Scorpion Strike

by Nance, John J. ;

“Yeah, and you had fun with your life! That’s the point. You were never afraid to take a chance and have fun. It didn’t make you irresponsible, it let you live. I was always the anchor, stuck down in the mud, afraid to take a chance, always dragging you and everyone around me back to responsibility and caution.”

  There was silence again for a few seconds until Doug’s voice, quiet and firm, filled it. “You were never a coward, Will.”

  “Then why did I run? Tell me that! Why am I still afraid to … discuss Wendy with you?”

  How did Wendy get into this? Doug thought. “I don’t understand.”

  The sound of a long, deep breath being drawn and let out was followed by the creaking of seat covers as Will sat forward and turned to Doug.

  “I was in love with her, Doug.”

  The words fell like a load of bricks at Doug’s feet, an instant weight off Will’s back that just lay there.

  “It was the first time I had ever fallen like that, and the last, I guess.”

  “With Wendy?” Doug was incredulous, and somewhere a final piece of a very old puzzle fell into place in Will’s mind.

  He never even suspected, Will realized.

  “You two had an affair?” Doug asked.

  Will shook his head. “We met at U-Tapao in Thailand while she was stationed there as a nurse. You remember? I told you that.”

  “I remember that part okay, but when—”

  “In U-Tapao, on weekends, slowly at first. I was practically flying a daily parts shuttle run for the squadron. I’d use any excuse to fly down there to see her. By the time she rotated back stateside and settled at Madigan Army Hospital at Fort Lewis there by McChord, I knew there was no one else I wanted, but what I didn’t know was how to tell her—or you.”

  “I always thought you transferred to McChord to get the old team back together.”

  “Partly, yes. But Wendy was the driving force.”

  “My God, Will, I had no idea. I …” Doug’s right hand waved in confusion. “I used to joke that I had taken her away from you, and … and it was the first time that had ever happened, because usually you took ’em away from me, remember?”

  Will nodded.

  “So now you’re telling me that the one girl I took from you, the one you introduced me to, the one I married, was the love of your life?”

  The reply was very quiet. “That’s why I left after the wedding. That’s why I’ve kept from calling all these years. I’m sorry, Doug.”

  “You’re sorry? I’m sorry! Oh Jeez, Will.”

  “I know.”

  “All these years.”

  “I know.”

  They fell silent again as Doug checked his watch, reading 4:00 A.M. Engine start could wait a few seconds, he decided. There was one more piece to the puzzle that Will didn’t even know was missing.

  “Will, it wouldn’t have worked for you two.”

  “Probably not.”

  “No, I mean there’s something you don’t know. Wendy was very sick, and it took me years to find it out, and I was too slow.”

  “What do you mean, sick?”

  “Manic-depressive with schizoid tendencies, I believe was the diagnosis. She even dragged me down half a dozen times a year.”

  “Yeah, but you can’t say—”

  “Will …” Doug’s hand came up in a “stop” gesture. “Will, she killed herself. Three years after we were married.”

  That stunned him as Doug knew it would.

  “How?” Will finally managed.

  “She’d tried twice before. The first was an overdose, but I found her in time. The second attempt was in the garage, with the car engine running. The third time she didn’t want to take any chances. She used a twelve-gauge shotgun.”

  “I’m sorry, Doug.”

  “I found her … well … that’s another gruesome story.”

  Will’s head was spinning slightly. There were too many emotions tugging at him even to categorize, so he began pushing them all aside.

  “What time is it?”

  Doug leaned forward and flipped on the master switch before replying.

  “Three minutes after four. Let’s get going.”

  The gyros and gauge stabilized as Doug brought on two additional switches that he assumed were fuel-boost pumps. The satisfying sound of pumps of some sort reached his ears. He checked for a locked rotor brake then, and, finding nothing similar, toggled what he assumed was the start switch.

