Deadly Descent (19 page)

The sun’s first pale gold rays were already peeking over the tops of the mountains.
Devon and Will pushed their NVGs up onto their helmet mounts and pulled down their visors.

“Look at that view,” Will said.

“Pretty,” she agreed.
And it was getting prettier with every second that took them farther away from danger.
She stayed low, hugging the rugged terrain to maintain the element of surprise, and because the added weight forced her to fly at a lower altitude than she’d come in at.
Thirty seconds out of the extraction zone, the radio crackled to life.

“Mako two and Angel one-niner, be advised of enemy contacts near your flight path.”

Devon was shocked to recognize the familiar sound of Ryan’s voice over the encrypted frequency.
“Roger that,” she replied, banking eastward to divert away from possible threats.
He must be on the ground somewhere close by, and that meant Cam was down there too.
She glanced out the right hand window at the snow-dusted terrain beneath them with a heavy heart.
“It was Ryan,” she said to Will.

“Yeah?
Makes me feel better knowing he’s got eyes on us.”

Not her.
She wished she could swoop down and pick them up and get them out of harm’s way, but of course their mission was probably to intercept or do recon on the same force Ryan had warned her about.
Had he recognized her voice too?
She wished she could have said hello.
She wished she could talk to Cam.
She wished…

She pulled her thoughts back to the present.

“Just diverting slightly,” she said to the crew, “but it should only add a few minutes to our flight time.
How’s everybody doing back there?”

“Okay for now,” McCall replied.
“But these guys will be glad when we get to the hospital.”

“Tell them we’ll be there in no time.”

She struggled to keep her mind on the flight instead of the danger Cam and Ryan might be facing on the ground.
No sooner had she leveled out from her sharp turn than a streak of light flashed up through the air and the sensors shrieked.

“Incoming!” Will shouted.
“Break right!”

Devon bit back a curse and pitched the bird hard to starboard as the rocket screamed past the nose of the aircraft.
“Hold on,” she warned.
Will was already on the radio to the TOC, telling them they were taking fire.
The Apache pilots reported the same.

Her heart pounded while she pulled up on the collective and increased altitude.
The bird shot higher into the air as she continued evasive maneuvers.
Her mind raced while she automatically employed her emergency training.

“Mako two and Angel one-niner, recommend you head southeast,” Ryan advised from somewhere below them.

“Roger.” Devon immediately turned the bird and continued to climb.
“See anything?” she called out to the crew.

“Ten o’clock low,” Will responded.

Shit
.
Her heart tripped.
“How many?”

He craned his neck to see out the right side window.
“Few dozen, and those are just the ones I can see.”

“I see them,” McCall said over the intercom.
A second after that, the reassuring bark of his M4 came in bursts as he opened fire.

“Christ, they’re everywhere down there,” Will bit out.

“I know,” she replied, her voice tense as she did everything possible to get them the hell out of there.
The engines roared at maximum power.
The Apache fired a Hellfire missile.
The ground below exploded.

“RPG—break right!”

At Will’s warning shout she pitched them sharply to the starboard and dove toward the ground.
The round screamed past her window.

“Shit, that was close,” he rasped.

“This is Mako two.
We’re hit.”

Oh Christ
.
She craned her head around.

“See him?” Will asked.

“Yeah.” She radioed the other bird.
“I see smoke coming from your main rotor.”

“Copy that.
Losing engine function.
We’re returning to base.”

“Just give me what protection you can until we get out of here.”

“Roger that.”

McCall and the crew chief continued blazing away with their rifles, but glowing tracer fire ripped through the air.
Several rounds pinged off the armor plating on the Hawk’s belly.
Devon pressed her lips together and executed another series of evasive moves.
It didn’t seem to matter which way she turned, the enemy fire continued without letup.
It was like flying through a nest of pissed off hornets.
The Apache was way ahead of them, leaving a smoke trail behind it.

“Break left!”

She pulled the stick over, her feet instantly adjusting the pedals.
A loud bang ripped through the cabin, shaking the aircraft.
The sound of the engines changed, rising shrilly.
“Shit,” she breathed, frantically scanning the instrument panel.
Couldn’t have suffered a direct hit.
The bird was still somewhat stable.
“Shrapnel?
What’s hit?”

“Number two.
We’re losing hydraulic fluid,” Will said.
More bullets raked across the fuselage, piercing the metal skin, burying in the exterior wall.
Bits of insulation sprayed out, falling into the cockpit like snowflakes.
Freezing cold air whistled through the illuminated holes.
“And fuel,” he added.

Christ, had they been hit in the fuel cells?
They were self-sealing, but—

“Losing power.”

And altitude.
No way they could make it back to base.
Only a matter of time before something gave out.
She had to find a safe place to put down.

