The Medusa stone (31 page)
Authors: Jack Du Brul
"Thanks, pal," the leader of the patrol wheezed, slumping against the Ingersoll-Rand.
"My pleasure. Can't tell you how glad I am to see you."
"You're Mercer, right?"
"Yeah."
"We were briefed to look for you when we landed, but weren't you buried or something?"
"I was until about ten minutes go." Mercer took a p know more than we do. Briefing said about fifty armed troops guarding this camp with minimum equipment and arms. Bastards capped an Apache just a minute ago with a portable SAM, and there seem to be a lot more than fifty."
"The number's about right," Mercer countered. "But these guys have been fighting for years in the Sudan. They've got combat experience to spare, and their former commander was one mean son of a bitch."
"Yeah, well, anyway, we've taken heavy losses. If it weren't for all the civilians mixed up with the bad guys, the captain would've called in some close air support and bombed the shit out of this place."
Any chance for a continued conversation was shattered by a chain of detonations at the fuel tank farm. The eruptions of flame and smoke towered into the leaden sky, building and blooming like deadly flowers. The ground shook so hard that Mercer felt his teeth were going to loosen from his jaw.
As he was recovering, the Marine seated on the far side of the corporal jumped spastically and the paintwork of the generator behind him splattered with clots of blood and the back of his skull. The Marines reacted even before they knew where the shot had originated, sending out a scathing return fire and racing from their cover. Mercer had no choice but to follow. He ran in a doubled-up position, aiming the AK behind his hip and unleashing a fusillade of his own.
They slogged up a mound of overburden, the soldiers slowed by the pounds of equipment each carried and Mercer by his own condition. Another shot blew a geyser of dirt just an inch to the left of Mercer's shoulder, grit lashing his face as he clawed his way to the summit. In the protection of the artificial hill's flat peak, he realized just who was shooting at them and why.
The Israeli team was still here. The two shots were so accurate that they could only come from a sniper rifle. They were either firing to add to the confusion so they could slip into the mine or they were planning on an evacuation and wanted to keep the combatants occupied while they escaped. For Mercer, both options were unacceptable.
Chancing a look over the parapet of their earthen fortress, he could survey the entire camp and the clusters of men fighting below. It looked as if the Sudanese's numbers were greatly diminished. He could see a few holdouts near Gianelli's big transporters. In the distance, there were figures running away from the battle, but he guessed they were Eritreans. Of the bodies he could see littering the ground that weren't dressed in American desert BDUs, two were white, but from this range he couldn't tell if either was Gianelli.
"Say again?" the corporal was shouting into the radio built into his combat helmet. "Roger that, Sky Eyes. Keep us posted."
"What's happening?" Mercer clipped his last banana magazine into the well of the AK-47.
"AWACS plane circling off the coast reports a low-level contact about six klicks east of here and moving in at a hundred miles an hour."
"Shit!"
"What is it?"
"There's a team of Israelis in the area. They've been after this mine for a while, but I think they're cutting their losses and bugging out."
"Well, they're going to make it," the Marine said, not really interested in another enemy with his hands so full of Sudanese. "We don't have any more gunships to go after it, and if that AWACS only now just spotted it, you can believe it'll disappear just as easily."
Three charging guerrillas were hit in the hail of gunfire, snapped back by the pounding gun in near perfect sequence.
"Keep the fuckers back!" Chavez screamed as he worked on a gash in the leg of the other soldier. The man's desert camo uniform was soaked through with blood from a point just below his groin.
Mercer continued to fire the weapon, traversing the barrel in tight sweeps to keep the Sudanese pinned. Another rocket slammed into the hill, and part of its peak blew away, exposing their flank. He had no idea how many rounds were in the boxy magazine clamped under the SAW, but he prayed it was enough to cover them until the chopper arrived.
"Evac flight." Chavez was on the radio with the helicopter again. "We need some help here . . . Roger."
