by Thomas Craig
"Where does that leave us?" Mac almost wailed from the entrance. "Skipper — this situation is shit!"
"Maybe. What about the gunships?"
"I can hear one, maybe both — no, just one."
"I'm coming to take a look."
After he had walked a few paces, he looked back at the Hind. There was the faintest glow from the main instrument panel in the cockpit, but the bulk of the helicopter was in total darkness. It would not be seen from outside except, maybe, by means of an infrared lamp. The mouth of the cavern was a pale expression of surprise. Stars glinted. Mac's bulk, to one side of the entrance, was pressed back against the rock. He was holding the bulky Noctron night viewer to his face. Its range was more than five hundred meters, maybe better than that with bright moonlight. Gant could hear the approaching MiL.
'The second one's moved off to the south," Mac whispered as Gant reached him. 'This guy's gonna get swallowed by this cave mouth if he don't slow down." He ducked farther into the shadow.
Gant looked around. A lamp might just reach the Hind — just.
"Here, let me take a look."
"Sure." Mac handed him the night viewer. His voice seemed fierce now, angry. He appeared able to suppress his realization about the loss of their reserve fuel, hide it inside his rage at Garcias death. The thought of the fuel made Gant shiver; the darkness spread around him like the inhospitable country in which he was stranded.
He leaned gently out of the shadow.
The gunship hovered in the valley, moonlight splashing on its camouflage paint. It was a twin of the helicopter behind them, a 24D. No troops, then, just the crew — no, if it didn't have an auxiliary tank aboard it could still be holding up to eight soldiers. He watched it. The main door remained closed. Its blunt head turned toward them. The Isotov engine intakes were like insect eyes above the squat, gleaming cockpit. Its noise masked the engine of the coursing MiG, away out of sight.
Only minutes, Gant thought. Because of the rock that surrounded them, he could no longer monitor the Soviet Tac channel. If only they would give him a gap, a sliver of time between the departure of the Flogger and the arrival of its replacement. He could not even listen to the Mil talking to its base. If only they sent more helicopters, not more fighters; fighters were virtually useless for the kind of work the Soviets needed to do in the search for him. They had to, he decided. It was too obvious a tactic to ignore. Helicopters — this gunship and the Flogger had, doubtless, already requested backup. Excitedly reporting the one kill, the temporary loss of the second target — yes, they'd send out more gunships.
Auxiliary tanks? The Flogger had been carrying one under its belly, but no wingtip tanks. It had been flying a lo-lo-lo mission, with no high-altitude work. Its combat range would have been severely reduced. It should be leaving.
He saw the MiG, winking like an intruding star, high above the valley. Then it banked to the southwest and was gone almost at once.
And now, perhaps only now, calling for more helicopters — there would have been a delay time induced by success, by the frightening exhilaration of a real kill, maybe the pilot's first, before he reacted by the book and decided on reinforcements.
"Fifteen minutes maximum, if every guess of mine is right," he murmured, almost to himself. Yes, fifteen at the outside.
The gunship faced them, hovering thirty feet above the rocky floor of the valley. Alone. Four hundred yards away from where they stood. There were too many guesses, too many factors he had placed on his side, not on theirs. But he could do nothing else; defeat was banging behind him like a door being closed.
"You think they'll send choppers/' Mac divined.
"Wouldn't you?"
"Sure."
"They got troops aboard, Mac?"
"I sure as hell hope not."
The night was icy through the thinness of his flying overalls. A deeper chill of isolation and abandonment was spreading through him. He had to keep that off, stop it from numbing him.
"Cabin door," Gant snapped.
"What do we do?"
They watched. Mac seemed to want the night viewer, but Gant kept the viewfinder against his face. He refined the focus of the single 135mm lens. The face of the Russian crew chief appeared, his head leaning out of the cabin door. Gant saw the sloping pencil mark of the rifle he was holding against his body. He switched his attention back to the shadowy cockpit. Gunner in front, pilot behind him. Immobile, almost idle in their lack of movement. He switched back to the cabin door. The crew chief lowered himself slowly down a trailing rope—
— followed by one, two—two flat-helmeted soldiers. The Mil remained at its easy-to-maneuver height. The three men became lumbering shadows in the dust raised by the downdraft, then they emerged, moving away to the left of the cavern, spreading out, all of diem armed with Kalashnikovs, heading toward another, smaller cave.
