Battle Lines (The Survivalist Book 5)

by Arthur Bradley

  “Check. Engine one ignition switch on.”

  Mason pressed a button, and the engine began to whine as it powered up.

  “Engine one start.”

  “Check. Engine one start.”

  Mason repeated the steps for the second engine, and the helicopter began to hum.

  “You’re doing great,” she said.

  “Backup hydraulics pump set to auto. Tail rotor servo transfer—check. Temperature looks…” He tapped the engine temperature gauge. It was in the green. “Good.”

  He gripped the collective with his left hand and the cyclic with his right.

  “Engine power control levers set to fly. Fuel pump, APU controller, and fuel systems selector all set.”

  “All set,” she repeated.

  Mason looked over at her and took a nervous breath.

  “You ready to take this bird into the air?”

  She nodded. “You’ve got this, Marshal.”

  Mason increased the collective while placing the cyclic slightly forward of neutral. The helicopter started to roll slowly forward. He turned the throttle all the way up, and the propellers whipped up to full speed, shaking the entire helicopter. He increased the collective a little more, and the helicopter lifted off as it continued its slow forward movement. With his feet on the tail rotor pedals, he kept just enough pressure from side to side to prevent the helicopter from rotating in either direction. Then he eased back on the cyclic to bring it into a static hover.

  Annie shouted over the roar of the engine.

  “We’re up, Marshal! You’re doing great!”

  Mason brought the collective up a little more, lifting them higher into the air. When they were clear of the city’s rubble, he eased the cyclic forward, causing the helicopter to shudder as it transitioned from vertical to forward motion.

  Annie braced herself against the door.

  “It’s okay. That’s the effective translational lift. It’s normal.” Before he could say anything more, the helicopter smoothed out and began to move forward, taking them directly over the museum.

  “Woo-hoo!” shouted Flynn from behind them. “We’re flying!”

  Bowie let out a few quick barks to add to the excitement.

  Annie looked over at Mason with a huge grin.

  “I told you it would all be okay.”

  He let out a sigh. “Don’t kick your feet up just yet. We’re up, but we still have to put this bird on the ground.”

  “Should we program in our destination?” Annie asked, studying a colorful map display on her side of the cockpit.

  “I wouldn’t even begin to know how.”

  “Should I try?” She reached toward the console but waited for his okay to touch anything.

  He shook his head. “Let’s not tinker with anything we don’t understand.”

  “Okay, but how will we find the way?”

  “We’ll follow I-75 south, then turn east on I-81. It’s not the shortest route, but at least we won’t get lost.”

  “Do you have an idea of how long it’ll take?”

  He pointed to a gauge that looked a lot like a miniature speedometer.

  “Max speed is 145 knots.”

  She raised her eyebrows as if needing more.

  “That’s about 170 miles an hour.”

  “And you said Boone was a little over 200 miles away?”

  “Give or take.”

  “That means we’ll be there in a little over an hour.”

  “Assuming we don’t crash or run out of fuel.”

  “Assuming that, of course.”

  Mason glanced back over his shoulder at Leila. She lay in exactly the same position as when he had loaded her into the aircraft.

  Annie said, “Would you like me to check on her?”

  “Please.”

  She stood up and climbed past him.

  “I’ll be back,” she said, patting him on the shoulder.

  He nodded. Despite her age and complete lack of training, she was a pretty darned good co-pilot.

  As soon as Annie got to the passenger area, she knelt down and placed her fingers against Leila’s neck. Her pulse was weak but steady. She checked her leg. The blood around the wound was coagulating. The tourniquet was doing its job perfectly.

  Bowie ambled over and sat beside Annie, but he made no effort to get in the way of what she was doing.

  She shouted over the endless thumping of rotor blades.

  “Marshal, should I loosen the belt for a few minutes?”