  Sure enough, the right engine began to spin, the needles on the Arabic-labeled RPM gauge moving to the right. Doug estimated twenty-five percent before moving what he hoped were the fuel-start and ignition switches to the “on” position.

  Nothing happened. The engine continued to turn on ground power, but there was no sign of ignition.

  Doug looked down again, trying to fathom what was wrong, panic welling up in his stomach.

  “Wrong engine, Doug. You spun the right one, but you’re on the controls for the left one.”

  “Jesus!” He moved his hand over and threw the proper switches, hearing almost instantly the satisfying thump of a flame front inside the combustion chamber of the right engine as the hot gases began forcing the turbine blades behind it to spin the engine faster and faster up to idle RPM.

  “Lawd awmighty, Willard, m’boy, we’ve got an engine started on this Russky craft!”

  “You do good work, Doug. Now do it again.”

  Doug repeated the sequence, toggling the fuel and start switches for the left one, hearing the same sound as the second engine came on line and the huge rotor blades began to turn over their heads, slowly at first, and then becoming a blur as Doug worked the motorcycle-style throttle on the collective lever to the left of his seat, bringing the RPM above idle.

  “There’s a car coming from the town,” Will reported, raising his voice over the din of the engines and the steady whump-whump-whump of the rotor blades.

  Will looked back to the right then, his eyes widening. “And we’ve got lights from the north. Several vehicles. You haven’t turned on any position lights, have you?”

  “Nope. How far are they?”

  “Almost twice as far away as Shakir—if that’s Shakir—but they’re coming fast.”

  Doug nudged the RPM up a bit more, calculating his takeoff run and moving the cyclic stick between his legs in all directions, feeling the big helicopter follow his movements by leaning in whatever direction the stick was shoved. He tapped the tail-rotor control pedals as well, feeling an instant response.

  The lights to their left were racing toward them, a single vehicle, but too far away still to make out. To the right, the approaching lights coalesced into a string of three vehicles, one a truck. Will could barely see them around the corner of the building. The helicopter would still be out of their view and shielded for a while longer, but if those vehicles spelled trouble, it was going to be close.

  Doug turned to Will and gestured to the nose of the helicopter.

  “You suppose that minigun in the nose of this beast is loaded and armed?”

  “In other words, will I go check it out and get ready to use it?”

  “Something like that.”

  Will leaned down and moved forward into the weapon operator’s seat, situated under a smaller bubble canopy. Doug could see his head appear in the canopy as he bobbed around, apparently looking for the controls.

  The single set of headlights racing toward them from the village coalesced at last into a black van.

  That’s Shakir! Thank God—or, in his case, thank Allah.

  Will reappeared alongside his seat at the same moment.

  “I think it’s loaded, but I don’t have a clue how to work the damn thing, and we’re out of time. I’m going to get Shakir and his family in here first.”

  Doug nodded and edged the throttles up a bit more as the black van reached their position, braked hard, and turned along the right side of the helicopter.

  Will was waiting for them. He yanked open the v
an’s side door and grabbed the first child he saw, swinging him around and into the helicopter as Shakir came out of the door holding two others, one under each arm, both wide-eyed with apprehension as their father carried them into the helicopter.

  Will helped Shakir’s wife inside before jumping in himself and pulling on the door to close it.

  “Not yet!” Shakir yelled over the noise as he scrambled back out of the helicopter and moved to the rear door of the van, fishing for something inside as Doug yelled back over his shoulder into the cargo compartment.

  “They’re getting closer. We’d better get out of here!”

  “He’s coming right back,” Will yelled, but Shakir was still standing at the back of the van and pulling at something.

  Will leaped out the door then and hurried around the aft end of the van.

  “We’ve got to go!” Will told him.

  Shakir did not look up. His eyes were glued to something inside a floor compartment.

  “It’s stuck,” he said. “This canister is wedged down here on the side.”

  “Let’s use this tire iron,” Will suggested.

  “No! That … that’s one of the containers of the virus.”

