The main rotor ripped loose from the impact. The tail rotor then spun the bastard like a top as the Sikorsky dropped like a brick soaked in flaming fuel—which is what it had become.
From two hundred meters, it wasn’t likely anybody was going to survive the impact, but Hill and Russell tracked it to the ground. When it hit, it rocked Carruth like an earthquake. Fiery gas spewed in all directions, arcing sheets of flame up and out in a ragged circle as the frame crunched and collapsed in on itself.
Hill and Russell ran toward it, but couldn’t get any closer than twenty meters because of the intense heat. Carruth could see their suits stirring under the force of the radiant heat.
If you couldn’t get any closer than that, then anybody
Thick, roiling, black smoke erupted into the clear sky in a great cloud, and even if there was a car coming later for backup in an hour or so, Carruth and his men sure as hell weren’t going to be here to see it. This much smoke in the woods was a bad thing, and the locals would be heading this way to check it out in a hurry. Which meant Carruth and his troops needed to be leaving for the car
Carruth triggered his LOSIR transmitter.
“Dex, grab the explosives, crank up the decoy car, and head out. Rest of us’ll take the primary vehicle. Don’t stop until you get to the rendezvous.”
“Copy.”
“Let’s go, boys. We’re gonna have company if we stick around here.”
They ran for the hidden van.
The FAA would show up sooner rather than later, too, and it wouldn’t take them long to figure out that a helicopter full of armed guys hadn’t fallen out of the sky due to pilot error. Well, except that he was stupid enough to be flying out here where Carruth was with his rocket launcher.
Wouldn’t take the feds long to figure out what had done the trick, either; he didn’t have time to clean up, they had to cut and run. If they found pieces of the rocket, and they would, there was the wire stretched out right there, it’d be like a fingerprint, so they’d know it was from a Dragon, and it wouldn’t take a big brain to figure out where
Who had gotten shot down and why? That might be harder, but probably they’d figure out the dead guys were on some list. Maybe one terrorist faction was going after another, and let Homeland Security try and sort through
Not that it mattered. Carruth and the boys wouldn’t be here.
Lewis probably wasn’t gonna be too thrilled about this, either. Chances were, the head honcho had been in the chopper—the backup car, if there was one, wouldn’t have been the way for the boss to travel. Carruth couldn’t be positive—maybe the guy was afraid of flying or something—but probably he was in the copter, which was mostly melted into slag by now and anybody inside it would be a crispy critter. No way they were gonna be able to stick around and get IDs, though. He mentally shrugged. It was what it was. You did the best you could with what you had. Anything else, fuck it. . . .
25
“Boss?”
Thorn looked up and saw Jay in the doorway. “Jay. What can I do for you?”
“I just got an urgent priority report from Homeland Security and the FAA—probably a copy heading into your in-box right now. A helicopter blew up and fell out of the sky over in Nowhere, Virginia. Killed nine people.”
“Oh, Lord.”
“It gets better. The guys in the copter were hauling enough guns and ammo to start a small war. M-16s, AK- 47s, and hand grenades, at the least. HS has ID’d a few of them, and those were on the don’t-let-’em-in-the- country-and-shoot-’em-if-you-see-’em list.”
“Terrorists?”
“ ‘Suspected’ is what HS says officially. Off the record, though, they absolutely were terrorists of the worst kind. A couple are from Qatar, one from Iran. They traced the pilot. He was a Saudi, no IDs on the others yet. The bird was a rental.”
Thorn shook his head.
“Here’s where we come in—the FAA guys said the copter was brought down by a rocket, and that it came from an FGM-77 Dragon. They found some kind of wire and bits of the rocket that confirm it.”
“As in the same kind that was stolen in the raid in Kentucky.”
“Oh, yeah. As in
“I’m sure.” Thorn frowned. “So, why is whoever stole the launchers using them to shoot down armed terrorists?”
“Got me. Patriots, maybe. Or maybe they are bucking for jobs in Homeland Security?”
A chime on Thorn’s computer alerted him to an incoming priority message. Thorn waved his hand, and a security-encoded text appeared, repeating what Jay had just told him.
“How did you get this before I did?”
“Friends in low places.”
Thorn sighed. “You will see what you can find out about this, won’t you?”
“In my copious spare time, sure.”
“Thanks, Jay.”
“No problem, Boss.”
But after he was gone, Thorn sat there thinking about it. It was a problem. That the missile had been used against the bad guys was good, but they still had two left, and the next one could just as easily be shot in another direction. Or not. He wanted to run these thieves down and make sure they didn’t get another shot off in
His assistant said, “General Hadden is on the phone.”
“Of course he is,” Thorn said. He shook his head and reached for the receiver.
Lewis listened to the story without interrupting. At the end of it, she nodded. “Couldn’t be helped. Even if you’d known they had a chartered helicopter, you would have still had to take it out. Bringing the rocket launcher was smart.”
Somebody fed money into a jukebox by the pool tables. A country and western song started playing in the background. A twangy-voiced woman singing something about a lyin’, cheatin’ man.
Carruth nodded. “I’m guessing our boy was on it, and unless he melted down to butter during the fire, they’ll eventually get around to identifying him.”
“Already have,” Lewis said. “And he
“Must be nice to have access to all that,” he said.
“It is. And to have them giving it to you because you are helping protect them from yourself? That’s even better.”
