The Rift (24 page)

He slammed throttles forward, drawing every ounce of power he could from the engines, while he fought the dive with both flaps and rotation.

The Snake settled out to a hover less than three feet from the water, stuttering, engines straining.

“What happened?” Eagle demanded as he kept them level.

“We got hit by a telephone pole,” Nada said as he got to his feet and observed the cargo bay, his heart racing until he saw that Scout was all right.

“A what?” Eagle asked.

“We got a fraking pole through the cargo bay,” Mac clarified unhelpfully. The team was sorting itself out after everyone had become a pile of people, weapons, and gear on one side of the bay. Scout had been dangling in her harness, just above all of them, and she had settled back down on the upright deck with a thump.

“Where—” Eagle began to ask, but then another pole flashed by the cockpit, glanced off the armored side of the Snake with a clang, and disappeared into the darkness. Through his night vision goggles, Eagle could see the barge tied off beneath the cliff ahead. The crane was lifting another pole into place in the pile driver, which was oriented toward them.

“We got Fireflies already through,” Eagle announced. “Pile driver on the river has one in it.”

“Head for the Rift,” Moms ordered. She switched frequency. “Spooky, I’ve got a target for you.”

The gunner was chewing gum, reading her Kindle when the call for fire came in. She lifted her gaze from the latest Bella Andre romance novel and scanned the display. “I’ve got a barge. No heat signatures.”

“That’s it,” Moms’s voice echoed in her ear.

The gunner didn’t question the order, the lack of personnel on the target, or the mission. While the Spectre gunship was part of the Air Force Special Operations Wing and had conducted more than its share of hush-hush missions, she’d been able to tell from the attitude of the pilot and copilot just before takeoff that whatever they were doing here over Tennessee was so far in the dark they didn’t even dare to start a rumor.

Theirs was but to shoot and scoot.

“Acquired. Request final authorization.”

“Authorized,” Moms said.

A line of 25-mm bullets shot out of the spinning barrels of the Gatling gun poking out of the side of the aircraft, firing so quickly that the slugs appeared to be a solid line of red even though only every fourth round was a tracer. The 40-mm cannon chugged out rounds, not quite as quickly. And the 105-mm howitzer fired as fast as the crewmen could load it.

As the Snake cleared the shoreline underneath the power line, those in the cargo bay could see the gunship firing downward.

“Minds on the mission,” Moms snapped, trying to ignore the pole through the cargo bay and wrapping her arms around the fast rope.

“Ten seconds,” Eagle warned.

“Roland, guard Doc once we hit the ground,” Moms ordered.

Nada leaned close to Roland and whispered something in his ear, and Roland nodded.

The barge never got a third pole off.

The incoming fire from Spectre chewed it up, ripping the wood decking apart, punching holes in the metal hull. As pieces flew in all different directions, a small golden sparkle lifted out of the sinking hulk and dissipated.

One Firefly down.

The gunner flipped the off switch, and the guns lined up behind her along the left side of the plane stopped firing. The barge slowly settled underneath the dark water of the Tennessee River. The gunner glanced up at the metal plating between two of her screens. As World War II fighter pilots had chalked up kills on the side of their plane, there were little images of various targets taken out by the gunship over the years: technicals (armed pickup trucks), roadside bombers, buildings where terrorists were meeting, and so forth.

She’d have to get the image of a barge.

Burns swung the rifle down as the Snake came roaring in. He fired a sustained burst at the cockpit.

Futile, because the cockpit was armored and he knew that, but Burns let loose more out of irritation that Nada was breaking Protocol and he was missing the chance to shoot Roland.

The Snake came to a hover and thick ropes came tumbling down. Burns aimed at them, but then he was blinded as the halogen searchlight in the nose of the Snake came on.

He fired anyway under the theory that sometimes the big sky little bullet theory worked in favor of the bullet.

Moms was first to touch boots to the ground, Nada a split second behind her. They both let go of the fast rope and began firing toward the Rift as they moved forward, “breaking” the ambush. All they could see was the Rift, its light overloading their night vision goggles. And tracers flashing by from someone firing at them.

Mac and Roland touched down next, followed by Doc.

That’s when six deer came charging in from the side. One buck hit Moms, sending her tumbling. Nada avoided getting tagged and fired a burst into the side of the doe that went by him, slowing it slightly.

“Deer!” Nada yelled over the net.

“No shit,” Mac said as he fired a 40-mm grenade at a Firefly-possessed deer charging at him. Fortuitously, and unfortunately as it turned out, Roland had mo
dified the grenades so that they armed upon leaving the barrel, rather than the normal safe distance of around fifteen meters. The round hit the deer in the chest about four meters from Mac and exploded on contact.

Pieces of venison flew everywhere and Mac was blown backward by the blast.

Roland was standing in front of Doc, unable to fire in the confusion and the blackout of his night vision goggles.

A cluster fuck.

Burns knew when it was time to make an exit. He tossed a couple of flash-bangs to add to the confusion, averting his eyes and cupping his hands over his ears as they went off. Then he ran to the trees and cut to the right, heading for the car.

The flash-bangs didn’t help the situation for the Nightstalkers.

Moms and Nada were back-to-back, having ripped off their night vision goggles. But the grenades wiped out what little vision they had left with their bright flash, and the thunderous explosion stunned them. Mac was on his back, half conscious.

Doc had been protected somewhat by Roland’s bulk. He grabbed Roland’s shoulder. “Come on!”

He led Roland forward toward the Rift, but Roland paused, switching out the machine gun for the flamer, and torched the remains of the deer that Mac had blasted. A golden sparkle rose up and dissipated.