Katherine knew he could not be in the jungle, too close, she looked around and saw the tell-tale spec of black near the surrounding mountains. She pulled up her binoculars and focussed on the object, seeing an attack helicopter hovering at some distance.
‘Hello Katherine, yes I can see you.’
Katherine waved and re-entered the Osprey, addressing the group, ‘He is in a helicopter some miles away, but has line of sight. I suspect he cannot operate the weapons systems, otherwise he would have used them to threaten us, not improvised explosives.’
‘How far away is he?’
‘What you thinking Jacob?’
‘Is he closer to that E3 than us?’
‘Yes probably, and he is airborne, even with the dissipating storm, he will light up their threat displays.’
‘So we wait?’
‘We have maybe three minutes, then he will set them off. Of course, that’s if he can get a signal through.’
Katherine went back to the cockpit, taking Jacob with her.
Jones was comfortable flying the helicopter, but had no idea how to operate the weapons systems, concerned he would shoot himself down. He had quickly assembled the explosives on Katherine’s aircraft, using a crude detonator, a radio transmitter given him by Enzi, short range, but he had altitude for insurance. He had flown basic helicopters, the civilian ones he used in his country, but nothing like this. The threat control panel lit up, indicating an approaching airplane at high altitude to the west. He could not decipher the information it was delivering on the threat, but knew that it was heading in his direction. He radioed his quarry, ‘Come on Katherine, time is moving on, and I need an answer now, either yes or no.’
He got no reply just static, he focused his binoculars on the plane, and could see Jacob Mathias dismantling his bombs, without hesitation he pressed the trigger.
The E3 Sentry was truly omnificent, all vehicles and aircraft in motion for a two hundred mile diameter were visible to it. From the trucks moving along the treacherous jungle highways, to the combat helicopter hovering to their East, all were plotted with speed, direction, and threat assessment. The aircraft on the ground was showing cold, but the helicopter was identified as a KA52 Alligator, and was definitely not a civilian aircraft. The E3 crew were monitoring the radio transmissions and had not yet identified the pilot of the helicopter, but were cautious to approach within range of his weapons.
They had standing orders they were not to attack any targets unless it was a direct threat to them, or authority had been granted from US Southern Command. The storm was still in the area, and provided an unusual amount of radio and sensor interference was also caused the pilot some issues. He was concerned that a lightning strike would irreparably damage his combat capacity, despite being protected against EMP and other potential threats. After gaining instructions from USSOUTHCOM, and his assessment of the situation, the aircraft redirected one of its two armed drones to investigate.
The SVELTE drone was forty feet long, with a seventy foot wingspan, driven by a General Electric J97-GE-3-100 engine, officially scrapped by NASA after the cancelling of the Compass Arrow UAV program some years before. However very sensibly rather than waste the substantial investment in the engines, they stored them, and re-assigned them to the USAF Project SVELTE. The drone carried a large amount of analytical avionics to allow remote monitoring, this occupied one of its two weapons bays. The other bay was armed with AGM 114P Hellfire II missiles designed specifically for UAV use. The reliable AIM-9 Sidewinder air to air missile for direct threats and defence, and due to its low level functionality flare dispensers should a heat seeking missile be launched against it.
The cost of the UAV was substantially less than a F16, and the risk to pilot was non-existent; they could also stay airborne for almost a day without refuelling. The UAV extended its wings, changing from the diamond shape to a more conventional wing design. It dropped from the wing of the E3, its engine idling until it reached safe distance, then the pilot sitting comfortably in the E3 operation centre banked and throttled up, accelerating to the target area. The pilot used standard controls copied from an F16 cockpit; however the instrumentation was substantially different. The vehicle was fitted with sensors designed to penetrate the heavy foliage of the area, something that Jacob and his team were not aware of.
Jacob strode out to the nacelle, Katherine led the way, checking for tripwires and other booby traps Jones may have placed. Seeing none Katherine climbed onto Jacob’s shoulders and up onto the wing of the Osprey, walking down the leading edge to the port nacelle. While parked the rotors were locked for vertical take-off, as they would impact the ground in forward position. The three bombs were placed in the centre of the blade, probably where Jones could quickly and easily reach. They were linked in series; three detonators to one trigger, Katherine confidently reached over to the obvious trigger wire to cut it.
Jones pressed the trigger again, and saw no explosion from the aircraft. Frustrated he pressed the trigger harder, hoping to kill all those below. He was prepared to risk the amulets surviving the explosion; they had been through storms, ice and fire already.
Katherine quickly disarmed the booby trap, and tossed the explosives down to Kevin.
‘Nice job blocking his trigger signal Katherine!’
‘I knew that the electronic counter measures I had on board, were designed to block signals that may detect us, so I just rigged it to block everything around us.’
‘Stopping him from triggering the bombs?’
‘Apparently it worked!’
‘What do you mean apparently? You didn’t know for sure?’
‘You taught me nothing is for sure, so I took a gamble.’
‘Remind me not to play poker with you.’
‘Ah really, I could do with the extra cash.’
Kevin laughed, carefully placing the explosives on the ground, while Katherine walked carefully over to the starboard nacelle to disarm the other device.
Jones put the helicopter into a shallow dive, he could not arm the missiles, but he knew that the 30mm machine gun under the nose would tear into the lightly armoured Osprey with consummate ease. He flicked up the master arm on the joystick, and selected high explosive fragmentation ammunition, as opposed to the armour piercing, wanting to cause the maximum amount of damage to the people as well as the aircraft. He was over six kilometres away, and after firing an opening burst, realised that he was out of range.
The E3 Sentry saw the first burst of fire from the Alligator helicopter, and it’s intended but failed target below. The operator of the armed drone, marked on his screen that the helicopter was now a threat, and what action to take. The E3 carried two such drones, their official name was SVELTE, but the crew gave them call sign Raider One and Raider Two. The vehicle was on test with USSOUTHCOM testing sensors and tactical surveillance capability in a hostile environment, the rainforest is not forgiving.
Jones closed on the Osprey, firing as he did so, but still just out of range, the bullets hit the ground with substantially reduced momentum. His anger was overriding his sense as he advanced on the stationary aircraft, had he used his binoculars he would have seen the nacelles and rotors turning.
Raider One was fully online and feeding real-time data to the team on-board the E3, showing the helicopter, and now where a group of people had walked through the cold rain soaked jungle, their heated footprints still showing on the surrounding cooler land. The Osprey began to light up as the engines warmed, and the cluster of people now on-board gave a clear heat signature. Raider One automatically identified what it perceived to be a threat, but could not fire without pilot authority, the descending helicopter was the primary target. The Osprey was emitting a known signal identifying it as a Special ops aircraft.