Jack Coughlin - Kill Zone

Swanson put his hands against the sides of the hatch and shifted his fifty-pound pack and other equipment to be able to sit down. His stubby M-4 assault rifle hung across his chest, and Excalibur crossed his back, safe in its padded bag. With thirty seconds to go, the major ordered, “Stand up! Lock and load!” and the other Marines unbuckled, exchanged their flight helmets for real ones, and formed rows in the narrow aisles.

Kyle removed the night vision goggles, pulled the M-4 into firing position, and put his eye to the scope, which could penetrate the darkness. He could engage with precision shots at up to eight hundred meters and switch to rapid fire if necessary, but he saw nothing of interest. He kept the sight moving, searching for threats as the two aircraft jockeyed for the final descent, sharply reducing their altitude and bleeding off speed.

The rear ramp began to lower and the wind through the chopper increased to gale-force proportions. The tail dipped as the helicopter flared to almost a complete stop in the air, braking its forward momentum less than twenty feet off the ground and barely moving forward. With the more stable platform, Swanson stood and continued parsing the LZ with his rifle and night scope. Nothing out there.

A loud scream erupted over the crew net. The two helicopters were hanging almost motionless in the air when a freak wall of wind that had swept unimpeded across a hundred miles of desert tore through the LZ and threw the birds together with train-wreck violence. The churning seventy-nine-foot-long rotors chopped like long swords, and both aircraft were instantly out of control, tangling with each other.

The standing Marines went flying and crashing about the spinning cabin like dolls, breaking necks and spines and limbs as the helicopter blades dug through the thin metal sides of the helicopters and went after the men like sharp knives. When his helicopter lurched onto its left side, Swanson was propelled straight out of the open hatch by the centrifugal force, like a piece of trash thrown from a car on a highway. The force of the ejection tore the helmet commo line free to prevent him from being lynched. The M-4 assault rifle snapped from its strap and flew away. His last sensation as his body was pulled into the void was of the cold wind caressing his face. He tumbled toward the desert floor.

SWANSON SLAMMED BELLYfirst onto the downward sloping side of a small sand dune and skidded, rolled, and bounced over and over before his tumbling body came to a stop at the bottom of the wadi. An explosion that would be heard for miles detonated behind him, and pieces of the disintegrating helicopters whizzed overhead and whiplashed the sands. He lay dazed, almost unconscious, trying to get some air into his lungs.

He lay motionless for about thirty seconds before coming out of his stupor, choking and gasping while his brain reeled and his face felt as if he had been punched by a young Mike Tyson on his best day. He pushed into a sitting position and used two fingers to dig gobs of sand out of his cheeks, then found his canteen and poured water over his face, sluicing it in his mouth and spitting it out. He doused his bandanna with water and rubbed his aching eyes. Blood came away on the cloth, and he explored his face until he found the gash across the bridge of his nose where the helmet had cracked him. In times of dire emergency, he knew, it was best to take a moment to gather his wits before doing anything at all, so he pressed the bandanna against the cut, flopped back against the sand, and took deep breaths, repeating his personal mantra softly: Slow is smooth; smooth is fast.

When he felt able to move, he crawled to the top of the dune and looked in horrible fascination at the wreckage that only moments before had been two powerful transport helicopters loaded with combat-ready Marines. It was hard to tell one of the birds from the other now because they had come down in a heap, cutting each other into chunks and merging into a single pile of smoldering wreckage. Twisting columns of red and yellow and orange flames spun into the dark sky.

Swanson dropped his gear and ran to the wreckage, stepping through the hot, sharp metal and pockets of burning debris to check for signs of life and finding only bodies and parts of bodies. There were no moans, no cries for help. Had the Marines been seated and strapped in, some might have survived, but he found nothing but carnage. The machines had slaughtered each other as well as every human being aboard except him.

Almost thirty men had been killed, and the scene sickened him. “Fuck me,” Swanson said. He turned away, took a few steps, and threw up.

It was a fiery end for the ambitious plan that the briefers had predicted would be a cakewalk. Motherfucking Mr. Murphy and his bad-luck law had shown up early on this one, and Kyle, breathing deeply, forced himself back into the cold reality of the moment. Get your shit together!

He could see if there was a workable radio and call the Fleet, where everyone would be listening to the net. But Washington probably was also plugged into the radio chatter, and the White House would simply hand the assassination job to someone else. If Swanson called for help, General Middleton would surely die.

Think, damn it, think! If he didn’t call, everyone would think that he was dead, too. But that would allow him to work alone, and although Buchanan would probably still assign another assassin, Kyle stood a good chance of reaching the general first because he was already on the ground.

Hell, he should be dead anyway, so why not continue the mission by himself, in total secrecy? The odds were astronomical, but Kyle would not allow himself to think of it as a suicide trip. That’s it, then. Just get on with it! Go! New confidence surged through him like electricity.

He looked toward the village, which was about fifteen hundred meters away. That distance had not been changed by the crash. The helicopters had come down right where they were supposed to, just in a terribly wrong way. With the crash, the jig was up as far as surprise went, and everybody in the village might be temporarily stunned by what happened, but they would be coming his way in a hurry. Time was not his friend.

He went back into the wreckage and gathered canteens of water, more ammo, plenty of blocks of C-4 explosive, a couple of Claymore mines, a portable satellite telephone that still had power, and a survival radio from one of the pilots. He snapped them both off. Even when not in active use they would still send electronic signals, and when the little green power lights vanished, Swanson could no longer be tracked. On the screens, he was dead. He found an M-16 rifle, locked and loaded.

A glance at his watch showed him that three minutes had flown by, and he still had two more important chores.

Kyle stepped over bodies and debris until he was beside the little Kawasaki motorcycle. He gave it a quick check and it seemed undamaged, having been held tight on the deck throughout the disaster. Unlike the Marines, it had been professionally secured, and Kyle unsheathed his big knife, cut away the loading bands, and pushed it out. He loaded everything he had on it and rested it on the kickstand.

Now came the hard part, leaving a clue for Shari, something only she would recognize. She was in the informational loop about the mission, and would assume that he had died in the crash. He wanted to let her know he had survived, but also to provide some misdirection for anyone else.

He scanned the dead Marines and found one in the jumble of corpses, someone whose face could not be recognized but was about Kyle’s size. The rubber-rimmed dog tag identified the man as Lance Corporal Harold McDowell, and his neck had been snapped when he was thrown against the bulkhead. A Marine Corps tattoo was inked on his right forearm. The kid had been proud to be a warrior and would not object to doing one more job.