Blackout

CHAPTER 26

Dallas placed her hand gently on Dan Wade’s shoulder, causing him to jump slightly.

“It’s Dallas, Danny. How’re you doing?”

He reached up and patted her hand. “Better, I think. I mean, maybe it’s false hope, but I’m daring to think that maybe the damage to my eyes isn’t permanent. The pain has diminished. Whatever it was that got us, I only got a glancing blow.”

“Are you seeing any light through that bandage?” she asked.

“I think so, but Graham said to keep it on for now.”

She squeezed his hand. “Here’s hoping and praying.”

“What do you see out there?” he asked.

“Well, we’re about ten yards back from the edge of a clearing. I guess you’d call it a clearing, or sort of a natural open space in the jungle. It’s pretty wide, probably about a quarter mile across to where the trees get thick again. I gotta tell you, Dan, this isn’t like the scary, snake-infested, tiger-prowling jungles I expected, although the bugs aren’t far from the stereotype.”

“Those jungles are to the south, Dallas. They’re beautiful, but can be deadly, too.”

The distant sound of rotor blades slapping the air at considerable forward speed vibrated into their consciousnesses.

Dallas turned to Steve. “I think that radio of yours attracted some attention.”

“Hope so,” Steve said, his eyes scanning the sky behind them, where the sound seemed to be coming from. The volume increased steadily. Robert got to his feet and joined Steve Delaney’s attempt to spot the source of the sound in the eastern sky.

The helicopter popped over a ridge, the rhythmic noise slapping at them until it flew directly overhead and pulled its nose up, slowing rapidly before turning and descending into the clearing. The pilot brought the craft to a hover less than fifty feet from the eastern edge of the clearing, moving along slowly as a figure in the open left door stood and waved.

“That’s a woman,” Dallas exclaimed, looking startled.

“My God in heaven,” Robert MacCabe said under his breath, his eyes fixed on the face of the female in the doorway. “I don’t believe it. That’s Kat Bronsky!”

Kat leaned toward the pilot, trying to make herself heard. “Keep coming forward slowly. They’re out there somewhere.” She resumed waving as broadly as she could, her eyes scanning the perimeter of the clearing, but seeing no one at first.

Without warning, five figures suddenly burst into view, running toward the Huey and waving back.

“There!” She turned to the pilot. “Land! Now!”

He turned and tapped his ear, then understood her gesture and unloaded the blades, lessening the lift they produced and letting the Huey drop rather smartly onto the surface.

Kat jumped from the open door, waving at what appeared to be a black woman, a man with a bandaged face, a young boy, another man… and Robert MacCabe! She felt a small shiver of excitement as he waved back.

Pete Phu had jumped to the ground as well, and the two of them helped the five refugees into the Huey, with Kat bringing up the rear. Robert reached out to help her in, pulling her up and into his arms for a surprising bear hug and kiss, a broad grin on his face as he aped a very bad Bogart accent. “Of all the sleazy meadows in all the sleazy jungles in all the backwaters of the world, you fly into mine!”

“You have no idea how glad I am to see you alive,” Kat said, pulling away from him to close the door and order the pilot to take off. “Okay, let’s get back in the air and…”

There was a popping noise from somewhere to the right and glass shattered in the cockpit. The possibility of a mechanical problem crossed Kat’s mind as she wondered why the pilot was leaning so far to the left. There was a broken window on his right as he continued to fall over the center console.

“Somebody’s shooting at us!” Dallas yelled from the back, and another voice ordered them to hit the floor. Kat moved forward to the pilot and lifted his head, then lowered it, realizing her fingers were red with blood. There was a simple entry wound in his right temple.

More bullets whizzed through the cockpit, one barely missing her nose. She clawed away at the dead pilot’s seat belt and hauled his body out of the seat and into the back in one desperate motion.

Kat slid into the right seat, ignoring the blood, her left hand grabbing the collective control — a lever to the left of the seat with a motorcycle-style throttle in the handgrip. There was no time to debate whether she could fly the chopper without crashing; the alternative was to sit and die in a hail of bullets from unknown assailants. She twisted the throttle, boosting the rotor RPM, which was just below takeoff speed. She searched the instrument panel for the right gauge and found the rotor RPM needle coming out of the red as she pulled up on the collective. She felt the Huey stand up on its skids and lighten as the rotor bit into the air, the blades creating enough lift to counter the weight of the helicopter. Another quarter of an inch up and they were airborne, drifting backward as another slug ripped through, this time leaving a jagged hole the size of a large fist in the windscreen in front of her.

