Chad thought it was interesting to watch and believed it would have been change-your-pants terrifying had he taken part. They stood around waiting for the hum of the big airplane for about a half hour before one of the helicopter pilots, the blond that always scowled at Chad, said she heard it in the distance.
Sure enough, a few minutes later, a bird-like shape appeared around the side of a nearby mountain to the southwest. It grew larger and louder until it passed right overhead with the ear-splitting roar of four huge turbo-prop engines. It had been bigger than Chad had expected and slower. A large rectangular box popped out the rear of the cargo plane and dropped a few hundred feet tethered to a bright orange parachute. Three of the Rangers had scrambled over and dragged it back to camp.
“The clock is ticking, people!” Captain Alston had said as he checked his watch. Chad remembered how he’d called out each minute as the time slipped away before the plane would circle back for the pickup, staying on the opposite side of the mountain from Salmon Falls to avoid any Russian SAM sites.
As he had rested against a sun-warmed boulder on the north shore of U.P. Lake, Chad had watched the Rangers assemble and inflate the pick-up rig and giant, dirigible-shaped balloon. At the same time, the vials containing his precious, freshly-drawn blood were packed and attached to the rig as securely as possible. Everything was ready by the time the helium tank had been exhausted. By then, the Rangers strained against the ropes to hold the balloon under cover.
“On final approach,” called out the plane’s pilot. It was the only contact they had during the entire operation.
“Let it go!” the Captain had said. The Rangers and Apache pilots released the guide lines holding the balloon and it shot into the sky, sailing up and over the surrounding trees in seconds. Someone had looped the thick main line loosely around a large rock to keep the balloon from disappearing into the sky. The little pack of blood vials was nowhere near heavy enough to stabilize everything. It had been designed, Chad pondered nervously, to carry a man or two.
The roar of the plane returned, lower and slower now, just above the trees. The Rangers hooted and hollered as it grew near. Chad gritted his teeth as he felt his ribcage rattle in time with the rumble of those big engines. It was a most unnerving feeling. Like someone was shaking him from the inside. How the Rangers enjoyed it was beyond his understanding.
Then the big plane appeared over the trees, blotting out the sun. The rope looped around the rock suddenly went taut and began kicking up dust as it shot into the sky. The little package of vials lifted smoothly up and vanished above the trees in less than two seconds. Chad felt his stomach drop in a wave of vertigo, just imagining that he had been standing there as the plane flew over and picked him up.
And then it was over. The plane rumbled on downslope, turned the corner of the mountain and was gone from sight. In another minute, the echo of its massive engines died out there was nothing but the loud protests of one very pissed-off magpie screeching at the humans who had wrecked its daily routine.
“Stay with me, sir…” The sniper’s voice pulled Chad out of his dreamlike trance.
He blinked back the spots that threatened to choke off his vision. “I’m okay…how much…” he took a deep breath and the spots vanished. “How much farther?”
“Just there by that little rise. We’ll set up next to the boulder there by that tree. See it?”
Chad squinted in the morning light. “Yeah…yeah, I think so.”
It took another ten minutes for Chad to make his way gingerly through the underbrush and make it to the position Tuck had indicated. He collapsed next to the sniper, panting and wheezing but proud that he had made it and would be contributing to the effort to liberate the besieged town.
Tuck checked his watch. "Any minute now, they'll be checking in with us." He glanced out over the town, about half a mile downslope. "Nice clean angles, good concealment. We got us a hide, sir."
"Overwatch, Striker 2 actual. We're in position. You ready?"
Tuck squeezed his throat mic twice.
The earbud in Chad’s ear broke squelch again. "Valkyrie, Striker 2, Actual. We are go."
Tuck uncapped the scope on his long rifle and settled in the space between the boulder and the leaning pine tree. When he stopped adjusting his gear, the sniper was nearly invisible, even from only a few feet away.
"Set up your spotting scope and let's get some practice in while we wait for the fireworks."
