by John Weisman
“Sam, Sam!”
Mick’s shout brought Sam back to reality. He pulled off the headset. “Yo?”
“Sun visor.”
“Gotcha.” The spook reached over, swung the lightweight plastic around, and rotated the visor screen down across the windshield. “Okay?”
“Roger that.” Mick glanced down at a screen on the console that sat in the middle of the nose, right between the two seats. “Sam, turn that second switch to your left.”
Sam put his hand on a black knurled knob on the console’s bottom row. “This one?”
The pilot’s chin thrust forward. “One row up.”
“This one.”
“Yup.”
Sam turned the knob. A green radar screen flickered to life. Mick checked it, then shouted, “Right-hand switch, top row. Throw it.”
Sam moved the toggle upward. “What did I just do?”
“If I remember correctly, you turned the manual IFF transponder shutoff switch to its off position.”
The move made no sense to Sam at all. “Why did I do that?”
“So I can convince the other aircraft we have transmission problems.” Mick eased the HIP into a shallow descent, skimming the aircraft no more than a hundred feet above the nap of the land. “When I yell, flip it the other way.”
“I’m gonna put the headset back on,” Sam shouted, his hands miming earpieces.
Mick’s head bobbed up and down. “Roger.” He paused as he adjusted the chopper’s attitude. “Remember—”
“What?” Sam adjusted the head strap and pulled the bulbous mike close to his lips.
“Double orders of pot stickers and Hunan beef—extra spicy.”
0914. Gene Shepard ran a gloved hand over his safety strap, which was turnbuckled to a bulkhead strut. He’d attached the webbing to his belt. It allowed him side-to-side movement, but was short enough to ensure that his body would stay inside the aircraft even if the HIP were to bank at a sixty-degree angle. He adjusted his own communications gear, then swung around and double-checked Ty Weaver’s safety straps. The sniper’s tether was shorter than Shepard’s so that he could use his weight and its natural tension to steady himself.
When he was satisfied, he shook the sniper’s shoulder. Ty gave him an upturned thumb, then settled down facing the open port-side doorway, his rifle in the crook of his arm.
Shepard waited until his teammate was in position. Then he stepped to the aft side of the doorway, unsecured the machine gun, and swept the weapon left and right, up and down, to make sure it had full play. He’d be the first one firing at the IMU convoy. But once the PLA aircraft hove into view, he’d have to stay clear of the sniper’s field of fire.
Ritzik stood just aft of the cockpit, watching as his men prepared for battle. It was at times like this that he was conscious of how great a blessing God had bestowed on him because He’d allowed him the chance to go to War with men like these not once but dozens of times. At Delta, there were few renegades, few rogues, few prima donnas. They just didn’t last. Oh, there were personality conflicts aplenty. And Delta, like other SpecOps units, had seen a small but still unsettling share of domestic-violence cases. And sometimes people just plain pissed one another off—and settled things with their fists. But once they’d passed the Selection for Delta and been through the battery of psychological exams, the men tended to find their own place, then stay with the unit for years. Some, like Rowdy, had been there more than a decade. Which was why, when it came down to times like this, there were no better Soldiers on the face of the earth than these Warriors with whom Ritzik was privileged to serve. And his true gift from God was that he’d been allowed to know and understand that fact.
And then the moment was over. He checked his own web gear, then unstrapped the AK from the seat where he’d stored it, pulled himself aft until he reached the starboard doorway, secured himself in a firing position, patted the chest pouches that held a dozen of the Chinese grenades, slapped a fresh mag into the receiver, and chambered a round.
0919:15. Mickey D banked right, then left, at about seventy knots, guiding the HIP along a series of small ridges. He glanced at the radar screen, raised the chopper’s nose, then pulled hard left. “Sam—Sam—throw the switch.”
Gene Shepard balanced on the balls of his feet, hands on the machine gun, as the big airframe rolled up, then down, then hove to. Four heavy trucks popped into his field of view. He flipped the safety off with his right thumb, brought the stock up against his shoulder, found a sight picture, and loosed a six-round burst at the first of the trucks. His rounds kicked up stones six yards beyond the vehicle’s squared-off hood. Shepard compensated, swung back, leaned into the weapon, and fired again.
Mickey D’s eyes caught something on his radar. “Sam—Sam throw the damn switch.”
