“Mills, track that hostile contact. I don’t want any surprises.”
“Tracking,” his sensor operator said.
“Are we heading over to help, Major?” Sergeant First Class Papovich asked.
“My orders are to wait for them to cross the border,” Borelli said.
“Don’t forget the two-thousand-meter restriction, Boogie,” his copilot said.
“And that,” Borelli mumbled.
“The two thousand meters only applies if they’re under fire from a hostile force,” Papovich said.
Another line of tracers raced to the ground in the distance, sputtering skyward after impact with the ground.
“They’re engaged by a hostile force, Pappy. I can’t touch them,” Borelli said.
“Then we might have to remove the hostile force, so we can comply with our rules of engagement,” the crew chief said.
“I’m not even going to ask how you came up with that.”
“Simple, Major,” Papovich said. “It gets pretty confusing on these operations and this is a prototype aircraft prone to bugs and glitches. As long as we bring them back, nobody’s gonna give a shit how far we were from the border.”
“Distance to Blackjack?”
“Twenty-four hundred meters.”
With the Hip conducting gun runs, the Tiger wasn’t making enough progress to reach the border in time, and there was no way he could keep the Stealth Hawks on station past 4:55. He needed a thirty-minute high-speed run before sunrise in order to clear any inhabited areas near the border and arrive at FARP “Blacktop” undetected. There was no way the Tiger would make it if they didn’t intervene. He nudged the helicopter forward at a steady fifty miles per hour.
“Revised distance to Blackjack?”
“Twenty-four fifty. They lost some distance zigzagging,” Mills said.
“Pappy, help him with the laser rangefinder, I’m getting some strange readings on my helmet-mounted HUD,” Borelli said.
“Roger that, sir,” Papovich replied. “I never did trust all of the gizmos in this thing. I’m reading nineteen hundred meters and closing.”
“Can you confirm that, Mills?”
“Affirmative. Nineteen hundred meters and closing,” Mills said, finally climbing onboard the bullshit bus.
“Gentlemen, my sensors indicate that Blackjack has crossed into Kazakhstan,” he said, keying the taskforce communications net.
Chapter 69
Richard Farrington’s shoulder slammed into the front passenger door as Misha yanked the wheel left to avoid the Russian helicopter’s next fusillade of projectiles. Halfway through the turn, he heard the AGS-30 automatic grenade launcher start to discharge rounds at its cyclic rate, in a futile attempt to disrupt the attack. The Hip’s pilots and gunners had conducted five gun runs at this point, and it was only a matter of time before they figured out how to compensate for Misha’s evasive tactics. If his Tiger didn’t reach the border within the next seven minutes, the Russians would have all day to figure it out. When a second stream of tracers struck the ground in front of their vehicle immediately after the first, he realized the chase had come to an end.
The entire cabin erupted in a blinding green light as tracers bounced off the hood and streamed past his face. His night vision goggles disappeared in a flash of heat. His ears filled with an incredible racket that sounded like multiple jackhammers pounding away at the sheet metal. Human screams competed unsuccessfully with the intense noise, barely registering. A warm spray blurred his vision…and the storm ended just as quickly as it started, leaving him stunned in his seat.
The Tiger slowed to a stop, with smoke pouring from its partially open, punctured hood. It was still too dark to see inside the cabin without night vision, but he didn’t need to visually confirm the fact that they were combat ineffective. Misha’s head leaned against the steering wheel, his hands still tightly gripped in the ten and two o’clock position. He muttered unintelligibly, or maybe Farrington was still too dazed to comprehend what he was saying. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Gosha lying on the deck of the rear compartment, trying to raise himself up on an elbow.
The deep thumping sound of the Hip’s rotors jarred him back into action, and he opened the door, gripping his AK-107 rifle. He hopped down from the vehicle, expecting to fall into the tall grass on useless legs, but instead landed in a steady crouch. Grateful that he had somehow escaped the maelstrom unscathed, he reached instinctively for his missing night vision goggles. Failing to find them attached to his helmet, he cursed and moved to the back of the Tiger, hoping to spot the lumbering beast against the early dawn sky.
He caught a glimpse of the dark shape moving right to left and considered climbing up the side of the Tiger to use the grenade launcher. He knew it would be pointless. The Russians would engage the vehicle from behind, rendering the AGS-30 useless. His only course of action at this point was to drag his team clear of the vehicle and try to reach the border. The thought was insane, given what he had seen inside the Tiger, but it was the only plan he could conjure while tracking the Hip’s movement against the royal blue strip of horizon. The terrifying buzz saw sound of the Russian helicopter’s miniguns filled his ears, causing him to involuntarily brace for the inevitable green storm that would unceremoniously tear him to shreds three hundred meters from the Kazakhstan border. They’d almost made it.
The sound of rapid gunfire continued, but he didn’t disintegrate along with the Tiger. Instead, a long line of red tracers raced toward the Russian helicopter, bouncing off the Hip’s metal hull like a Fourth of July sparkler. The visual effect gave the deceptive impression that the Hip was impervious to the gunfire, but Farrington knew better. For each tracer that bounced off the Hip’s thin aluminum hull, at least fifteen 7.62mm steel jacketed rounds pounded the helicopter in a continuous stream of kinetic energy. The three-second burst of tracers put well over three hundred high-velocity projectiles into the Hip, most likely killing it.
A second crimson stream reached out and connected with the Russian helicopter. Before the minigun’s deadly echo had faded, a tremendous explosion lit the ground to the east, briefly exposing the black helicopter that had undeniably saved their lives. Farrington turned to the Tiger and opened the rear hatch, using the light from the burning wreckage to survey the damage. The blood-slicked deck didn’t buoy his hopes.
“Blackjack elements, report!” he yelled, checking Sasha’s pulse, which was strong.
“I’m hit in at least two places,” Gosha whispered, “left shoulder and hip.”
“Looks like you got hit in the head too,” Farrington said, searching his vest for a flashlight.
“Doesn’t surprise me,” Gosha replied.
“Misha?” he said, getting no response.
He slid along the left side of the Tiger to the driver’s door, directing his flashlight through the smoke to assess the damage. The hatch showed several sizable, paint chipped dents, where rounds had bounced harmlessly off the vehicle’s armor plating. The window frame showed similar damage, which made him wonder how many of the projectiles had passed through the open window, potentially striking Misha. A bloodied hand appeared and gripped the bottom of the window frame.
“Misha?” Farrington repeated, exposing the operative to the bright LED beam.
“Yeah, I’m fucked up,” he grunted.
“Can you move?” Farrington said, trying to open the door, which was stuck.
“I don’t think so. I’m hit all over,” he whispered.