Maxwell fumbled with the door keys, but he eventually let them into the hangar. After flicking some light switches, the entire warehouse was showered by bright, powerful lamps hanging from the vaulted ceiling. Carrie began to admire the helicopters and airplanes in storage, six in all, lined up on both sides of the hangar. Her only dilemma was deciding which aircraft to choose for their getaway flight.
“Is Justin gonna be OK?” Anna asked. The sudden burst of gunshots had brought back her panic shivers.
“He’ll be fine,” Carrie replied, “as long as we’re out of here soon. How about this beauty?” she asked, disappearing behind the aircraft at the far end of the hangar.
Justin wondered why Carrie was taking her time. He knew it had hardly been two minutes since she entered the hangar, but the unnerving standoff with the two men from the Dodge stretched every waiting second. Another vehicle — he was almost certain it was a Humvee — was approaching his position from the right. No one had returned fire yet, but he knew orders were being transmitted over the communication lines. A firestorm was just around the corner. Justin hoped they would not find themselves in the dead center.
A Bell 212 helicopter rolled slowly over the glistening tarmac with the distinct splutter and fizzle of its engine. It turned left and headed away from him, its rotors still unengaged. Justin found the pilot’s behavior very strange. Was Carrie trying to stop the Humvee? That’s unnecessary if we’re flying right away.
Before he could draw a conclusion, a much louder rattle shook the entire hangar. Justin felt the ground rocking underneath his feet. He could not believe his eyes as he stared at a large military helicopter appear through the hangar doors. It rotated heavily over the tarmac, its silver grayish skin reflecting the tall headlights of the incoming Humvee. Two Hellfire missiles were affixed on each side of the helicopter, and a 7.62mm machine gun was mounted on the left side of the fuselage.
A second later, the machine gun blasted a hailstorm of bullets, raising endless sparks a few feet in front of the Dodge. Carrie. She maneuvered the helicopter, completing a one hundred and eighty-degree pirouette, and sprayed a similar torrent of fire against the Humvee. The Humvee skidded over black ice while dodging the helicopter’s barrage, and it flipped over before crushing deep into a snowbank.
Justin dashed for the helicopter, which was hovering about seven feet over the runway.
Anna slid open the metallic door on the right side of the cabin and gestured for him to climb aboard. “Come on. Hurry up.”
Justin went for the doorsill, but all he could grasp was the cold, slippery wheel of the landing gear. “It’s too high.” He motioned for Carrie to lower the helicopter.
Anna relayed Justin’s message to Carrie, and she dropped the helicopter another foot or so. Justin sprang upward and grabbed Anna’s stretched hand. She gave him a strong pull, much stronger than he had expected, and he was able to drag half of his body inside the cabin. He saw one of the crew seats by the door, and he went for its closest leg. He wrapped his fingers around the steel post, and he dug his elbows on the cabin floor.
“I’m good to go,” he shouted. “Good to go.”
The helicopter gained altitude, and Carrie veered to the left, giving Justin a helpful nudge. The shifting force threw him against the crew seat. As he clenched his teeth in pain, Anna slid the cabin door shut.
“Welcome aboard, Justin,” Carrie greeted him.
He struggled to catch his breath, while throwing a quick look around the cabin. Gray and black equipment racks and operation consoles stood against the navy blue walls. Emily was crouched in the co-pilot’s seat in the cockpit, next to Carrie. Anna sat next to him. Once their eyes locked, she gave him a warm hug.
“I thought you were going for the med chopper,” Justin said after fastening a helmet he fetched from one of the crew compartments and adjusting the volume on its earphone.
“Why settle for an ugly duckling, when you can have a gorgeous swan?” Carrie replied. “Or in our case, a hawk. A S-70 B Seahawk.”
“Wow,” Justin said, as he brushed his hand over the leather seats and kept gazing at the helicopter’s interior design. “I’ve always wanted to fly in a Seahawk. Maybe not in such a crazy situation.”
“Don’t get too excited, ‘cause we aren’t going too far,” Emily said. “The blizzard will force us down for sure.”
“Not too worried about the breeze,” Carrie replied with a grin. “The chopper has so many sat-nav gadgets, we can fly blindfolded all the way home.”
Thump, thump, thump. The sound resembled heavy hammers viciously pounding against a massive anvil.
“What was that?” Anna asked.
“The Americans are shooting at us,” Carrie replied calmly, checking the control panels. All navigational instruments and screens did not seem affected by the sporadic gunfire.
She tapped the throttle, and the helicopter jerked forward. A second later, the vehicle began a quick ascent, climbing about fifteen feet per second.
Carrie said, “The chopper’s built to resist small arms fire. In a minute, we’ll be out of their range anyway.”
“We won’t crash?” Anna said. The pouncing had stopped, but her voice was still shaky. She was blinking rapidly, holding on to Justin’s arm.
“There’s no real danger coming from outside,” Carrie replied. “The Seahawk has isolated control systems, separate for each rotor blade. Even if one system is damaged, the other will allow the pilot to maintain full control of the chopper.”
“Oh, really?” Emily sneered. Then, she shouted, “Watch out for the mountain.”
“What mountain?” Carrie asked, sitting up in her seat.
“The Dundas Mountain. That freaking one!” Emily shouted even louder, pointing directly ahead of them. “We’re gonna crash!”
Carrie squinted. Through the clearing haze, she noticed the rocky cliffs, gray and black, ragged and huge, and growing larger by the second. The helicopter was headed straight for them at about one hundred knots. She flicked on a couple of switches. Two powerful light beams swung over the knifelike surface of the mountain.
“What? You didn’t turn the lights on?” Emily shouted.
“We were an easy target even in the dark. We took a few bullets, in case you didn’t notice,” Carrie replied. “And I wasn’t expecting a mountain right off the base but hold on,” she shouted needlessly over the microphone, “we’ll climb it.”
She tapped the throttle and held it while pulling back. The engines screamed. The Seahawk soared upwards, faster and faster. Carrie veered the helicopter to the right, attempting a ninety degree turn. Wind gusts were stronger alongside sharp slopes like these ones. They were capable of throwing down even large aircrafts during blizzards.
Their distance from the mountain was getting smaller and smaller.
A hundred and fifty feet.
A hundred feet.
Fifty.
One of the screens beeped an alarm sound, informing Carrie of the dangerous distance between their helicopter and the obstacle. She wrestled with the controls and the throttle, as the Seahawk angled off, further to the right, struggling to complete the tight turn.
She cursed under her breath.
The tail rotor blades swung toward the cliffs, as Carrie pulled on the throttle, hurling the aircraft sideways, in a last, do-or-die spin. The alarm kept screeching its distress signal. The terrifying sound of doom pierced throughout the panic-stricken cockpit. Carrie ignored Emily’s screaming. As she turned her head to the left, the flat-top surface of the cliffs sank below the helicopter.