The Dying Time (Book 2): After The Dying Time (17 page)

“Yes, Your Highness,” Jamal said, lowering his eyes and rubbing his arm. Someday he’d get another shot at the bitch.

As the Huey continued to climb, John railed at himself. He knew he should have gone for Raoul and Sara Garcia. He knew it. But instead he let Jamal convince him that cutting the head off the Freeholds was the way to go. He cast a baleful glare at Jamal. Actually, he had to admit that Jamal’s most persuasive argument had been the near impossibility of taking the Garcias alive in this kind of raid. And his father wanted them alive. Jimmy shifted beside him and a new thought occurred to John. If the Freeholders weren’t aware of the Garcia’s importance, maybe they would swap the two for the children.

*

Ellen Whitebear fired steadily upwards at the retreating helicopters. Pinned down by one of the gunships when she tried to get to the McKinleys, she’d bounced bullets off its armored hull until somebody blew it up with one of the few rocket propelled grenades (RPG’s) in the Freehold’s armory. Leading the Huey just so, she squeezed off a burst that caused the chopper to lurch sideways spewing black smoke, before it recovered and climbed out of range.

She lowered her weapon and headed for her friends’ back door, where she’d heard fighting just moments before. Others from the Freeholds were mopping up the opposition near the front of the house. She found Mariko and Melinda where they had fallen, the bodies of four enemy soldiers lying nearby. Tears streamed down her face at the loss of her friend. Why? Why did they hit Mariko and Randy’s?

She heard a noise from the bottom of the stairwell. Pistol in one hand, Uzi slung over her shoulder, she edged cautiously downwards. At the bottom, she risked a quick peek around the corner, into the hallway. A clinched-teeth groan came to her ears from the enemy soldier lying there in the hall. She slipped around the corner and disarmed him. His legs were broken and he was in such pain that he didn’t even know she was there.

She searched quickly through the house, but by the time she got to the front where Randy and Ben were she knew that Jimmy and Mary were missing. She turned and walked back down the hall toward the injured man. Sara and Raoul Garcia stepped in through the back door, pausing as they spied her striding through the wreckage.

“We’ve got us a live one,” Ellen said, motioning to the man on the floor. “Mary and Jimmy McKinley are missing,” she added. “Sara, keep this bastard alive until we find out where they’re taking those kids. Meantime, I’m getting together a posse.”

Sara nodded, her mouth a tight line as she bent to tend to the wounded man.

Raoul accompanied Ellen back to the front of the house and outside onto the deck. Freeholders were gathering quickly. All firing had stopped. Glancing at her watch, she noted the Huey had only been on the ground for six minutes. God, all this destruction in just six lousy minutes.

She quickly informed her people of the situation and asked for volunteers for the pursuit. At least a hundred hands shot into the air. Ellen paused briefly, weighing her rage and her desire to run the enemy to earth and smash them, against the possibility that this was a feint designed to draw off most of the Freehold’s defenders. She was taken in by such a ruse once, years ago and the Freeholds almost fell as a result. Never again. Explaining her rationale, she called for no more than thirty volunteers.

As she was speaking, it dawned on her where the enemy was heading. The fact that Breckenridge hadn’t reported in on schedule, the direction of her son’s fascinated stare just before the attack and sound of the helicopters fading away as they crossed over Farnum Peak, all spelled Breckenridge. Recalling the smoke she’d seen pouring from the Huey, it occurred to her that they might not even make it that far.

A noise like the racket of a lawn mower engine came to her ears. Looking up, she saw the Freehold’s gyrocopter dart across the sky in pursuit of the enemy. Christ, she wondered, why didn’t I think of that. Godspeed, Aaron. Tail them and let us know for sure where they’re going.

She tapped Garrett Hailey, gunsmith and armorer, on the shoulder and asked, “How many RPG’s do we have?”

He thought for a second and said, “Six warheads and two launchers.”

“Bring three of the warheads and one launcher,” she said. “We’ll need them if the other gunship strafes us. And we may need the others here if this was a feint.”

