“That must be a million-dollar aircraft,” Jonathan said. What he didn’t say was, where did you steal this from?
“Actually, she’s more like four million new,” Striker said. “But I got a real deal on her.”
Warning bell. “How?”
“Do you really want to know?”
Jonathan steeled himself with a breath. “Given the stakes,” he said, “I think I do.”
“Let’s just say that this one landed kind of hard,” Carl said.
Shit.
“But don’t worry,” Striker went on, “I’ve done all the repairs myself. She’s like new.”
The chopper looked like it just rolled off the factory floor, except for the rust-brown primer coat where there should have been paint.
“Note the shrouded tail rotor,” Carl said. “That takes out a lot of the engine noise. You’re still going to get some whopping from the main rotor disk, but against the night sky, we’ll look like a medevac chopper. A lot of jurisdictions use these as medevacs. She’s fast, and I sprung for SOTA FLIR.”
Jonathan recognized SOTA as state-of-the-art, and FLIR as forward-looking infrared, which meant that the bird could fly full-throttle at treetop level.
“What do you know about US-Canada air defense?” Jonathan asked.
“Not a thing.”
He appreciated the honesty, even if it didn’t help him. Jonathan said, “I’m betting that the Canadians are less worried about people invading their air space from the US than America is worried about invasions from the north.”
“If you feel good believing that, I’ll feel good believing it, too.”
In the distance, a ripple of gunfire rattled the otherwise still morning air. Boxers’ students had taken their first shot.
“So, is this really what you do, Dig?” Carl asked. “I’ve heard rumors through the Community, but you know how reliable they are.”
“Exactly,” Jonathan said, being deliberately obtuse. “Company secrets.”
Striker seemed to understand the gentle rebuke. “Well, for what it’s worth, I heard that you did some very cool, very noble work on behalf of Boomer Nasbe. I won’t ask you to verify, but if it’s true, and I assume it is, I bow at your friggin’ feet. If that’s the shit you’re doing to pay your bills, I want you to know that I’m part of your team any time you make the phone call.”
Jonathan kept a poker face. He had, in fact, helped the Nasbe family out of a jam a while ago, but it made no sense to confirm the rumor.
“I’ve made you uncomfortable,” Striker said. “I’m sorry. That’s the polar opposite of what I wanted to do. You’re still working for the Community, and I don’t think there’s a greater calling than that.”
“Tell me that this bird is airworthy,” Jonathan said.
“And then some,” Striker said. “And like I said, she’s quiet.” He pointed again like a proud father to the shrouded tail rotor.
Unlike most helicopters, in which the tail rotor was open to the atmosphere and therefore noisy, the shrouded tail rotor provided the most basic of QTR — quiet tail rotor — technology, knocking the noise signature down by fifteen decibels, three times the sound pressure, as registered from the ground. That might just give them the edge they needed to get across the border and back without being reported by someone who was pissed because their rerun of Seinfeld was interrupted by aircraft noise.
Jonathan pulled open the side door. It should have revealed seats and restraints, but in fact revealed only open floor space. He cast a glance to Striker.
“Okay,” Striker said. “It’s not the most perfect, safest arrangement of floor space. But the beast will carry you and your equipment there, and you and your precious cargo back.” Carl stood taller. “Is that, or is that not, the point of this exercise?”
Sometimes, you had to choose between the best of bad options. In this case, it was the promise of a sound airframe, despite the lack of seats or seatbelts.
“I promise not to crash,” Carl said, as if reading Jonathan’s thoughts.
“Oh,” Jonathan said. “Well, in that case, you have a deal.” They shook on it.
It was the kind of cold that radiated all the way through David’s waterproof boots and into the bones of his feet. Boxers — Big Guy now because code names were important, though he never said why — had led them on a hike to the edge of the clearing that contained the house and barns. They faced the thick woods. Even with the leaves gone from the trees, you couldn’t see more than thirty feet in.
David, like Mrs. Darmond and Becky, wore a heavy vest — a ballistic vest, not a bulletproof vest, and no, he would never make that mistake again — that looked like the ones he saw on the news coming from war zones. Its surface was covered with all kinds of patches and pockets into which Big Guy had jammed maybe a dozen ammunition magazines — oh, good God, not clips because clips are a specific kind of magazine designed for the M-1 rifle — each of which had been loaded with a single bullet.
They’d already learned that they were shooting Colt M4 carbines, the same rifle that was standard issue to active-duty soldiers. They’d been introduced to the safety and to the switch that allowed them to change from single shot to automatic, which would turn the weapon into a submachine gun. That was the DFWI switch, according to the Big Guy — the don’t fuck with it switch. Automatic mode was bad. It wasted ammunition.
The whole session was a waste as far as David was concerned. He’d fired his own M4 on the range countless times. Granted, it was a semiautomatic version, but Big Guy was telling them not to use full-auto anyway.
“I don’t give a shit if you can hit your targets tonight,” Big Guy said. “If it comes to that, so much shit will be broken that your marksmanship probably won’t make a difference. Just don’t shoot each other, and for God’s sake, don’t shoot me. And if you do shoot me, go for a head shot because if you shoot me and I live, you will die with a rifle up your ass. Are we communicating?”
Personable guy. David nodded while Becky said, “Yes, sir.”
“The easiest shot you’ll ever get at an enemy is when he’s reloading. The best rifle in the world is just a glorified club when it’s empty, and the guy who brings a club to a gunfight always loses.”
From there David learned more than he ever thought he’d need to know about the technical aspects of reloading.
“You only have one round in your magazines because we don’t need to practice pulling the trigger. The way these weapons are designed, when you fire the last round in a mag, the bolt locks open. You don’t have to keep count of how many rounds you’ve fired. When that puppy locks open, you’ll feel it. And if you don’t feel it, you’re going to know because the next time you pull the trigger, the weapon’s going to say click instead of bang. Bang is good. Click is bad. Anybody need to take a note on that?”
By the time David realized that the Big Guy was trying to be funny, the moment had passed.
Big Guy brought his own weapon to his shoulder. His gun looked similar yet different from theirs, as if born of the same mother but with different fathers. He fired a shot at the woods, and then turned to face the class, his muzzle pointed toward the sky. The bolt was clearly locked open.
“Here’s what I want you to do.” He demonstrated that the mag release button was just above the trigger on either side of the weapon. “Let the mag drop to the ground. In the shit, don’t worry about it after you drop it. Here in training, take care of it, because it’s one of the ones you’ll be using later if we’re in the shit.”
He fingered the release, and the empty mag dropped away.
“Take a new one from a pouch—” He demonstrated in live slow motion. “Put your forefinger along the nose of the bullets just to make sure they’re in alignment, and insert it till it clicks.” He did those steps. “Now what’s wrong with the weapon?”