Gant looked at his watch. Had the three armed men left the Mil because assistance was only seconds away? Were they being too eager or did they know for sure help was almost with them? It couldn't be more than fourteen minutes before other gunships arrived; it could be less than one.
"Go get the guns, Mac," he whispered.
"What—?"
"The Apaches are here, Mac — go get the guns."
Mac hurried off into the darkness. Gant heard him misplace his footing and curse softly, cutting the words off as he remembered the proximity of the three Russians. Gant watched the space opening up between the three men and the MiL. He studied the cockpit. Infrared trace, seeking engine heat. They'd be bound to be using that; laser range finder, too. If he so much as stepped into the mouth of the cavern now, out into the open, they would see him. Just a shadow to eyesight, but a wavering, warm shape on infrared.
The MiLs would be in the air by now, heading toward the position of the gunship that blocked their escape route. He shuddered. Escape route? To where?
Hold on, dammit, hold on, he told himself, clenching his teeth together to prevent them from chattering uncontrollably. Halfway between here and Baikonur he would run out of fuel, over the desert. He would exactly repeat the situation he was now in. They were cut off to the south, west, and maybe the east. Only the north would be open — maybe. To the east, the Hindu Kush rose above the service ceiling of the Hind. He could not cross the mountains, and anyway, only China lay beyond them. To the north lay the border. He could cross that. To run out of fuel somewhere between the Oxus and Baikonur…
Hold on!
Both hands gripped the night viewer. The impossibilities chimed like harsh, untuned bells.
The three armed men had moved out of sight into gullies or the shadows of boulders. Effectively, they were now cut off from the MiL, which, seen through the Noctron, became less than a threat, more of a target. It was the only way in which Gant could overcome the shuddering chill induced by the hours stretching ahead of him. An immediate, violent solution. Target.
Mac was hurrying back, but already the handguns and the two Kalashnikovs were as outmoded as arrows. Garcias helicopter exploded once more in his mind. Now that he had removed the night viewer from his eye, he could see a thin trail of dark smoke crossing the full moon like an old scar. The explosion repeated itself, a series of star bursts from some huge firework display, and he saw the Mil directly in front of him vanish into an identical orange fireball. There was no other way; he could not simply wait for defeat to arrive, he had to strive to outrun it.
Minutes — even one or two minutes — of confusion might be enough for him to be swallowed by the landscape; cross the border and drain into the desert like water. Mil for MiL; this Russian pilot and crew for Garcia and the others. An eye for an eye — and a Way out.
"I know what the gooks felt like, now that I'm staring into that face," Mac observed through clenched teeth.
Vietnam trembled like a thick cover of leaves about to be parted.
Gant snapped: "Shut up, Mac. I don't need it." Mac grunted, handing one of the rifles to Gant, who simply stared at the target.
Gant's awareness narrowed. He breathed steadily but quickly. The noise of the MiL's rotors insisted. The three men on foot had not reappeared.
"There's a way out," he murmured. "Kill the target."
"What then, skipper?" Mac replied, lifting to his eye the Noctron that Gant had returned to him. The rifle was folded in the crook of his right arm. "What do we do when we've burned her?"
"Cross the border."
"And run out of fuel, skipper?" Mac's voice was outraged. "I never took you for a gung-ho bastard with a need to get killed. Why now?"
Gant glanced at Mac. 'There's nothing else — unless you want to surrender?" His voice snapped like a thin whip because of his own desperation.
"No, but—"
"We might as well surrender, Mac. If they'll allow it. Maybe they just want to fry us, too, like Garcia?" Mac's breathing was rapid and frightened. "You want to wait for an order or are you volunteering?"
"OK, skipper," Mac replied after a long silence; reluctant and almost surly.
"Let's go — and let's see how good you really are, Mac."
