The War Cloud

20

“What are you doing?!” Sachs stared at the barrel of Colonel Kyle’s M-16 and glanced at Special Agent Raghav, who put up his hands as the even younger Secret Service agent next to him reached for his Uzi.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Kyle warned. Before the words were out, a Green Beret hit the young agent’s head from behind with the butt of his M-16. There was a sickening crack, and the agent collapsed to the floor.

“You crushed his skull!” Raghav yelled as another Green Beret expertly relieved him of his weapon.

Sachs looked down at the boy’s body. The sight of hair matted in blood sickened her. She looked up at Kyle in horror. “Why?”

“Ours is not to reason why, Ms. Sachs,” Kyle replied, sliding open the Black Hawk’s door. A blast of freezing air whooshed in, and Sachs found herself staring at the treetops below. “It’s a tragic thing when accidents happen on military craft.”

Sachs turned to Raghav and said, “Tell me you only look like a Secret Service agent. You’re really an ex-SEAL or martial arts expert or something.”

“I’m an ex-law student with a G-4 salary grade at the Treasury Department, ma’am,” Raghav replied.

“Shut up!” Kyle kicked Raghav in the groin. Raghav dropped to his knees in agony and moaned. Sachs saw Kyle swing the butt of his M-16 across Raghav’s face, knocking him to the floor, unconscious. Then he trained his machine gun on her. “On your knees.”

“No,” Sachs said. “I will not submit to your animal brutality and disregard for life, whatever the damn national security.”

Kyle grabbed her by the hair. She struggled as he forced her down, choking back her urge to scream. “Think about what you’re doing!”

“I’m thinking how I didn’t serve my country to see it fall into the hands of a woman who was supposed to be fired today.”

As Kyle put his M-16 to her head, Raghav stirred to life and lunged at Kyle’s jumpboots. Kyle lowered his M-16 to fire, but Raghav pulled him off his feet.

Kyle’s M-16 spat out its automatic rounds. The bullets caught two Green Berets in the throat and drilled holes through the ceiling, making a sweeping arc of destruction over Kyle’s falling body until they finally popped the pilot

The Black Hawk started to pitch and roll. The rest of Kyle’s Green Berets were thrown back. Raghav grabbed Kyle’s M-16, turned and unloaded a round into the rear compartment before the Green Berets could recover. Fire shot out of the muzzle as Raghav jerked the trigger, raining dozens of smoking shells around Sachs, who was sprawled on the floor, hands clapped over her ears.

Suddenly, the shooting stopped. Sachs could hear only the rotor of the Black Hawk’s blades and the howling wind. Or was that ringing in her ears?

“Are you OK?” asked Raghav, helping her up.

Sachs looked across the floor at the bodies and blood. Raghav impressed, after all. But she felt something awful rising up inside her, grabbed her stomach and started to heave.

Raghav gave her a helpful pat on the back and looked around. “Guess they took you for a liberal.”

Sachs noticed Raghav’s lapel pin on the floor and picked it up. “You dropped this.” She turned it over to see conservative TV talk show host Glenn Beck smiling back at her.

Sachs straightened and handed the button to Raghav. The young Republican cheerfully pinned it to his blood-stained lapel with trembling fingers. “Thanks.”

Suddenly the Black Hawk banked sharply. Sachs turned to see the pilot slumped over in his seat.

“Oh, God.”

Raghav climbed over the seat, pushing the pilot’s corpse aside. He then took the controls and tried to level off.

Sachs climbed into the seat next to Raghav. “I suppose you can’t fly, either?”

“Nope.”

“Then let me.”

“You can’t fly,” Raghav said incredulously.

“No, but I watched my husband fly his planes, and I probably have more hours in the air than you do.”

Raghav hesitated, and then the radio headset crackled. It was the pilot from Black Hawk Two. “Black Hawk One, you’re trailing smoke.”

Sachs watched Raghav struggle with the stick. It was a miracle they were still airborne. “If you or I respond, he’s going to know Kyle’s out,” she said. “What’s he going to do then?”

“Shoot us down if he’s in with Kyle, or help us land if he’s not. But we can’t take a chance.”

Sachs saw Raghav flick a switch to arm the sidewinder missiles and stopped him. “You can’t even pilot this thing, and you’re going to try and down that chopper with your own men on board?”

“You are the priority, ma’am, and they know it.”

The radio crackled again. “Black Hawk One, please copy.”

“Shit, they’re locking missiles on us,” Raghav said, looking at the dashboard.

Sachs said, “Radio your men, Rahgav, and tell them to take over that chopper. Now.”

Raghav nodded and spoke into his lapel microphone. “Do not reply. Repeat. Do not reply. This is a Code 33. You have to take over that bird. Repeat. Code 33.”

looked out at the Black Hawk behind them and to the left. It suddenly dipped as she saw a flurry of shadows inside. Then its guns exploded. Sachs and Raghav jumped in their seats as bullets chewed holes around them.

“They’ve opened fire!” Raghav said.

Sachs replied, “I can see that!”

Raghav said nothing, and Sachs felt a shiver up her spine. She glanced over at Raghav next to her and with a shock realized the handle of a knife was protruding from his neck. Her eyes widened as a bloody, monstrous Colonel Kyle reared his ugly head from behind and removed the red-stained blade.

“You’ll never get sworn in,” Kyle said, as he thrust the blade at her.

Sachs leaned away into the windshield, escaping the first thrust. Then the chopper banked sharply, Raghav’s corpse weighing heavily on the stick, throwing Kyle off balance and her head against the windshield.

The flurry of bullets hit nearly everywhere. Dazed, she dragged herself forward and looked up to see Black Hawk Two spiral out of control, a fight for control in the cockpit.

Sachs tried to crawl into the pilot’s seat. She had just about pushed Raghav’s body out of the way when she felt a tug at her legs and looked back to see the bloody face of Colonel Kyle come to drag her back to hell.

“Get off me!” she screamed and kicked him in the face, her high heel spiking his eye.

Kyle loosened his grip and slid back limply as the chopper started to climb.

Sachs gripped the back of Raghav’s bloody head, hoisted herself up on top of him and grabbed the stick. She saw the runway of the White Plains airport dead ahead.

She wiped her wet eyes and took a deep breath. The ground was coming up fast in the windshield, and the chopper began to spin with its own cloud of black smoke, going wobbly as it approached the small airport.

Sachs peered through the cracked windshield, straining to see. Then the curtain of smoke parted for a moment and she could see a team of federal agents and their vehicles waiting on the icy tarmac. A gigantic white jumbo jet dominated the runway.

She strapped herself into the pilot’s chair, so tight she could barely steer. Everything seemed to be whooshing around her, and she felt her stomach drop with the chopper. She could see several Air Force personnel rushing toward her as she plunked the chopper down with a heavy thud. Then something seemed to give way as the chopper tipped over on its side and everything went black.