The Lost City

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

At the top of the hill, the first thing Hawke saw was smoke billowing from their Eurocopter. Saqqal or Kruger had ordered their men to destroy it and they had obeyed. There was no way they were flying anywhere in that thing.

Then they caught sight of the enemy. Kruger was in the pilot’s seat and increasing power to the chopper while Saqqal, Jawad, Rajavi, Corzo and a couple of surviving rebels were clambering inside and belting up. To the east a Mi-171 chopper with Peruvian Army markings was landing in the ancient cultivation terraces and armed soldiers were jumping out. Behind it, a small two-seater Bell 47 was landing beyond the House of the Guardians. Inside were a pilot and a man with a news camera.

“That’s all we need,” Lea said. “Bloody news crew.”

Hawke frowned. “They’re the least of our worries.”

The surviving rebels took up a defensive position behind the city gate and opened fire on the soldiers. The Peruvians tried to scatter for cover but the surprise attack was too deadly and they were all wiped out in seconds. The pilot began to lift the chopper but a rebel fired through the windshield and took him out before the machine was ten inches above the ground. The helicopter crashed back down to earth, its rotors still whirring.

The ECHO team sprinted forward but couldn’t stop the rebels who were now piling inside the Venom and lifting up into the air behind Kruger.

Hawke turned to Reaper. “You still know how to fly a chopper?”

The Frenchman peered over at the Mi-171 and nodded. “Mais, oui…”

“Right, then let’s do this. I’ll take the journos’ Bell and go after the rebels, you take the army chopper and get Kruger.”

They divided into two teams, with Hawke and Scarlet running to the Bell while Reaper led the rest of the team to the Mi-171.

Hawke and Scarlet approached the Bell. The pilot was still inside, but the engine was off and the rotors now perfectly still. The man with the news camera was trying to zoom in on the burning Eurocopter in the Main Square, but Scarlet kept getting in his way.

“Move!” he said in English, and then in Spanish: “Damned tourists!”

The boot was fast, and as accurate as ever. A second later Scarlet was removing the camera from the hands of the howling newsman and hurling it over the sheer drop beyond the City Gate.

The former SBS man opened the chopper’s door, unbuckled the pilot’s belt and dragged him out of the machine in less than ten seconds. He told the pilot to stay down as he clambered in, but while Scarlet was joining him and buckling up both the pilot and the newsman scuttled away and started yelling for someone to call the police.

The former SBS man had piloted many choppers in his time, the last time being when he had evacuated the team from the missing Temple of Huitzilopochtli in the Lacandon Jungle, but this thing barely looked airworthy.

He consoled himself with the fact the news crew had gotten it up here in the first place and immediately began the starting procedures while Scarlet checked the weapons were ready to go and slung an ammo belt over her shoulder.

“Are you dressing up for me?” he asked with a grin.

“Shut up and fly, Josiah.”

A great idea, he thought, and glanced out the window to make sure the main rotor was untied. He knew it was, because it had just landed here but it was a habit drilled into him years ago and now unshakeable, like checking the fuel caps were secured.

He scanned the panel: avionics off, strobe on and then he reached down and pushed the fuel shut-off in before checking the hydraulic boost switch was off.

“Can’t you go any faster?”

“Cairo, this isn’t the Sweeney and we’re not in a Ford Granada. You don’t just jump in one of these things and magic it into the air. It’s not Hollywood.”

She looked him up and down. “You don’t have to tell me that, darling. You’d look more like Matt Damon if this was Hollywood.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“When was the last time you went to the gym?”

“How the hell should… listen, I’ve got work to do so put your seatbelt on and can it.”

Hawke turned away from Scarlet with a look of incredulity before loosening the friction on the cyclic and the collective and made sure the anti-torque pedals and cyclic were all free and unrestricted.

“They’re getting away, Joe!” she said, the frustration rising in her voice. “They’ll be in shagging Paititi before you get this thing off the ground.”

Hawke wiped the sweat from his face and sighed as if he were dealing with a child. “Again… if you would just kindly shut your mouth I’ll be much quicker.”

Hawke checked the friction was set on the throttle and then replaced the friction and returned the controls to neutral, set carb heat to cold and made sure the comms were on. Then he turned the magnetos on and primed the engine by twisting the throttle and then set it for start.

“They’re almost out of sight! Christ almighty!”

“It’s such a shame I won’t be able to hear a word you say when the engine’s on.”

