A Time to Die - Smith Wilbur - Страница 174
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However, General China's main concern at that moment was to keep the rendezvous he had arranged by radio with General Tippoo Tip, the commander of Renamo's southern division-General, I have spotted the village," the pilot said in China's headphones.
"All, yes, I see it," China answered. "Turn toward it, please."
As the Hind approached, Sean shifted his perch, creeping behind a densely leafed bough and flattening himself against the branch. Although he knew it was dangerous to turn his face toward the sky, he relied on the bush Of his beard and his deep tan to prevent the sun reflecting off his face, and he watched the helicopter avidly.
He realized that their ultimate survival depended on being able to elude this monster, and he studied its shape to estimate the view the pilot and his gunner commanded from behind their canopies.
It might be vital for Sean to know the blind spots of the flight engineer and the field of fire of his weapons.
He saw the cannon in the remote turret below the nose abruptly traverse left and right, almost as though the gunner were demonstrating them for him. Sean could not know that General China was merely gloating over his own power and playing with the weapon controls, but the movement illustrated the Gatling cannon s restricted field of fire.
The barrel could swing through an arc Of Only thirty degrees from lock to lock; beyond that the pilot was obliged to swivel the entire aircraft on its axis in order to bring the cannon to bear.
The Hind was very close now. Sean could make out every minute detail of the hull, from the crimson "Excellent Crew" arrow on the nose to the rows of rivet heads that stitched the titanium armor sheets. He looked for some weakness, some flaw in the massive armor, but in the few seconds before she was overhead, he saw she was impregnable, except for the air intakes to the turbo engines, like a pair of hooded eyes above the upper pilot's canopy. The intakes were screened by debris suppressors, bossed light metal discs that inhibited the dust and debris thrown up by the downdraft of the rotors when the helicopter hovered close to the ground from being sucked into the turbines. However, the debris suppressors were not so substantial as to prevent the Stinger missiles flying clearly into the intakes, and Sean saw that there was a gap around the edge of the metal boss wide enough for a man to stick his head through. At the correct angle and from very close range an expert marksman might just be able to aim a burst of machine-gun fire through that gap so as to damage the turbine vanes. Sean knew that even a chip from one of those vanes would unbalance the turbine and set up such vibrations in the engine that it would fly to pieces within seconds.
"A hell of a shot, and a hell of a lot of luck," Sean muttered, L staring upward through slitted eyes. Suddenly the ugh t reflected from the armored glass canopy altered so that he could see into the interior of the cockpit.
He recognized General China, despite the hard plastic flying helmet and the mirrored aviator glasses shielding his eyes, and hatred flushed fiercely through his guts. Here was the man on whom he could firmly set the blame for Job's death and all their other woes and hardships.
"I want you," Sean muttered. "God, how badly I want you."
China seemed to sense the force of his hatred, for he turned his head slightly and looked down directly at Sean's perch, staring at him evenly through the mirrored lens of his sunglasses. Sean shrank down upon the branch.
Abruptly the Hind banked away, exposing its blotched gray belly. The downdraft lashed the treetop, shaking the branches and throwing Sean about in the hurricane of disrupted air. He realized that it had been an illusion and that China had not spotted him in his treetop bower.
He watched the huge machine skitter away on its new heading.
A few miles distant the engine beat changed, the sound of the rotors whined in finer pitch, and the Hind hovered briefly above the forest and then sank from view.
Sean clambered down the tree. Matatu had doused the small cooking fire at the first sound of the Hind's approach, but the canteen of maize porridge had already cooked through.
"We'll eat on the march," Sean ordered.
Claudia groaned softly, but pulled herself to her feet. Every muscle in her legs and back ached with fatigue.
"Sorry, beautiful." Sean put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed her. "China landed only a mile or two east of here, probably at Dombe.
We can be pretty sure he has troops there.
We've got to move on."
They ate the last handfuls of hot sticky salted maize porridge on the march and washed it down with water from the bottles that tasted of mud and algae. "From now on, we are living off the land," Sean told her. "And China is breathing down our necks."
The Hind hovered a hundred feet above the road that ran through the village of Dombe.
It was the only road, and the village was merely a collection of twenty or so small buildings that had long been abandoned. The glass was broken out of the window frames, and the whitewashed plaster had fallen from the adobe walls in leprous patches. Termites had devoured the roof timbers so that the corroded corrugated sheeting sagged from the roof. The buildings fronting onto the road had all once been small general dealers" stores, the ubiquitous dukes of Africa owned by Hindu traders. One faded sign hung at a drunken angle. PAT EL & PAT EL it proclaimed between the crimson trademarks of the Coca-Cola company.
The road itself was dirt-surfaced and littered with rubbish and debris.
Weeds grew rankly in the unused ruts.
"Take us down," China ordered, and the helicopter sank toward the roadway, lifting a whirlwind thick with dead leaves, scraps of paper, discarded plastic bags, and other rubbish.
There were men on the veranda of Patel & Patel and armed men among the derelict buildings, fifty or more, all heavily armed and dressed in an assortment of camouflage, military, and civilian clothing, the eclectic uniform of the African guerrilla.
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