  Will looked in shock at the silver canister. He had assumed it had all been destroyed in the desert. Suddenly to confront the cause of this entire debacle was something he had not expected.

  Doug slid open the small hatch in the cockpit canopy and put his mouth close to the opening.

  “Will! For chrissake, you two get in here!” Doug’s voice was barely audible above the roar of the helicopter. Will looked around, the reflection of headlights approaching from the north unmistakable now.

  “It’s now or never, Shakir. We’re out of time.”

  Working together, they got their hands around the edges of the canister and pulled hard, but it wouldn’t budge, and even in the subdued light, Will finally saw why. Part of the metal flange that formed the floor of the tire compartment was bent down, and the canister had slid past it. It was holding on now with the tenacity of a Chinese finger trap, which gave Will an idea.

  “GODDAMMIT, GET IN HERE!” Doug’s voice again, but there was no time to acknowledge him. The sound of the engines and rotor blades seemed deafening.

  Will grabbed the tire iron and positioned it to bend the metal flange down. Shakir understood at last and held the canister steady as Will worked the end of the bar in place. They could hear the sounds of powerful truck engines now within several hundred yards, and Will could hear the RPM of the rotor blades increase even more, Doug throttling the engines up to takeoff power.

  “WILL! GODDAMMIT!”

  Will ignored him and kept working. He only had one chance. If the end of the iron slipped, it would take too long to reposition it.

  “Got it!” The flange gave suddenly and Shakir yanked the canister free.

  Will dropped the bar where it was and raced after Shakir to the door of the Hind, both of them rolling inside, Will turning back then to slide the door closed as he yelled forward. “Now, Doug! GO!”

  The sound of truck engines rumbled in front of them at the same moment, the startled drivers distracted by the sight and sound of the helicopter as it came up to takeoff power just to the left of the road.

  There were two trucks and a jeeplike vehicle. The trucks rolled clear, but the occupants of the small four-wheeler had spotted the black van and slammed on their brakes, trying to figure out why such a vehicle would be sitting next to General Hassoun’s personal helicopter.

  They stopped squarely in front of Doug twenty feet away, blocking his takeoff path.

  To make a standing, hovering takeoff would be suicide, even if they decided not to shoot. The other Hind was too close. One mistake and they’d smash into it.

  The only way, Doug figured, was to jam the cyclic stick forward to get the helicopter rolling in that direction, then yank the collective up to get airborne. Whether or not they took that jeep with them would be an open question.

  Doug’s hands pulled at the controls as an officer alighted from the far side of the four-wheeler and came around to the driver’s side, waving at the unseen pilot to shut down as he brandished his gun.

  Instead, Doug let the Hind leap forward at the startled Iraqi, who took a step back and found himself pinned against his driver’s door. There was a split-second choice to be made. The helicopter was on the ground and accelerating toward him now. He could try to shoot it, or try to escape from it. He could not do both.

  The officer chose the latter, yelling at his driver and holding on to the window post as the small four-wheel lurched to the left just before the huge helicopter rolled over the very spot he’d been occupying a second before.

  They were across the road now and still on the ground, the rear end of the chopper lifting up before the single nosewheel, scaring Doug, who had the distinct feeling that he’d already lost control.

  Too much cyclic! Doug pulled back on the cyclic and the two rear wheels fell back to the ground with a frightening thud, the front wheel lifting off then as the machine lurched backwards, the mains following the rest of the machine into the air as the Hind became airborne in a unique fashion. The Iraqi officer who had let himself be dragged clear lifted his gun to aim at the big machine, but it was coming back at him now, lurching backwards and to the left.

  That was enough. The officer yelled and ran past his car, motioning the driver to follow. Whoever was at the controls of the Hind, he decided, was dangerously insane.

  Once again Doug pushed forward on the cyclic, but not as violently this time, feeling the Hind stop its backward motion and wobble to the left, then pitch forward a reasonable amount as it yawed violently to the right.

