by Noah Mann
“Mr. Fletcher...”
I turned toward the president, the man standing halfway between the warhead and the door, waiting for me as Schiavo made her way out.
“Time for you to go home,” he said.
* * *
We were back in the lobby, geared up, troops all around us, only MacDowell unarmed as he walked us toward where we’d dashed into the building not an hour earlier.
“Helicopters are on their way in,” he told us. “You’ll be taking the northern route out to get you back to Air Force One.”
“You’re not worried about tipping your hand on your escape route anymore,” I said.
“The moment is at hand,” MacDowell said, unintentionally theatric in his choice of words, a thinly confident smile on his face. “We’ll be following the same route in a few hours, I suspect.”
The Unified Government forces had to be massed close. Closer, maybe, than either he or the president wanted to believe.
“Good luck,” MacDowell said.
Captain Robertson and his troops took up positions near the outer support columns that defined the lobby as the windy roar of the Blackhawks rose, dust kicking up on the street as one of the helicopters settled toward the earth precisely where it had dropped us off.
“Angela,” Martin said, putting a hand on his wife’s shoulder. “What happened up there?”
She looked to him, just looked, signaling very clearly in some marital shorthand—not now. Martin understood and didn’t push it. I did wonder, though, if ‘not now’ in her mind actually meant ‘not ever’. If she thought that what she’d been told, and what I’d been privy to, was a secret she would not share, even with the man closest to her.
But after a few seconds of consideration, I realized that she was almost certainly being truthful in her response to Martin. The time would come, I thought, for him to bear the secret alongside her. And me.
“Ten seconds!” Captain Robertson shouted.
Seventy-five yards away the Blackhawk touched down and its left door slid open. Four of Robertson’s troopers dashed into the street and took up positions, covering both east and west.
“Go!”
We reacted to the captain’s direction and dashed out of the building, jogging quickly across the street and onto the dirt field in front of the capitol building, rotor wash throwing clods of earth and debris at us. Martin was first to reach the helicopter, the rest of us piling in, taking the same seats we’d occupied on the flight in and slipping back into our headsets as we buckled in. The door slid shut and the turbine’s roar rose, the bird rising and tipping forward, gaining altitude and banking sharply right, heading north.
Before we flew beyond the domed statehouse building I was able to glimpse out the right-side window three of Robertson’s troopers dragging the fourth back toward the building, two squeezing off shots to the west, firing at a point we’d just flown over.
“Enemies to the west now,” I said.
“We took sniper fire from the east when we arrived,” Schiavo said.
I nodded, knowing what that meant.
“The Unified Government is closing in,” I said.
The president had called it the final battle. It seemed that the ultimate conflict he’d envisioned was arriving sooner than anyone had expected.
Twenty Three
We were no more than two miles north of the capital building when the folly of a safe escape from Columbus became apparent.
“Fire right!”
It was the pilot, I thought, taking note of a sudden burst of heavy machinegun fire rising up from the city on his side of the aircraft.
“Fire left!”
The copilot announced what he was seeing from his vantage point, the Blackhawk taking immediate evasive maneuvers which tossed us back and forth, testing the fabric belts which held us in our seats. The left door gunner began firing, laying streams of red hot lead on the buildings below from his minigun, his partner on the right doing what he could, firing an M4 past the disabled gun hanging uselessly from its mount.
“This is supposed to be clear!” the left gunner shouted over the intercom.
If the northern route had been clear, it wasn’t anymore, a fact made abundantly clear by the line of impact holes that appeared on the left side door, rounds tearing through the metal and ricocheting off the bulkhead just behind and above me.
“We’re taking hits!”
It might have been the right door gunner announcing the obvious, but I wasn’t sure. In the growing chaos, I tried to focus, readying my AR for use should we need to open the side doors and add something to the defense of our aircraft.
“Get us out of here!” the right door gunner nearly screamed over the intercom. “We’re getting butchered on the right!”
Incoming rounds shattered the window in the door on that side of the aircraft, as if to emphasize his point.
“Hang on!”
The warning came from the cockpit just before we nosed severely down, losing altitude, the bottom of the Blackhawk skimming the tops of dead trees and rooftops and church steeples. Just visible off to the left, maybe a hundred yards distant, the other helicopter, which had been leading us out of the city, was now dropping back, smoke trailing from it as puffs of rich orange fire pulsed from the exhaust of one of its turbines.
“Zeke Four is hit,” the co-pilot announced.
“He’s going down,” Schiavo said.
She was right. Though the ground fire had slacked off, there was no escape for the Blackhawk which had absorbed the brunt of the fire as we punched through the gauntlet which had, for all intents and purposes, closed the northern escape route which had been counted on. The dying bird slowed and turned, wobbling as the crew tried to maintain control, a dangerously narrow space between buildings in an industrial area the only spot possible for it to set down.
“They’ll be sitting ducks on the ground,” Genesee said.
But as the wounded Blackhawk touched down, its main rotor clipping an old telephone wire, we continued on. Leaving them behind.
