Shattered Bone (54 page)

It was so comfortable. This wasn't so bad. He could spend the night here. That's what he would do. Just lie here and rest until morning. His arms were feeling a little bit better. Maybe they were healing already. Wasn't that nice? The pine needles were so soft. He was feeling quite warm. He would close his eyes and sleep until morning.

Tiny vapors of white breath escaped from his mouth and disappeared into the black night. Ammon's eyes closed. His breathing became measured. He fell asleep. His head rolled to the side of his chest.

Inside his survival pack, an emergency locator beacon automatically beamed its emergency signal to the satellites that passed overhead.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

Jesse awoke with a start. Her eyes bolted open, and she sat up quickly in her bed, her heart pounding, a tight catch in her throat. She wiped her eyes and swallowed hard.

She looked at the clock. Six-thirty. She looked to the window. It was just getting light. Slipping out of bed, she tiptoed to the bedroom door and cracked it open. The agent was spread out on the couch, still asleep. She went to the closet and dressed quietly, then slipped out of the apartment through the kitchen door.

The rain was slowly dissipating into a heavy mist. It was cold and wet, but Jesse didn't care, she was so anxious to get out of the house. She stepped out onto the wet grass and headed across the small lawn to the wooden walkway that led down to the pier.

Jesse walked along the beach slowly, her hands thrust into the pockets of her light jacket. She had on knee-length shorts and brown sandals, leaving her legs exposed to the cool morning air. Her hair was tied with a single white ribbon. A north wind blew at her face, blushing her checks and lifting her loosely wrapped hair past her shoulders.

The hard-packed sand gave a little under her light feet as she made her way from the beachhouse and walked north along the shore.

A pale sun tried pitifully to break through the thin overcast that covered the eastern hills, but it would be several hours before it would generate enough energy to warm the cold sand. By then, a dreary and wet fog would have formed over the bay.

It promised to be another miserable day in southern California. Just like the day before. Just like the day before that.

A flock of seagulls followed Jesse as she walked along the beach. They screeched in chorus at her, begging for food. They hopped along behind her, always maintaining a safe distance, occasionally spreading their wings as if to fly, then seemingly changing their minds. Too much effort to take to the air. Too much work. Better to stay on the ground and hobble along, hoping for a handout for breakfast.

Jesse ignored the gulls and their insistent noise and followed the beach for a mile. By then, the sun had risen completely, but still its warmth and heat remained hidden, robbed by the thin overcast and the cold ocean air.

Jesse turned and put the mountains to her back as she stared out over the waves. White caps turned the ocean frothy and washed hollow deadwood and black seaweed up onto the shore.

She turned and started to walk back to the beachhouse. The seagulls turned as well and continued to trail her as she made her way across the pale sand.

As she approached the apartmcnt, she saw him. He was waiting for her on the back porch.

Jesse froze in her tracks. She saw the blue uniform. She saw the look on his face. Her heart stopped. Her breathing stopped. The wind stopped. The whole world stood still.

The officer reached out his hand. “Mrs. Ammon,” he said with a struggle. “My name is Lieutenant Colonel Oliver Tray.”

Jesse's hand shot to her mouth. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She wanted to curl into a little ball and just disappear. She fixed her eyes on the officer and managed to mutter in a dignified tone, “He's dead, isn't he? Just tell me now.”

Oliver Tray shook his head. “No, ma'am, he's not dead,” he quietly said. “Now, will you please come inside? I have something to tell you, and we don't have much time.”

____________________ 

___________________       

JOLLY 21

T
HE
HH-60 P
AVEHAWK RESCUE HELICOPTER DROPPED BACK FROM
the air-refueling basket and descended toward the Sea of Azov. The HC-130 air refueling aircraft peeled off to the right and climbed up to 3,000 feet. Only a pale light defined the horizon. In six hours, it would be dawn. The mission had to be completed by then.

