Arctic Wargame - Страница 28

Justin dashed for the helicopter, which was hovering about seven feet over the runway.

Anna slid open the metallic door on the right side of the cabin and gestured for him to climb aboard. “Come on. Hurry up.”

Justin went for the doorsill, but all he could grasp was the cold, slippery wheel of the landing gear. “It’s too high.” He motioned for Carrie to lower the helicopter.

Anna relayed Justin’s message to Carrie, and she dropped the helicopter another foot or so. Justin sprang upward and grabbed Anna’s stretched hand. She gave him a strong pull, much stronger than he had expected, and he was able to drag half of his body inside the cabin. He saw one of the crew seats by the door, and he went for its closest leg. He wrapped his fingers around the steel post, and he dug his elbows on the cabin floor.

“I’m good to go,” he shouted. “Good to go.”

The helicopter gained altitude, and Carrie veered to the left, giving Justin a helpful nudge. The shifting force threw him against the crew seat. As he clenched his teeth in pain, Anna slid the cabin door shut.

“Welcome aboard, Justin,” Carrie greeted him.

He struggled to catch his breath, while throwing a quick look around the cabin. Gray and black equipment racks and operation consoles stood against the navy blue walls. Emily was crouched in the co-pilot’s seat in the cockpit, next to Carrie. Anna sat next to him. Once their eyes locked, she gave him a warm hug.

“I thought you were going for the med chopper,” Justin said after fastening a helmet he fetched from one of the crew compartments and adjusting the volume on its earphone.

“Why settle for an ugly duckling, when you can have a gorgeous swan?” Carrie replied. “Or in our case, a hawk. A S-70 B Seahawk.”

“Wow,” Justin said, as he brushed his hand over the leather seats and kept gazing at the helicopter’s interior design. “I’ve always wanted to fly in a Seahawk. Maybe not in such a crazy situation.”

“Don’t get too excited, ‘cause we aren’t going too far,” Emily said. “The blizzard will force us down for sure.”

“Not too worried about the breeze,” Carrie replied with a grin. “The chopper has so many sat-nav gadgets, we can fly blindfolded all the way home.”

Thump, thump, thump. The sound resembled heavy hammers viciously pounding against a massive anvil.

“What was that?” Anna asked.

“The Americans are shooting at us,” Carrie replied calmly, checking the control panels. All navigational instruments and screens did not seem affected by the sporadic gunfire.

She tapped the throttle, and the helicopter jerked forward. A second later, the vehicle began a quick ascent, climbing about fifteen feet per second.

Carrie said, “The chopper’s built to resist small arms fire. In a minute, we’ll be out of their range anyway.”

“We won’t crash?” Anna said. The pouncing had stopped, but her voice was still shaky. She was blinking rapidly, holding on to Justin’s arm.

“There’s no real danger coming from outside,” Carrie replied. “The Seahawk has isolated control systems, separate for each rotor blade. Even if one system is damaged, the other will allow the pilot to maintain full control of the chopper.”

“Oh, really?” Emily sneered. Then, she shouted, “Watch out for the mountain.”

“What mountain?” Carrie asked, sitting up in her seat.

“The Dundas Mountain. That freaking one!” Emily shouted even louder, pointing directly ahead of them. “We’re gonna crash!”

Carrie squinted. Through the clearing haze, she noticed the rocky cliffs, gray and black, ragged and huge, and growing larger by the second. The helicopter was headed straight for them at about one hundred knots. She flicked on a couple of switches. Two powerful light beams swung over the knifelike surface of the mountain.

“What? You didn’t turn the lights on?” Emily shouted.

“We were an easy target even in the dark. We took a few bullets, in case you didn’t notice,” Carrie replied. “And I wasn’t expecting a mountain right off the base but hold on,” she shouted needlessly over the microphone, “we’ll climb it.”

She tapped the throttle and held it while pulling back. The engines screamed. The Seahawk soared upwards, faster and faster. Carrie veered the helicopter to the right, attempting a ninety degree turn. Wind gusts were stronger alongside sharp slopes like these ones. They were capable of throwing down even large aircrafts during blizzards.

Their distance from the mountain was getting smaller and smaller.

A hundred and fifty feet.

A hundred feet.

Fifty.

One of the screens beeped an alarm sound, informing Carrie of the dangerous distance between their helicopter and the obstacle. She wrestled with the controls and the throttle, as the Seahawk angled off, further to the right, struggling to complete the tight turn.

