Grace was born with her mother’s beautiful blue eyes and fair, porcelain skin, and she astonished us from the moment we discovered she had been conceived, for we were told Crystal would never bear another child after her difficult pregnancy with Ryder. Grace came to us like a miraculous gift, an unexpected blessing. She was quiet and reserved like her mother, seeming to absorb the world through osmosis from the time she was a baby, whereas Ryder was rambunctious and sometimes reckless. I guess he got that from my side of the family. Grace had an innocence and pure sweetness about her that struck me and made me afraid for her because the world we lived in was so unforgiving and cold. The thought that I would someday need to “toughen her up” shattered me sometimes, and it seemed like a sin when I contemplated it, like destroying a beautiful work of art or cutting down an ancient tree.
I pictured her alone and terrified, wondering where Daddy was, and I tried to vanquish those thoughts and focus on what needed to be done. I questioned the sanity of the plan, which depended on stealth, and too many variables. I knew plans tended to be completely useless once bullets began to fly, and now that I had reached the point of no return, I felt as if I was stepping into a yawning black abyss.
The Salt Lake Temple, the former home of the Church of Latter Day Saints, looked like a medieval cathedral with soaring spires and stone towers. The Black Hawk banked hard, circled outside the walls around the Temple Square, and then came in low and fast, finally stopping to hover twenty feet above the ground outside the arched front doors. I tossed the thick rope through the open door, then grasped it and rappelled to the cobblestone courtyard. The Black Hawk whirred away into the night.
I came up from a crouch and ran up the stone steps to the massive wooden doors, my SCAR slung over my back, and the metal briefcase in my left hand. My fellow soldiers joined me at the door as Gideon’s men came at us from the walls. No one had fired a shot yet. I pulled the pin on a fragmentation grenade and turned the brass doorknob. I pushed the massive wooden door open. Behind me I heard shouting.
We entered the brightly lit cavernous room. The stone floors were polished to a reflective sheen and the walls were covered with ornate sculptures, paintings, and tapestries. Men dressed in black swarmed through doors and shouted at us.
“On the ground! Put your weapons down and get on your knees!” I was faintly surprised and relieved that I was still alive, but I did not kneel.
“I have what Gideon wants!” I shouted. “I also have a grenade in my hand. If you shoot me, you lose. Bring me Gideon and my daughter.”
“Don’t move,” said a man with an angry purple scar on his cheek. The men backed away, keeping assault rifles pointed at us. I stood silently and waited. Time stretched out and the minutes were long and painful. More men came into the room, all armed and looking outraged.
“You violated this temple,” accused Scar, his face jumping and twitching.
“Now there’s no need for all of this unpleasantness,” said a gentle voice from the rear of the room. The men in black parted and Gideon came forward in a flowing white robe. “Everyone lower your guns.”
“Nonbelievers aren’t allowed in the Temple,” he explained, as if he were telling us tomorrow it might snow and he hadn’t sent men to kidnap my child, and as if I was not standing in front of him with a grenade in my hand. “But we were expecting you.”
“Where is my daughter?”
“She is close. I assume you have the cure in the briefcase?”
“It’s yours once I see my child.”
“No. We will see whether it works. Then you may be reunited. You will be my guest until then.”
I looked Gideon in the eye, searching for some sign of weakness, something that would tell me what thoughts really lurked behind his kind face. He was smiling sadly.
“I’m sorry it has to be this way,” he said. “I know the pain you must be in.”
“The child and then the cure, that’s how this is going to go,” I said. “I’m willing to die right now and kill as many of you as I can.”
Gideon stared at me icily and the warmth left his eyes. It was as if the mask dropped away and I could see the man for what he was. I was looking at a lethal, calculating psychopath. But as quickly as the killer appeared, a momentary flicker of reality, the peaceful prophet returned.
“We seem to be at something of an impasse,” he said. “Tell me, how can we reach a compromise?”
“We can’t. And my hand is getting tired.”
“Give me something to show good faith,” Gideon said. “Put your weapons down at least.”
My mind was racing. The plan had gone south quickly. I had no choice but to gamble.
“If you show me my child, I will give you the briefcase. You can hold us until you’re satisfied. I need to know for sure she’s alive.”
Gideon held my eyes and finally nodded. He turned to Scar and said “Bring the child.”
Scar produced a hand held radio and spoke into it.
“It didn’t have to be this way,” Gideon said. “Had you done the right thing in the first place all of this could have been avoided.”
“Well, I’m sorry for that,” I replied through clenched teeth. My radio squawked once in my ear. I tried to appear relaxed while I began to coil inside. Once click meant Chilli had his eyes on Grace. Gideon stood about fifty feet away and turned to speak in hushed tones to one of his goons. A minute later, my radio squawked twice.
