Two KIA in the blink of an eye. He’d known this would be a shit show the moment he saw the mission packet—but you didn’t turn down work when Yuri Pichugin offered it. Once you started working for his organization, you were either on his payroll or you were dead.
CHAPTER 53
Timothy Graves eased the Sea Ray into a wide starboard turn, with the full intention of opening the throttle once they had cleared the cove. RIFFRAFF TWO was on the move, estimated to arrive at the eastern shoreline in roughly ten minutes. Plenty of time for Graves to get the boat in position for a quick extraction.
“Stop the boat!” screamed Anish, near scaring him out of his skin.
He yanked the throttle back, putting the engine into idle, before shifting into reverse and bringing the boat to a quick stop. They lurched forward from the sudden deceleration, Gupta uttering a few choice words as he straightened himself out in the seat.
“What’s happening?” said Graves, leaning across the seat to get a better view of the laptop screen.
“The second helo took off with armed passengers from the camp,” said Gupta. “I’m going to crash the drone into the helicopter.”
“What?” said Graves.
“No time to explain,” said Gupta, taking positive control of the drone. “Warn the team.”
“Marnie, this is OVERWATCH. The second helicopter took on armed passengers. Gupta is going to take it out with the drone.”
“Say again?”
“We’re going to ram the second helicopter with the drone,” said Graves. “Bank hard left.”
The laptop’s screen switched from the navigation map to the drone’s night vision–enhanced nose view. Two helicopters rose from the forest a few hundred yards away, the closest one turning left as soon as it had cleared the treetops. The first helicopter zipped out of view, the drone passing it at eighty miles per hour. Gupta centered the nose-view reticle on the starboard-side windshield of the pursuing helicopter and kept it locked in place until the screen went blank.
“I guess that worked?” said Gupta.
“You just slammed a twenty-pound drone traveling at eighty miles per hour into a windshield designed to deflect a bird,” said Graves. “I suspect it worked.”
A bright orange fireball rose above the northwest horizon, reflecting off the glassy-smooth lake.
“There’s your proof. Hang on,” said Graves, giving Gupta a few moments before pushing the throttle forward.
A deep boom echoed across the lake several seconds later as they raced down the middle of the lake toward RIFFRAFF TWO’s primary extraction point.
CHAPTER 54
An ear-crunching detonation rattled the helicopter, Marnie’s view through the night vision goggles flaring bright white and blinding her at the worst possible time for a helicopter pilot—in the middle of a hard turn at treetop level. She flipped the goggles up, instantly determining why her night vision had unexpectedly whited out.
A fireball rose skyward from the trees to their left, rapidly dissipating in the starry night sky. She maneuvered the helicopter out of the turn and picked up some altitude to give herself a little more space above the trees. When the fuel explosion burned out, the forest instantly darkened, once again rendering her blind. She swung her goggles back into place over her face and readjusted to the green-scale view.
“Thanks for the assist, OVERWATCH,” said Marnie. “Scratch one hostile helicopter.”
“For the record, that was all Gupta. I’m just kicking back driving a boat.”
“Hat tip to Anish,” said Marnie.
“What happened to the whole drinks-are-on-me thing?”
“You don’t even drink, Anish,” said Rich.
“I know. Just want to feel like part of the team.”
“You are part of—” started Rich.
“Drinks are on me, Anish,” she said before glancing over her shoulder. “Did we lose anyone?”
She was only half kidding. Marnie had given them a few seconds of warning before banking hard left, but a sudden, unannounced turn like that could throw someone out of the helicopter, if the maneuver caught them off guard and off balance.
“I still count three of us,” said Rich. “Good try, though.”
“Don’t tempt me,” said Marnie.
Her night vision goggles flared again, and she knocked them away from her face. “Dammit!”
“Jesus. Look at that,” said Devin.
Marnie peered through her door’s window, catching a glimpse of a broken, burning helicopter fuselage through the dense tree cover. The ground around the helicopter flickered from hundreds of little fires created by the explosions.