“Please, Jesus, get us the hell out of here!” Dallas’s voice moaned in the back.

Kat’s feet found the rudder pedals, and she pushed the left one hard now to swing the tail toward the shooters, masking the cabin. The trees on the eastern edge of the clearing were perhaps fifty feet tall, and she knew she would have to gain enough altitude to get over them before gaining forward speed.

The Huey wobbled violently as Kat worked the cyclic control stick between her legs back and forth, fighting for some semblance of control. She shoved the stick forward much too fast and the Huey responded by dropping its nose and changing its rearward motion to forward motion, trading some of the lift for forward speed as the ground rushed up toward the machine.

“Yikes!” she heard herself shout as she jerked the collective up again, barely missing ground impact with the forward skids.

The Huey rose again, but not fast enough, and the trees ahead rushed toward the nose as several more bullets pinged through the cabin.

Once again she pulled on the collective, taking the throttle as high as she dared. She felt the machine shudder as it clawed the air in obedience, and she realized they were not going to clear the trees.

The UH-1 hit the tree line with twenty knots of forward airspeed, the Huey’s huge rotor blades chopping through the top ten feet of the foliage as easily as a hedge trimmer through a bush. The blades mowed down the top five feet of an adjacent tree before the helicopter popped up over the remaining ones. It continued to climb and accelerate, apparently no worse for the experience.

“This… is supposed… to handle just like an airplane above forty knots!” she told herself out loud, remembering what her instructor had said several years back. She looked for the airspeed indicator and spotted it sitting on thirty knots and accelerating, as she worked the two controls to get the helicopter under control.

They were considerably above the trees now and stabilizing, the engine sounding steady with no warning lights visible on the forward panel — though the windblast was becoming a bother as she accelerated through fifty knots. She checked to make sure she was flying an easterly course back to Da Nang, and kept climbing.

Someone appeared at Kat’s left elbow and she glanced over to see Robert MacCabe, his eyes huge as he looked at her. “Thank God you’re a helicopter pilot, Kat.”

She shook her head. “I’m not. I have almost no idea what I’m doing.”

He looked at her with disbelief, and she smiled. “Welcome to my first helicopter solo. I only have a fixed-wing license. I do have an instrument rating, though.”

“Will that help?”

“No.”

“Oh, wonderful. Can you land?” he asked.

“Don’t know. Never tried. Should be interesting.” She smiled again, amused by his discomfort. “Is anyone hurt back there?”

“Well, Steve has a new part in his hair, but other than that, no.”

“What?” Kat asked, only half paying attention.

“One slug almost nailed Steve, but all it did was take a line of hair off the top of his head. It’s superficial.”

“Thank heavens.”

“That doesn’t include the poor pilot, of course. He didn’t make it. Do you have any idea who was shooting at us?”

She shook her head, the motion causing her to move the stick too abruptly, almost knocking Robert off his feet.

“Sorry. No, I don’t know. I never saw them. It came from the right. The people you’ve been evading may have come in by road.”

He was nodding. “Probably. What can I do to help you?” he asked.

She turned and grinned. “Pray a little? Or maybe open the operations manual to the chapter on how to land, and read it to me very slowly.”

Robert MacCabe shook his head. “Okay, now I am terrified!”

The frantic efforts of the three men at the western end of the clearing to yank the camouflaging vegetation off the HU-1 took less than two minutes. The pilot jumped in the right seat and hit the Start switch as the last branches came off, bringing the rotors up to takeoff speed as fast as he could. Arlin Schoen pulled himself in and slid the door closed just as the pilot lifted off, accelerating in the direction of the departed Huey to the east, while the men in the back reloaded their guns.

“Maximum speed! Whoever’s flying that crate isn’t an experienced pilot. You should be able to catch him.”

The pilot nodded, barely clearing the trees at the east end as he used the engine’s best effort to gain speed first, then altitude, bringing the Huey above a hundred knots, the blades slapping the landscape ahead with a horrendous noise.

Within five minutes the outline of the other helicopter appeared on the horizon, moving at half normal speed.

“How do you want to do this, Arlin?” the pilot asked.

“Come to their five o’clock position, stay one ship high, and I’ll guide you.”

“You gonna try for the engine?”

Schoen shook his head no. “He might be able to autorotate and put it down. No, I need to get the rotor hub and put them completely out of control.”

