"What in blazes is he doing?" Pierre Armont wondered aloud. He was
standing with Beginald Hall at the southern entrance of the SatCom
living quarters, the Bates Motel, gazing out over the launch pad and
trying to make sense of what he was seeing. Five minutes earlier they
had watched in dismay as the Sikorsky lifted off. Now this.
"Looks to be some damn-fool trapeze stunt," Reggie Hall muttered,
shaking his head. "He's going to get himself killed. What in bloody
hell?"
He caught his breath as he watched Vance begin rappelling down some
kind of thin line dangling out the open door of the chopper, spiraling
from the downdraft of the main rotor. It was something of a circus
aerial act--definitely not recommended for civilians. He clearly didn't
have the slightest idea how to use his arms to stabilize the spin. A
rank amateur. . . .
What was that sound? His senses quickened and he turned to squint at
the southern horizon. Through the light fog he could hear the faint
beginnings of a dull, familiar roar, and he realized immediately it was
choppers coming in. He quickly pulled out his Tasco binoculars and
studied the morning sky--two helos, both looking like ungainly spiders.
Yes, they had to be Apaches. What else.
Great, he thought, once more the U.S. has got its timing dead on. The
first time they showed up and managed to keep us from getting Ramirez,
and this time they decide to drop in just after his Sikorsky took off,
probably taking him and the last of his goons out, undoubtedly with a
few hostages for good measure. From all appearances, he had gotten
away. Again. It was sickening.
Now the gunships were dropping altitude and moving in, boldly, with the
authority their firepower commanded. He wondered if the teams on board
might actually be unaware that Ramirez had escaped.
"We ought to go out and signal them in," Armont said. "Let them know
how useless--"
Warning flares erupted from the Hughes 30mm in the nose of the first
Apache, missing the Agusta by no more than fifty meters.
"Christ! They don't know who the friendlies are." He immediately
canceled his impromptu plan to head out and wave. The U.S. Army was in
no mood to dialogue.
"Do they think Mike's a terrorist?" Reggie asked, incredulous. But even
as he said it, he realized that must be exactly what they thought. They
were going to try to force down the Agusta. Or shoot it down.
"Reggie, draw their fire!" Armont yelled. Almost by instinct, he raised
his Steyr-Mannlicher assault rifle and opened up on the lead
helicopter, going for the well-protected GE turboshaft on the left.
"Don't try to kill anybody, for godsake. Just distract them."
'This is insane," declared Willem Voorst, who had come out to see what
all the excitement was about. "What are you doing? I don't want to go
to war with the United States of America."
Then he noticed the blue-and-white Agusta hovering over VX-1, Vance
dangling, and put it all together. Without a further word he aimed his
MP5 and got off a burst, watching as it glinted harmlessly off the
second Apache's left wing.