The Jeep roared off, and Stoke climbed up into the big half-ton truck parked a few yards away. No keys. He’d have to hot-wire it. Just as he bent to do it, the windshield of the truck exploded, showering him with a thousand fragments. He lifted his head and saw more green fatigues than he could count coming at a run down the road from the barracks area.
Shit.
The wires sparked, and the truck roared to life. He jammed it into reverse and backed up all the way to the doorway Alpha squad had entered. By the time he got there, he saw Hawke and Fitz emerge with Vicky supported between them. She looked okay. Hollow-eyed, but okay. Shit, she was breathing, wasn’t she?
“Everybody in the back of the truck!” Stoke shouted, leaping from the vehicle. “We got the whole Cuban Army coming down the road!”
Hawke lowered the tailgate and helped Vicky climb inside, giving her a quick hug. “God only knows how you got here, Vicky,” he said. “But I am going to get you out.”
“What…took you so long…Alex?” Vicky whispered, trying to smile.
Fitz’s commandos, some of them obviously wounded, started streaming through the door. Fitz did a head count as he helped them up into the back of the truck. He obviously wasn’t going anywhere until every one of his men had walked or been carried through that doorway.
“Okay, Stoke,” he said. “All accounted for. Hit the beach! Hawke and I will ride on the running boards and give you cover fire. Froggy, you guys grab a few RPGs and cover us out our rear. Go!”
Enemy rounds were sizzling all around them, a few starting to rip into the canvas top of the half-tonner when Stoke took off. Hawke, on the driver’s side, and Fitz, on the passenger side, each held on to the big rearview mirrors with one hand and fired their HKs at the rapidly advancing troops with the other. The Frogman and two guys in the back of the truck were hanging out over the tailgate firing rocket-propelled grenades at the first wave of green fatigues coming through the fence.
The RPGs slowed the wave of hostile troops down some but it looked like hundreds of them were coming. It was going to be close, Stoke thought, as he fishtailed the big truck in an effort to get the hell out of there.
He held up his arm to look at his watch. He was surprised to see it soaked with blood. A piece of windshield must have caused a deep gash in his forearm. His bloody watch told him they were forty minutes into the mission. They’d been in the building seventeen minutes. If they were going to reach the inflatables and make the appointed offshore rendezvous with Nighthawke before the whole Cuban Navy showed up, he had to get moving.
The banging of gunfire and the whoosh of RPGs behind him was now constant. It occurred to him that, except for his momma, just about every single person on earth he cared about was riding in this truck. Whatever it takes, he said to himself.
He told Hawke and Fitz to hold on and mashed the accelerator. The most direct route would take them through the heart of the tango compound, just west of the big finca that jutted out into the sea.
That’s when he saw the huge Soviet helicopter gunship come up over the trees. Soviet choppers made everybody else’s choppers look candyass. Big old black bulbous things with glass bubbles and turrets and shit. Scary-looking. Its rotor wash was kicking up a furious sand-storm.
Still, Stoke saw the bug-eyed monster’s twin six-barreled miniguns open up and start winking at him. Then he saw it fire two missiles.
“Christ, Stoke! Dodge those things!” Hawke said, firing his HK at the oncoming chopper. Stoke swerved violently right to avoid the incoming missiles and it was all Hawke and Fitz could do just to hang on.
The two missiles exploded about thirty yards to the left of the truck, causing a massive crater. The concussion alone lifted the truck up onto two wheels. It teetered, then finally banged back down again and Stoke got it moving and swerving right. This was bad. Even Stoke knew nine-millimeter rounds were literally useless against armored Soviet helicopters.
“We can’t take this thing out with the HKs!” Hawke said. “We need RPG launchers up here now!” He shouted in Stoke’s window as the chopper roared overhead. “Have someone pass them up!”
Stoke started zigzagging in earnest now, hearing the whine of the big chopper’s jet turbines as it careened around for another pass.
“No! Belay that order!” Fitz shouted in Stoke’s other window. “We’ll never get a clean RPG shot hanging out here one-handed! Stoke, can you execute a one-eighty in this thing?”
“Hang a U-ey?” Stoke said, swerving to avoid a looming palm tree. “I think I can manage that!”
“Do it!” Fitz screamed. “And come to a dead stop. I want to give Froggy a shot out the back at this fucking chopper. He’s the only one of us with the slightest chance to bring it down!”
“Hold on back there, folks!” Stoke shouted over his shoulder. “We’re going to flip this half-ton heap around backasswards!”
Stoke yanked down hard left on the wheel, locking it, and sent the big truck into a hard drift through 180 degrees. When it had completely reversed directions, he yanked up on the emergency brake. The truck skidded to a stop, throwing up a huge spray of sand.
He was amazed to see that during this maneuver, Fitz had somehow climbed through the window of the cab and was now scrambling over the bench seat into the rear of the truck. He was yelling at Froggy and the two other RPG guys to get ready.
The monster chopper had completed carving its turn and was skimming back over the treetops. It was probably surprising to the pilots to find themselves now approaching from the rear. But the ticking of bullets puncturing the hood and fenders wasn’t exactly soothing to those inside.
“Froggy, you remember where the sweet spot is on these birds?” Fitz was shouting at the back of the truck. “It’s an Mi-38 Heckle!”
“Mais certainement, ze Heckle’s thorax,” Froggy said, getting to his feet. “Right below his gullet.” He unhooked the tailgate, let it fall, and stood up on it, spreading his stance and lining up the RPG tube, right down the throat of the big black bird. He shifted his feet for better balance. The tailgate was sticky with the blood of his wounded comrades.
“Oh, shit! Don’t let him get too close, Froggy!” Fitz shouted, watching the chopper roar toward them at treetop level. Soviet choppers were designed to get hammered and not even change course. There was one small vulnerable spot, though, and Froggy had his eye on it.
“Settle…settle,” Froggy said, the tube on his shoulder, ignoring Fitz and all the lead flying toward him, steady as a rock. He was actually calm at such moments. He knew he was probably going to get shot, and since there wasn’t a fucking thing he could do about it, he always focused on whatever weapon was in his hand at the moment.
The RPG had a maximum range of 1,000 feet or so. It was designed solely for land warfare. Firing one upwards was enormously dangerous, even suicidal as a few Sammies had learned in Somalia, shooting at U.S. choppers. Froggy, who had been there, knew he was forced to bide his time. The miniguns on the bird were spitting lead, kicking up sand all around the back of the truck. Closing—closing—now!
WHOOOOSH!
The grenade shot out toward the ugly black helicopter, leaving a white trail of smoke behind it. The chopper tried desperately to pull up but it was too late.
There was a small explosion first, just aft of the nose under its chin bubble where its controls were. The chopper veered sharply left. It went into a rapidly accelerating spin. Fitz and Froggy watched, counting the seconds, praying the hit was on target.
There was an enormous flashbang of light and sound as the helicopter became a huge fireball skidding along the tops of the trees. It tilted violently left, its main rotors snapped and went flying, and then there was no trace of it other than the thick black smoke and licks of fire rising from the jungle.
A cheer erupted in the back of the truck, and then they all held on as Stoke jammed the truck into first gear and hauled ass the hell out of there, headed for the beach.
“Let’s go surfin’ now, everybody’s learnin’ how…” Stoke sang at the top of his lungs. He could see glimpses of the sea now through the palms. There was still sporadic fire coming from all sides, but Hawke and Fitz and the boys in the back of the bus seemed to be doing a good job of suppressing it.
Stoke was driving with one hand now, firing his .45 out the windshield and the driver’s side window. He didn’t have any targets but he liked the general idea of fire coming from all sides of the truck.