With that he turned the ignition key and watched carefully as the rotor engine’s RPMs began to rise. The ageing chopper began to vibrate as the engine picked up speed and the rotors started whirring faster and faster until they were a blur.

Hawke switched on the radio and waited until the revs passed thirty and then the familiar whomp whomp whomp sound of the rotors began. A final check on the magnetos and the carb temp and then he raised the collective. Scarlet made a big deal about things with fake applause when the Bell finally lifted off the ground but she piped down when a strong westerly blew the small chopper hard to the starboard and Hawke had to fight to bring her level again as they ascended.

He smirked as she settled down in her seat, and they couldn’t help but marvel as they looked down at the incredible view of Machu Picchu afforded to them by the plexiglass bubble cockpit on the Bell 47. Looking past his feet on the rudders, the amazing fifteenth century citadel of the Incas stretched out in a blaze of gold and green as the sun lit its intricate terraces and walls.

A second later it was gone as he increased power on the collective and gently pushed the cyclic forward. Ahead of them, the rebels were making good progress along the Sacred Valley. They tore over the Urubamba River and then pulled up sharply to fly over the top of the next range.

Hawke gave chase, and his superior piloting skills allowed him to close the gap before they too crossed the next range and saw the Andes fading into the jungles of northern Cusco Province.

Scarlet peered through her side of the bubble. “Get lost out here and you’re more fucked than the ship’s cat.”

“Oh, really,” he said in disgust. “I thought you were supposed to be a bloody aristocrat or something?”

“Me? Hardly, darling. Common as muck.”

But she had a point. Ahead of them, the rebels’ chopper looked ridiculously small as it hung in the air above the unimaginably vast landscape, but Hawke powered forward without fear.

The rebels suddenly lunged down toward the valley and began turning sharply to the right.

“Looks like the bastards don’t like being chased,” Scarlet said.

Hawked lowered the collective, pushing the Bell into the same diving pattern and making the same turn. “Have to stay on their tail or they get the advantage.”

“Shouldn’t you be levelling off around now?” Scarlet said, nervously eyeing the Urubamba River as it rushed up towards them.

“You’re not scared are you, Cairo?” he said.

“Of course not,” she said not too convincingly.

Just as he heard her gasp through his headphones he gently raised the collective and levelled off, also completing the turn at the same time. The rebels’ more powerful helicopter was still in front of them.

Ahead of them they watched as a goon in black began to climb halfway out the rear window.

“They’re firing!” Scarlet yelled.

“Yes, thank you, Cairo,” Hawke said. “For a moment I wondered if he was leaning out to invite us to Kruger’s next birthday bash, but now I can see I was wrong.”

“Tit,” she said in a whisper, but it was clear enough through the headphones.

He looked at her.

“What?” she said.

“Well, are you going to shoot back, or what?”

“Oh, yeah. Natch.”

She slid back her window and they were instantly buffeted by the wind, but she didn’t flinch as she pulled out a Glock and smacked a fresh round into the grip. “Always a pleasure to give back what you receive.”

And with that she began firing, but so did the other guy. Hawke swerved the chopper from port to starboard and back again to avoid being hit, but he knew he was also reducing Scarlet’s chance of hitting the rebels.

The other chopper slowed and pulled alongside them and the rear portside door slid open to reveal a rebel staring back at them. In his hands was a handheld M320 grenade launcher. He fired a round at their Bell and it shot through the air toward them. He had timed it wrong, and it exploded twenty yards short, blasting the Bell over to port but no more pain than a small correction on the cyclic which Hawke made with a gentle touch, and then he raised the collective to gain elevation.

The Venom followed suit, pulling up and maintaining the same altitude as their much smaller Bell 47. The rebel fired another round, and it tore through the mountain air en route to the Bell. Hawke pulled hard to port and descended but this time the rebel had improved his aim and the explosion was much closer, blasting the Bell much harder to port and almost tipping her over.

The Venom pulled around and followed them down as they raced toward the bottom of the ravine.

Hawke saw the rocks racing up toward them but didn’t raise the collective. “When I was leaving the SBS I thought about working as a pilot doing helicopter tourist rides.”

“I think security guard was a better choice,” Scarlet said, eyes widening as the rocks raced closer. The Urubamba River was now so close she could make out the reeds being pulled along by the current. “And now might be the time to get us out of this dive.”

“Not yet.”

She made no reply but gripped the sides of the seat.

