‘This fucker is picking off our guys down there!’ Jing shouted.
‘And we’re next,’ Xaio added bitterly. ‘We’re dead one way or another. But if we can take down this bastard right now, Yin gets out alive.’
‘Do it!’ Jing urged.
Agreed to a man, Xaio guided BAT-3 into a steep climb above the Harbin.
‘You guys know what sound shit makes when it hits the fan?’ Xaio asked.
Proud members of the Corps and familiar with the old joke, Sung and Tsui answered in a yell, ‘Mareeeeeene!’
BAT-3 swooped straight down like an eagle after a river salmon. Xaio aimed for the center of the Harbin’s main rotor and called for as much power as the nacelle could deliver. The warriors aboard BAT-3 survived just long enough to know they had saved the lives of some of their company, then their aircraft disintegrated in the blur of the helicopter’s rotating blades.
The collision snapped the Harbin’s main shaft just below the hub, tilting the rotor assembly forward. One after another, the four long blades pounded into the side of the helicopter. Gong lost his arms and legs as the first blade sliced into the cabin. Slowed as they cut into the fuselage, the composite blades broke into large and lethal projectiles. Gong and Woo died instantly, their bodies torn apart.
Deprived of lift, the two fatally entangled aircraft obeyed gravity and plummeted to the ground. The knot of metal struck the bare, rocky slope and tumbled over. The twin engines, still racing furiously, tore free of their mounts, severing the fuel lines. Fumes and liquid ignited, detonating the half-empty fuel tanks. An expanding fireball tore through the fog, rising into the air like a beacon.
57
‘Report!’ Liu demanded.
‘We’ve lost contact,’ the communications officer replied. ‘Everything is operational on this end. Dragon One Five is not responding.’
‘Gou shi! Peng, where are they?’
Peng stood at a large wall map of the region, estimating the intersection of the Harbin’s reported sighting.
‘The last reported position was in western Tibet,’ Peng replied, ‘near Bangong Co. The nearest village is Rutog.’
‘Captain, do you have any other aircraft in that area?’
The officer checked the current status of all aircraft assigned to this mission. ‘The closest are near the end of their range. They don’t have enough fuel to make it to Rutog and back. We do have one being refueled now that can be there in little more than an hour.’
‘Peng and I will be on it.’
Han piloted BAT-1 in a wide arc around the wreckage, careful to remain upwind of the plume of oily, black smoke. Kilkenny and Tao surveyed the ground below while Yin prayed for the lives just lost. Two-thirds of their company lay either dead or wounded around the burning hulk of the Chinese helicopter.
‘We should have put down earlier,’ Kilkenny grumbled.
‘It’s not your fault,’ Tao said reassuringly. ‘We’re in danger every minute we stay in China.’
‘If we were on the ground they wouldn’t have spotted us.’
‘Perhaps, but if they had we would all be dead.’
‘I found a place to land,’ Han said, happy to change the subject.
‘Do it,’ Kilkenny ordered.
Kilkenny had his harness and helmet off as soon as the BAT landed, and he ran down the slope toward the crumpled airframe. The bodies of four men littered the field, the ground around them raked by heavy fire. Shen and Chun were clearly dead, their bodies perforated with bullet holes.
He found Chow by a large boulder and pressed his fingers to the man’s neck but failed to find a pulse. He rolled the body over and saw the blood pooled on the ground beneath it. A sliver from the engine’s ceramic blades had pierced the young SEAL’s neck, and the exertion as he ran for cover proved fatal.
‘We found Max,’ Tao called out. ‘He’s alive.’
Kilkenny raced to where Tao and Yin knelt beside his former chief. They had removed his helmet, and Gates was both conscious and in pain.
‘I know this is a dumb question,’ Kilkenny said, ‘but where does it hurt?’
‘Be easier to say where it doesn’t. Any of my guys make it?’
Kilkenny shook his head. ‘And if it weren’t for BAT-3, we’d be having this conversation in the next life.’
‘I saw. Brave s-o-b’s took that fucker out just as he was drawing a bead on me.’
Gates rubbed the Kevlar panel covering his badly bruised chest and dislodged a flattened slug. Several more dotted his body armor.
‘Remind me to send a real nice letter to DuPont when we get home.’
‘Make sure you enclose one of the slugs.’
‘Here’s the med kit,’ Han said. ‘I’ll go check the RITEG on BAT-2, make sure it shut down.’
‘Good thinking,’ Kilkenny said. ‘And pull it off the frame — I don’t want to leave a nuke behind.’
‘How’s it look?’ Gates asked as Kilkenny and Tao dressed his wounds.
‘Some of these cuts will need stitches, but most are superficial. You might have a few cracked ribs as well, but nothing a tough old SEAL like you won’t recover from,’ Kilkenny replied. ‘Of course, you’ve at least doubled your collection of dings.’
‘Just what I needed,’ Gates said grimly.
‘I don’t know,’ Tao mused as she set a dressing. ‘I think a few scars give a man character.’
As Kilkenny treated Gates, Yin tended to the remains of the three fallen warriors. He carefully ordered their bodies on the ground and removed their helmets, treating each man with great dignity. Yin said a prayer for the repose of their souls, that each would find eternal rest. Although he could not reach them, Yin offered the same prayers for the men whose bodies were being consumed by the fire.
After Gates’s wounds were tended, Kilkenny joined Yin by the burning wreckage and offered his own prayer for the men who had sacrificed themselves for the team.
‘They were brave men,’ Kilkenny said. ‘They saw what had to be done and took action.’
‘But what of the other men?’ Yin asked.
‘They got what they deserved.’
‘Did they? But for an accident of birth, could they not have been your men? Did they not share many of the same hopes as your men? I find no joy in any of these deaths, and I forgive those who sought to harm us.’
‘Of all the lessons my catechists tried to drill into my head, I still have the toughest time with that one.’
‘Truth is like water,’ Yin explained. ‘Both are necessary for life, but both may come in forms that are difficult to grasp. Forgiveness can be hard to give, and is often harder to accept. But the true paradox is that the forgiveness we need most must come from ourselves. It is a lesson I struggle with as well.’
‘Why do you need forgiveness?’ Kilkenny asked. ‘If anything, you’re owed a very large apology.’
‘We all need forgiveness. You and your companions have risked your lives to win my freedom, and some have been killed in the effort.’ Yin touched the cross hidden beneath his suit. ‘I fear that members of my flock who have helped you have also paid a terrible price. All because of me.’
‘None of that is your fault,’ Kilkenny said dismissively.
‘Had I chosen a different vocation, many people would still be alive, and we would not be having this conversation,’ Yin countered calmly. ‘And for better or worse, choices you have made have brought you here at this moment.’
‘If it’s any consolation, I forgive you for being a man worth saving.’
‘All of us are worth saving.’ Yin paused. ‘You were to be a father today, yes?’