The Heart Beneath

The U.S. Marine Corps General Rescue Unit sat a quarter of a mile away from a small lake where marines liked to fish when off-duty. The main building of the unit was on top of a knoll, sitting among rocks, dirt and cactus. The kennel area was at one side of the dark-brown stucco, single-story building. Callie spent three-fourths of her life here, and loved every moment of it. The men and women handlers were like a large, extended family to her.

Even though she was the executive officer of the unit, she considered the enlisted people family, too. In their kind of work, the walls between officers and enlisted personnel dissolved to a great degree, and Callie liked it that way. She might be a Marine Corps officer, but in her book, enlisted Marines deserved every bit as much respect. So often, out at some disaster site, rank distinctions disappeared completely. During those times, they were all just people on a mission to save whoever was trapped or endangered. Finding survivors was the sole focus for both officers and enlisted alike in this rescue unit. Whether she was searching for victims in a skyscraper fire, or after an earthquake, a tidal wave or any other type of trauma that might involve trying to find life in so much death, Callie loved her job with her whole heart and soul.

Dusty whined, his huge, golden-brown eyes looking up at her with unabashed adoration as she stuck her small fingers through the wire to pet his cold nose. Wagging his tail, he whined again plaintively.

Frowning, Callie remained hunched over, one hand on the gate and the other stroking Dusty’s muzzle. For the last three days all the dogs were restless. Some whined. Others barked in a way that usually signalled danger. Danger? What kind? And where was it coming from? She shifted her worried gaze to her five-year-old friend. Giving Dusty a soft smile, she whispered, “Wish I could understand dog language better. I gotta get going, Dust, but I just wanted to stop by one more time before I left to do my rounds of this place. You’ve seemed so upset. What is it, boy? What’s got you and everyone else spooked around here?”

The evening coolness here in the desert always surprised Callie. Camp Reed, a hundred-thousand acre Marine Corps reservation, sat on some of the most expensive real estate in Southern California. It was literally a back door to the Los Angeles basin, about twenty miles to the west. And even though Camp Reed was arid desert, with cactus, and Joshua trees dotting its rocky hills and deep, narrow valleys of ocher-colored soil and sand, it still got cold at night. Because the reservation wasn’t right on the coast, it didn’t benefit from the warm, humid Pacific. Consequently, Camp Reed was either broiling hot, with temperatures soaring to over a hundred degrees in summer, or marine sentries found their teeth chattering as they walked their posts during winter. No snow fell, but it might as well as far as Callie was concerned.

“Of course,” she told Dusty in a conspiratorial tone, “it is late December, and even here in good ole California, it gets close to freezing at night.” She smiled affectionately at her rescue partner and slowly rose to her full five-foot-five-inch height. Pulling her camouflage jacket more tightly around her thin frame, Callie stood on the concrete and looked around.

The dogs were really upset. As she stood there, her hands deep in the pockets of her Marine Corps cammos jacket, the cap drawn down on her head and the bill low enough to stop the glare of the lights overhead from reaching her eyes, she wondered why they were so wound up.

She’d just gotten back from Turkey a week ago. She and Dusty were still recovering from that grueling two weeks of climbing over rubble caused by a devastating earthquake in that country. Pulling her hand out of her pocket, she held up a doggy biscuit, one of Dusty’s favorite treats.

“Hey…look what I got for you.” She leaned down and slipped it between the wires.

Dusty quickly gobbled it up, licked his mouth with his large pink tongue and gave her a beseeching look for another one.

Callie chuckled indulgently. “Don’t look at me like that. You talk with your eyes, guy.” And she grinned and tucked her hands back into her pockets. Looking to the right, she saw that Sergeant Irene Anson had desk duty. The sergeant was thirty years old, married, with a little girl. Callie doted on Annie, who, at age five, just loved to come out to the kennels and pet all her “doggies.” It was a time Callie always looked forward to, for she loved little kids. Irene’s husband, Brad, was a Recon Marine, one of the corps elite.

Camp Reed had its own rescue dog unit, teams of which were utilized around the world in major catastrophes of any kind. Callie had been in many countries during her last two years with the rescue unit. When called to those countries for earthquake duty, it didn’t hurt that she knew Spanish, plus some Turkish and Greek. Callie had taken courses in those languages because many times, earthquakes occurred in countries where those languages were spoken, and she wanted to be able to converse not only with the local authorities, but with survivors they found in the rubble, as well. One of her least-favorite duties was going to South America for the many killer mudslides that occurred during the rainy season. It wasn’t something she looked forward to at all.

Dusty whined, wanting another treat.

“You are a glutton for more goodies,” she told the retriever wryly. “And it isn’t like this hasn’t been a great day for you. We went to the beach today and we played and celebrated New Year’s Eve early. You got to swim in the ocean, go after the sticks I threw, and roll in the sand while I roasted hot dogs over a fire. And then you came back and shook yourself, spraying water all over me and the food. That’s how you got your fair share of the hot dogs. You ain’t no dummy, are you, guy?” Callie laughed under her breath. It had been a good day, one they’d both needed. But she had no one to share this evening with, to welcome in the New Year. Even as Callie held her dog’s worshipful stare, loneliness ate at her.

