He sighed, knowing his resolve was crumbling. He hated to see Holly cry, and it tore his heart out. However, he knew they were both toying with disaster if she stayed.
He fell silent, and taking them both in his arms, held them tight, little Walter safely sandwiched between mother and father. He ran his fingers through her long red hair and kissed her forehead.
They stood like that for a few moments, when Walter started to coo and giggle a little. Tim loved the sound of the boy’s laughter, he had just started to do it recently, and Tim never tired of hearing it.
He wondered if that laugh would continue, if there would be anything left after tomorrow to laugh about, and his heart sank. Holly stepped away from Tim and strode over to the crib that Walter slept in next to their own bed. Placing the child down, she turned to Tim, and plead, “Please, Tim. Give me that. Just let me have one more night with you?”
Tim sighed again, and looking up towards the ceiling, slowly nodded his head. It was going against his whole grain of reasoning, but he knew his woman wouldn’t, shouldn’t, be denied this one last request.
“You’ve got to promise me you will be on that plane first thing in the morning. You will be leaving here tomorrow, and that is the end of that discussion.”
“I love you so much, Timothy.”
“I love you too, that’s why I want you safe,” Tim said, taking her into his arms again.
“I’ll go. Now you go and get a shower, mister! You stink!”
He peeled off his t-shirt with an evil grin and walked towards her.
Chapter 20: Contact
The interior of the C-130 was dark and hot, despite the early morning hours. Holly was in the pilot’s seat, Robyn to her right, and Walter was snug in a car seat, strapped securely in the flight engineer’s seat between and behind the pair of women.
As Holly and Robyn went through their pre-flight checklist, Paula was standing behind them, watching with curiosity. Holly flipped the main battery switch, and frowned deeply when the main power light didn’t glow.
“Shit,” she spat, sweat building across her brow.
“What is it?” Robyn asked, looking over at the pilot.
“The bloody battery is flat!” she said, and started to unbuckle her harness. Robyn reached over the throttles and grabbed her arm.
“You stay here, what do you need to be done?”
Holly looked out the side cockpit window and scanned the apron. “Over there, by the front of the terminal. There’s a white cart, a mobile APU. You need to take the Hum-Vee and bring it over to the nose. You’ll probably have to jump-start it with the Hum-Vee, and then plug the slave-cable into the receptacle.”
“What’s an APU?” Robyn asked.
“It’s an Auxiliary Power Unit. It’ll give us enough juice to start the bloody engines.”
“I’m on it!” Robyn said, unbuckling her harness and climbing out of the seat. Holly grabbed her arm to stop her. “Robyn, make it quick. I only need to get one engine turning. As soon as you get it started and over here, plug the bastard in. I’ll get the number four engine turning, and when I do, unplug the damn thing and get back in here.”
Robyn headed back to the cargo hold. When she got halfway there, she stopped, and returned. Holly looked at her with a questioning gaze. Robyn picked up her M4 Carbine and smiled. “American Express, don’t leave home without it!”
She spun on her heels and retraced her footsteps to the still-open side door of the fuselage. Leaping out, she landed flatfooted onto the tarmac and ran to the parked Hum-Vee.
She drove over to the APU unit and found the ignition switch. She hit it, but its battery was also dead.
Going back to her vehicle, she retrieved the jumper cables, hooking them up to the Hum-Vee’s battery, then looked for the APU’s battery. She found it after a few moments searching, and attached the clamps to the battery terminals.
She glanced back at the waiting Hercules and saw Holly’s head sticking out of the open cockpit window, a wisp of red hair fluttering like a pennant in the early morning breeze. She smiled and waved, then gave a thumb’s up gesture and hit the start switch on the APU.
It started to crank over, and turned and turned, but refused to fire up. She waited a moment, then hit the button again, and this time it turned a few times, and she was then rewarded by the diesel engine firing up in a cloud of black smoke.
