Paul Christopher - The Templar Cross

Tidyman crouched and Holliday followed suit, pulling Rafi down with him. Standing, they'd be perfect targets, silhouetted against the rising flames behind them.

"What now?" Holliday whispered to Tidyman.

"There," said the Egyptian, pointing along the parapet. "Keep low."

Tidyman began to run along the sand- pile wall, heading for the northeast corner of the structure. Holliday followed, keeping low as he'd been instructed, checking every few seconds to see if anyone left with the helicopters had seen them. Rafi brought up the rear. The only thing obstructing their run was the body of a Tuareg guard, his throat slit by one of the commandos. They stepped over his body and followed after Tidyman.

They reached the corner of the wall and the Egyptian pointed down to the ditch below them. Waiting on the other side of the dry moat was a Russian jeep, an open version of the old UAZ-469 Goat they'd purchased in Mersa Matruh. There was a big machine gun on a pivot mount in the rear. It looked a lot like the Libyan army vehicle they'd seen patrolling that afternoon, but much older.

"Can you work that?" Tidyman asked, pointing at the big machine gun, his whisper hoarse.

"Probably," said Holliday, peering down. It looked like an American MP-40 but even bigger, probably a Soviet-era Russian Kord. But a machine gun was a machine gun, and the Russians had always had a knack for making their weapons simple, strong and easy to use. That's why the AK- 47 was the Coca-Cola of automatic rifles.

"You'd better be able to shoot it," warned the Egyptian. "Those helicopters are in our way and they're sure to have left someone back to guard them."

"Behind you!" Rafi yelled.

Holliday swiveled, bringing up the machine pistol he'd stripped off the dead commando in the tent. A commando was charging up the hill, another man right behind him. As Holliday fired the charging man looked up.

"Cazzo merda!" the commando whispered, lifting his own weapon.

Holliday squeezed the trigger on the MP5 and blew the man back down the hill in a dead tumbling heap. The second man stopped in his tracks, bringing up his own machine pistol, and Holliday turned the weapon on him, firing until the clip was empty. Behind the dead man at the base of the wall a trio of commandos looked up.

"Go!" Holliday bellowed, turning again and throwing himself over the edge of the sloping sand wall as a hail of fire buzzed up from the squad below. He tumbled down the sand, losing his footing and rolling down toward the shallow ditch at the base of the rampart.

He reached the bottom with a heavy thump that knocked the wind out of him. As he climbed to his feet and clambered up the far side of the moat he felt a searing sting of heat as a bullet plucked at the sleeve of his shirt. More slugs twitched into the sand all around him as the commandos high above him tried to pick him off. He reached the truck, threw himself into the back and grabbed the pistol grip below the heavy machine-gun mechanism and swung the weapon around on its pivot.

As Tidyman started the truck and pulled away, Rafi beside him, Holliday dropped the firing lever, locking the belt feed in place, flipped off the safety and angled the gun upward. He checked that the belt feed was running smoothly down into the big ammunition box on the right-hand side of the heavy weapon, took a deep breath and pulled the trigger.

The heavy-barreled weapon came alive under his hands, jumping like a pounding jackhammer and sending out a pulsing rhythmic thump of huge.50-caliber shells that chewed up the crest of the sand rampart like paper through a shredder, instantly turning anyone still on the summit into so much raw meat.

The immediate threat removed, Holliday swiveled the big gun around on its mount and faced the helicopters as the truck roared across the stony plain toward the runway. The commandos had landed in a staggered formation that presented a curved line of defense blocking their way. The fat-bellied transports had sliding doors like a minivan and a rear loading ramp. They weren't usually armed but there were three large windows on each side that could be used as positions for a Gatling Minigun or a.50 caliber like the Kord.

Holliday did a long traverse of the line of choppers moving left to right, aiming for center mass in the middle of the passenger compartments, starting at the cockpit end, firing in short bursts. Even from two hundred yards away Holliday could see the exploding impact of the shells, windshield Plexiglas shattering, metal torn apart, bits of fuselage and chunks of engine flying in all directions. Something flared brightly in one of the center helicopters and then a split second later a huge fireball erupted with an oxygen-eating whump of sound. Jet fuel for the big GE turbines.

In the driver's seat of the truck, Tidyman jerked the wheel, veering away from the light cast by the exploding chopper. Holliday saw figures running in front of the blaze. Tidyman yelled a warning.

One of the running figures had one of the familiar skinny launchers on his shoulder. An RPG-7, capable of stopping an M1 Abrams, not to mention a tin-can Goat. One round from a weapon like that and they'd be vaporized. Holliday swung left, traversing the gun, then twisted in the opposite direction, reverse-tracking and potshotting the running line of men, dropping them like puppets cut from their strings. The man with the RPG dropped along with the rest.

They were through, the line of helicopters behind them, the one in the middle blazing like a torch. At least two of the others had been badly damaged and probably more. Heavily armed or not, if the commando group was stranded without transport they were as good as dead; Qaddafi, father and son, weren't known for their compassion. They'd take a flight of old MiG-23 Floggers out of mothballs and blow whatever commandos survived into eternity.

Tidyman pulled up beside the runway. The Skymaster Holliday had seen that morning was tied down under a Mylar awning beside a line of fifty-gallon drums with hand pumps. Both cockpit doors were wide open.

"Where's the pilot?" Holliday called out as he dropped down from the rear of the truck. The cockpit of the push-pull twin-engined aircraft was empty. He flinched involuntarily as an explosion sounded behind them. He turned. The fire had spread; a second helicopter was burning now. The commandos had almost certainly expected a quick in and out with a minimum of casualties or damage and now it had all turned to crap.

"I'm the pilot," said Tidyman, climbing out of the truck.

"You've got to be kidding," said Rafi.

"I got my license in Canada when I was fifteen," said Tidyman. "I was flying before I could drive a car." The Egyptian went around to the pilot's-side door and got in behind the little half wheel. Rafi and Holliday climbed in after him, Holliday taking the copilot's chair.

Tidyman slammed his door shut and latched it, then started flipping switches. Holliday closed and latched the door on his side as well.

"Egypt had compulsory military service back then," said Tidyman, continuing his explanation. "I spent two years flying Sadat around in one of these."

Tidyman set the fuel mixture at Rich, the RPMs at High and held down the ignition switch. The engine coughed and died. He released the ignition and went through the procedures again. This time the engine caught. There was a sharp cracking sound from the tail section of the aircraft and then a second impact.

"Somebody's shooting at us," said Rafi.

Holliday looked out the window on his right. Except for the flames rising from the burning helicopters the night was black.

The engine roared as Tidyman advanced the throttles. More bullets hammered into the plane.

"Time to go," said Tidyman. He released the brake and they rolled out from beneath the Mylar cover, turning hard, the front of the aircraft pointing down the dark runway. Tidyman pushed the throttles as far forward as they would go, set his feet on the pedals and set the flaps at one-third down. The twin-engined aircraft leapt down the runway and threw itself up into the enclosing night. They were airborne.