A normal helicopter would have had a rear compartment, but the Havoc is basically a cannon with two seats strapped to it. If you’ve ever seen an Apache or a Cobra, you get the basic idea. So did the Russians, who shamelessly copied from those helos when designing it. Among other things they cribbed was the Apache’s landing gear; rather than the more familiar and easy-to-grab-on-to skids used by most helicopters, the Havoc uses large planelike landing gear in a tricycle arrangement beneath the cockpit, two front, one back. Seeing no other way out, I grabbed on to the left wheel of the helicopter as it hovered above me. A second later, the chopper began moving sideways across the yard toward the field where it had taken off. I got ready to drop to the ground, but it didn’t slow down. On the contrary, it not only sped up but rose another hundred feet in the air.
I had a hell of a view of Kamenka. And let me say this for Kamenka: it is truly a pit of ugly brown and gray feces spread in box form across a gray landscape, relieved only by urine-colored streams running to a puke-colored ocean. I expect a Lonely Planet guidebook on it to be published soon.
I hugged the wheel tighter, hoping that Trace knew what she was doing. Finally, we started to slow down and descend. The ground below me went from gray to black to green. I waited until I could just about count the blades of grass below me before letting go.
I hit the ground and rolled, got to my feet, and—though dizzy as hell—ran to the chopper, gun drawn to cover the pilot in the forward compartment as Trace set the chopper down. She hit a number of buttons before finding the master cockpit unlock, which forced the windscreen to open; once the Russian saw the pistol in my hand, it didn’t take much to persuade him to give up his seat. He undid his seat belt, called me a cocksucker under his breath, then jumped out of the helo and ran away.
I pulled myself over the side, tangling my feet as I tried to get situated in the cramped cockpit. The wind-screen started closing above me, smacking against my head and pushing me down into my seat. We rolled forward, then abruptly pitched upward. The chopper turned hard port, slamming me against the right instrument panel before I managed to get my fanny properly situated in the seat. The pilot’s helmet had rolled to the floor; I picked it up and squeezed it over my ears.
“Dick, can you hear me?” asked Trace.
“Copy. Roger.”
“Hang on.”
By now the other helicopters that had been assigned to the mission had realized something had gone wrong and were pursuing us. Trace pushed us northward, throttle open. The two Hinds fell behind, but the other Havoc stayed with us, announcing its annoyance with a stream of 30mm rounds just to the right of our tail. Trace tucked hard left, turned in a tight bank, then slammed us out toward the water.
“Get us south,” I told her. “Get us out near the navy destroyers that were shadowing the operation.”
It wasn’t a bad idea, except that the destroyers were at least two hundred miles away, and we had fuel for maybe a hundred.
We also had someone on our tail. Another burst of cannon fire let us know he wasn’t going away anytime soon.
“Dick, can you figure out how to work that cannon?” asked Trace.
“Give me a minute,” I told her, studying the controls. I knew the weapon had to be turned on from the main armament panel, but since all the writing was in Russian gibberish I had a difficult time figuring out what to do. I hit some toggles and got some lights to turn from red to yellow; one had the word “pushka” in tape next to it, so I figured I was in business once the light went yellow.
The next hurdle was figuring out what exactly fired the gun. Unlike in computer games, where all the Russians have weapons slaved to the eyepieces in their helmets and fire by saying “kill,” the cannon in the Havoc was slaved to old-fashioned mechanical controls.20 The cannon was aimed by looking through an ocular—think creaky old telescope—perched above a set of dials in front of me. Wheels at both sides of the device focused it and apparently worked various adjustments—like wind—but I didn’t have time to get too fancy. I grabbed the stick in front of me, got something of a feel for how it swiveled, then started hunting for our adversary.
Which was a bit like searching the beach for a tack with a straw.
“Trace?”
“Dick?”
“I’m ready with the gun. Where is that son of a bitch?”
“Behind us. Hang on.”