She let it idle for a few more moments, then unhooked the jumper cables, tossing them to the ground in a heap. She then drove the Hum-Vee around so she could hitch the cart to the pintle hook, and when she had it secured, drove the rig over to the nose of the aircraft.
She revved the APU up to speed, and over the screaming diesel, shouted out to Holly, whose head was still out the window several feet above her.
“Where do I plug it in?” she yelled.
Holly stuck her arm out, pointing down. “Right there, there should be a little door. Open it and there’s a receptacle to plug the slave cable into!”
After a second of searching, Robyn located door and opened it, then uncoiled the slave cable from its rack on the cart, and dragged it over to the nose where she deftly plugged it in. When it was secured, she stepped back into Holly’s line of sight, and gave another thumb up.
Holly disappeared into the cockpit, and even over the scream of the APU, Robyn could hear the sound of the Hercules’ engine turning over. As soon as Holly had it up to speed, her head emerged from the window again, and made a gesture to Robyn to unplug the APU.
This she did smartly, and got back into the Hum-Vee, driving it clear of the aircraft. She got out, and switched off both, and then started to walk back towards the aircraft. Now Holly had two of the aircraft’s turboprops turning, and the third’s propeller was beginning to turn, so she didn’t hear, but saw, out of her peripheral vision, movement coming around the terminal building. She turned to look, and what she saw made her knees go weak.
It was a Hum-Vee, but not one of theirs. It was painted Desert Tan, unlike the forest green ones they had, and there was a man behind a .50 M2 machinegun on a mount atop of it.
She broke out into a dead run and launched herself into the open side door of the aircraft. When she was inside, she made a mad dash into the cockpit. Breathlessly, she screamed at Holly, “We’ve got company!”
“What?” Holly asked, her eyes wide.
“There’s a Hum-Vee coming through the apron! We’ve got to go!”
Holly throttled up all now turning engines, and the Hercules began to taxi away from the main building, towards the end of the runway. Robyn patted Holly on the shoulder, and when the pilot turned, screamed in her ear over the sound of the engine, “I’ll try to slow them down, just get us off the ground as fast as you can!”
Holly nodded and went back to controlling the taxiing aircraft. Little Walter was beginning to cry, as the deafening roar of the four turboprops hurt his delicate ears. Holly glanced down at her son with a sad frown, unable to comfort him as she steered the careening cargo plane down the taxiway. Why, oh why didn’t I listen to Tim yesterday! her mind screamed in accusation at her, and her heart sank. Clutching her carbine, Robyn ran through the empty cargo hold and stopped next to the controls to the rear ramp. She hit the ‘down’ button, and the hydraulic rams began to whine, lowering the wide ramp. When it reached a position level to the deck, she stopped its downward travel, and then racked a round into the chamber of her carbine.
Going down onto her knees, she slid into a perfect prone-position, exactly the way Tim had shown her to do so many years ago. Using her thumb, she flicked the safety from safe to semi-auto and sighted in on the now stopped Hum-Vee.
The bouncing plane made it difficult to acquire a steady sight picture, but she was able to put the sights on the tan vehicle on the apron. She inhaled, exhaled calmly, and squeezed the trigger.
The crack of the rifle was drowned out by the sound of the now screaming engines, but she was rewarded by the feel of the rifle’s butt recoiling into h
er shoulder. She fired off five more times at the diminishing vehicle, waited a beat, and fired five more times, expended shell casings rolling around on the cold steel deck of the hold.
* * *
“Holy shit, they’re shooting at us!” the man manning the heavy machinegun screamed as he racked the charging handle, gripped the twin ‘spade’ grips and depressed the butterfly triggers.
“No, wait!” the specialist shouted, exiting the Hum-Vee. His words were cut short when he fell to the ground clutching his throat, great jets of arterial blood fountaining out in spurts. A bullet from Robyn’s carbine had hit him just behind the Adam’s apple when he stepped out, and he died almost immediately from loss of blood, gurgling his last breaths in a red foamy mess on the ground next to the Hum-Vee.