“What’s going on?” Schiavo said over the intercom, unbuckling and moving toward the left door, dragging the intercom cable with her as she scanned the earth below and behind through the window. “Pilot, what are you doing?”
“Getting you out of here,” the reply came, short and to the point.
“You have people on the ground back there,” Schiavo said. “They’re alive.”
“My orders are clear,” the pilot said. “Getting you back to Air Force One is my only mission.”
“Not anymore,” Schiavo said. “Turn this helicopter around and set down so we can pick up the other crew.”
“Ma’am, my orders—”
“You have new orders...what is your rank?”
“I’m a captain, ma’am.”
“I hope you’re aware that I was promoted by the president himself, to full bird,” Schiavo told the officer. “So, with that in mind, I’m giving you a direct order to put your aircraft on the ground and effect a rescue. Is that understood? We’re not leaving anyone behind!”
There was silence for a moment, then the Blackhawk began a sweeping turn. Schiavo steadied herself with a hold on the center seat support as the pilot lined up for a landing on the same avenue where the other helicopter had set down. Already the fire was picking up again, from elements of the Unified Government force which had completely encircled Columbus.
“That’s a hornet’s nest down there,” Martin said.
“Martin, you help the doc,” Schiavo said. “Get to the downed bird and help them back to ours. Fletch, Private Laws, and I will set up a perimeter. Everyone clear.”
A quick flurry of nods signaled that we were.
“Gunners, you back us up,” Schiavo ordered. “Keep this bird intact.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the gunners said in unison.
“Ten seconds,” the co-pilot reported.
Already we were below the tops of nearby buildings, the hot who
osh of red tracer fire arcing over our shifting position. If the enemy wasn’t already on top of us, they would be in short order.
“Five seconds.”
Schiavo threw the left door open. Carter did the same to the right. The sound of ground fire poured clearly into the cabin now. Shooters were only blocks away.
“Ready,” Schiavo said.
We unbelted and shed our headsets. The pilot flared his approach as the Blackhawk descended between a pair of old warehouses, the main rotors seeming to have almost zero clearance, the tips spinning just feet from the abandoned structures. The tail wheel touched down first, an instant before the main gear, the aircraft rolling forward a dozen yards or so before coming to a full stop.
“Go!”
We moved on Schiavo’s command, exiting from both sides of the Blackhawk. Genesee and Martin moved quickly forward to the other helicopter, its nose pointing at ours, fifty yards separating each. I took the north side of the street, while Carter took the south. Schiavo shifted to a position just aft of the spinning tail rotor, covering the western approach to the landing site.
I looked toward the downed helicopter and saw Martin just outside the right door, covering to the east as Genesee climbed into the cabin. There was no more flame from the engine, but heavy smoke billowed skyward, marking our exact position for anyone who was paying attention. Many obviously were, as the sudden eruption of cannon fire just beyond the warehouses signaled.
“That’s mounted weaponry!” the left gunner shouted out to me.
I moved a bit forward to get a better vantage to the south, peering down an alleyway that ran between the old buildings, the walls of one structure collapsed, rubble blocking the narrow passage. But not enough to obscure the trio of enemy fighters creeping along toward our position.
“Contact south!”
I shouted the warning and began firing, the right gunner doing the same with his M4 from inside the Blackhawk as the rotors spun fast above us. The fighters took cover behind mounds of bricks and twisted steel.
“Cover!”
The directive came not from inside the helicopter, nor from Schiavo, who was holding position fifty feet to the west. Instead it came from Carter, who dashed across the open space in front of the alley, ducking beneath fire from the door gunner’s M4 to take a position at the very beginning of the single lane passage between buildings. Rounds from the enemy ripped into the corner of the wall where he’d found cover, but Carter didn’t take the bait and lean into the open when the fighters paused for a few seconds. He had another plan.
The grenade was already in his hand when he reached the corner, and the pin out. When the lull in fire began he expertly lobbed the explosive device at an angle down the alley, its hard shell bouncing off the partially intact wall of the building on the western side and rolling just past the pile of rubble where it exploded.
In a flash and a puff of smoke a fast rush of screams sounded, then quieted, Carter’s aim either true or very, very lucky. He looked to me and I gave him a thumbs up as he held position, still covering his side of the street.
“Here they come!”
It was the left gunner announcing what we’d waited for, Genesee and Martin returning with the crew of the downed helicopter. Not everyone, though, was approaching on their own. Three of the downed chopper’s crew were carrying their fourth member, one of the door gunners, it appeared to me. His limbs hung lifeless and a thin trickle of blood left a red trail from their abandoned aircraft. Genesee stayed at the man’s side, holding pressure on at least one obvious chest wound, while Martin brought up the rear, covering them as he ignored his own injuries.
“GO! GO! GO!”
The left gunner again urged haste as the others reached the Blackhawk. Schiavo pulled in her position from the west, and Carter from the south. I covered the alley from my position just forward of the nose, holding it until the rotors spun up and the co-pilot, through the windshield, gave me a very emphatic gesture which signaled that the helicopter was leaving, with or without me. A final look down the alley satisfied me that we had this moment, and this moment only, to leave our landing zone before it turned hot.
