Rolling Thunder

CHAPTER SIX

“There he is!” Manning shouted, pointing at the gorge he and McCarter were flying over in the Sikorsky Skycrane.

McCarter glanced down and spotted the terrorists’ ATV, still tilting precariously at the edge of the drop-off where it had come to a stop earlier. Encizo remained trapped in the front seat, shouldering the large wooden crate to keep it from sliding forward any farther. The driver hadn’t yet regained consciousness and continued to lie sprawled next to the Cuban, who glanced up and waved faintly with one hand once he spotted the chopper.

“This could get tricky,” McCarter said, holding the Sikorsky stable in midair. “If we go down to try to help, the rotor wash is liable to push him over the edge.”

“I think you’re right,” Manning said. “We’ve got to do something, though.”

McCarter shifted his gaze to the route the ATV had taken once it had left the trail. When he spotted a half-fallen, lightning-charred pine tree twenty yards uphill from Encizo’s position, he thought he might have stumbled on the solution.

“Check and see if there’s any rope around here,” he told Manning.

“What for?”

“Just do it!” McCarter snapped.

“Since you asked so nicely,” Manning said with a grin.

The big Canadian swiveled his seat around and snapped open a large footlocker mounted over the rear windshield. The locker was filled mostly with tools and emergency gear, but there was also a large spool of heavy link chain. Manning grunted as he hoisted the spool free.

“Will this do?” he asked McCarter.

“That might work even better. How much do you think is there?”

Manning tried to gauge the length of the chain without unwinding it from the spool. “I don’t know, ten yards. Maybe twenty.”

“Let’s give it a shot,” McCarter said. He jockeyed the controls, pulling the Sikorsky away from Encizo’s position. As he dropped toward the far side of the charred pine, he spelled out his plan. “I’ll get you as close to the ground as I can so you can hop down and hook the chain up to the crane hook. Then run a line under that pine and find a way to secure it to the ATV.”

“So you can winch it,” Manning guessed. “Good idea.”

“That’s why they put me in charge instead of you.”

Manning let out a snort. “And here I thought it was your charm.”

“That, too,” the Briton replied. “Now hop to it.”

“Yes, sir!”

McCarter brought the Sikorsky to within ten feet of a reasonably flat escarpment. The rotor wash raised a cloud of leaves and pine needles, revealing the bare rock Manning would have to land on. The big Canadian manipulated the boom’s remote controls, releasing the winch hook mounted under the fuselage. Once he’d unwound six yards of cable, he locked the winch in place and swung his door open.

“Wait for a thumbs-up,” he told McCarter.

McCarter nodded. “Good luck.”

Manning stepped out onto the cockpit ladder and lowered himself to the last rung, then reached out and let the chain spool drop with a loud clatter onto the escarpment. Once McCarter had lowered the Sikorsky another couple feet, Manning pushed free and dropped to the ground a few feet from the spool. He grimaced as a flash of pain raced up both legs, but there was no time to dwell on his discomfort. He quickly affixed one end of the chain to the winch hook, then limped faintly as he made his way to the toppled pine, feeding out the length of chain behind him. He was rolling the spool under the pine when Encizo called out to him.

“That you, Gary?”

“Stay put,” Manning called back. From where he was standing, the tethered crate blocked his view of Encizo.

“Don’t have much choice.”

“We’re going to tug you back to solid ground.” Manning quickly relayed the plan as he continued to unroll the spool. He was halfway to the ATV when he ran out of chain. Staring up at the Sikorsky, which was still hovering in position above the charred pine, he signaled for McCarter to feed out more cable.

As he was waiting, Manning detected a glint of refracted light to his right. He looked over his shoulder and traced the glint to a mountain ridge a hundred yards away. As quickly as it had appeared, the flash disappeared.

“Anyone else in these hills that you know about?” he called out to Encizo.

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Encizo called back. “Why?”

“I think I caught some light bouncing off a pair of binocs,” Manning said.

“Maybe it’s reinforcements,” Encizo replied. “Wasn’t the militia supposed to be on its way up here?”

“Yeah,” Manning said, “but they were coming the other way.”

“We better get the show on the road, then,” Encizo said. “Last thing we need is another warm BLM welcome.”

By now McCarter had let out another twenty yards of cable. Manning tugged at the spool, pulling the chain until he’d reached the ATV. There was no trailer jack and he doubted the rear bumper would hold up, so he dropped flat against the ground and reached under the vehicle, knotting the chain to the chassis. Doing so, he nudged the ATV slightly and it groaned, inching farther over the edge of the precipice. One of the rear tires began to rise off the ground.

