"But-"
"Get going!" he ordered as he aimed and fired another short burst at a sudden movement of green camouflage next to the distant boulder and then ran toward the plane, vaguely aware that his lower legs had started to turn numb in the icy water.
Lightstone pulled himself into the front passenger seat, yanked the door shut, and began to put on his headset when the sharp crack of a high-powered rifle echoed across the water once again. He started to duck down, but then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a broad splash of water about ten feet to the far side of Marie Pascalaura's rapidly accelerating patrol boat.
"Goddamn it!" Lightstone screamed. "Those sons of bitches are shooting at her!"
Then he turned to Woeshack, his eyes widened with rage.
"Get this thing between her and that boulder, right now!" he yelled as he pulled himself into the narrow backseat area, braced himself against the right side of the plane and used both feet to kick out the left-side rear Plexiglas window.
As Special Agent-Pilot Thomas Woeshack throttled the dark orange floatplane forward, Lightstone switched the Colt Commando carbine over to single shot, aligned the open sights of the short-barreled weapon as best he could inside the bouncing and vibrating plane, and began to methodically fire round after round at the pair of cammo- clad figures barely visible on one side of the tree-covered boulder.
He completely ignored the loud clatter of torn metal as an incoming stream of 5.56mm bullets ripped into the floatplane's left pylon, and the loud clang! as another 7.62mm bullet punched through the thin-skinned aircraft in the space equidistant between Lightstone's stomach and the back of Woeshack's pilot's seat.
Thomas Woeshack continued to accelerate the bouncing and rattling floatplane in an effort to keep up with the rapidly moving patrol boat. He had to leave the Cessna's wing flaps locked in the full-up position to keep the plane down on the water.
But all too soon, the forward speed of the plane, the bullet damage to the waterlogged floats, and the counteracting force of the wind against the torn metal fabric started a rattling vibration that threatened to tear the small plane apart.
"Feels like the left pylon is going to tear loose any second now! Either got to go up or slow down!" Woeshack shouted over his shoulder.
"She's clear. Go up!" Lightstone yelled as he set the smoking carbine aside and reached for the headset in the back of the plane.
"Can you hear me?" Woeshack asked as he readjusted the wing flaps and started the Cessna up into a steady, roaring climb.
"Christ, I think I'm deaf," Lightstone muttered, the headphones making him aware for the first time of the high-pitched ringing in his unprotected ears.
Marie Pascalaura waved her hand and continued to accelerate the small patrol boat toward the distant western shore.
"You sure that was Paul you saw on the ground back there?" Lightstone called loudly into his mike.
"Yeah, pretty sure," Woeshack acknowledged. "He had on that red-and-yellow vest that his wife made for him. Real easy to spot."
Lightstone didn't say anything for a long moment.
"You get to know Paul very well?" he finally asked.
"Well enough," Woeshack said, his voice taking on a bitter tone. "He got me through flight school when everyone else was trying to have me grounded."
"Then what do you say we go back around, then come in low over that goddamned boulder?" Lightstone said in a cold, deadly voice as he wrenched another loaded magazine out of the nylon harness and reached for the carbine.
Woeshack looked back at Lightstone for a moment. Then he smiled. "How low do you want it?" he asked, banking the vibrating aircraft around to the right.
"Low enough that if I miss, you get to take them out with the prop," Lightstone replied as he loaded the automatic carbine and set the selector back to automatic. He waited with cold, murderous patience for Woeshack to bring the aircraft to an altitude of about twelve hundred feet.
"You ready?" Woeshack asked.
"Absolutely." Lightstone set another loaded magazine between his legs.
"I'm going to go up high and then drop us in fast. I don't think they're going to be expecting something like that."
"Good."
"Okay," Woeshack nodded. "Here we go."
True to his word, Woeshack put the Cessna in a steep dive that caused the no-longer-streamlined airframe to shake and rattle and vibrate all the way down, leveling out just in time to clear the trees as Lightstone held the trigger down and sent all thirty 5.56mm rounds streaking into and around the boulder area.
Chunks of trees and dirt and rocks went flying in all directions as one of the camouflaged-dressed men spun away and then tumbled down the cliff, while the other scrambled for the safety of a narrow ditch.
"Nice job, Woeshack," Lightstone whispered into his mike, not caring that his hands were shaking as he released the empty magazine and let it drop to the floor. "One down and one running."
"I think he's running for that plane that landed over by Paul's," Woeshack said. "You want to cut him off?"
"Damn right I do," Lightstone said evenly as he reloaded the carbine, ignoring the dozens of empty casings that were rolling around on the floor of the aircraft. "Take her around again, and we'll see if we can get an ID on that plane while we're at it."
"Okay, but don't forget we've got gas tanks in our wings," Woeshack reminded.
"Why, did we take any hits there?" Lightstone asked, never having thought-much less cared-about where the gasoline was stored in a Cessna Sky wagon.
"I think we caught a bunch more in the floats, and at least one in the left wing flap that I can see," Woeshack said as he banked the plane in a long, looping turn. "Doesn't look like we're leaking any gas. Long as they don't hit one of the control cables or us, we're probably okay," the Native Alaskan special agent-pilot shrugged.
"Wonderful," Lightstone muttered.
"Hey, there's another one!" Woeshack suddenly yelled into his mike as he banked the plane to the right.
"Where?"
"Off to the right side."
Lightstone quickly shifted over to the right rear seat, suddenly aware of an all-too-familiar queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.
"Can't see him."
"There were two of them. Both in the same cammo gear. Come back up front, you'll have a better view," Woeshack advised.
Lightstone forced himself to ignore his growing nausea and climbed back over into the front seat as Woeshack brought the small floatplane around in a tight circle.
"See, over there." Woeshack pointed over to the right. "Two of them. Looks like they're going for the plane, too."
For a brief moment, Henry Lightstone saw a flash of white hair, and what looked like a gun. He was starting to bring the automatic carbine up for a shot through the shattered right passenger window when the right front cowling of the plane was suddenly hit with three successive thunks. Black smoke started to pour out of the engine on Lightstone's side, effectively blinding his shot and causing him to choke and cough as a thick fog began to fill the cockpit.
"We're hit!" Lightstone yelled into his mike.
"Yeah, no kidding," Woeshack grunted as he reached down between the seats for the fuel shutoff valve and then used the stick to nose the plane down into a moderately steep dive.
"What are you doing?"
"Gotta maintain air speed or we'll stall out."
"Yeah, but we're going to crash."
"That's right," Woeshack nodded. "Listen, there's a couple of sleeping bags in the back with the survival gear. Can you get them?"
"Sleeping bags?"
"Yeah, I think we're gonna need them real bad in about thirty seconds or so. Better hurry."
As Lightstone scrambled back over the front passenger seat again, this time fighting the force of gravity, Woeshack quickly switched over to the 121.5 standard emergency frequency, keyed his outside radio transmitter, and then spoke calmly into his mike. "Mayday, Mayday. Kenai tower, this is November Six-One-Four-Seven-Seven. We've lost our engine and we're going down, eastern shore of Skilak Lake. Do you copy?"