Chad gratefully removed his backpack and sat on the ground. He unpacked a small telescope and set up the tripod like had been shown. He settled to the side of the boulder and got comfortable. "Okay...I'm set," he whispered.
"Good, now see that blue house on the edge of town down there?" Tuck said quietly.
"Uh...yeah, there it is...hey!"
"Ssssh!!!"
"Sorry...I can see Captain Alston and Sgt. Garza..." Chad whispered.
"Good. Just remember we may not be the only snipers out here. If Ivan is smart he'll have patrols combing this area. So we need to stay low, quiet, and most importantly, as still as possible—at all times. Got it?"
“Got it,” Chad whispered. He thought he heard a sound echo off the mountains around them. "You hear that?" he whispered.
Tuck listened. "Yup. Apaches must have dusted off.” Tuck checked his watch. “Well, we ate up more time than I wanted getting here…”
“Sorry,” said Chad.
“No worries, sir. Gonna get interesting real quick."
“Look!” said Chad, a bit too loud.
“I see, them,” hissed Tuck. “Gotta stay quiet, man.”
Chad watched in excited silence as the smoke trails from more than a dozen missiles streaked around the side of the mountain and dropped down into the tow. The missiles themselves were too fast and too far away for Chad to see them in his spotting scope, but he did see their impacts. Bright balls of orange erupted where the missiles found their targets, producing clouds of smoke and flying bits of debris. It took a second for the sound of the explosions to rumble over Chad and Tuck.
“I’m getting a negative reading on the SAM radar, Actual,” reported Tuck.
“Roger that. Valkyrie Lead, Hammer 2, Actual. Overwatch reports negative SAM signature, how copy?”
“Something’s not right,” muttered Tuck. “Check out the northwest corner of town.”
Chad swung the spotting scope to the left and focused where instructed. “I got a bunch of Russians running between houses…looks like there’s a tank or something sitting in that backyard...”
“I’m keeping track of our people…there’s no movement on the south end of town. That tank you see—does it have missiles?”
Chad adjusted the focus of his scope and tried to ignore the popping sounds coming from the town as more explosions ripped into the Russian lines. “No…I don’t see anything. It’s just sitting there. I see a few guys near it, but they’re looking for cover, I think.”
“Okay, Actual, SAMs are down. Repeat, Overwatch has no visual on SAM sites,” whispered Tuck.
“Roger that, Overwatch.”
Chad could feel his heartbeat quicken when he spotted the two sleek-looking Apaches swing around the far side of the mountain to the north. “There’s the Apaches!” he hissed. “They look so small…”
“Wait a minute…” muttered Tuck. “Where’s the third one?”
Chad scanned the skies to the north. “I don’t see anything. Just those two. Boy, they’re sure givin’ the Russians hell—look at that!” Chad said, pointing at multiple little puffs of smoke that appeared in town. The Apaches were raining small missiles on the Russians. Chad was transfixed, watching as the helicopters soared through the pillars of smoke drifting up from burning Russian positions. As they passed through, destroying everything in their paths, the Apaches curled tendrils of smoke which swirled about them in the downdraft of their rotors. They looked like something out of a nightmare.
Tuck muttered a curse under his breath. �
��Striker 2, Actual, Overwatch. Got negative visual on Valkyrie 3, over.”
“Copy that, Overwatch. Wait one.”
“This isn’t good. That third Apache was supposed to take out the SAM sites on the northwest part of town.”
“But I didn’t see anything over there. That tank was just sitting there without missiles. Does that mean—”
“Look!” said Tuck, pointing toward town in a sudden movement that caught Chad by surprise. It was like the brush grew an arm and came to life.
Chad peered through the scope and watched missiles drop from the stubby wings of the Apaches and streak toward targets on the ground trailing smoke and fire. Muffled explosions reached their position a mere second after they saw the Russian positions burst into a balls of fire and flying debris.
“Nice!” said Tuck. “Didn’t think we had those, did you?”
