Rules of the Hunt (79 page)
Fitzduane looked down.
They were
just crossing the coastline.
Lots of nice water
in case they had to touch down in
a hurry
, and better
yet, no
"Any sign of the bat out of hell?" he said into his headset
microphone.
There was a fighting chance
the intercom was still working, and he wanted to give the pilot-
san
some moral support while he could.
"He's still up top," said Lonsdale.
There were more thuds on the top of the
gondola roof, and dimples appeared in the ceiling.
"The way I figure it, they're using a
mixture of 9mm and AK-47, and only the AK stuff is getting through."
"Well, that's very interesting, Al," said Fitzduane dryly.
"How about you,
Chifune?"
"They're going to figure out soon they should be firing at the
gondola, Hugo," said Chifune.
"Or at least at the engines."
"We're entering a free-fire zone," said Fitzduane,
then
added a qualification.
"Well, Al providing you
point
your
elephant gun away from
what is that thing's range?"
"Unaimed, about eight miles," said Lonsdale proudly.
Fitzduane winced, but said nothing.
He had followed the Spider's rules, but now that they were over the sea
it was going to be a matter of self-preservation.
Time to play ball.
"DIVE!
DIVE!
DIVE!" he said to the
pilot with absolute urgency.
"MAX POWER!
MAX
ANGLE!
POUR IT ON!"
The pilot thrust the control wheel forward and the airship headed toward
the murky waters below.
The lights of
several ships could be seen.
The crews
were going to have some unexpected free entertainment.
He just hoped they had enough sense to keep
their heads down.
The terrorist helicopter suddenly appeared on their right, the side
marked by Lonsdale, and started to slow down to match their speed and riddle
the gondola at point-blank range.
At
first when the airship had dived, Oshima had thought the Yaibo fire had
achieved a mortal hit, but then she had realized that either way it made sense
to make sure.
The airship was not going
to crash into the city as she would have wished, but its destruction would still
be a major victory.
There was a thundering series of explosions as Lonsdale rapid-fired a
complete ten-round magazine from the Barrett at the terrorists crowding the
open doors of the helicopter flying beside them.
In turn, automatic fire smashed into the
gondola.
The helicopter was only sixty yards away.
Through his telescopic sight, Lonsdale saw the expressions on the faces
of two of the terrorists as the huge 750-grain explosive bullets punched into
them.
There were vivid flashes as the .50 shells ignited and holes appeared in
the cabin and windows of the Huey, but still it flew on.
The damn things had been shot down by the
thousands in the Vietnam War, but this one and its crew were bloody tough.
A body fell from the helicopter and plummeted into the sea below.
A split second later, the Huey peeled away and vanished into the
darkness.
The encounter had taken just a
few seconds.
Chifune had taken a 9mm round in her upper right arm just as she was
turning to add her firepower to Lonsdale's, and the shock and impact made her
stagger against the cabin wall, the .300 Magnum dropping for her hands.
Fitzduane turned ashen as he saw her, and for the briefest of moments he
saw her and felt her naked in his arms as they had made love.
He leaped from his position beside the pilot and helped her to a
seat.
A brief examination revealed that
the wound was not serious, and he quickly bound it, conscious that he was
perhaps hurting her but there was no time.
He kissed her on the forehead briefly and picked up her weapon and
checked the magazine.
Chifune smiled
weakly at him.
She was still in some
shock.
The airship had now leveled off and was flying so low, they passed a huge
oil tanker heading in the opposite direction toward
lower than the bridge of the ship.
The watch crew stared openmouthed as the vast black shape appeared to
head straight toward them, then flashed by their port side at a combined speed
of around eighty miles an hour.
As the
watch commander remarked afterward, he had heard of the Flying Dutchman but
this was ridiculous.
For a few seconds,
the scale of the airship made him think he was going to by rammed by some
flying supertanker.
Fitzduane was now focusing on the left observation windows, while Lonsdale
covered the right.
The helicopter had attacked them from above and the side.
Both attacks had been of limited
effectiveness, but he expected the next attack to be roughly level with the
gondola and from the rear.
That was the
airship's most vulnerable remaining blind spot, in his opinion.
The Huey could not get underneath them,
because they were flying so low, and a head-on pass would not allow enough time
to bring adequate power to bear.
There was no practical defense against an attack from the rear.
The airship's visibility was all on the sides
and to the front.
The rear of the
gondola housed the engines, and they were enclosed in a windowless compartment.
In some ways, Fitzduane was surprised that
the terrorists had not attacked there immediately, but then they would not be
so intimate with the airship's structure, and on-the-job training tended to be
mostly trial and error.
But he had an
uncomfortable feeling that Yaibo was learning fast.
"Colonel-
san
,"
shouted the pilot.
Fitzduane had taken
off his headset to go to Chifune's aid, and now the pilot had twisted around in
his seat and was shouting at him.
All
the observation windows were open to facilitate firing, and the roar of the
engines at full speed filled the gondola.
Fitzduane made his way to the front and leaned over to hear the pilot.
