Wings of Gold Series

by Tappan, Tracy

  Cursing, Eric started for Mikey, then stopped, waiting while Bomber swept the fire-spitting nose of the M50 machine gun from left to right across the path of the drug smugglers. Bat-bat-bat-bat…Bomber rained bullets on the enemy as each man stampeded up the hill.

  The bad guys dove for cover.

  “Hold your fire!” Eric told Bomber, then sprinted over to Mikey, grabbed him by the back of the flight suit—about the only place his friend wasn’t bloody—and hefted him inside. “Strap in,” he ordered, worry making his tone sharper than he’d intended. How much of that blood was Mikey’s? No time to find out now, but probably a buttload of it, if Mikey’s white face was any indication.

  A pistol spit, followed by a sharp metallic zing, and a bullet hole appeared in the helo frame just to the side of Eric’s head. Dammit! He rounded on his AW and snarled, “Red mist these cocksuckers, Bomber!”

  Bomber bared his teeth around the soggy stub of his cigar, the muscles in his arms jerking from the recoil of the M50 as he raked through another wave of the enemy. Blood and ragged chunks of flesh flung in all directions, painting the air red. The reek of gunpowder, metal, and the cloying, coppery scent of blood was noxious.

  Eric ran to the left side of the aircraft, taking a path around the nose this time, and hoisted himself inside. Normally, this was the copilot’s side, but not today. He buckled up and jammed on his helmet. “Can you get your helmet on?” he asked Mikey. He wanted to be able to talk to…

  Mikey was drooling blood into his lap.

  So that would be a no. “Whatever is wrong with you,” Eric gritted to his friend, plunking a helmet on Mikey’s head, “you hold on. Do you hear me?” Eric flipped the switch to turn on the APU, the small internal motor which would power up the engines. “I’m giving you a direct order not to die.” He went to push the start button to fire up engine one, and missed it. What—?

  He held out his hand in front of him and checked it. He was shaking as if he’d just double-fisted down a Monster and a Red Bull. Beautiful. He’d reached max weight on his feelings. Nice to know he had an edge he could be pushed over, but now was, oh, kind of fucking inconvenient timing for soul-deep epiphanies about his humanity.

  There are no prizes for second best, Eric. He squeezed his hand into a fist, peeled his fingers open, then jabbed the engine one start button. He did the same for engine number two, then reached up and yanked down on the rotor brake, releasing the blades. He pushed the engine throttle to full open, and, above, the blades began to twist into motion. “Come on, girl, pick up the speed. You can—Shit! Bomber, my eleven o’clock. Two dickheads with Stingers.”

  Eric snatched the pen gun from his waistband and aimed it out the window at the two Colombians who’d popped up on his side of the hill. Each man stood in a wide-legged stance and had a long tube set on his shoulder indicative of a surface-to-air missile launcher.

  Eric fired the pen gun.

  “You mished,” Mikey slurred.

  “Yes, thank you,” Eric shot back testily, fumbling in his pocket for more bullets. This shaking hands thing really needed to go away. “Return to not talking.” Although it wasn’t lost on him that at least Mikey could talk.

  Behind Eric’s seat, Bomber shot out the observation window—Pop! Pop!—then stuck a pistol through the open hole, and—Pop! Pop! He capped both dickheads, single shots to the throat and heart. God love the multi-talented AW.

  “Stinger!” Gamboa yelled. “My side.”

  Eric looked over his shoulder and scowled. Nicole was manning the M50! “Buckle in!” he bellowed at her. “Right now!” The rotors were spooled up to full speed, and with another grenade launcher being pointed at him, he had to get the hell off the deck. He wrapped a fist around the stick and braced himself. This takeoff was going to be ugly. With no time to pick up gently and turn the helicopter into the wind, he was going to take an ass-pounding from rough airstream as soon as he lifted off…which meant his tail rotor was going to get into a world of trouble.

  In his rearview mirror, he spotted the Stinger being aimed at him, and—fuck! “Prepare to lose tail rotor authority,” he yelled, pulling up on the collective with his left hand. The helo rose off the deck, shuddering as strong winds pummeled its hind end. Eric felt a telltale chug as the tail rotor missed a beat, then another. The nose of the aircraft veered right. The helo kept turning…

  Mikey bowed his head and gripped the seat.

