Page 52 of The Pilot

“I had nothing to eat, couldn’t stop to try to trap something, I was too worried about who was behind me and how close they were. I ate grass, leaves, and even dirt once, just to have something in my belly. I was on autopilot, putting one foot in front of the other, not really even seeing where I was going at that point.

“And I was always on alert. Twenty, thirty, forty times a day I would think I’d heard something, someone, and would dive to the ground. I’d crawl with one arm, burying myself under anything I could use to hide . . . shrubs, leaves, whatever. I’d wait a couple of minutes, and if I didn’t hear anything, I’d force myself to get up and walk again.

“I honestly don’t know how I did it. I was filthy. My stomach hurt so bad from whatever was in the water and from the random crap I’d swallowed, trying to fill the emptiness that felt like it was devouring me from the inside out, that I couldn’t walk upright anymore. My ass and thighs were raw from the diarrhea, and my feet were torn to shreds inside my boots. But I didn’t dare take them off to check on them—my boots, not my feet.”

Linc didn’t know why he was trying to make a joke, other than because he felt completely exposed. Turned inside out. Talking about what he’d been through made it feel real all over again. Even now his belly clenched, remembering about how he’d felt back then.

“I only slept for ten, fifteen minutes at a time, terrified that I’d wake up to soldiers standing over me, pointing their rifles in my face. I had no idea when I actually crossed the border. It’s not as if there’s a line on the ground indicating where North Korea stops and Russia starts. I did know that I couldn’t cross straight into Russia though, there’s a river that separates the two countries, so I had to go into China, and then over to Russia.

“Luckily for me, it was dark when I must’ve crossed over, and in the north of the country the borders aren’t as heavily secured as they are in the south, or in other more populous places. I thought I should’ve gone far enough to be out of North Korea, but I wasn’t completely sure. So I just kept walking. Staying in the trees, away from people. I figured eventually I’d either be caught, I’d fall over dead from whatever bacteria was wreaking havoc on my body, or my own countrymen would come get me.

“Thankfully, the latter happened. One moment I was stumbling along, delirious, munching on a fucking pine cone, and the next thing I knew, I heard a helicopter over my head. I thought that was it. I was dead. But in fact, it was the United States Army. Night Stalkers, more specifically. They’d attempted to get permission from the Russian government to come in to get me and were denied. But thankfully, my countrymen didn’t take no for an answer.

“Those hotshot Army pilots came swooping in anyway. One chopper landed . . . well, kind of hovered over this huge boulder . . . and six Delta Force operatives leaped out of the helicopter, surrounded me, and basically carried me back to the chopper. The whole rescue took less than thirty seconds. One second I was a walking zombie, sure each step would be my last, and the next I was lying on my back, staring up at the men who’d come to get me as we zoomed away from the China–North Korea–Russia tripoint.

“I was taken straight to a military hospital in Yokosuka, Japan. I still feel sorry for the nurses who had to clean me up. I was a mess. I was unconscious for days, apparently hours away from death. The bacteria level in my body was off the charts and was doing a number on all my organs. I’d lost about twenty-five pounds in a week, and my feet were in such bad shape, I couldn’t walk for ten days while they healed.

“My shoulder had been torn from its socket, and I’d broken not only my collarbone, but three ribs as well. I did have a concussion, and some bleeding on the brain. The doctors kept telling me it was a miracle I was alive. I started hearing the word hero being bandied about when I woke up, and it felt . . . wrong.

“I’d done nothing. Soldiers in World War One and Two were heroes. Vietnam. Operation Desert Storm. The men and women who led their fellow civilians out of the World Trade Center were heroes. The firefighters and police officers who died on September eleventh were heroes.

“Me? All I’d done is hang on as my plane ejected me and then walk for miles, hoping against hope someone was tracking me and I’d be picked up. I shit on myself, ate fucking dirt like an animal, and they were calling me a hero? It was a joke.

“The worst part was, that was the last time I was ever in one of my beloved jets. The Air Force decided my injuries were bad enough that I wouldn’t be able to safely fly again. They were right, as my arm and shoulder don’t have the range of motion they used to, and my left eye sometimes still goes blurry at random times. But it hurt. Having what I loved most taken away from me, and having the humiliation of what happened to me repeated in my head every night when I close my eyes . . . it affected me. Badly.

“I don’t sleep. Not more than an hour or two a night. I go to sleep, but wake up from nightmares of being pounced on by soldiers as I’m lying in the dirt. Or I wake up feeling as if I’ve shit myself again. Or with the taste of dirt in my mouth. My mind relives that week over and over, the second I’m asleep.”

“Have you talked to someone about it?” Harper asked gently.

She was still stroking his hand, and it kept Linc grounded. The fact that she hadn’t let go of him, even after hearing the depths of his humiliation, was a balm to his soul.

“Just the facts. Not what I was feeling or thinking. It was mandatory for me to talk to an Air Force shrink. I actually had to talk to a few. One was horrified by what I told her about the crash, then tried to pretend she hadn’t made such awful faces when she heard what I went through. I never went back. Another seemed uninterested and just prescribed me narcotics, even after I told him I didn’t want to take drugs. The one good therapist I saw was nice, but she honestly didn’t say anything that actually helped. I finally gave up. Talking about what happened didn’t help. It only made my nightmares worse.”

“Have you talked to your brothers? They would probably understand better than anyone.”

“No. No one knows. No one but you. I don’t want them to look at me differently. I’m their big brother. They’ve always looked up to me. I don’t want them to have the image of me eating fucking dirt with shit running down the inside of my pants in their head.”

“Has anything worked?” she asked with a frown.

“Yes.”

“What?”

“You,” Linc told her, taking a deep breath and looking into her eyes as he said it.

“Me? What’d I do?” she asked, sounding completely confused.

“You let me hold you while we slept. That night, when we fell asleep in the chair? I slept. For five solid hours. I don’t know why you seemed to keep my nightmares at bay, but you did.”

She didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then she got that determined look on her face that he loved so much, and said, “Well, tonight seems like a perfect night to try it again. To see if it’ll work for a second time.”

The relief Linc felt was intense. If he’d been standing, he was afraid his knees would’ve gone out from under him. Tonight had started out with her opening up to him, sharing the worst thing that had ever happened in her life, and somehow, she was the strong one right now.

“I’m sorry I worried you.”

She rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t matter now. How much sleep did you get last night?”

“Uh . . . about forty-five minutes.”