Mack Maloney - Chopper Ops

Norton roared low over the gunship. The pistol Delaney had given him had proved to be just enough weapon to finally bring down the flying monster. He was sure he’d killed at least one of the pilots, and that he’d wreaked havoc on the gunship’s control board as well. Destroying the plane was never really his intention. That would have sealed forever a few secrets he was determined to uncover.

No—the plan all along was to disable the gunship, not kill it. Norton could tell now that the plan had worked. The plane had not crashed. Rather someone had landed it here, and had done a great job of it too.

And that meant someone was still alive on board.

The other choppers were soon on the scene.

Both Halos descended quickly; Norton followed them in. Delaney continued circling overhead watching for any unfriendlies.

No sooner had the Halos touched down when the Marines were jumping out of them and slowly enveloping the downed gunship. From ground level it was obvious that the plane was in remarkably good shape. A slight wisp of smoke was coming from its left outboard engine, and one of its tires had blown. But it had landed with its gear fully deployed and there was absolutely no damage to its propellers.

By the time Norton had climbed out of his Hind, Smitz and Chou were waiting for him.

“Look at the way they came in,” Smitz said. “They thought they were going to take off again.”

“The arrogant bastards,” Chou cursed. “You can be sure that ain’t going to happen.”

Chou gave his men the signal to move in, and within seconds the plane was completely surrounded with heavily armed Marines. They were careful to avoid the left side fuselage windows where the three miniguns and the howitzer were still in evidence.

“What do we do now?” Smitz asked Chou. “Yell, ‘Come out with your hands up’?”

“No need,” Chou replied. “Look.”

The Marines had opened the rear left side door and three men were standing at it. They did indeed have their hands up.

The Marines pulled them out of the airplane, one by one, throwing them to the ground and frisking them. The trio was wearing U.S. Air Force flight suits. Not the modern multi-pocket space-suit type the chopper unit wore. No, these were of a design not seen in ten years or so.

“Jeesuz,” Smitz said. “So they are Americans.”

“They’re three of the last four,” Norton replied. “Just like Angel said.”

Chou walked over to them.

“Name, rank, and serial number,” he demanded of them.

The three men laughed at him. They were sitting up, legs crossed, by now.

“Who’s working for the Agency here?” one man asked in a distinctive Southern drawl. Norton recognized him. He had dreamed about his wife. His name was Pete Jones.

“Name, rank, and serial number,” Chou said again.

The men laughed again.

“Look, we’re kind of tired here,” Jones said. “And our boss, Colonel Woods, well, he’s having a really bad hair day.”

At this point Norton and two Marines climbed into the gunship and made their way up in to the cockpit. Sure enough, there was the guy named Woods, half his head blown off. There was extensive damage to the flight controls as well. Jones had landed the airplane here on the bare minimum.

They went back outside, and the three survivors were still joking around. They were making faces at the Marines, laughing at their own comments to each other, and asking for cigarettes. The Marines around them remained stone-faced and tight-lipped.

“OK, look,” Jones said finally. “Just get us a phone or something and let us make a call. We’ll straighten this whole thing out, then we’ll let you guys buy us a beer.”

But Chou was suddenly in his face.

“Straighten out killing more than a thousand innocent people? Straighten out sinking a U.S. Navy ship? And trying to kill us?”

Jones just laughed again. They all did.

“Well, damn, don’t take it personally, man,” he said. “We were just doing a job. Everyone at the Agency knew about it. Everyone who was high enough on the totem pole, that is…”

Suddenly three shots rang out.

Jones’s face was blown away in an instant. The man next to him took a bullet behind his ear. The third man got it right between the eyes. Everyone spun around. The Marines all went down to one knee. Only one man was left standing in the onion field, a smoking M-16 in his hand.

It was Smitz.

“Fuck all three of you,” he said, staring at the dead men. “No one told me ….”

Twenty minutes later, Norton, Delaney, Chou, and Smitz were huffing and puffing, climbing a steep hill about a quarter mile from the onion field.

Everything that had happened in the past hour had been Angel’s doing. He had saved their lives by tipping them off about the pending gunship attack. They had had to scramble so quickly getting out of the hangar and into the sky, there had not been enough time for him to tell them all he knew or why he had decided to spill it to them in the first place.

So he told them he would met them on the highest piece of climbable ground nearest to where the C-130 came down, twenty minutes after the event.

And now, here they were, climbing up the steep, sandy hill just west of the onion field. They finally reached the top and sure enough, Angel was waiting for them.

“I’ve got about ten minutes,” the mysterious man told them straight out. “Then I’ve got to be somewhere else.”

“Tell us everything you can in ten minutes then,” Norton urged him. “And start with what you told me and Slick on the mountain the other night.”

Angel did just that, relating his suspicions to Chou and Smitz about the failed raid and why he thought the mission had been doomed from the start.

Then he elaborated further.

“But not only were you guys patsies,” he went on. “The genius behind it all was willing to kill you, simply because you became an inconvenience. A holdup in a business transaction.”

“Business transaction?” Delaney asked. “What are you talking about?”

“They were in the process of buying the gunship back for the U.S.,” Angel told them starkly. “Covering the deal like they were actually buying some old Fulcrums from Monrovia.”

The four men were stunned.

“ Buying it back?” Norton couldn’t believe it.

Angel just shrugged.

“What better way to get it out of circulation?” he asked. “The enemy you own isn’t your enemy anymore.”

“But buying it back?” Chou asked again. “After all the misery it caused? Man, that’s cold….”

“True,” Angel said. “But it’s also business.”

“How much were they going to pay for it?” Delaney asked him.

Angel just shrugged again. “Hundred million,” he said simply. “Give or take. I mean, it’s an old airplane. Who knows if anyone would have ever used it again. But that’s why the people behind all this made sure it was never shot down by our fighters. They knew it was much too valuable for that.”

“A hundred million dollars,” Delaney said with a whistle. “I guess it’s good to know what my life is worth these days. Me and a hundred and forty-six others.”

There was a very long silence. Finally Chou said: “So, what do we do now?”

“Well, that’s up to you guys,” Angel said. “You’ve got two injured men. And all of you almost got killed at least once before. There’d be no shame that I can think of if you just split now. Fly over the next hill, get back to the real world.”

The four men didn’t say a word. Delaney was looking at the lights over the hill. Norton was staring up at the stars. Chou was looking down at his men and the choppers.