Juggernaut

They heard the escalating whine of Talon preparing for dust-off.

‘Damn. Raphael.’

‘Motherfucker.’

They sprinted back towards the main courtyard.

Lucy ran towards the chopper. She was dazzled by light, blasted by a squalling dust storm. She glimpsed Raphael through cockpit glass. She waved her arms. She made cut-throat, shut-off gestures. She shouted to be heard over rising engine noise.

Escalating RPMs. Shredded netting wound round the rotor mast.

‘Kill the fucking engine. You’re losing the rotor.’

Raphael glimpsed Lucy. She was caught in the nose-light glare, battling to stay upright in typhoon wind. She was shouting. He couldn’t hear words.

He pulled back the collective. He fumbled pitch control. The chopper rose and hovered.

He clawed blood from his eyes. The helicopter drifted backward as he tried to clear his vision. The tail rotor threatened to slice into the side of Bad Moon like the blade of a table saw.

Huang rolled out of the cargo compartment. He tumbled from the doorway and hooked a skid with his arm. He hung, legs swinging, then dropped onto flagstones.

The gearbox beneath the snarled rotor mast began to vent smoke. Alarms. Transmission pressure. BIM warning. Loss of hydraulic power.

Raphael blinked and shook his head. He tried to see straight. He tried to focus. He nudged the cyclic control with his knee and the chopper lurched forward, gathering speed.

Lucy threw herself to the ground. She covered her head. Dazzling light and cyclone wind as the Huey skimmed overhead. Rotor-wash tugged her clothes.

Chopper skids raked the flagstones, jetting sparks. Raphael cleared his vision, just as the helicopter slammed into the stump of a massive granite column.

Metal shriek. Explosion of glass. The chopper’s nose crumpled, crushing Raphael’s legs.

The Huey rolled on its side. The rotor blades sparked on flagstones then fragmented, strafing the compound with jagged shrapnel. The engine screamed high-revs then died. The broken knuckle of the rotor mast slowed to a stop.

Lucy could hear the glug of spilled liquid. Voss shone his flashlight. Fuel and hydraulic fluid washed across the paving slabs. Pungent stink of diesel.

The transmission assembly began to smoke and spark.

‘Fuck. We could lose both choppers.’

Lucy searched through gear discarded from the Hueys. Bench seats and life preservers. She threw debris aside. She snatched up an extinguisher and ran back to Talon. She pulled the pin and directed a jet of foam into the main rotor housing.

She tossed the spent extinguisher.

Huang sat on flagstones. He looked down at his vest. A fine splatter of blood, bone chips and tufts of hair.

‘Christ.’

Voss gave him a do-rag. He clumsily wiped Toon’s blood from his arms and face.

A boot protruded from beneath a bundle of tarpaulin. Lucy hauled canvas from the body. Her torch lit Toon’s pulped head. A glistening mess.

‘Poor bastard,’ said Voss. ‘Cover him up. I can’t look at him.’

She lay Toon’s sweat towel over his shattered face. A dark stain spread across the fabric as blood soaked into the towel.

‘We take him back,’ said Lucy.

‘Might be tricky,’ said Voss. He gestured to Bad Moon.

Lucy shone her flashlight over the second Huey. A chunk of rotor had speared the windshield and shattered the centre console. Flight controls reduced to a mess of wire and circuit boards.

‘Christ. Looks like we’re walking home.’

Lucy examined the wrecked avionics.

‘Might be fixable.’

‘And who would fly it?’

‘Gaunt.’

‘Forget it, Bokkie. No way am I cutting a deal with that fuck. He dies, no matter what the cost.’

‘You want to cross the desert on foot? It’s big as Texas. Bigger. Anyone we meet is likely to be a Wahabi fuck itching to slit our damn throats. We’d never make it back to Baghdad. And what about Huang? He can barely walk twenty paces. You want to carry him on your back? Leave him behind? Put a pistol in his hand as a mercy? We’re all fucked unless we get airborne. We have to find Gaunt and cut a deal. See if he can fix this thing. I don’t like it. It makes me sick. But we don’t have a choice. He’ll be hiding nearby. Skulking in the shadows. We’ll get Mandy out here with the nightscope.’

Lucy hit the pressel switch on her webbing.

‘Hey, babe.’

No reply.

‘Come in, Mandy.’

No reply.

‘Mandy, respond, over.’

No reply.

‘Mandy, what the fuck is going on?’

Nothing but static hiss in Lucy’s earpiece. She headed for light shafting from the temple entrance. She started to run.

Hostage

Amanda crouched at the back of the vault and nursed her broken nose. Blood and snot trickled between her fingers.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Jabril. He sat with his back to the door.

The door was wedged shut. A knife blade jammed between internal handles. Jabril’s hook lay discarded on the plate floor. He held a rusted grenade in his left hand. He had pulled the pin with his teeth. If he released his grip the strike lever would flip and trigger the four-second fuse.

‘I’m truly sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you.’

Amanda pulled Kleenex from her pocket. She blew. She spat.