THIRTY
From what I had seen and heard I was deterred from proceeding further, and nearly gave away what property I had. On my return by land up the right side of the river, I found the surface of the earth for 10 or 12 miles cracked in numberless places, running in different directions—some of which were bridged and some filled with logs to make them passable—others were so wide that they were obliged to be surrounded. In some of these cracks the earth sank on one side from the level to the distance of five feet, and from one to three feet there was water in most of them. Above this the cracks were not so numerous nor so great—but the inhabitants have generally left their dwellings and gone to the higher grounds.
Jessica jumped as a bullet splashed off the windscreen of the Kiowa. She could see armed men down below, crouched behind vehicles. Some of them were shooting. And some of those were shooting at her.
Bullets rattled off the helicopter’s semi-monocoque hull as the Kiowa roared over the scene at a hundred knots. “Hell of a lot of firepower, General,” her pilot remarked.
Jessica winced as a round panged off the cheek window below her feet. “Who are these people?” she muttered.
The Kiowa zoomed over the field and climbed up over the Delta, out of range. Jessica’s heart thrashed against her rib cage.
A hot landing zone in Arkansas? This was deranged.
“Damage?” Jessica said, her eyes flickering over the cockpit displays.
“I hear air through some holes in the fuselage,” the pilot said. “Oil pressure’s steady. No unusual vibration.”
“Alert HQ to the situation,” Jessica said. “Tell them to prep a dustoff in case we have to bail over the Delta.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I don’t suppose that twenty-millimeter gun you’ve got has any ammunition in it.”
“Sorry, General. We left the ammunition loads in Kentucky.”
Oh well. That was just letting the adrenaline talk, anyway. Although the helicopter’s cannon—if loaded—was perfectly capable of wiping out everything in sight on the field below, she could only imagine the penalties for any military officer who used such a weapon on civilian targets, whether they’d fired on her or not.
Jessica was already busy with the controls for the MMS, a kind of periscope unit inside the craft’s rotor hub that carried video, infrared, and laser-sighting systems.
She turned on the video recorder, so there would be a record for later, and panned the area of the battle with the camera cranked up to maximum magnification. Saw the vehicles laid out around the half-fallen farmhouse, the rifles banging away. Presumably they wouldn’t be firing at the farmhouse unless there was someone inside firing back.
Two of the vehicles, she saw, had racks of lights on top, maybe sheriff’s department. Maybe there was a perfectly legitimate police action going on.
In which case, why had she been shot at?
While Jessica peered into the MMS display, the pilot gently tested his controls and control surfaces, shifting the Kiowa gently around the sky. “Are we going to have to dust off that farmhouse, General?” he asked.
“Negative. I’m not going to take us into a hot LZ without knowing what’s going on, or who’s shooting at us.”
“HQ says they are warming up a Cayuse in case we need a dustoff. It’s the only aircraft they’ve got available.”
“Very good.” Another light scout helicopter, damn it. If they had a Blackhawk or Sea Stallion available, a big ship with a reasonable chance of not being shot to pieces, she might have risked trying to rescue whoever was in the farmhouse.
“And ma’am—” The pilot shifted his chewing tobacco from one cheek to the other. “I don’t mean to bring you down or anything, but our fuel situation will become critical in about five minutes and night is coming on fast.”
“Let me know when we have to leave. Is there any way we can talk to those cops down there, or whatever they are?”
“We’ve got the secure UHF and SINCGARS only, General. Just military channels.”
“Damn it.” Eyes still on the display, she began searching for the map case she’d placed between the pilot’s seat and her own. “Where the hell is this place?” she asked.
It was pure coincidence Jessica was there at all. She’d flown to Bald Knob to deliver instruction to a National Guard unit concerning the appropriate way to repair a levee, and on her return journey had flown over the Delta, as per her own standing orders to search for refugees whenever possible. The flashing lights of the police vehicle had attracted her attention, and the next thing she knew people were shooting at her.
She looked at the data from the AHRS display, which provided her position within a hundred yards or so, then down at the plastic-encased maps, gloved fingers tracking the coordinates. They were 4.3
kilometers northwest of Rails Bluff, Arkansas. Wherever that was.
She looked back at the MMS display and saw a half-dozen of the besiegers pile into a pickup truck and leave the scene. A grin tugged at the corners of her lips. “I’d say they have a morale problem down there,” she said.
“Ma’am? The fuel…”
“Let me pan across this one last time,” Jessica said, “and then we can get out of here.” She swept the video across the battlefield one more time, then took her hands off the controls. “Take us back by way of Rails Bluff,” she said. “I want to see what’s there.” Rails Bluff was a wreck, with no sign of life, though apparently efforts had been made to clear some of the rubble. Jessica took more video images for the record, though she suspected that twilight was degrading the image significantly. The surprise came a few miles outside of town, when a refugee camp floated into sight, a long line of tents and awnings stretched out along the broken highway.
“Is that one of ours?” Jessica wondered aloud. She couldn’t remember anyone airlifting supplies to a place called Rails Bluff.
“Want me to get closer, General?”
“Negative. We’ve already been shot at once. Just let me get some pictures.” It was dark enough that the video unit wouldn’t provide a suitable image, so Jessica used the FLIR, the Forward-Looking Infra-Red detector set into the MMS. She recorded the little burning lights that were stoves, generators, and human beings. And amid the camp, she saw a long tripod-shaped object standing into the night.
“Is that a radio mast?”
“Looks like it, General.”
“Well.” She panned the camp one more time, then folded the MMS back into the rotor hub. “Let’s get back to HQ.”
While the Kiowa was en route, Jessica spoke to headquarters and told them to check the FCC’s web page to find out as much as they could about whatever radio station was licensed in Rails Bluff. And then to find out everything else available about Rails Bluff, including whether or not the state of Arkansas, the military, or anyone else had set up a refugee camp nearby.
Pat waited for her in the spill of the Kiowa’s landing lights as the chopper came down onto the Vicksburg improvised helipad. He raised a hand to protect his eyes against dust kicked up by the rotor, and she saw a boom box in his hand.
On leaving the helicopter, Jessica suppressed the urge to jump onto Pat and wrap her arms and legs around his lanky body, and instead gave him a peck on the cheek.
He put an arm around her as his eyes surveyed the bullet splashes on her transportation. “You okay?” he said.
“All in a day’s work,” she said, a little too casually. “What have you got for me?” He drew her away from the noise of the helicopter. “I’ve got something to play for you,” he said. “We listen to this sometimes in the clerks’ tent. It’s not all disaster news, and it’s kind of entertaining, in its own surrealistic way.”