Page 112 of Stolen Faith
Izabel squeezed his hand. “Rowan, you watched the worst moments of my life.”
“And mine,” Brennon said softly.
He nodded. “It’s…bad. I don’t know if you want to hear this story right now.”
“‘Begin at the beginning.’” Brennon was clearly quoting. “‘Go on until you reach the end; then stop.’”
Rowan smiled, but the expression melted away. “It was an SOF extraction op.” Rowan paused as he looked at their expressions. “A ranger team—a special operations force—needed a ride home. They were engaged in a firefight in… Actually, the location is still classified, and it doesn’t matter anyway.
“O-four-thirty, the unit’s command called for extraction. There were reports additional enemy troops were approaching their position. They sent us because we believed the enemy had antiaircraft weaponry.”
“You flew a helicopter into enemy territory to rescue people, knowing you might get shot down.” Izabel took a calming breath and tried not to think about it too hard. “Wait, why send you? Because you’re cannon fodder?”
“Because flying through conditions like that is what I do… What I did. And I’ve had a Mike shot out from under me before.”
“Mike?” Brennon asked.
“Mike is the nickname for MH-60M Black Hawks.”
“You call them ‘Mike’ instead of ‘Black Hawk’?” Brennon’s expression was disgusted.
“MH-60M,” Rowan emphasized.
Brennon scoffed. “I’m sorry, but that’s just wrong. We’re not putting that in the movie.”
Izabel chuckled, but when the amusement settled down, Rowan’s body language tensed once more.
“We were there to pick up a nine-man rifle squad. Plan was to FRIES.”
“You’re killing me with the acronyms.” Brennon rolled his head from side to side against the back of the seat.
“I mean, technically it’s also SPIES.”
Brennon groaned dramatically.
“What are FRIES and SPIES?” Izabel asked.
“Special Patrol Insertion & Extraction System, combined with Fast Rope rigging, equals Fast-Rope Insertion Extraction System.”
“So you were going to rescue Army Rangers with FRIES. Right, I’ve got it.” Brennon nodded. “I can deal with this.”
Izabel patted his chest.
Again, Rowan got serious. “How it’s supposed to work is you lower the FRIES rope, the special ops guys clip in, and you get the hell out of there.”
“Wait, you don’t land?”
“No. You hold the bird steady while they clip in, and then you have to fly fast, but not too fast, stay low so they can breathe, but not too low so they hit anything.”
“Holy shit,” Izabel breathed. “You used to fly helicopters through enemy air space with guys dangling off a rope under the aircraft.”
“Yes. But we had a problem. FRIES can only handle eight men, and we had to pick up nine. Plus, when we got there, we started taking fire. Not antiaircraft missiles, but still it was a problem. My copilot, Joe, returned fire, but it wasn’t going to work. I called for someone to fly interference and draw fire so I could handle the extraction, but time was a factor.
“Joe… Joe wasn’t just my copilot. He was my best friend.” Rowan paused. “He hooked in, and as I circled, he dropped down onto the roof of the building where the enemy gunmen were. I thought about pulling away so he couldn’t drop. I could have recalled the rope too. But Joe… If you’d met him, you’d understand. And what we did wasn’t op-approved. We had a plan in place—an Apache was on its way to fly interference. But I made the call not to stop him. I held the bird in place and let him drop down, then circled around to pick up my first load of Rangers.”
“I flew to the pickup, got the Rangers on board. All the way up, since I couldn’t hold nine men on the line. Doing that takes time. It’s why Joe dropped.
“But it turns out there were seven Rangers. They’d lost two, but that message hadn’t come through. We could have clipped them in and gotten the hell out of there. If Joe had been in the pilot seat, it would have been done. Simple.” He had to stop and swallow hard. “I went back for him, and we started taking heavy fire. This time, it was the antiaircraft weaponry we’d been warned about, and I lost a skid and the front gun.