"Fitzduane-
san
," said
the pilot urgently.
If we are to be
successful with out maneuver, WE MUST LOSE WEIGHT."
There was the crack of the Barrett as Lonsdale leaned precariously out of
the window and tried to fire to their rear.
"Hugo, they're maneuvering behind us," he said.
"Sling a harness around me and I'll try
and have another go.
I can do it."
Fitzduane considered for a moment and tried to imagine Al's line of fire
shooting backwards.
It could work for a
shot or two, but all the Huey would have to do would be to maneuver slightly
and it would be out of range again.
He looked hard at Lonsdale.
They'd
already discussed another option, but Al's harness idea had certainly been
worth considering.
He discarded it.
"We stick
with Plan B," he said.
"Pilot-
san
wants more lift, so when I give the
word, we dump everything we can.
The we
should have an opportunity, and we'd better not
miss."
Lonsdale grinned.
"This is a
very crazy tactic," he said, "but then you're a very crazy man."
Fitzduane smiled.
"Let's go
to it."
"Mike Bergin and the dead pilot too?" said Lonsdale.
Fitzduane hesitated for a moment, and then there was a banging sound from
the rear as the attacking Huey fired at them.
He knew the time had come to finish it, and noble gestures would be of
scant worth if the terrorists had their way.
On the other hand...
"Not unless we have to," he said.
He turned to the pilot.
"NOW!" he shouted.
The pilot switched both engines to vertical thrust and at the same time
activated the control that dumped half a ton of water from the ballast tanks in
the gondola.
Simultaneously, Fitzduane and Lonsdale pushed the bodies of Schwanberg
and Chuck Palmer out the door.
Other
heavy items followed.
Modern airships flew ‘heavy.’
That
meant they got around ninety percent of their lift from the helium contained in
the envelope and the remaining lift from the aerodynamics of the envelope and
the engines.
That combination made the
airship easier to control and to land without bleeding off expensive
helium.
The normal rate of climb was
based on that heavy configuration.
The dumping of the ballast and the bodies changed the equation
dramatically.
The airship, within a few seconds relieved of over 2,000 pounds of
weight, was suddenly lighter than air.
Further, the rotation of the two Porsche engines meant that thrust was
now vertical and not forward.
The airship shot skyward and slowed.
Within seconds it was above and behind and slightly to the right of the
terrorist helicopter.
Fitzduane and Lonsdale, resting their weapons on the sills of the open
observation windows, had near-perfect firing positions.
Magnum and Barrett cracked
simultaneously.
Both men fired precision
shots until their magazines were empty, then took fresh magazines from Chifune
and reloaded.
The Yaibo helicopter had reacted with surprising speed, and was just
attempting to climb and turn when the first rounds plowed into it.
The pilot's incomplete maneuver had actually placed it in an even more
vulnerable position.
The full diameter
was exposed as it reared up, and through the circling blades the marksmen had a
perfect view of the engine and where the fuel tanks were located.
A .50 Barrett round caught one of the rotor blades near the hub and
shattered it, spinning the aircraft helplessly out of control.
A fraction of a second later, one of the fuel
tanks blew and ignited the others.
There were high explosives aboard.
They were a Yaibo trademark.
The
puttylike blocks were stable against rifle fire, but the exploding rounds of
the Barrett acted like detonators.
There was the searing white flame of a violent explosion, and the Huey
blew apart a moment before it hit the water.
The blast rocked the airship.
And then there was no trace that the helicopter had ever existed, except
for a thin smear of bloodstained oil and floating fragments of human flesh.
Epilogue
July 15
Fitzduane felt a definite lump in his throat as he prepared to say
farewell to the line of Japanese facing him in the VIP departure lounge at
It was ridiculous — he had known them only a few weeks — but there it
was.
The bonds were strong and the
relationships, tested under the most extreme circumstances, would endure.
For the rest of his life, he would be linked
in some important but indefinable way to
He smiled to himself for a moment as he noticed that the line of
well-wishers was ranked in order of seniority.
Adachi's father, trim and upright, and bearing a remarkable resemblance
to his dead son; Yoshokawa-
san
and
his wife, bring back memories of Kamakura; the Spider in the full uniform of
the Deputy Superintendent of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police; the young airship
copilot, Inspector Miko Ueda, who had performed so magnificently under fire;
the lined and seasoned face of Sergeant Akamatsu from the police
koban
; and Sergeant Oga and all of the
twenty-three men and women who had served on his bodyguard at various times.
It was just as well that
The duty roster of
the Tokyo MPD was at the moment depleted.
There was no sign of Chifune, and he missed her very much.
But typically, Tanabu-
san
was elusive and independent to the last.
The boarding announcement was made, and as if that was the agreed-upon
signal, the entire line suddenly broke into three cheers — "
Banzai!
Banzai!
Banzai!
"
—
and
then, faces
frozen in formal expressions, bowed deeply.
Fitzduane, draped in farewell gifts, bowed in return.
And the line bowed and he bowed, and the
process might have gone on indefinitely if a Virgin Airlines hostess had not
tactfully intervened.