The sound from another enormous explosion near the center of town rolled over them like a clap of thunder. “Wow!” said Chad, adjusting the focus on his scope and squinting through the eyepiece. He was watching pieces of City Hall fly across streets and smash into adjacent buildings.
“I bet those pilots are having fun,” muttered Tuck, watching the action through his rifle scope.
The front of what looked like a drug store crumpled when two cars and a truck were flung into it from the tremendous explosion at City Hall. He laughed when he saw Russian soldiers, like little ants, scurrying for cover and trying to find the source of the death raining down on them.
“Any sign of Valkyrie 3?” asked Captain Alston’s voice.
Tuck looked around and examined the sky while Chad kept watch on the battle in town. “Negative, Striker 2, Actual. Clear skies.”
Chad glanced over his shoulder. He thought he heard a twig snap and turned around to look. There was nothing there. Another explosion rumbled in town and he turned back to watch the carnage continue. Movement on the west end of town caught his eye.
“Uh-oh,” he said, looking through the spotting scope. “Hey, remember that tank? I think they had it covered or something. I see some white things on it that look like—“
A puff of white smoke between their position and the town appeared in his eyepiece.
“SAM launch, SAM launch, SAM launch! West of town!” called out Tuck.
“Get your hands up, Huntley!” called out a female voice. Chad flinched in surprise and knocked his spotting scope over the edge of the boulder. It hit the ground on the other side and shattered against the rocks.
“You scared the shit out of me!” Chad turned and saw the blond pilot that had always glared at him a few paces away. She had her service pistol drawn on him in a two-handed grip. He noticed with some alacrity that her knuckles were white.
“What the hell—” said Tuck as he turned.
Before the sniper could say anything else, the pistol barked twice and Chad ducked, ears ringing.
“Jesus!” she said. “I didn’t even see you!”
“That’s kinda the point,” Tuck groaned in pain. He fell to the ground from his perch by the tree. His rifle clattered down next to him, just out of reach.
“You shot him!” Chad screamed, still crouched over, hands up next to his ears. “Who’s side are you on?”
“That’s—that was an accident!” she screamed back. The gun wavered between Tuck and Chad. “I’m sorry,” she said in a not-unkind voice toward Tuck. She wiped at her eyes. “I really am…I’ve never shot—shot anyone before! I just wanted to get you,” she said, swinging the pistol in an unsteady grip back toward Chad.
“Let me help him!” Chad pleaded.
She shook her head. “Get on your knees with your hands above your head. Hands together—do it now!” she said taking a step closer. Chad hesitated and looked at Tuck writhing on the ground, his face a mask of pain. Tuck suffered in near silence as he clawed at his stomach. He opened his mouth and closed it, looking for all the world like a fish out of water.
“Now!” she shrieked. The pistol went off and a chunk of the pine tree to the right of Chad’s head exploded into splinters. “Sorry!” she called out.
“Okay, okay,” said Chad. He scrambled to quickly getting to his knees and put his hands up. The pilot crashed through the underbrush the last few paces and quickly secured Chad’s wrists together with a cable-tie.
Chad remembered some of the rudimentary training drilled into his head when he had been a “guest” of the CDC ten years earlier. They had been concerned that because of the unique properties of his blood, someone or some organization would try and kidnap him. Of course, keeping him confined under lock and key in the Atlanta facility was the same damn thing to Chad.
Regardless, he remembered what they’d told him: “First, don’t fight. You’re not trained. Just go meekly and make your captors overconfident. They’ll be less likely to pick up on your next trick. Keep your wrists parallel to the ground and clench your fists as they put restraints on you. When you are secured, relax, and you’ll have room enough to maneuver yourself into a position to escape.”
Chad did just that and held his breath as the female pilot hastily slapped the cable-tie around his wrists. She never noticed how he held his wrists and clenched his fists.
“On your feet, let’s go.”
“What about him?” Chad asked.
She looked down at Tuck, who glared back at her with a face of pure rage. Chad could almost imagine that Tuck would somehow manage get up and strangle the pilot. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “Where’s your radio? Hand over your sidearm, too.”
