She and Liam could have been a family too. That solid, unshakable unit is something they’d both wanted, but she understood that in some ways it had been even more important for Liam. She exhaled. “Let’s go grab something and we’ll talk this out, okay?”
They sat across from each other at the end of a long rectangular table, away from anyone else. She stayed quiet as Ipman poured his heart out, promising him that this was all off the record. Unless it interfered with his job or he posed a risk to himself or anyone else, none of this needed to be reported. Right now he simply needed someone he trusted to listen to him.
He pushed his food around his plate as he spoke, mostly in bursts as he paused to process everything. He’d eaten around half of his meal when he finally sat back and gave her a brave smile. “I really appreciate you making time for me, ma’am.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said, waving his thanks away. “You’re one of my best soldiers and I care about what happens to you.”
Ipman shook his head slightly, a rueful smile curving his mouth. “Wish Jane was more like you.”
Honor blinked at him. “What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “You get it. You know? What it’s like to be over here, what it’s like to serve and the sacrifices that come with a military life. Jane said she could handle it, but it turns out she can’t, not even close. I think the thing that bothers me most about splitting up is not being able to see my kids whenever I’m home. I know she’ll want to move out of state, be closer to her family. If that happens, I’m not sure when I’ll be able to see the girls, because with me being in the military, the courts sure as shit aren’t going to give me joint custody.”
Or she’ll move to be closer to her boyfriend, Honor thought, wherever he was. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. I thought you were thinking of counseling to start?”
“I go back and forth on that. Part of me wonders what’s the point if Jane’s heart isn’t really in it and she doesn’t love me anymore. But the other part is like, ‘No, no damn way we’re quitting on us’. We’ve got kids to consider. We both made a commitment to each other and we owe it to ourselves to try and fix this. If we loved each other once, we can get there again. Right?”
His expression was so earnest, so filled with hope, that Honor could barely hold his gaze. He had no idea how deep his words cut her. And she was probably the last person on earth he should be looking to for relationship advice.
She couldn’t lie to him about their chances. “As long as she sees it that way, then yes.” Because it took both parties to make a relationship work. A very painful lesson she’d learned the hard way.
The hope in his eyes dimmed. “Right,” he said softly, and focused back on his lunch.
Honor made herself take a bite of hers, thinking as she chewed. “If you want, we’ll get you in to talk to someone off post once we get back. I’ll ask around, see who has the best rep and make sure it’s totally off the record. You can think about it and let me know.”
“Thanks.”
The rest of the meal passed with long lapses of silence interspersed with attempts at happier conversation. Ipman obviously wasn’t in the mood for chitchat and she completely understood so Honor stayed quiet. They walked back to the hangar together. He joined the others to work on the bird while she organized a crew for another job and filled out more paperwork.
She juggled various duties up until dinnertime, then stopped for a break. After she’d eaten and taken more pain meds she went back to check on her guys and was met at the hangar door by a grim-faced Smithers. Honor’s stomach knotted when she saw that look on his face. “What’s wrong?” she demanded.
“You didn’t hear?”
Oh, God. “Hear what?” The other guys were all watching her now too. Her heart started beating faster.
“A 47 went down to enemy fire about an hour ago, with a team of SEALs on board. CSAR’s being dispatched now.”
Oh, no. “Survivors?”
“Don’t know.” His deep brown eyes were full of sympathy. “Word is it’s a SOAR bird.”
Honor blanched, then turned and rushed back to HQ to get more intel.
****
The faintest line of orange highlighted the western horizon as Liam took his Chinook to cruising altitude high above the rugged mountain peaks beneath them. High enough that it pushed the upper limit of the aircraft, and hopefully out of range of AAA or small arms fire, both reported in the area where they were going. A firefight was still ongoing, so they knew there were survivors from the crash. One thousand feet below him flew both the MH-60s escorting them, and the two Apache gunships were out in front.
“Seventeen minutes to the TLZ,” he said over the ICS, alerting his crew and the CSAR team in the back. A platoon of SEALs tasked with the rescue effort of their teammates, as well as two PJs sent along to treat casualties—Cam Munro and Jackson Thatcher, guys he knew.
The taskforce was going in fast and hard to their tactical landing zone at the crash site to help the survivors. He hoped there were many. Once they secured the site they’d evacuate the wounded, recover the dead and destroy sensitive equipment and intel inside the downed Chinook before leaving. The gunships and DAPs would handle any enemy force in the area while Liam handled the insertion, then the SEALs and PJs would take care of business on the ground. No fucking around.
“Hope those boys are giving ‘em hell down there,” Freeman commented from the co-pilot’s seat.
“Yeah.” No one was sure whether any of the flight crew had survived the crash. Liam and his guys knew them all. They’d trained together, shared meals, flown missions together. He didn’t dwell on what might have happened to them; he focused on his job and the promise of getting his fellow Night Stalkers back to Bagram.
The downed Chinook had been flying a SEAL platoon into an area where militants were known to be active. Intelligence officials had traced a warlord they thought was responsible for the brazen attack at Bagram the other day.
The SEALs were supposed to have done a snatch and grab, capturing him so they could use intel gathered from the ensuing interrogation to identify and locate whoever was behind the slick new propaganda campaign fueling trouble in the region. No one was sure who this new player was associated with because he didn’t seem to be affiliated with one particular group, but the intel pointed to him having worked with the infamous terrorist Rahim.
The capture hadn’t happened though. A single RPG round had changed everything in a matter of seconds, turning the mission from what should have been a straightforward capture into a major CSAR operation.
Liam was already doing everything in his power to get backup to them as fast as possible, and the weather was in his favor tonight. Visibility was optimal and the sky was clear as glass, but that also meant they had no concealment. The fading light would help, though the combined noise of all the aircraft would draw any remaining hostiles to the crash site.
As he flew, periodic updates arrived from the ops center: reports on conditions at the drop zone and any other new intel they considered pertinent to the mission. He updated the others. “Ten minutes to target. Latest satellite images show enemy patrols within one hundred meters of the target.” In the back they’d all be checking their gear and his FE would make sure the fast rope was ready to go.
Liam wasn’t going to set down for this one, there wasn’t enough room at the crash site and it was too risky. Once the gunships helped clear some of the enemy fighters he was going to get his guys as close to the crash site as possible, do the insertion then pull back to a safer position until the scene had been secured. Because his bird was their lifeline out of there.