But darkness prevailed.
His body continued rocketing upward, gaining momentum like an air-filled drum. Finally, it exploded into the sunlight and splashed into the sea, settling facedown, arms and legs askew in the way dead men float, and was carried off by the current.
The captain had brought the Foxtrot to the surface. An ordnance specialist stood next to him on the bridge shouldering an RPG-7 ground to ground mobile rocket launcher.
“Fire when ready,” the captain ordered calmly.
The ordnance specialist pressed his face to the eyepiece and squeezed the trigger.
The RPG-7 rocket came from the launcher with a deadly whoosh, and darted into the fuselage of Churcher’s helicopter.
A violent explosion erupted.
For an instant, a brilliant flash, yellow-orange at the center and framed by a purple-green halo that came from the chopper’s fuel expanded above the sea in silence. Then came the sound as the thundering fireball completely incinerated what a millisecond earlier had been a twelve-thousand-pound helicopter.
Pieces of the chopper spiked through the air in every direction. Long trajectories arced over the sea. Chunks of flaming debris plunged into the water, emitting puffs of steam.
The captain nodded to the ordnance specialist, then turned to the first officer and said, “Take her down.”
Deschin and the others were waiting below in the Foxtrot’s control room.
“It’s done,” the captain reported evenly, as he came off the ladder from the bridge, pushing his pipe between his teeth in a self-satisfied gesture.
Deschin nodded thoughtfully. “Shame,” he said. “Churcher should have listened to his board of directors.”
The others looked at him quizzically, as Deschin knew they would.
“He once told me they didn’t like him flying to the drilling platforms,” Deschin explained. “They were concerned one day he would crash.”
He said it coldly, without emotion, a simple statement of fact, and of what he had calculated would be perceived should the wreckage of the helicopter or Churcher’s body — without a bullet in it — be found.
The men gathered round him nodded smugly.
Deschin swept their faces with disapproving eyes. “He was a son of a bitch,” he said. “But he was my friend.” He turned and walked slowly from the control room, lighting a cigarette.
The Foxtrot was well below the surface when Churcher’s hand bumped into the piece of floating wreckage. He was semiconscious but could feel the smooth aluminum and instinctively crawled onto the large section of paneling from the chopper’s belly. The foamed plastic core had enough buoyancy to keep him afloat. He began coughing violently, and returned a chestful of water to the sea.
Chapter Fourteen
In the cemetery on the hill overlooking Christ Episcopal Church, a few mourners stood, heads bowed above scarf-wrapped necks, while the minister recited final words over Sarah Winslow’s coffin.
Melanie lingered as the group dispersed, and watched as her mother was lowered into ground frozen harder and deeper than the diggers could remember. She stood alone between the side-by-side graves of her parents, hoping that the minister was right — that at this very moment their souls were being joyously reunited — though she found it difficult to believe in a Hereafter for herself.
The doctor also remained. He moved forward from behind the flower-covered grave where he had been standing unobtrusively.
“Give you a lift?” he offered in a friendly voice.
“Thanks, no,” Melanie replied. “I think I’ll walk. It’s such a beautiful morning, and I—” she paused, and shrugged halfheartedly.
He nodded that he understood.
“I was with your mother,” the doctor said. “It was peaceful. She just fell asleep. Before she did, she asked me to make sure you got this.” He removed the envelope from his pocket and handed it to Melanie, adding, “It was her last conscious thought.”
Melanie accepted the envelope without looking at it, and smiled appreciatively. “Thanks again,” she said. “Thank you for being with her.”
She turned, and meandered down the narrow road, between the headstones, out of the cemetery, and past the white clapboard church that nestled in the snow-blanketed hills.
Moments from her years in this wholesome place came to mind while she walked — fleeting glimpses of eating homemade ice cream on summer nights in the lawn glider, galloping on her chestnut colt through fields of wildflowers, her parents glowing with pride when she danced at a school recital, the rush of passion with her first lover, the train station on the day she left home to audition for a dance company in New York.
She was crossing a field when the chirp of a foraging wren pulled her out of it, and she looked with some surprise at the envelope in her hand. Intrigued, she opened it, and began reading the letter her mother had written so long ago.
January, 15, 1946
Dearest,
I have something wonderful to share with you! Just before Christmas, I gave birth to a beautiful little girl. She’s pink and blue-eyed, and has wispy silken hair. We named her Melanie. Of course, Zachary believes her to be his, and I have said nothing to the contrary. But I’m certain she is really yours, and wanted you to know.
I have no doubt of this because I discovered that I was pregnant on the hospital ship taking us home. Funny, we hit some rough weather just after we left, and everyone was seasick. Lord knows, at first, I thought I was, too. But only in the morning? Every morning? For weeks? Even after the seas had calmed?
Your daughter is healthy, with straight, strong bones, and has her father’s face when she grins. We’re all happy, and living in a perfectly wonderful cottage that Zachary built for us.
I hope you’re happy, too. I think about you, and wonder what you’re doing. Are you still in Italy? Will you return to Rome and resume your studies at the university? I hope so. I want so much for this to reach you. I’m sending it under your code name, as I know the military personnel in the sector know you by it, rather than your own. How could they ever forget you? I know, I won’t.
As ever,
Sarah
P.S. How could we have known they’d ever find us?
Oh, I’m so happy to be alive!
Melanie was stunned by the revelation. The words rang like a bell clapper that wouldn’t stop. She sat on the trunk of a fallen tree and read it again, and then again. And then, again, after she resumed walking. She didn’t feel the cold. She didn’t feel anything except an overwhelming loneliness.
A vague recollection of her mother’s face came to her, and as it sharpened Melanie saw Sarah’s cheerful countenance replaced by a rather queer, unsettled look. Her father’s brother had been the cause of it, she recalled. Uncle Wallace often joined them for Sunday dinner, and on one such occasion he kept remarking how much his ten-year-old niece resembled her father. And each time he said it, Sarah’s face took on the strange expression. It made Melanie uncomfortable at the time, and she purposely didn’t dwell on it. But it had stayed with her all these years, and now, she understood why.
She had turned into the drive, and was walking through the glade of pines toward the cottage when a gust of wind caught the envelope and scooped it from her grasp. It inflated, and sailed through the air — then, swooping down, danced, pinwheeling across the frozen snow. Melanie chased after it, the pages of the letter fluttering in her hand, her boots crunching through the hard skin of white between the trees. Almost within reach, the envelope suddenly sailed upward and snagged amidst the twigs of a bare hawthorn. Melanie slipped her hand between the branches and carefully picked the envelope from the thorns. Then, she sensed a presence and looked up.