“That rotor head’s a pretty tough assembly, Arlin. I’m not sure we’ve got enough firepower.”

“Okay, what do you suggest?” Schoen asked.

The pilot motioned ahead. They were less than a mile now and closing.

“If I stick our skid into their blades near the center, I may be able to knock them down.”

“Jeez! How about us?”

“It’s a risk.”

“No. We go back to Plan A. I’m gonna shoot. Bring me in.”

Schoen moved back and slid open the left door, securing himself to a safety strap. His partner did the same. Schoen cocked the Uzi slung around his neck and checked the .45 automatic in his belt. When they were less than a hundred yards away, he could see the pilot intermittently through the window. Schoen realized with a start that it must be a woman. Her chestnut-colored hair was whipping around and streaming partly out of the broken side window.

Schoen motioned to his pilot to come forward a bit more, then hold position as he took careful aim at the rotor hub assembly and squeezed the trigger.

Kat felt a sudden series of staccato impacts in the Huey’s controls, and an echo of something outside the right window. Dallas could feel it as well, and moved to the right to press her face against the glass of the sliding door.

“There’s another helicopter back there,” Dallas yelled. “He’s firing at us!”

“Hold on!” Kat commanded as she jammed the right rudder pedal down, shifting the pitch of the tail rotor, which swung the Huey around to the right in a gut-wrenching maneuver that threw them all to the left.

The other Huey suddenly filled the right-side windows as the startled pilot of the trailing helicopter pulled up sharply to avoid a collision.

Kat thought over the possibilities as fast as she could. Too wild an evasive maneuver, and she could lose control of a machine she didn’t really know how to fly.

Another round of bullets rattled the cyclic, forcing a decision. Kat pulled back and kicked the Huey into a tight left turn, reversing course and climbing as she slowed, pirouetting around before the pursuer was able to react. It was a gamble whether she could do it without stalling, but she had to get out of their sights.

Kat could see the other helicopter now through her left window. The shooters in the doorway hung on for their lives as the pilot tried to turn left to get behind her again. She pulled a bit tighter, feeling the Huey respond and steady out, the feedback vibrations on the cyclic stick reassuring her that she wasn’t pushing too far.

No way in hell are you getting on my tail again! Kat thought to herself, her teeth gritted, as she continued the turn, spiraling closer above the other helicopter. The two of them were essentially circling each other. She could see the two men in the open door trying to regain their balance, one of them obviously yelling instructions forward as the pilot tried to give the shooters a stable firing platform.

Kat looked at the airspeed. She was down to thirty knots and the Huey was beginning to wallow, the stick becoming mushy and more finicky as her control inputs grew frenzied. She tried to stabilize her heading while she waited for the other chopper to reach her altitude; they were climbing fast. As soon as they reached her level, she shoved the collective lever to the floorboard, causing the helicopter to drop almost in free fall, her stomach immediately protesting the maneuver.

“What the hell are you doing up there, girl?” Dallas yelled at her as the other Huey shot up in her perspective, the pilot caught off guard by their sudden maneuver.

Kat watched her altimeter unwind, and at a thousand feet, she began pushing the nose down to pick up forward momentum as she brought in the collective and leveled out, kicking the Huey around to the right in another tight turn.

As expected, the other pilot had followed her down, dropping rapidly, and was now flattening out his descent as he dropped below Kat.

Now you’re vulnerable! she thought, aiming straight toward him and shoving the stick forward to race at and just over the top of the other UH-1.

I’ve almost got this thing under control! Kat told herself, with a flash of relief, as she shot fifty feet over the top of the confused adversary and kicked her machine around to the left, staying behind and above him as he turned to find her.

The airspeed was dropping again, changing the requirements from basic stick-and-rudder flying to the skills of a helicopter pilot as she fought to stabilize her control inputs. But suddenly it wasn’t working. Her hand jerked the stick around, her rhythms and ability to commune with the machine suddenly compromised. The Huey was beginning to wobble off on its own, the airspeed now down to less than twenty as she tried to hover, gyrating left and right and even up and down as she fought to dampen her inputs and regain control. Sweat was breaking out on Kat’s forehead as the other pilot seized the moment to maneuver back into firing position.

Dammit! Fly! she snarled to herself, bringing the rudder pedals into the destabilized ballet as well, which worsened the gyrations.

