by Mack Maloney
"Unless you're going to pour it on me . . ."
"We should," Norton replied. "It took us five minutes just to make sure you were still alive. How can anyone sleep so fucking soundly?"
Delaney yawned and managed to sit up. He stretched and yawned again. Then he snatched the cup of coffee out of Norton's hand.
"I take my sleep very seriously," Delaney said after a few noisy slurps. "It's one of the reasons I got divorced. I'd give her the happy stick, roll over, and be out for the next ten hours. I slept through a tornado once."
Norton and Smitz looked at each other and did a simultaneous eye roll.
"Good," Norton said, throwing him his clothes. "You'll need that experience for where we're going."
Delaney had half-drained the cup of scalding hot coffee by now.
"Why? Where are we going?" he asked, pulling on his flight suit and boots.
"For a little ride," Norton replied.
*****
Two minutes later the trio walked into Hangar 2. Delaney took one look at the Hind gunship, turned on his heel, and began to walk away.
Norton caught him by the collar and spun him back towards the gunship.
Norton said grimly, "You know what that is, don't you?"
"Yeah, of course, it's a fucking Hind," Delaney said, his eyes now glued on the frightening machine. "Is it real?"
"Too real," Norton said, nudging him a little further towards the Russian-built gunship. "But it's a beauty, isn't it?"
"It's a piece of shit," Delaney replied. "And if you got me up to go for a ride in this thing, you wasted your time and mine."
He began to walk away again. Smitz blocked his retreat.
"You're the one wasting time, Major," the CIA officer told him. "This bird has to go up on a shakeout flight. And we need someone to fly front seat. And that someone is you."
Delaney turned back to Norton.
"Don't tell me you know how to fly this thing," he said.
Norton just shrugged. "They seem to think I can. And if I can't, then they're going to put you behind the wheel. Because there's one in the back of the building for you too."
Delaney squinted his eyes to see that, indeed, there was a crew of air techs praying over a second Hind gunship.
Delaney put his hands to his face and just shook his head. "Gawd . . . I'd give anything to be flying poodles around again. Anything . . ."
Smitz stepped forward, his NoteBook out, its screen blinking in the muggy post-storm breeze.
"We've got a satellite window of three hours coming up," he said. "We've got to get this thing started, taxied out, and airborne. Like right now . . ."
Delaney looked as if he could have punched the CIA man. But then his face brightened a bit. His mind had switched to another mode.
"Let me ask you something, Smitty," he said. "If we're in such a secret place that no enemy of this country knows we are here, then whose satellites are you so worried about passing over and seeing us?"
Smitz just shrugged. "Our own, of course," he replied simply.
Norton wiped his brow at that one. It was getting very hot, very quickly. The bad dream was continuing.
He turned Delaney back toward the Hind.
"Let's just get this over with, OK?" he said.
Norton and Delaney pulled on a pair of helmets, strapped themselves into parachutes, and climbed up the access ladder to the Hind's tandem cockpit. A squad of air techs was buzzing around the gunship now. They seemed to know what they were doing, Norton thought. Or they were giving a good impression that they did.
Delaney eased himself into the forward compartment through a hinged thick-glass door that looked not unlike something found in a gull-wing sports car. He settled into the seat, which was comfortably plush, leather-covered, and sturdy. The number of dials and buttons and buzzers in this compartment rivaled those in the pilot’s hold in back. There was a spare set of flight controls in the gunner's seat, but Delaney was cautious not to put his feet anywhere near the rudder pedals or his hands anywhere near the stick.
An air tech appeared beside him and plugged a wire from his helmet into one of dozens of inputs on the multi-layered control panel. This done, he slapped Delaney twice on the head—and a second later, Delaney could hear Norton's voice through his headphones.
"Ever see leather seats on an American bird?" Norton asked him.
"Yeah, they're real comfy," Delaney replied. "This thing have a CD player?"
