"Stabilize her!" Peretz felt himself flung against the bulletproof
bubble that shielded the weapons station. A blinding explosion jolted
the Hind, and the accompanying shock wave from the detonating Swatter
spun it around thirty degrees. Several gauges in the instrument panel
had veered off scale.
Salim reached up and cut the power to the main rotor, then eased the
column and grabbed the collective pitch lever with his left hand. In
less than a second the Hind had righted herself. Slowly the instruments
began coming back as the electrical system recovered from the impact.
"Tail rotor's okay," he reported, checking the panel. "Altimeter reads
five hundred meters." He looked up. "What in the name of God happened?"
"Our last Swatter detonated. The question is, why?" Ramirez answered.
He was staring angrily out the high-impact plastic of his bubble at the
wreckage of the starboard wing.
Dore Peretz, now in the weapons station in the nose, was talking to
himself. "I got the bastard."