The Void

CHAPTER 40

The helicopter skidded sideways in the air for hundreds of feet as the normally unflappable pilot cursed everything from the wind to his superior officers for sending them out.

In the cargo hold, senior airman Andy Gibson held on and snickered as they first tipped one way then the other. He felt the helicopter bank in the air, coming around in a huge loop, probably to try for another drop.

Andy had little to do but hang on and make sure the crate was secure. He looked again at the large solid box, about six square feet. He had no idea what was in there, and it was well above his pay and security grade to even bother asking. All he did know was that his one and only job was to hook it up to a chute, and push it out the enormous rear door when he was given the green light. What happened to it after that was someone else’s problem.

Even though he wore earphones, he could still hear the banshee scream of the wind against the metal skin of the helo. Then they yawed hard again in the air.

“Jesus Christ, man,” Andy spat and grabbed at the rope mesh inside the chopper’s rear.

Scoffel, the pilot, cursed again, and then sounded like he spoke through gritted teeth. “No way it can be done from this height. I’m gonna have to call time on this one.”

“Knew it,” Andy muttered on hearing Scoffel’s words — he’d expected as much. They had been ordered to stay at least a thousand feet up from the drop zone, and try to launch a package with a chute onto a target only couple of miles wide, with wind busting through at around eighty miles per hour. Andy knew his pilot was good, but no one, at no time, was going to be able put the package down on the mountaintop. The crate would freaking end up in Mother Russia.

He shook his head and continued reading from a tablet he held in the cavernous interior. He heard the pilot request an “RB” — return to base — and was waiting on the reply.

It came. “Roger that.” The pilot sounded understandably relieved.

“Knew it,” Gibson repeated and sighed. He had nothing to do now but chill out. He looked up at the crate. “Sorry, going home.”

The explosion of wood was loud enough to smash past his earphones, and looking up he caught the last of the flying splinters coming at his face. He just had time to raise an arm to cover his eyes, and just as well, as he felt the shattered wood come at him like bullets.

In his ears, the pilot’s voice sounded confused and angry, as though Andy had decided to hold a barn dance in the chopper’s hold. But Andy’s first thought was to question exactly what it was that HQ had kept in the crate that had detonated.

But when he dropped his arm and the debris settled he thought he had just gone insane. His mouth dropped open, and all he could do was stare.