His Calico was gone, thrown from the aircraft on impact.
The smell of JP-4 aviation fuel was strong in the air. As soon as it hit a hot metal surface such as the engine exhaust, the helicopter would be an inferno. Prague appeared to be fumbling with his seat belt. Turcotte leaned over between the two front seats, ignoring the explosion of pain that movement ignited on his right side. Prague’s right hand was flipping open the cover to his holster. “Don’t let them get away,” he rasped at Turcotte.
He had the gun out and pointed it back toward Billy, who was helping Susie out of the door.
Turcotte reacted, slamming the inside edge of his left hand across Prague’s throat, feeling cartilage give way, while with his right hand he hammered down on Prague’s gun hand, hearing the forearm bone crack against the edge of the seat. Prague’s eyes bulged, and he gasped through his mangled throat.
Turcotte followed Billy and Susie out the left rear door.
“Keep moving,” he ordered, pushing them away. A flame flickered somewhere in the rear of the helicopter. Staying with the aircraft, Turcotte reached in the front seat and unbuckled the pilot. Prague’s left hand suddenly moved, slashing across his body at Turcotte with his knife. The blade cut through the Gore-Tex jacket and inflicted a gash on Turcotte’s right forearm.
Pinning Prague’s left hand with his right, Turcotte leaned over the pilot and hit Prague again in the throat with his left, this time not holding back as he had the first time. The cartilage completely gave way and Prague’s airway was blocked.
Turcotte threw the pilot over his shoulder. He jogged away from the helicopter as it burst into flames.
CHAPTER 9
“Nightscape Six is down, sir,” Quinn announced. “I have a transponder location. No communication by radio.”
“Launch a conventional crash recovery to the transponder location,” General Gullick ordered. He continued to watch the dot representing the bogey. It was slowly moving about in the vicinity of Nightscape Six’s transponder signal. Aurora was now approaching the Nebraska-Colorado border.
“Get out of here,” Turcotte said to Susie and Billy, who were staring at the burning helicopter. Turcotte had the pilot’s flight suit ripped open and was going over the man’s vital signs, doing a primary survey — for breathing first, then bleeding, then checking for broken bones. The pilot was good to go on the first two other than some scrapes and cuts. There was an obvious broken arm.
Turcotte couldn’t tell for sure, but based on the large dent on the man’s helmet and his unconscious condition, he felt the pilot had some sort of head injury, and he was not trained or equipped to deal with that. All he could do was leave the helmet on and hope that it contained the injury until he could get the man some professional medical help. The pilot was unconscious, and from his condition it did not appear that he would be gaining consciousness anytime soon, which was fine with Turcotte. He immobilized the broken arm as well as he could.
“But—” Billy said, confused. “What—”
“No buts; no questions; no memory,” Turcotte snapped, looking up from the pilot’s body. “Forget everything that happened tonight. Don’t ever tell anyone, because if you do they won’t believe you and then people who don’t want you talking will come looking for you. Leave it here and go.”
Billy didn’t need any further urging. He took Susie by the arm and quickly walked away in the darkness toward the nearest road.
He looked down at himself. Blood was seeping out the right side of his Gore-Tex jacket and his right sleeve. He dealt with the forearm first, wrapping a bandage from his combat vest over the sliced skin and stopping the bleeding.
Carefully probing with his fingers, he reached in through the jacket and gasped when he touched torn skin. Turcotte carefully unzipped his Gore-Tex jacket and jumpsuit. An eight-inch-long gash was just over the outside of his ribs.
As best he could, he bandaged the wound.
Turcotte looked up into the sky. He could see the small glowing object, about a thousand feet overhead. It was lazily moving about, as if to view the results of its actions. He watched for a few moments, but there did not appear to be any immediate threat. Although from the way that thing had been moving, Turcotte didn’t think he would have much time to react if there were.
Turcotte scanned the horizon. The others would be here soon. And then? That was the burning question. He’d killed Prague on reflex. He didn’t regret it, given what he’d seen Prague do this evening, but the situation was very confusing and Turcotte wasn’t sure what his next move should be.
Had Prague known he was a plant? That would explain some of his actions, but not all of them. And if Prague hadn’t known he was a plant, then the man had been borderline nuts; unless, Turcotte reminded himself, there was another layer to everything that he had just witnessed. He knew the actions, he just didn’t know the motivation.
None of that was going to do him any good, Turcotte knew, unless he could get back to Duncan with what he had just seen, and to do that he was going to have to get away from these Nightscape people. The pilot’s unconscious condition would buy him some time once they were picked up. It would simply be Turcotte’s story, and he began working on what he would tell them.
Gullick had complete telemetry feedback from Aurora and he could listen in on the pilot and reconnaissance systems officer (RSO) talking to each other.
“All systems on. We’ll be in range of target in seventy-five seconds,” the RSO announced.
Gullick keyed his mike. “Aurora, this is Cube Six. I want a good shot of this target. Get it on the first pass. You probably won’t have an opportunity for a second. Over.”
“Roger that, Cube Six,” the RSO said. “Fifty seconds.”
“Descending through ten thousand,” the pilot announced. “Slowing through two point five. The look will be right,” he told the RSO, giving a direction to orient all the sophisticated reconnaissance systems on board the aircraft.
“Pod deploying,” the RSO said as the speed gauge continued to go down. Gullick knew that now that the plane was under two thousand miles an hour the surveillance pod could be extended. Doing it at higher speeds would have destroyed the necessary aerodynamics of the plane and caused the plane to break and burn. Even now, according to the telemetry, the skin temperature of the aircraft was eight hundred degrees Fahrenheit. “Twenty seconds. All green.”
“Leveling at five thousand. Steady at Mach two.”
“All systems on.”
Gullick looked up to the large screen at the front of the room. The red triangle representing Aurora closed on and passed the small dot indicating the bogey. Then the bogey darted away.
Gullick keyed the mike, “This is Cube Six. The bogey is running! Vector one nine zero degrees. Pursue!”
Aurora was fast, but maneuverable it wasn’t. Gullick watched as the red triangle began a long turn that would encompass most of Nebraska and part of Iowa before it was through. The small dot was heading southwest, currently over Kansas.
“What’s the bogey’s speed?” General Gullick asked.
“Computer estimates it’s moving at Mach three point six,” Major Quinn replied.
As the bogey crossed the panhandle of Oklahoma, Aurora completed its turn over southern Nebraska. “She’ll catch up,” Gullick said.
The two dots continued, Aurora steadily closing the gap.
“Bogey’s over Mexican airspace,” Quinn reported. He hesitated, but duty required that he speak. “Are you authorizing Aurora to continue pursuit?”