“Well, we’re doing our best,” Elroy said, and reached over to squeeze her shoulder gently. She nodded and focused on eating. She’d need the strength for the night and day to come.
* * *
The bad news was the whole number one engine needed to be replaced.
The good news was they’d brought the parts to do it.
The repair was going to take all day, and that was if they really jobbed it, so Mara did her best to help by staying the hell out of the way. She and Ozendi gathered with his fighters to plan their assault on the raider camp while Elroy supervised the work on the Huey.
Their biggest problem was a lack of basic intel. They didn’t know where the prisoners were being held, but from what Mara could remember, the camp wasn’t very big, and there didn’t seem to be a lot of places for them to stash the almost twenty people they’d snatched from the village.
“I’m betting they’re keeping them outside,” Mara said as she and the fighters went over her maps of the camp’s location. “Probably in a stockade of some kind. We’ll be overhead as a gun platform, and I’ll relay down to you guys on your handhelds.”
One of the fighters shifted uncomfortably at the idea of using the handheld FM radios, but Mara had informed them they had no choice. She understood why they were so careful with stray radio signatures, but with this op being such a last-minute, cobbled-together, jerry-rigged clusterfuck of an affair, they had to have reliable, flexible comms. Otherwise, it was a suicide mission, and none of their families would get out.
Truth was, Mara still had her doubts on that score, but she buried them deep and kept going. Because how could she not?
She also mostly-successfully avoided talking to Ozendi about anything personal. She saw him watching her, pain in his eyes. She could feel how he wanted to pull her aside and address the gulf that yawned between them, but he didn’t. It was a wise choice, all things considered. Several times during that day, she looked up to see Elroy watching her, as well. Once he jerked his head toward Ozendi and raised his eyebrows in a question. Mara gave him a little headshake, and El shrugged and turned back to his work. She let out a long breath, closed her eyes, and massaged her temples.
Sound drifted over from the work area surrounding the Huey. A flow of guitar notes intertwined with an eerie, winding voice spiraling, singing a wordlessly haunting melodic line. The scratch of a maraca…then the drums stepped in, and Mara recognized a song she’d listened to as a kid and loved all her life.
“What is that music?” Ozendi asked, looking up from the group huddled around the map. Mara couldn’t help herself, a grin split her face for the first time since they’d found the burning wreckage of the settlement.
“It’s ‘Gimme Shelter.’” She tossed the answer back to him without looking as she strode toward the helicopter. “It’s a classic Huey song.”
The maintenance team was crawling all over the Huey, most of them singing Jagger’s lyrics or tapping their tools to the beat on the cowling. Even Elroy was grooving along, swaying his hips as he peered into the now-empty engine compartment.
“Where did you guys get this?” Mara asked.
“Bobby fixed it up,” Elroy said, pointing to their avionics tech who was working on the center console, wiring in one of the FM radios they’d brought.
“Bobby?” Mara asked.
“Hey, ma’am,” he said, looking up. He had a shock of white-blonde hair and a wide, toothy smile. “I had an 8-track player in my bag when I got snatched. I figured since the bird had a psyops rig for the loudspeaker, and I was in here anyway, I’d hook it up and give the guys a treat. I’ve only got the one tape, though. Hope these guys like the Stones.”
“I think your odds are good,” she said. “Thanks for doing that, man. Can you leave it wired in?”
He grinned at her. “Sure thing, ma’am. Gonna do a little psyops?”
“Can’t hurt, right?”
“Damn straight.”
“This is perfect, Bobby, thanks. Good work.”
Mara stepped back from the skid and looked up at Elroy again. “Got an ETIC?”
“What? English, ma’am. I don’t speak your future shit.”
She sighed, but her smile remained, thanks to the music thrumming through her. “When are you gonna be done?”
“Couple more hours. We should be ready for a test flight before sunset.”
“Sounds good,” Mara said. “Keep going.”
