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Watching him work and trying to piece together leads and bits of info with him had been a strange sort of bonding experience, and she felt closer to him than she ever had in the course of her pregnancy. At first she chalked it up to actually being physically around him rather than getting calls and e-mails, but it soon became clear that Quint wanted to be around her and wanted to be a part of her life.
Quint called out softly from behind her. “Amara? Everything’s ready, if you are.”
Amara was pulled from her haze of recollection. “If … ah, if you wanted to eat out here, I think that’d be nice. There’s a little table and chairs, and this view is fantastic.”
He looked past her, his brow hiking up. “You’re right. That’s wonderful. I’ll bring the plates and the bottle. A proper dinner and drinks. I feel like the last one didn’t go so well, so … let’s make up for it, hmm? There’s nothing more we can do today, so let’s try to enjoy the night.”
She smiled and nodded, moving immediately to take her seat at the table, her gaze cast back out over the city the moment she sat down. Quint returned not long after with the food and then went back to grab the bottle of local rum and his own glass.
When Quint didn’t move to start a conversation, Amara shrugged it off and stared out over the city. Was Hampton out there somewhere? What was he doing? Was he eating enough? Was he warm? Was he —
She had to break the silence or she’d lose it. “You know, it’s been a really hard day, but this meal is wonderful. Dinner is incredible. I had no idea you could cook.” It truly was delicious, a pan-seared steak with a fresh herb and butter sauce, and a selection of grilled local vegetables.
“Thank you. I’m glad you’re enjoying it.”
Silence again.
And again, Amara broke it. “Part of me can’t help but feel guilty. That bastard is out there somewhere with my son. Our son. We’re probably looking at the building he’s holed up in right now, and we have no idea.”
Chapter Twenty Six
AMARA SIGHED HEAVILY AS SHE moved to refill her glass. “Maybe you could tell me what happened on that flight. You never said what caused the crash. If it’s not too painful to talk about, I mean. You’ve seemed fine since you got back, but I’m sure it couldn’t have been easy on you. I’ve been wondering, but we haven’t had a chance to talk through it. If you want to I mean.” Amara cleared her throat and shifted in her seat.
He nodded as he leaned back in his chair, crossing one leg over the other. “It’s been easier to put it out of my head, honestly. I don’t remember a lot of what came after the crash, and what I do remember is pretty vague up to a certain point. But if you want to talk about it, we can absolutely do that. I told you some of it after dinner at the Forsythia, but that wasn’t the whole story.”
Amara stared down at her glass for a long moment before speaking. “Do you know what actually happened? I mean, you’ve been so … I don’t know, intrepid, detective-like since we’ve gotten here. Is that something you’ve always had? Did it give you any ideas about why the plane went down?”
“There was no need for any detective work. We lost both engines. We sucked up some kind of debris — birds, probably. We were flying in low visibility as it was, so there was no way to avoid it. We were preparing to climb to reach a safe altitude over the mountains when it happened, and the plane pretty much stalled out. I’d never wish that feeling on anyone. Anyone. The feeling of … of the nose of the plane suddenly dropping down. How fast it picked up speed, and hearing the captain over the speakers, trying to stay calm, but being unable to miss the unmistakable resignation in his voice. He was struggling so hard to level the plane out enough to bring it down somewhere relatively safe. But there was nowhere safe. He never had a chance.” Quint drank deeply.
“I’m so sorry, Quint. I can’t imagine what that was like.”
He shook his head slowly as he set the glass down. “I don’t think anyone who hasn’t experienced it can. He was a damn fine pilot, and I trusted him with my life. He did everything he could have done, and he gave us the best chance at surviving the landing. I was staring out through one of the windows, trying to get the lay of the land before we went down, so I’d know which way to start walking if we had to hike our way out. It was mostly just the mountain range, but I saw a few things that pointed me in the direction of the city. I knew we were headed for it. The ah …” a heavy sigh as he wiped his brow, “… the crew pretty much grabbed me and moved me to the back of the plane. I had a small section installed as a backup security measure, in the event of a crash. Water, food and most importantly, insulation and impact dampening.”
“Is that why you’re the only one who made it out?”
“Yeah. The jet was supposed to be pretty safe, but it wasn’t equipped for a landing on terrain that uneven. It was all so procedural. I’d practiced it a few times when I had the compartment installed, but it felt like second nature to get the bag of supplies, strap it to my back and hold onto the bracing rails. In my haste t
o get the bag, I neglected to sit in the seat and strap in. I didn’t have much time, so I tried to hold on. The impact wasn’t too bad inside the safety compartment, but it was enough to shake me off the rails and slam me up against the top of the space. It messed my shoulder up, and I’m pretty sure I had a concussion, or worse. I’d find out later that I had a minor spinal injury and more than a few fractures in my upper body — not that I could tell that at the time. Maybe I was disoriented from the whole ordeal and couldn’t feel much. Maybe it was the adrenaline. Regardless, when we came to a stop … I guess, one way or another, the fuel was ignited. I got out of the compartment the second I felt the plane settle, but the front section was already burning. They’d sealed the bulwark, and when the accelerometer detected what’d happened, it blew the side panel out of my section. The fire was roaring outside of course, but I was spared it while inside. My crew … the pilot, co-pilot, the others … they … weren’t so fortunate.”
Amara sat forward and placed a hand on his, stroking the top softly, feeling the slightly irregular surface. “And that’s where the burns came from.”
A nod.
“I’m so sorry, Quint.”
An uncharacteristically bitter smile crossed his lips, and he scoffed. “Yeah, I know. Only I can’t understand how the universe can heap all that on me. I dream about Marduk and his donkey cart, though I have few memories of it.”
He seemed in another place as he continued. “The memory of the smells is so strong. The wood, or … paint, maybe. The donkey itself. It’s overwhelming in my dreams. I vaguely remember Marduk hauling me onto the cart, how much my shoulder hurt when he pulled me up. I guess I passed out then, because my next memory comes weeks later. I was apparently conscious often enough, but I had severe amnesia. Retrograde and anterograde apparently. I couldn’t form any new memories, and wasn’t too clear on the ones going back in time either.”
“It’s a miracle you ever remembered who you were,” Amara said.
“I only have the foggiest recollection of the hospital itself before the day I managed to tell that nurse my name. She spoke enough English and consumed enough Western media to recognize me once I told her who I was. I was in pretty rough shape when I came in, and I was almost unrecognizable with all the swelling from my injuries. And after so many weeks of languishing, it’s no big surprise she didn’t recognize me. Poor girl, Lia, had only been working there for a week when I came to myself. Imagine dealing with that in your first week at a new job.”
“I’m so glad you made it out alive, Quint. Are there any lingering effects from all of that? You seem almost as strong as ever.”
He shook his head quickly, eager to dispel the notion. “No, nothing. No seizures, no fogginess, no memory loss aside from what I already mentioned. I still have some pain, but that’s to be expected. They had to do something with my shoulder. I honestly have no idea how much work they did on me in the field hospital. I’ve got scars, some little, some decidedly less so, but I don’t know which are from the crash and trek and which are from procedures. They were all closed up the same way. It seems impossible that a tiny hospital in such a remote area could do what was done for me, but I’m not going to question it. They gave me the chance to come home, to see you again. To see my son.”
“That’s right.”