  Mason checked his watch and could hardly believe that it had only been fifteen minutes since he had first secured it around her leg. Having worked beside battlefield medics, he knew that if it a tourniquet was loosened too often, it introduced the risk of the patient bleeding out.

  He leaned around and gave her the thumbs down.

  She nodded.

  “Annie, quick, come see,” Flynn said, waving her toward the window.

  “What is it?”

  “Come see!”

  She shuffled over to him.

  “Look at that,” he said, pointing.

  Annie stared out the window, and for the first time, truly understood the scope of what they had escaped. The nuclear blast had created a zone of destruction five miles wide. At the center was an enormous crater, the kind of thing she would have expected to see on the surface of the moon. Fanning out in every direction were thousands of flattened buildings, highways piled high with burned cars, and an endless landscape of scorched earth.

  “My God,” she whispered.

  Flynn stared out with wide eyes.

  “It looks like a bomb went off.”

  “Yeah,” she said softly, “that’s exactly what it looks like.”

  Mason kept the helicopter a few hundred feet above the ground. He told Annie that he was flying low to keep from losing the highway, but in truth, there was something about being close to the ground that made him feel safer. It was completely irrational, of course, but he took comfort wherever he could find it.

  They raced over stalled cars and vacant stretches of desolate highway at nearly 170 miles an hour. At that speed and altitude, anyone on the ground would have had less than a second’s warning before the helicopter rocketed past them.

  Annie said, “Marshal, I want to thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For getting me and my brother out of there.” She shook her head. “No one should ever be trapped in a place so awful. Without your help, I don’t think we would have made it out alive.”

  “You’re welcome. I only hope I don’t kill you both in the process.”

  “You won’t.”

  Mason glanced back at Leila. She remained unconscious, but as of last check, she was still hanging in there.

  Seeing him looking back, Annie said, “Do you love her?”

  The question surprised him.

  “I barely know her.”

  “Then why did you risk your life to save her?”

  “It’s my job, I guess.”

  The look on Annie’s face said she wasn’t buying it.

  He sighed. “She kind of reminds me of someone I lost recently.”

  “I see. And if Leila died, it would have been like losing her all over again.”

  He smiled. “You’re pretty smart for a teenager.”

  “I guess.”

  Mason checked his watch. It was time to loosen the tourniquet. He wanted to be the one to do it, but he didn’t dare surrender control of the helicopter.

  “I need for you to go back and loosen the tourniquet.”

  “Now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How exactly do I do it?”

  “I’ll talk you through it.”

  “Okay.”

  Annie stood up and shuffled back for a second time. Flynn was still standing at the window, but Bowie had settled into a corner and was snoring softly.

  She kneeled down beside Leila.

  “All right, Marshal, I’m ready.”

/>   “Watch the wound while you release pressure on the belt.”

  Annie used her finger to hold the buckle in place as she carefully freed the metal tip. As she slowly loosened the belt, she watched the bullet hole. To her relief, it didn’t start bleeding. She scooted around the other side to check the exit wound. It too remained clotted.

  “It’s stopped bleeding.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She gently lifted the leg and studied both bullet holes again. The skin was coated in dried blood, but the wound was definitely no longer bleeding.

  “Yes. I’m sure.”

  “Okay. Watch it for a few minutes. If it doesn’t start bleeding, you can leave the belt loose.”

  Annie nodded and climbed up into one of the jump seats to watch and wait.

  Mason relaxed a little. Even though he knew that tourniquets sometimes helped wounds to clot, he hadn’t allowed himself to hope for such an outcome. With the bleeding now stemmed, Leila’s chances were improving by the minute. All he had to do now was land the helicopter.

  He took a deep breath. Yeah, that was all.

  An hour passed, and little by little, Mason began to feel more comfortable controlling the SpeedHawk’s movements. He kept everything very simple, every movement slow and deliberate. He was, however, afraid to relax his grip, and by the time they were nearing Boone, his hands ached from clutching the cyclic and collective.

