The Hunters (14 page)

Smoke drifted across his position—but not the smoke of rifle fire and grenades. This smoke was red, and it smelled of burning chalk. The smoke came from a clearing behind the stooges' former perimeter. Hussein looked in that direction, and he saw something that made him forget the strange smoke.

There it was. The airplane. Sure enough, it had not crashed but had somehow landed intact, here in the middle of nowhere. Allah's will has brought me to this place, Hussein thought, for this very moment in the jihad.

Gaalos
scurried around the airplane, along with a couple of stooge soldiers in their camouflage. Some of them were unloading things from a door in the back of the airplane, and some were standing guard.

Hussein raised his weapon. Rested it across his left forearm. Aimed at one of the
gaalos
.

He chose not to fire. The range was a little too long. He knew he would get only one chance at this, and he needed to make it count. A soldier of God must not waste such an opportunity. Hussein took the grenade from his vest and held it with the thumb and first two fingers of his left hand. The effort felt much like hefting a rock to throw at an unclean stray dog.

Holding the grenade's lever down tight, Hussein pulled the pin with his teeth. Spat out the pin. Set himself to run like a cheetah.

W
hen Parson saw the red smoke, he had only a second to make a decision: stay or go. Shove the throttles to the stops and try to climb away, or touch down and deal with whatever lurked on the ground.

He elected to stay.

With much of the LZ already behind him and trees in front of him, Parson judged it safer to let the DC-3 settle into the dirt. Hardly the first time he'd landed in a hot LZ for troops needing emergency resupply. He just hoped Ongondo's men could keep al-Shabaab at bay long enough to offload the cargo.

Parson closed the throttles and made a three-point landing: He let the tailwheel and the main gear contact the ground at the same time. That made for a shorter landing roll. He hit the brakes with the toes of his boots and let the airplane bounce and rattle through the dust until it rumbled to a stop.

For a few seconds, he peered out the windscreen as the props spun at idle power. No one came near the airplane. The soldiers he could see stayed in their defensive positions in fighting holes and behind piles of sandbags. Where were the troops to handle the cargo?

“Uh, hello?” Parson said, voicing his frustration over the interphone. “A little help here?”

Surely Ongondo and his men would realize Parson wanted to keep his engines running for a quick offload and an immediate takeoff.

“I think they're too busy holding off the enemy,” Chartier said.

Parson leaned forward as far as the inertial reel for his harness would allow. He scanned outside and still saw no help coming. Fingered his transmit switch. “Spear Alpha,” he called, “we need to offload and get out.”

No answer. But apparently Ongondo heard him and sent the only men he could spare. Two AMISOM soldiers emerged from the tree line. At one point both of them raised their rifles and fired at something Parson could not see. They approached the airplane walking backward, facing the firefight. Watching for the enemy. And not watching the spinning propellers.

“They're going to come too close,” Chartier said. As he spoke, the men were twenty yards from the left engine and moving closer.

Parson did not want to shut down. Restarting the engines would eat up precious seconds. He slid open his window.

“Hey,” he shouted. “The props! Walk around them!”

Amid the gunfire and engine noise, the men did not hear him.

“Stupid sons of bitches,” Parson muttered.

He knew they weren't really stupid sons of bitches. They were just not used to working around airplanes—and they were trained to focus on the enemy.

“Damn it to hell,” Parson hissed. He yanked the mixture levers to idle cutoff.

The engines died, and the props spun down to a stop. Perfect, Parson thought. Now we're fucked.

Nothing he could do about it, though, except get everybody moving to kick the cargo off the aircraft as quickly as possible.

He popped the buckle on his harness, removed his headset, and pulled himself out of the pilot's seat. Geedi rose from his jump seat to get out of the way.

“All right, people,” Parson called, “help those guys get the stuff off this old bird. You, too, Carolyn. No pictures right now. I want to take off five minutes ago. Let's move, move, move.”

Geedi and Chartier followed Parson. Gold was already opening the boarding door. She jumped to the ground, stuck her head back inside the airplane, and said, “Pass the boxes to Carolyn and me. Alain can help stand guard.”

“Ouais,”
Chartier said. He and Carolyn Stewart hopped out of the DC-3. Chartier drew his Smith & Wesson revolver and held it with both hands. The pistol seemed pitifully inadequate.

One of the AMISOM troops also stood guard, while the other slung his rifle over his shoulder and helped with the cargo. Parson and Geedi worked in the cargo compartment, handing boxes, coolers, and cartons outside to Gold. Stewart and the AMISOM soldier took each item from Gold and stacked the supplies on the ground.

