“Which way?” Pamela asked.
He pointed back in the direction the fighters had come from. “That way. We can stay in cover for a while longer and at least we know we’re traveling in the right direction. I’ll recognize some of the landmarks as we go, although they’re going to look different from ground level than they did from the air.”
They moved more slowly now, conserving their strength. The sound of the explosions gradually grew fainter, not as much due to any great distance that they covered but simply from the screening effect of the trees. Within a few minutes it started to sound like distant thunder again.
One wave of aircraft stormed by, ascending and clean winged just as the second wave rolled in, still low to the ground and moving more slowly with their wings laden with bombs. They stopped for a moment and watched, felt the power echoing down in their bones at the sound and fury so close by overhead.
The two waves of aircraft passed each other by, the Greek Tomcats climbing harder now when all at once the orderly formation broke into shards as aircraft peeled off in every direction save the one they’d originally been headed.
“What the hell?” Murphy stormed forward to the edge of the tree line and stared up at the disorder. “They’re in combat spread, or at least trying to get there.” The separate aircraft were reforming into recognizable pairs, one high, one low, and starting hard climbs to higher altitudes. “What the hell spooked them? They’ve got to have cleared the area before they started in.”
Just then Pamela saw it. At first she thought it was a cloud in the distance, but the odd spiraled shape to it grew steadily longer, arcing up across the brilliant blue sky so clear that it hurt her eyes. She pointed up at it. “Missile.”
“Stingers,” Murphy said, then swore.
She watched as it corkscrewed its way across the sky now, moving impossibly fast toward the closest Tomcat. The pilot dodged and jinked, desperately trying to shake it. At the very last second, she saw the canopy pop up and wretch back behind the Tomcat in its slipstream. The two ejection seats, the back one first by only a millisecond, shot out at angles intended to rocket their occupants clear of the airframe. Just as they cleared the Tomcat, the missile found its target and the aircraft exploded in a brilliant flash.
The first chute opened, then twisted around the tumbling ejection seat, wrapping the risers into a tangled mass. The silk streamed out above the aviator, fluttering impotently, following him down to the ground.
The second chute bloomed then, at first looking precariously lopsided in the sky, then catching the air and filling. The aviator started his gentle descent to the ground when a chunk of flaming debris from the aircraft cut through one riser on its way to the ground. Then a second fragment tore through the fragile fabric itself.
“They’ll be after our people next,” Murphy said, his voice hard with anger. He traced back the path of the missile to a hillside less than a mile away. “I’m not going to let that happen.” He started off at a broken trot, limping badly.
“Wait,” Pamela said. “Just hold up a minute, would you?”
He kept going, and threw the words back over his shoulder at her. “I thought you didn’t choose sides, Drake.”
“I don’t. I just have to reload.” She slid the pistol out of her camera pack and a clip out of a side pocket configured to hold film canisters.
He was back by her side almost instantly. “I’ll take that.” His hands closed around the gun, easily prying hers off. She let go and stepped back.
Murphy popped the clip in and chambered a round. “Got any more?” She pulled out two more clips from her bag and held them out to him.
“No sides doesn’t mean being stupid,” she said. She hoisted the still camera. “Now — lead on.”
Anyone watching them would have immediately dismissed the floundering pair as posing any possible threat unless the watcher was close enough to see the nine millimeter tucked into Murphy’s waistband or the ugly expression on his face. They were moving slowly, awkwardly trying to keep to cover when they could, stumbling across open patches of field when they had to. It took them almost twenty minutes to make their way to the base of the hill. It was grassy and gently sloping along the sides, but the summit was a rugged crag of weathered rock and gnarled trees.
“How are we getting up there?” she asked. “Can we make it?”
He led her around the base, studying the slopes and the summit. “We have to go up this side. He’s got the other side covered.”
“How do you know?”
“That’s the direction facing the flight path. And no one’s shot us yet. You stay down here — I’m going up.”
“No way.”
“Listen, you’ll just slow me down. You’re not trained in this — you’ll make noise, give our location away, and he’ll pop us both before we get within range. You want that, risking those guys lives just so you can play soldier?”
She pointed at his waistband. “I’m doing my part already. Besides, you’re not going to shoot me to keep me from going. It’d make to much noise.”
“How about if I just tie you up?”
“I’ll scream the second you touch me.”
Murphy sighed and seemed to give into the inevitable. “Okay. Come on up here, then. You stay to my right and slightly behind. You got that?”
Pamela scrambled up the lower slope, her balance more sure than his had been. “Got it.”
“One other thing. You see that tree over there? That’ll be our emergency rendezvous spot.” He pointed at a gnarled oak at the edge of the last strip of trees. She turned to make sure she had the landmark fixed in her mind.
Just as she looked away, she caught an impossibly fast flicker of movement. There was a second of pain as his fist found the side of her head, a flash of light, and then she slid to the ground unconscious.
The first one hundred yards was easy going. Lush grass clung to the sides of the slope, interspersed with boulders jutting up ancient gray and weathered. Murphy’s American mind came to an immediate conclusion — difficult to now. No way you’d get a riding mower up here, either. This would be strictly a hand job, probably with a rope belayed off the boulders just the way you weren’t supposed to do it.
Further up the hill, with his injury now draining his strength and the soil increasingly rocky under his bare feet, he saw why the Greeks used the field as grazing for goats. The incline was steeper now, and he had to use the boulders to steady himself on occasion. Be rough going if you were trying to get up here with a pack and a couple of weapons, but certainly not impossible. If you had boots. If you weren’t hurt.
He paced himself, keeping one eye on the summit for any sign of movement or activity. Nothing so far. Bad field craft, not having a roving lookout to cover your six. Two possibilities — it was either one man alone, or two damned sloppy ones. He patted the pistol. Either way, the odds looked pretty good to him.
By the time he reached the smooth rocks capping the hill, he was feeling pretty bad. Not so bad that he couldn’t carry on, of course, but pretty bad. He paused for a moment with his back to a boulder, looking downhill and shielded from sight from the top of the hill. He let his lungs build back up the oxygen reserve in his tissue, sweep away the fatigue and lactic acid that had been building up, making sure that he was where he needed to be for the final push. He pulled the pistol out, checked to make sure a round was chambered and reviewed the plan: sneak up on the guy and shoot him. No explanations, not even if the guy spoke English. No second thoughts, no listening to pleas for mercy. After all, this Stinger guy hadn’t shown any mercy to the pilot he’d downed, had he? It’d probably been a buddy of his that had forced Murphy himself to punch out of his aircraft. Besides that, there wasn’t any point in taking chances. Kill them all and let God sort them out, that was the Marine Corps theory.