Driver pt. 12 Stormbringer
This is a work of fiction. All characters depicted are over the age of 18.
Takeoff offered Mack a salutary reminder of how quickly and spectacularly flight could turn deadly. In spite of Night Vision Goggles, in heavy rain over a seething, featureless surface, pulling up and back from the blacked out ship he lost sight of any meaningful references. Abandoned to their own devices, his balance organs warned Mack he was pitching sharply nose-upwards, urging him to pole forward, in this case straight into the sea. After a few seconds of white-knuckled flight and a complimentary over-torque, he wrestled the Agusta onto an even keel, deliberately setting attitude, power and heading to bring them onto the outbound course.
In that tiny fragment of his brain not totally immersed in staving off premature death, Mack wished he'd never even heard the name Harrison Carter, let alone those of his blighted twin daughters. Forging-on into conditions not fit for man or Marine, he hunkered down, leaning hard against his straps, searching for the carefully charted landmarks.
Going feet-dry over some random stretch of coastline, Mack descended over the Guatemalan jungle, the triple-canopy looming ghost-like in the ellipse of an infrared searchlight. He checked his speed, checked his heading, checked the stopwatch against the plan mapped-out on the contraband kneeboard-mounted tablet. The plot showed them already left of track and the first waypoint, a small rural village, passed like a ship in the night offering not so much as a glimmer of cultural light. Ten minutes in and he was already lost.
With over 100 miles to run, Mack cut a low, slow orbit over dark, amorphous terrain, searching for a sign- a village, a road, a great big sign saying 'This Way To Xibalba'. Anything. Tony Blair came up on the intercom, the first voice Mack had heard since getting airborne. "Cap," he said, "everything okay?"
"Bro... I'm busy. I would have told you if it wasn't."
"Okay..." Blair replied, clearly unconvinced.
Sweat ran down his legs. It seeped out of his armpits and trickled over his ribs, as Mack groped in the dark for a solution. 'Abort!' a little voice said, 'Scrub the stupid-ass mission.' Like he should have scrubbed a hundred stupid-ass missions before. Go and live under that nice, comfortable bridge, rattle a cup at the mall, tell anyone who dared get close how he was once a gung-ho chopper pilot, a steely-eyed aviator with of brass balls and brains of shit.
For a fleeting instant he was back in the Ghan, on the brink of some do-or-die mission- either do the mission or others would die- almost crushed to impotence by the weight of responsibility. Luke at his side, scuffing through the dust towards a weary, overloaded bird in the stupefying summer heat.
"Ever read the Hagakure?" Luke once asked out of nowhere.
"Read it?" Mack scoffed, "I can't even spell it."
"It's like the Samurai ops manual. From way back when in the olden days. You know what it says?"
"Don't order the puffer fish?"
"Death is as light as a feather, duty is heavy as a mountain."
"Meaning?"
"Better dead than back in ops trying to dream up excuses. Come on, Trav. Let's fuck this pig."
"Come on, Trav." Mack muttered, nodding, "Let's fuck this pig."
Blair keyed his intercom. "Did you just say something?"
"Hold on." Mack replied, as lights appeared through the pixelated veil of rain, tiny pinpricks surrounded by big, festive haloes. Checking the heading, Mack flicked a look at the map and the whole world suddenly fell into place. The village was none other than their second waypoint and, tracking overhead, Mack recalled another snippet of arcane wisdom. Passed on, in this event, by Brian Connors, his crusty old instructor on basic. Offtrack navigation. When all else fails, just fly a raw heading for the nil-wind interval and when you get there, turn into wind. An act of faith, especially at night, at low level with few or no landmarks, it had nonetheless served him time and again. Turning onto heading, Mack hit the stopwatch, settling down at 140 knots and 50 feet above the trees. One hundred miles to run. 42 minutes. Time to kick back and watch the grainy green world pass by.
From time to time, down the back, Mack heard voices. And laughter now and then, the sort of nervous, pre-strike levity troops used to mask their foreboding. Had he wanted he could have twisted in his seat and taken in a crowd of sweaty, ghostly faces, disembodied in the green-lit gloom. He kept his eyes outside instead, hand flying all the way, isolated and alone as if merely incidental to the mission. An outlier, just like before. Loner, anomaly, fringe dweller AGAIN, neither shunned nor included, simply there.
The stopwatch ran-on, neat digits ticking over one by one, counting off 1 mile every 25 seconds. Another counter wound steadily down- fuel on board- 7 kilos a minute, 14 minutes per hundred kg, just like clockwork. The miracle of flight belonged to the realm of numbers, neat and predictable, almost clinical in their cool dispassion. The numbers giveth and the numbers taketh away, Mack thought. Just ask Claire.
Every now and then thoughts of Wendy intruded. Getting a transfer? Had he actually heard her right? No matter which way he turned it, her announcement just didn't make sense. SHE was the one who'd left HIM holding the baby, when he should have been the first one she'd chosen. But she'd taken off without him, as bad as him leaving her behind and choosing another crewie for an outing to the next burning rig. When all she had to do was say she was sorry.
The last few miles fell behind. "We're coming up on the LZ." Mack announced, the first words he'd spoken since picking up the scent.
"You visual?" Blair asked.
"Not yet." Mack replied. "Just a heads-up."
"How long?"