She cursed under her breath.

The tail rotor blades swung toward the cliffs, as Carrie pulled on the throttle, hurling the aircraft sideways, in a last, do-or-die spin. The alarm kept screeching its distress signal. The terrifying sound of doom pierced throughout the panic-stricken cockpit. Carrie ignored Emily’s screaming. As she turned her head to the left, the flat-top surface of the cliffs sank below the helicopter.

“We’re clear. We’re above the mountain,” she said over the microphone.

Emily had stopped shrieking, but her mouth was still wide open, and her eyes were clamped shut. She raised her eyelids, one at a time. Her eyes bounced back and forth, shifting from Carrie’s face to the control panels, the cockpit floor and finally, at her own arms and hands.

“We’re OK.” Carrie placed her hand on Emily’s head, stroking her short blonde hair. “Everything’s OK.”

Emily nodded silently. Carrie glanced behind her seat. Anna gave her a shy smile and a nod of approval. Anna had not uttered a single whisper, let alone a shriek or a scream during the entire ordeal. Justin, on the other hand, had kept silent, because he knew Carrie was going to do the impossible to save them. He also knew you can have only one pilot in a helicopter at a time.

“Great job, Carrie,” he said. “You’re the only one I know who could have pulled it through.” He raised his right hand, making a thumbs-up gesture.

“Thank you, Justin,” Carrie replied.

Carrie’s gave Justin mischievous smile, as her gaze caught both of Anna’s hands wrapped tight around Justin’s arm.

Chapter Seventeen

Ten miles east of Saunders Island, Greenland

April 13, 9:10 p.m.

A few minutes had passed since their narrow escape, and the blizzard had grown wilder. Strong wind gusts and heavy snow blasts were tossing the small bird in all directions. Carrie grasped and released the throttle and worked the control panel, using every trick in the book to keep the helicopter in the air. The Seahawk kept rocking to the left and to the right, constantly dropping and climbing. At four thousand feet over the ocean, the view from the cockpit was a dense curtain of gray fog, twisting and twirling in a restless vortex.

“Do you have any idea where we are?” Emily asked.

“We just passed over Saunders Island,” Carrie replied. “My goal is to keep us in a straight path, as much as possible.”

As if to object to her claim, a strong downdraft pushed the helicopter a few feet to the left like some sort of gigantic flyswatter was trying to whack the Seahawk down to the waters.

Emily snorted. “Straight like that?”

The high frequency radio on the control panel crackled with a static sound. Carrie tapped a couple of switches. “This is HAC Carrie O’Connor,” she said, after muting the audio feed to the rest of the crew.

She guessed it was the air base back in Thule, and she wanted to keep their threats or pressure to herself, at least for the time being. Despite the fact that piloting was not her profession, she decided to switch to aviator’s lingo. HAC stood for Helicopter Aircraft Commander. “Identify yourself,” she continued over the radio.

“This is Colonel Richard Clark, Commander of the 821st Air Base Group in Thule. I’m ordering your immediate return to my base.” The colonel spoke in a clear and confident voice.

“Commander, I see you missed our departure. I’m sorry we had to leave without saying good bye.”

Justin knocked on the side of Carrie’s seat. Carrie raised her hand and made a stop gesture without turning her head.

“Carrie, if you keep flying, you’re doomed,” the commander said. “You’re barely fifteen miles off the coast. Come back, and we’ll ensure your safe landing.”

“Safe landing? Where? In the den of lions? Our chances are better if we keep our current course.”

“You can’t be serious. It’s impossible to make it across the ocean in this kind of weather. You’re going to kill everyone on board.”

“I don’t think so. We’re gonna make it, or at least try to, since we have a choice up here, unlike when we ‘enjoyed’ your hospitality.”

“What did you expect me to do?”

“We expected you to act as a trusted ally of Canada, with whom the US shares more than just a border. Commander, we asked you for simple courtesies, which you denied us. You practically locked us up in our rooms, as if we were dangerous felons.”

“You would have done exactly the same thing. Think about it for a second. Suddenly I’m responsible for three people who’ve been rescued in high seas. They’re on their deathbeds, but doctors are able to treat them, saving their lives. Instead of a simple ‘thank you,’ these ingrates bullshit me about a Danish invasion and request my intervention in the internal affairs of another sovereign country—”