Somehow she had to get them out of range of the enemy, or they’d die within moments of landing.
Horrific images of the disaster in Mogadishu years ago ran through her head, of crewmen’s bodies being dismembered and dragged through the streets like animal carcasses.
She would not let that happen to her crew.
The Black Hawk limped eastward toward the rising sun, steadily losing power and altitude.
Their damaged armed escort was long gone.

A sharp whistling sound broke the tension, then an explosion rocked the whole aircraft.
The concussion ripped through her body like a shockwave.

“Shit, another RPG,” Will snapped.

The moment the words left his mouth the Hawk yawed wildly to the number one side, and Devon knew they’d taken a direct hit.

Holy shit, he’d hit it.

Sadiq lowered the empty grenade launcher tube to the ground and stared up at the sky in disbelief.
High in the air before him, a stream of black smoke trailed from the body of the helicopter as it passed by and descended into a distant canyon.
No outright explosion into a satisfying fireball, but it was definitely fucked up.
No way would it make it back to base.
Already he could tell it was steadily losing altitude.
The pilots would either have to make an emergency landing or run the risk of crashing.
Either way, the bird was coming down.
He and his fellow soldiers had to get to the crew before reinforcements did.

Khalid slapped him heartily on the back in congratulations.
His delighted laugh rolled over him, but Sadiq barely noticed the sound over the pounding of his heart.
They’d done it.
They’d shot down a chopper.

Someone yanked on his upper arm.
“Come on, let’s go!”

Without conscious thought he shot to his feet and followed the others, rushing down into the rocky ravine.
The ground was slippery with snow on the lee side of the ridge.
Chunks of dirt gave way, sending a snowy waterfall of earth and rock tumbling down with their every step.
He’d brought down an American helicopter.
He should have been elated, but he wasn’t.
A peculiar detachment gripped him.
What was wrong with him?
Was it exhaustion making him feel like he was moving in slow motion?
His legs carried him down the ravine to another snow-covered trail at the bottom, but he felt as though he was floating.

If they’d crashed or landed in a bad spot, the pilots and crew were probably dead from the impact.
If not, they would be by the time he and the others got there.
Was that why he wasn’t shouting and whooping like the rest of the men?

“Sadiq, come on!”

He didn’t want to respond to Khalid’s excited command.
The bastard had enough of an attitude problem already without making him more arrogant.
He quickened his pace and followed anyway, being careful to stay away from his rival while he kept his gaze on Nasrallah.
At least he was confident in their leader’s decisions.
For an older man, the general moved fast.
His stocky build didn’t impede him as they raced over the boulder-strewn ground.

Sweat gathered beneath his arms and beaded on his forehead.
They were jogging now, hopping and climbing over rocks like surefooted goats.
The men’s excitement grew with each yard they covered, as though sensing they were closing in on their target.
They began chanting
God is great
.
The phrase grew louder and louder, spreading with fervor throughout the ranks until the air reverberated with it.
A smile spread slowly across his face, his heart thundering along with the shouts and exclamations.
Finally.
Finally he had done something to exact his revenge.
It wasn’t the precise revenge he’d wanted, but at least Americans were dead or dying by his hand.

He’d long since lost sight of the aircraft.
As they cleared the next ridge, the smoke from the downed bird billowed thick and black into the morning sky, marking the position they would attack.
He couldn’t wait to get there.
After today, his brother would be avenged.
After today, they would both be free.

Devon couldn’t believe what was happening.

Hands locked around the controls, she threw a fearful glance at Will.
His face was pinched as he stared at the instrument panel.
“Losing oil pressure.”

They were out of time.
She couldn’t see a clearing to set down in, only boulders and sheer rock faces to slam into.
Her heart thudded sickeningly.
Her brain refused to comprehend she was living her worst nightmare.
“Angel one-niner, going down.”
Oh my God, we’re going to crash.
Just like her dad.
“Call it in,” she said tightly, fighting to stay calm.
Think, Devon.
Panicking won’t help.
Fly the bird.

Will immediately radioed the Mayday to the TOC.
He used the code word that signified they were going down in hostile territory.
“Nightmare, nightmare, nightmare.
This is Angel one-niner, we are going down, do you read…”

Will’s voice faded into the background beneath the scream of the engines and the pounding of her heart.
Wrapped around the controls, her palms turned sweaty inside her gloves.

More loud pops broke through her concentration, then a harsh clang.
The tail swung out suddenly.
Jesus
.
“Tail rotor,” she blurted, fighting to regain control as they went into a torque spin.
She pushed the collective straight down all the way to reduce the angle of attack on the blades and counteract the spin.
No good.
The tail whipped around hard in a horizontal circle.
They started to drop.