“Done,” he said, and raced for his shop. He grabbed the rockets, fed them into a custom made leather quiver that also held a launcher and slung it over his shoulder. He unlocked a cabinet and pulled out a customized AR-15 that was his pride and joy. He snagged a five hundred round canister filled with .556 caliber stripper clips, a gym bag full of silencers and headed for his horse. If what Ellen said was right, Breckenridge had likely been hit--and his little sister, Linda, was stationed there. No way he’d miss this party. He tucked the ammunition into a saddle bag, swung up onto his roan mustang and galloped off to catch the posse.

Chapter 16: The Flyboy

Aaron Goldstein, the Freehold’s resident flight instructor, clinched a lit cigar in his teeth and tallied his inventory as he zipped through the air after the helicopters. Aaron didn’t smoke, but the cigar would make a dandy lighter for the two Molotovs tucked in the saddlebags hanging on either side of his seat. He flinched as a live coal from the cigar blew back into his face and hoped no hot, windblown ash would ignite the Molotovs before he was ready.

He tugged at the Mac 10 that was slung over his shoulder, wishing that he’d had time to grab a better weapon than the stubby, inaccurate, machine pistol. He pulled back the cocking lever to insert a shell and checked the spare clips.

Not that he expected to catch up to them. The top speed of the gyrocopter was only 85 miles per hour. The Huey could do 125. Of course, even as angry as he was over the invasion of the Freeholds, he wasn’t particularly sure he wanted to catch up to them. Aaron was no fool. He knew full well what would happen if he went up against a gunship with a gyrocopter: no contest, unless maybe the gyrocopter pilot was Aaron Goldstein. He suffered from no illusions, but his flying skills were superb and his faith in them was absolute.

He tried the radio, knowing he couldn’t raise the radio shack. It was toast. But he figured somebody back at the Freeholds would be monitoring the channels on a CB and he wanted them to know where the chopper was heading.

“Flyboy to base.” Flyboy was the tag his wife, Moira, had hung on him years before.

“Base to Flyboy, go ahead.” The voice sounded very familiar.

“Moira?”

“Who else?”

“I’m on their tail, Honey. The lead Huey is smoking. It looks like they’re making for Como or Breckenridge.”

“Ellen’s leading a posse up the canyon. I’ll raise them and relay.” Moira realized that Aaron’s radio would be blocked by the mountains, so he couldn’t get them himself.

“Keep listening, sweetheart,” he said.

“Just try to stop me.”

He smiled as he fingered the Star of David medallion that hung from his neck. It had been passed down from generation to generation in his family, forever it seemed, in spite of the traditional Jewish ban on such symbols. He wondered who he would pass it on to. He and Moira were the only childless couple in the valley of the Freeholds. Sometimes, like now, that bothered him. Usually it didn’t, but it always nagged at him when he went into combat. The thought of dying without a son stuck in his craw.

He and his wife were two of only ten Jews in the Freeholds, or in the entire world, for all they knew, though his sister Aeriella was up there in space if she’d survived. He and Moira had tried very hard to have children, to insure the continuance of their families and their race, but Moira had just never taken. He grinned as he thought about exactly how hard the two of them had tried earlier that evening. Then his grin faded as he worried that maybe it was his fault they couldn’t have children. He’d been meaning to get tested by Doc Lewis, or Doctor Sara, maybe even that Merriman guy; but somehow he just never found the time.

He noticed he was gaining on the enemy helicopters. The acrid stench of the smoke coming from the Huey was noticeably stronger. The night sky was plenty bright enough for him to see them.

Suddenly, the Huey was going down. No, it was landing! Shit!

The Cobra zipped around searching for danger and finding none, took up station above the Huey.

“Moira,” Aaron snatched up the mike. “The Huey’s going down in Turner Gulch. I think somebody nailed his coolant supply. They may be here for awhile letting the engine cool.”

“I’ll pass it on to Ellen,” Moira said. “You stay away from them, Aaron Goldstein,” she added in a tone that had always reminded him of his mother.

He didn’t answer. His mind was on the horsemen he’d seen preparing to leave as he’d flown out of the valley. If they got here while the Huey was still on the ground, the Cobra would chew them up.

Well, I’ll just have to do something about that. A surprise attack. A hit in just the right place. He grinned and dipped down to tree-top level, headed for the Cobra. They hadn’t noticed him yet and with a little luck they wouldn’t until it was too late.

