by Dale Brown
Both helicopters wheeled off, spraying decoy flares and smoke bombs as they did.
“Fork, come on in, the water’s perfect,” said the Cobra leader.
“Assault team up!” said Danny. “Fentress — how are those Hinds?”
“Here’s the visual,” he replied, punching in a replay showing the helicopters.
They were being armed and fueled.
Chapter 98
Aboard Raven, over Iraq 1452
Zen saw the nose of the missile as it flashed toward him, a blurred spoon of white. He’d already slammed the U/MF’s nose downward, rolling the U/MF into a twist so hard that the plane fluttered uncontrollably for a second, caught between the conflicting forces of momentum and gravity. A hole opened in his stomach; acid rushed in, searing a spot beneath his ribs. But he hadn’t lost the plane — the missile streaked away, and by the time it self-detonated, Zen had full control of the Flighthawk and begun to climb. He recovered well south of the target area, restoring his sense of the battlefield as well as speed. The Cobras had started their run despite the warnings; the missiles the Iraqis had launched had all missed, probably because they had been aimed at the U/MF and not the throaty whirlybirds.
Zen climbed in an arc eastward as they’d planned, feeding video from behind the smoke screen the Cobras laid as the two CH-46s came in. His radar warning gear was clean and there seemed to be no more antiaircraft fire, though a smart commander would keep his head and hold back until the ground troops appeared.
“Can you get real-time images of those Hinds?” Fentress asked. “I’ve been feeding Whiplash the shots you took coming in.”
“Yeah,” said Zen, changing course. “Almost lost it there,” he added.
“Nah.”
“Yeah, really, I thought I did,” he said. “You did okay.”
“We got a long way to go,” said Fentress.
Zen laughed, realizing that was something he usually said.
Chapter 99
Aboard Fork One, in Iraq 1500
Danny threw his body around the rope, hands pumping. He worked down six or seven feet, then jumped — a little too soon for his right knee, which gave way as soon as he hit the ground.
Cursing, he pushed himself back upright, moving out of the way of the others as they did a quick exit from the Sea Knights. An acrid scent ate at his nostrils. The two large Russian-made helicopters sat maybe forty yards ahead, just beyond a thick wall of smoke. As he reached to flick his visor viewer into IR mode he felt something ping his right shoulder. The gentle tap felt familiar, an old friend catching him in a crowded street, but it was hardly that — a half-dozen bullets had just bounced off his vest.
Danny spun to his right, bringing his gun up. But he had no target on his screen. The area was thick with smoke and dust, swirled furiously by the helicopter blades.
“Whiplash team, we have small arms fire from the direction of the buildings,” he told his men as he dropped to one knee.
The knee screamed in pain, twisted badly or sprained in the jump. Danny ignored it, pushing his MP-5 left, then right. IR mode was hampered by the smoke; he flicked back to unenhanced visual.
“They’re in the buildings,” said Liu over the team radio.
“All right. I’m going to get the Cobras on it,” said Danny. He hit the radio, piping his voice to the attack ships. “Small arms in the buildings opposite the Hinds.”
The lead Cobra pilot acknowledged. A second or two later the ground began to shake; a freight train roared overhead and flames shot from the area where the building had been.
Danny was already running toward the Hinds. He broke through the smoke and saw one of the two Iraqi helicopters sitting about twenty yards ahead. There was a weapons trolley near it, a man lying on the ground.
Danny pulled his submachine gun level at his waist and laid two bursts into the figure before it fell away.
“Vehicles!” said Bison. His SAW began stuttering to Danny’s left. Danny looked over and saw two of his men throwing themselves down; Bison had already crouched a few feet beyond them, his gun blaring at two pickups tearing out from behind the helicopters.