“Don’t go there,” she told herself in warning. “Don’t do this to yourself, Callie….”

Dusty whined.

“I know, I know,” she said aloud to the golden retriever. “Why do I do this to myself, Dusty? Why can’t I just be fine with how I look? You are. Of course, you’re drop-dead handsome. I mean, what lady dog wouldn’t do a double take, seeing you?” Her mouth curled, but with pain, not humor. Callie hurt inside. She was twenty-five years old and single, and she knew why.

Dusty sat down and thumped his tail eagerly on his concrete slab. Callie had bought a flannel pillow filled with cedar shavings for him to lie on in the kennel. Concrete couldn’t be comfortable in her opinion. Dusty dearly loved his “blankie” and joyfully slept on it every chance he got. Now he tilted his head, his intelligent eyes shining with happiness that she was still there with him.

“Why can’t I just be happy like you over the simple pleasures of life, like your blankie?” Callie asked. She moved back to the kennel, rested her shoulder against it and hung her head. Staring down at her booted feet, she sighed. “Why do I always have to torture myself, Dusty? So I’m plain looking. “Board ugly,” as I heard some jerk of a jarhead say a week ago. Dude, that hurts. You know?”

Dusty whined.

“Darn it all…” Callie whispered achingly. “I wish I wasn’t so softhearted, Dusty. I need a thicker skin. I wish I could let those words roll off me like water off a duck’s back, but I can’t….”

Maybe if she let her short, sandy-blond hair grow out more it would make her look more feminine. Callie had thought of that often, but in her line of work, long hair was not at all practical. She’d be filthy dirty climbing up and over buildings that had been destroyed by a killer earthquake. Or it would rain or snow and she’d be sopping wet and muddy. No, long hair was out. Well, how about some makeup? She had a square face, with wide-set eyes, a nose that was too big and a mouth that was even bigger. She looked…well, plain. Maybe even ugly…No man even gazed at her with the look. Callie had wished all her life for a man to show her some interest. She saw other women marines getting that special attention, but she never did. Sighing, Callie knew she never would.

Her hair was straight and hung limp as a dishrag around her face, even when she wasn’t climbing around on rubble all day in all sorts of weather. Setting it to make it look halfway decent or using hair spray was out of the question. Hers was a brutal outdoor job. With people trapped and dying, as often was the case in a disaster situation, it didn’t matter whether she wore makeup or if her hair looked feminine or not. No, the victims only wanted to know that Dusty had found them and that Callie was there to help them in any way she could, to escape and live to tell about it. To them, she was an angel of mercy.

Callie smiled a little, remembering how one man had whispered that to her as the medics had extricated him from some rubble. He’d been trapped in there for five days, and Dusty had found him. More dead than alive, the old, silver-haired man had reached out with a shaking hand and fiercely gripped hers as they carried him by on a stretcher.

“You’re an angel,” he’d rasped, tears streaming down his face. “An angel sent by God himself. Thank you…. You’ve got the face of an angel, and I’ll never forget you…not ever….” And he’d choked and sobbed as they’d carried him away to the ambulance.

She wouldn’t ever forget his words, either. Callie liked the idea of looking like an angel. God didn’t make any ugly angels. Nope, not a chance. Smiling a little, she cast a glance at Dusty, who watched her every expression.

“Do I look like an angel to you?”

Dusty whined and thumped his tail heartily.

“You’d say yes to anything, guy.” And Callie laughed. “No ugly angels in heaven, Dust.” She rolled her eyes and looked up at the low ceiling of the kennel complex, made from corrugated aluminum. “Maybe that’s when I’ll feel beautiful. When I die.”

A deep, growling roar caught Callie’s ears. The dogs started baying. Where was that horrendous sound coming from? She looked around. Eyes widening, Callie hunched slightly, feeling as if she were being attacked. By what, she had no idea. The dogs’ unified voices raised the hair on the back of her neck. Their baying was sharp and filled with terror. Feeling the earth shiver, Callie caught her breath in fear, and spread her arms outward. In a flash, she realized what was happening: an earthquake!

Callie didn’t have time to react. One moment she was standing, the next she was knocked off her feet, slamming onto the hard concrete floor with an “oofff!” The ground bucked and heaved. As she rolled onto her back, she was thrown from one side of the kennel area to the other. The roof cracked, metal was shrieking and bending. She suddenly saw stars, like white pinpoints of lights on black velvet, where the tin had opened up.

The dogs were crying and wailing.

Callie gasped and tried to get to her feet. Run! She heard Sergeant Anson screaming for help. The earth still convulsed violently, its roar deafening, like a freight train bearing down on her. Callie scraped her hand badly as she tried to head for the nearest exit door. No good! A second undulating wave hit, and again Callie was knocked off her feet. She rolled heavily into the kennel’s fence. Fear vomited through her.

