“Colonel Nielson,” the captain said in crisp faintly Brit accented English. “Good to see you. My father-in-law sends his regards.” He snapped a crispy salute and dropped it at the colonel’s reply.
“Ah, Captain Kahbolov, we’ve never met,” Nielson said, shaking the captain’s hand. “Captain Bathlick, Captain Efim Kahbolov. His father is the Georgian Chief of Staff. And he’s a pilot as well.”
“Good to meet you, Captain,” Kacey said, shaking his hand.
“And you, Captain,” the Georgian said, grinning. “I was originally trained on the Hind. I understand the Js are sweet birds. Hopefully these will help.” He pulled an envelope out of the GAZ and handed it to Nielson.
“This is certainly generous,” Nielson said, ripping open the envelope and sliding out the contents. He looked at the papers and then blanched. “Holy Fuck, captain.”
“Which one?” Kacey asked, looking over his shoulder. However, the documents were in Cyrillic and incomprehensible.
“Thank your father, captain,” Nielson said, awe in his voice. He looked up at the trucks and shook his head. “Thank him very VERY much for us.”
“They were going to be sold,” the captain replied with a shrug. “My father thought that using them in the defense of the homeland made a better choice. Use them well, captain. That will be worth the very long, very cold, ride.”
“What?” Kacey asked, frowning. “What’s the big deal about parts?”
“They’re not parts, Kacey,” Nielson said, handing her the documents while continuing to look at the trucks in wonder. “The lead truck is three complete gun systems for a Hind. The second has rocket launchers. The rest… is ammo.”
The whole team was down, the sun was coming up and it was time for Mike to descend.
The view across the glacier was spectacular in the pre-dawn light. The blue pre-morning twilight reflected off the glacier and filled the valley with a glow quite unlike anything Mike had seen before in his life. It was something like being in the middle of a blue-white diamond. The figures of the Keldara below, rapidly setting up a camp and getting camouflage in place, seemed to walk through a mist of blue-white.
However, this wasn’t a good time for sight-seeing; it was time to get down to business.
The only incident was one of the Makanee’s ending up tangled down half way down the cliff. The guy was utterly unable to free himself so the next rappeller down stopped alongside and managed to get him untangled, mainly by cutting on his outer wear. That was gonna require patching. Then the two of them went down the rest of the way.
Mike had already tossed the second rope and now, with difficulty, yanked out the pins securing the primary. Storing those he hooked up and stepped to the edge, pulling carefully on both ropes to ensure they were secure. So far, so good.
Someone was on belay below and he looked down and waved. The belay man was in place as a safety measure. If the climber descending lost control of the rappel, the belay man could, by putting pressure on the rope, stop him in place.
Mike stepped over the edge and got in a good L position then bounded out. All good. It wasn’t like he hadn’t done this a thousand times.
However, about half way down, the entire rig trembled and went momentarily slack, dropping him into freefall for a moment and then jerking him to a stop.
He’d done slack rappels enough times to recognize the signs. The primary slip-knot had released. Whether it was the cold working on the ropes to make them more slippery or what, the slip-knots were coming undone. If all three let go, he was going to fall three hundred feet onto solid ice covered in about an inch of snow.
The term was “splat.”
As his feet touched the face he bounded instantly outward and threw his right arm out to the side, removing all pressure on the rope and falling, effectively, in freefall, the rope screaming through both hands with the smell of burning leather.
The fall, however, wasn’t quite freefalclass="underline" the friction of the rope running over the figure-eight prevented that. So in keeping with simple Newtonian physics, Mike was pulled back to the face in a long, slow swing. The arc of pendulum was very long, but inexorable. Thus about two hundred feet over the ice he had to slow, again, for a bound. As he did he felt the shock of the second knot giving way.
This time he pushed off, hard, and let loose of the rope almost instantly. He’d never really stopped at the bound and was falling fast enough it wasn’t much different than a freefall jump. He wasn’t sure whether he should do a parachute landing fall at the bottom or not. However, doing it with the ruck on his back was pretty much out.
He had one more, probably shaky, knot between him and splatsville. He had about two hundred pounds of gear wearing him down and nasty ice right underneath. And he was falling at about terminal velocity. Oh, and he was inexorably swinging in towards the face.
On the other hand, he had to admit that this was the sort of thing he fucking lived for. Adrenaline was pumping, the time seemed to slow and endorphins were riding high in anticipation of sudden and incredible pain. A degree of skill and one hell of a lot of luck were the only things between life a very messy death. Forget sex, forget gambling, this was life on the blade. The only moments better than this was the kill after a long stalk or being in the center of a fuck-load of enemies, a larger number than a buttload and just shy of a shitload, with several full magazines and a mild amount of cover.
Time had slowed and he expertly judged the distances involved. The arc of pendulum had opened out a lot on the last bound and he anticipated that, even with breaking, he shouldn’t slam into the wall. He was going to have to brake, though, and that was where the luck came in. The variable was how long the last knot was going to last. Based on the previous two the answer was “not very fucking long, if at all.”
He had two choices, brake slow and hope the knot held under the lighter, longer, pressure or brake hard. Hard was shorter time on the knot but more “pull.”
In an instant he made the decision. Hard. Hell, he’d passed the point of “slow” anyway.
Fifty feet over the ground, and smokin’, literally, he pulled the rope in and pressed it, hard, against his side and back.
Instantly he started to slow from a full freefall to something survivable. With luck. But he was still going pretty fast, maybe seven feet per second, when he felt the knot pop free with a shock.
The next moment his feet hit the ice and he rolled back onto his ruck. His kidneys did not enjoy that moment but he was alive to feel the pain. Pain was good.
“Nice,” Sawn said from the belay as the rope started to fall all over Mike. “That was the most perfect rappel I’ve ever seen, Kildar. You didn’t even have to undo the ropes.”
Mike, from his position on his back, realized with a feeling of horror that Sawn truly believed it had all been planned.
“Yeah, well, that’s why I went last,” Mike said, as nonchalantly as he could under the circumstances. “When you’ve been doing this as long as I have you pick up a few tricks.”
“You know,” Kacey said, watching as the gun system was uncrated by a couple of the older Keldara men, “I think it’s cool that the Georgians just gave us all this shit, but I just realized, I have no fucking clue how to use it.”
Unloading had gone fast, it turned out the Kildar had, among other equipment, a field mobile forklift. All the crates had been pulled off and the gear stacked inside the hangar. The ammo had been carted off to the ammo bunkers.