The specialist’s death sealed the fate of the Hercules, which was now at the far end of the runway, engines at full power as Holly released the brakes. The specialist had known the stakes and the importance of saving the aircraft, but with his death, the panicked men that had accompanied him now saw blood in their eyes.
The man on the roof mount fired the big machinegun at the aircraft, which was rapidly gaining speed back down the runway. The other two men exited the Hum-Vee and fired their M16s wildly at the speeding plane.
When it reached a point where it was almost beside them out on the runway, the nose lifted, and they could see a figure on the ramp that was still lowered, flashes of red pointing out at them from it.
The big .50 caliber machinegun chugged away at the rising craft, and suddenly a puff of smoke came out of the inboard nacelle and, as the landing gear left the runway, started streaming black smoke.
* * *
Robyn was still in the prone position with her rifle, and when the plane reached a point where she could re-engage her target, she began to fire again until the bolt locked back on an empty magazine.
She rolled to her side to retrieve a fresh magazine, letting the expended magazine fall, and when she brought the fresh one up to slam it home, she felt the Hercules leap into the air, tilting the deck upwards at almost a forty-five degree angle, the rear ramp facing the concrete runway now ten feet below, where gravity began to take over.
Robyn hadn’t secured herself, and now found herself sliding unchecked towards the opening, the runway a blur below her.
She clawed at the steel decking in panic, tearing out a few fingernails and letting her carbine slip from her grasp. She screamed when she exited involuntarily from the speeding aircraft, falling to the ground where she hit, bouncing obscenely several times before coming to a stop in a crumpled heap on the runway, shattered carbine laying several yards behind her, useless. The Hercules’ engine was now on fire, belching black smoke.
* * *
The three men fired on the retreating aircraft until all of their weapons were empty. When the bolt finally locked back on the .50, the man at the trigger watched the departing plane trailing smoke, a blank expression on his face.
He looked down at the body of the dead specialist and shook his head. He looked at his other companions, who were looking back at him with stunned expressions, and said, “I think we just fucked up.”
“Is he dead?” the other man on the ground asked.
“Yeah, he is.”
“Oh fuck. The Sarge is gonna kill us!
The man at the machinegun said, “I think something fell out of the plane when it took off. Over there, let’s go!” he shouted to them, and they all piled back into the Hum-Vee and headed off to where the machine gunner had pointed.
They sped down the runway, and when they neared the crumpled mass on the concrete, the driver stopped the vehicle. The three men got out and walked over to the still form.
Seeing the blonde hair spilled out, arms and legs twisted in an unnatural position and oozing blood from various spots, the tallest of the three gasped, “Shit, it’s a girl!”
“Oh fuck. What are we going to do?” another of the trio asked.
“Sarge and the major will fucking kill us!” the first man said fearfully.
An almost imperceptible moan escaped the form lying at their feet, and all three men recoiled.
“Shit! She’s alive!”
“Quick, get her into the Hummer! The plane is coming back!” the first one shouted. He looked south and saw the Hercules making a wide turn, heading back towards the airport, engine trailing smoke.
They grabbed fistfuls of Robyn’s clothes and lifted her up, a loud scream escaping her lips. They tossed the girl into the back of the Hum-Vee unceremoniously, piled in behind her, and sped off in the direction that they’d come.
* * *
Holly fought with the controls, trying to gain altitude. She turned around and looked at a pale-faced Paula and screamed, “Where’s Robyn?”
“She fell out!”
“What do you mean she fell out?”
“I think she was at the back, shooting at those people, and when the plane took off, she rolled out the door!” Paula screamed over the noise of the engines.
Holly manhandled the yoke and with great effort, turned the aircraft around, heading back north towards the airport. It was losing hydraulic fluid she knew, for with every movement she made on the controls, they got heavier and heavier. The hydraulics must have been hit, and coupled with the engine fire, it was only a matter of time now before the plane would fall from the sky, but she had to see if Robyn was alright.
