Victoria sucked more water through the straw of her CamelBak. “Cutlass flight, come down to two hundred feet.”
“Two,” came the response from Plug’s helicopter.
Their transponders were already off, fifty miles out from the coast, as stipulated in their mission brief. The two-helicopter formation flew in low — two hundred feet above ground level. It was still daylight, but the hope was that by staying low over uninhabited jungle terrain, they wouldn’t be seen.
She was the lead aircraft. Plug’s helicopter was formed up on her right side, with a fifty-foot separation in altitude and several rotors’ diameter separation.
Victoria looked at Juan, her copilot. He had that deer in the headlights look. When she had briefed them all on the mission, both 2Ps had been excited. Victoria and her crew had gotten back into their helo, which was already spinning on deck, and flown around in circles for thirty minutes above the ship. That was how long it had taken Plug to have the maintenance team get the second bird out of the barn, spin it up, and get airborne. Once both aircraft were flying, they’d quickly formed up and headed to the coast.
They crossed over the coastline and turned south over the triple canopy jungle. A lot of the terrain was mountainous. Nothing crazy, but a lot more hills than Jacksonville, Florida, where their squadron was stationed. They used the navigation charts to keep track of various landmarks and maintain their position.
The navigation wasn’t too bad. They flew close enough to the coastline until the town of Esmeraldas, Ecuador. Then they followed the river south.
“Watch out for power lines,” she said to her copilot. “It would be a shame to fail on our first covert mission with Special Forces because we crashed into electrical wires.”
“Roger” was all Juan said back.
The kid was scared shitless now. Before he had been head down in the chart. Now he was about twenty percent in the chart, and eighty percent looking ahead. That was fine with her. It would help keep them alive.
Victoria said, “There should be a bend in the river up ahead, you see it on the chart?”
“Yup.”
“Is there a bridge next to the bend in the river?”
“Yeah.”
“What direction does it head?”
“The road heads south, then there’s a fork. Looks like a major road according to the map.”
“Yup, that’s the one. We’ll be following the road and taking the fork to the west.”
She leaned forward and looked out her right window. She could see the second MH-60R, hugging her right side. Normally she would tell Plug to give her some space, but she didn’t want to break radio silence. And she knew that for all his faults, he was a damn good pilot.
“There’s the bridge, boss.”
“Looks like major roads in some countries are less impressive than in others.” It was a tiny, single-lane road. But it was paved, and the trees were cut out around it well. So it would be easy to follow.
Victoria banked the large grey aircraft around sharply to begin flying over the road, careful to stay just above the treetops.
“What’s the time?”
“Fourteen twenty-three on the clock.”
“Alright, we need to shave off a little time. I’m going to head due west. The road bends around to the north, but if we head west we’ll be able to intercept it again. Should save us about five minutes. I don’t want to be late. We’re supposed to be at the LZ at fourteen forty-five. Set the timer on the clock on my mark.”
“Roger.”
“Mark.”
“Clock set.”
She banked the helicopter hard left and skimmed the dark green treetops. The forest flew by.
This close to the jungle, it felt like they were traveling incredibly fast. They were, she reminded herself. The illusion was when they were higher up and appeared to be traveling slowly.
Juan said, “Should be a river, running north south, before we get to the—”
“There it is.”
“Roger.”
“There’s a town to the north, but I think we’re too low to see it.”
“Let’s keep it that way.”
They flew on for another two full minutes, and Victoria was starting to get worried that she had missed the road. Low-level navigation was hard enough. It was harder when you missed a checkpoint or made a mistake.
“There it is.”
She looked at her airspeed indicator. One hundred and twenty knots. They were running late. Only a few minutes, but still. Operations like this were supposed to be right on time.
One hundred and twenty knots was her max range speed. It would use her fuel in the most efficient manner and give her the best chance of making it back to her ship without running out of gas. They would need to travel over one hundred miles to the ship once they picked up their passengers. They needed all the fuel they could get.
Fuel was going to be tight just based on the distance alone. But if the Navy — or whoever had activated this mission — was going with their backup plan, Victoria wondered what kind of trouble they might encounter at the landing zone. The only hint at that was the note on the mission orders to ensure that the helicopters were armed.
“AWR1, is your weapon ready?”
He had a .50-caliber GAU-16 mounted to the rear cabin door. “Locked and loaded, ma’am.”
“Roger.”
She looked at her fuel gauge again. Victoria pulled the collective lever with her left hand and pushed forward on the cyclic with her right. The nose dipped down a bit, and they gained another ten knots of airspeed.
“Picking up the speed a little.”
“Roger.” She loved how agreeable junior copilots could be. She could tell this guy that they were going to fly through a train tunnel and he would probably reply with “Roger.”
Ten minutes later, the landing zone was in sight. It was just an open field near a bend in the road, a dozen or so miles from the coast.
Victoria gradually dialed back the speed by pulling back on the cyclic and letting out power with her left hand. She didn’t want to decelerate too fast. If she did, it risked her wingman overshooting her — or worse, collision. The two aircraft overflew the empty field once, surveying it for obstructions and potential hazards. Victoria took them around and into the wind, landing on a flat spot about twenty yards from the tree line.
As soon as she landed, a man wearing jungle utilities emerged from the forest, running towards them and waving.
It was her brother.
She had suspected he would be one of the ones here but had been afraid to let herself think about it. She was sure as hell glad to see him.
When Chase got into the helicopter, Victoria told her crewman to hook him up to the comms.
“Victoria, is that you?”
Victoria noticed that her copilot was giving her a funny look. Probably wondering how the hell she knew their new passenger. She had violated the safety brief, failing to mention that she had a conflict of interest on today’s mission.
“It’s me, Chase. Are you alright? Can we get out of here? Is anyone else coming?”
She looked down at her fuel gauge. Only sixteen hundred pounds of fuel. That was way lower than she was comfortable with, but she could probably have the ship maneuver to get closer once they got high enough to communicate with them.
“We need to go pick up a few others.”
She turned around to face him, her expression of worry visible in the section of her face that wasn’t covered by helmet or and tinted visor.