Horn's troops had been well trained and numerous -- more so than Epsilon
Guard had been led to believe -- and had not been easy to defeat. The
fighting was fierce for some time, but at long last Epsilon Guard -- with
Airwolf's enthusiastic air support -- turned the tide. A score of Horn's
men now lay dead or wounded across the estate grounds, their bodies
unsegregated from Epsilon Guard's own losses; another handful had retreated
to the dubious sanctuary of the mansion from which vantage they'd held off
the no-longer advancing government agents for several minutes.
High overhead, Airwolf hovered like an enormous bird of prey, her chainguns having fallen silent after almost continuous use. Inside her armored body, Mike Rivers and Jo Santini peered out at the grounds, expressions full of anxious expectation.
"Where are they?" Jo asked plaintively, her blue eyes darting from one side to the other. "According to Saint John, that building could blow up any second!"
"They'll make it out," her companion asserted more to himself than to her. "They will make it. Are you picking up anything on the life scanners?"
Jo dipped her head back to the full color monitor just above the keyboard, studying it for several seconds. "There's too many people in there. I'm counting eight or nine scattered through the house, possibly echoes caused by that garbling I mentioned earlier."
"And we're not even sure they're coming out the front," Rivers muttered, increasing their altitude another few feet. He tilted the craft slightly, beginning a slow circle of the mansion. "I'm going to double check for enemy on the grounds in--"
The building blew up.
It was a magnificent explosion, the rumble starting deep in the bowels of the foundation, the walls and roof shuddering for a split second before crumbling inward. Rivers' flashscreen snapped down over his face, protecting his eyes from the bright glare, then Airwolf was caught in the fearsome concussion that followed the blast. The heavy gunship was swatted backward a hundred feet on a whirlwind of hot debris, and only Mike's skillful handling of the attitude controls prevented her from being broken apart like a child's toy then and there. Airwolf tumbled once ... twice ... then he had regained command and they were surfing the shock wave until he could bring her to a halt.
"It went up!" Jo squeaked earning a disbelieving glance from Mike. She blushed at the obvious observation but was too worried to be acutely embarrassed. "I didn't see Saint John and the rest get out," she added more quietly, a tremor in her voice the harbinger of tears held barely at bay.
Mike didn't answer. He set the great helicopter into motion, lifting to about sixty feet and resuming his search of the grounds. He made a wide, low circle to avoid the billowing smoke and dust that hung like a blanket over the immediate vicinity, frustration lining his boyish features. "I can't see anything," he complained, tensing when a thermal updraft nearly upended the ship again. "Are you picking up any life signs down there?"
Jo bit her lip, forehead wrinkling with concentration as she studied the screen. "Epsilon Guard is holding their position in the front; they weren't anywhere near the building when it went up. Give me some more altitude and.... Ah!" There was satisfaction in her voice that communicated itself even through the mike.
"'Ah,' what?" Mike demanded, having to gain another several yards to escape the dust blowing their way.
Jo tapped her board, a move that was invisible to the pilot. "Six life forms directly below. Judging from the heartbeat, one of them is a child. That has to be Amy Newman, and that means that the others are Saint John, String and the rest."
"We've got an extra 'rest,'" Mike remarked thoughtfully, touching a button on his helmet to lift the flashscreen; it slid up with a little click, leaving his face bare. "I wonder who else they've got with them?"
"Only one way to find out!" Now that she knew her family was safe again, the tension in Jo's shapely body relaxed, a smile decorating her unpainted lips. "Let's go in and say hi!"
Mike grinned in response, her happiness eminently and pleasingly contagious. He sobered almost immediately, head cocked to the side in a listening attitude. "Check your radar," he ordered quietly.
"Why--?"
"Just do it."
Puzzled, Jo nonetheless obeyed. "Radar is clear, Mike. Is something wrong?"
Mike's round face hardened, normally mischievous blue eyes carrying no hint of humor. "We've got company, honey. Go to full combat mode, lower the ADF pod."
The woman's slim fingers played over her console, and there was a whirring noise from under Airwolf's belly. "Full combat mode," she reported a moment later. "All weapons operational. But I don't see...."
"You will," the pilot returned curtly. "Riiiiight ... there!" He pointed triumphantly to the tip of a wide rotor just visible over the low hill to the west. Even as Jo looked, a camo-painted metal body gained altitude just enough to clear the hill, though not enough to activate Airwolf's radar system. "We got us a fox on the run."