“Shit!”

Manning quickly scrambled out from under the vehicle and grabbed at the bumper, pressing down with his full weight.

“Push the crate back!” he shouted to Encizo.

“I don’t know about—”

“Push it back!” Manning repeated.

Manning shifted his weight and began pulling at the bumper. He was in no position to signal for McCarter to start reeling the ATV in, but the Sikorsky nonetheless began to move upward, taking in the chain’s slack. It was going to be close; Manning could feel the ATV slipping forward, pulling him toward the precipice.

“Faster, David!” he muttered, gritting his teeth as he pulled harder on the bumper. He felt his hamstrings and lower back straining from the effort but he refused to let up.

Encizo, meanwhile, had thrown caution to the wind and crawled up out of the driver’s seat and begun to scramble across the top of the crate, trying to rebalance the ATV’s load so it wouldn’t go over the side. Manning stared up at him, his face red, the veins in his neck bulging from his exertion.

“I think we’re gonna make it,” Encizo said. Now that he’d moved from the front to the rear of the ATV, both the vehicle’s rear wheels were back on the ground and it had stopped its forward slide. Moments later, the ATV jerked back a few inches from the precipice. McCarter had taken up all the chain’s slack and was now starting to pull the vehicle from the brink of the abyss.

“Almost there,” Encizo murmured, preparing to jump to the ground once all four wheels were back on firm ground.

Suddenly a muffled blast echoed from up in the hills, followed seconds later by a larger explosion, this one in the air just above the toppled pine. Manning and Encizo looked up simultaneously.

“David!” Encizo cried out.

A mortar shot had just struck the Skycrane’s tail rotor. Destabilized, the chopper had begun to spin around eerily as it dropped toward the ground, taking McCarter down with it.

MCCARTER HAD NO TIME to react. Not that he could have done anything to prevent the Skycrane from crashing. One second he was lurching to one side from the force of the explosion; the next he found the ground rushing up to greet him. All that saved him from being killed on impact was the Sikorsky’s manic air dance; just before striking the pines, it had pirouetted and tilted upward so that the damaged tail section touched down first. When the front end followed suit, the branches of the charred pine helped cushion the landing. Still, the impact was jarring enough to throw McCarter against the front windshield. The glass cracked but held in place as he bounded back into his seat, dazed, blood streaming down his face from a scalp gash.

The Sikorsky had come to rest at an odd angle, tilting slightly upward and sideways just enough to throw off McCarter’s equilibrium. When he tried to stand, his head began to spin. He grabbed for the copilot’s seat to steady himself, but his legs gave out underneath him and he keeled forward, dropping the carbine and toppling to the cockpit’s floor. He struck his head again, this time against the instrument panel. The blow was forceful enough to render him unconscious. The last thing he recalled was the smell of leaking engine fuel.

MANNING STARTED to rush toward the fallen chopper, but his strained hamstrings refused to cooperate, slowing him to a quick hobble. Compounding matters, the ground around him came to life as a stream of gunfire chewed at the dirt and the now-slack length of chain reaching from the ATV to the charred pine. Driven back, he took shelter behind the ATV, kneeling beside Encizo, who’d already retrieved the driver’s Uzi subgun.

“Bastards,” Encizo growled. “Some of them must’ve veered off before they reached the meadow.”

“That or they’ve got a camp around here somewhere,” Manning speculated. He ignored the fiery sensation in his legs and drew his 15-round M-9 Beretta from its shoulder holster. He could no longer see the downed Skycrane, but he could smell smoke and the rank odor of fuel.

“We need to get David out of that chopper before it blows,” he told Encizo, speaking above the gunfire.

“I know,” Encizo said, “but how? They’ve got us pinned down.”

“What about the jalopy?”

“After what it’s been through, I doubt it’s running,” Encizo said, “but let’s give it a—”

Encizo pitched forward, suddenly attacked from behind. The vehicle’s driver had regained consciousness and sprang forward from the front seat armed with a combat knife. The blade bit sharply into Encizo’s shoulder as the Basque knocked him to the ground.

The Basque quickly pulled the knife free and was about to stab Encizo a second time when Manning intervened, instinctively lashing out with the butt of his pistol. He caught the other man just below the right cheekbone, breaking a few teeth. Stunned, the man dropped his knife and his eyes began to roll up inside his head. Before he could collapse on top of Encizo, Manning grabbed hold of him and jerked him back to his feet with so much force the driver reeled backward. He was still trying to catch his balance when he ran out of ground and vanished as quickly as if a trapdoor had just opened under his feet.