“Roger.” Sam’s right hand toggled the IFF control. He watched the pilot in amazement. Mick’s arms and legs were flailing independently; his body was actually twitching in the seat. His eyes were buggy. The pilot looked to Sam as if he were receiving electroshock treatment.
0919:30. Mick called, “Contact-contact-contact.” The HIP banked, then kicked skyward. Sam grabbed a cockpit strut, his knuckles white. He fought motion sickness. And then, in his earphones, Sam heard Chinese. It was like a slap in the face. He’d missed the transmission. Heard it, but missed it. He’d screwed up. Worse, because he was still at the stage where he had to listen word by word, then produce an English subtitle in his brain before he could make sense of what was being said. Sam forgot about the chopper’s motion, shut everything else out, and fought to concentrate on what was coming through his headset.
0919:32. Ritzik saw the IMU truck column as the HIP flashed over it. He tried to get a burst into one of the vehicles, but the chopper rolled to port, and all he saw was sky. Even with the ear-shattering noise, he could make out something in his earpiece. He turned the volume up full.
It was Mick’s voice. “Contact-contact-contact.”
And then Ritzik was slapped against the deck as the chopper popped three hundred feet straight up, corkscrewed counterclockwise twice, banked hard left, then right, and then dove straight for the convoy.
0919:36. The 62’s tall leaf rear sight, Gene Shepard concluded, was going to be useless, except to align with the thick front post. He felt the chopper’s violent series of moves under the soles of his Adidas. But he wasn’t thrown off his stance because his body was compensating gyro-scopically for each twist and turn. He was in a groove now, reacting to every minute nuance of Mick’s piloting. Pinball wizard. The HIP rolled slightly, and then the convoy appeared at the left edge of Shepard’s peripheral vision. He brought the machine-gun arm around, dropped the muzzle until his front sight was where he wanted it to be, and then stitched the trucks broadside as Mick gave him a seven-second window of opportunity. He could see splinters flying as the fat, 7.62 rounds impacted on target. And then the HIP veered away and nosed into the sky. Shep heard the slap-slap-slap of rounds as ground fire chased them.
0919:46. Ritzik saw the Chinese aircraft—both painted with the same distinctive camouflage pattern as the HIP. They were coming from his left—out of the sun. And then Mick banked, turned, and the two PLA aircraft disappeared from view. Ritzik yelled a warning.
0919:49. Ty Weaver had the big HK up. He was sitting open-legged, his rear end planted firmly on the decking, right leg tucked, knee bent almost ninety degrees, his left leg extended so his butt and feet formed a makeshift tripod. He’d wrapped the sling around his left arm to give himself increased stability. The bottom of the triceps muscle on his right arm was supported by the outside of his right knee so that bone didn’t rest on bone. That was the rule: soft against hard; hard against soft. His hand held the rifle stock firmly in the hollow of his shoulder; Ty’s cheek pressed against the comb, making a solid spot weld.
Except—he couldn’t see. The sun’s glare was too bright. And then Ty felt Mickey D shift the chopper’s attitude, moving slightly to the l
eft. The starboard side of the Chinese HIP floated slowly into his frame of view. The sight picture was perfect. Ty’s right hand shifted slightly, moving onto the knurled knob to adjust the parallax. Then he was back on the trigger, concentrating on breathing, on the target, and on the crosshairs, zoning everything else out of his consciousness.
0919:52.”Toggle the switch, Sam. Toggle the switch.” Mickey D swung the chopper around smoothly so as to give the sniper the most stable environment possible. He caught the spook’s hand in his peripheral vision as Sam worked the IFF switch. The pilot saw the Chinese HIP slow and hover so the HIND gunship could make its first pass.
0919:52. Gene Shepard watched, transfixed, from the corner of the starboard-side doorway as the HIND wheeled, straddled the road, and tore into the convoy with its Gatling gun and rockets. It moved almost lazily over the panicked Uzbeks, its heavily armored fuselage impervious to ground fire.
0919:55. Mick maneuvered the HIP, keeping level with the Chinese transport at a distance of three hundred yards, and as evenly as he could, he slowly rotated the craft counterclockwise. His lips were moving: “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, Ty—get the job done.”
