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."