Gunfire crackled all around the LZ. Rocket-propelled grenades exploded within four hundred yards of the airplane.

“Something's wrong out there,” Chartier called.

Of course something's wrong, Parson thought. We came down in the middle of a damned firefight. Couldn't the AMISOM troops beat back a bunch of half-trained jihadists?

He heaved the last item, a crate of bottled water, over to Gold.

“I think they've broken through the perimeter,” Gold said.

Parson looked toward a patch of woods. He had to squint and observe closely to believe what he saw. Men fired from sandbagged fighting positions, but not the same men as before. They wore a ragged collection of tunics, field jackets, and head wraps. Other al-Shabaab fighters ran among the trees and scrub, crouching, shooting, moving on. AMISOM troops had pulled back from an opening in their line and were firing at the terrorists from either side of it. Shouts, screams, and gunshots echoed across the field. The two soldiers who'd helped with the offload ran to the aid of their comrades.

“Get in the plane,” Parson shouted. “Everybody. Now.”

Gold and Stewart clambered aboard. Stewart began buckling herself into a cargo compartment seat. Parson pulled the Beretta out of its holster on his survival vest. Handed the weapon to Gold.

“Frenchie and I will start engines,” Parson said. “You watch through the door back here. If any bad guys get near the airplane, light 'em up.”

“You got it.”

Gold certainly wasn't objecting to having weapons on board now, Parson noted. Old Army instincts kicking in.

Chartier climbed aboard, still holding his Magnum pistol. He followed Parson into the cockpit. Placed the weapon on the floor between the seats. Both pilots put on their headsets. Didn't bother with their harnesses. Neither picked up a checklist. Geedi took his place in the flight mechanic's jump seat.

Chartier reached overhead and popped on both battery switches. Checked the fuel tank selectors, flipped on the boost pumps. Shoved the mixture levers to
AUTO RICH
. Set the carb air temp controls to
COLD
.

“I'm gonna gang-start these bitches,” Parson said.

In the C-130 and the C-5, his crews had practiced emergency bug-out, screw-the-checklist, simultaneous engine starts. In the Herk, you could start one engine to get bleed air flowing, then gang-start the other three as long as you had a good pneumatic system. The DC-3 had electric starters—and two engines instead of four. Similar concept, though. Parson could save critical seconds and crank both engines at once. If he had strong battery power.

He cracked open the throttles a quarter inch. Set the magneto switches.

“Hold the brakes for me, will you?” Parson said.

Chartier pressed his boots on the pedals while Parson reached up with both hands. Using four fingers, Parson moved the safety switches and starter switches for the engines.

“They're coming,” Gold shouted from the cargo compartment.

Over his left arm, Parson looked out the windscreen. Five or six al-Shabaab fighters were running across the field toward the airplane.

The propellers began to turn. The engines coughed, smoked, backfired. Parson almost let go of the starter switches. Then he realized the backfiring was actually Gold firing the Beretta. One of the al-Shabaab men stumbled and dropped.

More shooting. Rounds smacked into the aluminum skin of the DC-3. Parson wanted badly to look behind him to see if anyone was hurt, but he kept his hands on the panel. The left engine caught, sputtered, and its prop began spinning. Then the right engine spun up.

“Everybody all right?” Parson shouted. Took his fingers off the overhead panel.

Chartier turned in his seat, looked, and said, “They're okay.”

Seven or eight AMISOM troops sprinted through the field. One of them fell. Two fired from the hip. The firefight seemed to ebb and flow through the very path Parson needed for takeoff. He grabbed the throttles and put his feet on the rudder pedals.

“I got the plane, Frenchie,” Parson said.

“D'accord.”

The battle intensified, practically under Parson's wings. AMISOM and al-Shabaab fighters kept trading fire throughout the landing zone. Single pops of aimed shots followed long sprays on full auto. Parson figured the only reason the terrorists hadn't emptied a full ammo belt into the cockpit was the AMISOM guys were holding them back. For the moment.

Parson shoved the throttles and began to roll. He wanted to swing the tail around close to the trees to get as long a takeoff run as possible. Launching from this patch of dirt would have been tricky in the best of conditions, let alone in the middle of a damned gun battle. The DC-3 bounced over the uneven ground. The whole airframe vibrated with the power of the engines. The smell of exhaust fumes wafted through the cockpit. The fumes came into the airplane through the door in back, which Gold kept open as she scanned for threats.