Jo shook her head wonderingly. "I don't know how you knew, but I'm certainly impressed." She typed the IDENT BOGY command into her keyboard, skimming the resultant information rapidly. "Huey Cobra combat helicopter, fast and maneuverable. Our friend over there has a mounted rocket launcher but no machine gun capability."
Mike's eyes shone with the adrenalin rush he'd spoken of earlier. "That's probably Bishop Morris in the pilot's seat; Saint John said he flew choppers in Viet Nam. Open a channel to him." He grinned. "We'll give him a chance to surrender ... peacefully."
Jo swallowed hard, less thrilled than he was with the possibility of another fight. Both hands and voice, however, were perfectly steady as she adjusted the frequency to a wide band and hailed the other helicopter. "Airwolf calling enemy Cobra. Land immediately and surrender yourself."
There was a pause, then a rough masculine voice responded, the guttural cursing all too clear even through the speakers. "I know that's not a woman flying that thing," was the first printable phrase. "Is that you, Hawke?"
Mike's lips drew back, his eyes narrowing and growing hard as gemstone. "Not quite. You Morris?"
"Knew it wasn't no woman," the other said, increasing speed and altitude, then turning until the Cobra and Airwolf were nose to nose. "Yeah, I'm Bishop Morris. I wuz looking to be taking down Saint John or that Golden Boy kid brother of his."
Mike shook his head regretfully. "I'm afraid you're going to have to settle. Now we're asking you real nice, Bishop. Put your chopper down and give yourself up. There's no way that bathtub toy of yours is going to take us."
The cruel laugh was almost simultaneous with the flash of light from the Cobra's right side. Reflexes reacted instantly, and Mike yawed Airwolf to the side, allowing the rocket to streak by. It slammed into the earth a quarter of a mile away, sending up a geyser of gray desert dirt.
Even while Mike was evading the deadly missile, Morris was putting his chopper into gear. He revolved on his Y-axis and sped off, nudging the Cobra toward her top speed.
"That direction will take him right over Las Vegas," Jo reported after she'd caught her breath from the near miss. "Funny, I'd've expected him to head for Mexico or something."
Rivers took Airwolf up to a thousand feet and headed her likewise toward the great gambling mecca. "He knows he can't outfly Airwolf. He's either hoping to lose us in the more crowded air lanes, or ditch the chopper and disappear into a crowd somewhere."
"We'd better stop him before he gets there," Jo said, running a computer simulation. "If he makes it to a populated area, we won't be able to use our own missiles. I doubt he's going to have the same compunction."
Morris decided to oblige them at least temporarily. He too increased altitude even as Mike was dropping to intercept. The Cobra rose, stalled and pitched to the right, accelerating even as the next rocket fired. Once again Mike simply tapped the control stick, tilting the black gunship a few degrees only. To an observer, the maneuver would have appeared lazy and effortless, like a toreador playing with a bull before the final kill.
"Olé," Jo muttered irritatedly from her seat in the rear. "If that thing had been guided we'd be space dust right now."
"No way," the pilot retorted, his tone betraying the fact that he was enjoying himself hugely. "Leave it to Mikey, darlin'. He's the expert."
"'Mikey' gets a punch in the jaw when we land," Jo growled although she was inaudible even through the sensitive microphone. Despite her fear she had to smile at the boyish enthusiasm in her teammate; however critical their situation, Mike Rivers could always be counted on to meet it head first and with a genuine zeal.
Rivers didn't linger for the third then fourth rockets to reach them. Even as Morris was launching them in an attempt at catching the more powerful ship in a blanket, auxiliary turbines were roaring to life, slamming both pilot and engineer back in their seats. Airwolf accelerated from a stationary pattern to near the speed of sound in less than a minute, leaving the unguided missiles to waste their charge in the uncaring ground. She overshot the Cobra in seconds, cut power and reversed, machine guns chattering, to stitch the capable military craft with lead.
"Put it down, Morris," Mike ordered in a bored tone. "We can do this all day if we have to."
"Maybe you can, fly boy," the black enemy pilot sneered back, "but can those people below us?"
"What the--?" Mike glanced down, his jaw dropping to find the two helicopters dancing their pas de deux over what appeared to be a brand new suburban development. "We're still too far for that to be part of Vegas, and none of our charts are showing a town down there."
Jo typed in another command, switching from on-board charts to the satellite navigational system they could tap on demand. "Those townhouse developments are popping up practically overnight -- those are only two months old. I should have double-checked the area before we got here."
