Above and Beyond (Twist of Fate 4)

Since I knew where Tag and Heather’s little “talks” always ended up, I changed the subject by saying, “What were you going to say earlier when you said ‘that reminds me’?”

“Oh.” Tag snapped his fingers. “This kid in the program. I keep meaning to tell you about him. He took the basic hoist class last year and did so well, I encouraged him to take the advanced cliff rescue course this summer.”

I glanced up at him. “What do you mean, kid?”

Tag grinned. “He’s not really a kid. The man has full SAR experience and medical training like the rest of the students. I only mean he’s so young and energetic, he makes me feel old.” He chuckled. “But he’s a natural on the hoist and is totally fucking steady under pressure. We had this one trip out during the training course where the wind picked up during a longline drill and damned near snapped a rigging plate into one of the trainees’ faces just after he’d reached the ground and disconnected the line. The trainee himself froze, but this kid saw it coming and managed to shove the trainee down to the ground just in time.”

“Jesus,” I muttered, reaching for the brownies. “Lucky trainee.”

Tag snorted. “Lucky me since I’m the one paying the liability insurance on this operation. Anyway, another time he noticed a bolt had come loose on the hoist mounting plate. I almost puked right there on the poor kid’s shoes. Fired the training manager on the spot. That’s why I can’t thank you enough for bailing my ass out of a bind this summer. I needed a trainer I could trust.”

I blew out a breath. “Fuck, Tag. Remind me to quadruple check those mounting plates. Christ.”

His eyes widened. “Right? I still have nightmares about how close we came to a disaster. You should have seen how much money I spent on inspections after that to make sure nothing else had been overlooked.”

“Don’t blame you.” I thought back to how quickly things could go wrong on a rescue mission. “Sometimes all it takes is one wrong move.”

He reached over and clamped a hand on my shoulder. “Let’s change the subject, or better yet, get back to work. I’ve got another instructor coming, and you’ve got mounting brackets to look over two or twelve times.” Tag’s goofy grin reappeared, telling me our serious talk was over.

“Aye-aye, captain,” I said with a mock salute, standing to gather my trash and help clean up.

Tag joined me back in the hangar where he introduced me to a newcomer. The man was attractive and windburned like he’d spent the better part of the winter on the ski slopes.

“Zach, meet Johnny Poole. He’s our paramedic and he’s also a rope access tech and an excellent spotter. He’ll be helping you with prep and rigging, and he’ll manage the medical aspects when we get to that stage of the course. Got his start rock climbing as a teen then worked his way up to Alaska where he got his airborne rescue training from the Coast Guard. Johnny, Zach Warner is our lead trainer. Been leading airborne SAR missions since before he got all fancy and became an Army Ranger on us.”

I shot Tag the bird before shaking Johnny’s hand. “Nice to meet you. Have you done mountain and cliff work on a hoist or longline?”

He nodded and grinned. “Both. And heli-rappelling. Worked at Rainier before coming here. Promise I know my shit. You focus on teaching the newbies what to do, and I’ll try not to let you lose any external human cargo. Tag here says it’s bad for business.”

I shook my head and reminded myself that I trusted Tag. If he’d hired this guy, especially after having trouble with one of last year’s employees, he’d made sure the guy was airtight. “Alright, smart-ass. I can see you’ll fit in just fine around here. Let me show you the bird.”

As soon as I began walking Johnny around the fuselage, pointing out the longline and hoist equipment, he was all business. “Tag said this first group is here for advanced mountain and cliff rescue. I guess that means they’re already familiar with the hoist?”

“Yeah. They’ve all taken basic inland hoist courses and are ready for riskier missions. None of them have worked in flight SAR before, though, so they’re all still greenhorns as far as I’m concerned.”

“No doubt,” he murmured, yanking on one of the mounted hooks before moving to test another one. “You sound like the hardass who trained me. Most meticulous motherfucker I’ve ever met. Taught me there was no such thing as over-prepared when it came to protecting the lives of the victims and operators.”

I liked the sound of that. The man took things as seriously as I did. I met his eyes. “One of my mentors always said that downtime was to be spent either getting more trauma response education or helo maintenance experience so that when shit went down, you could be part of the solution. First thing she ever told me about helicopter rescue was that shit always went down. How you handled it was what separated a successful operator from a dead one.”