Masters tore his glance away from the Hind and looked around the cave. There was no other way out, that was for sure, and nowhere they could hide where the gunship’s weapons couldn’t find them.
Despite the odds, Masters knew they had to neutralize the Hind. But how? With three men dead — and a friend whom he now realised was way too greedy and ambitious for his own good — he was fresh out of options.
‘Wait here,’ Bronson hissed at Angela, and crept forward.
JJ Donovan was cowering behind a pile of rocks, trying to make himself as small as possible. He was staring fixedly at the cave entrance.
Bronson stepped up behind him, smashed the butt of the pistol into the side of his head, then grabbed him by the collar and dragged him to the back of the cave.
‘What on earth are you doing, Chris?’ Angela snapped, her indignation at Bronson’s attack on an unarmed man temporarily overcoming her fear.
‘I’m giving us an edge,’ Bronson said, resting the barrel of the semi-automatic pistol on Donovan’s shoulder so that the end of it rested against the side of his neck. ‘As I see it, there are two groups of armed men out there fighting each other. I don’t know who this guy is, but if his people come out on top, the fact that he’s my hostage might mean we can talk our way out of here.’
‘And if the other group wins?’
He sighed. ‘Then it won’t matter either way.’
When Masters had seen the Barrett on sale in the arms bazaar in Islamabad, he’d immediately decided to buy it. He didn’t imagine they’d need to use it, but it was a useful insurance policy. Now he was glad he’d spent the extra money.
The Barrett is arguably the most powerful rifle in the world. In expert hands it is capable of placing a half-inch bullet in a man-size target at a range of well over a mile.
And Masters was an expert. A former SEAL, his particular speciality had been sniping. Thirty seconds after the Hind’s heavy machine-gun had annihilated three of his men, he had the weapon loaded and aimed, and was looking through the scope towards his target.
But that, of course, was only half the problem. There was no doubt in Masters’ mind that he could hit the Hind. But hitting it wouldn’t be enough. The supersonic half-inch bullet would leave a hell of a dent in the chopper’s armour plating, but wouldn’t penetrate it. There was no point in aiming at the twin cockpits, because they were heavily protected, and the engines, too, would be a difficult target with no guarantee the round would destroy or even damage them.
But there were weaknesses with the Hind, as with all helicopters, and these were what Masters was going to try for. And he would, he figured, have only the one shot. If he missed, and the crew of the gunship spotted he was firing from the cave, they’d torch the area and that would be that.
He had to make the shot count.
He turned to John Cross. ‘I need a clear shot at that gunship, and the only way I’m going to get it is if the crew are lookin’ somewhere else. Can you exit the cave with your hands up, and then move over to the left?’
Cross looked shocked. ‘Sounds like a hell of a bad idea to me.’
‘If you can think of something better, just tell me right now.’
Cross stepped forwards and peered cautiously out of the cave entrance. The Hind was quartering the area, the crew apparently looking for anyone else outside the cave.
‘OK, Nick,’ he said at last. ‘This had goddamn better work.’
Lowering his Kalashnikov to the ground he walked slowly to the mouth of the cave.
A sudden noise from his left attracted his attention. Another helicopter, this one a small utility aircraft, was approaching. As he looked, the pilot flared and landed it about a hundred yards away, keeping the rotors turning.
Cross stepped forward and raised both arms above his head in a clear and unequivocal gesture of surrender. He just hoped that the crew of the gunship hadn’t been instructed to sanitize the area, and that they would be prepared to take prisoners.
Well, he reflected, as the nose of the Hind swung around towards him, he’d soon find out.
64
The moment the Dhruv touched down, Michael Killian released his seatbelt and fumbled for the door handle.
‘Wait,’ Tembla instructed. ‘We haven’t secured the area yet.’
‘They’ve surrendered,’ Killian retorted, pointing at the man standing outside the cave entrance. ‘It’s all over. I need to see what they found.’
He pulled off his throat mike, stepped out of the helicopter and started walking quickly over towards the cave.
‘Your orders, sir?’ the pilot asked.
‘We’ll stay here, just in case,’ Tembla said. ‘We’re not carrying weapons, and I’m still not satisfied this situation’s under control. There were six men in the area, plus Bronson and Lewis, but all I can see are three bodies and one man who’s got his hands in the air. That still leaves four people unaccounted for. Until I know their locations, I’m not moving. And if the mercenaries are still at large, maybe one of them will do me a favour and shoot that irritating priest.’
As Masters had hoped, when Cross walked out of the cave entrance and over to the left, the Hind moved slightly to follow his path. The pilot brought the gunship to a low hover about fifty feet off the ground and perhaps seventy yards away from the cave. He then selected the public address system and keyed the microphone.
‘Step forward five paces, then lie face down,’ he ordered.
Cross obeyed, keeping his movements slow and deliberate.
In the cave, Nick Masters took a deep breath, and concentrated on the sight picture. The Hind had swung round slightly clockwise, and he could now see most of the port side of the aircraft.
Helicopters have several weaknesses, but the big three are those parts of the machine that keep it in the air — the main rotor, the tail rotor and the gearboxes that drive them. The gearboxes were probably hidden behind armour plate — Masters didn’t know enough about the design of the Hind even to be sure where they were — and because he was looking at the helicopter from the side, the main rotor was almost invisible. So his target of choice — in fact his only target — was the tail rotor.
Slowly, carefully, Masters adjusted his aim, settled down until the sight picture was absolutely clear, then gently squeezed the trigger.
The Barrett kicked into his shoulder — he’d almost forgotten how hard the weapon’s recoil was. When he’d recovered, he checked the view through his telescopic sight. There was a neat hole drilled through the rear of the fuselage about six inches forward of the tail rotor disk. Damn, he thought. The chopper had obviously moved very slightly at the moment he’d fired. But the Hind was still in the same position, so he guessed that the bullet had simply passed through a part of the fuselage without armour plating, and the crew had felt nothing and were still unaware what had happened.
Masters settled his breathing — the weapon was semiautomatic and another round was already in the chamber — and again concentrated all his attention on the view through the telescopic sight. Moments later, he squeezed the trigger once more.
Travelling at supersonic speed, the half-inch bullet hit almost the exact centre of the tail rotor disk. The rotors were designed to withstand the impact of rounds from small-arms fire and even bullets from assault rifle, but the Barrett M82 was in a different league.
The bullet tore one blade completely off the hub and splintered and twisted the one next to it. That in itself would probably have been enough to cripple the helicopter, but the round hadn’t yet completed its journey. It ploughed on, smashing through the thin aluminium skin of the fuselage into the tail rotor gearbox. The bullet crumpled and deformed as its kinetic energy was spent, and the effect on the gearbox itself was catastrophic. The casing split, driving fragments of metal between the spinning gears and cogs. In a little under a tenth of a second after the bullet hit, the gearbox seized solid.