Red flickered from the trucks. Bison hosed the first. As Danny put his own cursor on the second, it morphed into a massive fireball, axed by a Marine SMAW. Debris rained around them. Danny got up, ignoring the pops against his chest as he ran toward a brown-shirted body a few feet ahead. The Iraqi didn’t move, but Danny gave him a burst of gunfire anyway. He leaped nearly chest first into the machine-gun fisted nose of the Russian attack bird, rolling left around the fuselage as he eyed the gunner’s station and cockpit, making sure they were empty. As he turned toward the belly of the craft he saw a flicker above the wing; he tried ducking but it was too late — three bullets from an AK-47 hit the top of his helmet and threw him to the ground. Instinctively, the captain shoved his gun in the direction of the gunfire as he fell, pressing the trigger for a brief second before his head smacked the ground.
Bullets flew overhead. The ground vibrated so hard he felt his head jumping upward. Voices screamed in his ears. It was all chaos, unfathomable chaos.
Danny had lost the ability to sort it out, lost the ability to do anything but fight to his knees — his right one screaming again — and fire another few rounds in the direction of the stubby wing strut.
White heat flashed in front of him. Danny gulped air and threw himself down a millisecond before the shock wave as the helicopter exploded. The dirt turned molten.
He gulped the hot air, tried to get away, finally saw that he had somehow crawled under the burning chassis. He kept going, enveloped by blackness. A sudden rush of heat stopped him.
“The other Hind,” he heard himself say calmly. “Secure it.”
“Two guys, crew compartment, side facing the buildings,” said Powder.
“All right. Get their attention.”
Danny had only the vaguest notion of where he was or where he was going — he wasn’t even sure whether he’d gotten out from under the burning helicopter. Nonetheless, he began to crawl. After a few feet he got up and began running in what he thought was the direction of the buildings, intending to make a long flanking maneuver and get at the Hind from the back while his guys kept the defenders busy. As he ran — it was more like a limp, thanks to his knee — he clicked back and forth between the IR and enhanced video views in his visor; the thick smoke defeated both. Finally he pushed the screen upward, preferring his own eyes.
The main building sat off on his right. He assumed the second helicopter would be about ten yards on his left.
“Hey, Cap, how we doin’?” asked Powder.
“I’m getting there. Make sure no one blows this one up.”
“They won’t,” said Powder.
Danny finally saw the helicopter on his left, farther away than he’d expected. He took a few tentative steps and saw the aircraft bob.
Shit. The rotor at the top began to spin.
“Powder — there’s someone in the cockpit!” he yelled.
A gun burst followed. Danny ran forward, the rotor still winding.
“The cockpit’s armored!” Danny shouted.
“Fucking shit,” cursed Powder, even as his bullets bounced off the side.
The helo lurched forward. Danny ran as fast as he could, spitting bullets from his gun at the same time. The tail started to whip around; he threw himself to the ground, just missing the wing stub. He jumped up and ran again, hoping for some sort of opening he could shoot through.
A blank, puzzled face appeared in the window next to him, a ghost transported to earth where she didn’t want to be.
His wife.
The Iraqi pilot.
The cockpit handle was a clear white bar. Danny fired a few bursts at it, but the bullets all missed or bounced harmlessly away. His knee flamed with pain. The rotors spun hard and the air became a hurricane. Danny dropped his MP-5 and with a scream threw himself forward, fingers grasping the small metal strip where the win
dscreen met the edge of the metal on the canopy. He could feel the pilot inches away, felt something pound against the side of the helicopter — maybe the pilot, maybe Powder’s bullets, maybe just the vibration of the motor. He reached for his Beretta, lost his grip, found himself rolling on the ground, saw the face again — his wife’s face, definitely his wife — then realized he was running. He couldn’t get into the cockpit, he was too slow, he was going to fail. A black space appeared alongside him, a dark tunnel opening up — he pitched into it, fell into the helicopter.
What kind of lunatic fate was this, to die in Iraq on an impossible mission?
As he started to push back toward the door to jump out, Danny saw a head bobbing beyond the passage on his left — there were no doors on the Hind between the crew area and cockpit.
A small ax hung on the wall near the passage.
Jump.