  “Is that it?” Annie asked, looking at the small town directly ahead.

  “Unless I’m lost, it is.”

  She glanced back and saw that Flynn had curled up next to Bowie, and both were now sleeping soundly.

  “Should I wake them for the landing?”

  “No. Things will either go well, in which case we’ll all be safely on the ground in a few minutes, or they won’t.” He didn’t bother spelling out the details of the second scenario.

  Mason cut their speed to 40 knots and searched the rooftops for his target. It took him only a moment to locate the distinctive red and white cross on top of the Watauga County Hospital. He couldn’t help but reflect on the irony of the situation. The last time the landing pad had been used was when Agent Sparks had come to kill Ava. Now, he was using it to save a different woman’s life.

  “There,” he said, pointing. “We’re going to put down on top of the hospital.”

  “I see it.”

  As they approached, Mason continually adjusted the trim so that he never lost sight of the landing pad. He slowed their forward movement by briefly bringing up the nose, and they began creeping up on the hospital a few feet at a time. Rather than hovering over the helipad and then trying to lower down, he came in with a slow steady forward movement. Each time the center of the helipad fell below the nose of the aircraft, he lowered the collective a little. It was analogous to keeping a fixed-wing aircraft on the appropriate glide slope.

  “You’re heading straight for it,” said Annie.

  “Yeah, but I’m not sure that’s how we’re supposed to come down.”

  “It’s all right, Marshal. You do it your way. Remember, all we need is one good landing.”

  As they passed over the edge of the roof, he eased the cyclic back, further reducing their forward movement. Then he lowered the collective, bringing the bird down the final few yards. They made contact with the ground hard enough to bounce Bowie and Flynn off the floor. Both stirred but quickly settled back against one another.

  Afraid that the helicopter might tip over or drift off the roof, Mason quickly set the parking brake and cut power to the engines. The SpeedHawk stopped rolling and settled back with a slight jerking motion. They had set down a little closer to the edge than he would have liked, but all in all, it was a fine landing.

  Mason and Annie sat for a moment, staring straight ahead. As the rotor wound to a stop, he finally relaxed and let go of the controls. His jaws hurt from clenching his teeth, and his fingers felt like he had been carrying buckets of sand.

  Annie clapped her hands together a few times.

  “Good job, Marshal. You did it.”

  “We did it,” he said. “Now, let’s go find the doctor.”

  Mason watched as Dr. Darby applied a clean white dressing to Leila’s wound. Ava had introduced him to Darby months earlier, and both men now shared a special kind of bond that could be forged only through sadness and loss.

  “Doctor, what’s the prognosis?” asked Leila.

  “The prognosis, my dear, is that you should be fine. The bullet merely nicked the artery, and the hole was small enough that I was able suture it rather than having to apply a synthetic arterial patch. All that spells a quick recovery with fewer complications.”

  “I can’t begin to thank you enough. You saved my life.”

  “I only deserve a small portion of the thanks.” He looked over at Mason. “That’s the man who moved heaven and earth.”

  When Leila turned to Mason, there were tears in her eyes.

  “Words aren’t enough for the marshal.”

  Mason smiled but said nothing.

  “Did Annie and Flynn come with us to Boone?” she asked.

  “They did. Annie not only helped me fly the helicopter, she was also the first person to donate blood.”

  “She gave blood?”

  He nodded.

  “Who else? You?”

  Mason shrugged. “I had plenty. Bowie offered too, but we had to draw the line somewhere.”

  They all laughed.

  Hearing his name, Bowie briefly stopped chewing on a large ham bone and looked up. Vince Tripp, one of the town’s deputies, had brought it by for him earlier, and he had spent the last two hours picking off every bit of meaty goodness.

  “Where are the kids now?” she asked.

  “The local priest, Father Paul, took them in.”

  “He’ll take good care of them?”

  “The best.”

  She turned back to the doctor.

