Page 103 of The Ampersand Effect

Tobin’s mind raced through her mental catalogue of maneuvers.

She couldn’t place it. “Vacuum?” she questioned.

“Leeward vacuum,” Eddie replied—her staccatoed response landing with a dull thud inside the walls of Tobin’s cranium.

Of course, Tobin thought. But her excitement dwindled as quickly as it had arrived. “Eddie, that’s only possible if the wind’s blowing parallel to the cliff—from the forest. This wind is perpendicular. How…” She trailed off, no longer certain of their plan.

“I saidtry, Blur. I’m not promising this will work. But I don’t see any better options. Do you?” Eddie’s tone carried something uncharacteristic—pleading, almost—for Tobin’s support.

Tobin didn’t hesitate. Eddie was right; they didn’t have a better alternative. And Tobin trusted her—Eddie’s instinct, her skill. If anyone could make this work, it was her.

“Leeward fucking vacuum!” Tobin shouted into the box office. “Yep,” Eddie deadpanned. “Let’s go!”

Together, they eased the chopper just off the cliff ’s edge, gambling that the slope’s natural shape might provide enough of a buffer to create a small, sweet spot of calm. If they could find that spot, they could nestle into it—hovering just long enough to drop the basket and retrieve the hiker.

Tobin held her breath as Eddie angled the bird nearly parallel to the cliff. The helicopter shuddered, bracketed by the gush of wind that rolled off the rock face. Eddie crept lower.

“Just a little… bit… more,” she strained into the mic.

There was a moment of intensified thunder as they skimmed the cliff face and the wind pummeled the fuselage with an ambivalent fury.

Then, the air slackened—turbulence fading just enough to hold steady. Only the whir of the rotors and the familiar hum of the instruments remained.

“Now, Mike!” Eddie commanded.

Jada’s sure, steady voice came through the mics. “Deploying.

Victim visualized. Stand by.”

Less than a minute later, her voice returned. “Stabilized. Victim identified as Howard, male, forty-five. Appears unharmed aside from multiple abrasions and a two-inch laceration above his right brow that will likely need sutures.”

Tobin felt Eddie sigh in tandem with her. From the cabin, Mike’s ecstatic “Ten-four!” crackled through the comms.

“Victim secured. Pull us up, Mike.”

Tobin immediately recognized the shift in weight as the winch engaged and began hauling the loaded basket toward them. She felt Eddie subtly compensate, adjusting the collective and cyclic in careful increments to maintain their balance.

Without warning, a burst of wind assaulted them from above, forcing them lower and compelling Eddie to rapidly correct their altitude.

Tobin silently applauded the deft recovery and steady hand as Eddie eased them back into that fragile pocket of calm.

But their relief was brief.

Jada’s scream pierced their comms, slicing the air and alerting them to the chaos literally swinging beneath them. The basket hadn’t recovered as well as the helicopter—it hadn’t recovered at all. It was whipping haphazardly below, arcing like a loose pendulum and spinning on its own axis.

Tobin heard it first before she saw it—the sickening grate of the metal cable straining against the winch. Then Mike’s curse cut through the noise.

“What’s going on back there?” she demanded, already running through counteractions in her mind.

“The cable jumped the winch!” Mike yelled. “I can’t get it to engage—I can’t pull them up.”

“Fuck,” Eddie muttered, locking eyes with her.

There was only one option: raise the bird enough to drop the basket onto the cliff—then land long enough to get Jada and Howard into the cabin.

Tobin met Eddie’s gaze. She caught the flicker of trepidation crossing her friend’s face—replaced instantly by that resolute calm Eddie always summoned in the face of danger. A familiar glint sparked in her gray eyes: they would not lose this fight. They would best this wind. They would save their victim.

“Jada, the winch is compromised,” Tobin said into the mic, her voice even and deliberate. “We’re going to rise and set you down on top. Once you’re out of the vacuum, the basket will be at the mercy of the wind. We’ll have to move fast. It’s going to be a rough landing—secure yourselves.”