Once combat begins, things happen with ferocity and quickness and sometimes all you can do is react. Later when you try to recall the chain of events, reality is often garbled and disjointed, with gaps and missing bits stained with blood in between. I have been in firefights where everyone remembered things completely differently. Gunny taught me to visualize what I needed to do before a fight started, to break things down into small steps, and attempt to predict a series of likely actions and outcomes.
I remember reading in one of my grandfather’s military history books that, as an average in the Vietnam War, fifty-two thousand bullets were fired by American soldiers to kill one enemy. In World War II, only one in five infantrymen ever fired at shot at an enemy. Elijah would say this is because most people are good and have an innate abhorrence to taking another human life. Maybe he is right.
I hated killing, and despised the fact that it was sometimes necessary, but I was highly skilled at it. Perhaps because I grew to adulthood amidst the grisly realities of The Fall, I possessed a darkness in my own soul that allowed me to take many lives without hesitation and with no remorse. It was a certain moral elasticity that served to keep me alive.
I tossed the grenade underhand toward Gideon and I leapt to my right and ducked behind a white statue of the Virgin Mary. Gideon and the men near him jumped and ran, but one fell on top of the grenade, while others in corners and on the stairs started shooting. My men began firing and retreating toward the door. The gunfire was thunderous, echoing in the great room, and bullets chewed at the statue and into the wall behind me. The grenade detonated, spraying hot shrapnel in all directions and men were screaming in agony and anger. Most of the force of the grenade was absorbed by the body garbed in black and he jumped into the air as if he had been kicked by God.
I placed my crosshairs on the chest of a man crouching on the stairway shooting an automatic pistol frantically over my head. He was looking at me when my SCAR coughed twice and the man spun backwards, spattering the wall behind him with blood. The recoil was negligible. I moved on to two more targets who were spraying bullets from the second floor hallway and dropped them. One of my soldiers threw a smoke grenade to provide cover for our retreat. I caught a glimpse of white robes through the smoke and fired a long burst and then I sprinted through the door and down the wide steps and into the courtyard. Several bodies littered the open area, and I ran, zigzagging toward the Black Hawk, which had touched down fifty yards away. Chilli was crouched next to a skid and firing toward the building while Max acted as a door gunner. He laid down suppressing fire from the heavy .50 caliber machine gun and I ran wide to give him a better line of fire to the interior of the building. Tracer rounds, bright and hot, shredded the doors and cut down pursuers. An alarm was wailing on the street and I was taking fire from other directions. As I neared the Black Hawk, I could hear the sharp plink and thwack of rounds piercing the aircraft.
Ahead and to my right, my three men were sprinting. One of them fell forward suddenly with the side of his head gone in a crimson spray. The Black Hawk began to lift off and I leaped toward the bay door. Chilli hauled me in while Max continued to fire the fifty caliber. With my feet hanging over the side, the helicopter lifted quickly and banked over the fifteen foot wall. I saw an armored vehicle on the street and rockets streaked toward us. They shrieked past on two sides and the Black Hawk bucked and whined. In the rear corner, I saw Grace huddled next to one of my soldiers looking terrified and bewildered.
A Hellfire missile slammed into the armored vehicle below and it blossomed into a fireball. More missiles streaked past. I leaned over and looked to our rear, and was rewarded by the sight of the temple being blasted by a tremendous rapid volley from the Cobra attack helicopter. Hawk was hovering a quarter mile away, raking the building with fire from missile tubes and the front mounted Gatling gun. Then they were out of my line of sight.
I crawled to Grace, who was crying softly, and touched her face. I put my arms around her and said a prayer of thanks.
“I’ve got you, baby,” I said.
“We’ve got inbound aircraft,” Andrea said calmly. “Hold onto your butts.” We went into a sharp climb and I was pushed against Grace. She wrapped her arms around my neck tightly.
Beneath us the Cobra shot forward to attack the enemy.
“I’ve got AAA fire from the rooftops! Hawk, you got that?” Andrea shouted.
“I’m on it,” Hawk said in my ear.
We were thrown left and I clung tightly to the mesh webbing.
“Hold on, Grace. We’re gonna be okay,” I told her.
Yellow tracer rounds zipped past and bursts of small explosions peppered the air nearby, then stopped abruptly. Through the front cockpit window I could see the mountains coming up fast.
“Got a fast mover inbound!” Hawk said. “Engaging.”
“Sweet Mother of God,” Andrea said. “They’ve got jets?”
An angry alarm sounded from the cockpit. “They’ve got missile lock,” Andrea said. “Countermeasures!” The Black Hawk dipped and flares whooshed from tubes to try to trick the heat seeking missiles.
“One tango down,” Hawk said over the radio.
We crested the first of the mountains.
“You’ve got one on your six!” Hawk yelled. The alarm blared again.
