“But you could have fired.”
Ojeda handed the weapon back. “If there is one thing I have taught you, it is that you do not fire blindly just for the sake of doing something.” It was a lesson in war, and one in life. He reached to the ground and picked up his Kalashnikov. “Papa Tony.”
Antonio had watched the entire episode, and it had allayed any fears he might have had about his suggestion to Langley. Ojeda was a warrior, for certain, but he was a thinking warrior. He was also a giant of a man. “Yes.”
“Let us go meet your friends.”
The Pave Hawk took its fourth hit in the starboard outrigger tank, which broke free of its wing mount and burst into flames as it fell away.
“Hey!” Joe screamed for what seemed like the thousandth time as his body was thrown left, then right, as the pilot maneuvered violently to evade whatever was trying to kill them.
But his call went unheard. Lieutenant Duc was in the midst of something that came totally from instinct: survival. Helo jocks, even those in the 160th, were not given much training in aerial combat. That was usually saved for the fighter drivers in the other services. Yet that was precisely what he was having to do.
A fifth volley of fire struck as Duc turned hard left, heeling the Pave Hawk over on its side. These hits set off amber warning lights on the control panel and also robbed him of 20 percent of his power. His bird couldn’t take much more.
He continued the hard left until he was heading west again, almost a mile north of the huge fire still burning furiously. His pursuer would be behind and above him, Duc knew, and he kept the helicopter jinking left and right as he searched for somewhere to go, for some way to escape. He was just about to pull a hard turn to the right when the obstacles he was going to avoid suddenly presented him with a hope. Their only hope.
“Hang on tight!” Duc screamed as loud as he could, then put the Pave Hawk on a straight course, cutting his altitude as he guided the dying bird by dead reckoning, knowing he had to do this just right to keep salvation from becoming suicide.
“The bastard is ours, Chiuaigel!” Guevarra yelled. His eyes were locked on the easy target ahead and below. The American was not even trying to evade anymore. Possibly he thought there might be an offer to surrender. Ha! That would not be. Guevarra increased power and closed on his prey. “Open him like a tin can, Chiuaigel.”
“With pleas—Major!”
Duc knew he had to hit it just right, if doing such a thing purposely could ever be termed “right,” and that he did. The lowest power line, which stretched a hundred yards from mast to mast, hit the Pave Hawk’s windscreen with a loud slap, breaking the already punctured Lexan into a dozen irregular panels that blew into the cockpit. The wire, though, slid upward along the metal window brace and was fed into the wire-strike blade, which sliced the inch-and-a-half-thick cable in two. A jolt shook the helicopter as its forward momentum was abruptly slowed by the hit, then it nosed down and continued on, Duc adding as much power as the helicopter could muster.
The pursuing Havoc had no such good fortune. There was no protection for wire strikes installed on the Russian-built attack helicopter and it would have made no difference if there had been. Major Guevarra flew his helicopter into the second power line above that which his prey had cut. The cable hit the bubble canopy that encased the pilot, then bounced upward, catching on the main rotor shaft, causing the helicopter to pitch its nose upward. The rotor hub failed a split second later, unable to tolerate the abuse. Spinning uncontrollably, the main rotor, now separated from the shaft, sliced into the forward portion of the Havoc as it went almost vertical from the impact. Then it fell back, toward the ground, a shower of sparks falling with it. It rotated and hit the pavement on its port side. The rockets that had been intended to do damage to the rebel forces instead detonated and destroyed their host in a fountain of fire.
Lieutenant Duc brought the Pave Hawk around for a final turn and looked immediately for a place to set down, as the increasing number of amber lights were quite clearly telling him to do. He also saw, as the turn was completed, the remnants of his attacker for the first time. The sucker had been tenacious but had wanted the kill too much. That was a fatal flaw, Duc knew, wondering why the other guy had not been blessed with similar knowledge.
The ground beyond the burning wreckage was clear and flat. Duc gingerly took the Pave Hawk below the lowest power line and set down on two flat tires a hundred yards beyond the inferno. He shut down his engines and undid his harness, climbing through the cabin to check on his crew. But he had no crew left. Only Anderson was alive, sitting ramrod-straight against the aft bench seat, his equipment case clenched tightly between both legs.
“You okay?”
Joe swallowed and nodded. “Who the hell was that?”
Duc removed the headset and cord from one of the door gunners, ignoring the carnage that had once been a friend. There would be time for those feelings later. “Cubans, I guess.”
“Did we get him?”
“He got himself,” Duc answered. “Hang tight here.” He handed the other gunner’s headset to Anderson and instructed him to put it on before climbing back into the cockpit. He plugged the working set in and prayed that the radio was still among the living. “Raptor, this is Gambler. Do you copy?”
“Gambler, hell yes!” Cadler bellowed. “What’s your situation?”
“We’re down, but so is the bandit. We have multiple KIA on board, but our civie is A-okay.”
“Copy, Gambler.” The colonel’s tone was no longer that of a relieved commander. “Toolbox is moving your way, and we show no enemy forces near your pos. We will keep you under watch.”
“Copy, Raptor.”
“Gambler, what’s burnin’ near you?”
Duc looked over his shoulder, through the cabin and out the port-side door. “That’s the bandit, Raptor. A hundred yards behind.” The smoke from the blaze was drifting east, blown by a light wind.
“No, Gambler. To your front.”
Duc and Joe both looked through the open front of the helicopter. The barest glow was visible beyond a lot of machinery. “Don’t know, Raptor. Looks like a little one, whatever it is.”
“Not on the FLIR, Gambler,” Cadler said. “It’s radiating better than your bandit.”
Duc’s head shook. Behind him, Joe Anderson’s eyes went wide. “Can’t be, Raptor. No way.”
“Yes, it can,” Joe Anderson said, just before pulling off his headset and jumping from the helicopter, his gear bag in hand.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
RENDER SAFE
“Marshal Kurchatov believes there is nothing to worry about,” Konovalenko said after hanging up the phone. “And the Americans report that the event our satellite detected was the missile booster exploding. They still do not know why.”
Bogdanov’s head nodded disgustedly. “And you believe them. Of course. That fat fool Kurchatov is under their spell. The Americans can show him whatever they want him to see, and they can then obviously convince you of anything.”
The president walked to the front of his desk and took General Suslov’s pistol from his foreign minister. “Do you see this, Georgiy Ivanovich? Do you? Well, let me make this clear to you. If you are right, and our ABM radars detect warheads descending on Moscow — which they should be able to do in the next few minutes, I understand, if there are any to detect — then I will put this gun in my mouth and pull the trigger. Right in front of you as I kneel and beg forgiveness from the Motherland! Is that enough for you?”
Bogdanov disregarded the president’s theatrics and looked at the clock, watching as the seconds ticked away. A minute was gone, then ninety seconds, then, as the hand moved around to end its sweep, the phone rang.