* * * * *
Chapter Fifty
R’Bak
Thanks to the heroic efforts of her maintenance team, the Huey was once again flying by sunset. They did a quick check-out flight then landed back on the plateau. They’d brought a little extra fuel in their convoy out, but they didn’t want to waste gas, so Mara shut her down and waited for full dark.
Six of the trucks had left at sunset, carrying the local fighters. They’d follow the woodcutters’ roads and game trails to a spot upslope from the camp where they could wait unobserved. It would take them an hour or two to get there. By the time they were ready, it would be dark enough for Mara to come in low and fast over the treeline.
Their plan was incredibly simple. Mara would kick off the op by flying in and opening fire from the air. Then the trucks would roll in, hopefully vectored by intel from Mara and Ozendi, snatch up the prisoners, and roll out again while Mara continued to keep the raiders’ heads down. Elroy and another MACV-SOG guy named “Bones” would be her gunners. She and Ozendi would fly. The guys on the maintenance team that hadn’t gone ahead to join the party would head back to the settlement in the two remaining trucks and hopefully meet up with the convoy on their way out.
It could work.
Probably.
“You ready, sis?”
Elroy’s deep, rumbling voice cut through the fog of her woolgathering, and Mara blinked as the cockpit of the Huey came back into focus.
“Yeah,” she said, reaching up to pull her helmet off its hook and pull it on. “Just thinking it through.”
“Well, it’s time to stop thinking and start doing,” Elroy said over the intercom. “Bobby just transmitted they’re in place.”
“Roger,” she said. “Scramble Checklist.”
Ozendi responded with the appropriate checklist steps, and soon they had the bird in the air, armed to the teeth, and flying south. Moonlit trees and terrain blended into a blur as Mara focused on the task at hand: get in, lay down covering fire for the trucks, get out again.
Five minutes from the camp, Mara made a short transmission to the ground team. She got a single break in squelch as a reply, but that told her all she needed to know. The trucks knew she was overhead, and they were rolling.
“Game time, gentlemen,” Mara said, her voice icy calm over the beat of the rotor. “The camp is just on the other side of this ridge. Left gun, right gun, call out anything that looks like it might be our people, all right? And if anyone shoots at us, light them the fuck up.”
“Roger, ma’am,” Bones said, and she could hear the sound of him charging his weapon through the intercom. Elroy did the same on his side but said nothing.
“Up and to the right,” Ozendi said, turning his head to clear in that direction before applying power and banking the Huey. They crested the ridge at an angle, in a bank, so they had multiple options if they took fire on the other side.
“Camp is at the ten o’clock, low,” Mara called out, reaching for the cyclic and collective. “IP has the controls.” She rolled out of the bank, but continued their descent to the level of the trees and kept her nose buried so they would pick up as much speed as possible.
“I got eyes on the convoy,” Bones called out behind her. “Back at the eight. Coming in hot.”
“Copilot’s contact with the prisoners,” Ozendi said, his voice professionally blank. “A pen next to the river at the far edge of camp.”
“Left’s contact, too,” Elroy said.
“Excellent,” Mara said. “Vector them in, Copilot. Bones, kee
p me apprised of the trucks’ progress,” she added as Ozendi toggled the floor mike and made the transmission to their ground team.
“Let’s wake them up, boys,” Mara said. She reached overhead and toggled the loudspeaker switch on and hit “Play” on the 8-track player Bobby had strapped to the dash. Immediately, the cascade of notes began falling from the Huey’s external speakers, starting up the haunting, twisting melody once again.
“I’ve got enemy gun trucks in parking on the left,” Elroy called out.
“Cleared hot,” Mara said, and her crew chief opened up with the thick, snapping bursts characteristic of the M60. Mara felt the floor of the Huey shudder as he methodically walked his fire down the line of parked enemy vehicles. Charlie Watts’ drum line kicked in right as lights flared inside the makeshift tents and temporary buildings of the camp.
“I’ve got the friendlies,” Bones said. “They’re approaching the pen with the prisoners.”
“Roger,” Mara said. “Keep any enemies clear of that area.”