0920:00. The glassed-in cockpit panned inside Ty‘s field of view. He compensated for the distance using the Mil-Dots in his reticle, eased the fine crosshairs where they belonged, held steady, and squeezed the trigger, sending the 168-grain boat-tail bullet on its way.
0920:01. The Chinese HIP dropped like a stone. TV’s scope followed the chopper until the aircraft slipped below the HIP’s floor line. He knew he’d hit the pilot. But now the HIP had turned, and he didn’t have a clear shot at the left-hand seat. He crabbed forward, straining at the safety straps, until he could see the HIP’s air intakes three football fields away. No good: they had baffles. The Chinese chopper yawed clockwise, then held steady as the copilot gained control over the craft. Ty caught the confused expression on the door gunner’s face. The man was shouting into his microphone. Instantly, Ty’s crosshairs quartered the gunner’s face and held on the bridge of his nose. He squeezed off a second round. The machine gunner went down. Now he raised the crosshairs until they found the HIP’s starboard-side engine exhaust. Ty put three quick rounds into it.
The MSG90’s bolt locked back. Ty unslung the heavy gun, released the magazine, and let it drop onto the decking. He felt Mickey D rotate the chopper. But Ty fought off distraction. He reached for a second five-round mag, which he rammed home. Then with his left hand he slapped the cocking bolt forward and reslung the rifle. He shouldered the weapon and made his spot weld. But there was nothing in his sight picture except a wisp of gray-brown smoke.
0920:05. Ritzik, strapped securely to a turnbuckle, dangled his legs out the port-side doorway. He peered out and saw the Chinese HIP, pluming smoke, keel over to its right, then fall away, spin out, nose stonelike, two hundred feet to the ground, and explode in a huge fireball, its rotors shattering into shrapnel. Then he lost sight of the burning craft as Mick put their own HIP into a tight, evasive turn, then flattened the aircraft out to make a strafing run at the convoy.
0920:06. Sam screamed, “They don’t know what the hell’s going on. They think they’re taking ground fire.” He swiveled in the copilot’s chair and shouted once again so Ritzik would know what was happening. But his voice was lost in the scream of the engines as Mickey D put the chopper into a tight turn and swooped down toward the IMU trucks.
0920:16. Gene Shepard swung the machine-gun muzzle forward. He was leaning out the HIP’s doorway, the wind slapping at the high collar of his bulletproof vest, the dead Chinese door gunner’s ill-fitting soft helmet jammed on his head, its chin straps flapping wildly in the slipstream. The road was below. Mick had them right where they had to be. Shep strained against his web harness, dropped the muzzle slightly, which put the wide post of the front sight directly in the middle of the road. As soon as his peripheral vision picked up the last boxy truck in the IMU convoy, he flicked the safety up, tightened his finger on the 67’s heavy trigger, and watched as the armor-piercing rounds kicked up gravel in the center of the road at the rate of 650 per minute.
0920:21. Mickey D kept the HIP centered above the convoy, watching the chopper’s shadow as it moved down the road toward the IMU convoy. He adjusted his airspeed; shifted his cyclic stick and pedals, dropping the HIP to fifty feet, so he could come in flat, at about eighty knots. He sensed the dull chatter of Shep’s machine gun, although he had a hard time actually separating it from the other noise.
Besides, there was a more pressing problem to deal with. The HIP was giving him no quarter. It was a cumbersome, awkward helicopter; sluggish, unwieldy, slow to respond—a burro of an aircraft.
Mick thought, And what’s the first step to flying a burro? You use a two-by-four and get its bloody attention. His left hand fought the collective lever. No sooner did he have it under control than the cyclic shaft in his right hand began to stutter. The pedals felt as if they’d been lubed with molasses. He bullied the controls into submission and finally brought the HIP where he wanted it to be, pulled up, swung around, and readied the aircraft for the next run.
0920:24. Sam Phillips pressed the mike against his lips. “Wŏ bŭdŏng. Wŏ bŭdŏng.” Holding his hand over the foam he pushed the mike up over his head and shouted at Mickey D. “They were asking how we’re doing.”
Mick’s head went up and down once. But he couldn’t answer—he was too effing busy trying to stay out of the HIND’s way. The big, hunchbacked gunship had come around behind him and Mick wanted those guns and rockets nowhere near his six. He dropped the HIP’s tail, flared left, and pushed the big transport chopper into the sky as the gunship flashed past.