With the collective buried all the way down the clutch disengaged, putting the bird into auto-rotation.
Still no good.
“I can’t get control.” The tail swung around faster, the steady increase in G-forces pushing Devon back into her seat.
The world outside was a sickening blur of motion.
Her stomach cramped up in a hard ball.
This wasn’t happening.

The muscles in her arms and shoulders strained to hold the controls steady.
Sweat broke out over her face.
The bird went into a tighter spin despite her attempts to wrestle control back.
Gritting her teeth, she kept pulling, ignoring the burn in her back muscles.
No good.
The ground rushed up at them.

Next to her, Will’s voice was laced with stress as he relayed their coordinates and requested rescue.
She prayed they would live to make it a rescue mission instead of a recovery effort.

“Everybody brace,” she bit out.
The view outside the cockpit blurred into a nauseating swirl of light and shadow.
She couldn’t afford to look back to check on her crew and passengers.
All her attention was focused on trying to auto rotate down.
She couldn’t even try for a run-on landing now.
Best she could do was get down right-side up and hope the wheels took the brunt of the impact without killing them.

Her hands were numb, gripped so tight around the controls they had to be bone white beneath her gloves.
No chance they were coming out of this spin.
“I’m gonna need your help pulling out of this fall,” she yelled to Will.
Their only hope now was if she could get them down without plowing into the ground.
She had to maintain enough control to flare just before impact.
Had to bring the nose up so they didn’t hit with enough force to crush the frame and kill everyone on board.

Will nodded tightly and continued calling out the mayday, his face strained.

She spared a quick glance out her window at the ground below.
Two hundred feet and falling.

Devon growled low in her throat, using all her strength to keep hold of the controls.
Come on, baby.
Flatten out.
A bead of sweat trickled down her temple.
She glanced outside.

One hundred fifty feet.

They were plummeting straight down into a narrow canyon.
She couldn’t let them hit the side of it.
She had to pull them up as soon as the altitude warning system kicked in.

One hundred feet.

She had to hold the position and flare at exactly the right moment, but she couldn’t steer the damn thing.
“I can’t hold it—”

The tail hit the wall of the canyon with a loud crunch, the violent impact making the whole aircraft shudder.
The bird jerked to the side, rotors still whipping at full speed, the body turning faster in its death-spin.

“Hold on!” she yelled, bracing for the inevitable as the ground raced up at them.
She clenched her fingers around the controls, determined to give them a chance, but it was going to be ugly no matter what she did.

A second later the scream of metal grinding against stone filled the cabin.
They lurched violently as the tail section bounced off the canyon wall again, momentarily throwing them up and away.
Pain flashed in her head.
She strained to get another look out her window.
Her stomach rolled.

Fifty feet.

The female voice of the altitude warning system came on.
“Low altitude, low altitude, low—”

“Now!
” Devon ordered Will, both of them hauling up on the collective to compensate for the drop in hydraulic pressure.
For a breathless instant time stopped.
The lever seemed to creep upward infinitesimally.
Devon’s teeth clenched until she thought they might shatter.
Will’s face was red from straining.
They wrenched up on the thing together in the hopes of increasing the angle of the blades to give them a cushion.
Will remained stiff and silent beside her.
The blood pounded sickeningly in her ears.
Were they slowing?
Feet braced on the floor, she put her whole body into it.
“Come
on
,” she snarled between clenched teeth.
Her heart slammed against her ribs.

The nose rose slightly.
They lifted.
Come on.
Little more
.
The tail dropped a fraction, but they were still turning counter clockwise.
A split second later the rear of the bird smashed into the ground.
They bounced hard on the wheels.

Devon and Will both grunted as they jerked forward against their harnesses, then the nose struck with such tremendous force that for a moment she thought her spine had snapped.
Her left knee struck the dashboard.
A rending pain shot through it as something popped and tore inside.
Her chin struck her chest so hard she knocked the breath out of herself.
Coppery blood filled her mouth from where her teeth had cut her tongue.
Black spots exploded before her eyes.

Will screamed, a sharp cry of agony nearly lost beneath the cacophony of rending metal.
A terrible roar engulfed the cabin.
The rotors tore into the rocky ground as the Hawk pitched onto its right side.
Sparks flew.
Pieces of broken glass, rock and debris whipped through the cockpit.
Blindly, Devon raised her hands to her face to shield it from the flying shrapnel.
Cuts stung her cheeks and forearms.
A final, deafening bang reverberated through her body, ripping a howl of pain from her.
Battling to stay conscious as the world blurred and turned gray around the edges, she flailed a hand out to cut the master electrical switch in the overhead panel.
The engines’ shrill cry died down.
The Black Hawk slanted further onto its side, coming to a groaning, shuddering stop in its rocky grave.