She had been too eager to hold off long enough to carry out a proper recon, failing to recognize the threat from the tripod missile launcher.
And she had encouraged the pilot of her own Chinook to fly too close in on the leading chopper, so that the devastating explosion also caused vital damage to her machine.
The whole cockpit glass was starred and splintered, mortally wounding the copilot, while a large piece of wreckage struck the rear rotor. The Chinook lurched to one side, but everyone aboard was blinded by the pall of oily smoke that filled the sky.
“Gotta get down!” screamed the pilot, wiping blood from his face, fighting to maintain control and altitude over the yawing helicopter.
But the men and women of Operation Tempest hadn’t escaped without death and injury.
A flood of burning gasoline had sprayed over the area to the side of the dam, covering two of the six vehicles. Though most of the personnel managed to scramble out safely, many were burned or in a state of shock as their M113s blazed behind them.
One of their fuel tanks went up, as did all of their supply of grenades and explosives.
For three or four minutes the watchers on the hillside above couldn’t see what was going on. There were fires and the booming shocks and screaming and shooting.
Carrie spotted the damaged Chinook coming in for a clumsy emergency landing on the flat area farther down the valley on what had been the tennis court of the ruined house above.
“Hunters got a load of soldiers,” she said. “Must be at least fifty or more getting out there. Don’t seem to be many of them wounded.”
Jim was concentrating on watching Zelig and his surviving forces. “Only about half that number got out uninjured. It’s serious chaos over there.” He glanced at Nanci Simms. “Who’s got the edge?”
She was holding the Krieghoff Ulm-Primus .375 rifle, considering whether to open fire on the Hunters. “Too much damn smoke,” she said. “Who has the edge? The one with most troopers and weapons. And that looks, I fear, rather like the Hunters of the Sun. The only thing Zelig’s people have going for them is high ground.”
“WE’VE STILL GOT THEM, Chief.”
“They hold the high ground.”
“Sure, but it looks from the explosion up there that they lost most of their ammo. Sent a scout up and she reported back they’re in a mess. Wounded and burned. No more missiles, that’s for sure. We got twice the force. All we have to do is go up, slow and careful, and take them out.”
“The Chinook?”
“A team is working on it now. Nothing too bad. We can fly in an hour if we have to.”
The conversation was carried out at the tops of their voices to ride over the thunder of the stream that rushed down the steep valley just behind them.
“Then let’s go to it.” Margaret Tabor was staring up from cover, using powerful field glasses. “Who’s that moving below the dam?”
But a shroud of black smoke drifted across, and by the time it had cleared, the face of the dam, with its white concrete supports, seemed deserted.
JIM WAS COVERED in freezing brown mud from head to toe. At first he’d made a half-hearted effort to keep himself clean, until he realized how stupid that was. If they had glasses or sniper scopes down below, then he could be in deepest trouble. A veil of smoke ghosted across from the burning personnel carriers and the crashed helicopter, helping to cover his slow, careful progress across the dam.
The blasting powder was heavy, but he’d insisted on going alone, telling the others to get ready to give him covering fire if it became necessary. The smoke across the valley was so thick that he was confident that Zelig and his unit wouldn’t see him at all. Once he reached the top of the dam, he would effectively be in dead ground, with the only moment of danger when he crawled down over the concrete supports.
It was a strange feeling.
As he crouched down, placing the powder where Nanci had suggested, it was as though he were in the bowels of some gigantic living creature.