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

“Where are we going?” Chad said after she prodded him up the mountainside for the third time. “I don’t like feeling that gun in my back, you know.” As he talked, he let his hands go slack, just like he was shown. He rotated his wrists. It worked! Now I just need to wait for the right moment…

“I don’t like having to remind you to go faster, you know,” she spat back. “Keep moving, civilian.”

“Overwatch,” Captain Alston’s voice said in Chad’s earpiece. He flinched in surprise but covered himself by tripping over a rock. “Now’s our chance. We’re moving in. Cover us!”

Chad fretted over how to activate the radio in his chest pocket. With his hands tied in front of him, there was no way he could do it without drawing unwanted attention. Whatever he did, he had to keep the pilot away from the right side of his head or she’d see the tiny radio’s tiny wireless earpiece for sure.

Every step they took led him farther and farther from the wounded sniper. His mind was racing, but nothing came to him as he staggered along. The pilot’s sidearm was never far from his back. I’m running out of time…

When they crested one last brush-covered hill, he understood why she was making him walk back up the mountain. Up there, behind a copse of pines was the third Apache, waiting patiently.

“Overwatch, take out that patrol in front of us!” said Captain Alston’s voice. In the background, Chad could hear gunfire.

“Why are you doing this?” Chad asked again, trying to buy time. He slowed down. The pistol hit his spine again. “Ow!”

“You know how much you’re worth to the Koreans?”

“Overwatch! Come in!”

“Really?” asked Chad. “This is about money? You’re going to sell me to the Koreans? After all we went through to escape them—”

She shoved him up against the fuselage of the helicopter with a grunt. “To the Koreans, you’re—or I guess your blood is—worth exactly one-half what the Germans will pay and one-quarter what the Russians are offering. Patriotism be damned—I can’t turn my back on half a billion dollars. I got family and bills and…” Her voice faltered. “My kids…my daughter has been so sick…”

Chad stared at her, incredulous. “You can’t be serious.” He nodded toward the distant battle raging over Salmon Falls. The last remaining Apache was ducking and weaving yet still dropping missiles and bullets, but it was clearly a losing proposition. “You think the Russians, the Germans, or even the Koreans are actually going to pay you? They’ll take me and put a bullet in your head. You—think of your kids! You love them, right? Why would you risk never seeing them again for money?”

She sniffed and roughly turned Chad around so he could see the built-in footrests to reach the lower part of the cockpit. “For $500 million, I’ll take my chances. Get in there.”

“Everyone has their price, I guess,” he muttered.

“Overwatch! Come in! Dammit—” Chad could hear screaming and the captain was panting now. “Overwatch, I don’t know what the hell is going on, but you’ve got to start shooting! Get these guys off our backs! They’re trying to flank us—”

“Oh, like you wouldn’t do the same thing in my situation? Shut up and climb the ladder.” She reached into the upper cockpit and started flipping switches. Deep in the bowels of the helicopter, the engine started to whine as it came to life.

Chad saw his chance as he climbed into the cockpit and pretended to lose his grip. He crushed his chest against the hull of the helicopter and hoped it was enough to activate the radio in his chest pocket. He grunted in pain and then said, “I hope it was worth it for you to hide this helicopter on the mountain. I can’t believe you think you’re going to get paid by the Russians for kidnapping me. How can you be so heartless as to leave Tuck to bleed to death back there?”

“Russians? Mr. Huntley! Can you hear me? Can you respond?”

“Answer me this then,” Chad said, panting with the effort to keep the radio activated and still look the pilot in the face. “Where are you taking me?”

“East, to meet the middleman. The Russins will probably take you to one of their treaty cities on the coast. Boston, or one of the southern zones. I don’t know and frankly, I don’t care. I’ll get my money before that happens.”

She pulled him back upright and shoved him down into the seat. He felt the radio switch disengage, still hidden in his shirt pocket, and hoped the transmission had gotten through. He sat down in the front seat heavily and remained still while the pilot roughly strapped him in.

“Hammer 2…Overwatch.” Tuck’s voice was weak. At least he was still alive. Chad closed his eyes in thanks as the pilot got into her seat. He could hear buckles clicking as the canopy lowered over his head and sealed shut.

“The pilot…double-crossing bitch…she shot me…”

“Roger that, Overwatch. What’s your location?”

Chad could see the black rotors begin to move, slowly at first, then faster and faster as the Apache spooled-up to speed. The control panels in front of him flickered on and a myriad of buttons and switches glowed and blinked.

“Where’s your co-pilot?” he asked nonchalantly.

“Gunner,” said the pilot. “Not a co-pilot. And he didn’t make it. Another person that died because of you.”

“Position Bravo-2. By the leaning pine,” whispered Tuck. Chad could barely hear him. “Hurry…”

“Garza is Oscar-Mike! You stay with me, Ranger!”

“Bitch shot me…”

“Tuck!”

“Unh…” static crackled and the signal faded.

Chad turned his head instinctively, trying to hear the transmissions better. He knew he’d made a mistake when he heard the pilot gasp behind him.

“You sneaky bastard! You had a radio the whole time!” He heard the pilot muttering to herself as she unbuckled her harness. The rotors were spinning so fast now, Chad noticed, it was impossible to see each one individually. They were just a blur on the other side of the canopy glass.

He winced as the earbud was ripped from his ear. A hand reached into his chest pockets and groped around. After a moment, the radio came free. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the reflection of the pilot pull out the pistol again. He thought she was going to shoot him for a second, but she turned it sideways and swung. Hard.

Chad felt searing pain in the back of his head. It traveled to his eyes like twin lightning bolts.

“They said you had to be alive, but they never said you had to be awake,” he heard the pilot say. She laughed.

Everything went white, then black as he felt his head fall to the side and strike the cockpit canopy. He felt the weird sensation that he was simultaneously falling asleep and slowly falling down a dark hole in the ground and—

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Denver, Colorado.

Denver International Airport

Emergency National Reserve Operations Center

Cooper stretched his back and felt the wonderful sensation of a good night’s sleep ripple through his abused body. The sounds of a military base intruded into his mind and pulled him out of the warm fog of drowsiness. Helicopters, men, machines, tanks…a stirred-up hornet’s nest of activity that he could hear through the concrete walls.

Cooper sat up suddenly. Where the hell am I?

“Have a nice nap, son?” asked a raspy voice.

Cooper turned his sore neck and focused on an old man in perfectly starched digital camo, leaning against a desk with his wiry arms across his chest. The Commandant of the Marine Corps grinned. “Who’s Brenda?”

Cooper sighed and ran a hand through his damp hair in an effort to conceal his embarrassment. He wondered what the Commandant had heard. He swung his legs free of the cot and stood up, going easy on his injured knee. The knee brace squeaked as he stood, in time with the creaking in his back.

Maybe the Navy’s right. Maybe I am getting too old for this shit.

“Mouse! Get it,” mumbled Charlie from his cot next to Cooper. He jerked awake with the same look of confusion on his face that Cooper figured must’ve been on his own. Charlie rolled off the cot and sprang to his feet. “Where’s our