More sober than before, Mike again accessed Morris' radio band. "You don't really want to take out women and children, do you?" he asked, expression revealing that the question was more formality than interrogative.
"Isn't that red building a school with little kiddies?" Knowing he had the upper hand, Morris tipped his Cobra into a nose-down attitude, the rockets now aimed at the school. His unspoken message was clear though he vocalized it anyway, cruel glee in his tones. "Kiddies for Bishop. What do you say, Airwolf?"
Mike sighed. "Not much to say, Morris. You got me. We will back off and give you your chance to escape." Without waiting for a reply, he banked sharply and again applied the turbos, setting the gunship into a shallow dive that carried it quickly over the horizon and out of sight.
"Tell Vidor's Golden Boys it's not over," Morris shot after them by way of a parting. He waited until the ship had disappeared, then angled his own craft, also staying low out of radar range of Las Vegas airport's Air Traffic Control. Moving as fast as he could and keeping one eye on his rear for signs of pursuit, Bishop sped due south, skirting the city although not avoiding the populated areas entirely.
Ten minutes later he was skimming at tree top level above another of the myriad developments bordering Las Vegas. "Looks like I lost them," he breathed in relief, gaining a little altitude to avoid a bridge across a minor gorge bisecting the highway.
The words were spoken just seconds too soon. From under the bridge a great black shadow detached itself, rising like a winged creature straight up into the sky. The distinctive wail of powerful turbines filled the air with power, even as Airwolf leveled out of her climb less than a score of yards from the hurtling Cobra.
"Say good-night, Gracie," Mike Rivers breathed into the microphone, as his finger tightened on the red button on his stick. There was a flash from Airwolf's belly with the release of a short-range Sparrow from the newly repaired armaments firing pod. Launch and impact were almost synchronous, the powerful little missile taking off the Cobra's tail rotor as cleanly as if with a razor. Without a stabilizer, the chopper began to spin even as it dropped, gaining velocity before it hit the bottom of the gorge. It bounced once and splintered, pieces falling into the swiftly moving river at the very base.
Mike and Jo watched silently, faces grim. "He didn't know we were fast enough to get in front of him around the edge of the horizon," Jo murmured, still having trouble believing that herself.
Mike reversed their course and increased their speed, tapping the turbos and heading them back toward Horn's estate at Mach 1. "Notify the police to recover the body," he said quietly. "We have more important things to do -- like go back for our friends."
***
High overhead, Airwolf hovered like an enormous bird of prey, her chainguns having fallen silent after almost continuous use. Inside her armored body, Mike Rivers and Jo Santini peered out at the grounds, expressions full of anxious expectation.
"Where are they?" Jo asked plaintively, her blue eyes darting from one side to the other. "According to Saint John, that building could blow up any second!"
"They'll make it out," her companion asserted more to himself than to her. "They will make it. Are you picking up anything on the life scanners?"
Jo dipped her head back to the full color monitor just above the keyboard, studying it for several seconds. "There's too many people in there. I'm counting eight or nine scattered through the house, possibly echoes caused by that garbling I mentioned earlier."
"And we're not even sure they're coming out the front," Rivers muttered, increasing their altitude another few feet. He tilted the craft slightly, beginning a slow circle of the mansion. "I'm going to double check for enemy on the grounds in--"
The building blew up.
It was a magnificent explosion, the rumble starting deep in the bowels of the foundation, the walls and roof shuddering for a split second before crumbling inward. Rivers' flashscreen snapped down over his face, protecting his eyes from the bright glare, then Airwolf was caught in the fearsome concussion that followed the blast. The heavy gunship was swatted backward a hundred feet on a whirlwind of hot debris, and only Mike's skillful handling of the attitude controls prevented her from being broken apart like a child's toy then and there. Airwolf tumbled once ... twice ... then he had regained command and they were surfing the shock wave until he could bring her to a halt.
"It went up!" Jo squeaked earning a disbelieving glance from Mike. She blushed at the obvious observation but was too worried to be acutely embarrassed. "I didn't see Saint John and the rest get out," she added more quietly, a tremor in her voice the harbinger of tears held barely at bay.
Mike didn't answer. He set the great helicopter into motion, lifting to about sixty feet and resuming his search of the grounds. He made a wide, low circle to avoid the billowing smoke and dust that hung like a blanket over the immediate vicinity, frustration lining his boyish features. "I can't see anything," he complained, tensing when a thermal updraft nearly upended the ship again. "Are you picking up any life signs down there?"
