Private Rogue

Chapter 50

Feo plunged the chopper into a swift and steep dive. I unclipped my seatbelt and hauled myself into the main cabin where Dinara was sorting through a gear bag, checking weapons. She handed me an SR-2 Veresk submachine gun and a couple magazines. I strapped myself in beside her as the aircraft rode the bumpy drafts down.

“I’m going out,” I said. “I want you in the chopper covering me.”

“I should—” she began.

“In the chopper, covering me,” I said emphatically. “If it gets too hot, you bug out and we’ll rendezvous at the Pakistan border. Got it?”

She nodded.

“Floyd is moving away from us,” Feo said.

The chopper banked and I saw the solitary shooter running through the trees.

“He thinks we’re hostile,” I remarked. “Get us as close as you can.”

There was the sound of a hailstorm beneath us and I felt the rattle of bullets hitting the fuselage. I looked down to see masked, camouflaged shooters firing at us.

“Get ready,” Feo said. “He’ll be at your twelve when we touch down.”

Feo banked hard and the bird dropped like a stone. The trees loomed close to the window and the ground raced upward worryingly quickly. Then there was a sudden roar from the engines, a surge and a moment of inertia. We were down.

“Go now!” Feo yelled.

Dinara opened the door and I unclipped and jumped out. I could see Joshua Floyd directly ahead, racing through the trees. We’d pulled ahead of him and he was shocked to see the helicopter, and changed direction, running north.

“Captain Floyd!” I yelled, but my voice was lost beneath the rotors.

“Jack,” Dinara said, touching me on the shoulder.

She pointed skyward and I registered what she’d seen: two heavily armed Mil Mi-24 Hind helicopters, their distinctive silhouettes black against the blue sky. We had two minutes at most.

I started chasing Floyd. Bullets peppered the trees around me, filling the air with splinters.

“Floyd!” I yelled. “Captain Floyd!”

He glanced back. Maybe it was the use of his name or my accent that caused him to hesitate.

“Beth sent me,” I shouted. “She sent me to get you out.”

That stopped him dead. I raced to catch up as bullets zinged around us.

“Who are you?” Floyd asked.

“My name is Jack Morgan. I run a detective agency and I’m here to help.”

The shooters were closing on us in an arc, their gunfire designed to keep us pinned down. The camouflaged men were less than a hundred yards away. In the sky, the heavily armed Hinds were getting closer.

“Come on,” I said, grabbing Floyd and pulling him east.

We were close to the base of a huge mountain. As we ran, I could almost have reached out and touched the cliff face that supported the vast peak. My plan was to circle round the GlobalRanger and approach it from the south. Floyd fired short bursts in the direction of the men closing on us. I stayed close to him, to avoid being picked off. There was little chance any of the attackers would risk killing their target, but they wouldn’t hesitate to shoot me if they were given the opportunity.

I ran hard, my lungs burning. I saw the GlobalRanger chopper rotors whirring through the trees as we raced forward. I caught a glimpse of Feo in the cockpit, distracted and yelling at Dinara. She was leaning out of the door on the other side of the chopper and had her back to us. Her head was darting one way and then another, and I could tell she was looking for us. I saw her turn to Feo and bark a reply. He grimaced and shook his head before looking to the north.

I followed his eye line and saw the two Hinds bearing down on the GlobalRanger.

“Get out of here!” I yelled, but we were too far away for them to hear me over the noise of the rotors.

The Hind was equipped with two launchers, each of which was capable of delivering thirty-two high-explosive rockets. I watched in horror as first one rocket, then a couple of seconds later another, flew from the lead Hind. The projectiles tore forward, leaving trails of fire and smoke.

“Feo!” I yelled uselessly.

He had seen them and taken immediate action. The GlobalRanger leaped off the ground and got into the air just moments before the rockets passed beneath it.

Then realization dawned that both rockets were now heading straight for us.

I felt Floyd pull me back.

“Come on!” he yelled.

I started to move, but outrunning the rockets was simply impossible. In a few seconds they would hit and there was nothing we could do about it.