“They’re swinging around on our starboard side for a clear shot. When I give the word, drop the flaps and pull back the throttle.”
“I’ll never pull out if I stall her at this altitude.”
“Coming down in treetops beats a bullet in the brain and crashing in flames.”
“I never thought of it quite like that,” Stokes said grimly.
Pitt watched intently as the blue-black helicopter pulled parallel to the floatplane and seemed to hang there, like a hovering falcon eyeing a pigeon. They were so close that Pitt could discern the expressions on the faces of the pilot and copilot. They were both smiling. Pitt opened his side window and held the automatic out of sight under the frame.
“No warning over the radio?” said Stokes disbelievingly. “No demand we return to the mine?”
“These guys play tough. They wouldn’t dare kill a Mountie unless they’ve got orders from someone high up in Dorsett Consolidated.”
“I can’t believe they expect to get away with it.”
“They’re sure as hell going to try,” Pitt said quietly, his eyes locked on the gunner. “Get ready.” He was not optimistic. Their only advantage, which was really no advantage at all, was that the 530 MD Defender was better suited for ground attack than air-to-air combat.
Stokes held the control column between his knees as one hand embraced the flap levers and the other gripped the throttle. He found himself wondering why he placed so much trust in a man he had known less than two hours. The answer was simple. In all his years with the Mounties he had seen few men who were in such absolute control of a seemingly hopeless situation.
“Now!” Pitt shouted, raising and firing off the automatic in the same breath.
Stokes rammed the flaps to the full down position and slapped back the throttle. The old Beaver, without the power of its engine and held by the wind resistance against the big floats, slowed as abruptly as if it had entered a cloud of glue.
At almost the same instant, Stokes heard the rapid-fire stammer of a machine gun and the thump of bullets on one wing. He also heard the sharp crack of Pitt’s automatic. This was no fight, he thought as he frantically threw the near-stalling plane around in the air, this was a high school quarterback facing the entire defensive line of the Arizona Cardinals football team. Then suddenly, for some inexplicable reason the shooting stopped. The nose of the plane was dropping, and he pushed the throttle forward again to regain a small measure of control.
Stokes stole a glance sideways as he leveled out the floatplane and picked up speed. The helicopter hard veered off. The copilot was slumped sideways in his seat behind several bullet holes in the plastic bubble of the cockpit. Stokes was surprised to find that the Beaver still responded to his commands. What surprised him even more was the look on Pitt’s face. It was sheer disappointment.
“Damn!” Pitt muttered. “I missed.”
“What are you talking about? You hit the copilot.”
Pitt, angry at himself, stared at him. “I was aiming at the rotor assembly.”
“You timed it perfectly,” Stokes complimented him. “How did you know the exact instant to give me the signal and then shoot?”
“The pilot stopped smiling.”
Stokes let it go. They weren’t out of the storm yet. Broadmoor’s village was still thirty kilometers away.
“They’re coming around for another pass,” said Pitt.
“No sense in attempting the same dodge.”
Pitt nodded. “I agree. The pilot will be expecting it. This time pull back on the control column and do an Immelmann.”
“What’s an Immelmann?”
Pitt looked at him. “You don’t know? How long have you been flying, for God’s sake?”
“Twenty-one hours, give or take.”
“Oh, that’s just great,” Pitt groaned. “Pull up in a half loop and then do a half roll at the top, to end up going in the opposite direction.”
“I’m not sure I’m up for that.”
“Don’t the Mounties have qualified professional pilots?”
“None who were available for this assignment,” Stokes said stiffly. “Think you might hit a vital part of the chopper this time?”
“Not unless I’m amazingly lucky,” Pitt replied. “I’m down to three rounds.”
There was no hesitating on the part of the Defender’s pilot. He angled in for a direct attack from above and to the side of his helpless quarry. A well-designed attack that left little room for Stokes to maneuver.
“Now!” Pitt yelled. “Put your nose down to gain speed and then pull up into your loop.”
Stokes’ inexperience caused hesitation. He was barely coming to the top of the loop in preparation for the half roll when the 7.62 millimeter shells began smashing into the floatplane’s thin aluminum skin. The windshield burst into a thousand pieces as shells hammered the instrument panel. The Defender’s pilot altered his aim and raked his fire from the cockpit across the fuselage. It was an error that kept the Beaver in the air. He should have blasted the engine.
Pitt fired off his final three rounds and hurled himself forward and down to make himself as small a target as possible in an act that was pure illusion.
Remarkably, Stokes had completed the Immelmann, late to be sure, but now the Beaver was headed away from the helicopter before its pilot could swing his craft around 180 degrees. Pitt shook his head in dazed incredulity and checked his body for wounds. Except for a rash of small cuts on his face from slivers that had flown off the shattered windshield, he was unscathed. The Beaver was in level flight, and the radial engine was still roaring smoothly at full revolutions. The engine was the only part of the plane that hadn’t been riddled with bullets. He looked at Stokes sharply.
“Are you okay?”
Stokes slowly turned and gazed at Pitt through unfocused eyes. “I think the bastards just shot me out of my pension,” he murmured. He coughed and then his lips were painted with blood that seeped down his chin and trickled onto his chest. Then he slumped forward against his shoulder harness, unconscious.
Pitt took the copilot’s control wheel in his hands and immediately threw the floatplane around into a hard 180-degree bank until he was heading back on a course toward Mason Broadmoor’s village. His snap turn caught the helicopter’s pilot off guard, and a shower of bullets sprayed the empty air behind the floatplane’s tail.
He wiped away the blood that had trailed into one eye and took stock. Most of the aircraft was stitched with over a hundred holes, but the control systems and surfaces were undamaged and the big 450 Wasp engine was still pounding away on every one of its cylinders.
Now what to do?
The first plan that ran through his mind was to make an attempt at ramming the helicopter. The old take ’em with you routine, Pitt mused. But that’s all it could have been, an attempt. The Defender was far more nimble in the air than the lumbering Beaver with its massive pontoons. He’d stand as much chance as a cobra against a mongoose, a fight the mongoose never failed to win against the slower cobra. Only when it came up against a rattlesnake did the mongoose go down to defeat. The crazy thought running through Pitt’s mind became divine inspiration as he sighted a low ridge of rocks about half a kilometer ahead and slightly to his right.
There was a path toward the rocks through a stand of tall Douglas fir trees. He dove between the trees, his wingtips brushing the needles of the upper branches. To anyone else it would have seemed like a desperate act of suicidal madness. The gambit misled the Defender’s pilot, who broke off the third attack and followed slightly above and behind the floatplane, waiting to observe what looked like a certain crash.