Leaning against the ATV for support, Manning slowly limped forward to the edge of the precipice. With both hamstrings out it felt as if his legs had turned to jelly, and each step was an agony. By the time he reached the edge and peered downward, the driver had landed in a contorted, bloody heap at the base of the cliff.

“That’s one down,” Manning murmured.

He turned and headed back toward Encizo. The Cuban had pulled himself to his feet. His shirt was soaked with blood where he’d been stabbed. He ripped the fabric aside and inspected the wound. “He took a nice chunk out of me.”

“Let me take a look,” Manning said.

“Later.” Encizo moved past his teammate and slid into the front seat of the ATV. “Come on, let’s go get David.”

“Easier said than done,” Manning replied, struggling to pull himself into the passenger’s seat. Encizo reached out with his good arm and helped him up.

“Hammies?”

“Yeah,” Manning groaned. “Messed them up playing tug-of-war with the truck here.”

“That sucks,” Encizo told him. “What happened to the good old days when we came through these firefights without a scratch?”

“Times change, I guess,” Manning said. He started to tell Encizo about the gunshot wounds Calvin James had sustained in the meadow when the next stream of gunfire rained on them from the mountains. The crate blocked most of the shots, but a few bullets found their way to the front hood, leaving navel-sized holes. The men knew if they didn’t move they would end up sitting ducks.

Encizo quickly keyed the ignition. The engine turned over several times but wouldn’t catch.

“Come on, you freaking piece of garbage!”

He tried again; this time the engine turned over.

Encizo was shifting into Reverse when their attackers fired another mortar round their way. Manning caught a fleeting glimpse as it whizzed by, missing the ATV by a few yards. It wound up exploding in the gorge behind them, and the sound of the blast echoed through the mountains like a death knell.

“I guess the good news is we must not be carting those nukes after all,” Encizo speculated. “Otherwise they wouldn’t be trying to blow us up.”

“In other words, they don’t have to pull any punches going after us,” Manning replied.

“That’s the bad news,” Encizo said. “Hang on. Here goes…”

The ATV’s front end had been knocked out of alignment during its downhill plunge, and as Encizo guided the vehicle backward, it crabbed sharply to one side. He worked the steering to compensate, and with each turn his wounded shoulder felt as if it were about to fall off.

Encizo backed up the ATV a few more yards, then put on the brakes, bringing the vehicle to a stop several yards short of the pine tree Manning had used to winch the ATV from the edge of the precipice. One of the Sikorsky’s main rotor blades extended out over them, and smoke drifted past the front of the vehicle.

“Okay,” Encizo said, shifting the ATV into neutral. “Let’s try to get to David before he gets fried.”

Manning tried to climb out of his seat. He couldn’t. “No good,” he told Encizo.

“Take the wheel, then,” Encizo said. “I’ll go.”

“I can manage that,” Manning stated.

Encizo climbed out of the driver’s seat, leaving it drenched with blood, then disappeared from view. Manning drew in a deep breath, then braced himself and struggled to duck under the front end of the crate. The effort drained him.

Beretta in hand, Manning scanned his surroundings, looking for signs of the enemy. The gunfire, which had stopped, at least for the moment, had all come from behind him, and all he could see to his right were rock formations, trees and the occasional shrub. As he was turning to his left, he rammed his cheekbone into the crate’s front end.

Muttering an epithet, Manning grabbed the top of the box and pulled himself up until he was sitting on the seat’s headrest. He could see Encizo now. The little Cuban had grabbed hold of the downed chopper’s rotor blade and was swinging his way, hand over hand, toward the cockpit, feet dangling just above the limbs of the charred pine. The tree had been set aflame by burning debris and the flames were crawling along the trunk, racing Encizo toward the aircraft. Manning could see fuel leaking from a rupture in the boom tank. It would take a miracle for Encizo to get to the cockpit and rescue McCarter before the flames reached the fuel and turned the chopper into a fireball.

Manning knew he had to do something. He prepared to fling himself to the ground, hoping he could crawl to the flames and hopefully smother them. Before he could dive forward, however, another volley of gunfire ripped through the pines and pinged along the side of the ATV, forcing him to crawl back behind the cover of the crate. In the process he wrenched his back and a fresh wave of pain shot through his lower torso.

“Son of a bitch!” he growled, pounding the crate with so much force the lid jarred open slightly.

Manning eyed the lid, then glanced back at the fire. It was a long shot, but he figured if he could pry to lid off and heave it far enough, it might be able to snuff out the fire, or at least divert it away from the chopper.