Aaron was almost directly below the Cobra’s tail when he began his rapid climb toward it. He counted off the distance between them as it shrank. Three hundred feet. Two hundred feet. One hundred feet. He lit a Molotov and got ready to throw.

Suddenly, the Cobra spun around and dipped toward him. Either its pilot had a sixth sense, or somebody in the Huey on the ground had seen him and radioed a warning. The Gatling cut loose as he heaved the Molotov and jinked out of the way. The firebomb hit the cockpit, splashing fire over the front of the chopper; the flames were whipped out by a quick dive before doing any serious damage.

The next few minutes were a whirling, spinning dance of death, as the smaller, more maneuverable gyrocopter and its larger, better armed cousin gyrated about each other. Aaron managed an occasional burst from his Mac 10, but most of his efforts went toward avoiding the bullets streaming from the Gatling. Like a hummingbird driving off a crow, Aaron darted and dipped, swooped in and zipped away. He was grinning like a fool and screaming warrior’s oaths as, time and again, he avoided death by inches, one tracer coming so close it nearly blinded him.

He was astonished to discover that he was actually enjoying himself. His blood raced through his veins like thoroughbreds on the backstretch and for a short time he and the Cobra were locked in a whirling symphony where the stuttering rip of the Mac 10 and the whining scream of the Gatling played point and counterpoint and where a hammering percussion was delivered by his own heartbeat.

The wind screaming past his ears sang a song his soul understood and Aaron knew with absolute certainty that this was what he had been born to do. All the years of training, flying for the army and as a corporate pilot, a traffic reporter and an aerial stuntman for Hollywood movie studios, had prepared him for this moment. He was fulfilling his destiny.

Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed a line of horses. The posse was closing fast and Aaron knew that, come what may, he would not let them die. Moira was screaming something over the radio, but he didn’t have time to listen.

The Cobra pilot, frustrated by his inability to line the other machine up in his sights, seized a momentary altitude advantage to dive on the gyrocopter, intending to ram it, knowing that his heavier machine could swat the other from the sky with little or no damage to itself. Aaron side slipped rapidly, avoiding both the Cobra and its equally deadly rotor-blast, which could send his frail gyrocopter tumbling out of control. For a moment he was beside the Cobra, almost matching its velocity. Triggering a quick burst from his Mac 10 he saw the enemy pilot slap at his leg.

“Gotcha!” But his victory was short-lived, for in the act of grabbing for his injured leg, the enemy pilot spun the Cobra about its axis and for a brief instant the stream of bullets issuing from the 20 mm Gatling intersected Aaron’s course.

“Ugh!”

Bullets smashed into him. Instinctively, he pulled back on the stick, climbing quickly, gaining altitude as fast as he could, escaping the enemy’s line of fire. He fought against the blackness that threatened to overwhelm him. Unyielding determination was the only thing keeping him conscious.

Blood tasted coppery in his mouth. A sucking sound in his chest told him he was lung-shot. He tried to catch his breath, but the blood in his lungs choked him, causing him to break out in a wracking cough, the pain of which was almost unbearable. Even so, he kept his teeth clenched tightly on the cigar, refusing to drop it as the coughs tore through him. A deep, searing agony in his stomach told him he was gut-shot too.

I’m dead, he thought. Now they’ll come up and finish me off. He thought of Moira and reached for the radio to say goodbye. The microphone had been shot away.

Looking below, he could see the Cobra climbing toward him. Then it broke off and headed away. He was puzzled for a second, then alarmed as he saw it bearing down on the Freeholders, now less than half a mile away. They don’t stand a chance, he thought. Whoever knocked that bird down back at the Freeholds caught them by surprise while they were hovering. They won’t make that mistake twice. It would be all but impossible to hit a darting gunship with a slow RPG.

“Base to Flyboy.” It was Moira, but he couldn’t respond.

Gathering his remaining strength, Aaron nosed the gyrocopter over and dove toward the Cobra. Fumbling for the remaining Molotov, he brought it up to the cigar. The gas-soaked rag that served as a fuse blazed to life. He focused his entire being on the Cobra. The gunship grew larger, filling his vision as he plummeted downward like a falling star.

“Aaron?”