Thirty hours earlier, about the time that Richard Ammon was crossing over the northern Bahamas, the U.S.S. Ticonderoga had received her orders from the President of the United States. She immediately sent sail at top speed to the east, passing the southern coast of Greece before turning north into the Aegean Sea. As darkness fell, she sailed unannounced through the Dardanelles Straits and into the Sea of Marmara, pushing as close to the coast of Turkey as she dared. Two rescue helicopters were towed out of their hangar's, readied on deck, and put on a five-minute-launch-time alert. At six o'clock in the morning, they had received the call, but a decision was made to wait until nightfall. The mission was going deep, and they would need the cover of darkness. So the day was spent in intense mission planning. The satellite imagery was checked again and again. The coordinates and flight route were fed into the helicopter's internal navigation computers. The air refueling aircraft was quickly deployed to a remote airstrip in northern Greece. At twelve-eighteen local, the EYE satellite was moved 800 kilometers to the south in order to get a closer look. Peering down from space, it saw the signal. The orange and white parachute had been spread out in the clearing and folded into an X. He was still there. He was still alive.

By mid-afternoon, everything was in place. The pilots and pararescue specialists, or “PJs” as they were called, paced around their helicopters, snapping insults and jokes at each other, checking their gear, and watching the sun as it faded in the hazy sky. As the sun set over the blue-green waters of the Marmara Sea, one of the Pavehawks spun up her engines and took to the air.

Four hours later, the helicopter had finished air refueling and was speeding to the north, flying just five feet over the water. Approaching the Ukrainian coast, it pulled up to cross over a wall of white rock, barely clearing the crest of the pale granite cliffs, then dropped toward the trees on the other side. Its blades slapped the air as it pounded along. Two gunners stood at each of the side doorways, their 7.62 caliber mini-guns set on the maximum rate-of-fire of 4,000 shells per minute. Between the aft bulkheads, three PJs hunkered down in their seats and inventoried their rescue and medical equipment once again.

The helo was fighting a buffeting headwind from a bitter cold front that had moved down from the Arctic Ocean. The temperature was below freezing and dropping very quickly as they flew further north. The survivor was another 300 miles up ahead. He had been down for almost twenty-four hours. He wouldn't live another night on his own.

The night was pitch black. As dark as a cave. The pilots were using their night-vision goggles to see. The world appeared ghostly green as they peered through their goggles, but still they had no problem making out the trees, rivers, and valleys as they sped along. The helicopter remained very low, pulling up only to clear high-tension power lines and an occasional long row of trees. The pilots steered the helicopter through the valleys, staying clear of even the smallest towns. They made their way to the north, undetected by anyone except an occasional Ukrainian farmer who stopped and wondered at the noise in the night.

Ninety minutes later, the copilot heard the first tiny warble of the downed pilot's emergency locator beacon. The Pavehawk's internal computer also picked up on the beam and commanded a three degree change of heading to the right. It also updated the distance to the survivor. Only thirty-eight miles to go.

The satellite communications radio started to chatter, rattling out a deciphered code onto a three-inch-wide strip of white paper. It took the flight engineer a few seconds to notice the clattering SATCOM. It wasn't supposed to come on. Not here. Not now. They should have already been told what they needed to know. The flight engineer pulled the paper from the printer the second it stopped and read the report, then swore to himself.

“NRO detects unidentified Bandits in the area,” he announced over the intercom system. “Multiple fast movers, riding shotgun for some choppers underneath.”

One of the pilots grunted. “So we're not the only ones looking for this guy, huh?”

“No, sir. Not by a long shot.”

A very long pause. The pilots knew there was more. “Okay, give it to us, Pup. What else have you got?”

The young flight engineer, no more than a teenager, read the SATCOM report to himself once again and then said, “Two Ukrainian brigades have been moved up from Khar'kov, with their associated triple A and support vehicles. They are fanned out in a search semicircle. They are estimated to be in the area now.”

The pilot swore. One of the door gunners jammed his mini- gun off of safe and adjusted the focus on his goggles. The copilot stared at his navigation screen. Twenty-six miles to go.

“What side of the survivor are they approaching from?” the pilot hurriedly asked.

“Doesn't say, sir. But I bet we find out.”

The pilot swore once again. “Two full brigades! Are you certain? Two full brigades?!”

“That's what it says, sir. Do you want me to ask for verification?”

The pilot paused for only a second. “No,” he answered. “Screw it. Doesn't matter. So they want him. We want him worse. We'll be there in less than twelve minutes. Now everyone, you know what to do!”

