by Jack Mars
“Ed, can you hit him with the M79?”
“I can try.”
“Alvarez, we know he’s there. He doesn’t know we’re here. We might have surprise in our favor. Spin this bird around and give Ed a shot at that thing.”
“You’re going to shoot first at a Russian military helicopter?”
“You have a better idea?”
“No,” Alvarez said. “But I think you might be wrong.”
“About what?”
“He knows we’re here.”
Gunfire erupted all around them, like a swarm of killer bees. Luke was exposed on the outside bench—he dove back into the helicopter. Bullets ricocheted inside the cabin. Metal shredded. Glass shattered. Bill Cronin screamed.
“Ah, man,” he said. “I’m hit. Jesus!”
The Little Bird pulled up abruptly. It made a steep climb and banked hard to the left. Luke fell over sideways. He clung to the floor, his fingers gripping metal slats. Another burst of gunfire came. THUNK, THUNK, THUNK, it shredded the skin of the chopper. Steam began to release from a severed line.
An alarm in the cockpit began to sound.
BEEP, BEEP, BEEP…
“Okay, we’re hit,” Alvarez said.
“Swann?” Luke said. This wasn’t going anything like the plan. They weren’t even near the ship yet. “We’ve got problems. Can you take that guy out?”
* * *
“Watch the satellite footage,” Swann said.
He threw his headset down and pushed out from the desk, as Mika slid in behind him where he was sitting only seconds before. He stood and went to a bank of three computer monitors he had set up on fold-out tables near the wall. He dropped into an office chair with wheels at the bottom.
He had set his hotel room up as a makeshift command center—the electricity was still out in the hotel, so the only light came from the eerie glow of Swann’s computer equipment. The detritus of food containers littered the areas around the computers. He and Mika had taken all of their meals here.
Swann took manual control of the MQ-9 Reaper drone that had been on auto pilot, tracking the movement of the Little Bird chopper. He held a joystick controller in one hand and a throttle in the other. He stared intently into the screens in front of him.
He watched the large Russian helicopter gunship, outlined in green below him. Equivalent ground speed: 119. It was moving at a good clip. He spun the Reaper’s video camera and looked back at the Little Bird. It had taken a direct hit from the attack copter’s machine guns. He brought the camera back and centered it on his prey.
A drop of sweat ran down his forehead and into his eye. He wiped it away.
His hand moved the joystick with a mind of its own. He was not conscious of controlling it. He moved the drone into position, above the gunship and a little behind it. He put the cross hairs onto the body of the chopper, right below where its chopper blades spun, glowing green on the readout. He moved the drone’s bottom-mounted machine gun into place. The helicopter moved erratically, and Swann lost it for a second.
But he was patient. He put the crosshairs right back on there.
“I’ve acquired the target,” he said, more to himself than anyone. “Everybody take it easy.”
He held his breath.
“Steady… steady…”
He fired one of his Stingers. An instant later, he saw the projectile hit the top of the helicopter gunship, throwing sparks of green light. As he watched, the rotors began to wobble.
“Direct hit,” he said to Mika.
“Direct hit,” she said into Swann’s former headset.
The Russian chopper began to spin crazily. The pilot was trying to regain control—the chopper spun hard left, then spun all the way back again hard right.
Green translucent sparks flew.
Swann watched as the rear of the fuselage cracked, separated, and fell away, taking the tail rotor with it. Now the helicopter spun out of control, arcing in big loopy circles across the sky. It spun nearly due east, headed straight out over the water.
It never regained control. It dropped suddenly, losing 10,000 feet of altitude in a couple of seconds. It slapped hard against the surface of the ocean and exploded.
Swann nearly cheered, then thought better of it. He glanced over at Mika.
“Did you see that?”
* * *
“I can’t hold it!” Alvarez said. “We gotta land.”
The chopper was in a dizzying spin. Luke had been just about to commend Swann for hitting that Russian chopper, but now it didn’t matter. He dragged himself to a seat, buckled Bill Cronin in, and then himself. Bill was spitting up dark blood—he’d been hit somewhere deep inside. Ed was already buckled in, eyes closed.
