Soar (40 page)

“And your point is?”

Mick’s eyebrows wriggled. “Problem with you blanket-heads is you have no sense of humor. You—”

“Mick—chopper. Ten o’clock.” Sam pointed southeast.

Ritzik followed the spook’s arm. It was the second HIND. It was closing. He didn’t need this. “Mick—can you give us some altitude here?” He turned, on the verge of going aft to free up the machine gun, when he heard Rowdy’s voice in his earpiece.

Pray long enough,
Ritzik thought,
and every once in a while your prayers will actually be answered.
“Rowdy—Loner.” Ritzik clapped his hands over his ears so he could make out what the sergeant major was saying. “Repeat-repeat.” He listened intently for about twenty seconds. Then said, “Roger. I copy. Wilco. Loner out.”

1005.
Ritzik leaned forward so he could shout in Mickey D’s ear. “He wants us to come in hot—strafe the ravine, then the southern ridge. Then he wants you to hover on the south ridge. I’ll drop the ladder and we’ll go out—look like an assault team. Sam will retrieve and stow the ladder once we’re down. Then you drop behind the ridge—settle on the deck.” He squeezed the pilot’s shoulder. “Can do?”

“Coming in hot’s no prob,” Mick shouted back. He looked at the HIND. “The hovering may be a little rough, though.” He wiggled his head back and forth. “Hey—somebody stick that Polish suppository back in my ear so I can hear the crap that son of a bitch is transmitting, okay?”

R
OWDY YATES
heard the HIP before he saw it. He’d scrambled the five Delta shooters off the southern ridge, ordering them to leave enough detritus behind so their positions still appeared to be manned. Then they’d all taken up counterambush positions on the north ridge. Doc Masland held down the left flank with one of the RPGs. Goose had the second launcher on the right. Rowdy, who kept Wei-Liu and the spooks close to him, commanded the center field of fire.

The HIP came in fast and low. It skimmed the north ridge, wheeled sharply, then laid suppressive fire fifty feet below the Americans. Rowdy could see Gene Shepard in the doorway, Chinese helmet on his head, working the machine gun, shell casings flying past his feet as he sprayed the ground. As the HIP had careened a hundred yards east of the truck, he detonated the shaped charge, which he’d run down into the ravine.

Even two hundred yards off, Rowdy still felt the heat and concussion. He peered through the thick black smoke. The explosion brought down two good-sized trees. Rowdy shot
a quick, approving look at X-Man—the kid obviously knew his stuff.

Mick took the HIP through a series of evasive moves, swinging the chopper up and around and running southeast to northwest. Then he swung back for another strafing run. This time Gene worked the road, just south of the explosion. The rocky base of the southern ridge was shattered by withering machine-gun fire.

Rowdy scanned the horizon. “Loner—Rowdy. Where’s the HIND?” He waited, but received no answer. Ritzik probably hadn’t heard him—there was too much noise.

1010.
The HIND’s crew wanted to know what the hell was going on. That much was clear from the urgent tone of the transmissions. But Sam Phillips couldn’t make out what was being asked. Nor could he answer. He’d done everything he’d been instructed to do: the IFF was transmitting, and he’d tried mouthing a few garbled words of Mandarin. But military jargon was military jargon, and he just didn’t have any of it in his head. Jeezus H. Kee-rist. He was going to get them all killed.

1011.
Mick rotated the HIP, then hovered fifty feet below the crest of the southern ridge. When the chopper had been stable for ten seconds, TV Weaver tossed the assault ladder out of the port-side doorway. Gene Shepard was first man out. The tall, lanky Soldier lowered himself onto the rope ladder and started down rung by rung, fighting the stuttering hover of the chopper, the blast of rotor wash, and the swaying, unstable rungs. Ty followed. He’d left the heavy sniper’s rifle behind. Instead, he carried the RPG launcher strapped across his back, the haversack of four rockets bumping up against it.

Ritzik held the top of the ladder to try to steady it. He
glanced up to see Sam Phillips clamber from the cockpit, then turned his attention back to the ladder. Ritzik grappled with the ropes, trying to steady them as Ty fought to keep his balance. The sniper was struggling under forty pounds of launcher and rockets that pulled him backward off the pendulous ladder.

1011:27.
Mick caught a glimpse of the HIND. It had circled behind them and was approaching from the south.
How the hell long had it been there? Had they taken the bait, or were they lining up for a missile shot?

In that instant he lost control of the big chopper for a second and a half. The HIP pivoted abruptly, rose six feet, then dropped a yard.