  Whoosh! They’d already spun a full 180 degrees when a blast ignited from the ground. Missile launch! “Deploying chaff and flares!” Eric let go of the collective long enough to expel the countermeasures that would divert the incoming missile from his aircraft, then banked hard right to get out of the way…the only way he could go with the helo picking up right-turn speed.

  Clouds whizzed by.

  The missile flashed past them, homing in on the flares.

  Eric kept pulling up on the collective—kept adding power—fighting against the natural instinct to slow down as the increased power whipped the helicopter into a nauseating spin. Sky and clouds smudged together into a wall of hazy blue in front of Eric’s vision. The G forces he was pulling from whirling like a crazy-assed top jammed his body against the cockpit door, the nylon straps of his seatbelt chafing his bare chest.

  Faster and faster… Wind roared through the shot-out observation window, the unequal pressure clogging his ears.

  Someone screamed once, then the noise was bit off. Nicole.

  With the world now a lump of unformed clay before his vision, offering no discernible input, Eric had to listen to his instincts to tell him when he’d gained enough altitude to maneuver out of the disturbed air trying to kill them.

  Now! He dumped the collective, tipping the nose over and sending the helo into a death-streak for the earth. His body was sucked back against the seat. Breath held, he kept the stick muscled forward until he roared into clean air, free of high winds and turbulence. He adjusted the stick to level out, and the helo swept forward into a smooth straight line. He exhaled and inhaled, flying steadily for several loud thuds of his heart before his brain computed what his senses already knew. They weren’t spinning any more.

  “I sorely ’ppreciate you not turnin’ us into a smokin’ hole, LZ,” Mikey said, his Southern drawl exaggerated the same as when he was drunk.

  Eric loosened the painful grip he had on the stick. Christ, he’d never lost tail rotor authority that severely before. “You’re welcome,” he responded. “FYI, that wasn’t fun.”

  Mikey laughed drowsily. “From this seat, it was a square dance, I’m tellin’ ya.”

  Eric shot a quick glance at his friend.

  Mikey’s head was lolled forward like his neck was broken.

  Shit. “Bomber,” Eric said into his mic. “The El Dorado International Airport is a no-go. Bogotá is too far. We need a hospital for Mikey now.”

  No argument came from Mikey, which was pretty damned telling.

  “Roger that,” Bomber said. “You’re sixty miles from Marco Fidel Suárez Air Base.”

  “Roger.” Eric set the TACAN29 for Marco Fidel Suárez, a Colombian Air Force airport in the city of Cali. This was closest to their current position, and the Plan B landing option decided upon in their pre-mission brief. “How’s Agent Gamboa?” he asked Bomber.

  “Uh… You know, I’m just going to leave her alone for now, boss.”

  That didn’t sound good. But then, they’d all just been through a harrowing spin. Bad enough for a pilot who had training for it, much less Nicole.

  Bomber cleared his throat. “I should probably add that she scares me.”

  You and me both, friend. “Let’s get on the ground.” Eric reached down and dialed in 7700 on the IFF.30 “Squawking an emergency,” he said, then set his radio frequency to 119.1 and spoke into his mic. “Cali Approach, this is US helicopter Lone Wolf 6-8 off of Navy ship”—not really, but he couldn’t exactly say off of Isla Gorgona, could he?—“declaring an emergency, sixty miles southw
est of Cali, two thousand feet, heading 0-7-0. Request direct vectors and clearance into Marco Fidel Suárez Air Base.”

  Heavily accented English crackled back into Eric’s earpiece. “Roger that, Lone Wolf 6-8, I have you squawking 7700. Turn right to 0-8-1. What is the nature of your emergency?”

  Well, you see, I have a copilot covered in blood and a half-naked DEA agent possibly flipping her lid in the back. But, please, don’t ask any questions about that when we land, okay, ’cause, like, we might’ve just violated your sovereign airspace to conduct a secret mission.

  “Engine malfunction,” Eric answered.

  Mikey gurgled out a chuckle.

  Eric quickly added, “We don’t require Crash and Fire.” Truth is, I would appreciate it if you’d just let us mosey into your airfield without a welcoming committee.