He threw himself toward the ax as the aircraft stuttered and turned again, still on the ground. His hand grabbed the handle but the ax stayed on the wall, held by a thick leather strap. Danny pulled, and as he screamed he felt himself rushing through the bulkhead, shoulders brushing hard against the side.
The Iraqi’s blood didn’t spurt or gush or stream. It seeped from each of the three places Danny struck, like a stream lapping the shore, an eddy probing the sand.
The helo slammed down, the engine stuttering dead.
A moment later strong hands grabbed Danny from behind.
“Hey, way to go, Cap,” shouted Powder. “Guy must not’ve been a pilot, huh, cause he couldn’t get off the ground. Uh, can I have the ax if you’re done with it?”
Chapter 100
Aboard Quicksilver, at High Top 1500
“All systems are in the green,” Chris told Breanna as they finished their preflight checklist.
“You ready?” she asked him.
“This’ll be a piece of cake after what we’ve been through,” said Ferris.
Breanna nodded. He was right. Quicksilver’s mission was easy, detecting radars and fuzzing them for a group of attack planes flying over the central part of Iraq, well out of range of the Iranian laser. Between the repairs and her uncoated nose, Quicksilver’s radar signal was nearly as large as a standard B-52’s, but the jamming gear was working fine and they’d be escorted by a pair of F-15Cs.
At 35,000 feet they’d be as safe as if they were flying over France. Maybe even safer.
But Zen wasn’t with her, watching her back. Nor was she watching his.
“You with us, Captain Dolk?”
“Uh, call me Torbin.”
“Torbin. What is that? French?”
“Swedish,” said Torbin. “I was born near Uppsala. We came over when I was three.”
“Sounds like a nursery rhyme,” said Ferris.
“Generations of Swedish kings were crowned there,” said Torbin.
“And will be again,” said Breanna. “Gentlemen, let’s roll.”
Chapter 101
In Iraq
1512
Danny leaned against the tail boom of the mammoth helicopter as his men finished topping off the fuel tanks.
He could hear Egg talking to himself in the cockpit, obviously going over each of the controls, checking and rechecking them. The helicopter expert had still not arrived in Dreamland Command. Danny’s knee had swollen so stiff he almost couldn’t move it, despite the fact that he kept trying to.
“Ready, Cap,” said Bison, who’d been overseeing the refuel. “Got rockets, machine gun. Wingtip pods are empty.”
“Yeah. Good.” Danny tried bracing his injured leg against the other. It didn’t help, but he was going to have to fake it. “Powder?”
Powder had insisted on taking the weapons operator slot, claiming that he had attended some sort of training session in Apaches. Danny was too beat-up to argue; the controls for the nose gun and rockets were fairly straightforward — select and fire.
God, his knee hurt.
“Okay, saddle up,” Danny told his team over the com system. He pushed off the helicopter, right hand tightened around the MP-5 against the pain. “Egg, our expert with you yet?”
“Uh, no, sir.”
“Well, whenever you’re ready, we’re good to go.”
* * *
The weird thing — or the first weird thing — was the blue panel. The Hind’s dash was painted a weird blue turquoise that physically hurt Egg’s eyes.
The Pave Low the other day had seemed complicated as hell, even though he’d flown a slightly earlier version before. This just seemed like hell.
He knew where everything was, knew what everything did — the important stuff, anyway. On some basic level, all helicopters were alike.
They were, weren’t they?
Egg felt his brain starting to break into pieces.
He grabbed the control yoke, steadied his feet on the rudder pedals.
Come on, Egg, he told himself. Come on come on come on.
No way in the world he could do this. No way.
The collective felt almost comfortable in his hand. His fingers wrapped easily around it, and damn it, this was just another helicopter whirlybird rig, as his instructor would say.
Engine panel on right.
Checklist.
Where the hell was the checklist Jennifer had given him?
“Sergeant Reagan — before you begin, please cinch your belts. The g forces can be considerable during maneuvers.”
God was whispering in his ears. With a Polish accent.
“Yes,” he said.
