There was now no chance he could turn and attack us quickly, and I was betting the side gunner wasn’t good enough to take us out from the angle he was now facing. The pilot managed to correct and began to drift back alongside, turning the machine face-on, so I put on speed again. This made him correct again, the tail jigging around alarmingly as he over-compensated to adjust his height and position and to give the side-gunner a clear field of fire. It was a lot to think about in a very short space of time.
‘Two minutes, Watchman. ETA two minutes.’
It was now obvious to the crewman that I wasn’t going to comply. He turned and nodded to someone on the inside. No words this time, just a nod.
‘Get ready!’
A long burst of gunfire hammered out, churning up the ground a hundred yards ahead of us and throwing dirt and stones into the air. I hit the brakes as the roof was pounded by falling debris, wary of losing the windshield and running blind into a hole and busting the suspension.
The firing stopped and the Mi-24 came back in, closer this time and more controlled. The pilot was getting his coordination sorted out, which reduced our chances of getting away by trying to fool him. The man in the doorway looked as if he wanted to jump out on top of us and stamp on the roof, and repeated his signal to stop. This time he followed it with a no-mistaking flat-hand gesture across his throat.
We’d had all the chances we were going to get. If we didn’t stop we’d be obliterated. It was a convincing threat and he had all the aces.
I didn’t respond. I’d had my eyes on a small clump of trees half a mile away. It was almost useless as cover, but I’d figured that if we could get the helicopter to land and drop men on the ground, we stood a better chance of fighting back against them than against an armoured and heavily armed military machine.
‘Watchman, the fighter is coming in on your position and the pilot has orders not to open fire unless attacked. What is the situation?’
Damn. Kiev were playing careful. The pilot would have to make a pass to assess the situation before making a decision — and then only join the dance if he saw what was happening. Too long and too late.
‘Copy that,’ I replied. ‘We’ve received warning shots and he’s not going to tell us again. Firing is imminent.’ I began to slow down, this time waving my hand out the window. I was hoping the pilot had orders to take us captive if possible, but only to use his guns as a last resort.
Twenty long seconds and Callahan came on. ‘Watchman, we’re picking up voice from the Mi-24. He has orders to engage target. Repeat, orders to engage.’
He didn’t say anything else. I figured there was nothing else he could say.
The fighter wasn’t going to make it in time.
FORTY-SIX
There was nothing for it. It was no good running. I slammed on the brakes and this time we stopped dead. I threw my door open and Travis did the same.
‘Out and go!’ I shouted, and saw Travis respond and bale out, hitting the ground in a roll. It must have hurt like hell but it was better than staying to be used for target practice.
I paused long enough to lean into the back, then ran round and hauled Travis to his feet and dragged him away from the car. I was keeping low so the men in the helicopter didn’t see the OSV.
If I was going to have to fight, I wanted to fight back with something they’d know about.
When I glanced back the Mi-24 was hovering two hundred yards out, the pilot looking right down at us through the upper windshield. I wondered why he wasn’t using his guns. Maybe they were simply puzzled by our actions … or maybe they thought we were truly delusional and were going to try to out-run them.
I caught a glimpse of the crewman in the side door; he was leaning out to get a better view of us and shouting something into his intercom. He looked really pissed about something, and I suddenly realized what his problem was.
They hadn’t got a full complement of weapons. There were no rocket pods under the stubby wings and I was guessing they only had the side-mounted machine gun. They’d grabbed the only machine that was airworthy but it wasn’t fully equipped. To do anything to us they’d have to turn sideways on, and the pilot’s lack of experience with the machine wasn’t helping.
Then the pilot flicked side-on to us, and the man in the doorway grinned and punched the air with his fist. Damn.
I pushed Travis away. ‘Split and stay down!’
He rolled away and scrambled into a shallow depression in the ground, and I found my own a couple of seconds later. Neither spot was going to help one bit if the gunner opened fire, but if he was as inexperienced as the pilot, we might just get a few seconds’ grace.
I checked the OSV and slung it into my shoulder, and the pilot’s face jumped into the lens of the optical gun-sight. He was fighting with the controls to keep the machine steady and I figured having the crewman screaming orders at him wasn’t helping his coordination any.
I swung right and saw the barrel of the machine gun coming towards us, and to one side, the crewman waving his arms and giving instructions.
From what I recalled of the Mi-24’s characteristics, the 12.7mm rounds from the OSV, as heavy as they were compared to normal rifles, would probably bounce off the fuselage and the glass of the twin bubbles. The aircraft had been designed to withstand a lot of punishment and was all but invulnerable to normal weapons.
But I was hoping the pilot didn’t know that.
I got a bead on the pilot’s cockpit and squeezed the trigger.
Even with the helicopter’s twin engines pounding the airwaves, the sound of the shot was loud. The gun kicked hard against my shoulder and jumped a little sideways, and I pulled it back ready to sight on the gunner’s window. But I didn’t get a chance to fire. There was a split second of nothing, then the helicopter tipped sideways as if it had been hit by a battering ram and veered away. I followed it, watching the pilot’s upper body moving frantically to bring it under control. The crewman was hanging from the doorway by his safety harness and trying to grab hold of anything to hand.
It took maybe ten seconds for the pilot to get his act together and for the machine to become stable, by which time they had moved a couple of hundred yards away. But even at this distance I could tell the impact of the round on the window near his head must have scared the pilot and made him even more jumpy than ever. He was looking towards us, his mouth open, and I could see what looked like a star-shaped crack in the glass.
‘Watchman, we have new information. Incoming fighter is arming, ready to attack. Suggest you get off the road now.’
I sighted on the side rear window where the machine gun was mounted, and fired again. Then I immediately swung a fraction to the rear and fired into the open doorway, where the crewman was scrambling to get back inside. I had no idea what the shots did inside the cabin, but in such a confined space, it might serve to give the crew a taste of what the pilot had just suffered.
If the pilot hadn’t been busy fighting to stay in the air, or blowing a Land Cruiser and its passengers to pieces, he should have picked up the warning blare from his instrument panel of an incoming fighter on an attack run. But maybe he could be forgiven the lack of focus. One moment they were kings of the sky, rulers of everything below them; next moment there was a thunderous roar and the ground beyond them was blown apart by a volley of shells, followed by the shape of a fighter plane going by close overhead and curving round in a tight turn.