by Jack Du Brul
“I know. I know,” Rene said when Mercer pointed over with his chin. “If they get airborne while our chopper’s picking us up, we are finished.”
The twenty-horsepower outboard sputtered to life at the first pull on the cord. The three men jumped in just as a barrage of rounds pummeled the beach and the dock. The patrol that had first spied Mercer and Lauren had circled around the dormitory and targeted them at the boat. Mercer could see one of them screaming into a radio.
With its throttle twisted wide open, the flat-bottomed boat shot from the quay in a tight arc, Lauren guiding it out toward the middle of the lake. As their vantage shifted, Mercer could see that the Chinese helo’s blades were already turning. He could see five or six troopers in its cargo hold.
From around the island in the middle of the lake came an inflatable boat loaded with soldiers who must have been guarding a work party. Lauren saw them first and shouted, “Son of a bitch!”
The Chinese were well out of accurate range but fired anyway, hoping for a lucky hit. Tiny geysers erupted wherever a bullet struck the water. Because the Chinese controlled the middle of the lake, that one craft managed to box them in. Every passing second ate into Lauren’s maneuvering room. She turned away, steering the boat toward where the lake drained down the waterfall. The falls were a quarter mile away. Beyond was a yawning chasm backed by the tumult of the approaching storm.
The Legion pilot had kept his craft on the deck until reaching the caldera, so when he swooped over the lip of the mountain no one had heard his approach. He was just there, like an avenging angle. Without any offensive weapons, there was nothing he could do about the boat pursuing his team so he kept his concentration on his comrades. At an altitude of only fifty feet he could clearly see that if Lauren stopped to wait for extraction the Chinese in the Zodiac would overtake them. He would have to make the pick up on the fly.
He radioed Foch with instructions as he pressed the button that deployed the ropes from each side of the chopper.
“D’accord.” Foch nodded at the radio and addressed the others. “Prepare for a fast extraction.”
“Make it damn fast,” Mercer said. The falls were four hundred yards ahead. They’d be over them in thirty seconds. The storm continued to rush at them, a pulsing wall of black clouds discharging an unimaginable amount of rain.
The shrill whine of the outboard was drowned out by the deeper beat of the JetRanger as it thundered just above the hurtling boat, the pilot matching speed even as Lauren dared slow a bit. A pair of bullets plowed into the skiff’s engine. The two-cylinder faltered. The Chinese had halved the distance to their quarry.
The heavy nylon ropes dangled from the chopper like the tentacles of some enormous jellyfish, jerking and jumping in the rotor downblast. Foch managed to grab on to one, but the other swayed just out of reach. The pilot made a small adjustment and the line swept across the fleeing craft. A metal snaplink struck Mercer on the back of the head and would have pitched him overboard had Lauren not seen it happen. She flicked the motor over so the boat swayed sharply. He fell back in, a trickle of blood oozing from his torn scalp.
Foch snapped a hook from the rope onto Mercer’s combat harness and then snapped in Lauren. They were fifty yards from the falls. Bruneseau knelt at the stern, firing controlled three-round bursts that the Chinese all but ignored. They were coming on at full speed and pouring out a steady fusillade, mistakenly concentrating their fire on the boat.
The lake, smooth out in the open, became choppy as it was sucked through the cataract. A fine mist obscured the gap where the waters vanished down the side of the volcano. Mercer felt a few drops land on his skin.
Secured to the chopper, he stood again to add his FAMAS to Bruneseau’s weapon. He fired on full auto, brass and cordite smoke erupting from the gun like it was tearing itself apart. Foch finally got hold of the second line. With fifteen feet to go before the speeding boat launched itself off the mountain, he lunged over to lock Bruneseau to the line.
“Hold on!” Lauren screamed as the lake suddenly vanished below them.
They went airborne.
For the first fraction of a second, momentum kept the boat in a straight trajectory before gravity began to pull it out from under them. It started to fall away, tipping toward the bow like a diver off an Acapulco cliff. Because Lauren was secured to a hook higher up on the rappelling rope, she was the first to be plucked from the falling craft. One second she was riding in it with them and the next she was hovering in the sky as the men continued their descent.