They stumbled into the darkness of the cavern, not daring to use their lamps. The Plexiglas, given the faintest gleam by the instrument panel, loomed mistily out of the blackness. Mac, after missing his footing once, clambered into the gunner's cockpit. Gant closed his door softly. The noise of the MiL, washing through the entrance where the moonlight made a pale carpet, was still audible until he put on his helmet and stowed the transceiver in its fitting. His hands were clammy, shaking, and his body was alert with nerves.
Target, he reminded himself.
Lights flickered on in orderly rows in Mac's cockpit.
"Mac?"
"Sure."
"After you launch the missile, make for the entrance. I don't want anyone outside — one Kalashnikov could bring this baby down."
"Got you."
His palms dried. He flicked the low-light TV picture to the main tactical screen. Ghostly. The Mil was a dervish whirling in a small dust storm. The edges of the cavern's mouth were like dark curtains revealing a tiny stage. On that stage, he could see the gunship.
And a warm body registering…
Posed in front of the MiL, merely a shadow on the TV image, but a shimmering glow on the superimposed infrared display. One of the soldiers! It unnerved him. Flesh, not just„a machine. For a moment, he could not disregard the information of the infrared. His hand sweated. Then his mind restored the imperatives of ruthlessness.
He said: "It doesn't exist. Concentrate on the gunship, Mac."
"Skipper."
The quality of the flickering, warm image changed as it entered the cavern. It shone out more brightly. And was clearer, more recognizably human.
Get out of the way…
As if aware that it was silhouetting itself against the pale entrance, the warm shimmer moved to one side, into what it thought was invisibility in the darkness.
"Mac?"
"Ready, skipper."
In a moment, if it moved any closer, it would see the reflection of panel lights on the Plexiglas of the two cockpits. Gant held his breath.
Through the mouth of the cavern. A straight line. The Mil continued to hover in its own little storm of dust. It was neither lifting nor falling, but soon it would climb out of their sight because the dust was beginning to rise around the cockpit, reducing visibility.
The warm image continued to swim toward them on the infrared. The Mil turned in the air like a sycamore leaf, the lights were in rows of readiness along Mac's panel.
"When ready," he whispered at last.
The Mil began to lift. Mac's breathing quickened as he watched the warm body moving toward the center of the screen.
Launch.
He heard the ignition even as he heard the horn sound in his helmet, signaling that Mac's range finder and IR had locked on to the target. He could almost hear the switches and the buttons and [he circuits. The cavern dazzled with rocket flame; exhaust smoke "illowed. He saw, garishly lit, ice tendrils hanging high above them, the huge roof of the cavern—
— and the man, in uniform, lit by fire and stunned into immobility. The AA missile tore free of the Hind's stubby port winglet, rocking the helicopter. Its flame lanced toward the entrance, and something too illuminated to see clearly fell away from it. Even through the Plexiglas there was a thin, high-pitched cry. Smoke rolled in the dying glare as what was now a small lance of flame vanished through the entrance. Distantly, he heard the noises of Mac's departure from the gunner's cockpit, and saw his dim shadow move away.
Gant stabbed buttons — ignition of another kind. His stomach churned. The rotors above his head began to turn slowly. Something was still screaming. Mac was running toward it, his lamp wobbling like a weakly held white stick alongside him. The rotors accelerated, their noise booming in the cavern.
On the main tactical screen, displaying the low-light TV image, the little bright tail of flame drove toward the bulk of the Russian helicopter. Microseconds passed.
The MiL, rotors turning, eyelike air intakes staring into the cavern, swallowed the missile. Light spread on the screen and spilled into the cavern so that he could see Mac bending over the scorched soldier. On the screen, the Mil opened almost like a mouth about to scream, staggered in the air, split, flew to pieces. Metal bounced into the cavern like pebbles. In the glaring light, Mac was pressed against the wall, his face averted. The place was alien, as if the rocks themselves were burning. He moved his shocked hands slowly, with extreme effort. In his mind, substitution whirled. He must contact Kunduz, inform them that the runaway had been destroyed like its companion—intruder destroyed, mission accomplished—slacken the pace of the pursuit, buy time. Then on their radars he would be Russian, he was explainable. It might gain him as much as minutes.