Goodbye my love, he thought, hearing the concern in her voice. Unshed tears formed in his eyes and a pang for unlived years pierced his heart.

“AARON!”

He spat out the cigar and unthinkingly braced himself as he plunged the gyrocopter into the Cobra’s rotors, breaking them. The Molotov exploded and the gunship and gyrocopter, joined in a twisted mass of metal and flesh, tumbled to the ground in a ball of flame.

*

Everyone in the posse saw Aaron die and realized he had purchased their lives with his own. They swarmed like hornets toward the Huey, determined to recover the children and take their revenge. Garrett Hailey, in the lead on his fast roan stallion, got close enough to shoot at the chopper before it took off. A blast from the door gunner burned his roan’s hindquarters and for a second he was riding a bucking bronco in a rodeo. When he got his mount under control he swung down and smeared Neosporin on the wound.

The posse caught up to him, but the horses had been pushed to a full gallop as soon as Moira radioed them the Huey was down and the animals were tiring. Ellen was forced to call a temporary halt to the pursuit. They stopped beside the burning wreckage to let their horses blow.

Blinking back her tears, Ellen got on the radio and interrupted Moira, who had been screaming Aaron’s name over and over.

“Moira, this is Ellen.”

“Ellen! Where’s Aaron? I can’t raise him. He’s...”

“Oh, Moira, I’m so sorry.” Ellen cleared her throat and searched for the right words. There was no easy way.

After a moment’s silence Moira’s tear-choked voice responded. “Find them, Ellen. Find them and kill them and...and salt the earth where they fall!” Moira lay her head down on her folded arms and sobbed. Now, that it was too late, she wished she’d told Aaron she was pregnant.

It was Terrell Johnson’s sharp eyes that spotted the glint of light that led him to the Star of David medallion. He gave it to Ellen, to return to Moira, who would pass it on to Aaron’s unborn son, who would wear it with pride.

The posse watched the Huey fade into the distance. Ellen told them to prepare for a long pursuit. No one disagreed. No one was giving up on this chase.

She issued orders to preserve the horses, half an hour mounted at a gallop, half an hour dismounted, running along side. She split the posse into two squads, one mounted while the other ran, put Dan in charge of the second squad, then mounted up and led her half of the posse off toward Como at a gallop. The Huey was out of sight, but they could still hear it, so they followed the sound into the darkness.

Twice before they reached Como they almost caught up to the Huey. Each time, it returned to the air before they got within shooting distance, but they were heartened by the fact it had to keep setting down.

The two squads rendezvoused in Como, where they all switched to fresh mounts from the remuda the Freeholds maintained there. Jim Cantrell joined the posse and shared the intel he’d brought from Breckenridge.

Ellen looked to the East where a paling sky promised a too-soon dawn. “Everybody gather ‘round!” Ellen said, waving the posse over to her. “I want to make sure everyone here understands that we have three main priorities.” She ticked them off with her fingers. “First, we want the children back alive. Second, Jim says Linda Garrett was alive and kicking when last he saw her so we need to find her. And third, we need to keep that helicopter from lifting off.”

She paused to let that sink in. Using one finger, she began to draw a map in the snow. “According to Jim they’ll probably set down in the north end of Breckenridge near the Mountain Thunder Lodge.” She drew an “X” near a squiggly line to mark the spot. “Jim says they have plenty of reinforcements, so I’m assuming they’ll dig in until they get that chopper fixed. Terrell says that should cost them at least one day.” Terrell Johnson was an army trained helicopter mechanic and pilot who had been one of Aaron’s best friends.

“Dan, take your squad over Georgia Pass. That’ll bring you out about here,” she said, indicating a “D” she had just drawn north of Breckenridge. “The rest of us will go over Boreas, cut over to Goose Pasture Tarn and come up from the South. With any luck, we’ll catch them between us.”

Heads were nodding all around the circle. “I want to remind everybody that we’ll be outnumbered so we’ll have to fight smarter and harder. If things go well we’ll be in position to attack by three this afternoon. Once you’re in place, I want you to settle down and get some rest. We’ll take out their guards and hit the town at five minutes after midnight. If they try to leave before then, use your best judgment. Any questions?” Several Freeholders shook their heads no.