As they came within range of the trucks, they saw that the two lead rigs had .50-caliber machine guns mounted on the cabs. Van Dyke jerked the chopper down and away as tracers from the .50-caliber raced through the airspace where they had been. They pulled back farther to be out of effective range of the fifty and used the minigun with the 20mm to rake the first two trucks. One slewed to the side and wound up in the desert off the road. The rest of the convoy of more than thirty trucks kept moving down the road.
“We better slide in closer and get some of the rockets on him,” Lieutenant Van Dyke said on the IC. Jimmy agreed, even as he tried for more hits on the first truck with the machine gun. They swung left and came up from the side. The first two 70mm rockets missed the lead truck. It had been speeding ahead, slowing, then racing ahead again. The third rocket rammed into the engine compartment and splattered it across the dirt road.
“Now we can get in closer,” Van Dyke said. He gunned the chopper into a better position for Jimmy to use the Gatling gun. Jimmy washed down six trucks with the deadly 20mm rounds when he saw flashes from the first wounded truck that had slipped off the road.
“Lieutenant, that first truck ain’t dead. Shooting at us. He’s coming damn close, too, and…”
Jimmy didn’t finish the sentence. Van Dyke felt the rounds hitting his chopper. Saw part of the nose of the craft in front of him break away from the effect of the .50-caliber rounds. Then the controls went mushy in his hands and he tried to swing away, to drop down near the ground and avoid any more hits.
The Cobra wouldn’t respond. He had trouble holding any altitude. He could see Jimmy thrown against the side of the cockpit, his helmet blown off, a bloody mass of tissue and bone where his head should be.
The Cobra shuddered again as more of the heavy .50- caliber rounds hit it. Distance. He knew he was going down. He wanted to be as far from the trucks as he could get. He dove toward the ground and saw the tracers fly past him. He was as low as he could get, about fifteen feet off the deck, and still racing forward at 175 miles an hour. He had to get away from the men in those trucks.
The controls felt wrong. Then he realized that he had no way to move right or left. Some more of the controls had been hit by the rounds. He looked for a place to land. Almost anyplace would do. Gradually, he eased off on the power forward and the ship slowed. He hit the radio.
“Flea Bag, this is Flea One. I’m hit. Jimmy is KIA. Having hard time controlling. I’m going in. Get that S&R bird in the air now.”
“Read you, Flea One. Search and rescue on its way in two. Any coordinates?”
“Just north into Iraq a few miles from the south main road. Only two roads. I’ll have the transponder on. Can’t talk. Going in.”
He had slowed the Cobra to forty miles an hour forward. He remembered the rockets. He fired the rest of them into the desert. At least they wouldn’t explode when he hit the ground.
Then the desert floor leaped up at him. Something else snapped in the controls, and he lost it all. He was twenty feet off the ground and moving ahead at no more than twenty miles an hour when he hit. The top rotor kept spinning, and it torqued the small craft around on the skids, breaking off both of them and smashing the Cobra on its side. The top rotor broke off both blades and then the noise stopped and all he could hear was dripping fluid and the desert wind.
“Fuel,” he said to the wind. He hung against his straps, almost on the left side of the cockpit. He punched the cockpit release, but it didn’t work. In a small panic, he loosened his seat belt and shoulder harness and kicked hard at the Plexiglas cover. The whole damn chopper could blast into hell from the vaporized jet fuel at any second.
It took him six hard kicks with his boot to budge the canopy. Then it eased open, and he pushed it hard and dropped six feet to the desert. He lifted up and ran.
First Lieutenant Pete Van Dyke made it thirty yards before the Cobra’s fuel ignited in a huge fireball and seared the ground around it for twenty yards. He was slammed forward and singed but not really burned.
Van Dyke rolled in the dirt, but his flight suit wasn’t burning. The first thing he did was make sure the portable transponder he carried was turned on. Then he reached in the leg pocket and took out the trusty .45 automatic that he hadn’t fired in six months. He pulled back the slide and rammed a round into the chamber and pushed on the safety. Locked and loaded. He began walking away from the road with its trucks full of furious Iraqi soldiers. The farther he could get from the burning hulk, the better.
“Jimmy, God, Jimmy, you’re still in there.” He shook his head. It didn’t matter a lot. Dead is dead. Nobody can hurt or help you then. He was sure that Jimmy’s parents would have liked to have a body to bury, but it was far too late now. The fifty caliber had caught him in the head. Then his body was cremated in the fire.
He heard gunfire. Slowly he realized it was probably the 20mm ammunition going off in the fire. The rounds would heat up and explode, with the casing going one way and the lead slug the other way, both at the same velocity. None of it came in his direction.
Lieutenant Van Dyke walked. He couldn’t see the road. He couldn’t hear the trucks. He guessed he was only a mile or so from the road when he crashed. At least he had walked away from the bird.
“Damn it, Jimmy, I didn’t want you to die.” He realized he had shouted the words at the desert. It was true. Jimmy was a good kid, almost twenty-one. He’d never make it now.
Water. Did he have any water? They told the flyers to carry a pint of water in a flat flask in one of the leg pouches. He didn’t know any of the pilots or gunners who did. Yeah, no flask where it was supposed to be. So he’d have a dry morning. At once he was thirsty. Damn psychology. He held the .45 in his right hand and kept walking.
Twice he heard jets screaming over, high above him. Once a chopper sounded, but that was followed by gunfire, so that wouldn’t be the S&R. He didn’t even remember if the rescue birds were armed. He figured it was bad luck to know too much about the rescue guys and their helo. Now he’d find out.
Van Dyke heard a motor. He dropped into the sand and dirt and waited. It came closer, then the sound drifted farther away. Before he moved, the sound came toward him again. A truck of some kind searching for him on a grid pattern?
Then he saw it. On a slight rise to his right he spotted the top of an open jeep-type rig with a whip antenna. What was it they learned in survival school? Stay still and there was a good chance a searcher wouldn’t see you. Move and you were as good as dead. Van Dyke lay totally still. He didn’t even move his eyes. The rig stopped and he could see the sun glinting off binoculars. He should have spread sand over himself. Why didn’t he when he had the chance?
Then the man on the jeep lowered the glasses and the rig moved out of sight. How far away was it? Three hundred yards? Maybe. At least his flight suit was made in cammie colors to help it blend with the desert. He was damn glad of that. Should he move or stay still?
He could hear the jeep engine again, straining when it must have hit loose sand, then growling as it moved away.
He decided to stay put. The chopper should find him. He wasn’t more than a half hour from the field. Had it been a half hour yet? He hadn’t started his stopwatch when he got away from the ship. Should have.
Time? His watch showed 0814.
It would be getting hot soon. Then he’d wish he had brought along that water.
“Damnit, Jimmy, I didn’t want you to die.” He shouted the words at the sky this time. Van Dyke shook his head where he lay in the sand. He now pulled hands full of sand over his flight suit. He had lost his flight helmet when he got out of the ship. Good thing. It would have been a beacon to the man with the binoculars.