“Ed! What’s the matter?”
“I’m dizzy, man.”
BEEP, BEEP, BEEP… the cockpit alarm kept sounding.
“We’re not going to make the third landing area,” Alvarez said.
“So set it down!” Luke said. “Put it anywhere.” Bill needed a medic, and if this chopper spun many more times, Luke was going to pass out.
“We’re still over the water.”
Luke glanced out through the doorway. That was true—they were over water—but not for much longer. The city was coming toward them with frightening speed. The chopper was spinning, but seemingly under Alvarez’s control.
“My rudder’s going. It’s shuddering. I’m about to lose it.”
Suddenly, everything seemed to move in slow motion. The chopper, which was spinning before, went into a violent, gyroscopic whirlwind. They came down over the port, passing the docks, the warehouses, and the tall buildings along the waterfront boulevard. Many of the buildings were half-demolished, the sides of them crumbling down in landslides of brick and stone and dust.
“Rudder’s gone,” Alvarez said, but now it seemed like a dream.
The chopper moved horizontally at fantastic speed, maybe fifty feet above the ground. “Hold it up!” Alvarez shouted.
It dropped with a sickening lurch, three stories in one second. Luke looked out again—they were just above the ground, careening down a pockmarked roadway, a canyon of rubble between two lines of destroyed buildings.
“Here we go,” Alvarez said, his voice resigned. “Mayday, mayday.”
The chopper hit hard, skidded along the ground for a second, then flipped head over heels. Luke felt it go, all the weight coming down on the cockpit. The pilots’ screams were in Luke’s headset for a split second, but were cut short. The cockpit windshield collapsed, spraying glass inward.
The chopper rolled, tumbling in darkness. Luke’s head slammed against the front of the cabin. He heard a ringing, loud, like church bells on Easter Sunday. Then there was flying dirt and grit all around him.
He closed his eyes and gripped the straps harder than before. His hands were wrenched free, and then he was tumbling in space. His head whipsawed.
Everything went black.
* * *
“Luke? Luke? Stone! Do you read me?”
His eyelids fluttered. For a moment, he couldn’t understand what he was seeing. Then he got it—he was hanging upside down. The straps had held him in place. His head felt like it might explode from the pressure.
He looked to his right and left. His neck screamed in pain as he did. Ed hung next to him on one side, Bill on the other. Both of their arms dangled down. Bill was bleeding. The blood ran from inside his shirt, along his throat and then down his face. His visor was smeared with it.
Blood dripped from Bill’s fingertips and pooled beneath him.
There was fighting going on very close. He could hear the sound of cannon fire, and the heavy WHUMP as the missiles found their targets. The chopper trembled from the force of the explosions.
He played back the last seconds of the crash in his mind. He pictured the cockpit caving in from the weight of the chopper. The pilots were dead. No one could have survived that. He shook his head. He couldn’t think about that now.
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“Stone,” Luke said. “Here.”
“Luke, can you move?” It was Swann. “You have to get out of that chopper. Unfriendlies are on their way to your position.”
Luke’s mouth was dry. He could barely speak. “Who are they?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then how do you know they’re unfriendly?”
“There aren’t any friendlies there, Luke. It’s ISIS fighting Russians and Syrians.”
Luke took a deep breath. “Right.”
He reached up to his calf and pulled the tape off the knife strapped there. Quickly, he cut his shoulder straps away. Now he was dangling from the lap belt, all of his weight on his legs. He grabbed the lap belt, worked his legs out, then flipped over right side up and dropped to the ceiling of the up-ended chopper. His impact shook the chopper, and Ed’s eyes popped open.
“Good morning, sunshine,” Luke said. “You hurt?”
Ed blinked. “Just my feelings.”
Ed’s voice wasn’t inside Luke’s helmet.
“Your radio working?” Luke said.
Ed tapped his helmet. “I don’t know. Say something.”
“Something.”
