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Camp Raven, the Green Zone, Baghdad

Camille didn't care why Beach Dog was peeling duct tape off his wrists as he hurried over to the Little Bird. All that mattered was that Pete found a pilot and he seemed to be sober. Beach Dog hopped into the aircraft, reached into his pocket and pulled out a small white figurine of a cat with its paw in the air. He stuck it to a piece of Velcro that was already on the dashboard. Camille guessed it was some kind of talisman. In less than a minute, the blades were turning. Camille jumped into the copilot seat. Pete finished her phone call and started to climb in, but Camille stopped her. “I want you to find out everything you can about this Julia Lewis he was supposedly married to.”

Pete glared at Camille, irritated at having to stay behind.

“That's an order,” Camille said, then turned to the pilot as she pulled out a Bose headset. “You understand the mission? I want my Black Hawk back in one piece and I want the pilot in as many pieces as possible.”

“Gotcha, ma'am,” Beach Dog said as the Little Bird rose into the air. “What do you want me to tell the big military?”

“He was heading toward the airport, so I'm guessing he's flying until he hits the Euphrates, then he'll use it to navigate visually to Syria. Tell the air traffic controllers we're sightseeing today, heading to Camp Tornado Point via the Euphrates.”

 

The nose pitched up as they climbed out over Saddam's old parade grounds, passing above the oversized crossed-swords monument.

“Ma'am,” Beach Dog said. “The Hawk's maximum speed is about ten knots above ours. We're not going to catch up with him.”

“Then let's cut him off at the pass. He's following the river and it's not the most direct route. Take us direct to Fallujah. Contact the ground radar and see if they're carrying his track.”

“You bet.”

“And turn off our transponder. I want to sneak up on him.”

Camille stared down at the Baghdad slums, remembering Hunter's touch, his eyes, his smell—and her joy. The cityscape beneath them turned into desert and Camille could feel its harsh emptiness.

Anbar Province

About thirty-five minutes into the flight, Hunter decided that helicopters were pretty cool machines after all. His hand had finally released its death grip on the cyclic and he was playing around a little, zigzagging along with the river, cautiously improving his skills. Sunglasses, tunes and a mug of strong coffee would've made the ride a lot more fun. He started humming to himself, “Born in the USA.”

Daybreak at five thousand feet was beautiful, even near Fallujah, but since Anbar was a very active area of operation, he decided he'd better go low and fly below radar. He pushed the cyclic forward to tilt his nose and pushed down on the collective to decrease power. The bird did exactly what he wanted, descending to two hundred feet. Toys like this were reason alone to make up with Stella.

 

The Rubicon Mi-8 helicopter crew was barely five minutes out of Camp Tornado Point when they made visual contact with the Black Management helo. The Bulgarian pilot, Boyko Koritarov, had been briefed that the Black Management pilot was a novice and probably was flying visually. He knew exactly what he was going to do and he took his time to give the target a wide berth, then Koritarov brought his Russian-built aircraft in behind him, careful to hug his blind spot. When he calculated that he was ten rotor disks away, he ordered his gunner to open fire.

 

Camille watched through binoculars as an old Soviet-make helicopter approached Hunter's bird from his right rear. As if the cheap Russian equipment hadn't been enough of a giveaway, she also recognized the fuselage's distinctive diagonal ruby stripe bordered in white. Rubicon. “What the hell's Rubicon doing?”

“Sneaking up on him, using a blind spot. If I didn't know better, I'd say he was getting ready to—”

“He's firing.” Camille could see sparks as the bullets hit the airframe.

Hunter was singing to himself when he thought he heard something over the roar of the turbine engines. He stopped for a minute, didn't hear anything and resumed his jam session.

 

Boyko Koritarov couldn't figure out why in the world Rubicon got its gunners from the tropical paradise of Fiji. Fijian mercs were cheap, but there was a reason. The idiot was shooting up a self-sealing fuel tank and a crew cabin that had no crew inside. The Black Management pilot was safely on the left side of the craft, apparently oblivious to the assault.

