went into a picket course close to the ingress beach. Being controlled by the AWACs team in the command Chinook, they would be able to sweep up and down the beach unencumbered, their colleagues ready to warn them of any danger. The rest of the copters quickly fell into their shallow orbits as well.
Mungo was the CO of this FTR holding force. The incident with the super spy was still fresh in his mind. He had a ton of excuses should anyone want to hear them. He’d been just as exhausted, just as hungry, just as agitated as the rest of the unit after the attack on Pablo and the ambush by the Venezuelan jet fighters. Just because he was a flake didn’t mean he was immune to these things.
But the fight with the spy happened—there was no taking it back. Another chapter in his universally unlucky life. What Command would say about it once they got home, he didn’t know. Any one of a million different things, he supposed. Disciplinary action? Loss of flight status? Another court martial? As he began circling, these gloomy thoughts, having snuck into Mungo’s head on the way out, were really beginning to percolate.
For about thirty seconds.
That’s when he got the first trouble call from El Tapos.
It was Autry’s voice, distant and excited, but still under control. “Code Five,” was all he kept saying, over and over. The meaning was simple: the two taxi copters were in danger.
But Mungo knew what to do. Code Five meant the whole unit was to come roaring to the rescue, with all the fire and dash and scariness they could muster. And they were just a minute or so away. But when Mungo told the guys in the command Chinook to start feeding him real-time satellite video of the area, just so they’d know what they were getting into, the Chinook radioed back that this would be impossible.
The NSA Galaxy Net had crashed again.
THE SKY ABOVE EL TAPOS WAS LIT UP LIKE DAYTIME.
Sparks and smoke were rising up all over the area. Structures were aflame. Tracers ruled the night. On the edge of the nearby lake was one of the Black Hawks, shot down and on fire.
Autry was in the other aircraft. At the moment, he was circling directly over the downed copter—trying to keep what seemed to him to be a small army of ghosts from getting near it and killing all those inside.
Autry still wasn’t sure what had gone wrong. They arrived over El Tapos just minutes before to find not the rural isolated place it had promised to be, but what amounted to a small Wild West town with newly constructed pine buildings, muddy streets and pens for horses and cattle located nearby. At first, no one seemed to be around, though, no humans anyway. Both his and McCune’s night-vision gear said the area was clear.
The drop-off had started out OK. McCune’s copter descended quickly, the central lake being the most prominent topographical feature as advertised. It was only when McCune passed through 100 feet in altitude that the firestorm erupted. Suddenly there were guns blazing everywhere. Dozens of soldiers materialized below them, firing at the helicopters from nearly point-blank range. How were these people able to hide their heat signatures from the prying night-vision eyes of the two XBat helicopters? By emerging from holes dug in the ground and covered over by turf, and in some cases, walking directly out of the lake itself. Autry wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it with his own illuminated eyes.
Only one word popped into his mind when he saw the fusillade of tracers fire climbing up at him.
Ambush…
Someone had been expecting them.
The wave of gunfire caught McCune’s Black Hawk head-on. How the young pilot was able to keep his aircraft under control was a miracle in itself. That he was still alive was simply unexplainable. His copter was hit all over, but not mortally, at least not yet. Instead of crashing into the intended drop zone, McCune regained his aircraft’s forward momentum and wobbled it toward the center
Mungo was the CO of this FTR holding force. The incident with the super spy was still fresh in his mind. He had a ton of excuses should anyone want to hear them. He’d been just as exhausted, just as hungry, just as agitated as the rest of the unit after the attack on Pablo and the ambush by the Venezuelan jet fighters. Just because he was a flake didn’t mean he was immune to these things.
But the fight with the spy happened—there was no taking it back. Another chapter in his universally unlucky life. What Command would say about it once they got home, he didn’t know. Any one of a million different things, he supposed. Disciplinary action? Loss of flight status? Another court martial? As he began circling, these gloomy thoughts, having snuck into Mungo’s head on the way out, were really beginning to percolate.
For about thirty seconds.
That’s when he got the first trouble call from El Tapos.
It was Autry’s voice, distant and excited, but still under control. “Code Five,” was all he kept saying, over and over. The meaning was simple: the two taxi copters were in danger.
But Mungo knew what to do. Code Five meant the whole unit was to come roaring to the rescue, with all the fire and dash and scariness they could muster. And they were just a minute or so away. But when Mungo told the guys in the command Chinook to start feeding him real-time satellite video of the area, just so they’d know what they were getting into, the Chinook radioed back that this would be impossible.
The NSA Galaxy Net had crashed again.
THE SKY ABOVE EL TAPOS WAS LIT UP LIKE DAYTIME.
Sparks and smoke were rising up all over the area. Structures were aflame. Tracers ruled the night. On the edge of the nearby lake was one of the Black Hawks, shot down and on fire.
Autry was in the other aircraft. At the moment, he was circling directly over the downed copter—trying to keep what seemed to him to be a small army of ghosts from getting near it and killing all those inside.
Autry still wasn’t sure what had gone wrong. They arrived over El Tapos just minutes before to find not the rural isolated place it had promised to be, but what amounted to a small Wild West town with newly constructed pine buildings, muddy streets and pens for horses and cattle located nearby. At first, no one seemed to be around, though, no humans anyway. Both his and McCune’s night-vision gear said the area was clear.
The drop-off had started out OK. McCune’s copter descended quickly, the central lake being the most prominent topographical feature as advertised. It was only when McCune passed through 100 feet in altitude that the firestorm erupted. Suddenly there were guns blazing everywhere. Dozens of soldiers materialized below them, firing at the helicopters from nearly point-blank range. How were these people able to hide their heat signatures from the prying night-vision eyes of the two XBat helicopters? By emerging from holes dug in the ground and covered over by turf, and in some cases, walking directly out of the lake itself. Autry wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it with his own illuminated eyes.
Only one word popped into his mind when he saw the fusillade of tracers fire climbing up at him.
Ambush…
Someone had been expecting them.
The wave of gunfire caught McCune’s Black Hawk head-on. How the young pilot was able to keep his aircraft under control was a miracle in itself. That he was still alive was simply unexplainable. His copter was hit all over, but not mortally, at least not yet. Instead of crashing into the intended drop zone, McCune regained his aircraft’s forward momentum and wobbled it toward the center
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