Chavez unclipped a smoke grenade from his combat harness, slipped the ring, and tossed it to the other side of the hill's summit. A second later, putrid green clouds boiled off the mountain, marking their location to the approaching Blackhawk.
Bullets raked the top of the hill, explosions of dirt and lead that sent Mercer and the two surviving Marines reeling. Yet over the din they could still hear the chopper as it came in, its rotors whipping the smoke in violent eddies. The copilot had opened the helicopter's side door, but as they began their hover for the pickup, he was forced to return to the cockpit.
"The pilot can't land, not enough room up here. You'll have to jump in first," Chavez screamed over the rotor blast, his dirty hand still clamped over the entrance wound in his squad mate's leg. "I need to hold pressure on this dressing."
Mercer emptied the SAW's clip, a further thirty rounds chewing up the camp. He commandeered the wounded soldier's M-16 and, as the Blackhawk lowered even closer to the hillock, leaped for the open door.
A surge of air grabbed the chopper at that instant, and Mercer's chest slammed into the bottom of the door frame. In the split second before the pain struck, he felt the ends of his ribs grind against each other like corroded machine parts. The Blackhawk had been pushed away from the mountain of overburden, and Mercer found himself dangling above seventy feet of empty space, his legs bicycling uselessly as the pain loosened his grip on the door sill.
The pilot must have seen what happened. Ignoring the turbulence and the whirling blades' proximity to the ground, he heeled the nimble chopper nearly onto its side, throwing Mercer bodily into the aircraft. By the time Mercer recovered enough to crawl to the doorway, the Blackhawk was once again on station over the hill. Chavez was ready to pass the wounded Marine up to him.
They came under renewed and intense fire, the chopper taking a dozen rounds, ricochets scoring the cabin like hot coals. Mercer fired his M-16 one-handed, the stock braced against the helo's body as he lay half in and half out to help Chavez. He had his free arm under the young Marine's limp arms when a third RPG rocket hit the top of the hill. The Blackhawk lurched with the explosion and the Marine slid from Mercer's tentative grip. The soldier and Corporal Chavez disappeared in a hellish world of flame and smoke and debris.
The Blackhawk pilot lifted his craft away from the hill and out over the open desert, well beyond the range of any weapons the Sudanese might have. Mercer sat numb, unmoving, staring downward as if he could bring back the two dead soldiers by freezing his position. It took all of his strength to blink, to wash>
"I'll call you later." Mercer killed the connection and slumped.
Oh, God, thank you.
Oh, God, thank you.
The guilt and the fear and the responsibility fell off Mercer in a liberating wave, leaving his mind clear for the first time since Harry's abduction. It was over. He was finished. Nothing else mattered anymore. Harry was safe. Selome was safe. The Eritreans were free. Even Gianelli's plan to blackmail the diamond cartel was over. He knew if he let it, his relief would cut through his resolve. But he wasn't quite done yet. Mercer wasn't going to allow Yosef to escape. He didn't want it for his friends or for anyone else. He wanted this for himself.
The pilot spoke before he could switch the radio back to the fleeing chopper. "We've got two problems here, Dr. Mercer. One is we'll enter Saudi airspace in about four minutes. The other is a pair of fast movers just came up on radar. They're closing at mach one from the north. ETA is ten minutes."
"Whose are they?" Mercer had a sinking suspicion he knew the origin of the approaching jets.
"I've got no IFF signature off either of them." The pilot referred to the Identify Friend or Foe transponders carried by the military aircraft of the United States and her allies.
"So they're not Saudi?"
"I doubt they'd shut off their IFFS over their own territory, especially since the coastline's covered with SAM installations."
"In other words, we've got ten minutes before that helicopter's fighter escort arrives."
"Yup.">
"Let's take 'em down."
"Hey, listen, Doc, is that such a good idea? I mean, whoever has the clout to wrangle up fighter cover must be legit."
Mercer grunted. "We're about to be one of the checks and balances of the Israeli democracy. Maneuver us directly over that helicopter. I've got an idea."