Jo bit her lip, forehead wrinkling with concentration as she studied the screen. "Epsilon Guard is holding their position in the front; they weren't anywhere near the building when it went up. Give me some more altitude and.... Ah!" There was satisfaction in her voice that communicated itself even through the mike.
"'Ah,' what?" Mike demanded, having to gain another several yards to escape the dust blowing their way.
Jo tapped her board, a move that was invisible to the pilot. "Six life forms directly below. Judging from the heartbeat, one of them is a child. That has to be Amy Newman, and that means that the others are Saint John, String and the rest."
"We've got an extra 'rest,'" Mike remarked thoughtfully, touching a button on his helmet to lift the flashscreen; it slid up with a little click, leaving his face bare. "I wonder who else they've got with them?"
"Only one way to find out!" Now that she knew her family was safe again, the tension in Jo's shapely body relaxed, a smile decorating her unpainted lips. "Let's go in and say hi!"
Mike grinned in response, her happiness eminently and pleasingly contagious. He sobered almost immediately, head cocked to the side in a listening attitude. "Check your radar," he ordered quietly.
"Why--?"
"Just do it."
Puzzled, Jo nonetheless obeyed. "Radar is clear, Mike. Is something wrong?"
Mike's round face hardened, normally mischievous blue eyes carrying no hint of humor. "We've got company, honey. Go to full combat mode, lower the ADF pod."
The woman's slim fingers played over her console, and there was a whirring noise from under Airwolf's belly. "Full combat mode," she reported a moment later. "All weapons operational. But I don't see...."
"You will," the pilot returned curtly. "Riiiiight ... there!" He pointed triumphantly to the tip of a wide rotor just visible over the low hill to the west. Even as Jo looked, a camo-painted metal body gained altitude just enough to clear the hill, though not enough to activate Airwolf's radar system. "We got us a fox on the run."
Jo shook her head wonderingly. "I don't know how you knew, but I'm certainly impressed." She typed the IDENT BOGY command into her keyboard, skimming the resultant information rapidly. "Huey Cobra combat helicopter, fast and maneuverable. Our friend over there has a mounted rocket launcher but no machine gun capability."
Mike's eyes shone with the adrenalin rush he'd spoken of earlier. "That's probably Bishop Morris in the pilot's seat; Saint John said he flew choppers in Viet Nam. Open a channel to him." He grinned. "We'll give him a chance to surrender ... peacefully."
Jo swallowed hard, less thrilled than he was with the possibility of another fight. Both hands and voice, however, were perfectly steady as she adjusted the frequency to a wide band and hailed the other helicopter. "Airwolf calling enemy Cobra. Land immediately and surrender yourself."
There was a pause, then a rough masculine voice responded, the guttural cursing all too clear even through the speakers. "I know that's not a woman flying that thing," was the first printable phrase. "Is that you, Hawke?"
Mike's lips drew back, his eyes narrowing and growing hard as gemstone. "Not quite. You Morris?"
"Knew it wasn't no woman," the other said, increasing speed and altitude, then turning until the Cobra and Airwolf were nose to nose. "Yeah, I'm Bishop Morris. I wuz looking to be taking down Saint John or that Golden Boy kid brother of his."
Mike shook his head regretfully. "I'm afraid you're going to have to settle. Now we're asking you real nice, Bishop. Put your chopper down and give yourself up. There's no way that bathtub toy of yours is going to take us."
The cruel laugh was almost simultaneous with the flash of light from the Cobra's right side. Reflexes reacted instantly, and Mike yawed Airwolf to the side, allowing the rocket to streak by. It slammed into the earth a quarter of a mile away, sending up a geyser of gray desert dirt.
Even while Mike was evading the deadly missile, Morris was putting his chopper into gear. He revolved on his Y-axis and sped off, nudging the Cobra toward her top speed.
"That direction will take him right over Las Vegas," Jo reported after she'd caught her breath from the near miss. "Funny, I'd've expected him to head for Mexico or something."
Rivers took Airwolf up to a thousand feet and headed her likewise toward the great gambling mecca. "He knows he can't outfly Airwolf. He's either hoping to lose us in the more crowded air lanes, or ditch the chopper and disappear into a crowd somewhere."
"We'd better stop him before he gets there," Jo said, running a computer simulation. "If he makes it to a populated area, we won't be able to use our own missiles. I doubt he's going to have the same compunction."
