Enemies

“Creating a state requires the consent of the people,” Brett Fallon said. He stabbed his finger at Mike Carne, the French reporter along with them. “You study political science — you at least ought to understand that.”

Mike shook his head. “It’s not so simple as that. Geography drives a lot of it, you know. What works in the United States, with the U.S. being so isolated from the rest of the world by two oceans, doesn’t work in Europe. Here, nations overlap, history blurs the boundaries. You’ll never get the consent you need to make a state out of a nation here, because the nations are too overlapped. And in the end, being a state is about a nation controlling it’s own land. You people think the two terms, nation and state, are synonymous.”

Brett’s voice cycled a notch higher. “Nationalism. Nothing more than leftover tribal instincts.”

“It runs deeper than that. Study your cultural anthropology for a change instead of just current events,” Mike argued. “People have always formed into clans, groups, based on things that they have in common. They are fundamental things, beliefs that run so deep that no externally imposed concept of statehood can overcome them. Look at Northern Ireland and England.”

“My point exactly,” Brett shot back. “So you’re saying the answer is to simply give up in Northern Ireland?”

Mike shook his head again, now clearly irritated at the others obtuseness. “Not at all. But England’s tactics won’t work, not in the long run. You can’t force statehood on a country that doesn’t want it. Even a country where half of the population doesn’t want it.”

“So we just give up?” Brett asked.

Mike nodded. “And that’s the fundamental things that people like you don’t understand. Sometimes there are no answers, at least no answers that work. There are only degrees of bad.”

Frustrated, Brett turned to Pamela. “So whose side are you on?”

Before she could start to frame her answer, the pilot broke in over the ICS. “Looks like we’ve got company, people. If you’re not strapped in, do it now. Sometimes these Greek fighters play rough.”

Pamela was the only one with her seat belt still in place. She learned through hard experience that it always paid to be prepared for turbulence. Mike and the cameraman reached for their belts. Brett ignored the suggestion and continued the argument. “I mean, you’re the one who’s supposed to be the expert, Pamela.” There was something ugly and suggestive in his voice.

Pamela debated whether or not to recognize what he was insinuating, then decided against it. Brett’s ambition was a well-known fact within ACN. To answer what he was implying would simply lower her to his level, and there was no need for that.

She twisted around in her seat until she could see forward to the gap between the pilot and the copilot. The other aircraft was visible now, a Tomcat by the looks of it. The canted vertical stabilizers and swept-wing silhouette were a dead giveaway. After covering so many military conflicts, Pamela could recognize most of the major airframes on sight from any angle.

Must be one of the Greek fighters dispatched on regular intervals to patrol the border. Part of Greece’s solution to Macedonia’s independence had been to close trade routes and crack down on air space violations, in an attempt to cut off the landlocked nation’s international commerce.

Standard border war tactics — or at least what the rest of the world called the border. Greece itself refused to admit that there was any border between Macedonia — or Skopje, as they called it — and Greece.

“Any indications of a radar lock?” she asked the pilot, ignoring the rest of the news team. A deep, sick feeling was starting in her gut. Too many times she’d had to rely on her instincts to survive when reporting combat situations, and she’d come to trust that feeling that told her that something was about to go terribly, terribly wrong.

“How should I know?” the pilot answered. “It’s not like I have a threat receiver in this cockpit. He doesn’t look too friendly, though, does he?”

Pamela shook her head. “No, he doesn’t.” The Tomcat was closing on them at top speed, and Pamela could see the fire gouting out of its tail from the afterburners. How fast was he going? Max speed of the Tomcat was well over Mach two. She squinted, trying to see if the forward edge glove vanes were extended, but couldn’t make out the details. At speeds above Mach one, the glove vanes moved the aerodynamic center of the aircraft forward and reduced the load on the tail.

But surely he wouldn’t conduct a fly-by at those speeds? The wake turbulence of his wake could be deadly to lighter aircraft and helos, and the Tomcat pilot had to know that. It would be pure insanity, dangerous conduct of the most egregious kind, particular when aimed at a neutral party.

But was the press ever really a neutral party these days?

So fast, approaching so fast. She could see the outlines of the canopy now, see the two figures seated inside. “I think we’d better—”

Just as she started to make a suggestion, the helicopter pilot decided on his own that they were in a very unhealthy bit of airspace. He shoved the collective forward and headed for the deck.

The nose of the helicopter pitch down at a hard angle, throwing her forward against her seat belt and harness. Loose gear in the cabin rolled forward, creating a cloud of debris.

The cameraman screamed. “What the hell is—?”

The Tomcat’s wake smack into the light helicopter with the force of the tsunami. The helicopter rolled immediately, and kept rolling, unable to bite into the air with its rotors inverted half the time. Pamela grasped the side of her seat, felt her mouth open to scream as she watched the world spinning through the window to her side, blue sky replaced by a tree canopy, blue sky again, then more trees. The uneasy feeling she’d been experiencing turned into serious nausea. She bit down hard with her back teeth, forcing herself not to vomit.

Brett had other things to worry about. He hadn’t manage to get his seat belt fastened, and the first roll threw him violently against the overhead. He slid down it as the aircraft careened onto its side, and smashed into the other side. Blood streaked the Plexiglas. His mouth was open but his screams were drowned out by the noise of the rotors and the shriek of disintegrating airframe.

The pilot was screaming now too, shouting orders to the copilot as they desperately tried to regain control of the helicopter tumbling through the air.

It wasn’t going to work. In the first few seconds of the roll, Pamela knew that was a certainty.

Is this how it ends? Not with a bullet, not with a missile shot in Cuba, but in a stupid, stupid accident? No, I won’t let it. It’s not going to happen like this.

The helicopter was falling now, the roll dampened out by the downward motion. She felt it wrench hard to the left, counter to the motion of the roll as the pilot applied maximum rudder in an effort to stabilize the airframe. Amazingly, the engines were still screaming, although the sound had a sick, unhealthy undertone to it. Then the engines sputtered, coughed twice, and died.

The silence was deafening. She could hear the wind now as it sought out the cracks and crevices in the once-solid airframe, feel it spinning through the passenger compartment and cockpit. At least they were upright, and she could hear the pilot and copilot frantically trying to restart the engines, trying anything to slow their downward descent.

“Auto rotate,” the pilot screamed. “If we can just get a little bit of power, we can…”

Auto rotate. Not a chance. While at least in theory the ground effect and rotation of the helicopter blades might soften the impact, this helicopter was too far out of control to even consider it as a possibility. At least the roll had stopped as gravity took control. They were nose down, maintaining some forward speed as they plummeted through the night air.

Pamela grasped frantically at straws. They were upright. That gave them a chance, since the helicopter was built to take impact on its undercarriage. There was a chance, at least a chance, that they could survive.

“Into that bare spot,” the copilot shouted, gesturing off to his right. “Not very big, but if we can just clear the treetops, we might make it.”

The helicopter jerked hard to the right as the pilot forced it into a shuddering turn. The front windscreen was gone and wind tornadoed through the cockpit, battering her with loose gear. She could see blood trickling down the side of the pilot’s face. A grim, determined expression was on his face. The noise was unholy, atmosphere shrieking mixed with the screams of metal shattering under forces it was never designed to bear.

“Brace yourselves,” the pilot shouted. Brett lay moaning on the floor of the helicopter, barely conscious. Pamela leaned forward to try to pull him up into his seat, then stopped. Depending on how badly he was hurt, moving him could simply make matters worse. After the battering he’d taken inside the compartment, there was no