William Forstchen - The Final Day

Maury looked back at John and motioned for him to get out. John needed no further urging, reaching over to pat Maury on the shoulder before exiting. Overhead, the rotor was still slowly spinning but winding down.

As he stepped out, he was greeted by the smell of burned metal. Old training reminded him not to breathe deeply. Burning aluminum and titanium were toxic.

“Son of a bitch!” Forrest cried, pointing at the portside turbine mounting. “Either damn lucky bastards or damn good shots.”

The housing was scored with half a dozen deep dents standing out clearly, the paint having been blown off. Black smoke was trailing out from the exhaust pipe, the northwesterly breeze whipping it around them.

John covered his mouth to go up and look closer with Forrest by his side.

“None of the rounds penetrated?” he asked. “So what happened?”

“Supposed to be proof even against 20mm rounds as long as they’re not armor piercing, but still, it dings the metal and bends it in; sometimes fragments of bent metal pop off inside the engine housing and get whipped into the turbine. We most likely cracked a turbine blade. If we had shut down immediately, it wouldn’t have been so bad. Now I’m not sure how much damage it did.”

The rotor came to a stop, Danny exiting the aircraft, coming aft to join them, fire extinguisher in hand, reaching up high to hose down the intake and then exhaust ports.

John stepped away from the Black Hawk, knees feeling rubbery. Lee was just lying in the snow, breathing deeply, looking up at the sky. John went up to his side and knelt down.

“John, we’ve been friends for Lord knows how many years,” Lee gasped, “but I’ll be damned if I ever go flying with you again. For that matter, I’ll be damned if I ever go flying again, period.”

Kevin Malady, who had knelt down on the other side of Lee, chuckled. “Hey, that was a piece of cake.”

“Kiss my butt,” Lee gasped before rolling on to his side and retching again.

Maury finally climbed out of the cockpit, took off his helmet, and tossed it back inside, and then, to John’s surprise, he got sick to his stomach as well.

John stood to one side, waiting for his friend to regain his composure, while aft, Forrest had climbed back inside to fetch another fire extinguisher to hand out to Danny, who continued to douse the engine. The smoke was subsiding, the aircraft’s metal ringing with metallic pings as it cooled down.

“Here comes Bob Gillespie,” Danny announced, and he pointed to a four-wheel all-terrain vehicle turning out from the taxiway and onto the runway. Its driver, an elderly man, capless and baldheaded, was slowing down to a near stop a hundred feet out with shotgun at the ready.

“Who the hell are you crazy bastards?” he shouted.

Danny held his arms up, cursing back and identifying himself. The driver relaxed, set his shotgun down, and drove up, dismounting, reaching to the rear seat to pull out a heavy fire extinguisher, and dragging it up behind the chopper.

“Danny McMullen, just what in hell are you doing out here?”

“We just went for a little ride.” Turning, he introduced the rest of the group. John had heard about Gillespie, who until the Day owned the airport and spent his life fixing nearly anything that could fly. When contact was reestablished with Morganton back in the spring, Danny had tried to recruit Gillespie into moving to Black Mountain to help with the L-3 and Black Hawk. Gillespie had managed to survive by going hermit and lying low when the Posse had been rampaging through the area. With no family, his wife having passed away years earlier, the airport had become his family.

The old man merely nodded a reply to the introductions because he was all eyes for the Black Hawk, and without a word, he slowly walked around it, taking a few minutes to look at the bullet-pocked turbine housing, poking his head into the cockpit, and clucking before finally going back to Danny.

“So which one of you screwed up six million dollars’ worth of aircraft?”

They all looked one to the other, and John started to step forward.

“I’ve seen more than one crash in my career, and by God, ten minutes ago, I figured I was about to see a bunch of fools die. That was, without a doubt, one of the most God-awful landings I have ever witnessed. Whoever was flying this, do us a favor and stay on the ground. You bent a wheel strut, you idiot.”

As he spoke, he pointed to the portside strut—which was indeed cantered out at an angle—and John now noticed the chopper was actually listing.

“How about the engine?” Danny asked.

“Don’t know until I strip it down. Most likely some cracked turbine blades, for starters. Let me guess—you kept them spinning after you got hit until things started to burn out.”

Everyone looked over Maury, who was suddenly red-faced.

“Damn it, like I told you six months ago, it’s been twenty years since I flew one of these things. At least we’re still alive.”

It was Forrest who broke the tension, reaching into his jacket pocket to pull out a pack of Dunhills. Popping one out, he then held it up, offering it to the others.

“Oh my God!” Gillespie cried, reaching out for one.

“Can this guy maybe fix it?” John whispered, leaning over to Danny.

“Don’t know until we strip the engine down.”

“I think Forrest has something to trade for the work,” John replied.

Danny nodded, and to John’s surprise, he went over to Forrest’s side and motioned for a cigarette. A minute later, all of them except for Lee and himself were smoking, Maury now shaking from adrenaline and fatigue, nervously inhaling and coughing as he exhaled but then continuing to smoke.

Forrest looked over at John, again that seductive offer. He was standing downwind of his friends and of course breathing in the delicious scent.

And then there was the memory of the photograph of Jennifer with her dying mother and the promise he made.

While putting together the drop package, he had come upon the idea of including the photographs as proof of the validity of who he was if it was actually handed intact to Bob. Fishing around in the basement of what had once been Jen’s house, he found the photo albums. Going through them had caused deep stabs of pain, and Makala had found him thus, crying softly as he looked at the photos of Mary holding Elizabeth as a newborn, and then Jennifer. And as well, old photos going back to Mary’s childhood, the day they announced their engagement, the day they got married.

She had not said a word about finding him thus, accepting without question his comment that he was looking for a couple of photographs to enclose in the message capsule as proof of who he was if the situation was too dangerous for them to land.

Looking out across the snow-covered landscape, still smelling the burning cigarettes, his friends unwinding and laughing as men do after a close shave with disaster, he wondered where all of this was leading—and what his reception from Makala would be when they finally got into downtown Morganton, made the long-distance phone call to Black Mountain, and found a way to get the last forty miles back to home.

I hope this was all worth it . His thoughts were more like a prayer. Bob, for God’s sake, I hope you are still alive, that whatever Quentin was raving about was just the memories of a dying man.

He so wanted to believe it—that not only was Bob alive but that he was on the side of Bluemont, the mere thought of him being on their side a reassurance that in spite of the tragedy of the spring, it was a government he could still work with.

“It’s seven days now without a word from Roanoke or anywhere else.” John sighed, looking over at Maury Hurt, who, along with several of the ham radio operators in their community, had been monitoring 122.9 around the clock.