“Retarget tail rotor gearbox,” Koritarov said in heavily accented English.

 

Hunter had enough of Springsteen and moved on to the Stones—he loved classical music. A few seconds later the Black Hawk yawed to the right and kept spinning. Hunter stomped the left pedal, but didn't get anything. It kept going around and around, faster and faster. He rammed both size elevens into a space barely large enough for one foot and pushed the pedal with everything he had while he jammed the cyclic forward. Then he saw the warning lights go off at the same time he caught a flash of another helicopter.

Stella
.

Stella had finally nailed him.

 

Camille keyed her microphone. “Unidentified Rubicon Hip, this is Black Management Six, hold fire or we will engage. Repeat, Rubicon stand down.” She turned to Beach Dog. “Please tell me this is one of the Little Birds we outfitted with the 20 millimeter Gatling guns.”

“Yeah, but we're not in range—too high and too far.”

“Get in range.”

“Hang on.”

The Little Bird dived so fast Camille felt like she was in a freefall—inside and out. She had been too angry in the trailer to grill Hunter and find out the truth she needed to know about that Julia chick—and he had pulled a gun on her. Now she realized she was in danger of losing that chance permanently. And how dare Rubicon shoot one of her Hawks out of the air? She took the targeting controls of the Gatling gun.

She watched Hunter's helo gyrate out of control as her Little Bird dropped down behind the Rubicon Mi-8. She estimated the range to target now at two thousand meters and closing fast. A few seconds later she opened fire on the tail boom. Metal flew and the tail rotor slowed. She kept firing and now prayed that Hunter survived. The tail boom began to sag as the Rubicon Mi-8 whirled around.

Beach Dog turned toward Camille, his eyebrows raised. “Don't you think that's enough? The dude's going down.”

The Rubicon helicopter spiraled toward the ground.

 

The gyrations were getting faster and faster. Hunter reached up and brought back both throttles, then struggled against the G-force to bottom out the collective so the damn thing would auto-rotate and quit spinning the cabin along with the rotors. It was like putting a car in neutral and now all he had to do was coast down a hill—straight down. The rotors would spin with the air and, if all went well, lower him to a rough landing. Fighting vertigo, he scanned the ground for a landing site. A village lay directly below him. He had to get clear of it or at least aim for a street, but he was plummeting fast. Pulling back on the cyclic to flare the craft, he pitched the nose up and used the momentum of the main rotor to brake the descent. The spinning slowed, but he was coming up on a rooftop. He wrestled with the two functioning controls and squeezed out a little altitude and a few more meters of distance. Barely clearing the house, he smacked down hard between two buildings. The specially designed pilot's seat collapsed onto the floor, cushioning most of the blow, and he swallowed something.

He shoved down the collective, pulled on the brakes and blasted out of the door with Stella's gun. The main rotor was still moving, kicking up dust and sand. He had to find cover before Stella flew overhead and gunned him down.

On the run again in Anbar, this time with no pants on—man, he'd have given anything to have that damn man-dress back.

Anbar Province

The Black Management Little Bird hovered low over the village while Camille scanned the area, trying to get a peek through the dust cloud.
Please be alive.
She keyed the mike to call to her Baghdad ops center. “L
IGHTNING
S
IX
to R
AVEN
. We have a Black Hawk down. Repeat, Black Hawk down.” She relayed the GPS coordinates. “Beach Dog, take us in low and hover. I want to see if he made it.”

“Not a good idea in this neighborhood. The bad guys we've chased out of Fallujah and Ramadi like to hole up in these parts. This is the Wild West.”

“Things get too hot, we'll pull out.” Camille studied the area. Children looked up from the streets and adults were running outside to see what was going on. So far, she didn't see any weapons.

The cloud began to dissipate around the Black Hawk. It had hit level, sandwiched between two buildings on a vacant lot. Its back landing gear had broken off, but it otherwise seemed intact. If she could get a salvage crew to it before the locals trashed it, it could fly again.