  “Not to seem ungrateful, but when can I leave the hospital?”

  Dr. Darby applied one final strip of tape to the bandage.

  “I’m all done,” he said, pulling off his gloves. “You’re free to go anytime you like. I would, however, advise that you avoid running in any marathons for a few days.”

  “That won’t be a problem,” said Mason. “I plan to take her up to my cabin to recuperate.” He turned to Leila. “Assuming, of course, that you’re interested.”

  “I can’t think of anything I’d like more.”

  “And the helicopter on the roof?” asked Dr. Darby. “What’s your plan for that?”

  “Consider it a donation to the hospital.”

  He nodded his appreciation. “If the world can ever right itself, a medevac helicopter might come in handy. All we need now is a pilot. Any chance you’d be interested in the job?”

  Mason shook his head. “Sorry, Doc, my flying days are over.”

  When Mason wheeled Leila out of the hospital, he was surprised to find Don Potts, another of the town’s deputies, leaning against a shiny white Ford F-150 truck. Don was an ex-Army Military Police officer who had stepped up to fight beside Mason in the battle to save Boone. During his time in the Army, he had lost the lower half of his left leg to an improvised explosive device. That loss, however, had in no way taken from his courage or grit, and Mason considered him one of the toughest men he had ever known.

  Bowie immediately raced up to Don and began scrubbing against his good leg.

  Don leaned down and wrestled with the dog a little.

  “My goodness, Bowie, you’re even bigger than I remembered.”

  Mason wheeled Leila a little closer and stepped around the wheelchair to shake Don’s hand.

  “Good to see you, Don.”

  “And you, Marshal. I’m sorry I didn’t come by sooner. We had a bit of an issue over at the water plant.”

  “Trouble?”

  He shook his head. “Not really. Folks from a nearby town tried to take some of our purification supplies
. Nothing we couldn’t handle.” He turned to Leila and extended his hand. “Who’s the pretty lady?”

  “I’m Leila. It’s nice to meet you,” she said, shaking his hand.

  “I see the doc’s got you all fixed up.”

  “Yes,” she said, touching the bandage. “He says I’ll be better in a couple of days.” Her eyes flicked to his prosthetic leg.

  He caught the look and grinned.

  “Oh, don’t worry about me. I get along just fine. Don’t I, Marshal?”

  “You do indeed.”

  “Most people don’t remember that I did most of my fighting to save Boone on only one leg.” He shook his head and smiled. “Best damn day of my life.”

  Leila gave him an understanding smile.

  “I can only imagine.”

  Don turned back to Mason.

  “Marshal, rumor has it you had to leave your truck on account of it getting blown up.”

  While not exactly true, it was close enough.

  “I’ll get along okay. If you wouldn’t mind, though, maybe we could talk you into giving us a ride up to the cabin?”

  “I’ll do you one better.” Don stepped aside and gestured flamboyantly toward the white F-150. “It’s yours, my friend. Full tank of gas and everything.”

  Mason shook his head. “I couldn’t take another man’s truck. I’ll just find something abandoned outside of town.”

  “I’m sure you could do that, but it wouldn’t be as pretty as this one. Besides, it’s being given as a small token of the town’s appreciation for what you did for us. Country folks like to repay their debts. You know that, Marshal.”

  Mason nodded and ran his hands over the truck. It looked brand new.

  “Where’d it come from?”

  “Pete Shimp bought it about six months ago. Poor fellow died from the pox, and his wife’s too blind to drive. She wanted me to tell you that Pete would have been proud to have you drive it. She also wanted me to tell you that she’s a very stubborn woman who won’t take no for an answer.”

  Mason had learned long ago that to refuse a gift was to offer insult, and that was something he would never do to the people of Boone.

  “Please extend my thanks to her.”

  Don stepped around and opened the passenger side door. Before Mason could wheel Leila closer, Bowie hopped up into the cab and stared out at them.