Mack glanced at the stopwatch. According to law, the natural one, not something wielded by greedy attorneys, they had two minutes to run to the nil-wind position. "Five or six. You might wanna get your men ready."
Blair turned to his troopers and Mack heard his outside-voice over the residual din of the noise cancellation. "FIVE MINUTES! LOCK AND LOAD GIRLS AND BOYS. GIVE ME A THUMB'S UP."
As the clock ticked over 43 minutes, Mack took a breath, then turned into wind, contour-flying over the densely forested terrain. A few minutes on, a checkerboard-cluster of aquaculture ponds tracked under the nose, barely 100' below, and Mack knew instantly where they were. The ponds were one of several stepping stones he'd studied on the aerials, and, sure enough, a minute later, he saw a burned-out warehouse EXACTLY where it was meant to be. Elation rose like dawn in the pit of his gut. He hadn't blown it.
Beyond lay a road, more or less perpendicular to their track. Then some earthworks and a broken dam. A hill with a tower, a watercourse and some overgrown fields, then the LZ Dog, Mack's choice of moniker, a recently defoliated drug plantation, where Blair and the first team would insert. None of these had showed up yet but Mack, buoyed by the sheer relief of having not fucked up, was willing to bet some much-loved parts of his anatomy they were about to.
The dark scar of a road slid under the chin windows, the towering tree-lines on either side throwing long shadows. "Three minutes."
Mack wriggled down in his seat, then tensioned his lap-strap by another few pounds. Rolling almost 60 degrees, he pulled hard into a turn over a pale patch of scarified earth and the deeply shadowed tiers of a disused quarry. "Wendy? You ready with for the door?"
"Ready."
"About 2 minutes to run."
Mack's phone lit up and he eyeballed the message under his goggles. 'Ranchand delay due wx'
Ranch Hand, the armed fixed wing, was missing, delayed due weather. No biggy, at least not on the way in, when the little Aussie pilot was merely there for decoration. But once they'd kicked the hornet's nest, on the way out, she would be vital.
Just like back in the sandpit- when gunship support went missing, sent to wrong coordinates or somewhere else more important- they'd just have to grin and bear it. Working quickly through the landing checks, Mack dropped the gear, and the sound of shouting filled the aircraft. Blair and his team psyching up for the drop. Popping over a hilltop, giving the tower and its guy wires plenty of room, Mack poled down into the valley beyond, over a stream, then stood the Agusta on her tail like reining in a lively horse, decelerating hard over unkempt fields ringed with broken fencing. One potato, two potato, three potato, "DOOR!"
Arriving overhead in the hover, Mack lowered the lever as a warning light winked on and the rear doors opened, flooding the aircraft with the sound of screeching turboshafts. Settling amidst a blizzard of leaf-litter, Mack felt for the ground, waiting till the main wheels touched down before calling, "GO! GO! GO!"
Holding the aircraft light on the wheels, nosewheel high off ground, Mack watched two huge black beetles scuttle away into the undergrowth, Bliss Fox and Blair. Two more departed unseen out the left, Tiny and Preach, each pair making for their own destination. "Clear to roll." Wendy said, breathing hard but otherwise as cool as a cucumber. Pulling in power, Mack ascended through the whirling maelstrom as the doors thudded shut behind him.
One down, one to go. Except next time, once they got there, it was he who'd be legging it into the bush.
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Shoehorning the aircraft into another impossibly tight pad, Mack shut down and climbed out, not shaking so much as buzzing with the adrenaline coursing his veins. Nearby, in the darkness, he heard Chimbo and Sardonic Phil hacking into the jungle, harvesting foliage to hide the machine. Nearby, Wendy and Viviani stood at the open rear door, organising the gear they would carry into Xibalba. Backpacks, Kevlar pots, satchels and ballistic vests. Cut down assault rifles, spare magazines, sawn off shotgun for the big-bore rounds, grenades for the underslung launchers. An assortment of exotic munitions- resin bombs, tungsten-penetrator armour-piercing rounds for use against bots, proximity-detector Claymore mines. Cast nets, fairy lights, a virtual compendium of modern weaponry. And cutting-edge VR wearables, like mirrored ski goggles, providing synthetic-vision for low-light environments and streaming text courtesy Claire in mission control.
Sardonic appeared out of the darkness, dragging vegetation. "Be a pal, Travis." he panted and between them, the 3 men quickly turned the hulking great machine into a featureless thicket, a stand of lush, impenetrable greenery sprouting rotor blades.
Job done they commenced gearing up, the contractors with practiced ease, Mack a little less adroitly, Wendy and Viviani as if they were prepping for a fancy dress. One by one they slipped on the VR headsets, and the forest lit up as if it were day. A little on the gloomy side, but with magnitudes greater resolution than NVG. "Should wear these things flying." Mack mused, looking around.
"Probably better you don't." Chimbo said. "Look away and when you look back, by the time they refresh you've hit the deck. I know, cos' some guys have done it."
Shouldering their gear, Sardonic Phil and Chimbo did a last lap of the perimeter, preparing to leave. Sidling into Mack, in a low voice Wendy said, "Just so I know, Travis. Have you got my back?"
Mack blinked as if struck. "Got your...? What sort of question is that?"
"I'm serious. Have you?"
"Why the fuck wouldn't I?"
"I dunno. It's just, you know, the way you've been treating me lately."
"I'VE been treating YOU?"