“Sergeant, my name is Robbie Pitzarski. I’m going to help you fly the Hind,” said the expert, speaking from halfway across the world in the Dreamland Command Center bunker. “Before we begin, let me emphasize that if you get in trouble, stick to the basics. It’s a helicopter, first and foremost. The Russians place things in odd places, but the blades are on top and the tail’s in the back.”
“You sound like my old flight instructor,” Egg told him.
“Very good. To the right of your seat, almost behind you, there is an emergency shut-down lever that connects to the fuse panel. It has a red knob and looks rather con-torted. Let’s make sure that has not been thrown inadver-tently. It would make it most difficult to proceed.”
* * *
Powder had to squirm to get his body into the gunner’s cabin, slamming half the gear on the way. The hatch stuck for a moment, and he nearly broke the shock-absorber-like strut getting it closed. There were grips and gauges and pipes and all sorts of crap all over the place; it reminded him of the bathroom in his grandmother’s basement apartment. Luckily, Jennifer the goddess had given him a very good paper map of the cockpit, pointing out the key shit — her word, not his. The optical sight ocular for the missile system was on the right, the armament panel was in an almost impossible to reach position at his right elbow, the delicious gunsight with its well-rounded wheels sat at his nose, her perfect hand-sized mammaries at full attention.
Jennifer hadn’t given him those. But he wouldn’t need a map to find them.
Rumor was, she and the colonel had a thing. Rank had its privileges.
But hell, she was here, and he wasn’t. Dogs got to run.
Truth was, she was so beautiful — so beautiful — he might not make it out of the kennel for all his slobbering.
With great difficulty the Whiplash trooper turned his attention back to the weapons.
* * *
The rotors slipped around four or five times before the Isotov turboshafts coughed, but within seconds the engines wound up to near takeoff speed, the helicopter straining to hold herself down. Egg took a breath, then went back over the dashboard, making absolutely sure — absolutely one hundred percent sure — he had the instruments psyched.
He knew the whole damn thing. He knew it, he knew it, he knew it.
Stop worrying, he told himself.
“Very good so far, Sergeant,” said Pitzarski. His accent garbled some of his vowels, so the words sounded
more like “vrr-ee gd sfar, surg-ent.”
“You can call me Egg.”
“Egg?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And myself, Robbie.”
“Cool.”
“Hey, we takin’ off or what?” demanded Powder, breaking in.
“Excuse me, sir,” said Egg. “Shut the fuck up, Powder, or I’m hitting the eject button.”
“There ain’t no damn eject button.”
“Try me.”
“Ready?” asked Pitzarski, but Egg had already thrown the Hind forward, stuttering, bouncing on the stubby wheels, bucking, pushing forward too fast without enough juice, gently backing off, revving, going — airborne, he was airborne.
* * *
Two men came rushing at the aircraft’s open bay as they started to move. Danny cursed; he’d thought everyone was aboard already. He started to reach to help them but the pain in his leg hurt too much. The helo lurched forward and up and he fell against the floor. He lay there for three or four seconds, not sure if Egg was going to fly or crash. Finally he pulled himself up, struggling into one of the fold-down seats, pushing up his leg.
“Liu, wrap my knee, okay?” he said. “I sprained it or something.”
A building passed in the cabin window, replaced by sky, all sky. Liu took hold of his leg and began poking it, not gently.
“It ain’t broke,” Danny managed. “Just fucking wrap the knee.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ligament torn?” Danny asked.
“At least,” said Nurse.
Danny looked up. Two Marines were grinning at him through their face paint. One of the two looked vaguely familiar — the gunnery sergeant who’d come on the rescue mission the other day.
“We thought you girls could use some help,” said the Marine.
“What are you doing here?” Danny said.
“I’m sorry, Cap — you looked like you wanted to pull them in,” said Bison. “So I helped them in when you fell.”
“You.” Danny pointed at the gunnery sergeant, a short man with a face like a worn catcher’s mitt. “You look damn familiar. Before yesterday.”