Vortex by Catherine Coulter

Olivia

Balad Military Hospital

Balad, Iraq

Near the Tigris River

Present, seven years later

Her name was Olivia and she was alive. She could feel her chest rhythmically lift and fall, the quiet pull of her own breath. She didn’t know where she was, but it didn’t seem important. She felt cradled in a thick heavy thick fog that seemed to breathe with her. She knew there was something beyond the fog; she heard disembodied voices speaking above her, and her name. She saw jumbled images, some blurred, some stark, faces flashing by, set and hard, and movement, so much movement. She didn’t resist them, she wanted to absorb each of them, so she let them settle in and roll like a home movie on a scratchy old projector.

She was with her team in Sumar, Iran, a city devastated in an Iraqi chemical attack many years before, desolate still. The few people she saw looked at them with apathy, even though the team was heavily armed. There were four of them, all wearing dark brown fatigues and caps, assault rifles strapped across their backs, magazines X’ed across their chests like banditos, grenades, Semtex, and timers strapped to their waists. She saw three canteens of water hanging from her belt, a sat phone snug in her breast pocket. She knew there were satellites overhead, watching them, always watching.

The film rolled on, jerky, starting and stalling, and there was no sound, only harsh images of a bleak plateau with the Zagros Mountains beyond, overwhelming with their stark, jagged outcrops of rocks spearing into the sky. Her teammates were talking but she couldn’t hear them, couldn’t remember what they’d said.

She wanted to see the film through, understand all those images, and wondered if she could be in charge, become the narrator. So she whispered into the fog, “We’re trotting along in a single file at a steady brisk pace, but it’s so hot it’s hard to breathe. Soon all of us are panting, pausing often to drink. I feel sweat running down my back, sticky and hot, feel my body protesting the steady climb over the endless jagged rocks and scattered boulders, loose underfoot, ready to twist or break an ankle. I try to avoid thick ugly brambles with their sharp thorns to rake to the bone, raise my hand to warn the others to be careful. At least if anyone’s looking for us, it will be hard to pick us out from our surroundings, we blend so well. I wonder how it can still be so hot when it should be dark in an hour.

“I hear a noise. It’s my sat phone beeping and I raise my hand. Everyone stops, and I see them bending over, breathing deep, drinking water like camels. The static is fierce, but I hear our station chief saying Hashem, the man we’re here to take out with us, is on the run, Iranian soldiers in pursuit. I wonder how they could know he was here, be on him so fast, but I know if he can only get to us, we might still get him back to Sumar and to the Iraqi border under the cover of night.”

The film stalled, she felt her head swimming, but she needed to go on.

“I must find a high rock to see exactly how close Hashem is to us, how close the soldiers are to him. I know they want to kill him, and so does he. I hear the whomp whomp of helicopters in the distance. My heart jumps. They could kill us all in a second if they see us. At least there’s only one track through the Zagros Mountains large enough for vehicles of any kind, and Hashem is well north of it.

“I climb up a jagged mess of boulders, slip into a narrow crevice, and raise my binoculars. All I see is bleak and hostile land, full of impossible cliffs and narrow passages and plunging drops into rock-strewn gullies. I see Hashem. He’s dressed like a herdsman, his robe flapping as he runs, highlighted by the setting sun behind me. I don’t think he’ll make it.

“There’s a beep again—my sat phone. All I hear is ABORT. I pretend there’s static and flip off the phone. We all realize there’s been a breach, the Iranian soldiers know we’re here, but we agree we’re not going to let Hashem be taken. We run all out, we’re only fifty yards away, but it’s tough going. The soldiers see us and fire, their bullets kicking up dirt and rocks all around us. We dive for cover and fire back, trying to keep the soldiers pinned back to give Hashem a chance to get to us. Bullets ricochet off the rocks around us, and the noise of the automatic weapons is deafening. It’s hard to breathe the dust is so thick.

“Hashem is close, he’s nearly to us when he’s hit and he falls. Mike’s closest. He runs to him, throws him over his shoulder while the three of us cover them, changing magazines and firing again and again, kicking up air full of dirt and flying shards of rock. Mike runs back through a narrow gully toward the plateau, and we follow, firing as we run. I run to Mike and try to help stanch the horrible wound in Hashem’s chest. I wonder why he wasn’t shot in the back since he was running away from them. I suppose he must have turned to see how far back they were, and a soldier nailed him. He’s heaving, blood bubbling out of his mouth, but he’s desperately trying to talk, and Mike and I both lean closer. But I know it’s no good. I hear Andi yelling at me and I have to leave Mike and scramble up to higher ground to join them, and we take cover behind a mess of boulders until we can see the first of the soldiers follow us into the narrow gully single file. We fire and several fall. They can’t reach us that way. They back off.

“I mold Semtex, flatten it into a crevice of a rock, set a three-minute timer, and let it roll down into the gully. I see Mike running with Hashem over his shoulder, and I see Higgs and Andi, their faces smeared with dirt, their eyes hard and clear, and we run all out after Mike. Bullets slam into a boulder next to me, close, too close. I feel a rock chip strike my arm, and I stumble. I hear the explosion—hear screams and shouts and I know the Semtex has done its job. Andi helps me up and we keep running, bent nearly double. The helicopter sounds closer, but it’s getting dark, and I’m afraid they might have trouble seeing us. Mike yells our man is dead but he’s not going to leave him and Higgs yells, ‘RPG!’

“I see the grenade coming, hear Mike’s shout, and then there’s white, so much white it’s blinding and I can’t see anything else, can’t hear anything. There’s only noise, like a film feed slapping a projector wheel that keeps whirling.”

Olivia didn’t realize her heart rate and blood pressure were spiking, didn’t realize her monitors and medical staff were making that noise, close to her, very close.