Beneath them, the frozen ground scurried by. The door gunners trained their mini-guns to fire forward of the helo's position. One of them threw a huge green ball of bubble gum into his mouth. “Left gunner's ready!” he called out.

The pilot looked at the distance to the survivor's location. Twenty-one miles to go. He pulled back on the cyclic while adding a touch of power. The Pavehawk lifted gently over a 200 meter ridge of ancient glacial rock. Descending once again, the helicopter's four blades slapped at the air. The pilot followed the stcering cross on his navigation computer and wondered for the thousandth time, Who is this guy we are after?

NORTHERN UKRAINE

When the sun had set, Ammon pulled his parachute in with his teeth and gathered it over his body, hoping to keep himself warm. But as the north wind picked up and the temperature dropped, he quickly realized it wouldn't do much good. He lay tucked up under the rotting log, shivering again from the cold. He had pulled his arms from the sleeves of his jacket and tucked them close to his body, not so much to keep them warm, but more to limit the pain that the useless limbs caused as they dangled at his side.

He was bitter cold. And very hungry. And far more thirsty than he ever had been in his life. He was lonely and tired and had given up hope. From his hole, he could just make out the north star. As he stared out into the darkness, his breath crystallized in the bitter cold, leaving tiny, white prisms of frozen breath. He couldn't feel his feet any more. When he closed his eyes, his lashes froze themselves shut. He swallowed a thick wad of spit and licked at the frozen moisture on the underside of the log.

The parachute signal had been his last hope. No, that was not correct. The signal had been his only hope. The only hope that he ever had. If they were looking, they would have seen the signal. If they were searching, they would have picked up on his locator beacon. If they had chosen to, they could have sent some type of rescue chopper.

But they didn't. He had waited all day. Holding on through the cold and the pain, hiding himself among the trees, he had waited. And now it was too late. It was too cold. He wouldn't last until morning.

A muffled sound drifted through the forest. Barking dogs. Through the trees. Far off in the distance. Then the sound of shouting voices. Ammon nearly stopped breathing. His heart dropped to the pit of his stomach, and he pushed himself even further under the log.

JOLLY 21

“Jeff, we've got a major highway up ahead,” the copilot announced as he studied his moving-map-display. “I've got significant west-to-east traffic. Looks like a column of military vehicles. Turn left now, heading three-zero-zero. That should take us about a mile behind the last vehicle.”

“Coming left,” the pilot replied as he banked the helicopter aggressively up on her side. Inside his helmet, the tone of the locator beacon continued to build. The Pavehawk had a very good lock on the survivor's location, and he was just where they thought he would be. As the pilot rolled out, he, too, could begin to make out the dark ribbon of paved road that made its way to the east, along with a column of boxy vehicles with high backs and big tires. A dozen or so, mostly troop transports. No sign of any missile launchers or triple A.

The helicopter was just over a mile from the road, and barely skimming over the trees. They would pass behind the short convoy of trucks. The Ukrainians probably wouldn't even know they were there. With any luck....

“Break right! Tracers in the sky! Get down pilot! Get her down now!” The right door gunner was screaming his head off. Both pilots jammed the stick forward to push the helicopter even lower toward the trees. Twisting his head to the right, the copilot saw a terrifying sight. Long arches of white and green tracers sprouted up from a small clearing in the trees to chase after the low-flying helicopter. Snaking lines of 23mm fire reached out with their long, bony fingers.

“Break left! Now! Now! Bring her around!” the gunner called again.

The pilot reacted by instinct. Pulling the chopper into a tight turn, he jerked up on the collective to add more power, which forced the helicopter around even more. Pulling back on the stick, the helicopter began to climb. Twisting through the sky, the pilot banked the chopper left and then right in an effort to break the attacking gunner's aiming solution. The copilot twisted in his seat, hoping to locate the incoming line of fire. At first, the tracers passed just over their heads. Then suddenly, they jerked to the front of their nose before trailing off below and behind them. The pilot let the helicopter drop. The top of the trees rushed up to meet them and began to brush their under-carriage. Broken pieces of wood and scattered pine needles thrashed through the air behind the fleeing chopper. The tracers died off.