Chapter One
BORNEO
With white knuckles, Fred Jenkins worked the stick. “What the hell do
they want?” he yelled as he skimmed his copter over the rainforest canopy.
White tracers streaked past the glass bubble. Faint gunfire rattled in the
distance. “They’re gonna kill us!”
Melvin
balled a fist. “Just fly this damn thing,” he shouted over the clattering
engine and slapping rotor blades. Heart pounding, he twisted in his seat and
looked behind them. Three Malaysian Federation patrol choppers were flying a
wedge formation several hundred yards back—and closing.
The radio crackled.
“Control. Victor Eagle One. We have visual contact,” a chopper pilot
reported.
Melvin
shuddered. “Those bastards never give up.”
“Give up? Good
idea,” Fred said. “Before they blow us out of the sky.”
“Not that easy…”
“Jesus! I’ve got
kids at home.”
“Hope
you kissed ‘em goodbye this morning.”
“Damn
it, man! We don’t stand a chance against these guys.”
Melvin gulped. Fred
was right. This little two-seater was no match for those military choppers.
Sure—it was risky chartering this copter to Ketapang, but there was no other
way. The Malaysian authorities were watching every transportation hub. He had to
catch that fishing trawler to Jakarta. He had to get away.
The
copter banked left and descended sharply. Melvin’s stomach floated for an
instant. He glanced at Fred. Beads of sweat trickled down his weathered face.
Little did he know his high-dollar passenger would cause him so much trouble.
Bad luck for Fred. “Hope you’re a better pilot than a hero—watch out!”
Fred
veered left, just missing a tree branch. “Think you can fly this thing any
better?”
“Damn
right I can! I was flying copters between Java and Sumatra back when your mommy
was packing you off to kindergarten.”
Gunfire
rattled again. “What do they want with you?”
“Ah—they’re
just a bunch of sore losers.”
“I
didn’t ask for none of this military shit and I don’t want in the middle of
your squabble. I’m just running a flying service for God’s sake.”
“You’ll
be flying with wings on your back if you don’t shake these guys.” Melvin
turned around to check the squadron’s position. Another volley of tracers
streamed past, closer this time. He searched the leafy canopy whizzing by below.
There had to be a way out of this mess. Maybe over there. “Go right! Go right,
damn it!”
Copter
blades strained in the turn.
“Down
there!” Melvin pointed to the river that snaked below them, peeking out from
under the forest canopy here and there. “Go! Go!”
“You gotta be
nuts!”
Melvin
grabbed the stick and pushed it forward. The copter dove toward the river.
“Shit!” Fred
pulled out of the dive and skimmed over the frothy surface.
Jungle closed in around them,
darkening the riverbed. Blinding bursts of sunlight flashed through scattered
gaps in the canopy. Melvin swallowed hard. He really screwed up this time.
Fred flipped the
landing light switch, lighting the eerie, forested tunnel. Copter skids clipped
riverbank ferns. Rotors nicked low-hanging branches. One wrong move—they’d
be swimming with the fishes.
Again,
streams of white tracers flashed by.
Melvin whipped his
head around. Damn! The Federation choppers were flying single-file right behind
them, their spinning rotor blades clipping tree branches as they rocked side to
side in the air. A burst of gunfire erupted. “Ha! They missed again!”
“Warning shots,”
Fred shouted as he dodged a fallen tree. “They could’ve shot us down
already. Don’t you see? They’re giving you a chance to surrender.”
“No way in hell!”
Melvin snarled. “I’m not gonna spend the rest of my life in a Sumatra
prison. I’d rather die—so keep this bird in the air.”
“Sore losers, huh?” Fred
banked his copter through a sharp bend in the riverbed. Ahead, another large
opening in the canopy appeared. “We’re getting out of this deathtrap, right
now.”
“No, don’t!”
The
copter nosed up and broke out into sunlight. Melvin clenched his jaw. What a
stupid move. Now they were in the open.
The
Federation choppers flared out and flanked the copter on both sides. Flying
rotor tip to rotor tip, Melvin looked at the chopper on the left. The officer
bared his teeth and pointed his finger down.
Melvin
sneered and turned to the chopper on the right, locking eyes with the pilot and
flipping him a finger. “Bastards! You’ll never take me alive!”
The radio crackled. “Hail
Delta-Four-Niner-Echo. Melvin Anderson—you’re under arrest.”
Wide-eyed, Fred said,
“Now what am I supposed to do?”
Pulling up the pant
leg of his jungle fatigues, Melvin reached into his boot and fingered the cold
steel of his .44. Risk nothing; gain nothing. His father had taught him
to live by that motto. There’d be no prison in Melvin’s future, even if he
had to fly this damn thing himself—or die. He snapped back the breach and
pressed the muzzle against Fred’s temple in plain view of the flanking
officers.
“Say goodbye, Fred.”
“No don’t!”
Melvin squeezed the trigger.