Chapter 41

UNITED STATES AIR FORCE HOSPITAL Wiesbaden, Germany

Captain Allan Zimmerman, call sign Zoomer, tried to keep up with Lanh as she practically sprinted down the long hallways of Wiesbaden hospital. Jenny wanted to accompany her also, but the needs of the 523rd outweighed Jenny’s desires. She was needed more urgently in Saudi Arabia, even more urgently than Captain Zimmerman, an EF-16D pilot. She’s supply, “no one can fly without supply.”

Lanh hit the ground running when the bus from the Ramstein Air Base reached the Wiesbaden Air Force Hospital. It was like she was guided by an internal GPS or something as she navigated the winding corridors. She soon found the Intensive Care department, shoved open the door and breezed right past the reception desk. A startled Staff Sergeant behind the desk stood and said, “Hey you can’t...”

Right behind her, Zoomer called out, “Doctor Campbell! Please slow down!” Experience told him two things, One, that she wasn’t slowing down just because he asked, and Two, when he said “Doctor Campbell” anyone in the hospital who heard him say that mentally gave Lanh a free pass to do whatever she wanted for at least a few moments. A captain called her a doctor, right? This is a hospital where doctors work. No one bothered to notice that the badge she was wearing backwards was a visitor’s badge. He didn’t know how she knew where to go in this maze of hallways and corridors, but she did.

For Lanh, it was easy. She just followed her angel, a translucent figure of a woman with purple tipped platinum blond hair. “He’s right up here darling,” said the angel. “He knows you’re coming.” Her angel turned, and she followed the angel into a room containing four beds that were surrounded by curtains, and for a moment Lanh swore there were two angels, her angel and another one, they looked identical, but the new angel didn’t have purple in her hair. The new angel was standing at the foot of a bed, looking forlornly at its occupant. And then they were gone, but Lanh didn’t notice their disappearance because she was solely focused on the occupant of the bed, her husband, Don.

“Oh baby!” gasped Lanh as she began covering him with a quilt. “It’s ok, I’m here now. I didn’t bring our pillowcases, I was afraid they’d get lost, but I brought your mom’s quilt, I know how much you love it.” She took great care to avoid the multitudes of monitor leads attached to Don, and the respirator hose, not to mention the bandages around his head, chest, stomach, even covering his left eye, and the big ugly cast on his left arm from knuckles to shoulder, the big plastic splint on his right arm, the metal bars bolted to the bones in his hand, it looked like they tried to attach a small leaf rake to his hand.

Once she had covered him, she kicked off her sneakers then shucked her jacket, skirt, and blouse and wearing just panties and a bra she climbed into bed and snuggled under the quilt with him. At this point, the staff sergeant from the desk finally caught up with them and demanded in a fearful voice. “Ma’am, you can’t be here!” He was terrified that there would be paperwork for this incident.

Zoomer picked up the clipboard from the end of Don’s bed and looked at the documents that were indecipherable to him, but he stared at them like they were written in plain, simple English. He deciphered that Don’s doctor’s name was Ortiz, and that Don was running a fever. After that, he was lost. He pulled a pen out of a sleeve pocket and stood ready to sign a document should the need arise.

Clipboards are amazing things. If you carry one and review the documents on it, people think you’re working and leave you alone. Clipboards make you look smarter than the occasion demands, and they give you an air of responsibility and maybe even an air of respectability. Sometimes, if you play it right, it makes you look like you’re getting ready to put people to work, which ensures that everyone of lower rank leaves you alone. Clipboards are asshole repelling devices, and Zoomer knows how to wield one like a calvary saber. Having been enlisted prior to becoming an officer, Zoomer could play the game. He looked up from the clipboard and gave SSgt Shaw a look of equal parts boredom and disgust. “Sergeant, if I were you, I would leave the doctor alone.”