  “Roger that,” the voice crackled. “We’re clearing air traffic for your approach.”

  Eric pointed the helicopter in the direction indicated by the TACAN needle.

  Several minutes later, the accented voice came back on line. “Lone Wolf 6-8, Marco Fidel Suárez Air Field is two miles off your nose. Report in sight.”

  “Lone Wolf 6-8, airfield in sight,” Eric verified.

  “Roger. Switch to 126.2 and contact Marco Fidel Suárez tower.”

  Eric checked in with Suárez tower, introduced himself again, re-confirmed that he didn’t need fire and rescue to roll, and re-requested clearance to land.

  “Clear to land directly on the transient line,” the tower told him. “Are you part of Task Force Charlie?”

  Eric adjusted the strap on his helmet. You mean the Colombian Air Force fly-by near Isla Gorgona today at 3:00? “That’s affirmative,” Eric answered.

  Mikey cast him a sidelong glance. “Pants on fire,” he warbled.

  Eric shrugged away the fib. He needed to be just one of the gang today to avoid unwanted scrutiny.

  Flying into a hover over the transient line, Eric set down the helicopter on the tarmac and pulled off the throttles. The loud whir of the jet engines quieted, and the blades slowly wound down. His insides and outsides were still doing that shaky thing as the events of the last few hours were letting him know loud and clear that skating through all this chaos wasn’t going to happen this time. Having an AK-47 pointed at him, getting shot at during their escape, and nearly losing his tail rotor were…no, the hell with that, he could handle those. It was her and that too-far sex show messing him up. But taking a moment to sit here and get his shit together wasn’t a luxury he could afford. Nicole was not a happy camper back there.

  Eric removed his helmet—it was amazing how easily it slipped off now he didn’t have any hair—and stepped down from the aircraft. He came around to the open side door.

  Nicole leapt out of the helicopter and stood rigidly in front of him.

  In purple lingerie.

  Her hair was a tousled cloud around her face, her brows pinned together into a furious vee, and—this one was a gut-puncher—her lips, kiss-swollen. “What was that?” she demanded, a vein visibly throbbing in her temple.

  He faced her with all the calm he could muster.

  In Colombian pants and sandals, bare-chested.

  “That was—”

  “We almost died!” she filled in for him on a near snarl. “That’s what that was.”

  He took a breath and said carefully, “That was a rough flight, yes.” If he’d lost complete tail rotor control, they’d be bug squash right now. “But we’re safe on the ground now.”

  Mikey slid out of the cockpit, landing with all of his weight on one leg.

  “And you!” she blasted, rounding on Mikey. “Maybe I wouldn’t feel like such a psycho headcase, if you’d done your job in the first place!” She started to take a step toward Mikey, but Eric snagged her by the shoulder and urged her back. “Nicole, if you’d take a second to look at him, you’d notice Mikey is soaked in blood. He obviously didn’t blow the generator on time for a damned good reason.”

  Mikey stood with his spine pressed against the side of the helo, pain in his eyes. The poor guy was ripped up six ways from Sunday, but that hurt look, Eric could tell, was because Mikey felt like hell for letting them down.

  Nicole stood still a moment, blinking, her chest laboring.

  He saw a bit of himself in her right then, as he’d been the day on Monserrate Mountain when he’d come off his spool and had hated every second of it. She clearly wasn’t enjoying herself either.

  Then…she just…sagged. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her lips scarcely moving.

  Eric nodded mutely, aching to reach out to her. But he didn’t know the etiquette on hugging a woman to comfort her if said woman had been naked in front of him within the last half hour.

  “It’s over now. All of it.”

  Her chin came up. “Right.” She laughed, the humorless sound seeming to jolt out of her chest. “It was just a job.”

  He glanced away. It had to be. Or else how would they ever walk away from each other? The thought made a wave of the shakes pass over him again, not visible on the outside this time, luckily, but still… Since when did he let things bother him like this? He supposed since he’d first met Nicole Gamboa and begun this weird fall into another man’s skin.

  “Alcohol,” Nicole said, the tendons along her throat flexing as if she were physically pushing the words up and out. “I need lots and lots of alcohol.”

  “That gets my vote,” Bomber seconded.

  “Hear, hear,” Mikey put in.

