“Well, if no one else will, you’re going to listen to me,” said Jackson as he took hold of Daniel by the arm and pulled him back behind a tall boulder. He peered into the dark and watched powerlessly as Mitchell, closely followed by Atsuko, made their way over to Sam. He wanted to help his friends; however, today his responsibility was to his son. Jackson ejected the magazine from his carbine, and looked down. He had less than ten rounds left. He placed his weapon on repetition. He knew that from now on every shot had to count until he could find another source of ammunition — before they were overrun and killed.
48
Sheriff “Red” Thomas was relieved to see a small column of police cars speeding toward him, when a shadow, like that of a giant bird of prey, flew right over top of him. He glanced up and saw a large, dark gray helicopter dive down out of the sky, heading straight for Farragut’s farmhouse. Red stared up at the helicopter. He didn’t recognize it as any military or police helicopter that he was used to seeing. For a few seconds, it hovered over the house, before effortlessly banking over and then flying straight for his parked cruiser.
His blood turned cold — it was coming for him.
He turned and threw himself into a ditch beside the road. Red had just covered his head with his hands when the world around him exploded.
Fifty-caliber bullets fired by a door gunner tore into the police cruiser, poking holes in it like Swiss cheese. In seconds, the car was a smoldering wreck. Shards of glass and jagged pieces of metal littered the ground.
Red swore as the chopper turned in the air and then flew down the road straight at the police cars. Scrambling up onto his feet, Red tried to find his Motorola. He found it lying among the debris. He snatched it up off the ground and brought it to his lips just as the chopper opened fire. With a look of horror and disgust on his face, he watched as the helicopter flew right over the top of the cruisers blasting away into the roofs of the cars. Cars exploded or swerved off the road as they were mercilessly fired upon. Pirouetting in the air, the helicopter turned about and began another run over the doomed cars. He gritted his teeth. Red knew that it would be a miracle if anyone survived the deadly onslaught. Reaching for his pistol, he felt numb. If he was going to die, he intended to do so on his feet.
From out of nowhere, another helicopter appeared, flying low over the top of Farragut’s farm. Red saw that it was an all-white twin Huey helicopter with its side doors open. His gut told him that it wasn’t with the other helicopter. He let out a loud whoop of joy and watched in rapt fascination as the Huey raced head-on toward the other helicopter. Like a pair of armor-clad knights at a medieval tournament, the two helicopters charged unflinchingly at each other.
Strapped into his seat, with his Barrett sniper rifle suspended from the roof of the helicopter, Cardinal pulled the rifle in tight to his left shoulder and took aim. He knew that he would have less than a second to engage his target as it flew past. They may have broken his right-hand trigger finger, but he was ambidextrous. Right or left, it didn’t matter to Cardinal, he was deadly on either side.
“Get ready,” said Yuri into Cardinal’s headset as he banked their helicopter over slightly.
The chopper dipped slightly to avoid the other helicopter. Cardinal adjusted his aim, took up the slack on his trigger, and held his breath. Barely a second later, the dark gray helicopter seemed to block out the sky as it flew past, the propeller blades from both helicopters missing the other by mere meters.
Cardinal spotted his target, pulled back on the trigger, and felt the force of the recoil in his left shoulder as an armor-piercing bullet shot out of the barrel of his sniper rifle. It hit the door gunner square in the chest, tearing him in two. The bullet kept going, hitting the gunner on the other side of the helicopter in the back, sending him flying out into the air, his dead body tumbling down to the ground.
“Got them,” reported Cardinal calmly over his headset.
“Good, now let’s go hunting,” replied Yuri, banking his helicopter over hard right. The chopper’s blades missed the ground by millimeters.
A few seconds later, he was behind the other helicopter as it dove for the ground, trying to evade them. His Huey may have been more maneuverable in the air, but the other helicopter had a far more powerful engine. If he was going to bring their opponent down, it had to be now. Banking left slightly, Yuri applied more power to the engine.
“Gordon, I’m going to try and come up on their left side. You need to cripple their engine,” said Yuri.
Cardinal didn’t respond. Moving about on his canvas seat, he leaned out the open door, trying to get a better sight picture though his sniper scope.
The other pilot seemed to sense the move and pulled up on his stick. Like an eagle, the helicopter turned and raced up into azure sky.
Cursing, Yuri followed.
Below, Red watched with rapt fascination as the deadly aerial ballet unfolded above his head.
As if lost in a trance, Cardinal didn’t feel the change in the direction of the Huey as it clawed its way skyward. Taking a couple of deep breaths to fill his lungs and calm himself before taking the shot, Cardinal’s attention was solely focused on the engine compartment of the other helicopter.
Realizing that he was being hunted, the escaping helicopter pilot decided that he had had enough. He peered over his shoulder and saw the Huey still pursuing. The pilot decided to dive for the ground and then use his helicopter’s speed to escape. With any other flight crew, his maneuver may have worked, but not against Yuri and Cardinal.
Seeing his opponent begin to dive out of the sky, Yuri pushed his stick forward and, like a bloodhound on the trail of an escaping criminal, he chased after the other helicopter. A second later, a smile crept across his unshaven face. The other helicopter may have been faster, but he was now flying slightly above it as it dove for the ground.
Cardinal leaned as far out of his out of his seat as he could, took dead aim and then pulled the trigger. In the blink of an eye, the engine compartment on the other helicopter exploded, killing the engine. Sitting back in his seat, Cardinal watched emotionlessly as their opponent struggled for a moment to stay aloft before falling from the sky. A few seconds later, trailing thick black smoke from its crippled engine, the doomed helicopter hit the ground, erupting in a brilliant fireball.
“Good shot,” said Yuri. “Now let’s see if we can see Mitchell and Jackson by that farm.”
“Sounds good,” replied Cardinal. He leaned forward in his seat, trying to see if he could spot his friends somewhere down below among the cars and other junk parked behind the farmhouse, when he saw a bright flash from below. His stomach jumped up into his throat when he realized that someone had just fired an air-to-ground missile at them.
“Bank left and dive for the ground,” screamed Cardinal into his headset.
Yuri knew better than to ask questions. Acting on pure instinct, he banked the Huey over and dove for the ground.
Hanging on to whatever he could, Cardinal watched as the missile streaked past the side of the helicopter.
“Jesus, that was close,” muttered Cardinal. “Yuri, get me on the ground, I’ve got some people to hunt.”
Like a stone falling from the sky, Yuri brought the helicopter to the ground. In a flash, Cardinal was out of his seat, his sniper rifle held tight in his arms. His right hand was bandaged up and still hurt like hell. Ignoring the pain, he dashed over to a tall bush, went to ground, and then brought up his scope. He moved slowly, trying to see where the missile had come from. Behind him, Yuri, flying a meter off the ground, made his way over the burning police cars to see if he could help.