With grim determination, Holly got the plane level again, if only a few hundred feet off the ground, and pointed the nose back towards the runway.
Even at that speed, she could see as they passed back over the airfield that Robyn was nowhere to be seen, but she saw the tan Hum-Vee racing away, the man on the mount with the large machinegun spinning to face her.
As she passed overhead, she could see the red tracers arc up in a wild spray towards the Hercules, and then heard several metallic sounding pops of the bullets hitting the fuselage.
Holly heard a tortured scream, and whipped her head around to see Paula lying on the deck, blood streaming out of a gaping hole in her stomach. She looked down at Walter, who was also wailing loudly, face red and streaming tears. Her heart sank to the pit of her stomach.
She muscled the yoke and pedals, and again turned the plane south with all of her might. She was streaming sweat from every pore in her body, hands slick on the controls.
Looking out the left side window of the cockpit, she now could see the red licks of flame coming out of the nacelle that had been hit, hit the fuel cut off switch to shut the engine down, and then hit the fire extinguisher, but nothing happened.
“Shit, shit, shit!” she screamed, and hit the fire extinguisher control a second time, again with no discernible effect.
She fought to gain altitude, the plane fighting to gain space between the ground and itself as they sped southward towards Williams, then Phoenix, which seemed to her to be a million miles away now.
“I’ve got to get to Luke,” she whispered. “I just have to!”
* * *
Tim stood in his hidden position overlooking the highway, an M14 rifle propped up on the berm, blasting machine next to it. Both he and Jimenez had gotten to their pre-set positions well before sunrise, and he’d taken the time to double check the wiring for the explosives and then, when he was satisfied all was in order, connected the leads to the 10-cap blasting machine and set the twist-handle in its receptacle.
He couldn’t see Jimenez from his position, so he picked up the handset of the PRC-77 radio and depressed the talk button. Eschewing proper radio procedure, he asked, “Taco, are you ready?”
“I’m ready,” he got in reply. He then asked, on the same frequency, if Izzy and Ian were ready, and got two clicks of squelch in reply, letting him know that the two men back at the mortar were at the ready also.
He could hear the approach of the convoy, and he steeled himself for the upcoming events. The rising sun was in his eyes, making it difficult to see to the
east, but that couldn’t be helped. You couldn’t exactly tell your enemy what time of day to attack.
Squinting through the glare, he saw the lead Hum-Vee, trailed close behind by several 6X6 trucks, and several more Hum-Vees behind them. He picked up the blasting machine and placed his hand on the handle.
The lead Hum-Vee was now crossing the span, traveling at about forty miles an hour, and he let that one cross, getting closer to his position. When the first truck was mid-span, he dropped to the bottom of his foxhole, whispered, “Here it goes!” and twisted the grip.
He knew it would be loud, but he wasn’t prepared for what came next. There was a deafening, ear-shattering boom, and then Tim was slammed to the far wall of the foxhole by an invisible fist, the wind knocked out of him. The sky turned black, the whole world exploded, the earth physically moving all around him, and he was choked by thick, cloying dust that filled the foxhole.
There was a continuous roar of noise, and he shook off the initial shock of the blast, slowly standing. He could barely see through the thick wall of smoke, dust, and debris that had completely engulfed the entire area, chunks of twisted steel and concrete raining down over the entire area, thrown skyward for hundreds of yards in every direction. He peered out over the mass of destruction before him and started to laugh.
“Jesus jumping Christ almighty!”
It would be the last time that day he would laugh. In fact, it would be a long time before Tim Flannery ever laughed again.
It took a few minutes for the dust and debris to finally settle enough to see what lay before him, and the destruction, while not total, was more than what he’d hoped for. The lead Hum-Vee was on its roof, wheels still spinning. The truck that had been on the span when he’d set the charges off was nowhere to be seen, completely vaporized, no doubt.
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