"More likely an eight-track," Norton told him. "You see a primary switchboard up there?"
Delaney scanned the control panel—that was when he first noticed just about everything was labeled in Russian. But a few primary systems had masking tape covering up their Cyrillic nameplates with hastily scrawled English printed over them. Most said the word: "Override." Delaney started switching them all with wild abandon.
"Tell me when to stop," he called back to Norton.
Meanwhile, Norton was switching on all of his own masking-tape-labeled switches, going systematically from left to right. He could hear things begin to whir, and the sounds were vaguely familiar to him. Where had he heard all this before? Then it hit him—in the simulator; these were the sounds they had piped into his headphones during his crash course inside the accursed Tin Can.
A tech started hand-signaling him.
"Want to move it out now?" he was asking Norton.
Norton just shrugged. "Sure, why not."
With that the squad of techs began pushing the huge gunship out of the hangar, with Smitz and a few guards lending a hand.
Out in the bright sunshine the cockpit began warming up quickly. By the time they were on the tarmac, Norton had completed all of his switching. Everything seemed to be set—green lights indicated each system was online and ready to go.
Now it was time to start the engines. Smitz had given him a photocopied, heavily edited version of the Hind's translated flight manual. Norton now had it in his lap, opened to the page entitled: "How to Start the Engines."
"Hang on, partner," he called ahead to Delaney after reading the instructions. "This could be interesting."
He saw Delaney tighten his helmet and assume a crash position. Norton did one last check of the bizarre control panel, and then activated the switch marked APU. This stood for Auxiliary Power Unit, a kind of outside battery pack that would jump-start the gunship's two powerful engines. Or at least that was the plan.
But when Norton hit the APU panel, he heard an explosion that sounded like it was ripping the big gunship apart. There was a bright flash of red from behind him, the reflection lighting up the cockpit. He turned and saw a six-foot flame shooting out of the APU vent.
Shit . . .
This did not look good. Norton was convinced that he'd blown off the rear end of the copter somehow. He looked down at the air techs and saw panic wash across their faces. In front of him Delaney was already struggling with the clasp on his cockpit door, in the first stages of abandoning of the aircraft.
But before full-blown hysteria could set in, Norton saw Smitz run into his field of vision, simultaneously waving and flashing the thumbs-up sign—while still looking worriedly towards the rear of the copter.
"It always starts up like that!" he was yelling up at them.
"Damn!" Norton heard Delaney curse in his headphones. "I thought we'd blown the fucking thing up and gotten out of this."
And a moment later, sure enough, the huge rotor began turning over their heads. Now the gunship was rocking back and forth with a mighty vibration, lifting Norton an inch or so off his seat.
"Jeesuz, are you sure we're not on fire!" Delaney yelled into his microphone.
Norton wasn’t sure. He did a scan of the control panel and found the warning light that he believed would indicate an engine fire. It was safely on green.
"Just hang on," he called ahead to Delaney. "We aren't even having fun yet."
The crew chief was hand-signaling him again. Norton got the message right away. He and De
laney were to seal their cockpits.
Norton told Delaney to button up, then did the same. And that was when everything seemed to change. When the door clamped down and was sealed, it became very quiet within the gunship. The only sound Norton could hear besides the whupp-whupp-whupp of the increasingly spinning rotors was the soft rush of air. The Hind's cockpits were pressurized, a luxury Norton didn't believe was afforded to many American chopper pilots.
"Hey, cool, I can hear my heart beating again," Delaney called out from in front. "Or, at least I think it's my heart."
Norton got another signal from his crew chief. The rotors were turning at full throttle now. He waved the man off, and the small army of techs began moving away from the gunship.
He consulted the crude instruction book, turning to the page detailing a quick course on how the Hind should get into the air. He began reading as fast as he could.
The Hind wasn't like any other copter. That much was certain now. It didn't take off vertically because it was so damn big. It had to be rolled down a runway, just like an airplane.
