73. Making a break
Captain Hannes Haasbroek answers the pilot over his headphone through the noise: “No, Eldrich, I know we can save much time but I promised the colonel we will follow the road in case we encounter them.”
Amazed Eldrich just shakes his head. “Okay, fine. I’ll stick to the road even if it makes no sense to me. It is only about 300 kilometres to Port Elizabeth. I promise you, Captain, they have already reached their hide-out somewhere in our vicinity.”
Hannes’ eyes widen in amazement when he sees an enormous obstruction in the road. “Look, Eldrich, the colonel was right all along. How could they pass this obstacle? The road is blocked off totally. I‘m telling you, they turned back here and are staying overnight somewhere while they deliberate how to pass this obstacle and whether they should look for an alternative route.”
Eldrich flies over the obstacle of piled-up cars and even a bus makes a wide circle and returns. “What are you planning now, Captain?”
“We now must think as they did. What would we have done when we encountered an obstacle like this? Fly on, bet they have turned back and somewhere turned onto a dirt road to a place where they were going to spend the night. It is early in the morning. I think they found an overnight place and can pitch up any moment now to deal with the obstacle. I have the feeling we are going to track them down.”
Eldrich flies on and they are all on the lookout for a turn-off and Hannes sees it first. “Look, there is a dirt road on the right hand side. Follow it.”
After a while, one of the two operational soldiers at the back taps Hannes on the shoulder and when he looks back, the soldier indicates with a circling finger that they must turn around and Hannes screams to Eldrich: “Turn quickly. Turn! Donovan saw something.”
The helicopter makes a wide circle and then they see an open patch in the woods with a wooden shack almost totally hidden amidst the trees. The whole way they encountered only the dense treetops and if it weren’t for Donovan’s eagle eyes they would have flown past. Hovering right above the opening, Hannes yells excitedly: “There are their six black Ranger cabs just as Hunter described them. Descend! Maybe they will come outside to look at what is at hand and we will see them”
Hannes takes his binoculars and tries to zoom in on a window to see if someone peeps out. They descend quite low and suddenly Hannes sees something at the window and tries to adjust his focus. “Lower please, Elrich, I see something at the window. I must just get my focus right.”
Eventually, he can focus on the window. He gets a fright when he sees a sharpshooter with a telescope aiming at them but before he could say anything, they hear the shot ring and immediately thereupon a metallic sound when the bullet slams into something at the back of the helicopter.
Elrich jerks and pushes the joystick forward, then to the left, and accelerates so that they climb quickly and turn. Another shot rings out and again they hear the same metallic sound and then a red light on the panel starts to flicker and the siren starts wailing.
Hannes stares at Elrich with wide-open eyes and sees the panic on his face when the helicopter starts to spin. It is clear he is losing control and Hannes yells: “What’s wrong, Elrich?”
Elrich is concentrating like hell and panicking profoundly looking to and fro for a spot to make an emergency landing but he sees only dense treetops and no opening. The helicopter is increasingly spinning faster and he yells: “That fucking sharpshooter knows his story! He damaged our tail propeller that keeps the copter stable. We must do an emergency landing as quickly as possible while we still have momentum before we fall like a rock out of the sky.”
Hannes yells: “Only trees wherever you look! Where the hell are we going to land?”
“Safety belts on, guys!” yells Eldrich.
Elrich cuts all power to the engine because it only advances their spinning. He only hears the sound of the blades cutting through the air as they descend slowly. Still spinning, Elrich tries to go straight down into a small space amongst the treetops while the siren screams in their ears, and the red light keeps on flickering continuously. They descend in between the treetops and the propellers hit some of the branches and Elrich cuts all power in the hope of preventing a fire. They are going down all the faster and then they hit the ground while the propellers hit out their last momentum in the bushes and shrubs before they come to a standstill.
Hannes has been tossed to and fro in his safety belt like a cloth doll and he is now sitting dead still afraid to move. He has got severe pain in his back and only hopes it isn’t broken. He looks at his hands, moves his fingers, and then his feet. Everything seems to be intact. Hastily he loosens his safety belt and pushes down with his hands. Luckily the copter landed upright and he pulls himself out of his chair, climbs out, and then slowly straightens up. His back pains like a joint that has been dislodged, but he can come erect with difficulty.
He then feels hands on his arm and sees Donovan next to him. “Are you okay, Captain?”
“I’m okay and you?”
He scarcely has asked the question when they hear the yelling of pain and they see Jonathan at Eldrich’s side. Jonathan wanted to help him out but they discovered that his ankle is broken because his foot is in an unnatural position.
Hannes looks at Donovan, “Leave me, I’m okay. Go and help Jonathan to get him out. One of you will have to carry him. We must take a hike before the mercenaries corner us here. We will attend to his ankle later. Because of the spinning, I have no idea in which direction that shack is. How will we know in which direction we must run from them?”
Eldrich speaks through his pain: “We flew northwest when those bullets hit us.”
Donovan studies his compass quickly and points in a direction. “That way, Captain.”
They quickly join Jonathan and Elrich and they all pull the yelling Elrich out of the copter. Together they proceed in a north-westerly direction while Jonathan in front carries Elrich like a baby followed by Hannes and Donavan. The soldiers will have to take turns to carry him. They simply have to get away as quickly and as far as possible from this place.
~*~*~
Twelve mercenaries approach the wreck and Joss comes to a standstill. “They, by hook or by crook, survived and got away. Could you see through your telescope how many passengers he had, Recce?”
“In front, it was the pilot and a civilian guy and at the back, it looked like two operational soldiers.”
Recce searches all around the wreck while Joss wonders: “In which direction have they gone? Do you find spoors?”
Recce stops at the pilot’s chair and bends forward. “Three pairs of tracks but it seems that one of them is being carried, one track is deeper into the ground.” He rises and follows the tracks. “Follow me. They went in that direction.”
Joss yells orders: “Okay men! You will have to be very careful. We are hunting, inter alia, two operational soldiers and they know it. Beware of booby traps like a thread between bushes that could dislodge a hand grenade’s pin or a sharpshooter hiding in the bushes. Keep enough distance between you but don’t lose eye contact. Be silent and if you see something suspicious, hunch down and indicate like you have been trained.”
He points with a long arm and his forefinger to the front.
“Right, let the hunt begin!”