Apache Dawn, - [little bear else holmelund minarik txt] 📗

hand over his face and felt wetness on his palm. His vision cleared and he could just make out a mixture of white and red covering his hand. An overpowering cold suddenly swept over him.

Gunfire. The thunder was gunfire. Chad ducked instinctively as something exploded past his face. He looked around. He could see the Rangers that had accompanied him the night before all ducked down behind an expedient redoubt wall constructed of fallen logs, snow, and ice. Bits of bark and snow rained down on them from the impact of a cascade of incoming rounds on the other side of their temporary protective wall.

The memories of his hunt-gone-south, the flight from the North Koreans, the Rangers herding him out of the park…it all came rushing back to his tortured mind. He was flooded with snippets of fear, adrenaline, excitement, and dread. Floating over all of the swirled confusion in his mind was a frothy scum of the mystery flu; was the nuclear strike on Atlanta. His hands started to shake. It was like waking from a nightmare, only to find you were merely dreaming inside a dream and were still trapped in the nightmare.

“What the hell is going on?” Chad repeated, clutching his lever-action rifle to his chest as he slammed his back against the redoubt wall in a cloud of snow.

“Ambush!” said Garza, the figure that had loomed in front of him as he’d regained consciousness now clear as day. He had blood smeared on his face and a scarlet swath on his white winter camo.

“There’s a lot more of them out there than we thought!” barked Deuce on Chad’s other side. He inched his way around the end of a log and let fly with a controlled burst from his M4. In the distance, Chad heard a scream.

Chad could hear the rhythmic whup-whup-whup of a helicopter’s rotors cutting the air, despite the din of the firefight, the howling wind, and the screams of men on both sides.

He saw Captain Alston stand farther down the line to his left, braving a hail of enemy fire, and wave for the dark shadow in the sky to come down. “Land already, dammit!” he roared. “I’ve got wounded!”

“Uh…Negative…we have new orders—” Chad heard in his ear.

“New orders? What the—get your ass down here before we’re all killed!”

“Negative, Hammer—hey! What’re you doing? You know our orders—get that—”

Chad heard some grunting and the sounds of a struggle over his headset. He followed the big Black Hawk in the sky as it fought the wind. The helicopter seemed to wobble and sway back and forth for a few seconds before a second of sharp static burst over his radio.

A sickening smack echoed down the line behind him. Chad turned to see the body of one of the Rangers fall backwards and collapse into the snow, arms spread out wide.

“Deacon’s hit!” someone yelled, out of Chad’s line of sight.

Garza left Chad’s side in a flash, ignoring bullets that traced his movement. He dove for his wounded comrade and struggled to get his gloves off and feel for a pulse. He tensed, hunched over, and then slowly dropped his helmet down to his fallen brother.

“Deacon’s gone, Cap.”

“Goddammit, you get that fucking bird on the ground now or so help me, I will shoot you down myself!” roared the captain, turning back to the wildly gyrating aircraft a few hundred feet above them. He ducked when the snow to his left exploded as a round buried itself in the white powder. “Anvil! Come in! What the hell are you doing?” A round clipped his shoulder and tumbled him into the snow. He landed face first with a grunt.

“They’re surrounding us!” someone called out.

“Cap’s hit!”

“Bastards!” another voice called out, followed by a long blast from a rifle.

“Tuck, watch our six!” said Garza.

Chad saw the captain struggle to get to his hands and knees and in the distance beyond, spotted a dark-clad figure move around a tree and raise a rifle. He tried to yell and found his throat closed with fear. He was deep in the middle of an honest-to-God battle and it seemed the North Koreans were no longer interested in just capturing him.

Something clicked inside Chad’s bruised psyche. Without thinking, Chad shouldered his well-worn Henry and racked the lever in one smooth motion. The scope came to his eye just as he saw the North Korean soldier raise his own weapon. Chad was just a split second faster and he knew it as he squeezed the trigger and felt the long gun buck against his shoulder.

The report from the .45-70 was incredibly loud compared to the sharper bark of the military rifles around him. When his vision cleared, the Korean soldier was on his back in the snow, one hand raised up in the air, clawing feebly at the wind. The hand slowly fell into the red-stained powder and lay still.

“Oh my God…” Chad said, hands starting to shake.