Then Bruneseau’s harness came taut and he too was pulled from the boat. The pilot was fighting the added weight, flying the chopper down the falls with the skiff because he knew that at least one of his team hadn’t snapped on. There was maybe another second before the craft smashed into the first set of rocks in the ladderlike falls. He had no choice but to pull up.
Mercer sensed the decision made high above him and threw himself onto Foch, wrapping his arms and legs around the Frenchman in a tight embrace and waited to see what would happen first.
The skiff hit the first boulder an instant after Mercer felt the harness dig into his shoulders and groin. He and Foch had been lifted clear just as the aluminum boat disintegrated against the rocks. The motor tore free of its mounts and tumbled off into space, its tiny prop still spinning as if it could fly. The hull was turned into so much scrap that washed down the remainder of the falls like a battered soda can.
The sharp pull of the rope sent them arcing through space before the line came tight again, a brutal repeat of the initial jerk. Their motion set the line spinning. When he could look back at the falls, Mercer saw the boatload of Chinese soldiers follow the skiff. They had misjudged their speed, the distance, and the relentless pull of the water. Two men managed to hold on to the inflatable until it bounced off the rocks. One of them even maintained his grip after that first impact before he was smeared against a boulder. The red stain that had been his life’s blood was washed away in an instant. Two of the guards were like limp dolls as they fell from pool to pool. The fourth had landed atop a pinnacle of rock so that his spine had folded backward on itself and his arms trailed in the water.
“Snap yourself in,” Mercer shouted to Foch over the rotor beat and the wind of their forty-knot speed. The first drops of rain pelted him like gravel. He slitted his eyes against the sting.
The soldier struggled for just a moment before he clipped his harness into one of the closed hooks. Mercer relaxed his grip. “Thank you,” Foch said simply as he sagged against the line, drained.
“Don’t thank me yet. Liu’s chopper’s going to be after us in a minute.” Mercer caught Lauren’s eye and smiled up at her. Her hair whipped around her head like electric discharges as she dangled below the chopper. She gave him a thumbs-up. Bruneseau was on his own line, high enough above Mercer and Foch that they wouldn’t slam into each other as the helo turned toward Panama City.
“We can’t stay here,” Foch shouted the obvious. “If we’re chased, the pilot can’t maneuver with us dangling like this.”
Mercer and he began to climb together, a difficult trick because both were tired and the wind was a constant buffet. Lauren saw them coming closer, understood what they were doing and began to haul herself hand over hand. Bruneseau too started up. It took a few minutes to scramble into the rear of the chopper, and in that time all of them saw the dark speck lift away from the volcanic peak. The chase was on again.
Above the Darien Province, Panama
Sergeant Huai watched the four commandos climb into their helicopter through a pair of binoculars he held steady against the door frame of the company chopper. He was impressed. Most people couldn’t maintain enough balance to keep from spinning on a rappel line and these four managed to climb against the wind. Not an easy feat.
On a purely professional level, he had to give them credit for the entire operation, even if they had lost two people. He had no idea how many were still out in the jungle
, but it seemed that even if there were only the six he could account for, they’d done a good job. This time there were no Panamanian troops that could be blamed for the security breach. These six had gone up against some of the best in the Chinese military and had not only made it in, but two-thirds of their force had made it out again.
He wasn’t worried that they would actually evade him. Two choppers armed with heavy machine guns would be taking off from the Hatcherly facility within a few minutes. The JetRanger would be trapped between them, allowing him to respect what they’d accomplished without worrying about long-term damage if they did escape to tell their tale.