Tuck grunted and used a blood-slick hand to fumble in a pouch on the chest of his ghillie suit. He pulled out the radio and jerked the throat mic and earbud cords free before feebly tossing it on the ground. He flipped-up the holster cover on his hip and pulled out a pistol that also went into the loose gravel at her feet. The pilot bent down, picked up the bloody radio with a look of disgust and flung it away. The gun she slipped into a pocket on her flight suit and secured with a zipper.
Despite two bullet wounds in the stomach and chest, the Ranger was actually smiling at the pilot, like he was thinking of some inside joke.
“What’s so funny?” she asked, her eyes darting toward the continuing battle over Salmon Falls.
“You throw like a girl,” Tuck hissed through clenched teeth. “You better shoot me in the head,” said Tuck in low growl, completely at odds with the smile on his face. His blood-slick hands fumbled with what looked to Chad like a tampon. “When I get patched up, I’m gonna hunt your ass down.” He grimaced and shoved the feminine product right into the bullet wound in his gut, then lay back against the boulder and closed his eyes.
The pilot pointed the wavering pistol at Tuck’s head but didn’t pull the trigger. Her eyes were locked on the town. Chad followed her gaze and saw with horror that one of the Apaches had just become tumbling bits of flaming metal falling out of the sky onto the burning town below.
Chad found it hard not to grin at the look on her face. “Someone you knew?” he asked.
She shook her head and wiped at her eyes with the back of one hand but kept the pistol on Tuck. “Start walking.” The firearm swung around toward Chad. Up close, the muzzle of the pistol looked enormous. “Move.”
Chad got up and started stumbling through the underbrush after a brief glance at Tuck. The Ranger nodded at Chad and pointed to his ear. He started to tear open a second tampon.
“I’m gonna find you…” Tuck warned.
What the hell does that mean? He struggled on the sloping ground with his hands tied together. Then it came to him: Oh! I still have my radio! She doesn’t know I have one…
“You hear me?” called out Tuck in a hoarse voice. “I will find you, bitch!”
“Where are we going?” Chad said after she prodded him up the mountainside for the third time. “I don’t like feeling that gun in my back, you know.” As he talked, he let his hands go slack, just like he was shown. He rotated his wrists. It worked! No
w I just need to wait for the right moment…
“I don’t like having to remind you to go faster, you know,” she spat back. “Keep moving, civilian.”
“Overwatch,” Captain Alston’s voice said in Chad’s earpiece. He flinched in surprise but covered himself by tripping over a rock. “Now’s our chance. We’re moving in. Cover us!”
Chad fretted over how to activate the radio in his chest pocket. With his hands tied in front of him, there was no way he could do it without drawing unwanted attention. Whatever he did, he had to keep the pilot away from the right side of his head or she’d see the tiny radio’s tiny wireless earpiece for sure.
Every step they took led him farther and farther from the wounded sniper. His mind was racing, but nothing came to him as he staggered along. The pilot’s sidearm was never far from his back. I’m running out of time…
When they crested one last brush-covered hill, he understood why she was making him walk back up the mountain. Up there, behind a copse of pines was the third Apache, waiting patiently.
“Overwatch, take out that patrol in front of us!” said Captain Alston’s voice. In the background, Chad could hear gunfire.
“Why are you doing this?” Chad asked again, trying to buy time. He slowed down. The pistol hit his spine again. “Ow!”
“You know how much you’re worth to the Koreans?”
“Overwatch! Come in!”
“Really?” asked Chad. “This is about money? You’re going to sell me to the Koreans? After all we went through to escape them—”
She shoved him up against the fuselage of the helicopter with a grunt. “To the Koreans, you’re—or I guess your blood is—worth exactly one-half what the Germans will pay and one-quarter what the Russians are offering. Patriotism be damned—I can’t turn my back on half a billion dollars. I got family and bills and…” her voice faltered. “My kids…my daughter has been so sick…”
Apache Dawn: Book I of the Wildfire Saga Page 40