More buffeting as they dropped through three thousand feet, airspeed up to 170 miles an hour, a whiff of an unpleasant scent produced by Lee mingled in with the exhaust from the turbines.
“That’s Roanoke,” Danny announced, pointing ten degrees or so off to their port side.
In the cold winter air, it stood out clearly just beyond the low range of hills surrounding it, larger than Asheville. Plumes of smoke were rising up, not for heat but rather buildings that were burning.
“Think it’s hot down there; something’s going on,” Danny announced, looking over at John, who nodded.
The airport was located just north of the city. To reach it, they’d have to fly directly over the city and whatever was going on down there.
“Swing us west, Maury,” John said. “Circle us out a half dozen miles or so; don’t go directly over the city, and we’ll approach the airport from the other direction.”
It came up quickly with a ground speed of well over three miles a minute, John scanning the air around them. There was a flash of light from a building at least ten stories or so high, smoke rising up an instant later.
“Damn it, there’s fighting down there!” Danny shouted.
John felt a hand on his shoulder, looked up, and saw that Forrest was leaning on him for support, joining them to look forward.
“Looks like a hot LZ to me!” Forrest shouted. “Where’s the airport?”
Danny pointed to the right and forward. John picked up the binoculars resting in a flight bag between Maury and Danny, knelt up, trying to keep his balance, and finally got a close-up glimpse of the airport on the far side of the city.
It was packed with aircraft, nearly all military. Half a dozen helicopters, a mix of Black Hawks and Apaches, and two old C-130s. Friend or foe? Like the choppers Fredericks had brought with him back in the spring, nearly all the aircraft lined up below were painted in faded desert camo scheme, military equipment brought back to the United States after the Day.
“Someone’s calling us,” Maury announced, slipping one headphone back and looking at John. “Demanding we identify ourselves. What should I do?”
This was not exactly what John expected. But then again, what did he expect? A deserted city? A destroyed city? A war going on that they were blundering into? But certainly not a welcome mat with a big sign scraped out of the snow: “Welcome, John! We were expecting you.”
“John, what do we do?”
“Just state we’re from Carolina and if General Scales is available to put him on the line.”
Maury did as requested, waited, and then shook his head.
“They’re ordering us to land immediately.”
Maury gazed intently at John, who mulled that over for a few seconds while looking toward the city that was now off their starboard side half a dozen miles away. There was definitely a fight going on in the downtown area. It looked similar to Asheville, a cluster of taller office buildings downtown, suburban sprawl stretching out for several miles in every direction.
“Tell him we’ll comply.”
“What?” Forrest shouted. “Are you flipping crazy, John? There’s a fight going on down there. We land and Lord knows what we’ll be getting into. Whoever is down there will keep this bird, and if we’re lucky and not shot on the spot, we might just be allowed to walk home.”
“Just tell him we’ll comply,” John shouted again, “and then be ready for a low-level pass so I can drop a message pod and then get us the hell out of here!”
He looked back up at Maury, who now had approximately eleven hours of stick time on this chopper. He was asking for a maneuver that nearly all pilots loved to do, legally or when no one was looking, illegally. Before the Day, the mountains around Asheville served as a practice range for pilots preparing to deploy to Afghanistan or wherever there was mountainous terrain, and he always got a kick out of watching their high-speed passes, sweeping in low through the Swannanoa Gap, skimming up over his house, at times nearly at rooftop level, and weaving in and out across the mountain passes. And all of them most likely had hundreds of hours of airtime before trying such maneuvers.
Maury grimaced, Danny looking over at the pilot and forcing a smile.
“John, get aft, make sure everyone is strapped in, and open the door!” Danny shouted.
John staggered back the few feet to the aft compartment, sparing a quick glance at Lee, who truly fit the definition of green faced, shouting for him to tighten his belting. Forrest strapped in across from John and then shouted instructions as to how to open the side door, which John had to struggle with as the helicopter pitched back and forth, the door at last sliding open, the cold blast of winter air whipping by at 140 miles per hour stunning him.
He reached into his backpack and pulled out the message pod, a plastic torpedo-shaped container with a thirty-foot red streamer attached to it, snapping off the rubber band that held the streamer in a tight ball, letting several feet unravel.
He glanced up and through the forward windshield and saw that Maury was banking in toward the airport but was now caught in a strong crosswind, struggling to crab the chopper so they could fly down the length of the main runway. There was a hell of a bounce as Maury nosed over, Lee looking at John wide-eyed and a second later disgorging what was left of his breakfast and dinner from the night before onto John’s lap.
“They’re threatening to shoot if we don’t land!” Maury shouted, barely heard above the roar of the slipstream racing past the open door.
“Tell them to screw themselves,” John shouted, “after we get the hell out!”
They crossed the threshold of the runway, going flat out, Maury, nervous at running so low, bobbing up and down, tail rotor assembly swinging back and forth as he fought to keep control at such low altitude, with a variable crosswind sweeping across the open runway. John glanced up again. They were a hundred or so feet up, crossing over the paved runway, a large white number 12 flashing by underneath. To their right, he could see the airport terminal, the building burned out, collapsed, a couple of dozen private aircraft, long ago abandoned, pushed off to one side of the tarmac and jumbled together. Next to it, the control tower was still intact. He wanted to shout for Maury to try to get closer to the control tower, fearful that the dropped message might not be noticed.
He waited a few more seconds.
“They want us down now!” Maury shouted.
John ignored him, leaning out the open door, message cylinder and red tail ribbon bunched up in his hand, anxious at the thought that it just might get wiped aft and tangled into the tail rotor.
They swept over a grounded Apache, several personnel on the ground craning to look up—or were they pointing something—and in answer to the thought, he caught the flash of a tracer round snapping past the open door.
He threw the message cylinder out, arm getting whipped back by the slipstream, slamming it against the outside of the chopper, the wind sucking the glove off his left hand, shoulder feeling as if it were about to break.
More tracers, a metallic crackling sound behind him, like someone punching a hole through aluminum or titanium, which was exactly what was happening as several rounds slammed into their Black Hawk.
The impacts startled Maury, who instinctively pulled the chopper into a steep banking turn, and if not for the safety harness, John would have been pitched out. Gasping for breath in the violent crosswind, he caught a glimpse of the message cylinder already down on the ground, the red tape attached to the tail still spiraling down, someone running toward it, while at least two others with weapons raised were continuing to fire at them.