As it did, Mick caught a glimpse into the HIND’s tandem cockpits. The gunner/copilot occupied the front position, protected by a thick flat pane of armored glass. Above and behind him, separated by heavy armor and more bulletproof glass, sat the pilot. The fuselage door was shut—no sign of a waist gun—so there was probably no third crewman aboard this morning. Give thanks for small blessings. Mick harassed the controls until he’d slowed the HIP and he could see as the HIND yawed right, swerved, and started its shallow dive toward the convoy.
0920:29. Sam heard chatter in his headset—the HIND pilot was talking to him. He flicked the switch on/off, on/off, and repeated his message, trying like hell to sound authentically Mandarin, and knowing in his heart that he was nowhere close.
Mick brought the HIP around so he could watch. The HIND was an ungainly aircraft for a gunship, way too big and heavy to be maneuverable on the battlefield the way, say MH6 Little Birds, Apaches, or even Cobras were able to pop up, shoot, and dart away. Well, the damn thing weighed twenty-two-thousand-plus pounds at takeoff—almost three tons more than the American Apache tank-killer. And its avionics were no more advanced than the HIP’s sluggish controls. Hell, Mick could outmaneuver a HIND even in one of SOAR’s big double-rotored MH-47E Chinooks. But he couldn’t outrun one. HINDs were fast. And deadly. It had that four-barrel Gatling-type gun in its nose. And under its stubby, downswept wings—which provided the craft with more than a quarter of its lift during forward flight—were four pods, each holding twenty 80mm rockets. On the HIND’s wingtips, two missile rails each held what looked like two of the old Soviet AT-3 “Sagger” antiarmor missiles. Mick turned to the spook next to him and shouted, “Watch.”
The HIND lined up on the road again. Sam could see the IMU guerrillas scattering, running into the scrub grass, trying to find cover. Half a dozen of them were carrying loaded RPG launchers. But he knew the rocket grenades would be useless against the gunship unless it was hovering. From about twelve hundred yards, the HIND fired one of its Saggers. The last truck in the convoy was vaporized in a bright yellow-red ball of fire.
The HIND kept coming. Eight hundred yards out, the gunship loosed a barrage of rockets that exploded wide of the road, sending shrapnel into the fleeing Uzbeks. The ugly chopper dropped to a hundred feet, its Gatling gun chewin
g the roadbed, making furrows, cutting the convoy and the terrorists to pieces.
Its strafing run completed, the HIND veered away to port, pulled up in an unexpectedly gentle climb, and turned into the sun. Sam watched as an Uzbek crawled out from under a truck, pulled himself to his feet, and emptied his AK ineffectively at the HIND’s armored belly. Mick eased the HIP over the smoldering convoy and Sam felt the aircraft shudder as Gino opened up with their own machine gun and cut the guerrilla in two.
“Jeezus H—” From nowhere, four rockets bracketed the HIP, streaked past, and exploded on the desert floor. Sam managed to choke out, “Didja see that?” And then he succumbed, turning ad nauseam green as Mickey D threw the HIP into a tight climb, rolled to the left, dropped, twisted, revolved, then climbed, leaving the spook’s stomach somewhere far behind.
“Hang on, Sloopy,” the pilot screamed. “The sons of bitches just figured out we ain’t with them.” Mick muscled the big chopper almost ninety degrees onto its right side, throttled full, and twisted the aircraft in the second eardrum-popping, breath-stopping, gravity-defying move in less than fifteen seconds, leaving Sam feeling as if he’d just put in a couple of hours of hard time on one of the ride-and-pukes at King’s Dominion.
27
144 Kilometers East-Northeast of Tokhtamysh.
0921 Hours Local Time.
MIKE RITZIK got the hint they’d been unmasked when he found himself suspended completely outside the open doorway, separated from the ground by a worn, two-inch-wide canvas strap and a carabiner that had probably been made by prison labor in Shenyang. The shock of the violent evasive move pulled the AK out of his hands and he watched it disappear between his legs. He looked down and saw the ground directly below his feet. Then the HIP rolled again and he was yo-yo’d back inside the cabin and smacked rudely onto the deck face first.