Ed shook his head. “No, it’s dead.”
“Then you didn’t hear Swann,” Luke said. “We got trouble. Bad guys coming.”
Ed nodded. “So I guess I can’t relax here for a while?”
“Upside down like that? You should talk to Don Morris. Could become a new health craze.”
Luke handed Ed the knife and began to paw around on the ceiling, looking for their weapons.
“Swann, where are those bad guys?”
“Moving to the crash site on foot, about three blocks away from you. Taking it careful, keeping under cover. Moving without obvious organization.”
“ISIS.”
“I’d say.”
Luke gritted his teeth—it wasn’t what he wanted to hear. They could probably surrender to Russians. There’d be a lot of explaining to do, but that was okay. Bill needed medical attention, and Russians could provide it.
“Uh-oh. Bad guys just rendezvoused with a pickup truck. Looks like a heavy gun mounted in the bed. Definitely ISIS.”
Luke sighed. This day just kept getting better and better.
“Can you put that Reaper on them?” Luke said.
“Uh, negative, Luke. That’s a civilian area. There are residential buildings all around you. I’d be really—”
“Okay. Okay.”
Ed flipped out of his lap belt and dropped feet-first to the floor. Luke handed him his M79 grenade launcher. Ed strapped it to his back. They went over and cut Bill down. He came awake as they maneuvered his bulk to the floor. He groaned—it was very nearly a scream. His eyes opened. They rolled for a few seconds, trying to find something to focus on.
He looked at Luke, his face a mask of pain. Bill’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Stone, I was cooking eggs when you called.”
Luke shook his head. “Yeah. I’m sorry about that. Any idea where you’re hit?”
“Everywhere.”
Luke kneeled beside him. He removed the man’s helmet. Gently, he began to feel under the flight suit. When he found an entry wound, he touched it gingerly. Bill grimaced each time. Luke counted thirteen holes, then stopped counting. “Oh man, Big Daddy.”
Bill shook his head. “You know, it’s not so bad. It hurts, but I never minded a little pain. I’ve done a lot of really rotten things in my life, Stone. I’ve spent years thinking about them. I told myself I was doing this for my country, but you know what the truth is? The truth is I enjoyed it.”
“Be quiet, old man,” Ed said. “This is no time for that kind of—”
Swann’s voice squawked inside Luke’s helmet. “Luke, you are almost out of time. Whatever you’re going to do, you better do it now. They are coming for you.”
“Which way?”
“From the east.”
“Swann, did you see this bird hit? We were playing dizzy bats at high speed. I was upside down a minute ago. Where are they coming from?”
“You’re at one end of a long block. They’re coming from the other end. They’re going to be turning that corner any second.”
“We gotta get out of here,” Luke said to the others. “Now.
He scanned out the bay door to his right. There was a ruined building maybe fifty yards across the way. It looked about eight stories, the whole face of it Swiss cheese. It looked like it had a lobby on the ground floor once upon a time—the front doors of it were blown out. The entire building was dark.
“Ed, give me a hand with this guy. If we can make it to that building right there, we might be able to—”
“I’ll never make it over there,” Bill said.
“Shut up, Bill,” Luke said. “We’re out of time.”
Luke and Ed tried to lift him, but his eyes rolled and he shrieked in pain.
“Oh man, Bill.” It was a cascading series of failures, getting worse all the time. Why had Luke called this guy? Because he was a Middle East expert? He was fluent in the lingo? He could break a prisoner in four minutes flat? All of that, but what good was it going to do now?
“Luke!” Swann shouted.
“Give me a couple of guns,” Bill said. “And put me in the doorway. I’ll take that machine pistol. And the Glock there. Leave me a grenade, too.”
“Bill—”
“It’s too late, Stone. What else are we going to do? I’ll draw their fire. I’ll take out as many as I can. You guys finish up.”
“Jesus, Bill. It looks like I killed you here. I really didn’t mean…”
Big Daddy shook his head. “You didn’t kill me. I killed myself years ago.”
