her house, playing back her voice mail.

Steve’s voice was on that message tape.

She touched Lauren’s shoulder. “You don’t look so good.”

“I heard from the doctor today,” she said. “It’s…the worst.” She sank down into a chair and clutched a throw pillow to her middle.

No, thought Grace. It’s not the worst.