Deadly Descent (18 page)

Made it hard to shoot a moving target if they couldn’t get a visual.
“Hopefully the fog will lift before then.”

“Doesn’t matter, my son.
God willing, we will have the trap prepared and ready before the aircraft arrive.
Allah will guide our rockets to where they are meant to go.”

“Yes sir.
I’ll alert the men.”

“You do that.” He paused.
“Is everything all right with you and Khalid?”

“Of course.
If you’ll excuse me, sir…”

Sadiq dropped back and told the first man in line, and the soldier passed it back.
The message would no doubt be garbled by the time it reached the end, but there would be time to get everyone briefed once they got closer to their target.
Besides, he had no intention of going anywhere near Khalid until the fog cleared out enough to allow him better visibility.
And protection.
He had not suffered this much, and come all this way just to wind up the victim of an embittered mercenary disguising himself as a soldier of Islam.

Devon and Will went over the pre-flight checklist and together logged the coordinates into the computer’s GPS to make sure they were correct.
She checked the radio frequency with the tower and ops center.
Everything was a go.

“What’s the viz at the LZ?” Will asked.

Devon heard the unspoken concern in his voice and understood its source.
“It’s expected to clear enough during our flight, so we’ll be fine,” she answered crisply.
Until she got through the fog, however, she was going to have to rely on her instruments and FLIR to guide her over the rugged terrain.

“Okay,” Will said, and she was relieved he let the matter drop.
She was nervous enough for all of them and she didn’t need him questioning her decision to fly the mission.
She wasn’t being reckless.
She was being assertive.
“What about our escort?”

“Apache is heading to the LZ now.
But we’ll probably get there before they do.”

“Wouldn’t expect anything different,” Will sighed.

Once they were ready to go, she flipped down her night vision goggles and spoke to the crew over her headset.
“Everyone strapped in back there?”

“That’s affirm,” McCall answered from the back.

“Sun won’t be up until we’re on the return flight, so we’re going in dark, low and fast.
Be advised, intel reports we could encounter hostile contact in the pickup area.
Be on the lookout when I give you the two minute warning.”

“Roger that,” the chief replied.
“We’re good to go.”

She radioed the tower.
“Angel one-niner requesting taxi.”

“Roger, taxi out to helo point four, then call for takeoff.”

Will upped the throttles on the overhead panel and she nudged the Black Hawk forward to the helo point.
Once the wheels on the landing gear were over the proper place, she called again.
“This is Angel one-niner, requesting departure clearance.”

“Roger Angel one-niner, cleared for takeoff.
On departure call your ops frequency.”

“Angel one-niner, roger.”

Working the throttles overhead, Will increased power.
The aircraft vibrated as the engines opened up with a throaty roar.
A wave of adrenaline rushed through her veins.
Her heart pumped hard beneath her sternum when she pulled up on the collective.
The bird lifted off the ground with a smooth surge.
She pushed forward on the cyclic and its nose angled toward the tarmac as it flew forward, picking up speed and gaining altitude.

Clearing the airfield and the worst of the fog, she banked to the northeast and headed out toward the mountains, their distant snow-capped peaks glowing neon green in her NVGs.
The increase in visibility made her breathe a sigh of relief and let her mind concentrate on flying the aircraft.
Her restored confidence reminded her of why she loved this.
She craved the sense of freedom and power, knowing that she was at the controls and heading out to rescue someone.

So why was her stomach getting tighter with each nautical mile closer to the destination?
Just do your job.
Stay relaxed and on top of everything.

A minute later she dialed up the new frequency and reported in to the ops center.
“Angel one-niner with you now ops, and en route.”

“Roger, we have no additional information for you at this time.”

She took a slow breath and tried to dispel the lingering unease in her gut.
No news is good news.
Now if only the LZ would be clear by the time they arrived.

Will remained silent beside her during the flight, and the absence of their usual banter added to her tension.
Was he uptight about this because of the visibility issue, or did he have a bad feeling about this mission too?

The instruments tracked their progress as they climbed, reaching their cruising altitude only twenty meters above the steadily steepening terrain.
The constant pitch of the engines and rhythmic throb of the rotors helped calm her nerves.
Everything was going smoothly, and the fog seemed to be thinning.
Hopefully they’d be able to do a quick in and out before the sun came up.

That was the real reason she was nervous.
Under cover of darkness, the bird’s dark paint made the aircraft practically invisible to the human eye, and less of a target.
Anyone on the ground would be able to hear them, but not see them until it was too late.
If it stayed dark until the mission was completed, she could be in without posing a major risk to her aircraft and crew, and out as soon as the patients were aboard, away from hostile forces.
The encroaching light made that impossible and increased the danger for all of them.

Coming up on the final turn, she glanced over at Will.
He gave her a reassuring smile and she returned it, wishing it wasn’t forced.
She hit her last waypoint and banked to the southeast, willing her heart to slow down.
“Two minutes,” she informed the crew once she’d leveled out.
The instant she said it, the tension in the cabin went up palpably.
Will ran the engine controls up to give them optimum power if needed, and together they increased the set RPMs on the fuel control unit.

Without looking back into the cabin, she could feel rear-enders putting their game faces on, weapons at the ready and scanning the darkened terrain with watchful eyes.
Devon took in a deep, slow breath and let it out.
She was in one of the safest aircraft in the U.S.
military arsenal with an experienced co-pilot, crew chief and a Night Stalker medic aboard.
She couldn’t ask for a better crew than that.

The flight clock tracked the seconds on its digital display as they approached the extraction point.
“One minute,” she said into her mic, her voice thankfully calm and steady as her hands.