And then Hawke lifted the collective and scooped the tiny Bell out of the dive before levelling her off less than twenty feet above the Urubamba. “A spot of low-level flying is in order.”

“You trained for that, right?”

He glanced at her. “Er, yeah…”

“What does that mean?”

“It means no.”

She shook her head as she reloaded her Glock. “Bloody fantastic, Hawke.”

“There has to be a first time for everything,” he replied. “You’ll know that when you make your first funny joke.”

She flicked her eyes at him but said nothing. She loosened her belt and turned in her seat. She opened the small window and leaned her head out. “Bastards right on our six o’clock, Josiah.”

Hawke lowered the Bell to ten feet. They were so low now the rotorwash was flicking up spray from the Urubamba as they flashed over the top of it, following its meanders with the mountains high on either side of them.

Scarlet fired at the Venom, striking the cockpit windshield and puncturing bullets in a neat line across it. The rebels swerved the larger helicopter to starboard and shifted her out of Scarlet’s sights. “Balls… he’s gone again.”

With the sound of their rotors echoing off the sides of the mountains rising high above them on all sides, Hawke weaved the chopper deftly around the twists and turns of the river in a bid to evade more rounds from their grenade launcher but it was too late and the next thing he knew there was a massive explosion in front of the chopper.

The rebels had fired a grenade over the top of them and now Hawke had no choice but to fly right through the middle of the fireball as it burned out in the air ahead of them.

“Holy shit!” Scarlet said.

“Seconded!”

For a couple of seconds they were surrounded by the fireball, their vision cut off by a raging cloud of flames all around the Perspex bubble cockpit, but then they were through and back in the clear air.

“They really do not like you,” Scarlet said.

“Eh? It’s you they want!”

Hawke saw a narrow pass almost hidden on the right, tucked in behind the western ridge of a mountain, and without warning he banked hard to starboard and left the river behind.

Scarlet screamed and gripped the grab handle as they tipped over on their side. As Hawke raised the collective she felt the extra Gs for a few seconds and watched through Hawke’s window as they skimmed the canopy of the rainforest on the river’s east bank. “I’m going to say no thanks to your tourist idea.”

He smiled but made no reply as he focussed on levelling the chopper and zooming into the narrower ravine. “How are our friends?”

Scarlet looked out her window and sighed. “Bastards sticking to us like glue.”

“The goon?”

“He’s leaning out for another go.”

She aimed her gun and fired at the rebel, striking the port skid of the chopper and forcing him back inside. “We’re going to need to bring this situation to an end, Josiah. I’m down to my last three rounds.”

“I think I see our way out up ahead.”

She turned in her seat and almost screamed. Racing up to meet them was a large waterfall, maybe two hundred feet high. “Please tell me you’re not going to do what I think you’re going to do.”

“Sorry… no can do.”

Hawke was not a gambling man, but now he was gambling that the Venom couldn’t see past the Bell because of the heavy canopy above the tributary, and so the waterfall would make a nasty surprise… a nasty unavoidable surprise if he could just hold his nerve for long enough.

He tightened his grip on the cyclic and collective and slowed his breathing as the waterfall grew ever bigger ahead of them. It was so close now they could both make out the slabs of granite through the white water as it rushed over the upstream retreats of the falls and tumbled over the overhang on its way down into the Urubamba’s tributary.

“Are you sure this is a good idea, Joe?”

“Of course I’m bloody not!” he said, flicking her a nervous glance. “I find in situations like this it’s usually better not to think.”

“Oh, how very reassuring to hear your pilot say that.”

Hawke raised the collective, altering the angle of the main rotor blades and lifting the chopper into a climb. At the same time he pushed his right foot on the rudder and changed the angle of the tail rotors to move the chopper to the right. The Bell shot up away from the top of the waterfall and zoomed off to the right, clipping the leaves on the top of the canopy for a second before he levelled the machine up.

Behind them, the Venom had no time to react and a second later it smashed into the hard rock at the top of the waterfall behind the overhang. It exploded into a massive fireball and sprayed gas-fuelled flames all over the rainforest canopy.

Scarlet hung out her window and yelled with glee as the wrecked chopper dropped like a dead fly into the plunge pool and disappeared under the foam and spray of the falling water. “Not confident Kruger’s getting his deposit back on the Venom.”

Hawke grinned. “I take it that my little plan worked?”

“This time, you total idiot, you got lucky.”

“And I thought Dirk was the lucky one…”

Hawke lifted the chopper away from the canopy and turned it south toward Machu Picchu.