Ed seemed done with the group therapy. He handed Bill an MP5 and two grenades. He touched Luke on the shoulder. “Let’s go, man.”
Luke gave Bill his own Glock. “Make them count.”
“I always do.”
They helped him to the doorway, propped him up, then jumped out of the chopper. Luke glanced at the cockpit—it was totally destroyed, but he could spot the remains of the pilots inside. Their bodies were ruined.
Ed was already running low across open territory toward the wrecked building. Luke followed him, outright sprinting. He passed through the blasted entryway and into the shadows. Ed was kneeling in a corner, checking his weapons. Luke took the corner across from him and crouched. Something moved behind him.
He turned, and three small children stood, still as statues, at the bottom of a crumbling staircase.
Luke waved at them. “Get lost!” he hissed. “Get out of here!”
They stared at him with dirty faces and big eyes. They didn’t look afraid. They didn’t look like anything. Just blank.
Shooting started out on the street. The rat-a-tat of a lone gun, was soon joined by several more.
“Ed, we got kids over here.”
Ed glanced over at him. He spotted the kids, and his shoulders sank. He shook his head in frustration.
Ed whispered fiercely at them. “Get! Go on!”
The kids didn’t move.
From Luke’s vantage point, he could see the chopper lying upside down in the street. It looked like the loser in a demolition derby. Bill was perched in the doorway, firing bursts from the MP5. Luke crept to his right, trying to get an angle on the street. The fighters were moving up the street, leapfrogging, doorway to doorway. On the other side, a handful of them had just gotten the memo—they were on Bill’s blind side. They began to run.
“They’re moving on him,” Luke said. He moved forward to the low wall, his own MP5 out. Then Ed was there with him. He put a hand on Luke’s gun. Luke looked at him. Ed shook his head. He lifted his M79 and pointed down the street. The pickup truck was out there, a man in a headscarf at the heavy machine gun in the back.
On the street, the jihadis reached Bill’s blind side. Bill fired back into the helicopter. His body shuddered as he was pierced by their bullets. Luke
stared, helpless, as his old spymaster died.
“Come on, Big Daddy,” Ed whispered. “Pull that pin.”
A group of fighters had gathered around the chopper. Luke counted them… eight, nine, ten… maybe as many as a dozen. They climbed inside of the chopper. They inspected it. They scanned the surrounding buildings. They had been sent to investigate, and now they had done so. It was an American helicopter, downed in the battle zone. Even though it shouldn’t be here, it was no more confusing than anything else going on. In another minute, the fighters would probably head back to the war.
Then the chopper exploded.
There was a blinding flash of light, then a long, rolling BOOOOOOM. Luke and Ed ducked as flaming shards of metal and shredded chunks of instant human corpses flew in every direction. What was only recently a helicopter was now a flaming ball, lighting up the night. Luke could hear the crackling of the flames.
Just like that, Big Daddy was dead. In a war zone, a human life was like a priceless vase—here and gone. One second, it was in your hands. The next second, it fell to the floor and shattered into a million pieces. There was no way to turn back that clock, not even one second.
“Beautiful,” Ed said. He stood and fiddled with his M79. He aimed down the street toward the pickup. “Get ready, white man. It’s about to get ugly in here.”
Luke scrambled away from the gun. An instant later, Ed fired.
Doonk!
The hollow report of the M79 was all out of proportion to its destructive power. It reminded Luke of a tennis ball being shot out of a serving gun. He watched the trajectory of the grenade, nearly flat, Ed’s specialty.
BAM!
It hit the pickup in the front windshield, passed through, and blew out the cab. Light and heat. The doors flew off. The heavy gun was thrown in the air, a fireball beneath it. The shooter’s limbs flapped away like birds.
Luke was already up and running for the stairwell. Now the children were moving. He pushed them up the stairs ahead of him. One of them, the smallest boy, was moving too slow, so Luke picked him up and ran with him under his arm like a football. Ed’s heavy steps were on the stairs right behind him.
Behind them and below, machine gun fire strafed the ruined lobby.