“Sir! She can’t be here!” The sergeant’s voice cracked. Lanh heard everything that went on, but she was in bed with Don, and that was more important than anything that the squeaky sergeant had on his plate. Lanh lay on her side on the edge of the bed, her back to the sergeant. The quilt pulled up to cover all but the very top of her head. She wasn’t touching Don, but she could feel his warmth. She could smell him. She kissed his bare right shoulder and could taste him.

Staff Sergeant Shaw had enough. He grabbed Lanh’s shoulder and shook her. “You need to get out of that bed NOW ma’am.” He detected movement under the quilt and thought that Lanh was getting out. He smiled at the victory, but all that happened was her slim arm appeared and raised up, her hand clenched in a fist. There was a loud click and a slim, gleaming blade shot up from her hand, pointing straight up. He squealed in shock and stumbled to get away from the evil-looking stiletto switchblade. “Y-you saw that, right sir?”

Captain Zimmerman advanced on the panicked sergeant. “What I saw, Staff Sergeant, was you manhandling Master Sergeant selectee Campbell’s wife, Doctor Campbell, then I saw you shit yourself when a four-foot, ten inch, eighty-five-pound girl had to defend herself from you.”

“I’m four foot nine,” came a muffled voice from under the quilt.

Zoomer continued, “What I suggest Sergeant Shaw, is that if you don’t want your next promotion to be to Airman First Class, you get Doctor...” he glanced at the clipboard again, “Doctor Ortiz in here ASAP.”

Now, truly panicked, the sergeant fled from the room, and as he did, Captain Zimmerman heard a female voice say, “Is that you Zoomer?”

Another female voice said, “Damn Zoomer! When did you grow some balls?”

Zoomer investigated the voices and found Wendy Addams and Cynthia Daniels in two of the beds in the ICU room as well. Both were in rough shape, Cynthia was in traction, both women were bandaged heavily, and what parts of their bodies that weren’t bandaged were covered in bruises. Beautiful Wendy had both arms broken, a hip smashed and when she hit the rocks her face was fractured, and when that happened, she lost a beautiful blue eye. Cynthia was blown against one of the shelters upright poles, breaking her back before she was thrown down onto the rocks with Wendy. The heavy wooden picnic table landed on her, smashing her legs. Both had serious internal injuries and had more surgery scheduled tomorrow.

Zoomer thought he was going to throw up. Wendy is one of the greatest engine troops in the Air Combat Command and Cynthia was an Avionics technician who knew the entire auto-pilot system like the back of her hand. When Lieutenant Colonel Dawson arrived with the hospital commander to check on his troops, he found Captain Allen Zimmerman close to fainting from the shock of seeing the people that he depends on to keep him flying, shattered like discarded China dolls.

Soon after Lanh arrived, Don had improved enough to where they could take him off the ventilator. Lanh never left his side, and she whimpered in sympathy when they extubated him. She couldn’t believe how deep the tube went down his throat. With her hand on his shoulder, the only patch of skin she could find not covered by bandages, Lanh held her breath with the nurses and Doctor Ortiz until Don took his first gasping breath. Only then did everyone else in the room realize that they, too, were holding their breath.

Staff Sergeant Shaw was ordered by Doctor Ortiz to round up a set of scrubs that would fit Doctor Campbell. He searched high and low throughout the hospital under threat of court martial until he found two sets of scrubs that were extra small. “Thank you, sergeant,” Lanh said with a haughty attitude. Then she said, “I need a stethoscope and a lab coat. Please round those up for me.”

“Is she always nasty like that?” Shaw whispered to Zoomer.

“No,” said the pilot, “It’s just that ... she doesn’t want to kill someone again.” Sergeant Shaw ran off to find a stethoscope for Dr. Campbell.

Colonel Gilliam arrived in the ER days later and his investigation angered him. He heard over and over how Don, Skip, Wendy and Cynthia had End of Runway duty performing final checkout of the last six sorties they were flying, followed by a quick safety inspection after they landed. It’s considered to be vital, exciting, and easy duty and much preferable to cleaning up the duty area before they head back to New Mexico. They were selected for the task because they had just been informed of their selection for promotion and Skip’s selection as Weapons Technician of the Quarter.