Captain Alston turned, still on his hands and knees, and nodded at Chad. In a hoarse, pain-filled voice, he pleaded, eyes skyward, “Anvil…you gotta do something…”

After some static, a different, younger voice replied from the helicopter, “Roger that, Hammer, I have the reins now, so keep your heads down, ‘cause we’re gonna plow the road. Danger close, boys!”

Captain Alston dropped his head down. With supreme effort, he bellowed over the din of the battle, “Rangers, hit the deck! Air support is danger close!”

“Bring the pain, baby!” replied Deuce.

The next thing Chad knew, Garza had tackled him. “Keep your head down, sir! This is gonna be nasty!”

“What—”

Chad’s question was cut short by the tremendous roar of a side-mounted mini-gun spewing fire and death from a hundred feet above them. Brass casings rained down on the Rangers through the snow as the sounds of the gun battle were quickly silenced by a throaty bbrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaww.

Chad lay buried under Garza but could just barely see the tongue of fire stretching from the side of the helicopter as it maneuvered along the line of battle and decimated the North Koreans. It was the most awesome and terrifying display of raw power he had ever seen.

Time slowed down for Chad. He could feel each heartbeat take what seemed like a minute as his mind processed the impossible scene. His vision focused tightly on the helicopter. He could see the snow gently swirling under the power of the helicopter’s rotors, the shiny brass casings tumbling through the air, the jet of fire, and the noise…it was simply surreal.

In a few seconds, it was over and the mini-gun wound down, its roar now overshadowed by the helicopter’s rotors once more. Time sped back up to normal and Garza rolled off Chad, laughing.

“That was fucking awesome! Beautiful!”

“Stand clear, Hammer 2, Anvil is putting down on your six. IR shows negative tangos.”

“Jesus!” said Deuce, peeking over the redoubt. “Bodies everywhere…look at that, man,” he said, gasping with laughter. “Blew the freakin’ trees apart like toothpicks!”

“Hoo-fuckin-aah!” shouted Zuka.

Chad, however, was quite simply shocked into silence. Garza and Deuce half-supported, half-carried him across the ten yards through the blinding maelstrom of snow kicked up by the Black Hawk perched delicately on the frozen ground. They tossed him gently through the open side door. The side-gunner grinned under his bulbous green flight helmet and face shield, and pulled Chad into a jump-seat next to the door.

“So you’re the guy, huh?” he asked, shouting in Chad’s ear over the thrum of the Black Hawk’s idling engines. “Hang in there, sir, we’re gonna get you out of here.” He finished buckling Chad in and slapped him on the shoulder before moving to check on the Rangers piling into the aircraft.

Captain Alston, his white camo smeared dark red, struggled through pain to help lift Deacon’s limp body onboard the helicopter. Garza and two others climbed up to secure their fallen comrade. Deuce then helped his CO up into the aircraft. The last Ranger took one final look around and sat on the edge of the door, rifle trained out and gave the thumbs-up sign to the gunner.

“Back check, sir. We’re all set, let’s go!” said the gunner into the microphone stalk protruding from his flight helmet. He pulled a strap down from overhead and connected a large silver carabiner clip to the back of Deuce’s combat vest and slapped his helmet. The big Ranger gave a thumbs-up over his shoulder and continued scanning the snow for threats.

The gunner then swung the mini-gun he had used to annihilate the North Koreans back into position and kept his hands on the twin grips, ready to fire again as the Black Hawk began to power up for dust-off.

Chad guessed it’d been no more than a minute since the helicopter touched down before he found himself strapped to a seat. Less than another minute and he felt the rollercoaster sensation of being pulled straight into the air as the engines whined and the Black Hawk leapt into the sky.

“What’s his story?” yelled Captain Alston to the gunner. He pointed at the man in a flight suit sitting next to Chad. Chad turned his head and saw that the man had pilot’s wings on his uniform and was not just sitting, but was hogtied to the jump-seat and looked to be spitting mad. He'd been gagged and strapped tightly to his chair, a nasty black-and-blue bruise forming on the side of his head.

“Co-pilot commandeered the aircraft and brought ‘er down.” The gunner jerked a thumb toward the tied-up man. “He’s the pilot—said our orders were to observe and report, but not to interfere. That’s some bullshit, right there! He replaced Captain Munn just before takeoff, really weird-like.” The man shook his head, the big green helmet making him look like a frog.

“Why’s that?”