  Doug realized he was fighting the machine. He pressed the left rudder pedal, feeling the nose swing back forward, and pulled up even more on the collective, raising the pitch of the rotor blades and lifting them faster into the air.

  Once again they were sideslipping, this time to the right, the forward pitch excessive, the extra power being eaten up in additional forward speed rather than lift.

  Doug nudged the cyclic back a bit this time instead of pulling it, correcting the pitch problem without overcontrolling, and pressing the left rudder pedal to correct for the yawing motion as the ground fell away—the instrument he assumed was an altimeter beginning to wind up to what appeared to be several hundred meters above the ground.

  Airspeed! Where the hell’s my airspeed indicator!

  The labels were all indecipherable, but the airspeed needle was unmistakable, and Doug included it in his frantic instrument scan as the gyrating, slipping, yawing, and pitching Hind began to increase forward speed, stabilizing slowly as it went.

  At last they were moving forward, at least fifty or sixty knots and accelerating—enough forward airspeed for the helicopter to take on the normal feel of an airplane. Gentle movements of the cyclic stick to the left, then, accompanied by a nudge of the left rudder pedal, would produce a smooth turn to the left, and vice versa.

  Aerodynamically, Doug was back in familiar territory.

  As long as he didn’t slow down or try to hover.

  Doug had located the compass and was in the process of verifying that they were headed south-southeast across the desert when Will appeared by his seat, his eyes wider than Doug had ever seen them.

  “I thought,” Will said slowly, “you said you knew how to fly a helicopter!”

  Doug looked over and smiled. “Nope. I didn’t say that. Never learned.”

  “But you said …”

  Doug was laughing, but the noise was drowning out anything but his smile. “What I said was, if we could get it started, it would fly. I never said I knew how to fly … uh-oh …”

  A sudden gust of wind shoved them into a left yaw momentarily and Doug had to fight the controls for a second to get it back under control.

  “There.” He glanced over at Will. “You were saying?”

  Will’s fingers were ab
out to squeeze through the armrest of Doug’s chair as he held on for dear life. After being tossed all over the cargo compartment, he had tried to convince himself that the alleged takeoff was by design. Doug was confirming it had been by default.

  “I told you it would fly,” Doug continued, “and see, it’s flying!”

  “No thanks to you! Now, if you can keep us in the air long enough to get over the border, how are we going to land this thing?”

  Doug kept his eyes ahead. “The same way porcupines make love—very carefully.”

  “You are crazy, Harris!”

  22

  Iraq Military Command Headquarters, Baghdad

  Monday, March 11, 1991—4:45 A.M. (0145 GMT)

  Ihsan Fethi, his ears still ringing from the diatribe of his leader, scurried out of the car and past the guards into headquarters, looking for General Hassoun’s aide.

  The place resembled a kicked-over anthill, he thought. Not only were plans for a counteroffensive against Kurdish forces in the north and Shiite rebels in the south beginning to coalesce in a frenzy of activity, but now there was the matter of these escaped Americans to deal with.

  The officer he was looking for had a field telephone glued to each ear and motioned him to wait. Communications to most field units were almost nonexistent, but a few hardened lines and radio circuits were working, and the sound of people yelling into archaic handsets was perhaps his most vivid memory of headquarters since the bombing had begun.

  And now they would have to drop everything they were doing and use every communications line available to the south.

  The aide and his general were going to be dumbfounded when they heard Saddam’s latest order, but if the president wanted to defy the Americans and put a fighter in the air to shoot down a helicopter, that’s exactly what would happen.

  Airborne, 200 miles southeast of Baghdad

  Monday, March 11, 1991—6:05 A.M. (0305 GMT)

  Shakir Abbas sat on the left sidewall seat, holding his wife and three children, trying to keep them warm in the cold air streaming through the partially opened main door.

  Will had tried to close and lock the large sliding door, but the Russian latch had defied the American’s attempts, and now it had crept open again—a two-foot gap of nighttime blackness admitting a hurricane of wind.