Claudia covered both her ears and sobbed. "Oh God! Oh God!"
The Hind revolved slowly, seeking fresh targets and again they cowered away from it. It moved away from them, hunting along the bank of the river. The Gatling cannon in its remote-controlled turret in the nose fired blasts of solid metal into the forest, destroying all in its path.
"Let's go"" Sean shouted above the uproar, dragging Claudia to her feet. Job and Dedan ran ahead of them, and the earth plowed by the gunship's cannons was soft and spongy under their feet.
As they passed the dead men, Job stooped without breaking his run and snatched up one of the undamaged RPG launchers. At the next stride he stooped again and grabbed a fiberglass backpack that contained three of the finned projectiles for the RPG, then went bounding away, on toward the riverbank. With her injured knee Claudia could not match that pace, and even with Sean pulling her along they fell almost a hundred yards behind.
Job and Dedan reached the riverbank. It was steep and rocky, fractured cliffs of water-polished black stone. A gallery of tall riverine trees spread their branches out over the swiftly flowing apple-green waters.
Job looked back at them anxiously, for they were still out in the open. His face contorted as he screamed a warning, dropped the fiberglass pack at his feet, and swung the short squat barrel of the RPG up to his shoulder, pointing it at the sky above Sean's head.
Sean did not look up; he knew there was no time for that. He had not isolated the shrieking rotors of the second incoming Hind from the deafening uproar caused by the first machine, but now the din was escalating to the point of pain.
Running beside them was a narrow don ga eroded by the storm waters of the rainy season but now dry and sheer-sided. Sean swept Claudia off her feet and jumped with her in his arms. The earthen gulley was six feet deep, and they hit the bottom with an impact that clashed Sean's teeth together just as the lip of the gulley dissolved under a jet of cannon fire. The earth on which they lay shuddered like a live thing beneath them, as though they were insects being shaken from the flanks of a gigantic horse. Earth, ripped from the lip of the gulley by the sheets of cannon fire, fell
4it on them in clouds, heavy clods raining on their backs, knocking the breath out of them, dust choking them, burying them alive.
Claudia screamed and tried to fight herself out from under the layer of dust and dry earth, but Sean held her down.
ll "Lie still," he hissed at her. "Don't move, you dilly bird." The Hind swiveled and cruised back, now directly over the gulley, searching for them, the gunner traversing the thick stack of multi barrels of the Gatling cannon in its remote turret.
Sean turned his head slightly, looking up from the corner of one eye. His vision was obscured by dust, but as it cleared he saw the i great splotched nose of the ffind hanging in the air only fifty feet above them. The gunner must have picked out their white skins, which made them targets of preference. Only the thin layer of fresh earth protected them from his scrutiny through the gunsight of his cannon.
""Hit him, Job," Sean pleaded aloud. "Iffit the bastard."
on the ciff above the river, job dropped on one knee The RPG-7 was one of his favorite weapons. The huge gunship was hovering over the gulley only fifty yards away.
He aimed twelve inches below the edge of the pilot's canopy.
The RpG was highly inaccurate, and even at point-blank range he gave himself latitude should the missile By off track. He held the cross wire steady for a beat of his pumping heart, then Pressed the trigger. The exhaust of white smoke blew back over his shoulder and the rocket streaked away, flying fair and true, to strike only inches higher than he -had aimed on the run where the armored tai use Se glass canopy joined the camouflaged me f la The rocket burst with a force that would blow the engine block out of a Mack truck or burst the boiler of a railway locomotive.
For an instant the front of the Hind was obliterated by flame and smoke, and Job whooped triumphantly, jumping to his feet, expecting the hideous monster to crash out of the Sky in a sheet of its own smoke and fire:4 Instead the huge helicopter jumped higher, as though the pilot had flinched at the rocket burst close beside him, but when the smoke blew away, Job realized with disbelief that the fuselage was unscathed. There was only a sooty black smear on the painted metal to mark the spot where the rocket had struck.
him As he stared, the ugly nose of the Hind swiveled toward and the many-eyed muzzles of the cannon sought him out. Job hurled the RPG launcher away and jumped out from the cliff top, dropping twenty feet to hit the water, just as the cannon tore the great branches from the tree under which he had stood. Cannon fire chewed through the Mink as cleanly as a lumberjack's cross ad saw. The entire tree leaned outward, then toppled down the cliff and hit the surface of the river in a cloud of spray.
The Hind pulled away, lifting and banking, cruising on down the riverbank. Unharmed by the rocket hit and as deadly as before, it sought its next target.
Sean crawled to his knees coughing and gasping. "Are you all right?" he croaked, but for "a moment Claudia could not answer him. Her eyes were blinded with sand, and her tears cut wet runners through the dust that caked her cheeks.
"We've got to get into the water." Sean pulled her to her feet and half pushed, half pulled her up the side of the gully.
They ran together to the top of the cliff and looked down. The felled tree was floating away on the current, a huge raft of leafy branches.
"Jump!" Sean ordered. Claudia did not hesitate. She threw herself far out and dropped away to strike the water feet first. Sean followed while she was still in the air.
He surfaced with Claudia's head bobbing beside him. The dust was washed off her face, and her hair was slicked over her eyes, shiny with streaming water. Together they struck out for the floating mass of branches and leaves. She was a strong swimmer, and even with boots on her feet and fully dressed she kicked out powerfully and dragged herself through the water with a full overarm crawl.
As she reached the floating tree trunk, Job stretched out a long arm and drew her in beneath the branches. Dedan was already there, and Sean ducked in a second later. Each of them clung to a branch and the leaves formed a low green bower over their heads.
"I hit him," Job complained angrily. "I hit him right on the nose with a rocket. It was like hitting a bull buffalo with a slingshot. He just turned and came straight at me."
Sean wiped the water from his eyes and face with the palm of his hand. "Titanium armor plate," he explained quietly. "They are almost invulnerable to conventional fire, both the pilot's cockpit and the engine compartment are tight and solid. The only thing you can do when one of those bastards comes at you is run and hide."
4 He flicked his sodden hair back out of his eyes. "Anyway, you pulled him off us. He was just about to blast us with that dirty great A cannon." He swam across to Claudia.
"You shouted at me," she accused. "You were quite rude. You called me a dilly bird."
"Better abused than dead." He grinned at her, and she smiled back. Is that an invitation, sir? I would let mind a little abuse--from YOU.