“I’m going to have to rope in,” McCall told the crew chief over the intercom radio.
“Gulley’s too narrow to put down in.
We’ll have to lift all the casualties in the Stokes litter.”

“Roger that.”

Devon mentally planned the insertion.
Once she got them in, she’d have to hold the bird in an above-ground hover, battling gusts of wind to hold it steady with only meters of clearance between the walls of rock rising on either side.
She prayed the wind didn’t make the line sway back and forth or the guys would never make it down to pick up the casualties.
If it swung out far enough, it could get caught in the rotors and send them all hurtling into the ground.
Even without worrying about the wind gusts, she had to keep the aircraft absolutely still to avoid clipping a rotor.

Clear your head.
You’ve done this before.

Yeah, but not in hostile territory under direct threat of enemy fire,
a voice whispered in her head.

Devon forced the unsettling thought away and focused on flying the aircraft.
Approaching the target area, her NVGs picked up the convoy of Humvees lined up in the distance on the narrow road, and the Marines gathered around the LZ.
With Will pulling back on the power, she edged the nose up and carefully guided the aircraft into position, lowering into an above-ground hover with only a few feet of clearance between the rock walls and the tips of the rotors.
“Okay, we’re in position for medic dispatch.” The wind gusts didn’t seem too bad.

Within seconds, the crew chief had the rope out the door and McCall slid to the ground with his medical equipment.
The instant he cleared the area, she pulled up and retreated a short distance to wait so they could work without being beaten with debris from the powerful rotor wash.
With her hands and feet busy on the pedals and cyclic to control the bird’s movement, she scanned the area for threats.
Breathe
.
She pulled in a deep breath, deliberately slowing her respiration and relaxing her grip on the stick.
Nothing caught her attention, so she went back to watching the computer displays.

The crew chief’s voice came over the ICS, relaying the patients’ conditions to the flight surgeon back at Bagram.
Four wounded, three critical, just as the flight command had reported.

Then her radio crackled to life, and the ops center came on.
“Angel one-niner, be advised ground forces have reported enemy movement near your location.
Over.”

Devon shared a look with Will.
“See anything?”

“Nope,” he answered, staring hard out his window.
“But I’ll feel a hell of a lot better once our escort gets here.”

“Chief?” she asked.

“All clear back here.”

She didn’t see anything either, but she wondered how big a force the friendlies below had spotted.
The terrain was rocky and barren.
Perfect for hiding in among the boulders and crevices.
Was there an A-team down there watching them?
Some Delta boys maybe?

Might be Cam.

Her fingers tightened around the cyclic.
She couldn’t afford to think about him right now, and should be glad friendly forces had them in sight.

“Angel one-niner, this is Mako two.
Coming up on station.”

She breathed a sigh of relief.
“Copy that.” A minute later she spotted the Apache gunship to her seven o’clock high.
It passed overhead and began a covering pattern.

On the ground, McCall used hand signals to relay a message through the crew chief, requesting extraction.
Devon maneuvered into position and held the controls steady while the sergeant in the back lowered the rescue basket.
McCall and his patient spun around in the rotor wash as the basket climbed toward the open bay door.

The first patient was hauled aboard, the litter put in place by the crew chief into one of the carousel’s litter pans in the back while McCall disappeared to pick up the next casualty.
Once all four of the wounded were secured in the carousel, McCall was hoisted up and the crew chief gave the all clear.
Relieved to be moving again, Devon pulled up on the collective, eased forward on the cyclic.
The nose dropped and the tail lifted.
The Black Hawk’s powerful rotors pushed them forward and higher into the air.
The Apache escorted them out.

Safely out of the gulley, she turned the aircraft and started northwest back to Bagram, taking a different route than the one they’d come in on.
The fog was almost gone, revealing the light dusting of snow on the ground.
Her heart rate settled back into its normal range, and the invisible hand clamped around her stomach finally let go.
Just another minute or two and they were practically home free.

“Listen!”

All whispers stopped instantly.
Sadiq shifted on his knees and stared out through the thinning fog.
What had the man heard?
Voices?
Vehicles?
He was just about to open his mouth and demand what they were listening for when the faint sound reached him.
Like a distant roll of thunder carried on the wind.

Shelling?
His hands tightened on his weapon.
No, not shells.
He couldn’t feel any vibrations in the ground.
The sound grew louder.
A rhythmic thumping that pressed against his eardrums with a hard throb.
His breath caught.
Rotors.

“Helicopters,” someone whispered excitedly.

Sadiq looked over his shoulder at the general.
He had his long-range binoculars up, scanning the sky west of their position.
“Sir?”

Nasrallah lowered the binoculars.
“Get ready,” he told them quietly.
“I want every rocket aimed and ready to fire on my command.”

Sadiq pushed to his feet and took off down the line to personally deliver the message.
Then he reached Khalid.
“Helicopter is coming.”

Khalid lifted his Chinese-made RPG onto his shoulder.
“Come little birdies,” he crooned with a smile.

The creepy tone in his voice made Sadiq glad that all that hatred was focused on the enemy instead of him.
“The general wants everyone to wait for the order to fire.”

“Does he?
We’ll see about that.
If I get a clear shot, I won’t be waiting for any order.”

He hadn’t expected any other response from someone like him but there was nothing he could do about it now.
Sadiq rose out of his crouch and climbed over some rocks to reach the next group.
The sound of the rotors was even louder now.
He surveyed their position huddled among the rocks.
They were spread thinly along this line, hidden from the Marines down in the valley by the sheer cliff face.
If the helicopters didn’t fly directly over them, they didn’t have much chance of hitting them.