The other Huey was turning on Kat’s right, bringing its open left-hand door into view. As she struggled with the bouncing, turning machine, she could see the two shooters raising their guns for another try as they came along her right flank. The advantage she had gained had been lost just as fast. She’d reverted to being a sitting duck, too low to use the sudden-drop maneuver, and too underpowered and out of control in a hover to suddenly pop up. The other helicopter was close now, the pilot controlling his speed of passage to give the gunmen plenty of time.

Robert MacCabe had been holding on just behind the center console. He spoke up suddenly. “Kat, they’re going to strafe us!”

“I know.”

“We’d better turn — or something.”

She nodded, her right hand finally reacquiring something close to a usable rhythm on the stick. The Huey settled down and moved forward, correcting to the right to aim directly at the oncoming machine.

“Kat! Ah… I don’t think ramming him is the solution,” Robert said as she accelerated directly at the windscreen of the onrushing Huey. She could see the pilot’s head moving as he altered his course to her right, unprepared for her maneuver.

Kat pulled up suddenly, trading the small amount of forward speed for altitude as the attacker slid below her.

More slugs tore through the Huey, most of them along the left side.

“Now!” Kat barked out loud as she kicked the rudder and banked excessively to the left, feeling the HU-1 almost stall as she tried to slip behind him.

Oh, no! Too much! They were heeling left at a violent angle, the side window suddenly filled with the top of the other machine.

“Kat! LOOK OUT!” Robert yelled. The tail boom of the other helicopter rose toward them at a frightening speed as they slipped to the left at too great an angle to recover.

“NO!”

The shuddering impact of the left skid with the whirling tail rotor of the other helicopter produced a momentary buzz-saw sound of colliding metal and threw them all to the right in a violent roll. Their destabilized chopper staggered sideways in the air before recovering, its basic airworthiness remarkably undamaged — but its left landing skid was a twisted mess, after an amazing shower of sparks.

“Good Lord, Kat!” Robert exclaimed.

“Wasn’t planned.” She banked to the right and skidded around the turn, expecting the other pilot to be lining up for another shot.

Instead, the sky to the right was clear.

Kat kept turning, scanning ahead, thoroughly startled when Robert grabbed her shoulder and pointed below.

“There!”

“Hang on!” the pilot had shouted to Arlin Schoen and the other man in the door as he pressed hard on the vibrating rudder pedals and tried to stop the world from whirling. He’d dropped the collective and tried to descend as soon as he realized that the other pilot, however inexperienced, had succeeded in damaging his tail. There was no doubt the tail rotor was in deep trouble, because the ship was vibrating at a furious rate. But the blades must still be there, so maybe he still had some control.

With a sudden lurch, the vibrating stopped as the damaged tail rotor flew off its hub, leaving him with no turning control. Instantly the spinning of the helicopter around the main axis of its rotor became worse. The pilot used all the tricks in the book: forward airspeed, unloading, sudden throttle pullback, but nothing worked. He was losing it, and the jungle floor was rising fast in a spinning, spiraling blur.

The crippled Huey slammed into the first of the trees, the tail boom swinging into a tree trunk and flipping the body of the helicopter over with a horrendous sound as the fuselage dove the remaining fifty feet to the ground.

The plume of flames and dust following the impact below heralded a crash too severe to be survivable, Kat figured. She kept her Huey moving at greater than forty knots as she circled at a distance and watched the funeral pyre of smoke rising from the wreckage.

“Incredible flying, Kat!” Dallas Nielson said, clutching the back of Kat’s seat.

“That… was actually a lucky mistake,” Kat replied. “I thought we were dead.”

“You got them, Kat,” Robert added quietly, his eyes on the smoke below.

“The question is,” Kat replied, “who were they?”

She tore her eyes away from the smoke and concentrated on climbing back to a higher altitude. Da Nang couldn’t be more than ten miles away to the east, and a plan, however improbable, was beginning to form in her mind — provided she could figure out how to land the old Huey without killing them all.

In the middle of a thicket of ferns, bushes, and brush some forty feet from the burning remains of the borrowed UH-1, something moved. A massive tangle of branches had cushioned the fall of a body thrown from the door of the crashing helicopter as the tail boom struck the tree trunk.

The figure stirred again, and tried to rise.

Arlin Schoen rubbed his eyes and looked around, the receding sounds of the helicopter he had intended to destroy in his ears as he spit out part of a branch, took inventory of his limbs, and calculated his remaining options.