The Archangel Project Read Online Free PDF Page B

and down in her quarters while innocent people were massacred.
    The Blackhawk crew put her in touch with a couple of Marine medics who let her perch on the outside of their Humvee as they headed out across the stony desert in the cold calm of predawn. The attack was scheduled for 0400, but as the Marines approached their unit, they could hear sporadic gunfire in the distance.
    â€œSounds like they’ve already started boogying,” said the driver. “Our guys must have spooked someone.”
    A familiar thunder vibrated the air around them. Tobie leaned down to stick her head through the Humvee’s open window. “Hear that chopper?”
    The Humvee crested a rise and the driver screamed, “Jesus Christ!”
    A white Toyota sped up the hill toward them, dust billowing behind it into the night. Hot on its tail, a Kiowa helicopter materialized out of the dark sky, its whirling blades beating the crisp desert air, the insectlike spread of its landing gear and loaded pylons looming over them. Through the Toyota’s grime-coated windows, Tobie caught a glimpse of a woman’s covered head and half a dozen small, wide-eyed faces. Then the helicopter belched a missile and the Toyota exploded. Caught in the fireball, the Marine medics’ Humvee flipped.
    Tobie was thrown clear. She landed on her back, the impact driving the air from her chest. For what seemed an eternity all she could do was lay in a gasping agony,surrounded by the broken, burned bodies of the Iraqi family who’d tried to run in the Toyota. The Marine medics were dead, too.
    But the guys in the Kiowa Warrior weren’t through yet.
    Pivoting at the top of the hill, the helicopter swooped back toward the wreckage, its machine guns spitting fire. Frantically scrambling for protection behind the upturned Humvee, Tobie felt a round tear through her thigh and heard the bone snap. She was lucky it was just a glancing blow; a direct hit would probably have taken off her leg.
    Then all hell broke loose as the full-scale attack on the encampment below began. Pinned down by her broken leg, Tobie could only watch, helpless, as the tents below burst into flames. Screaming women erupted into the night, to be mowed down by withering machine-gun fire. Rockets shrieked, their explosions punctuating the endless rattle from the helicopters that filled the sky. The last thing she remembered was the sight of a crying child silhouetted, alone, against the fire’s light.
    The next thing Tobie knew, she was on a stretcher. She was babbling to anyone who’d listen about the wedding and what she’d “seen,” until a nurse with a worried frown stuck a needle in her arm.
    They flew her to Kuwait first, then to Germany. Whenever anyone asked her what in the hell she was doing out in the desert, she told them. A sad-eyed Air Force surgeon in Wiesbaden kindly suggested she might want to reconsider what she was saying, but Tobie refused to shut up. In the end, they gave her a psycho discharge.
    She’d been lucky. Lieutenant Costello had tried to have her court-martialed.
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    â€œExcuse me, miss. You need to get back.”
    The crackling roar of the fire still loud in her ears, Tobie turned to find a short, squat policewoman studying her through narrowed eyes.
    â€œI’m October Guinness. I’m the one who called 911.”
    The policewoman sniffed. She had peroxide hair and a broad, plain face prematurely hardened by overexposure to the ugly side of life. “Live around here, do you?”
    â€œNo. I was coming to see Dr. Youngblood.”
    â€œHe’s the guy you reported was in the building when it blew?”
    â€œThat’s right. Dr. Henry Youngblood. He’s a professor of psychology.”
    The policewoman fished a notebook out of her pocket. “And your name and address?” She wrote down the information, then said, “You his