"Hang on, partner," Norton called ahead to Delaney. "Let's see just how good the Russians build helicopters."
"I have just one question first," Delaney asked. "Why are we wearing parachutes?"
Norton consulted the crude manual again. "If this thing goes unstable, we open up and step out."
"With that eggbeater still turning above us?" Delaney cried. "Are they nuts?"
Norton couldn't argue with him. It seemed like a choice between two deaths. Go down with the ship or step out and be sliced and diced by the rotor.
"We won't need them," Norton said back to him. "Don't worry."
"Yeah, that's what my first wife said about using rubbers," Delaney replied, his voice trailing off and leaving Norton wanting some kind of punch line.
Did Delaney have kids? Norton wondered. He didn't even know.
But his mind was soon back on other things. He booted power and adjusted to 60-percent torque, just as the photocopy instructions told him to. Then he popped the brakes, and the huge gunship began moving.
"Oh, Christ," he heard Delaney gasp. "This ain't going to be good. I just know it. . . ."
"Relax, Slick," Norton reassured him. "Think nice thoughts."
The ride was bumpy, and Norton's steering very herky-jerky, but in good time they had reached the main runway. Turning left and creeping up about fifty feet, Norton finally touched the brakes and the gunship came to a stop.
He did one last check of the control panel, and then tried to think back to all those hours in the Tin Can. It seemed odd, but this was not that much different from flight-testing an airplane for the first time. But had he really learned enough about the Hind to actually fly it?
There would be only one way to find out.
"You still breathing?" he called ahead to Delaney.
"I assure you I'm going through several bodily functions at the moment," was Delaney's reply.
"OK, then," Norton said. "Get ready to do one more."
With that, he took a deep breath of the artificially cool air, hit the gas, and off they went.
*****
About a quarter mile away, Ricco and Gillis were rolling out in their new aircraft too.
The two refuelers were less sullen than when they'd first stepped into the cabin of the gigantic Mi-6 Hook. The interior control work done on the huge copter's controls had been extensive. Through the use of microprocessors and a hundred miles of rewiring, nearly sixty percent of the controls had been converted to look and act like those on their KC-10 Pegasus. Even the steering yokes and throttle bars were the same.
So the tanker pilots were more comfortable with their new set of wheels. But they had not left the ground—yet.
It was a tribute to his professionalism and toughness that Rooney, just months away from retirement after thirty-five years in the CIA, had agreed to go along with them on this initial flight. He was now sitting in the flight engineer's hole, parked directly behind Ricco, who was sitting in the left-hand pilot's seat.
The huge Russian helicopter was moving slowly towards the southern end of the runway. Rooney had to admit that the tanker pilots—for all their complaints—were handling the big bird pretty well so far. Taxiing out to the airstrip was no more or less comfortable than the bouncing and jostling one experienced in a commercial airliner. The only difference was the constant roar of the copter's huge rotor blades and the never-ending sloshing of the fuel bladders in the rear of the cavernous cargo hold.
The pilots expertly brought the big helicopter out to the end of the airstrip, then did a quick check of their vitals. Ricco was handling the controls; Gillis was reading their own photocopied flight manual. The Hook also had to take off like an airplane.
"OK, what next? We roll out for five hundred feet or so?'' Ricco was saying as he ran a quick systems check.
"Or was it six hundred?" Gillis murmured, checking the manual.
"It's six hundred and fifty," Rooney reminded them, looking at his copy of the flying manual.
They bumped to a stop at the end of the runway and did another system check.
Ricco turned back to Rooney. "Are you sure that we can take this thing up and fly it like a KC-10?"
Rooney nodded. "This bird has been rewired so you will feel like you're flying a tanker. Up is up, down is down, fast is fast, and slow is slow. It will respond to your touch, convert the energy to what you want the copter to do. The only difference is your takeoff speed and distance."
"That sounds great, but are you really sure?" Gillis asked him.