This was no ordinary earthquake. No. It was a killer of incredible magnitude. Callie had been in too many earthquake-torn countries and experienced too many aftershocks not to know what was going on here. As she rolled helplessly from side to side, the earth moving like waves in an ocean, she realized that this one was off the Richter scale—completely.

December 31: 2150

Lieutenant Wes James was getting dressed for the New Year’s Eve party at the O Club at Camp Reed when the earthquake struck. Although he lived in Oceanside, the nearest civilian town to the front gates of Reed, he’d taken a room at the B.O.Q.—bachelor officer’s quarters—so that he wouldn’t have to drive after drinking. He had just finished putting on a buttoned down white shirt, a camel-colored wool blazer and black jeans and had been sitting on the couch, tying the laces on his dark-brown Italian leather shoes, when the quake began.

Within seconds, Wes was clinging in surprise to the couch as it moved five feet in one direction, and then five feet the other way, across the cedar floor of the bedroom. As adrenaline shot through his bloodstream in response, he didn’t have time to realize what was happening. But it didn’t take him long to figure it out. And he only had to glance toward the darkened view out his window to realize that. The B.O.Q. was four stories tall. All the streetlights outside the military hotel had been suddenly snuffed out, along with lights inside. In the darkness, he heard his friend, Russell Burk, yelp in fright outside in the hall. Russ had the adjoining room, and they were planning on meeting to go to the O Club. The quake must have caught Russ out in the hallway.

Everything vibrated. The roar was frightening, making Wes’s eardrums hurt. The furniture and floor were shivering and shaking as if someone had put the whole room—him included—into a blender at high speed. Wes pushed himself up into a sitting position and gripped the couch. As his eyes adjusted to the inky darkness around him, he watched in amazement. It blew his mind that the couch was sliding like a toy back and forth across the floor as each rhythmic wave of the earthquake rolled through the building. He heard a loud “Crack!” and jerked his gaze upward. For a moment, he feared the fourth story was coming down upon him. The B.O.Q. groaned, wobbled and swayed. The joists and timbers of this old, 1930s-built architectural wonder were not earthquake proof.

Escape! He had to get outside! But how? Wes leaped to his feet and was instantly knocked off of them. Another wave of heaving tore through the building. In seconds, he was sliding into the careening redwood coffee table. Pain arced up his shoulder as he slammed into it. The glass on top slid off, cracked and shattered on the floor. Splinters of glass glittered for a moment and then scattered wildly as the floor danced and bucked all around him.

Wes kept his gaze glued to the ceiling rocking and undulating above him. It didn’t take his civil engineering degree for him to realize that if that ceiling caved in, it could kill him. He scrambled to his hands and knees and decided to head out to the hall to Russ. No good. Lurching drunkenly to his feet, Wes went for the door. His hand closed around the brass knob. There! Tumbling out into the hall, Wes slammed into Russ, who was rolling wildly, his arms and legs outstretched to try and stop himself.

The quake seemed to go on and on. Russ lay on the floor outside his room, his eyes wide with terror. Wes reached out, gripped his friend’s hand and dragged him toward the wall. Every piece of furniture was on the move, many sliding through the opened doors of their rooms. The sound of cracking glass filled the hall. Some of the windows were shattering inward.

It was impossible to stand up. All Wes could do was crawl forward on his belly alongside Russ and try to make it down the carpeted hall.

“The emergency exit!” Wes shouted. “Get to the door! We gotta get outta here or we’re dead!”

Russ nodded, his brown eyes huge as they crawled toward the exit.

A grating sound started. Wes jerked a look over his shoulder. Whatever was making that noise, it wasn’t the B.O.Q. There were a lot of single- and double-story stucco buildings around the huge grassy square. It could have been any—or all—of them.

“Damn,” Russ shouted. He got up and scrambled wildly for the door. Launching himself at it, he clung to the doorknob as he twisted it open.

Seconds later, the two men threw themselves out the exit door and tumbled down the metal stairs.

Badly bruised, Wes managed to leap against the last door that led to the first-floor entry. It gave way and Wes tumbled through. He was out! Russ stumbled to the ground beside him.

The grass was damp with dew. As another wave of the quake hit, Russ rolled on top of him, then was swung to the left. A loud crash sounded behind them scaring Wes. As he got to his hands and knees, his fingers digging frantically into the damp grass and dirt for purchase, he saw half of the red brick building across the plaza buckle and collapse inward. Breathing hard, he gasped.

Finally, the quake stopped its deadly undulations. Silence pulsed around Wes for a moment as he sat up, his hands on his thighs. Russ slowly got off his belly, his mouth hanging open, white vapor coming out of it in sharp spurts. Then, as he looked around, Wes heard a series of explosions, too numerous to count, begin off in the distance. Fire vomited upward into the dark night somewhere off the base. The growl of the quake began again. Wes hunkered down, his arms outstretched, his fingers digging into the ground for stability.