The lid was nailed shut, but Manning had opened a wide enough gap for his fingers, and he tugged upward, ignoring the pain in his back, as well as the bullets slamming into the far side of the ATV. After a few agonizing seconds, the lid finally came free.

Manning glanced into the container, then whistled low and muttered, “I’ll be damned.”

ENCIZO WAS as mindful of the creeping flames as Manning, and when bullets began zipping past his head, he finally let go of the rotor blade and dropped down onto the burning tree. He tore at his blood-soaked shirt, ripping it from his back and then using it to slap at the flames. It worked at first, putting out the part of the fire closest to the fuel spill. He couldn’t get any other of the burning branches without putting himself back into the line of fire, however, and soon it became clear that he was fighting a losing battle.

Pressing the shirt against the gash in his shoulder, Encizo made his way back toward the chopper, half climbing, half stepping over the brittle branches of the pine. Finally he reached the Sikorsky’s ladder and climbed up to the cockpit. Peering in, he saw McCarter struggling to get to his feet, still bleeding from his scalp wound.

“Over here!” Encizo called out.

McCarter glanced up, a quizzical expression on his face.

“Come on!” Encizo jerked the door open and reached out to McCarter. “We’ve got to get out of this firetrap, quick!”

McCarter hesitated, then took Encizo’s hand. The Cuban pulled hard, helping the Briton to the doorway.

“They really pulled the rug out from under you that time, didn’t they?” he wisecracked.

“Rug?” McCarter said dully.

“Let’s go,” Encizo told him. “Gary’s waiting in the ATV.”

“Gary,” McCarter repeated.

Encizo climbed back down the ladder, then dropped to the ground. He was waiting for McCarter to catch up when he heard a loud crash behind him. Turning, he saw the wooden crate tumble over the side of the ATV, spilling its contents onto the ground. Instead of the missiles and warheads the men had been concerned about, the crate had been filled with weapons: LAW rocket launchers, assault rifles, submachine guns and boxes filled with ammo clips. As for Manning, he was beside the vehicle’s rear cargo bay, in the process of setting up a Barrett .50-caliber machine gun on its tripod stand.

“Thought I’d lighten our load,” he called out as Encizo and McCarter made their way to the ATV. “Let’s get the hell out of here before we get toasted!”

“I’ll drive,” Manning told McCarter, pausing to snatch up one of the assault rifles. He handed the gun to McCarter. “You can ride shotgun.”

McCarter stared at the rifle, entranced, as Encizo bounded into the driver’s seat and started the engine.

“Come on, David, dammit!”

McCarter looked up, then moved around the ATV and took a seat next to Encizo.

“Glad to see you in one piece, David,” Manning called out from the rear of the vehicle.

As soon as McCarter climbed in, Encizo geared the ATV and popped the clutch. The vehicle lunged forward, still listing to one side as it raced clear of the downed Sikorsky. Moments later, there was a resounding explosion and shards of flaming shrapnel erupted in all directions. Manning ducked low in the vehicle, aiming the Barrett into the hills. Triggering the gun, he sent an autoburst streaming at their attackers. He couldn’t see if he’d hit anyone, but there was yet another lull in the gunfire coming their way.

Encizo veered the ATV sharply to the right, heading up a slope that led back to the trail it had strayed from earlier. Just as they reached the path, a pair of fleeting shadows passed over the ATV. Glancing up, Encizo and Manning spotted a pair of Cobra gunships heading toward the enemy positions in the hills.

“Hot damn!” Encizo said. “It’s about time we got some help!”

Once he reached the trail, Encizo quickly realized the ATV’s front wheels were so misaligned he was in danger of crashing into the rocks flanking either side of the path. After a few yards he gave up trying and brought the vehicle to a stop.

“Stay put,” he told Manning. “David and I’ll go help mop up, then we’ll come back to get you.”

Manning nodded.

Encizo was halfway out of the ATV when he noticed that McCarter was still in his seat.

“David?” he asked. “Are you all right?”

McCarter stared at Encizo. He looked confused. “David,” he said. “Is that my name?”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

“Amnesia?” Carmen Delahunt was floored by the news Akira Tokaido had just delivered after a briefing with Aaron Kurtzman. “David has amnesia?”

Tokaido nodded. “All these times we’ve accused him of being out of his mind, who’d have thought we’d wind up being right?”

“Not funny,” Delahunt snapped. Anger flushed her cheeks just a shade lighter than her fiery red hair.