‘Lynn,’ he said, ‘check out that military base over in the west. Can you make anything out?’
Lynn looked out of the side glass, straining to see. There was movement. But what? She looked harder. Could it be… Surely not.
‘Matt,’ she said finally, ‘it looks like guns. Big ones, mobile artillery pieces. And they’re moving, lining up.’ She looked even closer, and realization hit her. ‘They’re lining up on us!’ she cried out. ‘They’re going to shoot us down!’
Colonel Santé watched as the first of his battery of artillery pieces loosed off a Mistral missile, flame shooting from the rear as it blasted into the sky, rocketing towards the escaping helicopter at over a thousand miles per hour.
The stolen chopper was now ten miles into Peru; impact would be in approximately thirty seconds.
Colonel Santé used the time to light a cigar.
Adams was coaxing everything he could out of the chopper, nearing two hundred miles per hour as they raced into the Peruvian interior.
But he was all too aware that they had no hope of outrunning an anti-aircraft missile. The radar showed that one such weapon had already been launched and was homing in on the helicopter’s infrared signature.
It had been many years since Adams had been in a Lynx but instinct told him where to find what he was looking for.
He reached for the toggle switch on the interface in front of him, flipping it down hard.
‘What was that?’ Lynn asked, trying to control her rising panic. She had told Matt that she would be OK, but the truth was that she was scared; and not just superficially scared but scared right down to her core. Just travelling in a helicopter after what had happened in Antarctica was a struggle, but with a missile now threatening once more to destroy her, she felt her heartbeat rising, her palms turning sweaty.
Not again, the voice kept repeating in her head. Please, not again.
Her inner voice was interrupted by Adams’ reply. ‘Countermeasures,’ he announced. ‘Infrared, to confuse the missile’s own infrared guidance system. Should make the missile fly into it, rather than us.’
‘Does it work?’
Adams grimaced. ‘We’ll know in about ten seconds.’
Colonel Santé could no longer see either the helicopter or the missile with the naked eye, and so watched the radar with his bombardiers as he puffed away on his cigar.
The signature of the missile quickly caught up with that of the helicopter. There was a blur of light — the impact — and the men watched closely as the light dimmed.
But what was this? The image of the helicopter was still there!
Damn! The countermeasures must have been deployed. Santé puffed angrily on his cigar as he realized that the pilot must know more about the helicopter than he’d been led to believe.
‘Another sortie!’ he announced gruffly. ‘Launch guns two through five!’
If one missile had failed to do the trick, four would surely accomplish the task. After all, the cost was immaterial — the man who had called had promised full reimbursement for any ammunition used, as well as a little sweetener for Santé himself if he succeeded in shooting the chopper down.
Countermeasures or not, four missiles were a guarantee of destruction.
Adams knew it had been a lucky escape, and that they were unlikely to be so lucky again. The artillery commander would doubtless now order a multiple strike, and if several missiles were launched, one would be bound to get through.
Another approach had to be taken, and Adams knew what it was. The only trouble would be getting Lynn to agree to it.
He waited for a moment, wanting to leave it until she really had no other choice. And soon he saw the electronic blips appear on his radar. Four of them.
He quickly calculated their speed of approach, his own current speed, and estimated the impact time at about a minute and a half. He checked the surface map once again, and reduced his airspeed. He wanted to reach the canyon at almost exactly the same time as the missiles.
‘Are we slowing down?’ Lynn asked incredulously.
Adams turned to her, nodding his head. And then he told her his plan.
At the headquarters of 1st Armoured Brigade, Santé watched with fascination as his four majestic birds streaked towards the unfortunate helicopter. He admired the pilot of the chopper as he carried out evasive manoeuvres — up, down, left, right — and at the same time pitied him for his futile efforts.
There wasn’t long to go, and although the chopper was now almost fifty miles into Peru, he wasn’t anxious about the clash of authority — he had been promised Peruvian cooperation.
He noted how the fleeing pilot deployed more countermeasures, and how one of his missiles went for the infrared bait, exploding behind the chopper.
And then he smiled widely as the remaining three missiles struck directly, seeing the big flare on the radar screen.
He blinked, and the screen was blank.
The missiles had done their work; the helicopter — and the people in it — were no more.
18
Eldridge received the news within a minute of the destructive impact.
So, it was over. Or was it? Eldridge was aware that he had made this mistake before, signing off on their deaths too early. Well, not this time. He would check himself. The Lear jet would be over the impact site within the next ten minutes, and there were Chilean and Peruvian military and law enforcement teams also on their way there.
He would check the site from the air — check that the helicopter was really destroyed, and it wasn’t just another damned trick — and then he would land, and lead the crash scene investigation.
After being hit by three separate missiles, the wreckage would be an inferno, no more than a smouldering mess; but Eldridge would not be happy until he found some evidence of the bodies within.
Then he would be able to relax.
The Lear jet cruised over the crash site within the estimated ten minutes, and Eldridge was gratified to see the fiery wreckage of the chopper, buried at the bottom of a deep canyon, flames licking up the sides, almost reaching his own aircraft.
It was doubtful that anyone could have survived such an explosion, but if his current assignment had taught Eldridge anything, it was that all things were possible.
He entered the cockpit and told the pilot to find a place to land.
It was twelve hours later, after the darkness of night had well and truly drawn in and the temperature had dropped to near freezing, that the crash scene investigators found something.
There had been low-level squabbles early on in the day about whose jurisdiction such an investigation should come under, but Eldridge and his men took control of the scene, utilizing the investigators from both countries in order to fast-track the operation.
But there really wasn’t much to go on. The impact had superheated the fuselage, obliterating everything inside in an instant. By the time the Lynx crashed into the canyon’s deep valley bottom, there wasn’t a whole lot left to investigate.
What there was, was extracted, separated, examined and identified piece by piece. The investigators told Eldridge that the heat had been so intense that it was doubtful anything would be left of the two fugitives who had stolen the craft. The best they could hope for would be bits of charred bone, or perhaps an odd tooth or two.
Eldridge was not going to be satisfied until he knew for sure that Adams and Edwards were dead, which was why his first sense of true relief did not come until almost midnight.