Trace pulled the helo nearly onto its side. I lifted my head from the ocular and saw the other helicopter moving across the top part of my windscreen. I put my eye back on the gunsight, got the bull’s-eye in the other helicopter’s path, and fired. A black stream of bullets spit out of the gun beneath my seat, making a big smudge in the sky in front of me. I pushed the smudge in the direction of the other helicopter, managing to get the bullets close enough to force him to jink in front of us. Trace tried to get close for the kill, but the other pilot easily slipped off to the left. Trace spun around, trying to stay with him. I don’t know where exactly he went, though—all I could see were tracers from the two Hinds, which had managed to catch up while we were playing tag with the other Havoc.
Shells streaming around us, I moved the gun stick up, trying to get the ship on the right. I bracketed the sucker, but couldn’t manage to get him before Trace once more turned off, pushing the helicopter around to the east. She moved the throttle to full military power—or whatever the Russians call the get-the-hell-out-of-here-fast position—and we zipped out over the water, temporarily clear.
But they knew we’d be going south, and as soon as we turned they were on us again.
“They’re coming for another pass!” shouted Trace, so loud I wouldn’t have needed the interphone.
Her warning was followed quickly by a fresh stream of bullets. Several hit the side of the chopper and we fluttered a bit before Trace was able to get us turned away from our pursuer. She tucked us a little farther out to sea, then banked around, anticipating that the Havoc would be closing in again. I had the gun ready, but the other helo had turned back toward land.
“Now what?” said Trace. “I figure I have about ten minutes’ more fuel left in the tanks.”
“Take us north along the coast, see if you can find a boatyard,” I told her. “I’ll call home.”
“North?”
“They’ll be looking south.”
“Good. Copy.”
The far eastern shore of Russia is a lonely place, and we didn’t see anything that even looked like it might float until nearly fifteen minutes later. By then, the cockpit was buzzing with warnings indicating we were about to run out of fuel, and Trace was trying to gauge how soft the waves would be if we plowed into them. I was on the sat phone with Doc. The good thing was that he knew where we were, thanks to the GPS locator in the sat phone. The bad thing was that he was several hundred miles away in Japan.
“Dick, I see a fishing boat down there. I’m going to land near it,” said Trace. “I think we’ll fit on the road.”
We might have, if we’d had enough fuel to make it. We were still about a hundred yards from shore when the motor quit.
Airplanes can glide when they’re out of fuel. He li copters basically become bricks with useless pieces of metal waiting to chop off your head when they crash.
We hit the water at about forty knots, fast and hard enough to pop the forward windscreen. Water flooded into the compartment from every direction—beneath the seat, over the canopy window, through the ventilation system. By the time I managed to get the seat restraints off, the water was lapping at my chin. The center front panel was too narrow for me to squeeze through. That meant waiting another few seconds for the water inside the cabin to be roughly equal pressure-wise to the water outside so I could open the side panel door. By then I was underwater. I pushed open the door and squeezed out, snaking my legs out from under a piece of the control panel that had twisted upward after the crash.
I climbed up the side, looking into Trace’s compartment, which was about halfway down into
the water. She was still strapped into her seat, apparently stunned into unconsciousness by the crash. I reached for the handle to get her out, then realized that her door was on the other side of the craft.
As I worked myself around to the other side, I saw that the helicopter had stopped sinking. We had landed on a ledge about ten feet from shore, just high enough to keep the water from reaching Trace’s head. Mr. Murphy had been kind.
Not. As I reached for the door, the helicopter shifted suddenly, sliding away from me into the deeper water.
[ II ]
ONE OF THE arguments that’s always been raised against women in combat has been that men will drop everything to save a woman on his team if they’re in distress, risking their own lives to help them.
True. But anyone who has been in combat knows that’s true of anyone on the team, male as well as female. Real warriors fight for each other. They save each other. That’s why they’re there. Most soldiers will tell you that once they get into battle, they’re not really fighting for the flag or their country—when the bullets are flying, those are abstractions that you don’t have time to think about. What you do think about—or rather feel, since there’s not too much time to think about anything—is saving your buddy, your fellow soldier.
