SOAR: A Black Ops Novel

At an uphill angle of forty-five degrees, for example, you can put your crosshairs dead center on the target, pull the trigger — and your shot will miss its mark, going high by about eight inches. The difficulty of shooting from the chopper would be compounded because Ty knew he’d be snap-shooting at extreme angles of thirty, forty, even sixty degrees as Mickey D maneuvered the HIP under battle conditions. It would be kind of like trying to shoot ten out of ten bull’s-eyes while riding a roller coaster. No — it would be like trying to shoot from one moving roller-coaster car to a target sitting in a second moving roller-coaster car. All things considered, Ty thought, the situation was nasty enough to make a man take up the “spray and pray” shooting technique, or think about forgetting everything he’d ever learned, and reverting to “Kentucky” windage.

0912. Ty sensed Ritzik moving past him. He was shouting, but the sniper paid the major no mind. He was completely focused on his own situation, working Zen-like to exclude every bit of extraneous stimuli, until only he and the rifle remained. If he could accomplish that much, he’d be able to overcome the physical obstacles and do what he had to.

Suddenly the chopper hiccuped, knocking him out of position. The HIP dropped like a stone, recovered, twisted into the sun at a forty-degree angle, fighting its way into the sky. The sniper was slapped to the deck and rolled aft. He fought to maintain what was left of his balance, cradling the big rifle to keep it from smashing into a bulkhead or seat. Oh, this was not going to be any fun at all.

26

144 Kilometers East-Northeast of Tokhtamysh.

0912 Hours Local Time.

“Loner, TOC. Your bogeys are coming in from the east. Distance is twenty-two miles and closing.”

“Roger that, TOC.” Ritzik hand-signaled Gene Shepard to hang on. He worked his way forward to the cockpit, stepping around the sniper, who was focused, trancelike, on a spot somewhere outside the aircraft.

“Mick,” Ritzik shouted, “let’s do it.”

“Hoo-ah, boss.”

Ritzik’s fingers whitened around the cockpit support struts as the HIP dropped. “Mick?”

“Yo?”

Ritzik’s knees flexed as if he were shooting a mogul course as the craft twisted violently, recovered, shot upward, and finally veered to its left, turning into the sun. “Get us in position for Ty to take the other pilots out before they discover we’re not friendly.”

“Roger that. What side is he shooting from?”

“Port side. Port side.” Ritzik squinted through the windshield as the chopper regained even flight. Then he turned and staggered aft, holding on to whatever he could find for support.

Sam Phillips’s stomach queased as the HIP abruptly lost altitude. He fought the nausea, finally regaining his equilibrium as Mick brought the craft around. Instinctively, he reached up and snugged the shoulder straps that held him against the seat back. Sam had never much liked flying, and choppers made him a lot more nervous than planes. They were, he thought, complicated, hard-to-fly aircraft that required total concentration on the part of their pilots. Indeed, as he’d watched Mickey D familiarize himself with the HIP’s responses, he’d been amazed that the pilot could keep the big bird in the air at all, single-handedly. And when Mick hovered the HIP the first time, Sam swore he could smell the tension rolling off the pilot’s body and permeating the cockpit.

“Sam, Sam!”

Mick’s shout brought Sam back to reality. He pulled off the headset. “Yo?”

“Sun visor.”

“Gotcha.” The spook reached over, swung the lightweight plastic around, and rotated the visor screen down across the windshield. “Okay?”

“Roger that.” Mick glanced down at a screen on the console that sat in the middle of the nose, right between the two seats. “Sam, turn that second switch to your left.”

Sam put his hand on a black knurled knob on the console’s bottom row. “This one?”

The pilot’s chin thrust forward. “One row up.”

“This one.”

“Yup.”

Sam turned the knob. A green radar screen flickered to life. Mick checked it, then shouted, “Right-hand switch, top row. Throw it.”

Sam moved the toggle upward. “What did I just do?”

“If I remember correctly, you turned the manual IFF transponder shutoff switch to its off position.”

The move made no sense to Sam at all. “Why did I do that?”

“So I can convince the other aircraft we have transmission problems.” Mick eased the HIP into a shallow descent, skimming the aircraft no more than a hundred feet above the nap of the land. “When I yell, flip it the other way.”

“I’m gonna put the headset back on,” Sam shouted, his hands miming earpieces.

Mick’s head bobbed up and down. “Roger.” He paused as he adjusted the chopper’s attitude. “Remember—”

“What?” Sam adjusted the head strap and pulled the bulbous mike close to his lips.

“Double orders of pot stickers and Hunan beef — extra spicy.”