Jackson turned the outboard motor away from the incoming fire, trying to put as much distance as he could from the patrol boat pursuing them. A couple of seconds later, another long burst hit the water just beside the Zodiac. Jackson decided to change tactics and tried to zigzag across the water in an attempt to make it harder for their pursuers to hit his boat. The problem was that he lost speed every time he maneuvered their boat to avoid being hit.
Mitchell could see the patrol boat gaining on them. Something had to be done about it before it got close enough to turn them and their Zodiac into fish food. He tapped Cardinal on the shoulder and said, “Gord, take Nate’s M203 and deal with that boat.”
Cardinal nodded his head and went for the weapon from the bottom of the boat. He hurriedly rummaged through a bandolier filled with grenades lying on the bottom of the boat and picked out two. So he could be heard over the sound of the engine, Cardinal leaned over to Jackson. “Nate, when I give the signal I need you to slow down or I’m never going to be able to hit a thing.”
“What’s your signal?” asked Jackson.
“You’ll know,” replied Cardinal as he opened up the M203 and slipped in his first grenade.
Overhead, an all-black CH-47 Chinook helicopter, like a massive bird of prey diving out of the night sky, raced over the top of the boats.
“Yuri’s here. Whatever you’re planning to do, do it now!” hollered Mitchell to Cardinal.
Cardinal brought up the M203 up to his shoulder, took aim, and pulled the trigger, sending the grenade flying high up into the night sky.
Instantly, Jackson dropped his speed. To everyone in the Zodiac, it felt as if they had come to a sudden stop.
With a pop, a flare opened up above the patrol boat, bathing it in a bright, white light. Quickly ejecting the spent casing, Cardinal slid in a high-explosive grenade and aimed. He was an accomplished sniper, but hitting a moving boat with a grenade launcher was going to take a lot of luck. He waited until the boat was so close that he couldn’t miss. Cardinal held his breath. Slowly pulling back on the trigger, he watched as the grenade flew straight into the small bridge located on the patrol boat. With a bright flash, the shell struck home, instantly killing the boat’s commander and the man steering the craft.
Jackson took that as his cue and gunned the Zodiac’s engine.
A split-second later, the patrol boat’s fuel drums on the back of the boat caught fire and exploded, engulfing the ship in a hellish flame. The only survivor, the forward machine gunner, scampered out of his gun turret at the front of the boat and dove into the sea just as the rest of the craft went up.
High above in the Chinook, Yuri brought the helicopter to a dead stop in the air. He told his co-pilot to take over as he climbed out of his seat, picked up a set of NVGs and made his way to the back of the empty helicopter. At the back ramp, he flipped the light in the back of the Chinook from white to red. A second later, Yuri turned on his NVGs, reached over to a panel on the sidewall, and pressed a button. With a loud whine, the back ramp began to lower. The sound of the twin rotor blades cutting through air above instantly filled the back of the Chinook. Yuri grabbed a headset from the wall and then carefully walked out onto the back ramp until he could see the black water below.
He had never done a water landing before. Trusting in the skill of his co-pilot, a former Royal Australian Air Force pilot, Yuri told him to gently lower the helicopter to the surface of the water below.
Through his NVGs, Jackson could see into the back of the Chinook as it slowly began to descend. With a slight twist of the wrist, he steered the Zodiac towards the helicopter. He adjusted his speed, knowing that it was going to take split-second timing if this was going to work.
In the helicopter, Yuri crossed himself and said a silent prayer that things would work as planned. He edged out as far out as he could on the ramp and guided his co-pilot down until the ramp touched the water.
With the front of the Chinook still up in the air at a slight angle, only the tail section with the ramp was in the water.
Less than a second later, water flooded up over the ramp and up inside the back of the helicopter. Yuri turned his head and looked out into the dark. He smiled when he saw the Zodiac lining itself up for a run into the back of the Chinook.
“Hang on,” Jackson called out to everyone as he gave just a little more speed to the outboard engine. It was like threading a needle; however, the thread was currently bouncing over the waves at over thirty kilometers an hour.
When they were within meters of the ramp, Jackson slowed down slightly as they sailed through a wall of spray thrown up by the helicopter’s rear rotor blade. A second later, the Zodiac surged up the ramp and inside the back of the helicopter, and stopped.
Mitchell and Cardinal leapt from the Zodiac and helped Yuri drag it farther inside the Chinook. As soon as they were clear of the ramp, Yuri keyed his headset and told his co-pilot to take off.
Happy to oblige, the co-pilot applied power to the engines. In seconds, he skillfully brought the Chinook up out of the water and began to climb up into the night sky. Keeping low to avoid radar, he banked over and turned north, heading for the border with Bangladesh.
In the back, Yuri raised the ramp, closing it. He removed his NVGs and turned on the white lights in the back of the helicopter. Yuri stood there in his usual attire of a Hawaiian shirt and baggy shorts. His long, black hair was pulled back behind his head.
“How is he?” Yuri asked Mitchell, looking down at the frail-looking man they had been hired to rescue.
“Not good,” replied Mitchell. “Do your people in Bangladesh know that we need a doctor?”
“Da, I spoke with them ten minutes ago. They’re waiting for Mister Patel.”
“Thanks,” said Mitchell as he patted Yuri on the arm and made his way over to the front of the Zodiac. He sat down and looked down at the cut on his wrist. It had stopped bleeding, but still stung like hell.
“Here, let me clean that,” said Jackson as he pulled out some disinfectant from one of Sam’s medical bags.
“It’s not going to hurt, is it?” asked Mitchell.
“What is it with officers? Of course it will, and I’m going to enjoy watching you whine.”
Fifteen minutes later, they crossed over into Bangladeshi airspace.
Mitchell looked about at his teammates and grinned to himself. He couldn’t imagine working with anyone else. They had long since moved on from being good friends. The people in the back of the Chinook were his family, and he knew that he would do anything for them.
5
A cold, bitter wind whipped across the frozen landscape, stirring up the snow and making an already cold day seem even colder.
With her hood pulled down on her parka, Katherine Reynolds quickly made her way from her tent towards a much larger green army tent that served as the expedition’s makeshift office for this year’s American-Russian dig. With the cold nipping at her exposed skin, she opened the flimsy wooden door on the end of the tent and rushed inside. At once, she felt the warmth coming from an old, iron, pot-bellied stove on her cold face.
“Ah, good morning, Katherine, I hope you slept well,” said Boris Zakhava in English, his Russian accent heavy and thick. He was a chubby man in his late fifties with sandy-blond hair and an unkempt beard that hung down onto his old blue sweater. As the senior Russian academic on the site, he was also the team leader for the mixed group of Russian and American scientists living and working side by side on the island.