Counter Attack

Chapter 48

Sammy Chan leapt sideways behind a tree as Didge fired back at the American. Getting in behind Bongo and McHugh, Mac slipped off the porch, using Didge’s covering fire to escape along the lee side of the barracks building.

Stopping at the corner of the barracks, Mac aimed at the tree and let off three-shot bursts at the trunk as Sammy tried for a sighting around it.

‘Didge, your turn,’ said Mac, pausing from firing as soldiers ran towards them from the long factory building a hundred metres away.

As Didge ran around the corner, Sammy reappeared from his hide and let go a long burst from the M4 carbine, dropping Mac flat to the ground as the building’s corner exploded in splinters of wood.

Finding his feet as Didge grabbed him by the collar, Mac accelerated towards Bongo and McHugh, who were inside the machinery shed. Sprinting after them, still struggling to comprehend what was happening, Mac watched the greenish lights come on in the Little Bird’s cockpit — Bongo was going to fly out.

‘No,’ said Mac, knowing where this was going to end.

Didge stopped and turned back the way they’d come, knelt and fired several three-shot bursts as Mac continued running.

The whine of a helo starter motor began, its beeping alarm piercing the night, and Mac heard the slow whoosh of a rotor turning as he stopped and covered Didge. Through the partially lit stand of trees that separated the barracks from the machinery shed, Mac could see the compact form of Sammy Chan tucked in behind a tree trunk; a magazine dropped on the ground and the click of a new one being rammed home sounded.

‘Go,’ said Mac, turning and running up behind Didge as Sammy’s full-auto assault ripped through the trees in a right-to-left scything of foliage. Grunting, Didge twisted in the upper body and dropped his rifle as a bullet whipped through the top of his outer bicep, one of the areas not covered by the Kevlar vest.

‘Okay?’ asked Mac, dropping to his knees to reclaim the rifle as Didge backed up behind a tree, his left hand clutching the wound.

‘I’ll live,’ said Didge, bloody hand outstretched for the rifle.

Handing it over as he crawled behind the tree, Mac found Sammy’s muzzle flashes and shot back at them. From the machinery shed, the whooshing of helo rotors intensified as the aircraft prepared to launch.

‘You go,’ said Mac, barely believing what had happened to this mission yet also feeling responsible for Sammy. ‘I’ll cover.’

‘We both stay,’ said Didge.

‘No, I’ll deal with this prick,’ said Mac. ‘He’s my problem, not yours.’

Turning to look back, Didge shot at Sammy as the American broke cover. Taking at least two shots in the bulletproof vest, Sammy was knocked off his feet to land on his side, winded.

‘Like I said,’ said Didge, grabbing Mac by the scruff of the neck and throwing him towards the helo with a huge paw.

As they approached the shed, the Little Bird was at full revs and Mac could see Bongo’s illuminated face, the same face he wore whether making a difficult shot on the pool table or escaping from a rogue PLA camp in the middle of the Cambodian wilderness. Shots pinged and thudded around them and one put a star high in the cockpit glass of the helo.

Looking back, Mac could see Sammy had dragged himself behind an old bulldozer and the PLA cadres were now closing on Sammy’s position and the shed.

The pitch of the Little Bird’s turbine changed and Bongo gestured for Mac and Didge to get out of the way as the deadly helo hovered off the dirt and eased forwards in a storm of dust and debris.

‘Shit,’ said Mac, as the six barrels of the Gatling gun hanging off the helo’s skids spun silently in their warm-up revolutions. Throwing himself sideways to the ground in sync with Didge, he watched as the darkness was lit up by the full force of the Gatling gun — known as a Minigun — cycling at three thousand rounds per minute. The air filled with lead as branches fell and trees collapsed; arms and legs wheeled in crazy arcs as the approaching Chinese soldiers were mowed down.

His hands over his head as the helo downwash hit him with incredible force, Mac watched the Little Bird skew slightly and then the Gatling gun was trained on the bulldozer, opening up with five rounds of 7.62 ammo per second — a rate of fire so high that the predominant sound was a demonic whistling amid a thousand hammer strikes. The yellow Kohmatsu looked grey within six seconds and Mac could smell the blast of lead on steel. Even when the Minigun was shooting the bad guys, it was a terrifying weapon that made a man’s heart stop.

Standing, Didge waved for Mac to follow and ran to the side door of the Little Bird, throwing his rifle in ahead of his leap. Following the big Aussie, Mac ran to the hovering helo, the blast of noise and wind overwhelming his senses.

As he made to jump on, he saw her from the right side of his vision: crouched behind the tree, hands over her ears and looking like a scared child. It was Tani.

‘Fuck,’ said Mac, pausing. His mind roared with the choices as Didge’s hand reached out of the helo and Bongo yelled from behind his glass bubble. The girl turned to look at him and he saw she was crying — frozen with fear, and Mac didn’t blame her.

‘Jesus wept,’ he said, wanting to turn and jump in that helo, but knowing he wasn’t going to.

As he reached the Cambodian girl, a new sound started — the unmistakable thump of a .50-cal machine gun. Looking over his shoulder as he crouched beside the girl and tried to get her on her feet, Mac saw the muzzle flash of the .50 cal through the trees, coming from the back of an approaching Nissan Patrol.

‘Come on,’ said Mac, grabbing Tani by the upper arm and judging his run to the helo. As he started out, one of the incoming bullets pinged off the rotors and another went straight through the cockpit, causing a flash of sparks and smoke somewhere under the spinning blades.

The Little Bird lifted into the air as Mac dragged the girl across the open ground. He was within twenty paces of a fast ride home when Didge yelled at him and pointed. Turning, Mac saw Sammy appear from behind Tani’s hide. He’d dropped his rifle and was using a handgun.

‘McQueen,’ yelled the American. ‘Just let me have —’

But his voice was lost in the din.

Didge laid covering fire from the helo door, forcing Sammy behind a stump from where he shot at the aircraft.

It was too hot for Bongo — he had to get the aircraft moving or it’d be shot down.

As Mac watched the Little Bird rise into the night sky, close enough to see Geraldine McHugh staring at him with saucers for eyes, he felt a knock in his left calf muscle, as if someone had kicked a hot poker into his flesh, right down to the bone. At first there was nothing but the pain and Mac thought he could make it to the machinery shed, grab one of those LandCruisers and blow town.

But the pain turned numb, as if he had no left leg. Tani darted from his grip as his leg folded, and then the ground rushed up to meet his face.