“I know, damn it! He’s too fast.”
“Dive!”
The helicopter went nose down abruptly and I tumbled forward, barely catching my boot in the rubber meshing. Grace was screaming in my ear.
The Black Hawk began to spin crazily.
“We’re hit! My tail rotor is out!”
We were out of control and moving fast and then the helicopter smashed into the side of a mountain.
*
Smoke and fear and the foul smell of jet fuel engulfed me in the oily darkness of the shattered Black Hawk. Small arms clung tightly to my neck, and I caught a whisper of jasmine in Grace’s hair, my chin resting on her crown. I was disoriented, not sure which way was up or how to get out, but for a moment, knowing she was alive was enough.
Still holding her to my chest, I tried sitting up. We were at the rear of the aircraft and I heard groans and a wet sucking sound, a wheezing sigh woven together with a keening moan like a desolate winter wind. I pushed with my legs and groped forward with one hand, pulling myself away from the rear in a morbid backstroke. I climbed over someone warm and unprotesting, and then strong hands were pulling me with force. The cockpit was mangled and Andrea sat hunched forward with her face crushed against the sparking control panel. Grace and I rolled through the open door and my feet found the snow covered ground.
“Can you walk?” Chilli asked.
“Yeah. Shaky is all, I think.”
“We need to get out of here quick.”
“The others?” We were laboring through the snow away from the burning helicopter, Grace clinging to my chest like a monkey.
“Max made it, but he’s bleeding badly. One of the other guys is still alive, but he’s a goner. We don’t have time for him.”
“You hurt?”
“You know I’ve got nine lives,” Chilli said. “I’ve still got a couple left.” Max materialized in front of me and nodded grimly, with a blood covered right hand pressed hard against his shoulder.
We were climbing steadily uphill in wet snow that was up to my knees. The slope was barren and exposed, with no trees in sight.
“My comm is down. Where is Hawk?” I asked.
“He’s going to extract us when he shakes the F-16.”
“We’re sitting ducks out here.” “We've gotta try to make that ridge line. Hopefully any pursuit will assume we bought it in the crash.”
I looked back down the mountain, appalled by the scant hundred yards we had placed between us and the crash site. The Black Hawk chose that moment to explode, and I threw myself forward, pressing Grace’s back into the snow, trying to shield her. A quick series of smaller blasts followed. Helicopter parts rained down.
“Hawk took out the jet with a sidewinder,” Chilli said. “I’d like to know how he pulled that off. He downed two jets with a Cobra.” He paused, cocking his head. “He’s coming, and so are they.”
We struggled uphill and I heard and felt the Cobra before I saw it; it rumbled directly overhead, the rotor wash icy and welcome, and then the sound changed, becoming higher pitched.
“He spotted us,” Chilli said. “He’s touching down on the ridge.”
It took an eternity to reach the small plateau, knowing we were being hunted with every hard fought step.
“Where’s Momma?” Grace seemed lethargic, and I feared a concussion.
“You’ll see her real soon, honey, I promise.”
The roar of the Cobra grew louder. We crested the rise, and Hawk was standing next to the helicopter, motioning with his arms urgently.
He held his arms out in front of him and I couldn’t hear what he was screaming at first.
“…..her to me! I can take you and Grace,” Hawk was yelling over the thud of the rotor blades and the whine of the engine. “Chilli and Max are going to have to hump it. No room and no fuel.”
I leaned closer to him. “Max is wounded,” I said loudly. “He’s going to bleed out. Take him and Grace.” Hawk did not argue, but pried Grace from my arms while Chilli barked at Max.
“Daddy no! Don’t leave me,” she wailed, clutching uselessly at my smock. I hated myself.
“Daddy loves you!” I yelled, and I gave her what I hoped was a reassuring squeeze on her hand as Hawk wrenched her from me and whisked her into the tiny cockpit of the Cobra. She wriggled and fought and stretched out her tiny hands, imploring to me, but it was like trying to catch the wind. I stood numbly and helplessly in the frigid night, watching her palms press desperately against the cockpit, and knowing she felt betrayed and abandoned, that it was my fault, and there was nothing I could do but watch. I could see her crying out for me but I could not hear her.
“Take cover on the other side of this ridge!” Hawk shouted. “There’s a tree line there. I’ll try to lead them off. Move fast!”
In the swirling maelstrom of snow blasted by the rotor blades and the thrum and roar of the engines, I stood still as stone as I watched her go, ignoring Chilli’s urgent tugging on my sleeve. I watched the night take my daughter, watched the helicopter dwindle to nothing, and then there was just the stillness and the shame. The cry of a wolf pierced the night then, plaintive, sad and lonely at first, but his voice was joined by his pack until the anguished echoes seemed to become one thing, a howling chorus which defied the dark.