LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘Roger. Secure aft.’ Josh had checked the winch was operational. He was ready for the job. More than ready. Tama could almost see an aura of adrenaline around his colleague.

      ‘I have the target.’ He glanced at Tama and, satisfied his crewmate was as ready as he was, he turned to the winch control panel. ‘Checking winch power.’

      On this final run, there shouldn’t have been any time at all to think outside the protocol. He’d done this a hundred times or more. Stepping into an arctic blast of air. Bracing himself. Leaning out—knowing how much space there was between his back and the ground below.

      ‘Clear skids,’ Josh confirmed. ‘Clear to boom out.’

      ‘Clear.’

      Tama relaxed into his harness as the weight was taken and he got lowered to just below the skids.

      The lightweight stretcher between his legs obscured his vision of what lay below. For now, he was totally dependent on Josh and Steve for his position and safety.

      His own adrenaline levels kicked up several notches. He turned inwards to summon the calm strength that never failed him. This was no job for anyone who couldn’t face the fear and do it anyway.

      He wouldn’t go as far as to say it was no job for a woman but she’d have to be an exceptional specimen.

      Trevor Elliot’s daughter?

      A princess whose bra size probably exceeded her IQ?

      Not a snowball’s chance in hell.

      Dusk was a favourite time for fitness enthusiasts to hit the circuit built into the outskirts of Hagley Park in Christchurch.

      Swinging from the rungs of a horizontal ladder—her feet well off the ground—was a slim woman with a determined expression on her face and curly blonde hair that was tied back in a ponytail damp with perspiration.

      ‘Give it a break, Mikki.’ A man stood to one side of the structure, bent forward, with his hands on his thighs as he tried to catch his breath. ‘This is embarrassing.’

      Mikki hung on the last rung for a moment. She grinned down at her running companion and then refocussed, sucking in a breath and then expelling it as she pulled her body upwards. Once…twice… The burn in muscles in her arms and shoulders increased to real pain. Once more for luck and then she dropped to the ground, bending her knees to cushion the impact.

      ‘Ready, slug?’

      The man groaned but caught up with Mikki’s steady jog as she continued along the track, past runners going in the opposite direction, cyclists heading home from work and the slower obstacles of people walking their dogs.

      ‘There’s no stopping you, is there?’

      Mikki had taken another detour a few minutes later, to use fat stumps of wood as stepping blocks.

      ‘Not today, that’s for sure. I’m so excited!’

      ‘Yeah…I noticed.’

      ‘We can do our stretches now.’

      ‘Hallelujah!’

      They shared the massive trunk of an ancient oak tree for support. Mikki bent one leg up behind her and held it to stretch her quads.

      ‘I still can’t believe it, John. They’re going to let me have a go at joining air rescue. Choppers!’

      ‘So you’ve said. More than once.’ The admonition was tempered with a fond tone. ‘Good luck. Not that you’ll need it.’

      ‘I don’t know about that.’ Mikki swapped to her other leg. ‘The pre-requisite physical assessment is tough enough to wipe out well over half the people who apply and I’ve never even heard of a female that’s made it through.’

      ‘If anyone can, you can.’ John was stretching his Achilles tendon now. ‘Damn shame it means you have to shift north, though. We’ll miss you.’

      ‘I’ll miss you guys, too, but this is…this is huge for me, John. This is what I’ve wanted ever since… Good grief, do you know I started dreaming about this when I was sixteen? Twelve years ago!’ Mikki couldn’t stop the grin spreading across her face. ‘And I’ve made it. Isn’t it great?’

      ‘You really want to give up being an emergency department doctor to work as a paramedic? In helicopters?’

      ‘I would have gone straight into the ambulance service instead of medical school, you know, but Dad wouldn’t hear of it. He wasn’t exactly happy when I told him I wanted to join Médecins Sans Frontières either. He’s going to hit the roof when he finds out the kind of frontline training I’m going to do for the next few months.’

      ‘Will he try to stop you?’

      ‘I don’t think so.’ Mikki put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her elbow to extend the stretch. ‘I reckon I’ve finally convinced him how important my career is to me. He can’t wrap me in cotton wool for ever.’

      ‘From what I’ve heard, your dad can do anything he likes. Hey, doesn’t his company practically own air rescue services up north?’

      ‘One of them funds the service, yes.’ A frown appeared on Mikki’s face. ‘And I’ll make sure that isn’t public knowledge. I’ve earned the right to try out for this team. God knows, I’ve trained hard enough and applied often enough. If anyone suggests it’s come from strings being pulled, I’ll give them a black eye.’

      John laughed. ‘Yeah…right!’

      ‘I’m serious.’ Mikki straightened to her full height which was, unfortunately, only five feet two. ‘I’m going to do this, John, and I’m going to do it all by myself. Just watch this space!’

      * * *

      The messroom of the air rescue base lay between the manager’s office, where the walls were covered in maps and communication equipment occupied the space between desk and filing cabinets, and a hangar that housed two state-of-the-art, MBB-Kawasaki BK-117 helicopters. Referred to as simply ‘the mess’, its title was appropriate.

      At one end of the large space was an entertainment area with a wide-screen television and comfortable armchairs big enough to sleep in. At the other end, a small kitchen provided facilities for snacks and meals. As usual, the bench space was cluttered with unwashed mugs, milk cartons that hadn’t made it back to the fridge and leftover fast-food containers. The laminated surface of the dining table was virtually invisible thanks to the wealth of emergency medicine journals, memos, magazines and a well spread-out daily newspaper.

      Two men were standing on the same side of the table, leaning forward as they perused the front page of the newspaper. A good third of that page was taken up with a photograph that could well win some photography award for the year.

      Taken with a high-powered zoom lens from the roadside, the photographer seemed almost level with the chopper and virtually close enough to touch it. Steve was clearly intent on the control panel of the craft. Josh was perched in the side door with both feet on the lower skid, his safety harness pulled tight as he leaned out to take hold of the harness cradling the stretcher.

      Tama’s position was elegant. One hand held the pole at the rear of the side hatch, pushing his body and the stretcher holding their patient away from the skids as he positioned the burden. Josh was about to take hold of the head end of the stretcher to guide it into the back of the helicopter.

      For some reason, Tama had glanced up as the photograph was taken. Maybe he had been checking the carabina linking the stretcher harness strop to the winch. His expression was serious enough to convey the drama of the moment.

      It was also easily recognisable.

      Josh dug his colleague in the ribs with his elbow. ‘You’re famous now, mate. The chicks will be queuing up.’

      ‘Are you suggesting they don’t already?’

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