Alien Hunter (Flynn Carroll) (33 page)

Flynn’s problem was that he had no idea how to use this weapon. It was a featureless black cylinder, and the end was no longer glowing.

In the firelight, the tiger’s eyes flickered. The face was not angry, it was not cruel. Instead, he was seeing that same questioning expression. Very softly, he said, “Help me.”

Morris came around the car. Another of the weapons was in his hand, and the tip of this one was glowing.

Frantically, Flynn shook his, twisted it, squeezed it until his fingers went numb.

Morris held his at arm’s length.

Flynn stared helplessly at the red tip.

He was hurled backward, falling against the tiger.

But the tiger backed away. Then Morris was on top of him, slamming his face with the fury of the mad. He’d seen it before, he’d felt it before. Guys on angel dust fought like this. Crazies.

From above, there came a powerful wind, sweeping up clouds of dust and causing the tiger to crouch, then turn away.

There was a snap and a deafening roar and the other half of the village burst into flames.

Snarling, Morris leaped to his feet. He raised his weapon. The red went to white, then to iridescent blue. But he didn’t point it at Flynn, he pointed it overhead.

Flynn looked up to see a shape not fifty feet above them. It didn’t make a sound, but it was visible in the firelight. It was the silent helicopter.

The weapon glowed brighter. The base of the helicopter began also to glow. It swerved away. Morris followed it. The helicopter began to smoke.

Flynn was getting to his feet, but then the tiger finally decided to charge, and he was forced to roll aside, throwing up his arms to defend his face.

The tiger went right past him, it’s immense bulk flying through the air with startling ease.

It hit Morris directly in the chest, causing him to plunge fifty feet across the compound and crash to the ground. His weapon flew off into the night. But he was immediately back on his feet. “Snow Mountain,” he said, “do
not
!”

The tiger stared at him.

Overhead, the helicopter began to work its way lower. The remains of the village burned furiously, ringing the scene with dancing flames and casting terrific heat.

Wobbling, the chopper reached eye level. A voice called out, “We can’t figure out how to land this damn thing!”

It was Mac. Sitting beside him was Diana.

The chopper went up, disappearing into the night sky.

Flynn saw that Morris was on his feet. Snow Mountain was close to him. He wasn’t attacking, but he wasn’t doing anything else, either.

Flynn dodged into some shadows, trying to minimize his exposure to Morris.

The wind from above returned. Got stronger. The chopper appeared in front of him, wobbling uneasily at eye level.

Diana peered out. “Flynn, you’re a pilot, what do we do?”

“Draw the cyclic toward you!”

Mac yanked it into his stomach and they lurched away into the dark, then came rocking back.

Mac yelled, “That didn’t work!”

“Reduce power!”

“Got it!”

“Move the cyclic back,
barely
!”

They were hovering now.

“Reduce power more.”

They dropped to an altitude of about four feet. He could reach out and touch them. The chopper wobbled, began drifting into a slow spin.

In seconds, they would lose it. He saw the truck moving. Morris was getting away.

“Jump,” he shouted, “do it now!”

But the chopper shot up into the sky. The truck was quickly disappearing into the dark. Then the helicopter reappeared, nose down, dropping fast. Not the right attitude for a chopper, not this close to the ground. But Flynn could do nothing. They were going to pile the damn thing in.

At the last moment, it lurched. It spun on its axis. Once again, it hovered at an altitude of ten feet.

“See, the bastard won’t land! It’s got a fuckin’ mind of its own.”

It did, Flynn knew. Somewhere in there, a sophisticated crash avoidance system didn’t like Mac’s piloting.

“Jump or die, damnit, both of you! Do it NOW!”

Something dropped out. Flynn recognized it by its shape: it was a shoulder launched urban assault weapon.

Where in the world had Mac come up with a thing like that?

He’d probably never know.

The chopper was still at about five feet. Shielding his eyes with his forearm from the hurricane of dust it was producing, he ran forward.

“It’ll take off again,” he yelled, “
jump
!”

First, Diana leaped out. She tried to roll off the kinetic energy but did it like she’d seen in movies, not the way that worked.