1011:28.
The sudden movement bounced the sniper off the ladder. Ty fell backward. He landed atop Gene Shepard and knocked the lanky first sergeant loose. The two men dropped three yards, then landed in a heap. Ritzik watched as Shepard rolled off the sniper’s inert body. Shepard looked up at Ritzik, who was frozen in the doorway.

1011:31.
Ritzik screamed, “Sam—you pull the ladder up.” Then he swung out of the door, grabbed the two heavy rails of the assault ladder, brought them together so he could get both his hands around them, then dropped like a stone, fast-roping the twenty feet to the ground without using his feet. By the time he’d landed there was smoke coming off the thick leather palms of his gloves.

1011:33.
Ritzik looked down. Ty was breathing—so the fall hadn’t killed him. But he’d landed hard on the weapons. Maybe knocked the breath clean out of him. Maybe worse. But no time to deal with it now. Quickly, Ritzik cut the
launcher’s sling in two and sliced through the right-hand shoulder harness of the rocket sack. Shepard gingerly rolled the sniper onto his side and eased the canvas strap off the inert man’s shoulder.

1011:41.
Ritzik looked up as he unslung the AK. The dark belly of the HIP pivoted, then swung away, revealing a shockingly blue sky. Shepard put his arm through the rocket sack, flipped it onto his back, and snatched up the launcher. Ritzik took Ty by the shoulder straps of his body armor and dragged him to cover.

The sniper’s eyes opened and he tried to speak. But nothing came out but a gasp. Ritzik said, “We’ll be back for you.”

1011:52.
Ritzik and Gino ran a jagged pattern just below the ridgeline until they reached the cover of trees. The two men threw themselves down and crawled until they had a clear view of the road below. Shepard reached back, plucked a rocket from the bag, jammed the rocket into the muzzle of the launcher, and hefted the assembly onto his shoulder. Then, careful to make sure that Ritzik was hunkered clear of the RPG’s backblast area, he aimed the rocket halfway down the southern ridge and pulled the trigger.

1011:52.
“X-Man—keep your glasses on the pilot. Give me a running commentary. I want to know every time he takes a breath.” Rowdy’s focus was on his RPG, but his peripheral vision picked up the HIND as the gunship reacted to Mick’s maneuvering.

“Gotcha.” The CIA man squinted into compact field glasses. “Pilot’s looking down at his instruments, concentrating on something,” X-Man said. “Can’t see behind his visor, but his mouth is moving like hell.”

The HIND slowly crested the southern ridge, not three
hundred yards from where Ritzik and Shepard lay. X-Man panned away from the gunship, catching Shepard as he fired the RPG. The spook followed the rocket’s path with the binoculars.

1011:59.
“Didja see that?” X-Man’s voice was excited. “It was almost like he stuttered the goddamn chopper when the RPG blasted into the hillside.” And then the spook ducked instinctively as the HIND’s Gatling began to chew up the south ridge where the RPG had exploded.

“C’mon, c’mon, X. Sit-rep.” Rowdy watched as the rounds walked down the ravine, debris flying. Suddenly the HIND yawed, then recovered. “X, goddammit, what’s happening in the frigging cockpit?”

“Pilot just flipped up his visor. He’s looking down into the ravine.”

Rowdy found the gunship and settled the RPG’s iron sights on the HIND as it rocked, then steadied itself. The big ship, he noted with some satisfaction, was cumbersome at slow speed. “C’mon, X—where’s the John Madden?”

“He’s scanning the ravine,” X-Man said. “Coming down slightly. Oh, wait—he just shouted something into his mike. His lips are moving a mile a minute.”

Rowdy settled the sights on the HIND’s baffled air intakes, the muzzle of the RPG dropping evenly with the chopper.

“He’s dropping some more. Talking. Oh, oh, oh—his eyes went wide. He sees the bomb now. He’s—”

Rowdy shouted, “Execute! Execute! Execute!” into his mike.

There was about a three-quarter-second lag. And then all three RPGs fired in rapid sequence into the ravine, shrieking away from the launchers, trailing white smoke.

Masland’s shot missed. The rocket struck the armored
glass of the HIND’s forward cockpit. The impact shook the gunship but never penetrated the gunner’s thick protective cocoon.

Through his field glasses, X-Man followed the smoke trail as the second round went wide, detonating against the shell of the burning truck. He watched, frozen, screaming, “Oh, shit,” as the HIND’s gunner manipulated the Gatling’s muzzles up, up, up, and left, trying to swivel the gun in the direction the RPG rounds had come from.