Morris decided to oblige them at least temporarily. He too increased altitude even as Mike was dropping to intercept. The Cobra rose, stalled and pitched to the right, accelerating even as the next rocket fired. Once again Mike simply tapped the control stick, tilting the black gunship a few degrees only. To an observer, the maneuver would have appeared lazy and effortless, like a toreador playing with a bull before the final kill.
"Olé," Jo muttered irritatedly from her seat in the rear. "If that thing had been guided we'd be space dust right now."
"No way," the pilot retorted, his tone betraying the fact that he was enjoying himself hugely. "Leave it to Mikey, darlin'. He's the expert."
"'Mikey' gets a punch in the jaw when we land," Jo growled although she was inaudible even through the sensitive microphone. Despite her fear she had to smile at the boyish enthusiasm in her teammate; however critical their situation, Mike Rivers could always be counted on to meet it head first and with a genuine zeal.
Rivers didn't linger for the third then fourth rockets to reach them. Even as Morris was launching them in an attempt at catching the more powerful ship in a blanket, auxiliary turbines were roaring to life, slamming both pilot and engineer back in their seats. Airwolf accelerated from a stationary pattern to near the speed of sound in less than a minute, leaving the unguided missiles to waste their charge in the uncaring ground. She overshot the Cobra in seconds, cut power and reversed, machine guns chattering, to stitch the capable military craft with lead.
"Put it down, Morris," Mike ordered in a bored tone. "We can do this all day if we have to."
"Maybe you can, fly boy," the black enemy pilot sneered back, "but can those people below us?"
"What the--?" Mike glanced down, his jaw dropping to find the two helicopters dancing their pas de deux over what appeared to be a brand new suburban development. "We're still too far for that to be part of Vegas, and none of our charts are showing a town down there."
Jo typed in another command, switching from on-board charts to the satellite navigational system they could tap on demand. "Those townhouse developments are popping up practically overnight -- those are only two months old. I should have double-checked the area before we got here."
More sober than before, Mike again accessed Morris' radio band. "You don't really want to take out women and children, do you?" he asked, expression revealing that the question was more formality than interrogative.
"Isn't that red building a school with little kiddies?" Knowing he had the upper hand, Morris tipped his Cobra into a nose-down attitude, the rockets now aimed at the school. His unspoken message was clear though he vocalized it anyway, cruel glee in his tones. "Kiddies for Bishop. What do you say, Airwolf?"
Mike sighed. "Not much to say, Morris. You got me. We will back off and give you your chance to escape." Without waiting for a reply, he banked sharply and again applied the turbos, setting the gunship into a shallow dive that carried it quickly over the horizon and out of sight.
"Tell Vidor's Golden Boys it's not over," Morris shot after them by way of a parting. He waited until the ship had disappeared, then angled his own craft, also staying low out of radar range of Las Vegas airport's Air Traffic Control. Moving as fast as he could and keeping one eye on his rear for signs of pursuit, Bishop sped due south, skirting the city although not avoiding the populated areas entirely.
Ten minutes later he was skimming at tree top level above another of the myriad developments bordering Las Vegas. "Looks like I lost them," he breathed in relief, gaining a little altitude to avoid a bridge across a minor gorge bisecting the highway.
The words were spoken just seconds too soon. From under the bridge a great black shadow detached itself, rising like a winged creature straight up into the sky. The distinctive wail of powerful turbines filled the air with power, even as Airwolf leveled out of her climb less than a score of yards from the hurtling Cobra.
"Say good-night, Gracie," Mike Rivers breathed into the microphone, as his finger tightened on the red button on his stick. There was a flash from Airwolf's belly with the release of a short-range Sparrow from the newly repaired armaments firing pod. Launch and impact were almost synchronous, the powerful little missile taking off the Cobra's tail rotor as cleanly as if with a razor. Without a stabilizer, the chopper began to spin even as it dropped, gaining velocity before it hit the bottom of the gorge. It bounced once and splintered, pieces falling into the swiftly moving river at the very base.
Mike and Jo watched silently, faces grim. "He didn't know we were fast enough to get in front of him around the edge of the horizon," Jo murmured, still having trouble believing that herself.
Mike reversed their course and increased their speed, tapping the turbos and heading them back toward Horn's estate at Mach 1. "Notify the police to recover the body," he said quietly. "We have more important things to do -- like go back for our friends."
***