"I wouldn't be here if I didn't believe that," the CIA man replied calmly.
Secretly, though, he wanted very much to light up a cigar and calm down a bit. But the load of fuel in the back prevented that.
One last check of the systems and everything seemed set. They made a brief report to the control tower and received their takeoff clearance. Ricco and Gillis shook hands—a preflight ritual of theirs. Then Ricco gave her the gas. They began rumbling along the runway at a very slow speed, the rotor blades screaming in protest as more fuel was laid on the gigantic engines.
"Let's have a count-off up to the sixty-fifty and our rotation speed," Ricco said, already battling the shaky controls.
"OK, we're at one hundred feet," Gillis called out, reading the distance indicator. "Speed at thirteen knots already."
Ricco had a firm grip on the controls, his eyes glued to the bumpy potholed runway. The ride was getting rougher with each passing instant, however. He added more power.
"Why not spend a few hundred bucks and get yourself a new runway?" he complained back to Rooney.
"Two hundred feet, speed at twenty-two knots," Gillis said. "You got the right power levels? We should be going much faster quicker."
Ricco checked his board and was certain that the power settings were OK.
"It's all green," he said, his grip on the controls now giving him white knuckles.
"Three-fifty on the roll, speed at twenty-five knots," Gillis said, his voice sounding more concerned with each word. "Maybe those recommendations were for high-altitude stuff."
"You're all right," Rooney said, not knowing if in fact he was speaking the truth. "Just stay with it."
"Four hundred feet on the roll, speed only thirty- two—make that thirty-one knots," Gillis reported anxiously.
Ricco added a bit more power—but as a result everything in the chopper began shaking even more violently.
Five hundred on the roll . . ." Gillis intoned. "Speed holding at forty-one ..."
"Shit, we're not going make this," Ricco said.
"Stay with it," Rooney said again—but even he could tell they seemed to be standing still while the engines were screaming and every nut and bolt in the aircraft seemed to be coming apart.
"Six hundred on the roll—speed is not yet forty-five knots," Gillis warned.
They were supposed to be at least fifty-five knots, or more like sixt
y, but it was no time to wonder why.
"What's it say in that book about aborting takeoffs?" Ricco yelled back to Rooney, who was already madly flipping through the pages.
"Nothing!" he called ahead, his voice losing a bit of wind.
They continued rumbling along, engines screaming, fuel sloshing. The aircraft seemed ready to break apart at any second. But they were beyond the point of stopping. The rotors were so torqued up, to kill power now would most likely flip the copter on its side, blowing the fuel and no doubt killing them all in the process.
That was when Ricco, usually the more cautious of the two, had to think quick. Finally he just declared, "Fuck it!" goosed the throttles, and yanked back on the controls.
A second later, they were airborne.
It was amazing how well the aircraft smoothed out! Once its wheels had left the ground, the engines took on an almost symphonic hum. The fuel in the back stopped sloshing. The bolts stopped rattling.
All three men breathed a sigh of relief.
"Piece of cake," Ricco declared, adding power and lifting the huge copter higher into the early morning sky. "A big piece of fucking cake . . ."
*****
It had been a long night for Joe Cool's Marines.
It started the previous afternoon, when they bivouacked on the northern end of the island, setting up tents among the rocks on the craggy beach and establishing a defense perimeter just as if they were in a combat situation.
They had spent the worst of the night's rainstorm here, huddled in their ponchos, more concerned about their gear getting blown away than keeping themselves dry.
When the storm began dissipating slightly around 0330 hours, some of the Marines were finally able to go horizontal. But at exactly 0345, they were roused out of their tents by their sergeants, and told to muster up with full packs and be inside Hangar 3 in fifteen minutes.
Much rushing around ensued as men grabbed their gear and suited up. The entire contingent was lined up and ready in under four minutes, though. What faced them now was the mile-long hump from their present position down to Hangar 3.