“Fletch!”
I heeded Schiavo’s call, now, and climbed into the helicopter’s cabin, both doors sliding shut as I did. Genesee knelt on the floor over the wounded soldier, a sergeant his uniform insignia indicated. The rest of us filled the seats and held on as the Blackhawk rose quickly into the air.
“Left gunner, we’re turning right outbound,” the pilot said. “Hose that bird.”
As we performed a very shallow turn just above the buildings, the left door gunner fired multiple bursts from his minigun, shredding the downed Blackhawk. Its fuel tanks ignited and ruptured, sending a column of boiling fire into the narrow space between old manufacturing and industrial buildings. It was a necessary move to deny the enemy anything useful from the damaged aircraft. But it also marked our position before we’d even climbed high enough to be seen by the swarming Unified Government forces.
“Right! Right! Right!”
The gunner on that side yelled frantically over the intercom, forgetting the discipline which had been drilled into him—don’t just announce a threat, identify it. Before he could correct his mistake, the rocket he’d spotted launching sailed dangerously close, just missing the outer edge of the main rotors chopping through the smoke-filled air. He began firing as the pilot completed his turn, staying insanely low on a due west heading.
“There’s no safe route out,” the pilot told us. “So we’re taking the shortest.”
He jerked the helicopter left and right in unevenly spaced maneuvers meant to keep any fire from the ground from zeroing in on us. The motion, though, made Genesee’s job all the harder as he struggled to stabilize the wounded sergeant.
“Is there any plasma on this bird?” he asked, but he’d not bothered to put on his headset.
“Is there any plasma on board?” I asked, passing the question on to the crew. “Any medical supplies at all?”
“Just basic trauma kits,” the co-pilot answered.
Genesee already had that, and more, in the gear he’d brought along. But we’d had to leave a substantial amount of what had been in the Humvee when abandoning it near Portland International Airport became a necessity. Including the lifesaving fluid he needed at the moment.
“Clay,” I called to him, and when he looked I shook my head.
“Keep the pressure on,” Genesee said to the pilot of the downed chopper, redirecting his attention to his patient. “Hard. Right on that wound.”
The thick bandages he’d stuffed into the pair of gaping wounds apparent in the bloodied front of the sergeant’s shirt were soaking through. Still, the man was hanging on, breathing on his own, his chest rising and falling with each raspy gulp of air he took.
“Fire left!”
The door gunner sprayed the tower of an old brick building, returning the fire that was coming from it, the upper part of the structure disintegrating in a shower of smoke and stone.
“It’s easing up,” the co-pilot reported, signaling that the path ahead bore less resistance than what we were leaving behind. “We’ll be wheels down in—”
“Does the president ever ride on Air Force One anymore?”
The question that interrupted the report from the cockpit came urgently from Genesee, who’d slipped partially into a headset, just one ear covered and the boom mic askew below his chin.
“Who is that?” the pilot challenged.
“Commander Genesee. Now answer the question. Does the man ever fly on that aircraft or is it just for show?”
“Sir, I’m not at liberty to—”
“Screw the security protocols!” Genesee exploded. “Is he ever on board the damn plane!”
Silence hummed over the intercom. For just a moment.
“Captain, answer him,” Schiavo said, backing up the man who had very likely saved her husband’s life. “Now.”
“All
right,” the pilot said. “Yes. He’s flown on it.”
“Recently?” Genesee pressed.
“Two weeks ago.”
Genesee pulled the headset off and looked to Schiavo, shouting over the painful whine of the engines.
“He’s coming with us,” Genesee said.
“Who?” Schiavo asked.
Genesee pointed to the gravely wounded sergeant. Schiavo puzzled at his statement, as did I, but not for very long, both of us quickly making the connection between what was necessary and where that need could be met.
“All right, commander,” she said.
Genesee took a calming breath, then looked to the sergeant. The man didn’t have long. One didn’t have to be a Navy trained doctor to see that.
“Captain,” Schiavo called out into the pilot.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Wheels down in how long?”
“Fifteen,” the pilot answered.
Schiavo looked to me. Fifteen wasn’t good enough.
“Firewall those throttles, captain,” Schiavo said.
Ten seconds later we were screaming over the western outskirts of the city. Carter looked to me, confused.
“He needs a hospital,” I said.
“I thought we were going to Air Force One,” Carter said.
“Exactly,” I told him.
Twenty Four
The Blackhawk hadn’t even stopped rolling when the left side door slid open. As soon as its wheels stilled, the sergeant’s fellow crewmembers carried him off the Blackhawk with Genesee and Carter jogging alongside toward the stairs already lowered near the tail of Air Force One. Captain Borenstein stood near that entrance to the aircraft, his small contingent of troops arrayed near him, not surrounding the plane as had been their stated mission.
Something had happened.
“Angela,” I said as I left the Blackhawk, shouldering Genesee’s gear for him.
“What?”