Mac dropped down, rolled expertly, and danced to his feet.

As he came out, Flynn dove into the cockpit and pushed the collective all the way to the floor, causing the rotor blades to lose lift. The chopper dropped to the ground. He turned off the ignition switch and the engine quit.

“That sucker’s alive,” Mac said. “And it don’t like me.” He was caked with dust.

Flynn could no longer see the truck.

Diana hobbled to her feet. The dirt in her hair made her appear to have gone gray.

“Sprain?”

“I’m fine!”

Mac produced a Magnum. Diana had one, too. Good.

Diana dug another Magnum and an iPhone out of her backpack. “Take these.”

Flynn took them. “Safe to use the phone, I wonder?”

“Right now,” Diana said, “all he has is that truck. His money, my friend, is gone. His life is gone.”

“You hacked him?”

“To the bone. If he has cash in his pocket, that’s what he has.”

At that moment, the ground shook. Soon, more flames could be seen flickering through the trees.

“He just did the compound,” Flynn said.

“Then he’s a total bum with nothing but a busted car. ’Cause he ain’t even got any insurance policies. Somebody canceled ’em. And his deeds. They’re gone from the county record office. Plus the electronic backups. Sometime later tonight, that truck’s gonna run out of gas and he’s gonna be walking. That’ll be what he has. Feet.”

The hell with that, he had his life, which was not acceptable.

Flynn ran toward the helicopter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Gathering up the UAW, he told Diana and Mac, “You two stay here, get away from the village, do back-to-back defense. Shoot at any and all movement and expect that tiger to come around at any time. But don’t drop it unless it charges you. The tiger is conflicted, and that might be valuable down the road.”

He got into the pilot’s seat and restarted the engine. As soon as it ran up, he loaded the rotor with lift and rose into the sky.

The lights of structures that lined the lake shot past as he worked the foot pedals to bring the chopper’s yaw under control. At the same time, he looked toward the ranch, hoping to spot the truck in the glow of the fires burning there.

No joy. The truck wasn’t near the compound, and beyond fire light, the land was dead black.

He took the chopper into an uneasy hover, then leaned out of the open door with the UAW on his shoulder. Its sight was light-sensitive, and he soon spotted the truck bouncing through the brush, heading cross-country toward the main road, rather than going anywhere near the ranch’s driveway or the smaller road that served both it and the marina.

He began working the helicopter closer. He was no expert with its controls, though, and it was a struggle.

The UAW had just one rocket in it, so his first shot would be the one he got. The Magnum wouldn’t be useful, just noisy, so the rocket was his chance.

Working the cyclic and the collective, he dropped down and moved closer to the truck at the same time. It was invisible to the naked eye, but easy to see in the sight, and the closer he got, the more the crosshairs converged. But then he would overcontrol the chopper or undercontrol it and the whole process would need to be repeated.

He had just two hours training on helicopters. He hadn’t even soloed. Still, this commercial-military hybrid was relatively easy to fly, and he was beginning to be able to close in nicely when the whole airframe started shuddering, the collective came up on its own and the engine went to full throttle.

The chopper went up so fast it was like being in a high-speed elevator. Flynn was normally almost silent, but this caused him to cry out with surprise.

The autopilot had taken over. It was probably controlled by Morris down in the truck.

The altimeter was winding up at breakneck speed. As he watched, he went through two thousand feet.

Okay, think. He was not going to overcome this situation using manual control. At best, the battle that would ensue between him and Morris and the autopilot would crash the chopper. He surveyed the instrument panel. No obvious autopilot override.

There was one thing he could do that had to work. Also, though, it might kill him.

He took the UAW up and sighted in the speeding truck, but the sight didn’t even activate. Far out of range.

So this was it. He was down to one choice, and it was a really bad one.

He checked his straps, then reached down and twisted the fuel shutoff valve, stopping the engine. The warning horn sounded as the wing went into autorotation and the ascent stopped. The autopilot was still controlling it, though, and as soon as Morris realized what he’d done, he would try to crash it, no question.