Two miles from where the land met the sea, the Israeli renegades banked north to meet up with the jet fighters, skirting the outer reach of Saudi Arabia's coastal defenses. There was no chance the lumbering Super Stallion could outrun the Blackhawk, but they certainly were trying. It took only three more minutes for the American helicopter to take up a position above the Israeli's huge rotor.
"You'd better have a damn good idea," the copilot shouted. "Radar has those jets down our throats in four minutes."
Mercer worked furiously. "When I shout, break left as hard as you can, then land this pig. Fast. Those jets may take a shot even after I destroy the Stallion." He keyed his mike to speak to Yosef. "Listen up, you son of a bitch, and listen good."
"Ah, the good doctor is back," Yosef replied mockingly. "I thought you'd already left us."
"I've always preferred roulette, but I know enough about poker to know that when your bluff gets called, the game's over."
Yosef's voice was strained and his reply took just a fraction too long. "And you think I'm bluffing? Remember, it's not your life you are gambling with but that of your friend, Harry White."
"Asshole, I know you're bluffing." Mercer estimated how long it would take a two-pound object to fall from anga minute you're going to pay the highest stakes of all."
"Bravado, Dr. Mercer," Yosef replied. "In one minute, if I'm not given free passage, two F-16s are going to blow you from the sky. I may die, yes, but so will Harry White. Your revenge may be gratifying, but it will also be short-lived."
"You should have known when to fold 'em, partner," Mercer drawled. It took a few tries to light the fuse in the air whipping around the cabin, but once it was burning evenly, he shouted, "Now!"
The Blackhawk pilot had anticipated Mercer by a crucial half second, and when he released the explosive, he realized it would miss the upperworks of the Israeli helicopter. While an explosion near the hull of the Sikorsky would be damaging, it was doubtful it would cripple the huge cargo chopper.
Mercer's mouth opened for a scream of frustration even as the Blackhawk twisted and fell from the sky so fast that he became momentarily weightless. Yet his gaze never left the Israeli helo or the little package tumbling torward it.
A helicopter's rotor produces lift by creating a pocket of high pressure below the blades and low pressure above. For a chopper the size of the CH-53, tons of air rush into the vortex around the rotor, centering the craft like the eye of a hurricane. Into this maelstrom fell the dynamite. The little bomb would have fallen harmlessly past a conventional aircraft, but when it felt the relentless draw of the turbine-powered blades, it changed direction in midair. The millisecond before the packet was shredded by the rotor, the fuse touched the chemical explosives.
The helicopter vanished behind an expanding blossom of fire, and when it finally reemerged, the six rotor blades and the top third of the aircraft were gone. The Super Stallion was dead in the air, only its forward momentum carrying it in a flagging parabola. Mercer didn't blink until it slammed into the cobalt-blue sea, fire from its ruptured tanks washing away on the waves spawned by the impact. In a second it was gone.
"Get us to the Arabian coast and under their radar umbrella," Mercer shouted to the pilot, but the veteran was way ahead of him. The chopper settled into a flight path scant feet above the sea, the engines torqued for maximum speed.
"Those jets are breaking off and returning north," the copilot yelled a minute later.
Mercer was too tired to care, but he gave a weak cheer for the crew's benefit. "Let's get back to the mine. We're not done yet."
It took forty minutes, and on the inbound flight they heard radio chatter from other Blackhawks ferrying the injured to the amphibious assault ship.
Habte was the first to greet Mercer on the ground, shaking his hand solemnly, then enfolding him in a brotherly hug that would add another day or two to the recovery time for Mercer's broken ribs.
"I didn't think I'd see you again." Habte tried to keep the emotion out of his voice but failed.
"Came damn close."
Selome was next to reach the little group huddled near the Blackhawk. She too hugged Mercer, much more gently, but her kiss was consuming--as if she was trying to fit every possible emotion into that one gesture. Mercer's response was no less enthusiastic.
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