“Grenade away! Next!” said Rich.
Several bullets peppered the fuselage, one puncturing the copilot’s door window and putting a hole in the top of the cockpit. Her night vision flared from the first grenade but didn’t white out for more than a fraction of a second. The grenade had exploded fifty feet below on the other side of the helicopter, scattering white-hot chunks across the rooftop.
“I have no targets,” said Alex. “We’re facing the wrong way.”
“I’m aware of that,” she said, flying forward for a few seconds before going into a hover again.
She spun the helicopter 180 degrees, pointing Alex and Devin in the direction of the incoming ground fire. A torrent of gunfire erupted from the cabin the moment she stopped the spin. The second grenade detonated, momentarily blinding her. She popped her night vision goggles, determining that she had enough light from the fires below to pull this off with the naked eye.
“Give me about twenty feet directly to the right,” said Rich.
“Tell me when,” said Marnie, putting the helicopter into a slow drift in the direction Rich had requested.
“Grenade out!” he said. “One more! Let’s go for the big one on the western side.”
Devin yelled as a string of bullets hit the pilot’s side of the helicopter. The door window next to her shattered, a sharp pain creasing her forearm. Alex’s machine gun responded with burst after burst. The third grenade exploded, illuminating the trees around them.
“Devin?” she said, getting no answer.
She looked over her shoulder in time to see Rich sidearm his last grenade out the starboard-side door. Fuck this. We’re out of here. She pulled up on the collective lever and took them higher, until they’d risen about three hundred feet above the buildings, where she pushed the cyclic forward. The helicopter angled down several degrees and sped away from the camp.
“Is Devin okay?” she asked.
“I’m fine. Just got a little preoccupied there for a moment,” said Devin. “Nice flying, by the way.”
“Thank you. It’s been a little while.”
“Just like riding a bike,” said Rich. “But about a thousand times more complicated.”
“Something like that,” she said.
The treetops below lit up for a moment, the last grenade hopefully spreading its flammable contents over the roof of the biggest building in the camp.
“Did you land it on the roof?” she asked, peeking over her shoulder.
Rich pulled his head back inside the helicopter. “Looks like it. Can I ask you for one more favor?”
“What?”
“I’d like to have Alex disable our pontoon boats,” he said. “I don’t want any of those fuckers getting a free ride out of there tonight.”
“We certainly can’t allow that,” said Marnie.
She lowered her night vision goggles over her face before putting them into a wide left turn and taking them back over the northeastern tip of the Mincy Conservation Area.
CHAPTER 55
Devin somehow fell asleep on the short trip down the lake to Diamond City. He woke to Rich shaking his arm, the helicopter rapidly descending.
“Rise and shine. We’re almost at the motel,” he said.
He squinted and looked around, noticing that the M249 was gone. “Where did the machine gun go?”
“We dumped it in the lake about a minute back,” said Rich. “I can’t say for sure, but I’m guessing the serial number on that weapon can be traced to a batch of M249 Squad Automatic Weapons that either never made it to their final destination or were reported stolen from a US military armory. We do not want to get caught with a stolen military firearm. Particularly a machine gun.”
“And the rest of this gear is clean?” asked Devin.
Rich shrugged. “We could explain the rest of this away, if we had to. I’d rather not, since it would tie us up for a while.”
“You mean we’d be sitting in jail while a team of expensive lawyers worked on getting us releases so we could flee the country and have to travel on forged IDs for the rest of our lives.”
“Something like that,” said Rich.
Alex laughed, which was a welcome shift away from the dark mood that had enveloped him since Mike’s death. The two of them had obviously been close. Devin had overheard Scott talking with Emily about how they had been plank owners in the original program—whatever that meant. The story behind Rich’s team was still unclear.
“Alex. I’m very sorry about Mike,” said Devin, not sure if he had stepped over the line.