John Gilstrap - Damage Control

Boxers being Boxers, he flew a few blocks farther north before finishing the turn and lining up with an east-west boulevard. According to Jonathan’s GPS, they’d lined up with Calle Norte Americano. That put Maria Elizondo’s house four blocks north and three quarters of a mile east of their current location. Every additional second in the air brought them that much closer.

The engine noise pitched down dramatically, startling Jonathan.

“That’s me,” Boxers said, defusing the concern. “I want to get this baby slowed down.” When he lowered the wing flaps, the aircraft slowed even more. To Jonathan, it felt like a walking pace, but he knew that they had no choice. At this low altitude, when the engine died, they would fall like a rock, with virtually no opportunity to react. There’d be nothing they could do about the speed of the fall, but the lower their forward speed when it happened, the more survivable the crash would be.

Now that they were close, Jonathan realized the limitations of his GPS map. While the map images were pristine, the real street was dotted with vehicles, and the occasional trash can, and all manner of urban stuff that you’d never encounter on an airfield. Any kind of obstruction was a huge hazard, but there was something else that posed special hazards.

“Those are power lines, aren’t they?” he asked, noting the strings of wire that connected the poles.

“Yup.”

“Can you avoid them?”

“I’m gonna try.”

As they chugged along as nearly stall speed, Boxers brought the aircraft lower and lower. On either side, the occasional building was actually taller than they were high, and this was not a city of skyscrapers. Up ahead, a car pulled onto the boulevard from a side street, and then careened onto the sidewalk when the driver saw the looming aircraft.

“That guy just got religion,” Boxers said through a smile.

Again, Jonathan chose to concentrate on his map. “We’re closing to within a half mile.”

As if on cue, the Cessna’s engine died. No cough this time, no warning at all. Just a sudden silence where there’d been the steady drone of the engine and the rush of the propeller.

The Cessna became a brick with wings, falling with all the grace of an anvil.

“Brace!” Boxers yelled. He pulled back hard on the yoke, but there just wasn’t enough speed for the control surfaces to do their job.

Jonathan pressed himself into his seat, locked his jaw, and waited for it. They hit flat and they hit hard. A jolt of pain as old back injuries reawakened, and Jonathan smelled blood in his sinuses. His belts held, though, and the aircraft stayed upright, even as the landing gear bent and broke beneath them. He more sensed than felt the wheel pylon on the starboard side penetrate the underside of the fuselage and jut through like a giant spike. The fact that he was realizing these things meant that he hadn’t been skewered. He didn’t hear a scream of agony, so he had to assume that Tristan was okay as well.

He’d know soon enough, one way or the other.

Within seconds, a gray-white cloud filled the interior, but Jonathan’s initial burst of fear dimmed in seconds when he recognized the smell of steam, not smoke.

Then they were still. Total elapsed time from engine failure to dead stop: probably less than five seconds. They listed to the right, but there was no flicker of fire. Chalk up one advantage to running out of fuel.

“Tristan!” Jonathan yelled. “Are you okay?” He turned in his seat to see the kid’s wide eyes.

“Holy shit,” he said.

“Are you hurt?”

“I don’t know.”

It was a fair enough answer. It’d take a minute to take inventory.

“I’m fine, too,” Boxers said. “Thanks for asking.”

“You don’t get hurt,” Jonathan said. “You make dents.” As he spoke, he thumbed the release on his seat belt and shrugged free. “Gather your weapons and let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Hey, Boss,” Boxers said, pointing out the front windscreen. “We’re attracting locals.”

Of course they were. A plane crashes in the street in the middle of the night, people are going to be curious. Jonathan assessed the threat as low-these people were running to help, not to do harm-but among them, someone was calling the police, and that wouldn’t help them a bit.

“What’s your status, Tristan?” Jonathan said. “Hurt or unhurt?”

“Bruised,” he said. “But I don’t think I’m bleeding, and I don’t think anything’s broken.”

“Then grab your shit and get that door open.”

“There’s a big post sticking up through the floor,” Tristan said.

“That’s the landing gear. Go around it.”

As he spoke, Jonathan clipped his M27 to its sling, checked his left thigh to make sure that the MP7 was where it belonged, and his right hip to say hello to his Colt. To his left, Boxers had already reassembled his arsenal and was waiting for Jonathan to move out of the way so that he could get out.

A face appeared in the window. It was a local, mid-thirties, shirtless and in undershorts, clearly fresh from bed. He was motioning for others to gather around. Someone pulled open the door.

“Scorpion?” Tristan asked. “What do I do? They’re not going to like all the guns.”

In fact, the guns would scare the crap out of them, Jonathan thought. “Let me go first,” he said. He rolled to his left, and climbed around the landing gear pylon.

The Good Samaritan at the door saw only the weapons, and he backed away.

“We’re not here to hurt you,” Jonathan said in Spanish. “Thank you for your help, but everybody’s okay.” As he heard his words, he wondered if he’d ever in his life said anything more ridiculous.

“ Son Americanos, ” the man said. You’re Americans. Then he turned to the rest of the gathering crowd-maybe fifteen people now-and yelled in Spanish, “They are American soldiers!”

Jonathan didn’t know if that would be interpreted as good news or bad, but he didn’t have time to worry about it. They needed to get moving.

Jonathan climbed out the door into the night and assumed the kind of softly threatening stance that soldiers and cops used to great benefit around the world: feet planted at shoulder width, his rifle slung across his chest with both hands in place, but with the muzzle pointed at nothing, and his finger out of the trigger guard.

“We’re not here to cause you any trouble,” he said.

“American soldiers!” someone yelled.

He still couldn’t read the crowd.

Tristan emerged from the door, his own rifle clipped to his sling, but the muzzle was pointed toward the crowd.

“Get your hands off your weapon,” Jonathan snapped. “Just let it hang.”

From behind them both, Boxers growled, “And keep the damn safety on.”

While Jonathan scanned the crowd for threats that didn’t seem to be materializing, Boxers reached back into the ruined plane and recovered the rucks. He donned one of them, and then took his boss’s place on guard while Jonathan shrugged into his.

“We’re sorry for waking you,” Jonathan said as he’d started moving away from the wreckage and down the street. To Tristan, he said softly, “You stay between us.”

Boxers said, “And keep-”

“ Really? ” Tristan snapped.

The Big Guy rumbled out a chuckle.

Jonathan led the way east, moving cautiously but with purpose toward the thickening crowd. He kept his weapon in that same noncommittal posture, taking care to make eye contact with every person he saw. The trick was to let them know you were watching but not linger long enough to pose a threat. He knew without looking that Boxers was with him, step for step, though moving backward instead of forward.