At the warehouse a few nights earlier, Captain Chen had suggested that the force who’d infiltrated the port was a local gang of thieves or gunrunners. Watching as the JetRanger was pulled deeper into the storm, Huai knew that he was facing something else entirely. These people fought like trained commandos. His first instinct was American Special Forces, SEALs, or maybe Marine Recon—a chilling thought because it meant their security was blown. Liu Yousheng had kept Operation Red Island well compartmentalized and yet Huai knew that if the Americans were onto even this part of it, the entire mission might be finished. Destroying the chopper and its occupants was of primary concern, but equally important to Huai was identifying the commandos. While he knew they wouldn’t be carrying any identification, he was familiar with other, subtler signs that would give away their nationality. Types of uniforms, equipment and weaponry could be false flags, while a corpse couldn’t hide its skin color, tattoos or dentistry.
With his helo closing the gap to the fleeing JetRanger, Huai thought about his report to Captain Chen. Chen had turned into a real bastard since his screwup at the warehouse. He was looking to shed some of the blame onto his men and he’d like nothing more than tearing Huai apart for this latest lapse if only to regain Liu Yousheng’s favor. Not that Huai believed the Hatcherly executive would be impressed that Chen could yell at one of his own men. Huai thought he understood Liu. The official wanted results and didn’t care how he got them. So long as the JetRanger was destroyed, he wouldn’t be bothered with the details.
And taking down the enemy chopper was only a matter of time.
Gasping to regain his breath, Mercer finally rolled out from under the others in the cramped hold of the JetRanger. His uniform was soaked after only a few minutes in the deluge and more rain continued to whip through the open door frames. An occasional burst of lightning seared his vision. His first concern was Lauren.
“Are you all right?” he yelled over the engine noise and the steady pounding of rain. He helped her into a sitting position.
She looked miserable with her hair plastered against her head yet threw him a saucy smile. “Never better. How about you?”
“I owe you one for the boat. If not for your fancy driving, I would have gone overboard.”
Lauren disregarded the praise. “Your head okay?”
Mercer fingered the knot at the back of his skull. His hands came away bloody but he knew the wound wasn’t bad. “It will be after a stitch or three.” He looked to where Bruneseau sat with his back against the rear bulkhead. A burst of anger made him forget the minor cut in his scalp. “You gonna tell me what the hell you were playing at back there?”
The French agent began to slide over to where he could climb into the cockpit. “Later,” he said brusquely. “We’re not clear yet.”
“Hold it.” Lauren shifted her position to block the spy. “Do you know how to fly a chopper?”
“No.”
“Let me up front. These missing doors are killing our aerodynamics and speed. The Chinese helo’s gonna be on us soon. Your pilot will need the extra set of hands.”
“You fly?” Mercer asked.
She nodded, pleased that this skill seemed to impress him. “My rotary ticket hasn’t been punched in a few years, but . . .”
“Okay,” Rene said after a moment’s thought. While Lauren crawled into the cockpit, Bruneseau pulled two pairs of headphones from a rack and handed one to Mercer. With his face a blank mask, Foch worked on the weapons, filling magazines from those that were half depleted. Mercer wasn’t surprised by how hard he was taking the deaths of his two men. The Legion prided itself on its esprit de corps and its unwavering dedication to its own. The loss was devastating.
Once on the comm loop Bruneseau asked the pilot, an Aussie named Carlson, about their situation.
“We have maybe five minutes on the other chopper, sir,” he replied in French with an Australian twang. “Looked like a Gazelle to me. She’s faster than us and we can’t hide in this storm forever.”
“Options.”
The JetRanger shuddered and lost fifty feet in a sudden downdraft. The winds whipped predominantly from their left but gusts came from every direction. The storm had turned the leaden sky into a riot. Lauren sat in the right seat with her hands hovering over the controls, ready to assist Carlson at any moment. She asked that they speak in English.
“We are talking about our options, Captain Vanik,” Carlson said. “The Chinese Gazelle is closing and this storm won’t cover us all the way to our base at Chepo.”
“Don’t forget,” Mercer interrupted, “they’ll probably have choppers at the port. If Liu’s smart, he’ll have them airborne and on an intercept course.”
“Proverbial rock and hard place,” the pilot said.
Lauren was the first to develop a plan. “Forget Chepo. It’s too isolated. We’ll fly the ridge of the continental divide. If we’re lucky we can lose the Gazelle and head to Panama City from the west after crossing the canal. If Liu’s other choppers manage to catch us they’ll have to disengage once we’re within radar coverage of Tocumen Airport.”