  Eric took a moment to inspect his bedraggled crew. “A green sea bag with an emergency change of clothes and various sundries is in the back of the aircraft.”

  Bomber turned around, grabbed the bag, and tossed it to Eric.

  Eric unzipped it, produced a flight suit, boots, and a thin, khaki-colored hat nicknamed a “piss cutter,” then shoved the bag at Nicole. “Get presentable,” he said. He slapped the hat on his head to hide the fake tattoo the DEA had put on his skull. It was a scroll-worked cross with a bloody spear jabbed through the center of it—not exactly PC in this Catholic nation. Besides, the Colombians might question if it was strictly US Navy regulation, which might subsequently lead to other unwanted questions. “I’ll obtain clearance with transient operations to shut down here overnight.” Eric looked at Mikey as he jammed his legs into the flight suit. “Don’t get too excited about that drink,” he told his friend. “First stop for you is an emergency room.”

  Not that there was enough alcohol in all of South America to convince Eric to buy off on the whole it was just a job theory. But he agreed with his team. It was worth a try.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Kyle passed three harrowing hours in the Hospital San Juan de Dios of Cali. Two of those were spent waiting in the crowded sala de emergencia jammed next to a man who possessed only two mutantly large teeth in the front of his mouth, was dressed in throwaways even poor people wouldn’t have worn, and smelled like he was storing a half-pinched loaf in the crack of his ass for later discharge and had dined on fish dick and troll barf.

  For the first half hour of the wait, a baby had cried. Nonstop. The mom bounced the kid on her lap for a bit, but other than that hadn’t done a damned thing to relieve the rest of them of the incessant racket. He gave Eric and Nicole a break and excused them to go find a hotel for the night. He himself would’ve nibbled on a gun muzzle had one been available.

  The last hour, Kyle was back in the main part of the ER sitting on a bed covered in paper rather than sheets. The concept of patient privacy didn’t exist for good ol’ Hospital Don Juan. There were no curtains hanging around the beds. A four-year-old on the next bed over, his thumb plugged into his mouth and snot running down his face, watched the whole time Kyle was being sewed up with a rusty needle by a doctor who’d clearly flunked his plastic surgery rotation. Kyle’s stitches, eight along his jaw and twenty-one traversing the length of his thigh, made him look like he was fresh off the set of a Tim Burton movi
e. Here’s hoping chicks get moist over scars. Because now he’d have a couple of doozies.

  Kyle stuck out his tongue at the kid. Nothing.

  Finding a bathroom to wash the blood off his hands, Kyle didn’t allow himself to think about where it’d come from while he waited for the faucet water to stop running brown. Maybe he should ask for a tetanus shot. He might have, actually, if he could’ve been sure a tetanus vaccine was what actually ended up in the syringe. Coming back from the can, he dug out three Lifesavers from the bottom of his front jeans’ pocket and handed them to the snot-nosed kid. The candies were stuck together into one lump of a Lifesaver and covered in lint and pocket dirt, but the kid giggled with delight.

  Highlight of his fucking day. Little kids were probably the only creatures on the planet, besides a good dog, who never purposely set out to hurt a person.

  At the end of it all, Kyle was adiós’d out the door with no more than eight hundred milligrams of whoop-de-doo ibuprofen. So now he was hanging out in the bar of the Hotel Windsor Cali with the rest of the crew, supplementation of pain relief with rotgut gin and tonic his primary goal.

  The hotel was a tall yellow and orange building, though not brightly colored yellow and orange, but dull, like the rest of the interior. Efforts had been made to spruce up the restaurant/bar with dark blue tablecloths and open-backed chairs of polished wood, but the place still had a worn-out feel. It smelled vaguely of mildew, too, like a gym shirt left at the bottom of a hamper too long. Kyle would’ve preferred a five-star hotel—cheaply priced here in Colombia by US standards—to kick back in and nurse his wounds, but LZ had chosen this joint because it was only a few short blocks west of the Marco Fidel Suárez Air Field, where their helicopter was sleeping.

  “So, O’Dryer…” Gamboa gestured with her beer, sloshing liquid over the rim of her glass. She was on her fourth lethal aguardiente shot with beer combo, much further along on her mission of pain relief than either Kyle or Eric. “Time to schpill your guts about your call sign.”