Chapter 3 - The Black Hawk in the Rain
Avery had treated wounded people beneath mortar fire, inside overturned vehicles, and on the floor of an aircraft losing altitude over enemy territory.
None of those memories prepared her for Nathan’s voice beside her.
“We need to move.”
She looked at the silver case.
“Not until that temperature drops.”
Bullets struck the wreckage.
Sergeant Cole shouted from outside. “Multiple shooters coming down the ridge!”
Avery examined the case’s damaged cooling unit. A round had pierced the outer housing, but the inner container appeared intact.
“Nathan, find me dry ice, liquid nitrogen, anything cold.”
“In a burning aircraft?”
“The emergency oxygen system.”
He understood.
Compressed oxygen released rapidly could lower the temperature around the case, though it would not last long.
Nathan crawled into the rear compartment while Avery treated the surviving pilot. His abdomen was rigid, his pulse weak.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Lieutenant Harlan.”
“Stay with me, Harlan.”
“Trying, ma’am.”
She inserted a needle into his abdomen and confirmed internal bleeding.
He needed surgery.
Everyone in that ravine needed something Avery did not have.
Cole appeared at the opening.
“We can hold them ten minutes.”
“You’ll hold them fifteen.”
“Ma’am—”
“Fifteen.”
Cole smiled grimly. “There she is.”
Nathan returned carrying two emergency oxygen cylinders.
Together they built a crude cooling chamber around the case using a thermal blanket and tubing torn from the aircraft.
The temperature stopped at thirty-nine.
Then began to fall.
Avery exhaled.
A trapped operator groaned beneath a collapsed support beam.
Avery moved toward him.
Nathan caught her hand.
“We need to talk.”
“You had four years.”
“I was ordered—”
“You volunteered.”
His silence confirmed it.
She pulled free.
“Lift the beam.”
They worked without speaking.
Nathan had once known every expression on her face. Now he could not tell whether she wanted to hit him or collapse against him. Perhaps both.
They freed the operator and carried him toward the extraction helicopter.
Gunfire intensified.
The enemy force had reached the ravine.
Cole’s team fired from behind rocks and fallen trees. Mercer coordinated the defense while calling for air support that was still twenty minutes away.
“We don’t have twenty minutes,” Nathan said.
Avery looked uphill.
The shooters moved with military discipline. They were not thieves or mercenaries hired at random. They knew the crash site, the terrain, and exactly what they were trying to retrieve.
Someone had planned the ambush.
Someone who knew Raven Six’s route.
Someone connected to Oak Creek Memorial.
Avery remembered Vale’s final words.
They knew you were there.
The hospital had not been a hiding place.
It had been bait.
“We’re leaving,” Avery said. “Now.”
Mercer shook his head. “We cannot abandon classified material.”
“We’re taking it.”
“The enemy can track the aircraft.”
“Then we make them think the case stayed behind.”
Nathan understood first.
He removed the case’s damaged outer shell and placed it beside Vale’s body. Avery transferred the sealed inner container into an insulated blood-transport cooler from her medical pack.
It looked ordinary.
Disposable.
Easy to overlook.
They loaded the wounded aboard the extraction helicopter.
Cole remained at the wreckage with two operators to create a defensive retreat.
Avery climbed aboard with the cooler between her feet.
Nathan entered last.
As the Black Hawk rose, enemy gunfire followed them through the trees.
A round shattered one window.
Another struck the fuselage.
The pilot banked hard.
Harlan cried out as his blood pressure fell.
Avery worked over him while Nathan held the IV bag above his head.
“You told them I died,” he said.
She did not look up.
“They gave me your ring and half a coffin.”
“I wanted to come home.”
“But you didn’t.”
“If I had contacted you, the network would have killed you.”
“You made that decision for me.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“Protection without consent is imprisonment.”
Harlan’s monitor weakened.
Avery opened his abdomen with field instruments while the helicopter shook around her.
Nathan stared.
He had seen her work before, but not like this. Four years had changed her. Grief had not weakened her. It had burned away everything unnecessary.