Above his head, the rotors were dishing, bathed in lurid orange light. The Hind strained against the restraint of the brakes. His hands gripped the column and the collective pitch lever. On the main screen there was a glow from outside, but the low-light television picture revealed nothing solid, no object out there.
A shadow appeared in the entrance, outlined by the fire behind it. It startled Mac — dim exclamations reached Gant through the helmet and the Plexiglas — and flame spat before the shadow ducked to one side and vanished from the entrance. Then Mac was waving him urgently forward.
The Hind struggled; Gant released the brakes. It rolled forward down a shallow slope, hopped over the gouge of the dry watercourse, and eased toward the mouth of the cavern. The glow from what remained of the Russian helicopter increased, making a bright lance of the airspeed sensor boom. Flame and smoke roiled about him, as if he were thrusting the whole machine into some furnace. Mac ducked his way to the side of the helicopter. Gant heard him slide open the main cabin door. There were — how many soldiers out there somewhere? Gant heard Mac's boots thudding on the metal floor behind him. The door was left open.
His breathing was stertorous, but his body still felt calm, even cold. The Hind eased more swiftly toward the exit from the cavern.
The Russian Mil was rubble, its fire already diminishing. He lifted the Hind over it, rising softly through the pall of smoke into the moonlit night. He flicked on the radio and prepared his signal. A moment of illusory calm—
— so that he hardly heard the gunfire, even though he saw the squat figure of a man on the ground. Saw flame, only vaguely heard the shots cry and bang on the fuselage. Kalashnikov on automatic. Moonlight splashed on the cockpit. Someone cried out from the transceiver… cried out?
Mac fell as Gant held the Hind in the hover. It was almost as if he had jumped, his shape seeming right for an attack upon the Russian, who was lying spread-eagled. Dust rose slowly around Mac from the impact of his body. Mac's own Kalashnikov buried itself upright near his body, like a marker.
"Mac!" he heard himself shouting, over and over. "Mac! Mac!"
Mac had killed the one surviving Russian, the on
ly one who could contradict the lies he intended. But the Russian had killed Mac.
Gant's hand had turned off the Soviet channel almost as soon as he had begun yelling. It would be just another cry in the night as the intruders died. He had not given himself away. The moon silvered the Plexiglas. Survival became a panic in him, obscuring everything else; even Mac's death. For which he was responsible — he should have been more aware, should have taken the Hind up quicker.
Panic obscured his recriminations; obscured everything. Survive.
He opened the Tac channel, and immediately his voice was an acted enthusiasm, a cry of delight mingled with shock.
"Got the bastard!" he yelled in his mother's Russian over the Tac channel. "Got the deserting bastard!"
"You lucky bastard, Ilya!" he heard immediately, as if his pretended excitement was infectious. "You lucky sod!" Then: "What's your position, man?"
Without hesitation, Gant supplied the coordinates. Mac's shrunken form lay still on the valley floor, near the Russian soldier. There was nothing on his body to betray the mission or his origins; not for hours yet would they learn he came from nowhere, had no record. The pretense made Cant tired. His desire to flee, to survive through speed, had to be restrained at a cost.
The Russian pilot replied: "With you in four minutes. Lucky sod!"
"Roger. Out."
He flicked off the radio. Felt nausea rise to the back of his throat. Made himself not look down again, except to inspect the rubbish that was all that was left of the MiL. Even there, if he were lucky, there would not be enough to betray him. Only the dog tags, and even they might have been damaged enough to be unreadable except under laboratory conditions. At least — at the very least — he had four minutes.
He summoned the moving map to the main screen and bled in the disposition of radar defenses, watchtowers, camps and barracks, villages and farms and towns, the listening posts and the missile units. In the vast valley of the Oxus and the mountains that rose beyond it, inside the Soviet Union, the defenses were mainly long-range — especially since 1979. Crossing in a low-flying helicopter would be easy.