“You mean to outflank the inbound helos from the port?” Mercer pictured a map of Panama in his head and followed Lauren’s course.
“If they find us over open ground, we’re dead. We need to reach an area where they won’t be so anxious to shoot us down.”
“Do it,” Bruneseau ordered.
Carlson banked northward and tentatively dumped altitude, he and Lauren both straining to peer around the curtains of rain for the mountains that ran like a spine through Panama. Foch had shortened the rappelling ropes to create safety belts for himself, Mercer, and Bruneseau and now sat facing backward with his FAMAS on his lap. Trusting the pilot, but Lauren more so, Mercer joined him on the floor and covered the other open door, watching their tail for the first sign of Hatcherly’s Gazelle. They could see perhaps a half mile into the storm, and occasionally one would tense as they thought they spied something solid emerge from the towering clouds, only to relax again as the phantom merged back into the tempest.
With their circuitous route, it would take more than an hour to reach the canal and another few minutes to reach the shelter of Panama City.
Once they found an altitude where they could judge the topography, the pilot took them into the valleys that twisted through the continental divide, maintaining a dangerous proximity to the jungled hills. With each steep bank, Mercer felt his straps dig into his flesh, forcing him to grab a handhold to maintain his balance. It was like riding backward on a roller coaster only there were no tracks. One moment he was thrust halfway through the yawning door frame and the next he was lifted bodily toward the hold’s ceiling or dumped into Bruneseau, who hunched between the pilots’ seats. Not a roller coaster, he thought. A turbine-powered rodeo bull.
Only Lauren and Carlson spoke as they continued toward the canal, short sentences of arcane aviation language that Mercer didn’t bother to follow. He kept all his concentration on their tail. After thirty minutes his vigilance hadn’t flagged. Until they were safely on the ground again, he wouldn’t let himself believe they’d lost the Gazelle. So he continued to scan the sky, waiting, hoping he didn’t—
“There!” he shouted as the pursuing Gazelle burst from a wall of clouds into a small clearing in the storm. For a moment its wet paint gleamed before it
plunged into a bank of fog.
“How far back?” Lauren’s tone was composed, a sharp contrast to Mercer’s frantic yell.
“Hard to tell. Maybe a quarter mile.” Mercer felt the JetRanger fall lower into a valley, its whirling blades less than a hundred feet from the overgrown flanks of a nameless mountain.
“Hold on,” Carlson said after he’d already thrown the chopper into aerobatic maneuvers its builders never intended. His control over the JetRanger was masterful.
So was that of the Chinese pilot of the Gazelle chasing after him.
The surreal game of cat and mouse was played amid the folds of the earth and the rain-laden clouds of the tropical storm, two areas any sane pilot would avoid. Instead Carlson flew deeper into both, dogged by the Gazelle. Fifteen minutes further into the chase, with the canal another ten minutes away, submachine-gun fire was added to the equation.
Foch was the one who saw the fire coming from the other helicopter. With the extreme range, he was unconcerned and only motioned to Mercer about it without disturbing the two pilots. For the moment there was nothing they could do. Both watched the sleek Gazelle follow their trail like a bloodhound on a scent, a perfect mirror of every movement Carlson made and every turn Lauren pointed out.
Neither noticed the two other shapes flying in a loose formation that appeared through the storm until they opened up with door-mounted .30 calibers. Two streams of tracer fire cut directly behind the JetRanger, laserlike streaks of light that Carlson recognized. He threw the helicopter over so quickly that Foch was left dangling in space before the floor of the cargo hold pivoted back underneath him. The next spray of fire sliced the air where the JetRanger had been a second earlier.
The lead chopper, the Bell that had dropped the depth charges at the lake, swung in between the Gazelle and the Legionnaires’ helo while the other slid behind Sergeant Huai’s aircraft in a line astern formation. The door gunner could only get a bead on his target when they made sharp turns and even then he had only scant seconds before his own craft followed the other around and his angle was lost.