She found the bleeding vessel and clamped it.
Harlan’s pressure slowly improved.
Only then did Avery look at Nathan.
“You do not get to ask for forgiveness while I’m holding someone’s artery closed.”
He nodded.
“Fair.”
The helicopter approached Oak Creek at dawn.
Rain covered the valley.
The hospital parking lot remained damaged from the first Black Hawk’s arrival, but military vehicles now surrounded the building. Federal agents guarded each entrance.
As they landed, Avery saw something that made her uneasy.
Marlene stood beneath the ambulance awning speaking to a man in a dark coat.
When the helicopter touched down, the man walked away.
Avery jumped to the pavement.
“Who was that?” she asked.
Marlene crossed her arms. “A federal investigator.”
“Name?”
“He did not introduce himself to me.”
Avery turned to Mercer.
“Did you send anyone ahead?”
“No.”
The man in the dark coat reached a black SUV.
Avery shouted, “Stop him!”
He drew a pistol.
The parking lot erupted.
Operators fired as the SUV accelerated through the security barrier. It struck an ambulance and spun sideways, but the driver regained control and disappeared onto the access road.
Marlene stood frozen.
Avery grabbed her shoulders.
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing.”
“What did he ask?”
“He wanted to know whether you had returned.”
“Did you answer?”
“I assumed he was authorized.”
Avery released her.
“That assumption may kill people.”
They rushed the wounded inside.
Harlan went directly to surgery. The contaminated container was moved into a sealed laboratory room while military specialists assembled a temporary cooling system.
Avery ordered blood tests for everyone from the crash site.
Dr. Graham Vance approached wearing protective equipment.
“I prepared the isolation wing.”
“Good.”
“I also reviewed the security cameras.”
Avery stopped.
“The man in the parking lot entered the hospital four days ago.”
“Why?”
“He met with Marlene.”
Marlene’s face drained of color.
“That is impossible.”
Graham held up a tablet.
The image showed Marlene inside her office speaking to the same man.
The timestamp was clear.
Marlene stared at the screen.
“I don’t remember that.”
Avery looked at her pupils, her breathing, the tremor in her hands.
“Sit down.”
“I am fine.”
“Sit.”
Marlene obeyed.
Avery examined the inside of her elbow.
A small puncture mark hid beneath a bruise.
“You were drugged,” Avery said.
Marlene’s anger dissolved into fear.
“When?”
“Most likely during that meeting. Something that interferes with memory.”
Tessa entered carrying laboratory results.
Her face was pale.
“Avery, you need to see this.”
The blood tests from the crash survivors showed no active infection.
But one sample from the hospital did.
The patient was Ryan Caldwell.
The young man Avery had saved after the highway collision.
His blood contained antibodies to the engineered agent.
That meant Ryan had been exposed before the helicopter ever crashed.
Avery hurried to his room.
Ryan lay unconscious after abdominal surgery, connected to a ventilator. A police officer guarded the door.
Avery reviewed his chart.
The laboratory values did not make sense. His injuries were real, but some of his blood had been drawn before he arrived at Oak Creek.
A preprinted identification label had been placed over another label on the specimen tube.
She peeled it back.
Beneath Ryan’s name was a military serial number.
Nathan entered behind her.
He saw the number and stopped.
“That belongs to a man on my team.”
“Which man?”
“Evan Rusk.”
“Was he on Raven Six?”
Nathan shook his head.
“He disappeared two months ago.”
Avery looked at Ryan.
“What connection does Rusk have to this patient?”
Nathan moved closer.
“Ryan Caldwell isn’t a random crash victim.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Caldwell was the name Evan used during the operation.”
The unconscious young man opened his eyes.
He pulled the breathing tube from his mouth with shocking strength, seized the police officer’s weapon, and aimed it at Avery.
Nathan stepped in front of her.
Ryan smiled through bloodstained teeth.
May you like
“You were easier to find than we expected, Colonel.”
Then the hospital lights went out.
