He could see she wanted to cry, but that she was afraid. Afraid of what, he didn’t know, so he just talked.
“Amanda, for the last four years I’ve seen you struggle with this issue about your father. At times, I can almost see a star-struck daddy’s girl deep inside of you, though you never let it out. Mostly, though, you are hateful and spiteful towards him, even manipulative.”
“That’s not true,” she said, pushing away to emphasize the point.
“I think your grandmother and mother have made you the point man in their fight against your father. That’s not a fight any sane person would want.”
“My grandmother helped raise me in his absence.”
“Maybe, but don’t you think you owe it to yourself to learn something about him? Maybe honor him just a bit. After all, you only die once.”
Amanda stepped away. “I know everything I need to know about my biological father. Everything!”
Jake lowered his head. “I’m just trying to help here.”
A long moment of silence passed between them. The hummingbirds continued their yo-yo around the small pool of water. The wind tossed Amanda’s highlighted hair, and the sun shone in a single ray through the forest canopy behind Jake’s head.
The shrill voice of Nina Hastings pierced the moment. “Amanda, telephone!” Jake shook his head slowly.
“I’ve gotta go deal with this. The army guy told my mom he needed me to sign some paperwork. Something about insurance.”
“Okay, go do your thing, Amanda. Just remember, I’m trying to make us better, and you need to work with me to do that.”
“You’re being naïve, Jake. You weren’t there when all of this happened.”
Jake looked at her. “Were you?”
Amanda walked away, saying, “Don’t cause a fight anymore than you have, Jake. This is not your business.”
“Amanda, phone!” Nina’s echoing squawk was the shrill call of an angry shepherd.
Jake kicked at the underbrush as Amanda walked past the pool, up the deck steps, and then disappeared into the backdoor of the house. Amanda was the first and only love in his young life. He enjoyed curling her up into his arms for hours as they mapped out their future together. But now, he was beginning to see — no, had seen for a long time — an unseemly materialistic side to her.
She’d been taught to believe that love was a wisp of air, and that money and things were forever. Did she really love him, he wondered? Or were they together just because he was the quarterback and she was beautiful?
CHAPTER 8
Sergeant Eversoll parked Colonel Garrett’s Humvee next to the headquarters building at the old air base. The location had been a MiG fighter base during the Soviet Afghan invasion. The invaders had constructed some rudimentary cinderblock buildings, which now served as respectable makeshift headquarters for the Joint Task Force.
He was exhausted from two days of participating in the search for remains of the fallen soldiers. They had collected either actual remains, pieces of bone mostly, or the identification tags of all but one soldier. Sergeant Honeywell was unaccounted for and was listed as duty status whereabouts unknown, or DUSTWUN in Army acronym parlance. Eversoll wondered about Honeywell, one of his closer friends in the unit, as he locked up the vehicle and walked into the command headquarters.
He unsnapped his helmet and dumped it on the ratty chair that sat outside Colonel Garrett’s office, then walked in. The large window splashed the 6 a.m. sunlight across the dusty room. An old desk, two equally ratty chairs, and a table were situated around the room. Eversoll walked past the desk, eyeing the pictures of Colonel Garrett’s daughter scattered about in different frames, and stopped at the wall with a large map of Afghanistan spread from side to side. He ran his hand absently along the terrain he knew so well, the very area where Colonel Garrett’s helicopter had crashed.
“Hard to believe, isn’t it, son?”
Eversoll quickly turned and stood to attention at the sound of Major General Jack Rampert’s voice. He saw Rampert standing just inside the office, holding a combat helmet under his arm. Rampert’s bristly gray hair covered his head like shaved porcupine quills.
“Yes, sir,” Eversoll responded. Then he added, “Actually, I don’t believe it.”
“You don’t believe that he’s dead, or you refuse to believe it?” Rampert’s voice was crisp and authoritative. It was the voice of someone well practiced in the command of soldiers in tough situations.
Eversoll walked away from the map and toward the desk. He was about ten feet from Rampert. “Sir, let’s just say I need more than a dog tag to go by.”
“They found both of them, Sergeant Eversoll. That isn’t good enough?”
Rampert knew Eversoll from spending time with Colonel Garrett during so many long missions through lonely nights waiting for situation reports. Sometimes senior leaders got to know quite well the young men who drove, answered radios for, and protected leaders such as Garrett as they led the Army. Rampert respected Eversoll’s relationship with Colonel Garrett. The conversation was not confrontational; rather, it was intended as comforting.
“I understand what you’re saying, sir. Maybe I’m in denial; I don’t know. But you always tell us to use our instincts, and something just doesn’t feel right about this.” Eversoll lowered his eyes, unable to hold the general’s gaze. Maybe he was in denial. Maybe he was not being honest with himself.
“Come here, son. Follow me.” Rampert turned and walked toward the hallway.
Five minutes later, Sergeant Eversoll found himself in the bowels of the Joint Task Force headquarters. He was standing with Major General Rampert in a windowless room. Two large plasma television screens sat atop a long table. Eversoll thought to himself that it looked like a small home movie theater. The general motioned him into one of the comfortable-looking chairs.
“On the left, Sergeant, you will see the unmanned aerial vehicle video of the action that night. On the right will be the AC-130 video.”
“Rampage.” Eversoll’s voice was a whisper. He wasn’t sure he was prepared for this. Wouldn’t he rather live with the slim hope, however misguided, that his boss had somehow miraculously survived the explosion of the helicopter? It was too late. As he was pondering the notion of getting up and walking out, Kill TV, as the soldiers called it, began to show on both screens. They called it that because typically they were watching their team kill the Taliban or AQ in large numbers. Reviewing this reversal of fortune was not supposed to be part of the moniker.
“You can see there, we’ve got heavy fire on the landing zone, with the first aircraft taking a hit in the tail rotor engine housing.” Rampert used a green laser pointer to circle the MH-47’s smoking tail rotor. He shifted to the AC-130 gun tape. “Here, you see Rampage laying down heavy 105 suppressive fire.”
Eversoll remembered sitting in his Humvee listening to the fight. So far this tracked with what he knew. Though, it was different seeing it actually happen.
“Here you see Jergens falling out of the aircraft as it lands, then pulls up. We lose him for about twenty seconds because of the whiteout from the snow. Watch.”
Sure enough, the helicopter was kicking snow high into the air. The twin rotors pushed down and then pulled up the snow, creating a white cloud that surrounded the helicopter and everything within one hundred feet. Eversoll knew that pilots called this whiteout, and he absently wondered how they could possibly control an aircraft in those conditions. These Special Forces pilots were good; he knew that much. Watching this video, he saw they had to be. He could not see the aircraft or Jergens.