First Team [First Team 01] Page 42

  The chute stalled, and Ferg’s hand slipped off the toggle; the two men sailed forward, stopped in the air, sailed forward again, rocking crookedly as they descended.

  ~ * ~

  T

  he boat jerked to life as the parachute opened. Rankin realized what was going on—it had been sent to retrieve the pilot of the 747.

  Rankin pulled up his Uzi, checking it to make sure it was ready, while Guns did the same with his MP-5 in the back.

  Above and to the west, the terrorists’ flying dirty bomb veered toward the empty ocean, arcing on its left wing. Black smoke trailed from the belly of the plane. Blackness enveloped the underside. Something flew off the plane—its right wing, shattered by cannon fire from the F/A-18 and sheared off by the violent aerodynamic forces as it plunged. The plane put down its nose like an otter, diving into a lake; then it plunged into the water, breaking up as it hit and disappearing in a cloud of steam.

  “The chute,” Rankin told the chopper pilot. “They’re almost in the water. Go. We want to take the boat out before it gets there. Go!”

  ~ * ~

  W

  hen they hit the water, Ferguson felt his stomach explode, ice and vomit crashing together in his mouth. In the next second he was underwater. His fingers fumbled to release the belt and strap, tearing at the metal locks impotently. Desperate to breathe, he pulled his right hand free, then tore at the harness. Caught by the wind, the chute pulled away, bringing him to the surface, then dying back down as it filled. Ferguson managed to undo it from Conners first, then kicked and got his leg out as the chute pulled away. He fell below into the darkness of the cold water, still attached to Conners by his belt. He pushed upward, feeling Conners kick as well. Fresh air hit his eyes; he gulped and got only a little water in his mouth.

  There was a boat nearby, a hull or something—Ferguson started to push toward it but a swell caught him from behind and smashed him back down.

  ~ * ~

  R

  ankin and Guns stood in the helicopter, emptying their guns at the occupants of the boat. One of the men brought up a shoulder-launched SAM just as Rankin started to reload. The American slammed home the fresh clip, and in the same motion pressed the trigger of the gun; the Uzi hiccuped, then splattered into the terrorist, who had raised the missile, sending both flying backward into the ocean.

  “They’re there, they’re there!” yelled Guns, and in the next second he’d whipped off his boots and jumped from the helo, the spray strong in his face as he left the bird. He took two powerful strokes after he surfaced, grabbed Conners by the chest, and pulled. The sergeant felt heavier than he’d thought, but two strong kicks brought them to the stern of the boat, which was slowly taking on water from the bottom.

  Rankin, not as a strong a swimmer, was just pulling himself up the other side. Ferguson pushed Conners up on deck and found himself being dragged there as well. The Filipino helicopter swung in an orbit around them as an F/A-18 whipped overhead.

  Released from the belt, Ferguson flopped on his back in the open speedboat, not sure whether he was alive or dead or dreaming. Guns and Rankin pulled Conners to the back, propping his head on a cushion as they worked to revive him.

  For all four men, time had ceased to exist. The past and the present and the future swelled in the spray of the waves, churning in an endless moment that had no boundaries. And then one by one they fell from it, coming back to human time, human hurt, human triumph and fear—all except Conners.

  Ferg didn’t understand at first. His hearing had come back in his left ear, though not his right, and when Guns told him, he shook his head, thinking he didn’t quite get it.

  “Dad’s gone, Ferg. He was too shot up,” said the soldier.

  “He was alive on the plane,” said Ferguson, who wanted that to make a difference.

  Guns shook his head and shrugged. Tears were slipping from his eyes.

  “He was fucking alive,” said Ferg.

  ~ * ~

  ~ * ~

  1

  SUBURBAN NEW JERSEY—SIX DAYS LATER

  Corrine felt the tears starting to come even before the monsignor approached the lectern at the side of the altar. Like many of those crowded into the large church, the monsignor had known the Conners family for decades, and when he talked of the sergeant, still remembered him as a young man. The priest’s words weren’t elegant, but they came from the heart; he spoke of sacrifice and duty, and he illustrated those qualities with things he had seen Conners do himself. Even Van Buren, sitting next to Corrine, felt tears forming in his eyes.

  As Rankin and Ferguson got up to join Conners’s relatives and friends bearing their comrade from the church, Corrine noticed that Ferguson had an odd smile on his face. She thought to herself that he was a cold creature, a man so out of touch with his emotions that he couldn’t cry. His eyes met hers. She shook her head; he smiled and seemed to wink at her.

  Rankin had found a real trumpeter to play taps at the cemetery, but there was a surprise waiting next to the tarped pile of dirt when they reached the graveyard—a bagpiper, who played two songs, one a dirge, the other closer to a jig. And then one by one the mourners went to the grave, tossing their flowers.

  Ferguson was the last to go to the grave. He knelt and slipped a bottle from his pocket.

  “For you, Dad,” he said, sliding the whiskey gently down to lie at Conners’s head. He looked back as he walked away, part of him truly expecting that Conners would pull a real-life Finnegan and rise from the grave.

  In the car, Corrine took out her sat phone and checked for messages. One had come from Corrigan—the Team was needed for a briefing ASAP. The war against terror knew no days off.

  “My car’s at the airport,” she told Rankin and Guns. “I can drive you over.”

  “Sounds good,” said Rankin. Van Buren had already offered him a lift, but he preferred riding with her.

  “Hey, what about Ferg?” said Guns.

  “What about him?” said Rankin. “He was with one of the cousins. They gave him a lift.”

  “He know where we’re going?” asked Guns.

  “Call him,” Corrine said.

  Rankin made a face, but took out his phone. Ferg’s voice mail answered, and he left the message.

  ~ * ~

  A

  n hour after he left the cemetery, Ferguson strode into the bar that Conners had told him about while they were on their mission in Chechnya. Its wood-lined walls were thick with the accumulation of nearly a century’s worth of tobacco smoke, and the polished surface of the bar had heard a million tales of glory and misery. It was only one o’clock in the afternoon, but the place already had a decent crowd. There was a lively buzz in the air, the sort of sound that made Ferg glad his hearing had come back.

  “Two shots whiskey, neat, both of ‘em,” Ferg said, pulling his wallet. “Beer chasers—make it Guinny,” he said, pointing at the Guinness tap.

  As the bartender poured the drinks, Ferguson took a tape out of his pocket.

  “I wonder if you’d play this for a friend of mine,” Ferg told him.

  The bartender took the tape and looked at it quizzically. He was an older man, and he’d heard much stranger requests than this, so he shrugged and went over to the tape deck, putting in.

  Liam Clancy’s voice filled the bar, off an old album Ferguson’s sister had tracked down for him. Ferg raised his shot glass and turned to the room, adding his own to Clancy’s as he came to the final verse of “Parting Glass”:

  All the comrades that ever I had,

  They’re sorry for my going away

  And all the sweethearts that ever I had

  They wish me one more day to stay.

  But since it falls unto my lot

  That I should rise and you should not

  I’ll gently go and softly call,

  ‘Goodnight and joy be with you all.’

  As the song faded, Ferguson tossed the whiskey down his throat and turned back to the bar. Standing
, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick wad of hundred-dollar bills, withdrawn from his personal account that morning. He spread them out on the bar near the untouched shot glass.

  “No one pays for their own drink today,” he said. “All for the honor of Sergeant Hugh Conners, a braver man you’ll never see.”

  And then he took a last sip from his beer, leaving the glass half-full as he walked out into the cold New Jersey afternoon, alone.