“Come on, come on,” Fassid grabbed Turcotte’s arm.
Turcotte got to his feet and put his hand over his eyes for some protection against the blowing sand. He followed Fassid on board, getting into the backseat. The pilot and co-pilot immediately took off, even before he had the door shut behind him.
The helicopter banked hard, then sped east, less than ten feet above the sand. The pilots kept the craft low and in a couple of minutes they reached the Nile, skimming across the surface of the water, barely missing a scow’s mast, then over the desert on the other side, heading toward the Gulf of Suez.
Turcotte reached up and pulled down a headset hanging from the ceiling and put it on. He listened as the pilots called out checkpoints to each other, confirming their escape route. Then a tone chimed, and one of the pilots cursed.
“What’s that?” Turcotte asked.
“Radar lock from above,” the co-pilot responded. Turcotte leaned against the glass and looked up. Etched against the blue sky were two white contrails from Egyptian jets.
“We know we got picked up on radar coming in,” the co-pilot informed him, “and they’ve scrambled everything they can get in the air to track us down.”
“You’ve got company at eleven o’clock,” Turcotte told them. He was amazed the Israelis had continued and made the pickup if they’d been detected. Every helicopter pilot he’d ever met had described the possibility of a battle between a helicopter and a jet as the equivalent of that between a poodle and a pit bull.
“How far until our feet are wet?” Turcotte asked.
“Forty-six miles to the Gulf,” the co-pilot answered. “But remember, we gave the Sinai back to the Egyptians in the peace accord.”
“And we stationed peacekeepers on the Sinai,” Turcotte said. “Can you get me a radio link to South Camp?”
South Camp was located near Sharm El Sheikh, on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula and home to part of the multinational peacekeeping force put in place by the United Nations after the Camp David Peace Accords in 1979. Turcotte knew there was a strong U.S. presence there.
“You’ve got a channel on the MNF frequency,” the co-pilot said. “Better buckle up.”
Turcotte was slammed against the side door as the helicopter turned perpendicular to the ground and dove into a wadi, now ever closer to the ground, something Turcotte had not thought possible.
“Can you get us over the water?” Turcotte asked the co-pilot, before he keyed the radio. He could see that the two jets were in a steep dive, heading toward them.
“We’re sure going to try. We’ve got a few tricks we can use.”
Turcotte keyed the radio and demanded to speak to the senior American officer at South Camp. As Turcotte talked to South Camp, the MDX began bobbing and weaving as the two jets rapidly approached.
Out of the comer of his eye, Turcotte saw a missile flash by, then explode into a sand dune. He felt his stomach tighten as the MDX spun one hundred and eighty degrees, abruptly halting forward movement. The two jets roared past, then the helicopter reversed once more and continued on course. It took the jets almost a dozen miles to loop around for another pass.
“What are they doing?” the co-pilot yelled.
Turcotte slid the side door open and leaned out. He could see the two Egyptian planes coming around, very low this time, at just slightly faster than their stall speed. “Gun run,” Turcotte replied. “Low and as slow as they can go.” He knew that if they were going to fire missiles again, the jets would be much higher to try to keep a heat lock. The helicopter must have some sort of anti-radar device and heat diffusers given that they had survived the first attack.
“Range?” the co-pilot wanted to know.
“Two miles and closing,” Turcotte informed the pilots.
“They’ll wait until they’re right behind us before shooting. Maybe a quarter mile,” the pilot said.
“How do you know that?” Turcotte asked.
“We’ve read their tactical manuals,” the pilot said.
“One mile and closing,” Turcotte said. “How far to the coast?” he asked. “Eight miles.”
He knew they weren’t going to make it. The two planes coming dead on for the tail of the helicopter looked like rapidly approaching darts.
“Half mile,” Turcotte said. “Now!” the co-pilot yelled.
Turcotte felt his stomach slam downward as the nose of the helicopter abruptly lifted. He blinked, realizing he was now looking at the desert floor, then he was completely disoriented as the MDX went vertical and began to loop over.
The two jets went by below and Turcotte was upside down, held in place only by the shoulder straps. His stomach completed the roll as they came around and down, now behind the two jets.
“Fire!” the pilot ordered. A stinger missile leapt from the weapons pod and raced after the jets.
“Fire.” Another missile trailed the first.
The Egyptian jets broke, one right, one left, desperately kicking in their afterburners to escape the missiles bearing down on them. They’d played right into the Israelis’ hands by coming down to low level and losing the ability to trade altitude for speed.
Turcotte turned from watching the second fireball as he heard a loud, retching sound. Fassid was puking all over himself on the other side of the chopper.
“The Gulf,” the co-pilot announced as they cleared a dune and a flat stretch of water as far as they could see appeared ahead.
“We’ve got two more fast-movers on radar,” the pilot said. “ETA six mikes.”
“Where will we be in six minutes?” Turcotte asked.
“Halfway across the Gulf.”
Turcotte keyed the radio. “Vanguard Six, this is Area Five One Six. Over?” He felt a wave of relief as he was instantly answered. “This is Vanguard Six.”
“Six, do you have us on screen? Over,” Turcotte asked. “Roger. Over.”
“Your intercept time to us? Over?”
“Ten mikes. Over.”
“Make it six,” Turcotte said, “or there won’t be anything to meet. Over.”
“We’ll try.”
The pilots had the MDX about twenty feet over the Gulf of Suez, engines maxed out. The interior smelled foul from Fassid’s vomit, but that was the least of anyone’s concern. Turcotte wasn’t scared. He’d always been capable of shutting down his emotions in battle, but on those occasions he’d had some control over his fate. Here he was just a passenger on an aircraft that was either going to make it or go up in a ball of flame, with the latter the more likely event.
“Ship to the right,” Fassid reported.
Turcotte looked past the Egyptian officer. A midsized freighter flying a Liberian flag was steaming up the Gulf, heading for the Canal. He keyed the intercom. “Can we use the ship for cover?”
In reply the pilot banked the MDX and headed straight for the large bow of the ship.
“Jets two minutes out,” the co-pilot reported.
“Guardian Six, ETA? Over.” Turcotte asked over the radio as they closed on the tanker.
“Six minutes. Over.”
The pilot brought the nose of the helicopter up and they cleared the top of the bow by five feet, banked hard right to avoid hitting the bridge, then were over the large main deck.
“There,” the co-pilot was pointing toward an open cargo hatch. The pilot brought the MDX down above the deck of the moving ship, then descended, matching the ship’s speed, down through the open hatch in the hold.
They hovered in the darkness of the hole, the only light coming from the hatch overhead where they could see a few startled crewmen looking down. Turcotte checked his watch. “Time,” he told the pilot finally.
They were up, out of the hatch. Five thousand feet up they could see the Egyptian fighters circling. And closer, four Blackhawk helicopters with UN stenciled on the side.