“You got it.” She heard answering snaps from his direction, though they broke off as the aircraft approached the line of friendly trucks barreling down on the objective: a rough animal pen half-filled with scared-faced people. From the quick look Mara got as they roared overhead, most of them looked to be female or very young.
“Targets down,” Elroy said as an explosion boomed out, lighting up the sky and blinding Mara for a breathless instant. She blinked furiously and waited for her vision to come back.
“Hard left turn,” she announced as soon as she could see again. Bones quit firing and cleared her turn. She pulled back on the cyclic, then banked hard over, using her anti-torque pedals to assist her through the turn. This brought the nose first up, then quickly back down and around as the bird whipped through 180-degrees to come back around toward the bulk of the now very awake enemy camp.
“Left gun, right gun, cleared to fire,” she announced again as they passed over the convoy of friendly trucks now pulling up to the pen and starting to load prisoners inside. She could see enemy figures emerging from tents and other parked vehicles, weapons out and pointing at them, but Bones and Elroy continued their steady rates of fire, and as soon as the enemy muzzles came up, the fighters went down under the torrents of 7.62 x 51 mm FMJ streaming down from the Huey’s two M60s.
“Climbing right turn, Spooky pattern,” she called out, pulling in power to both climb and accelerate as she started a steady spiral up and to the right. Bones ceased firing and began calling out the convoy’s progress. Elroy continued raining hate down onto the camp as they flew a circle all the way around it.
“Status?” Ozendi demanded over the FM radio. The radio squawked a burst of static. Then the hurried words “Halfway there” came through.
“Shit! I’m out!” Elroy said over the intercom. Mara immediately turned right, away from the enemy, and whipped the bird around into a left-hand orbit. On the loudspeaker, “Gimme Shelter” faded out and the first rhythmic beats of “Paint it Black” echoed through the night.
“Right gun, cleared to fire!” Mara said, her voice still empty and cold as she re-established the Spooky pattern overhead.
“Last truck’s loaded!” Bobby’s voice over the radio sounded loud and breathless, and unaccountably clear. “Moving out!”
“We’ll give them one more orbit—” Mara was saying, when Ozendi suddenly swore and grabbed at the controls.
“Mara!” he said, panic slicing through his tone. “I see Diozera! In the village! Cease Fire! Cease Fire! That’s my daughter, nine o’clock low!”
“Fuck! Left gun’s visual! She’s in the center of the village, in that cleared area with the torches.”
“My controls!” Mara said, her tone losing all its ice and cutting through the intercom like a scorching blade. “Bones, call me on the approach!”
She didn’t think. She just moved. Afterward, Mara couldn’t have recounted what she did with the controls, but somehow, she brought the Huey screaming down on an approach punctuated by Bones’ defensive fire that set them squarely in the middle of the enemy camp…
…where a tiny girl crouched, huddled next to the shot-up hulk of one of the enemy vehicles.
“Dio!” Ozendi screamed. He clawed at his harness restraints and had the door open almost before Mara had the skids fully on the ground.
“El!” Mara demanded.
“I’m on him,” Elroy replied, and she heard his intercom disconnect as he hopped out behind her copilot, his personal .45 in his hand. The two men ran to the little girl, who knelt with her face in the dust, her hair whipping around her as she pressed tiny hands over her ears. Mara watched, refusing to feel anything at all as Ozendi lifted his daughter, held her close, then handed her to Elroy before turning and running for a nearby makeshift building.
“Shit! Where the hell’s he going?” Bones asked.
“I don’t know,” Mara said. “Here comes El, help him with the baby.”
In front of the nose, Elroy curled over the girl and ran, hunched low, toward the bird. When he reached the open cabin door, Mara turned to look back and see him place the kid—she looked like she was about four years old—on the floor of the Huey.
“Mama and one more are being held inside! He’s going after them!” Elroy shouted without hooking his comms back up. Mara barely heard him over the beat of the rotor.
“Go get him!” she yelled back, waving her hand to urge him on. “Hurry!”