The aircraft lumbered to the edge of the LZ. Parson pressed on the top of the right rudder pedal to hold the brake, and he nudged up the left throttle. The DC-3 swung around to the right, with maybe three thousand feet of open dirt in front of it now. The props kicked up plumes of dust.

“All right, Frenchie,” Parson said. “Call my airspeeds.”

“Bien sûr.”

Parson checked the prop levers full forward and placed the heel of his hand on the throttles. He wanted to time his takeoff roll to avoid hitting any of the AMISOM or al-Shabaab fighters. He didn't care if he killed a terrorist, but a jihadist's head going through a prop wouldn't do the airplane much good.

But every time he thought he saw a clear path, more gunmen ran or stumbled through his field of vision. Some were AMISOM; some were terrorists.

“Get the fuck out of the way,” Parson muttered.

Three more terrorists came out of the trees. AMISOM soldiers fired on them, and two of them fell. One kept running. Straight at the airplane.

The jihadist wielded an AK-47 in his right hand, and he held something small in his left. A short guy—he looked like just a boy.

“What's that kid doing?” Chartier said.

Parson realized he would never get his clear path. And he couldn't just sit there and let a gunman pump bullets into the cockpit.

“Sucks to be you,” Parson said.

He released the brakes and jammed the throttles. The Pratts roared, and the DC-3 began rolling.

The boy terrorist stood defiantly in the takeoff path. He cocked back his arm to throw something. Parson saw the baleful look in the boy's eye as the airplane accelerated past him. Then the boy disappeared behind the left wing.

A fleeting thought entered Parson's mind as he watched the airspeed needle come off the peg: That little fucker's got a grenade.

“Thirty,” Chartier said.

“Power's good,” Geedi said.

Parson held the throttles forward; they had a way of creeping back if you didn't guard them. The throttles, the instruments, and the chaos outside occupied so much of his mind that for an instant he took in more information than he could process. A sharp thump sounded somewhere behind the DC-3. The airplane jolted slightly.

At the same time, something peppered the left wing. Sounded like gravel slung against the underside of a car.

In Parson's task-saturated state, he did not connect the thump with the boy's grenade. For a second he thought: We just ran over somebody.

The aircraft began to vibrate. The motion came from somewhere on the left side. The left main gear seemed to dig into mud, though the field was dry and dusty.

The DC-3 began to swerve to the left. Parson stomped right rudder. Made no difference at all.

What the fuck's wrong with this airplane? Parson wondered.

“Reject,” Chartier called.

All of Parson's instincts screamed for him to continue the takeoff. A firefight swirled around him. The wrong side was winning. Getting airborne was the only escape.

But the DC-3 wasn't getting airborne. The plane was no longer accelerating. The trees on the other side of the field loomed closer, and the Pratts roared at full power, but the airspeed needle hung at forty. Parson couldn't even keep the aircraft tracking a straight line.

Chartier was right. Continuing the takeoff roll amounted to suicide. The airplane would never get off the ground—just rip an exploding, flaming, smoking hole in the trees ahead.

Stopping looked like a death wish, too. The DC-3—and its occupants—would become a stationary bullet magnet. Their only hope lay in getting out and away from the airplane.

Parson yanked the throttles to idle. Stood on the brakes. With his harness unbuckled, the rapid deceleration nearly slid him out of his seat. He braced himself against the instrument panel with his right hand, clutched the yoke with his left.

Chartier ripped the mixture levers back to idle cutoff. Smacked the feathering buttons with the heel of his hand. Slapped the battery switches to
OFF
. The roar of the Pratts died away, and the aircraft lurched to a stop. With the engines now silent, spatters of gunfire sounded as if the shooters aimed from practically under the wings.

“Get out and find cover!” Parson shouted. As he spoke, Gold fired two rounds through the open door.

Geedi plucked the headset from his ears, stood, and folded his jump seat out of the way. Scrambled aft toward the door. Chartier untangled himself from his harness straps and interphone cord and followed Geedi. Parson left the cockpit last. He didn't have to fumble for his survival vest because he still wore it over his flak jacket. But he nearly forgot about the medical bag; he turned around and grabbed it on the way out.

Gold still aimed Parson's Beretta through the doorway. She fired three more rounds. Parson could not see the target. A bullet from outside tore through the aircraft. Two bright holes of daylight appeared on either side of the cargo compartment.

Sweeping around with the pistol, Gold scanned outside. Apparently she saw no more threats. She jumped from the airplane. Geedi grabbed Stewart and pulled her through the exit. Chartier leaped out behind them, revolver in hand. Standing near the door, Parson confirmed that everyone but him had gotten out of the aircraft; they gathered near the left wing.