Excerpt from
Dangerous
What the hell! Dan Malloy groaned in his sleep, his body covered with perspiration, the sheets to his bed twisted and caught between his lower legs. His breath was coming hard and fast. It felt as if his heart was going to rip out of his chest, the pounding of it so loud, fueled with adrenaline, that it sounded like kettle drums pulsing in his ears. He heard the blades of his MH-47 Night Stalker helo he was flying. Heard the calm voice of his co-pilot, Lieutenant Andy Gantry, talking to the Special Forces A team hidden on the slope of a rocky Hindu Kush mountain in the inky darkness. The winds were erratic, trying to toss the bird around. His Nomex green gloves were soaked as he gripped the cyclic and collective, his booted feet playing lightly on the rudders, trying to bring the bird in and not crash it.
His teeth ached, he was clenching them so tightly, his entire focus oriented to the green dials in front of him, trying to land safely to pick up the A team that was comprised of twelve members. The weather was stormy and quixotic, slapping the bird with unseen fists, making it shudder, trying to throw Dan off course. Below, through his NVG’s, he saw the green chem lights that had been tossed out by the A team to show him where to land the double bladed helo. Sweat trickled down his temples. His nostrils flared as he smelled the constant odor of kerosene, the fuel used to power the helo. His only focus was landing this damned thing. Lightning flashed, blinding him momentarily.
Shit! Blinking, Dan halted his downward descent, trying to give his eyes time to adjust. They were landing with a thunderstorm racing across the jagged, unforgiving mountains of Afghanistan. The Special Forces team had been out for nearly three weeks hunting HVT’s, high value targets. He knew the team was hiding nearby, trying to remain invisible.
Worse, Dan knew that Taliban often encamped for the night in nearby wadis, ravines, that ran vertically up and down the rugged slopes of the Hindu Kush. And there was one within a thousand feet away from where he was to land. Did anyone know if there was encamped enemy within it? Wishing for an Apache escort, an overhead drone, none had been available. If there had been? A drone had infrared capability and would have been able to pick up heat signatures on any humans hiding anywhere nearby. The MH-47 had that same capability, but that instrument went belly up half way to their assigned LZ, landing zone, during this flight. Now, they were blind and it bothered the hell out of Dan.
They didn’t know squat about potential nearby tangos. Dan mentally cursed, knowing that due to inclement weather conditions, the drone would have been torn apart with the sixty mile an hour wind gusts that were now pummeling his bird, throwing it off course from landing, again and again. The storm was racing directly down at them. And it was a violent son-of-a-bitch. But Night Stalker pilots, the cream of Army aviation, was expected to fly through any kind of a weather conditions, to pick up a black ops group. These were brave men and women who got the job done, despite the challenges or the potential life-and-death of their assigned mission.
He wanted to wipe the sweat off his face. His eyesight came back and he began to breathe again, nudging his helo forward toward that landing zone once again. In the back of his mind, he knew if Taliban were encamped in that nearby wadi that they could throw an RPG and AK-47 bullets at his bird. They would aim for the rotor assembly to stop the blades from turning. The MH-47 had two rotors and one sat up near the pilot’s cabin, the other, near the rear of the helicopter. If either was hit by a bullet? They’d crash. And they’d all die.
Son-of-a-bitch. He’d been on hellacious, challenging missions before, but this one took the cake in his many years of experience. Thunderstorms would pop up at the most unexpected times simply because these mountains made their own weather. No weather forecaster could accurately say whether or not a storm would be created by the shifting, erratic winds created by these dragon-toothed mountains that rose to sixteen-thousand feet high in some places. Right now, he was at nine thousand feet on a steep scree slope. The A team had found the most level spot for them to land, but it was not level at all. They’d done the best they could, being hotly pursued by Taliban. Landing on a slope was perilous. It could be done, but with a thunderstorm looming over them, with unknown possibility of tangos in that nearby wadi close to the LZ, Dan knew they were trapped between a rock and a hard place. His chief gunner had the ramp down and was sitting behind the fifty caliber machine gun, looking for tangos. That was the only defense that his bird had was that weapon.
Andy’s calm voice continued to give him directions and elevation. That was his job as copilot, was to give that kind of necessary info so that Dan could devote a hundred percent to his flying skills to this bird and getting it set down, instead of being slapped by a gust of wind and crashing into the side of the mountain. There was so much that could go wrong. His body was so tense, Dan thought he might snap in half. His fingers ached, the perspiration making them slippery and he kept trying to tighten them against the collective and cyclic between them.
Come on…come on….
He saw the chem lights, tiny green dots on the black skin of the mountain slope. The wind gusts were powerful. The bird shuddered violently, shaking as if a dog was shaking off water. The engines would change and deepen. Andy would play with the throttles between their seats, trying to give Dan the power he needed to neutralize the gusts. Any one of them could hurl the bird into the rocky mountainside. Dan was grateful for Andy’s years of experience because he needed it now as never before as he inched forward toward those tiny chem lights.
Everything slowed down to movie frames for Dan as he eased his reluctant helo forward. Closer and closer, he inched the thumping, vibrating beast toward that LZ. Just let me get to it. Let me be able to land without incident. His ears were keyed to the sound of the engines. His ass was nailed to the seat and he was monitoring vibrations through it because the slightest change could give him a precious life-and-death split second to adjust the cyclic or collective and keep it on course, keep it from crashing. Dan could feel his heart thumping loudly, felt as if his entire chest was vibrating with each hammering pulse of that organ. The adrenaline was racing through his bloodstream, heightening his clarity, making him super aware of all sounds, smells, sensations until his whole world became his senses. It gave him an edge. It allowed him to make the subtle moves of his hands on the instruments, to get the bird on hard ground.
“Over LZ,” Andy reported calmly. “Ten feet…..nine feet….eight feet….”
Dan’s body felt like it was unyielding steel, caught in the moment. His thighs ached, his booted feet lightly played the rudders as he continued the descent. He couldn’t just swiftly plop the bird down. No, it had to go carefully or he’d get into hover-out-of-ground effect, which meant the invisible cushion of air that the helo rode on, was suddenly gone. And if it happened? The bird would drop like a rock out of the sky, crashing. Killing all of them. dpg!
“…seven feet….”
God, let me get this bird down safe. Let me get it down safe…
His hands ached, feeling like a raptor’s claws frozen around the instruments as he prayed that he’d keep that cushion of air between his bird and that rugged ground that was not level. Sweat stung his eyes and he blinked furiously, trying to clear his vision.
“…..six feet….”
“…..five feet….”
“…three feet….”