And then Rowdy’s big forearm smacked the spook’s head from behind, the binoculars went flying, and X-Man was knocked to the ground.

Because Rowdy’s rocket had found its mark: the big crate holding the MADM, and the Chinese Pentolite detonated with an even bigger explosion than Rowdy had dared to hope for.

The blast caught the belly of the HIND, blowing the gunship’s stubby wing off. The chopper yawed right as the pilot reacted. Then a huge pressure wave hit the aircraft, and almost immediately, the HIND began to drop. Rowdy watched as the HIND’s pilot fought with the controls, trying to stabilize his aircraft. But he couldn’t. The Pentolite created a huge vortex of negative pressure, and the rotors couldn’t bite air because there was literally no air to bite.

The HIND bucked, then dropped rocklike onto the ravine floor. The rotor tips hit the ground, disintegrating as they cut themselves into shrapnel.

Rowdy loaded another round into the launcher’s muzzle, took aim, and fired at the chopper’s exhaust vent. The round went wide. But it hit the aft portion of the aircraft squarely, exploding in a great bright flash, knocking the tail rotor off. The HIND spun once, centrifugally. And then the chopper sideswiped the smoldering truck and exploded in a huge, orange ball of fire.
The ordnance detonated, sending rockets and ammo spewing into the sky, trailing white smoke like so many fireworks. Rowdy could feel the intensity of the heat from where he lay. He rolled onto his side, looked over at Wei-Liu, and cracked a grin. “Nice work, Madam Deputy Assistant Secretary,” Rowdy said. “Glad to see we’re all still here—and ready to exfil.”

Wei-Liu wiped dust from her face. She looked at Rowdy Yates. His eyes, for the briefest of instants, displayed a look of such utter relief that it shocked her. And then, like a curtain drawn, the vulnerability faded. She started to say something, but remained silent; drained. Incapable of words or emotions. She was exhausted. She barely had the energy to blink. She shook her head vacantly and monotoned, vaguely in the
sergeant major’s direction, “I’d really like a good night’s sleep.”

1013.
Ritzik clambered to his feet, ducking involuntarily as half a dozen Gatling rounds popped like cherry bombs. He ran to the ridgeline and looked south, about four hundred yards, to where the HIP, resting precariously on its broken landing gear, idled. He raised both arms high above his head, fists clenched, thumbs extended. Then he turned, waved at the opposite ridge, and pressed his transmit button. “Rowdy, Loner. Get everybody over here so we can exfil ASAP.”

Ritzik listened as the sergeant major growled something. Then he said, “Roger that, Rowdy. We have to refuel.”

He turned toward the HIP. “Mick—did you copy that?” Ritzik watched as the big transport’s rotors gained speed, and then the aircraft levitated gingerly, rose into the sky, and nosed eastward, crossing the ridge to where Rowdy had prepositioned the fuel bladder.

Ritzik clapped his hand to his ear so he could hear the sergeant major’s transmission. “Roger that,” Ritzik said. “I’ll bring Ty with me.”

Ritzik scrambled back along the ridge to where he’d left the sniper. Ty was conscious. But it was obvious he was in tremendous pain. Ritzik looked down. “What’s the prob, Ty?”

The sniper blinked. “Broken ribs, I think,” he said between gritted teeth. “Oh, God, it hurts to breathe.”

“Pain’s good for you,” Ritzik said. “Tells you you’re still alive.”

“Then I must be alive,” Weaver said, “because I hurt like hell.”

“You’ll feel better when we get you to Dushanbe.”

“Is there beer in Dushanbe?”

“Affirmative.”

“Then you’re right: I’ll feel better in Dushanbe.”

“Time to move out.” Ritzik reached down. “Can you stand?”

The sniper grimaced. He took Ritzik’s hand. His grip was strong. “We’ll see, won’t we, Loner?”

T
HE TREATY SIGNING
was a bona fide media event, with 600 reporters and TV crews from all over the world. The White House downplayed the summit, bringing less than a hundred White House, State Department, and DOD staffers. Despite a last-minute plea from the president, a 150-person CODEL
²⁶
flew in on four of the Air Force’s most luxurious transports to represent the House and Senate leadership—a shameless publicity stunt according to SECDEF Rockman, who did not accompany the president. In marked contrast, the Chinese made sure that more than 9,500 of its officials were present in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People to witness the signing ceremony.