“Circle to the other side and dip down. I want to see if he's inside and injured.”

“You got it.” Beach Dog maneuvered the Little Bird in low and pitched it slightly forward. The Hawk's door was open on the pilot's side and Camille could see through the front windows. No Hunter.

“He must've split when the dust was kicking up,” Beach Dog said.

“He's got to be in one of these houses. Set it down. I'm going in.”

“With all due respect, Lady Rambo, you're fucking nuts.”

Beach Dog had a point and she knew it. She didn't take time to grab body armor or even extra rounds for the M-4. No way was Hunter going to come to her after she had shot at his helicopter this morning. She wouldn't be surprised if he even thought she was the one who knocked him out of the air. He had no more reason to trust her now than she'd had to trust him, maybe even a little less. “Fall back to a safe distance. I'm bringing in the cavalry for a door to door search.”

Jabal ad Dhibban, Anbar Province

Hunter heard the thud of the second helo hitting the ground as he hauled ass down the alleyway. A tango's RPG must have hit Stella's bird. He hoped to god she survived the crash with only enough injuries to keep her from coming after him. His tongue probed the inside of his mouth and confirmed what he had feared: he'd swallowed the damn tooth during the hard landing.

He ducked into the first open doorway he found. An old lady was rubbing raw wool between her palms, making yarn while she watched a game show on TV. A horde of kids was playing with a half-inflated yellow balloon. She screamed and the children joined in as they scrambled to get behind the woman.

“It's okay. It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you,” he said in Arabic, as he pulled on his pants. He raised his voice and repeated himself so she could hear him over their high-pitched shrieks, then he heard a helicopter moving above the building. It wasn't as loud as a Black Hawk; it sounded smaller, more like a Little Bird. What was a second helo doing there so fast?

The woman started to settle down and was now breathing hard, trying to catch her breath.

“Don't hurt us.”

“Give me the biggest jilbab you've got and a headscarf and I'll go. You're going to be all right. Get me the clothes. Now!” He grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet as gently as he could without losing any speed. Man-handling an old lady got to him, but he had to get a sense of urgency across to her. Women aged so fast here. He told himself she was probably not more than ten years older than he was. But even if they were the same age, it still didn't make it right.

Jabal ad Dhibban, Anbar Province

The belly of the Little Bird deflected some light gunfire from the locals as it hovered low over the village while Camille and Beach Dog searched for any sign of Hunter. Wherever he was, he was staying put. When she realized the sound of their helicopter was probably making him feel pinned down, she ordered Beach Dog to climb to a safe altitude. Camp Tornado Point was less than fifty kilometers away and it would take the Black Hawks under ten minutes once they were airborne. Beach Dog flew in a high holding pattern while they waited for the Black Management troops to arrive. With any luck, Hunter would chance a dash between buildings and they'd get a bead on his position.

The airframe of the Rubicon helicopter had rolled on its side on impact a few hundred meters outside the village. There was no movement around it, but Camille knew that didn't mean much. The cabin was a defensible position, offering shelter from the sun, which was already starting to bake. The crew could be sitting inside, waiting for rescue. The downed crew was Rubicon's problem, not hers. She would help with a little close air support only if the tangos moved in around them in serious numbers.

Using binoculars, Camille watched two helos flying toward them from the direction of Camp Tornado Point. From their last reported position, she didn't expect to have a visual on them yet, but she guessed that she could see farther than anticipated in the clear desert air.

“Whatcha gonna do about Rubicon shooting down our bird?” Beach Dog worked the cyclic as they circled above the village. “You're not going to let them get away with it, are you?”

“No way. I'd say they've crossed the Rubicon.”

“Huh?”

“The die's cast.” The two helicopters were now close enough for Camille to get a good look—Russian-made, with diagonal ruby stripes bordered in white: Rubicon. “When Julius Caesar marched his army across the Rubicon River, he knew he was starting a civil war in Rome. Rubicon crossed the line today. I'd say we're looking at the same thing—civil war.”