If the person in the cockpit was anybody on my team, from Doc to Hiccup to Shotgun, from Junior to Mongoose—from plank holders to newbie nugget cannon fodder—I would have dove in to rescue them regardless. The fact that Trace had more curves than most of the rest of the people on my team made zero difference.
I’m the first to agree that if a woman can’t pull her weight, can’t kick her quota of butt, then she’s got no place on the team. But that goes for a man as well. The standards don’t change. You have to be one mean mother, willing to bite the head off of your enemy, chew, digest, and bite some more, if you want to run with Rogue. Not too many women can do that—but not too many guys can either.
Trace could bite with the best of them. And I was damn well going to save her ass from that Russian death trap.
MUD AND CRAP swirled around the water. I pushed down, tugged by the current as I tried to follow the helicopter. I was seeing more shadows than lines when suddenly there was a new thick cloud around me. The next thing I knew, something brushed past me.
I thought shark—until it reached back and tugged my shirt.
Trace!
I pushed up with her. Not being a SEAL, she broke the water a little exuberantly, though under the circumstances I could hardly blame her.
“You okay?” she asked.
“I’m fine—are you?”
“I was knocked out. The water was up to my tits when I came to.”
“Lucky for you they’re good-sized.”
She smirked at me and began stroking toward shore. The boat we’d spotted from the sky was a few hundred yards away, tied up to a battered concrete pier. Two small skiffs and a rowboat were tied nearby, and the half-rotted hull of an old wooden speedboat was beached on the rocks on the other side of the pier. A cluster of houses sat a few dozen yards away, arranged in a close jumble on the land.
The village inhabitants had apparently heard the helicopter crash. They were gathered near the pier, watching as we swam toward them. Wet, tired, and battered, the last thing we wanted at the moment was a fight. But we also wanted the fishing boat. And as the Bible says, those in need are best off taking first, and asking never.
That would be the Rogue Warrior version, of course.
“I’ll get the ropes,” I told Trace as we reached the boat. “Get the thing going.”
“Aye-aye, Captain Bligh.”
“Good to hear you joking.”
“Who’s joking?”
I got up on deck and hustled over to the stern. Ordinarily I’d’ve just cut the line, but there was nothing handy, so I had to jump onto the crumbling cement and untie it. By the time I reached the second line, Trace had the engine coughing.
I’ve coughed louder for the pecker inspector squeezing my balls to see exactly which hernia I’ve added to the collection. The motor surged, spit, then died. Meanwhile, the crowd had begun moving in our direction.
“Get us going,” I yelled.
Trace probably yelled something back along the lines of “no shit,” but if so, it was drowned out by the angry Russian curses that were being hurled in my direction by the three old women coming down the pier. Their average age looked to be just under ninety, and while they may have been spry for their age, they looked to have about ten teeth between them.
I undid the last rope and jumped down into the boat. One of the women hurled her cane at me, catching me on the side of the temple.
You have to admire gumption in someone that old.
Unfortunately, I could admire it from close-up, because Trace still hadn’t managed to get the damn engine restarted. The boat, which had been drifting away from the pier, changed its mind and started going back. The old women were spitting and flapping their arms at us. I was one happy son of a bitch when the engine finally started strong and we pulled away: I’ve done some terrible things in my life, but I have yet to stoop to smacking grandmas and confiscating their canes.
[ III ]
WE SET A course east, aiming to get out of Russian waters ASAP. The manufacturer’s claims that my satellite phone was waterproof came up somewhat short, leaving me unable to call for help. But help was already on the way. Doc, knowing there was a problem because of the way our conversation had ended, used my last transmission to set up a search pattern for the navy. Not content with that, he contacted two helicopter companies based on Hokkaido and hired them to look for us. The first spotted us about four o’clock in the afternoon, and within fifteen minutes we were on our way to Hokkaido, which is that big island at the top of the Japanese chain where they make Sapporo beer.
