Don Pendleton - Rolling Thunder

“Maybe it’s reinforcements,” Encizo replied. “Wasn’t the militia supposed to be on its way up here?”

“Yeah,” Manning said, “but they were coming the other way.”

“We better get the show on the road, then,” Encizo said. “Last thing we need is another warm BLM welcome.”

By now McCarter had let out another twenty yards of cable. Manning tugged at the spool, pulling the chain until he’d reached the ATV. There was no trailer jack and he doubted the rear bumper would hold up, so he dropped flat against the ground and reached under the vehicle, knotting the chain to the chassis. Doing so, he nudged the ATV slightly and it groaned, inching farther over the edge of the precipice. One of the rear tires began to rise off the ground.

“Shit!”

Manning quickly scrambled out from under the vehicle and grabbed at the bumper, pressing down with his full weight.

“Push the crate back!” he shouted to Encizo.

“I don’t know about—”

“Push it back!” Manning repeated.

Manning shifted his weight and began pulling at the bumper. He was in no position to signal for McCarter to start reeling the ATV in, but the Sikorsky nonetheless began to move upward, taking in the chain’s slack. It was going to be close; Manning could feel the ATV slipping forward, pulling him toward the precipice.

“Faster, David!” he muttered, gritting his teeth as he pulled harder on the bumper. He felt his hamstrings and lower back straining from the effort but he refused to let up.

Encizo, meanwhile, had thrown caution to the wind and crawled up out of the driver’s seat and begun to scramble across the top of the crate, trying to rebalance the ATV’s load so it wouldn’t go over the side. Manning stared up at him, his face red, the veins in his neck bulging from his exertion.

“I think we’re gonna make it,” Encizo said. Now that he’d moved from the front to the rear of the ATV, both the vehicle’s rear wheels were back on the ground and it had stopped its forward slide. Moments later, the ATV jerked back a few inches from the precipice. McCarter had taken up all the chain’s slack and was now starting to pull the vehicle from the brink of the abyss.

“Almost there,” Encizo murmured, preparing to jump to the ground once all four wheels were back on firm ground.

Suddenly a muffled blast echoed from up in the hills, followed seconds later by a larger explosion, this one in the air just above the toppled pine. Manning and Encizo looked up simultaneously.

“David!” Encizo cried out.

A mortar shot had just struck the Skycrane’s tail rotor. Destabilized, the chopper had begun to spin around eerily as it dropped toward the ground, taking McCarter down with it.

MCCARTER HAD NO TIME to react. Not that he could have done anything to prevent the Skycrane from crashing. One second he was lurching to one side from the force of the explosion; the next he found the ground rushing up to greet him. All that saved him from being killed on impact was the Sikorsky’s manic air dance; just before striking the pines, it had pirouetted and tilted upward so that the damaged tail section touched down first. When the front end followed suit, the branches of the charred pine helped cushion the landing. Still, the impact was jarring enough to throw McCarter against the front windshield. The glass cracked but held in place as he bounded back into his seat, dazed, blood streaming down his face from a scalp gash.

The Sikorsky had come to rest at an odd angle, tilting slightly upward and sideways just enough to throw off McCarter’s equilibrium. When he tried to stand, his head began to spin. He grabbed for the copilot’s seat to steady himself, but his legs gave out underneath him and he keeled forward, dropping the carbine and toppling to the cockpit’s floor. He struck his head again, this time against the instrument panel. The blow was forceful enough to render him unconscious. The last thing he recalled was the smell of leaking engine fuel.

MANNING STARTED to rush toward the fallen chopper, but his strained hamstrings refused to cooperate, slowing him to a quick hobble. Compounding matters, the ground around him came to life as a stream of gunfire chewed at the dirt and the now-slack length of chain reaching from the ATV to the charred pine. Driven back, he took shelter behind the ATV, kneeling beside Encizo, who’d already retrieved the driver’s Uzi subgun.

“Bastards,” Encizo growled. “Some of them must’ve veered off before they reached the meadow.”

“That or they’ve got a camp around here somewhere,” Manning speculated. He ignored the fiery sensation in his legs and drew his 15-round M-9 Beretta from its shoulder holster. He could no longer see the downed Skycrane, but he could smell smoke and the rank odor of fuel.

“We need to get David out of that chopper before it blows,” he told Encizo, speaking above the gunfire.

“I know,” Encizo said, “but how? They’ve got us pinned down.”

“What about the jalopy?”

“After what it’s been through, I doubt it’s running,” Encizo said, “but let’s give it a—”

Encizo pitched forward, suddenly attacked from behind. The vehicle’s driver had regained consciousness and sprang forward from the front seat armed with a combat knife. The blade bit sharply into Encizo’s shoulder as the Basque knocked him to the ground.

The Basque quickly pulled the knife free and was about to stab Encizo a second time when Manning intervened, instinctively lashing out with the butt of his pistol. He caught the other man just below the right cheekbone, breaking a few teeth. Stunned, the man dropped his knife and his eyes began to roll up inside his head. Before he could collapse on top of Encizo, Manning grabbed hold of him and jerked him back to his feet with so much force the driver reeled backward. He was still trying to catch his balance when he ran out of ground and vanished as quickly as if a trapdoor had just opened under his feet.

Leaning against the ATV for support, Manning slowly limped forward to the edge of the precipice. With both hamstrings out it felt as if his legs had turned to jelly, and each step was an agony. By the time he reached the edge and peered downward, the driver had landed in a contorted, bloody heap at the base of the cliff.

“That’s one down,” Manning murmured.

He turned and headed back toward Encizo. The Cuban had pulled himself to his feet. His shirt was soaked with blood where he’d been stabbed. He ripped the fabric aside and inspected the wound. “He took a nice chunk out of me.”

“Let me take a look,” Manning said.

“Later.” Encizo moved past his teammate and slid into the front seat of the ATV. “Come on, let’s go get David.”

“Easier said than done,” Manning replied, struggling to pull himself into the passenger’s seat. Encizo reached out with his good arm and helped him up.

“Hammies?”

“Yeah,” Manning groaned. “Messed them up playing tug-of-war with the truck here.”

“That sucks,” Encizo told him. “What happened to the good old days when we came through these firefights without a scratch?”

“Times change, I guess,” Manning said. He started to tell Encizo about the gunshot wounds Calvin James had sustained in the meadow when the next stream of gunfire rained on them from the mountains. The crate blocked most of the shots, but a few bullets found their way to the front hood, leaving navel-sized holes. The men knew if they didn’t move they would end up sitting ducks.

Encizo quickly keyed the ignition. The engine turned over several times but wouldn’t catch.

“Come on, you freaking piece of garbage!”

He tried again; this time the engine turned over.

Encizo was shifting into Reverse when their attackers fired another mortar round their way. Manning caught a fleeting glimpse as it whizzed by, missing the ATV by a few yards. It wound up exploding in the gorge behind them, and the sound of the blast echoed through the mountains like a death knell.