Lexi now fired out and skidded to a halt a second before Ryan.
“What do you mean, what?”
Now Scarlet came through, screaming with excitement.
Hawke turned to Lea. “Eh? You’re really wet by the way.”
She felt the fury rising. “I’m really wet? Of course I’m really freaking wet, you fool!” She walked up to him and got in his face. “That wasn’t anything like a pissing waterslide! That was a freaking torpedo tube!”
“Ah yes,” he said with a grin. “But if I’d told you that none of you would have followed me.”
She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. “You crazy, mad bastard.”
Breathless and exhausted, they gathered together and began to jog up the hill toward the citadel. Moments later they heard a chopper’s engine starting up.
“We have to hurry,” Lea said. “Or they’re gone — and they’ve got the sodding map stone.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
At the top of the hill, the first thing Hawke saw was smoke billowing from their Eurocopter. Saqqal or Kruger had ordered their men to destroy it and they had obeyed. There was no way they were flying anywhere in that thing.
Then they caught sight of the enemy. Kruger was in the pilot’s seat and increasing power to the chopper while Saqqal, Jawad, Rajavi, Corzo and a couple of surviving rebels were clambering inside and belting up. To the east a Mi-171 chopper with Peruvian Army markings was landing in the ancient cultivation terraces and armed soldiers were jumping out. Behind it, a small two-seater Bell 47 was landing beyond the House of the Guardians. Inside were a pilot and a man with a news camera.
“That’s all we need,” Lea said. “Bloody news crew.”
Hawke frowned. “They’re the least of our worries.”
The surviving rebels took up a defensive position behind the city gate and opened fire on the soldiers. The Peruvians tried to scatter for cover but the surprise attack was too deadly and they were all wiped out in seconds. The pilot began to lift the chopper but a rebel fired through the windshield and took him out before the machine was ten inches above the ground. The helicopter crashed back down to earth, its rotors still whirring.
The ECHO team sprinted forward but couldn’t stop the rebels who were now piling inside the Venom and lifting up into the air behind Kruger.
Hawke turned to Reaper. “You still know how to fly a chopper?”
The Frenchman peered over at the Mi-171 and nodded. “Mais, oui…”
“Right, then let’s do this. I’ll take the journos’ Bell and go after the rebels, you take the army chopper and get Kruger.”
They divided into two teams, with Hawke and Scarlet running to the Bell while Reaper led the rest of the team to the Mi-171.
Hawke and Scarlet approached the Bell. The pilot was still inside, but the engine was off and the rotors now perfectly still. The man with the news camera was trying to zoom in on the burning Eurocopter in the Main Square, but Scarlet kept getting in his way.
“Move!” he said in English, and then in Spanish: “Damned tourists!”
The boot was fast, and as accurate as ever. A second later Scarlet was removing the camera from the hands of the howling newsman and hurling it over the sheer drop beyond the City Gate.
The former SBS man opened the chopper’s door, unbuckled the pilot’s belt and dragged him out of the machine in less than ten seconds. He told the pilot to stay down as he clambered in, but while Scarlet was joining him and buckling up both the pilot and the newsman scuttled away and started yelling for someone to call the police.
The former SBS man had piloted many choppers in his time, the last time being when he had evacuated the team from the missing Temple of Huitzilopochtli in the Lacandon Jungle, but this thing barely looked airworthy.
He consoled himself with the fact the news crew had gotten it up here in the first place and immediately began the starting procedures while Scarlet checked the weapons were ready to go and slung an ammo belt over her shoulder.
“Are you dressing up for me?” he asked with a grin.
“Shut up and fly, Josiah.”
A great idea, he thought, and glanced out the window to make sure the main rotor was untied. He knew it was, because it had just landed here but it was a habit drilled into him years ago and now unshakeable, like checking the fuel caps were secured.
He scanned the paneclass="underline" avionics off, strobe on and then he reached down and pushed the fuel shut-off in before checking the hydraulic boost switch was off.
“Can’t you go any faster?”
“Cairo, this isn’t the Sweeney and we’re not in a Ford Granada. You don’t just jump in one of these things and magic it into the air. It’s not Hollywood.”
She looked him up and down. “You don’t have to tell me that, darling. You’d look more like Matt Damon if this was Hollywood.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“When was the last time you went to the gym?”
“How the hell should… listen, I’ve got work to do so put your seatbelt on and can it.”
Hawke turned away from Scarlet with a look of incredulity before loosening the friction on the cyclic and the collective and made sure the anti-torque pedals and cyclic were all free and unrestricted.
“They’re getting away, Joe!” she said, the frustration rising in her voice. “They’ll be in shagging Paititi before you get this thing off the ground.”
Hawke wiped the sweat from his face and sighed as if he were dealing with a child. “Again… if you would just kindly shut your mouth I’ll be much quicker.”
Hawke checked the friction was set on the throttle and then replaced the friction and returned the controls to neutral, set carb heat to cold and made sure the comms were on. Then he turned the magnetos on and primed the engine by twisting the throttle and then set it for start.
“They’re almost out of sight! Christ almighty!”
“It’s such a shame I won’t be able to hear a word you say when the engine’s on.”
With that he turned the ignition key and watched carefully as the rotor engine’s RPMs began to rise. The ageing chopper began to vibrate as the engine picked up speed and the rotors started whirring faster and faster until they were a blur.
Hawke switched on the radio and waited until the revs passed thirty and then the familiar whomp whomp whomp sound of the rotors began. A final check on the magnetos and the carb temp and then he raised the collective. Scarlet made a big deal about things with fake applause when the Bell finally lifted off the ground but she piped down when a strong westerly blew the small chopper hard to the starboard and Hawke had to fight to bring her level again as they ascended.
He smirked as she settled down in her seat, and they couldn’t help but marvel as they looked down at the incredible view of Machu Picchu afforded to them by the plexiglass bubble cockpit on the Bell 47. Looking past his feet on the rudders, the amazing fifteenth century citadel of the Incas stretched out in a blaze of gold and green as the sun lit its intricate terraces and walls.
A second later it was gone as he increased power on the collective and gently pushed the cyclic forward. Ahead of them, the rebels were making good progress along the Sacred Valley. They tore over the Urubamba River and then pulled up sharply to fly over the top of the next range.
Hawke gave chase, and his superior piloting skills allowed him to close the gap before they too crossed the next range and saw the Andes fading into the jungles of northern Cusco Province.
Scarlet peered through her side of the bubble. “Get lost out here and you’re more fucked than the ship’s cat.”
“Oh, really,” he said in disgust. “I thought you were supposed to be a bloody aristocrat or something?”