The Havoc’s crash may have helped us escape the Russian marines and anyone else Setrovich’s people sent after us: the Russians were looking for a helicopter but couldn’t find it. I didn’t draw it up that way, but I was more than happy to take advantage of it. If you want to put that one in Murphy’s column, go right ahead—he owes me a few.
DOC SENT SHOTGUN and Mongoose up to meet us. Shotgun was so happy to see us it was kind of cute—he was waiting on the helipad as we landed, big-ass grin on his face, shirttails flapping in the breeze. Mongoose was Mongoose—all business, frowning like he’d just been foreclosed on, gripping his MP5 so hard his knuckles were white.
Yes, he did have his gun with him, and in plain sight. Ditto for Shotgun. Doc had told them to take no chances.
“Hey, Cap, how’s it hangin’?” shouted Shotgun as Trace and I hopped from the helo.
“Low, Shotgun. How about yourself?”
“Tucked up tight like a bull going for a fight.” Shotgun giggled like the schoolgirl that he is. “And how’s the most beautiful woman in the world?”
“About an inch away from giving you a kick that will make you a member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir for life,” said Trace.
“Touchy,” Shotgun said with a laugh. “Glad you’re in a good mood.”
“Doc says you wanna hustle, boss,” said Mongoose. “We got a plane waiting for us. Taking us to Sado-gashima. There’s food onboard.”
“Is that like sado-masochism?” said Shotgun.
“Ha-ha,” said Mongoose.
“Hey, you shouldn’t name a place that if you don’t want it made fun of.”
“Maybe you should write a letter to the emperor and point that out.”
“Since when did Shotgun learn to write?” Trace asked.
Sado-ga-shima is an island off the western coast of Japan. It’s generally a quiet place, with a few fishing villages around the rocky shorelines. The medieval Japanese rulers used it as a place to send exiles; most notably Emperor Juntoku and the Buddhist priest Nichiren both called Sado home. Tourists generally don’t get too much farther than Ryotsu on the east side of the island, or Ogi, which is on the southwest, w
here hydrofoils connect them to the mainland. There’s a gold mine museum at Aikawa, which is on the west side of the island; if you go, try not to ask too many questions about the slaves who worked there during World War II.
Doc had set up shop in a small fishing village on the northwestern end of the island. It wasn’t a casual choice—Toshiro Okinaga had once again come through with an assist, arranging on very short notice for us to use a rustic compound his unit occasionally used for training. When I say rustic, I mean rustic—there were no European-style bathrooms in any of the huts.
Which pleased Trace all to punch soon after we arrived. But she was cranky from the plane flight and boat ride anyway. Even the arrival of Sean Mako, her sometime partner in busting newbie recruits, didn’t cheer her up.
Jimmy Zim had come over, too, and stalked through the situation room Doc had set up in one of the larger cottages we’d been given. He was talking on his sat phone when I came in, pausing every so often to look at a map taped to the wooden table. A cardboard cutout representing Polorski’s ship was tacked to the map. It was 150 miles from the North Korean coast. A navy plane had flown over the ship a few hours earlier, just before sundown. We were expecting the photos within an hour, but the preliminary word was that nothing unusual had been seen on deck.
“A photo may not tell us,” said Doc. “It could be below ship. Crated and in pieces.”
“Or it could be somewhere else, in a cargo container, aboard any of a thousand other ships,” I said, finishing his thought. Ships represent a vast security problem, and containerized shipping is especially difficult to police. The newest container ships can carry upward of twelve thousand containers; there are something like six million containers on the sea at any one moment. Imagine trying to inspect each one of them. The longest piece of the Topol missile was the first stage; it was roughly eight meters long—round it out a bit and say twenty-six feet. Containers come in five basic sizes; the first stage would fit in all but one of them. The launcher would have to be cut up and sectioned off, but welding steel back together is not a difficult skill.
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