Strike Eagle (34 page)

Five more yards. Another fifteen feet—half the distance for a first down. One-twentieth the length of a football field. Something that Bruce was used to running in less than a second.

Now the distance seemed insurmountable.

Bruce held Adleman up while leaning against the vice president. Like two dominoes, ready to collapse, they painfully made their way to the jungle, to cover.

Bruce pushed with all his strength … until he heard the unmistakable sound of a helicopter rotor.

Seconds later a dark object thundered overhead. Once over the clearing, it dropped below the top of the trees.
The Black Hawk!
Bruce’s heart yammered in excitement. He quickly scanned the clearing, but still couldn’t see Yolanda.

He turned and started limping for the helicopter, pulling Adleman along with him. The Black Hawk shot down to the ground in a combat landing.

Bruce skipped with his left leg while barely touching the ground with his right. Vice President Adleman understood what was happening; he helped with a limping lope, and didn’t cry out.

The helicopter whipped up a gust of wind, sending water flying. The sound of the engine filled the clearing. Someone scrambled out from the helicopter, crouching and running low to the ground. As he approached, Bruce could see the man’s night-vision goggles.

Bruce recognized the approaching man: Zaz. Zaz took the vice president over his shoulder and yelled, “Let’s move it!”

Bruce started after him, but without Adleman’s support, he couldn’t walk upright.

Zaz turned. “Come on!”

“I … can’t.” Bruce waved him on. “Get Adleman on board … I’ll make it.”

Bruce crawled toward the Black Hawk, pushing the M-16 ahead of him. He tried to stand, wobbled, then started skipping on one leg. He lightly touched down with his right foot, and had to hold back a yelp.

He tripped and fell forward.

Looking up, Bruce saw that Zaz had reached the Black Hawk and was pushing the vice president into the helicopter. Zaz turned and sprinted back for Bruce.

From the noise, Cervante thought that a plane had landed in the clearing. He moved cautiously to the jungle’s edge.

There, just visible against the black jungle, was a helicopter! Fifty yards away! The audacity of the Americans, to hide like vermin and then bring in a helicopter to spirit the vice president away!

The helicopter looked evil, like a huge bug that had zoomed out of the night to squat in the clearing. A side panel opened and someone sprinted from the craft.

Cervante moved quickly to the south, remaining at the edge of the jungle. The Americans would be too concerned with their vice president to notice him.…

He brought up his rifle, took aim, and cracked off a shot.

Bruce had pushed up and started to straighten when Zaz suddenly went sprawling. “Hey!” The action surprised Bruce. Zaz wasn’t more than ten yards away. Bruce crawled over to him. He was just about there when he heard a
zing
whiz past his ear.
Someone’s shooting!

Bruce flung himself out, then rolled to the right. A volley of bullets zippered the ground around him. Bruce swung the M-16 up and started firing into the jungle.

The Black Hawk’s engines suddenly whined, rising in pitch. The wind increased as the helicopter rose from the ground.

Bruce waved the Black Hawk away. “Go on! Get him out of here!”

The Black Hawk rose to twenty feet, then slowly rotated. Bruce squinted; the side of the helicopter came into view. Sticking out of the side was a long-nosed minigun. A burst of flames came from the weapon.

The jungle erupted in a crash of sound as the twenty-millimeter rounds ripped through the foliage, again and again sweeping through the jungle.

Bruce crawled with his elbows over to Zaz. The young enlisted man bled from the mouth. His face was slack.

Bruce ran a hand over Zaz’s body. He couldn’t find the bullet wound. Nothing indicated where Zaz had been shot.

Bruce slapped the man to see if he was still alive. If the Black Hawk hurried, there would be time to get Zaz back to Clark, fly him straight to the hospital.…

The minigun stopped firing and Bruce jerked his head up. The Black Hawk’s engine coughed as the helicopter listed suddenly to the left, over-corrected, then wobbled to the right. The Black Hawk just slipped from the sky.

It twisted until it was nearly sideways. The rotor hit the ground and the craft suddenly whipped around, thrown by the rotor’s angular momentum.

The Black Hawk tumbled once, twice on the ground, bounced and started to fall apart. It didn’t explode, but tiny flames flared up all around it. Some of the fires died immediately, but flickering flames cast shadows out on the ground.

Screams. A shriek, then moaning came from the Black Hawk.

Bruce crawled to the site, only fifty yards away. If the Black Hawk had rotated any more, it might have crashed right on top of him. Bruce clawed at the ground, pulling himself forward.

The clearing fell silent. Bruce could hear the flames even from fifty yards away—and the sound of the diesel generator coming from the plantation once again.

He pushed everything out of his mind and concentrated on just one thing: reaching the Black Hawk.

He suddenly froze. Someone was moving, not too far away.

A figure crept out of the jungle and moved toward the crash. Rifle at ready, the person moved twenty yards to Bruce’s left. Bruce tried to make himself flat against the ground. In the glow from the helicopter’s fire, Bruce couldn’t make out who it was.

Bruce pulled the M-16 carefully around. He brought the figure into his sight, then slowly squeezed the trigger.…

Nothing. Bruce silently cursed. The cartridge was empty.

He rolled over and fumbled in his vest, pulling out a cartridge. He tried to slip the extra bullets into the automatic rifle without being heard; when the mechanism
clicked
he stopped, holding his breath, but the person continued to creep forward.

Bruce brought the rifle around. When he had the person back in his sights, he slowly squeezed.…

Cervante stopped. Moments before he had spotted the remnants of a bright yellow tarpaulin lying at the edge of the clearing.
Were all the Americans on the helicopter? Had they all been killed in the crash, or were more
hiding? And if they were hiding, then why weren’t they helping at the crash site?

It
didn’t make sense to remain, to stay in the clearing—not with a rescue vehicle ready to whisk them away. Cervante convinced himself that there were no others.

He walked toward the helicopter.

“Fox One, Fox One—are you there? Come in Fox One.”

Catman tried to stretch out his body in the F-15 cockpit, tried to relive the stiffness. The moon lit up the clouds below them.

Skipper had failed to raise the helicopter. Contact had been abruptly broken when the Black Hawk landed for the pickup.

Vice President Adleman was still down there, and Assassin had to be with him.

“Maddog, check coordinates loaded into the LANTIRN. Come in from the south, and GIBs,” Skipper was referring to the “Guys-in-the-Back” seat, “Sing out those checkpoints. It’ll be tricky, but if you stay on the coordinates, you’ll do fine. I don’t want us splashed out on some mountaintop. I’ll try to take out the HPM weapons on the first pass. Check in.”

“Two,” said Revlon.

Catman clicked his mike. “Three.”

“All right. One’s in hot. Off to the right.”

Catman looked out the cockpit canopy. A mile in front of him, Skipper’s F-15E banked to the right and disappeared into the clouds. Another minute and Catman would be doing the same—screaming in from thirty-seven thousand feet, popping out of the cloud layer at three hundred feet, and taking out a target he had never seen.

And the whole time, relying on Robin to keep him from pranging it into the ground.

All for the team.

Man, he felt stoked.

Now he realized why he could never quit the Air Force and fly for the airlines, even at twice the pay.

Cervante moved slowly through the jungle. Soon … soon!

Bruce slowly squeezed the trigger. Was it Cervante, that madman about whom Pompano had spoken so bitterly?

The shrieks of pain coming from the burning helicopter turned to sobs. There was only one voice. And whoever was moving toward the helicopter had to be going to finish off the survivor. As the person got closer to the helicopter, Bruce noticed the figure walking with a limp. Stocky, squat features … it reminded Bruce of …
Pompano!