David Golemon - Legend

In the darkness he could see the Frenchman in the wheelhouse talking with that fool of a captain. Santos was an annoyance that he would soon tire of, along with Farbeaux. He lit a cigar. The flare of the match momentarily illuminated his features as he caught Rosolo's eye. Mendez nodded and then turned away toward the stern of the boat.

Captain Rosolo made sure Farbeaux was still occupied by Santos, then he followed his boss to the gunwale at the far end of the boat. Once there, he removed a small cylinder from his coat pocket and found the trigger. He held the device up and out away from the Rio Madonna and aimed it through a small break in the overhead canopy where stars could be seen. To the rear, they could clearly make out the trailing barge as it silently cut the river into two white slices. Rosolo turned and gestured to one of his men just below the wheel-house. The man held up a portable radio and switched it to the Madonna 's frequency. Then he pushed the squelch button, with the volume turned all the way up. Inside the wheelhouse, they heard the radio come to life with the most godawful squeal imaginable. At the same time, Rosolo pulled the string at the end of the tube and the bright flash of a flare shot out and through the small opening in the tree canopy. The light breeze quickly pulled the telltale smoke away from the boat and into the surrounding jungle, just as Farbeaux made an appearance on the bridge wing to admonish the man below for making so much noise with his radio. Rosolo smiled as the Frenchman didn't even look their way. He stepped back into the now silent bridge.

"Well done, my friend." Mendez puffed on his overly large cigar as the pop of the flare sounded three hundred feet above the canopy.

Five hundred feet above the trees and thick jungle, the lead pilot of a flight of two Aerospatiale Gazelle attack helicopters, once owned by the French army, circled. The bright flash of the red flare arched out of the forest below and the two pilots knew they had a mission. They were mercenaries hired by Mendez, and their specialty was airborne murder.

The pilot in the lead Gazelle had forgone the hiring of a weapons officer for this well-paying opportunity, out of greed. The two pilots would share their reward with no one. After all, they were only going after a slow-moving river craft. They could handle the attack themselves.

He called his wingman and gave his instructions. He reached out and turned on his FLIR radar. The forward-looking infrared system activated and showed the coolness of the jungle and trees below. Then as they crossed the winding and unseen tributary below, the target they were seeking came into full view. It was marked clearly through the canopy of trees as a long, very bright ambient red color as it churned away slowly below. The fools would never know what hit them. He pulled the safety cover from his trigger mounted on the control stick, and selected his guns. He had elected not to bring the missiles he had stored in Colombia because he felt it would be a waste; they would have trouble penetrating the trees below. But twenty-millimeter rounds wouldn't have that problem, as they would smash their way through any protecting wood surrounding their target.

The lead pilot smiled as he brought his Gazelle to full power and made his turn for the dark jungle below. His unsuspecting target didn't know it yet, but they were about to be destroyed by a lightning strike from heaven.

Jack stood up from the navigation table. A familiar noise had entered his train of thought and then vanished. He glanced over at Carl, who was staring at the cup of coffee that sat near the table's edge. A minute tremor was making the dark coffee inside shimmer in the dim lighting of the cabin. Jack reached out for the intercom.

"Chief, have you turned any systems on in the last thirty seconds?"

"It's late, Major, not the time to be using equipment we don't need." Jenks clicked off.

"Kill the engines," Jack said as he looked at Carl and then Sarah.

Suddenly the boat went dead quiet. As they listened with faces cast in varying colors from the navigation screens on the table, Jack tilted his head. He heard it immediately. He reached for the intercom again.

"Chief, restart the engines and wait for my word; we may have company."

"Goddammit, we're not a warship, Major; I told you that."

"Chief, shut up and be ready."

"What do you think, Jack? Brazilian?" Sarah asked.

Sarah finally heard the soft whine of engines from outside. She was amazed the two officers had noticed it above the sleep-inducing drone of Teacher .

"No, Brazil uses the Kiowas and old Hughies we sold them." Jack closed his eyes and leaned on the table, listening more intently. "These are Gazelles. French-built attack helicopters."

"Goddamn, are you sure?" Carl asked as he went over to the wall-mounted phone.

"I heard enough of the little bastards in Africa and Afghanistan to last a lifetime."

"Will, go to the arms locker and get a fire team on deck," Carl said into the phone.

He hung up the receiver just as forty twenty-millimeter rounds smashed into Teacher . Jack pulled Sarah to the floor as the red-hot bullets punctured the thin composite hull and passed through to the water below. Jack didn't bother to use the intercom this time as he shouted out toward the cockpit, "Get your ass moving, Chief!"

The order was redundant as Jenks had already slammed Teacher 's throttles to her stops. The large boat sluiced into the center of the tributary and then started evasive zigzagging. He knew exactly what was happening, and the way to beat some of the fire from above.

Around them they heard the screams of the doctors and professors as they were jolted awake by the sheer noise and terror of the large rounds hitting Teacher . The military personnel were trying their best to get them behind equipment and under tables as another assault slammed into them. The red tracer rounds passed through the thin hull easily and smashed equipment as it did so. The noise was absolutely horrifying.

"You stay here!" Jack yelled at Sarah. "Come on, Carl, we can't take much more of this."

Both men gained their feet and ran to the winding staircase in the next section, ducking when more steel-jacketed rounds slammed into them. The red phosphorus tracers ignited fires in the boat's interior as they went though the hull like a kid punching holes in a soda can. The sound of breaking glass and exploding fire extinguishers sounded throughout the boat as Jenks swerved from riverbank to riverbank.

Mendenhall, Sanchez, and even Professor Ellenshaw were already on deck. The professor, standing on the rubberized flooring, was reaching up to supply magazine after magazine for the two M-16s being used by the two security men as they fired blindly up into the trees toward the sound of the turbines passing overhead.

"Situation, Will?" Jack screamed as he tossed to Carl one of the M-16s Mendenhall had stacked on the deck. The lieutenant commander didn't waste time; he pulled the charging handle and opened up at one of the low-flying assault choppers. His own tracers stitched the sky and disappeared into the tree branches above them.

"I think there are two, can't be sure. Our return defensive fire ain't getting through the trees. We're going to get our asses kicked!" Mendenhall said as he inserted another magazine while more of the tracers slammed through the trees. They hit water at first and then the awful noise of rounds hitting the hull of Teacher sounded, as one of the science labs took heavy damage. He looked down as Ellenshaw, white hair flying in panic, reached up with another full magazine. "Goddammit, stay down, Professor, until I ask for one!" Mendenhall shouted as he used his foot to push the crazy bastard back onto the deck.