Working quickly, he flipped circuit breakers, hoping to kill something crucial, like the autopilot’s telemetry. Turning off its power supply wouldn’t matter. Autopilots have backup batteries.

As he flipped more and more switches, the instrument lights went dark, then the instruments themselves ceased functioning.

He was now on straight visual in a dead black night, with only the distant lights along the shore, and those of the various fires below, to orient him.

Once again, he brought the UAW back to his shoulder. As the chopper lost altitude in uncanny silence, he searched for the truck.

It was moving at breakneck speed, not a hundred yards shy of the main road. Flynn didn’t care whether this bastard’s bank accounts had been hacked or not, or what had happened to him. He needed killing.

As the chopper continued to descend, the truck grew in the UAW’s sight, until finally the crosshairs began flashing yellow.

A few more feet. He dropped the chopper’s nose. Maybe they would die together. Fine, he didn’t care.

The crosshairs moved closer and closer together. Then, very suddenly, they were red, and in the center of their cross was the truck.

He fired the rocket, which left the tube with a ferocious roar and a kick.

He tossed the tube behind him out of the way and concentrated on piloting the chopper, which was now rapidly losing altitude.

A blinding flash of white fire announced the end of the truck, and Flynn roared, “Abby, baby, Abby baby, I love you!”

He couldn’t bring her back, but this was the end for the evil bastard who had destroyed her, and that felt damn wonderful.

Police procedures didn’t matter. Morris was not human, therefore the only law that applied was the law of jungle, and Flynn did that kind of law as well as any of the criminals he so despised.

Using the cyclic, he got the chopper aimed straight toward the dying fires of the village. As he came in, he heard both Magnums being discharged.

Adjusting the collective to decrease lift on the rotor, he dropped down as fast as he dared, hitting the ground approximately a hundred yards from the village.

His jaw snapped, a flash went past his eyes.

The helicopter became still. His ears rang from the shock of the impact.

Before moving, he checked himself: hands okay, arms, feet, legs. If he was going to go into a firefight with impact injuries, he wanted to know where he was impaired, and what it would do to his effectiveness.

He jumped out of the chopper and approached the village. To the west, huge flames still gushed up from the ranch compound. Further south, a smaller glow marked the position of the truck.

Diana and Mac came out of the underbrush.

“I thought you crashed,” she said.

“No. What were you two firing at?”

“The tiger’s out there.”

“Has it charged?”

“You can’t ask us to take a chance like that!”

She was right, but he was also relieved when, very suddenly and in absolute silence, Snow Mountain appeared. His stripes were such perfect camouflage in the flickering firelight that it almost seemed as if he had materialized out of clear air rather than walked out of the shadows.

He came closer. Mac readied himself to shoot again.

“No,” Flynn said.

Broken only by the crackle of flames, the silence the tiger brought with him was as strange as a cry from a distant world.

Flynn reached out and laid his hand on the lion’s head—a small human hand lost in the fur of the immense animal.

“You could sell that thing for a damn fortune,” Mac said.

“Don’t even think about it.”

The tiger looked off into the dark.

Flynn was relieved that Diana wasn’t the traitor he had thought her to be. “We’re a good team,” he said.

Snow Mountain turned and slipped into the darkness.

Mac ran after him. “Hey!”

“Leave him be, Mac.”

“I don’t get my skin or to sell him to a zoo or nothin’. Shit!”

“He’s got his own demons to deal with, that one does.”

“He’s part human, isn’t he?” Diana asked.

“Be my guess. And who knows what else?”

“What’ll happen to him?”

“He’ll roam the land, make some kind of a life for himself.” He looked off in the direction he had gone. “That’s the loneliest creature in the world.”

A cathedral silence settled, as they all contemplated together the plight of Snow Mountain. In the distance, a dull explosion echoed from the direction of the compound.

“How did you ever get out?” Flynn asked Mac.

“I had to do a good bit of killin,’ tell the truth. Is that murder, doin’ those little gooks?”

“There’s no law to cover killing aliens, if that’s what they are. There will be, but not now.”