Elroy gave her a short, single nod, and took off running toward the same building.
“Get the kid secured,” Mara ordered Bones.
“Already done,” he replied, his voice as calm as ever. “We got company incoming.”
“Keep them off us for as long as you can,” she said. “El just got to the building.”
“You got it, ma’am,” the old Vietnam vet said. Under his words, Mara could hear the pop pop of enemy fire. Little puffs rose up from the dust, working toward them. Bones answered with another burst from his M60. “If I don’t get a chance to tell you, you’re a helluva pilot, ma’am.”
“Thanks, Bones,” she said. “Here they come!”
Sure enough, Elroy and Ozendi appeared, each of them carrying a woman. The one in Ozendi’s arms had long, blonde hair that almost brushed the ground. The other one looked older, thin and frail as her head lolled against Elroy’s chest. Both women looked bloody and battered to within an inch of their lives.
Someone else’s problem, Mara reminded herself. You gotta get us out of here.
The track changed again, and Jagger’s voice started asking permission to introduce himself as more gunshots rang out, this time from the right side of the aircraft. Elroy flinched and crouched lower, then turned and fired his .45, hunching to protect his burden with his body. Ozendi stutter-stepped, and then slowly toppled forward.
“FUCK!” Mara shouted. “EL!”
There was no way under the twin alien suns that Elroy could have ever heard her. Not with the gunfire and the rotor wash and the chaos. But he looked up at her anyway, and when she stabbed her finger toward Ozendi’s fallen form, Mara could see a jolt go through him.
Elroy didn’t bother with niceties. He took the two steps necessary to get to the bird and half-threw the old woman into the cabin. Then he turned back, crouching and running to Ozendi’s crumpled form. While Bones let loose with all the covering fire he could muster, Elroy grabbed the copilot’s collar with one hand and got the other under the woman’s arms and hauled them the last ten feet toward the Huey, even as Mara heard the plink plink plink of shots hitting her fuselage.
“They’re in!” Bones said. “El’s got the door closed on their side!”
“Don’t let them fall out!” Mara warned. “We’re off!”
The Huey screamed as she pulled right to her maximum power and shoved the nose over to take off straight ahead. Bones’ weapon continued to snap in double-time as she turned to keep the left side of the aircraft pointed at the e
nemy while she ran, hard, for cover.
Mara dove for the little stream that cut alongside the camp, twisted and turned along its path to present as difficult a firing solution as possible.
“Here they come!” Elroy said, his voice ragged and breathless, but back on the intercom. “Shit, I thought we got most of their vehicles. There’s at least five coming after us, two with vehicle mounts.”
“Hang on,” Mara said grimly, as she put the nose down even further, descending closer to the water, and pouring on the speed. Up ahead, the terrain flattened out, offering her even less in the way of options and cover.
We’re not going to make it.
“Bruce! Do you need help?”
The voice came in over the FM radio, staticky and thick with a Russian accent. Mara looked up just in time to see a Hind scream by overhead, releasing its 83mm rockets.
“Hind got ‘em!” Elroy cried out, jubilant. “The gun trucks are down!”
Tears of joy threatened to swamp Mara, and she couldn’t keep the grin off her face or out of her voice as she keyed the mic and spoke to her two fellow helicopter pilots.
“‘Bout time you got here, Sergei!” she said. “Your timing is perfect!”
“You know me,” Sergei, the senior Russian helicopter pilot said. “I promise I never miss party!” In the background of his transmission, she could hear the Hind’s powerful 23mm gun hammering away at the pursuing enemy forces.
“Yeah,” Mara said, laughing as tears ran unheeded down her face. She eased the collective out and started a gradual climb, no longer afraid to silhouette herself against the night sky. “I know, you promised.”
* * *
“Elroy, how we looking back there?” Mara asked as they crested the ridge and started back down. She forced herself to keep her eyes looking outside the aircraft, no matter how badly she wanted to turn around and see what was going on in the cabin.
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