D. Thomas - Backlash

They heard the approaching footfalls before they actually saw the team of mercenaries stalking through the trees. Their pursuers all wore camouflage fatigues and carried assault rifles, giving the initial impression of a military background; however, their clumsy movements and lack of teamwork gave them away as paid amateurs. Either way, they were well armed and appeared ready to kill.

One of Pierre’s men was walking directly towards the bush where Lewis and the others were hiding. Lewis tightened his grip on the .38, ready to lift it and fire, knowing he had only two rounds remaining to somehow fight their way out of this canyon. As he walked, the gunman searched the rocky ground for tracks and scanned the steep hillside for clues, seemingly unaware of his proximity to his targets. Lewis held his breath as the assailant approached to within 10 feet of their hiding spot.

Suddenly, the gunman nearest Lewis began shouting for the others as he pointed up the hill. He had spotted the torn piece of Lewis’s shirt and was taking the bait. Lewis counted seven more armed men, all running up the hill towards the false clue. A wild-eyed Pierre soon followed, hungry for revenge, with an AK47 in his hands. The group momentarily convened around their newly-found evidence, scanning the hillside above. Lewis and his friends hit some luck: the dry creek bed curved up the hill, past the torn shirt fragment, all the way to a huge boulder pile at the base of a V-shaped cliff, about a quarter mile away. With such a perfect trail to follow, Pierre and his goons wasted no time, every one of them running up the hill in search of an easy kill.

Lewis waited until their pursuers were out of sight then whispered, “We don’t have much time. Let’s work our way back down and see if we can find a way out of here.”

Gonzalez and Samantha looked terrified, but each nodded their understanding. All three did their best to remain undetected while creeping back down the hill towards the fire where they had spent the night. Pausing next to the shaft they had escaped from less than twelve hours ago, Lewis tried to decide if they should hide there, or keep moving.

Gonzalez read his mind. “If we go back down now, we may never make it out again,” she said, shaking her head.

She was right. Lewis nodded his agreement while searching for a good escape route. It looked like an easy hike to the river from here, but Lewis knew that the canyon was layered with impassable cliffs, hidden from this angle. They would be easy targets if they got caught on one of those. Then he heard something.

Excited conversation was drifting through the trees; the helicopter pilots were discussing their share of the treasure while waiting with the choppers in the clearing below. Samantha and Gonzalez heard it too, each crouching lower as they looked to Lewis. “It’s the pilots,” he whispered, a wide grin filling his face as a thought occurred to him. “We should see if they’ll give us a ride.”

Without another word, Lewis turned and led the way through a small stand of pines to the edge of the clearing. Two men, hopefully they were actually the pilots, stood about twenty feet away, looking up and a little to the left, watching their comrades up the hill. Lewis hated to waste one of his two remaining bullets on what appeared to be unarmed men, plus he needed one of them to fly them to safety. Instead of shooting, he picked up a nice-sized rock and threw it at the nearest helicopter, cracking the front window.

As expected, both pilots wheeled around at the sound of breaking glass behind them. At that moment, Lewis burst from the pines, sprinting towards the distracted men. They heard him coming but it was too late. Lewis tackled them both, quickly landing a powerful punch to the first’s temple, knocking him out cold. The other man tried to squirm free, but Lewis gave him a quick forearm to the chest before grabbing the revolver from his waist band, and pointing it directly at the man’s head. “Can you fly that?” Lewis asked, gesturing towards the helicopter that still had an unscarred windshield.

The man looked to the chopper but didn’t answer. Lewis punched him in the stomach and pushed the gun hard against his temple. “Yes,” the pilot finally answered through clenched teeth.

“Let’s go then,” Lewis said as he stood, heaving the pilot to his feet and shoving him towards the helicopter.

Samantha and Gonzalez came running up, both yelling, “They’re coming!”

Lewis turned to see that someone above had spotted them, and there was now a trail of gunmen streaming back towards the clearing. There wouldn’t be much time. Lewis practically threw the pilot into his seat, telling him to get ready for takeoff before he climbed into the copilot’s seat, the girls jumping in the back. It took continued monitoring and occasional prodding but the pilot actually had the helicopter off the ground and rotating towards the open canyon before the gunmen were even halfway to the clearing. It looked like an easy getaway until gunfire erupted from the hillside above, bullets occasionally striking the fuselage of the defenseless helicopter.

Some of the gunmen had given up negotiating the steep, rocky terrain and had instead taken up firing positions among some large boulders dotting the creek bed. The gunfire provided the extra motivation the pilot needed to really get things going. He quickly pulled up on the collective to gain altitude as he pushed forward on the cyclic, tilting the rotor to get the helicopter moving.

As they accelerated, Lewis spotted Pierre amongst the main bolder pile near the base of the cliff. The two locked eyes as Pierre raised his gun and fired ten quick, wild rounds in Lewis’s direction. Most of the bullets simply sailed into the canyon, but a pair struck the nose of the aircraft. The final round did the most damage, flying through the fuselage before hitting the pilot square in the head, killing him instantly.

The dead pilot slumped forward, pinning the cyclic to the side and sending the helicopter crabbing sideways directly towards the cliff. Lewis tossed the revolver back to Samantha then pushed the pilot off the controls, assuming command from the copilot’s seat. He fought with the cyclic, trying to steer the chopper away from the wall of rock that now took up his entire forward view. Unable to stop in time, he yanked up on the collective and twisted the throttle to its limit, hoping to get higher than the cliff before running into it.

The rotors came within inches of shattering on the rocks, the helicopter lurching upward just enough to clear the top of the cliff. The left skid, on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky. It was bent and nearly torn off against the top edge of the wall, tilting the helicopter sideways and knocking a large boulder loose. The tilt of the chopper was just enough for Lewis to see the loosened 5-ton rock tumble, slowly spinning almost a full rotation before crashing down directly on top of the fleeing Pierre. “That’s why they call him ‘Easy Squeezy Cheese,’” Lewis said, both smiling and wincing at the same time.

“Thank God you know how to fly a helicopter!” Gonzalez shouted over the cabin noise.

Lewis returned his full focus to the controls before replying, “I wish that were true. This is actually my first lesson.” Lewis had ridden in a number of helicopters and tended to ask a lot of questions, but had never actually touched the controls until now. Gonzalez and Samantha shared a worried glance before each swallowed hard, slowly sitting back in their seats and tightening their seat belts.

Lewis looked like he was fighting a massive swarm of flies, his arms zipping around the cabin between the controls as he struggled to regain some sort of equilibrium in the helicopter. He finally got the throttle and collective adjusted to the point that they weren’t shooting skyward, even managing to slowly descend towards the ground. Lewis figured, if nothing else, it would be better to crash from a lower altitude.