“We’ll be beginning our descent in about a half an hour. Be on the ground in about an hour.”
“I’d better wake Anastasia up,” Mike said, nodding. “Thanks for the heads up.”
Mike looked at the girl on his lap after the pilot had gone and decided to let her sleep a little longer. She looked worn out by the day and flying in the chopper was probably going to unnerve her a good bit.
As it turned out, the power down and dropping feeling woke her up instantly.
“Are we okay?” she asked, sitting up hurriedly and wiping her eyes.
“Fine,” Mike said. “We’re on descent to Tbilisi airport. There’s a helicopter waiting for us there.”
“Okay,” the girl said, her eyes wide as the plane bumped through some turbulence.
“That’s normal, too,” Mike said. “Pockets of thicker or denser air cause the plane to go up and down a bit.” Mike thought there must be a front in the area since the plane lurched again. “Lean over here,” he said, sliding sideways and putting his arm around her. “It’ll be okay.”
Mike leaned over and looked out the window and was surprised to see that the air was clear. You got clear air turbulence from time to time, but rarely this severe.
“Captain?” he said, keying the intercom. “Are we following someone down?”
“Spot on, sir,” the copilot answered. “We’re behind an Airbus. I think we’re probably too close, frankly, but nothing we can’t handle. And this is where Tbilisi control wants us to be.”
“Back off a bit if you can do it discreetly,” Mike said. “The ride is getting a little rough.
“When a plane passes through it disturbs the air,” Mike continued to Anastasia. “It settles out pretty quickly, normally, but if you’re close to other aircraft it makes this happen; the plane goes up and down.”
“Will it make us crash?” Anastasia asked.
“Not hardly,” Mike replied. “These business jets are built very tough and very maneuverable. And Hardesty is a great pilot. This is not a problem.”
“Okay,” the girl said, sighing. “It’s all new.”
“And a bit scary,” Mike said. “More than just the flight. You’ll be okay, I promise.”
Hardesty greased the landing and was careful on the braking, obviously keeping in mind his junior passenger. Tbilisi airport had been built to support Soviet bombers during the Cold War and it had plenty of runway for an easy brake. About halfway down the runway he took a right, instead of the normal left to the terminal, and followed a series of turns to stop not more than seventy meters from a Blackhawk with its rotor already turning.
“This is your stop, sir,” the copilot said, coming into the main cabin.
“Up we get, dear,” Mike said to Anastasia.
The luggage was secured in an underside compartment with a door behind the left wing. As the copilot opened the door, a Georgian lieutenant gestured for an enlisted man to help.
Between the three of them, the copilot, Mike and the Georgian soldier, it only took one trip for the bags. Mike, frankly, could have humped them all himself, but he wasn’t about to get in the way of the dance. He ended up with just his briefcase and personal bag.
He led Anastasia over to the helicopter and started to strap her into one of the comfortable chairs in the center of the chopper’s cargo bay, but she pointed to one of the jump seats.
“I would like to look out, if I may,” she said, diffidently.
“Sit wherever you’d like,” Mike said, leading her over to the seat and strapping her in. Unlike the passenger seats, the jump seat had a four-point restraint system and when hooked up it hiked her skirt all the way up to the top of her stockings. She discreetly pulled it back down on the sides, but there wasn’t any way to cover up the inner thigh.
“Perhaps I should…” she said, waving at the regular passenger seats which had normal “airline” seatbelts.
“I like the view just fine,” Mike replied, picking up a headset and putting it on her and then following with one for himself. “Pilot?” he asked in Georgian.
“Yes, Kildar,” the pilot replied. “Are you ready for us to take off?”
“At your leisure,” Mike replied. “Thanks for the ride.”
“It is an honor, Kildar,” the pilot said.
The rotors increased in speed and Mike looked out to see if they’d form a halo. Sometimes, when the dust was just right, static discharge would form on the rotors. It would slide down to the edge of them, like little lightning bolts, and the effect would look exactly like a silver halo on the ends of the rotors. Not this time, alas. Anastasia would have liked it. However, it was also a sign of increased rotor wear, so he thought he should be thankful.
“Are you okay?” he asked as the bird lifted into the air. There was an intercom control on his seat panel and he’d switched it so that he was only talking to the girl.
“Fine,” Anastasia squeaked, nervously. But she leaned forward and watched as they lifted. “This is beautiful. I had thought I’d be afraid, but I am only a little. This is very interesting to watch.”
The bird spiraled up to about two thousand feet above ground level and then headed southeast towards the valley of the Keldara. The moon was only a quarter, but once they got away from the city lights and their eyes adjusted, it lit up the landscape like day.
“This is so beautiful,” Anastasia whispered. “There are so many trees. I’d forgotten how much I like trees. It must be very green in the day.”
“It is at the moment,” Mike said, looking out for himself. “The trees are just coming out in their leaves and it’s greening up nicely. The tops of the mountains, though, reach above the tree line. Some of them are snow-covered year round.”
“Where I came from there were many trees,” the girl said, quietly. “But no mountains.”
“Lots of mountains in Georgia,” Mike said. He’d noticed that the helicopter was on a continuous fair climb, even after the upward spiral, but as it approached the mountains it turned south into another spiral, fighting for altitude.
“We are going very high,” Anastasia said, breathing deeply in incipient panic.
“High mountains,” Mike pointed out. “We’ll be fine. These things are rated for ten thousand feet with a load of troops. This is easy flying.”
As they headed into the mountains, below the peaks, the helicopter began to buffet in the crosswinds and Anastasia squeaked and closed her eyes.
“This I don’t like,” the girl said. “I think I am getting a little sick.”
“Try opening your eyes,” Mike said, rummaging around in the seats until he found an airsick bag. The package was paper with a plastic bag on the inside, which he extracted and handed across to the girl. “If you have to go, go in that.”
They crossed through a saddle, with tree-covered slopes on both sides that seemed close enough the rotors should have hit the branches, then started to descend, banking through a series of turns as the helicopter followed the complex angles of the valleys. The crosswinds had settled down, though, and while the chopper was banking, it wasn’t going up and down so much. With the change of motion, Anastasia seemed to get over her sickness, sitting with the bag in her hand but a rapt expression on her face as the chopper banked past the hills. At one point it practically stood on its left side, letting her get a close look at the ground below and leaving her hanging in her straps.
“This is fun,” she said in surprise as the chopper leveled back out.
“That it is,” Mike admitted. “I really need to get one for a dozen different reasons.”
“You can buy a helicopter?” Anastasia asked.
“Well, a Blackhawk would be a little out of my range,” Mike admitted. “They’re damned expensive. Good birds, but overpriced. The Czechs sell a Hind variant for executive transport and medical evac that’s only about six hundred grand. And there’s something like ninety percent parts compatibility with regular Hind-Ds. And Hinds are all over the place. The only reason the Georgians have these Blackhawks is the U.S. government gave them five and support the parts.”