Flying a helicopter requires a clear mind, concentration, balance and a delicate touch.
Flying a
helicopter you are unfamiliar with, in the dark, with two nasty
bullet wounds
in a body that has not slept in thirty hours, is an exercise in
surreal
survival. I had ten hours flight time in this model MD 902
Explorer, so it
wasn't total guesswork.
I made sure
Julie was strapped in tightly and flipped on the switches. There
wouldn’t be
enough time to sit and let the engines warm up completely. We
needed to get
airborne before the local police showed up. In the distance
beyond the factory
building, where the car exploded in the arroyo, a pall of smoke
billowed into
the moon lit night sky.
Once I got
the machine off the ground, stabilised and then flying on the
heading Danny had
given me, I asked Julie to call him and write down the
co-ordinates of the
destination, then talked her through entering the figures into
the GPS
navigation system while I concentrated on the instruments. All I
had to do was
make sure I didn't hit anything flying at an altitude of fifty
feet across the
desert, following the route on the EFIS from Mojave to Desert
Rock airstrip,
wherever the hell that was in the vast expanse of the Nevada
desert.
As we flew,
the rising sun glimmered just below the horizon to our left.
Dark sky turning
light blue just before the sun appeared as an orange-white ball
throwing
shadows across the desert. The distant terrain rose in craggy
rock mountains,
rising ever higher to about five thousand feet, and I had to fly
the aircraft
through the narrow gorges maintaining the pretence of a special
operations
training flight at ultra-low level.
“Can you see
if there are any sunglasses in the side pocket,” I asked Julie,
feeling my left
arm begin to stiffen.
“Here you
go.” Her voice sounded strangely distorted in my headphones. Or
perhaps it was
just my mind beginning to shut down as my body leaked valuable
blood onto the
seat from the wound in my side.
“Thanks.” I
tightened the lock on the collective and flexed my left arm,
ignoring the pain,
just trying to get some feeling back into it. Estimated flight
time was just
under an hour and a half, and I wasn't confident of being able
to last that
long.
“I'm sorry I
got you into this,” I said stupidly, as if what I said would
make any
difference.
“I could
have said no.”
“But you
didn't.”
“Nope. Don't
ask me why, but I didn't.”
“Did you get
the bug into the computer before they ambushed us?”
“I did.”
“Well at
least one of us accomplished something today. How's your head?”
“Hurts like
hell. How's your...?” she paused looking across at me.
“Everything?” She
laughed. A desperate sound hurled against a bleak outlook.
We hurt more
than either of us could describe.
We didn't
know what the future held for us, but we laughed anyway as the
sun rose across
the desert, and I banked the helicopter into the first of the
rising mountain
ravines.
After an
hour throwing the helicopter through the narrow canyons and
rocky gorges, I
could feel my strength and concentration ebbing slowly away. But
that seemed
inconsequential in the surreal experience that was the excuse
for reality.
Julie
massaged her temples, and when she spoke her speech was slow and
slurred. I
knew she was concussed and slipping into shock.
By 'red-lining'
the helicopters engines I could force more speed, but as the sun
came up the
temperature would rise, and everything could go very wrong very
quickly.
But there
was no choice.
I inched up
the collective, dropped the nose and advanced the throttle a
touch, watching
the gauges creep toward the danger zone.
Waves of
nausea blurred my vision, so I used the only tool I had to
sharpen my mind.
Pain.
By wriggling
in the seat I could press against the wound in my lower abdomen,
not too much,
but enough pain to sting my sagging consciousness into wakeful
concentration.
Now was not the time to sink into peaceful, blissful oblivion. I
had a precious
cargo to deliver, a woman I loved more than my own life.
At any other
time, flying low level through the desert canyons as the sun
rose above the
horizon, would have been an extraordinary experience. One of
those almost vivid
adventures that stays in the memory forever. But I wanted this
experience to be
over as soon as possible.
Every part
of my body and soul willed the airstrip into view.
Flying is a
slow inevitability.
You know
you're going to get there, and yet the more desperate you are to
arrive, the
more time drags.
Another
rising ridge after fifteen minutes of undulating desert, and the
sweat dripped
down my face, arms and back, seeping into the wounds and causing
more pain as
my body salts stung raw flesh. I glanced quickly at Julie who
sagged forward
against the seat harness, semi-conscious, head flopping as the
helicopter rose,
fell, and banked through the ravines. I just wanted to take her
in my arms,
hold her and tell her everything was going to be fine, but now
was not the time
to drift into sentimentality, there was still the task of
getting this machine
on the ground.
The gauges
swam in front of my eyes as I struggled to pick out the speed
dial. That and
the vertical speed indicator were my guides as we crested the
ridge and Desert
Rock airstrip lay in front of us just beyond a dry lake bed.
Was it a
lakebed or a mirage?
I dropped
the collective and pulled back slowly on the cyclic, slowing the
aircraft down,
establishing an approach to the runway. The speed bled off and I
nosed down a
little to keep the aircraft's forward speed at forty knots, but
my eyes refused
to focus properly, and darkness appeared at the corners of my
vision as if I
was looking through a telescope at an image that kept getting
smaller. No
matter what my mind was telling my body it wasn't responding,
running out of
blood and slowly shutting down.
But not
before I got this machine on the ground.
Only a few
more feet.
Maybe
twenty-five, maybe thirty-five, maybe....
I didn't
know anymore.
Then I saw
the FIM-92 Stinger ground-to-air missile spearing up toward us
from a far
ridge.
My reactions
were slow and for a fatal moment I watched the white smoky trail
from the
rocket motor arc its way through the sky. I pulled on the
collective and kicked
the anti-torque pedals to port, almost escaping the oncoming
death, but the
rocket slammed into the tail boom.
The earth
spun in a lazy arc as the helicopter arched over backwards at
fifty feet above
the rocky desert as I lost control, spiralling to the ground,
pieces flying in
all directions, the only section remaining relatively intact
being the forward
cockpit, saved because the main rotor head deflected the impact.
There was no
pain, just a smashing, grinding, splintering sound. I felt a
violent lurch as
my head slammed into the side door, then silence. Almost lying
on top of me,
held by her seat harness, Julie stared into my eyes, blood
dripping from her
nose and ears, trying to speak.
“Julie,” I
gasped trying to reach up and touch her face, but my arm
wouldn't move.
Car engine
noises.
Voices.
I was
struggling with consciousness.
With reality.
Where was I?
What had happened? I didn't know.
Images from
the past flashed through my mind.
My father's
dead face.
Julie naked
on the catamaran.
Julie. My
Julie.
Then
nothing.
Buy Now @ Amazon
Genre – Thriller
Rating – PG13
More details about the author & the book
Website http://www.afnclarke.
No comments:
Post a Comment