A Time to Die - Smith Wilbur (читать книги полные .txt) 📗

They tore the front wheels off her and she somersaulted forward, rolling end over end in a cloud of dust. From the corner of his eye, Sean saw Carlyle's body thrown high and clear.

"And so we say farewell to one of the last authentic heroes," he intoned gravely, and eased back the control column of the Hercures.

The great aircraft responded willingly, pointing her nose upward. He switched off the landing and cabin fights, plunging the machine into darkness so she no longer offered a target to the ground gunners. He hit the toggle to raise the landing gear and dumped flap. Immediately the airspeed mounted, and he put down one wing and went into a tight climbing turn.

Another burst of tracer followed them, floating up slowly, accelerating as it approached, until it sped past their wingtip. Sean met the turn and banked the opposite way, weaving out of range.

"You want to make me seasick?" Job asked. Sean ignored him as he checked the engine dials for possible damage.

It seemed impossible that the enormous target offered by the Hercules had received only a single burst of fire out of all the hundreds of rounds fired at it, but the needles on the dials all registered normal and responded instantly as he eased back On the boost and set revolutions for climb at five hundred feet a minute.

However, the slipstream was whistling through the bullet holes in the canopy, ruffling Sean's hair and making conversation difficult, so that he had to raise his voice as he told Job, "Go back and see if anyone was hit, then do a visual check for damage in the hold."

The lights of Umtali town were off to the south, and beyond them Sean could just make out the loom Of mountains- He knew that the highest peak in the chain was 8,5oo feet above sea level, s I o he allowed a wide separation and leveled out at 10,000 feet, then checked his heading.

Up to now, he had not thought about his navigation and was unsure of the bearings for a return to the Serra de Gorongosa fines.

wont find them marked on any map." He grinned. "But we'll try 030 magnetic." And he banked the Hercules onto that heading.

The adrenaline was still thick in his blood, the rapture of fear swirling him aloft on eagles" wings. He laughed again, just a little shakily, and savored the glorious thrill of it while it lasted.

The dark mountaintops slid away beneath him, just visible in the starlight like the shape of whales deep in an Arctic sea. He picked out the occasional pinprick of light in the valleys, an isolated farm or mission station or peasant hut, and then, as he crossed the frontier into Mozambique, there was nothing but darkness ahead.

and it seemed symbolic "Nothing but darkness," he repeated, and prophetic. They were going back into the wasteland.

Sean eased back on power and began a gradual descent toward the lowland forests. Now that the mountain peaks were behind them, he didn't want to stay up high, offering an easy target for the attack radar of a pursuing MiG fighter or an intercepting Hind gunship.

Job came back and lo*ed the door of the flight deck.

"Any (image?" Sean Aked.

Job chuckled. "Tht floor of the cargo hold is ankle-deep in puke.

Those Shanianes don't fancy your flying, man, they are upchucking in all directions."

"Charming." Sean groped in the side packet of the pilot's seat and came up with a packet of Dutch cigars, property of the R.A.F pilot.

"Well, look what we have here." He tossed one to Job and they lit up and smoked contentedly for a few minutes before Job asked, "How long before the MiGs catch up with us?"

Sean shook his head. "They are based in Harare. I don't think they can catch us even if they scramble immediately. No, I'm not worried about the MiGs, but the Hinds are another story."

They were silent again, watching the ripe celestial fruit of the stars that from the dark flight deck seemed close enough to pluck.

"Are you ready to answer an embarrassing question?" Job broke the silence.

"Fire away-"

"You got us up here. How the hell are you going to get us down again.

Sean blew a smoke ring that was instantly obliterated by the slipstream through the bullet holes in the canopy.

"Interesting question," he conceded. "I'll let you know when I have an answer myself. In the meantime, just worry about finding the Renamo lines in general and China's headquarters in particular.

Five hundred feet above the tops of the forest trees, Sean leveled the Hercules and, reading the throttle and pitch settings from the instructions engraved on the instrument panel, set her up for endurance flying.

"Another two hours before it will be light enough to even start looking for an emergency landing field," he told Job. "In the meantime, we can try to find the Pungwe River." An hour later they spotted a gleam of water in the black carpet of forest ahead, and seconds later the stars were reflected from a large body of dark water directly below them.

"I'm going back to check it," Sean warned Job. He put the Hercules into an easy turn and watched the gyro compass on the panel in front of him rotate through 180 degrees before leveling out again.

"Landing lights on," he murmured and flipped the switch. The tops of the trees below them were fit by the powerful lamps, and they saw the river, a dark serpent winding away into the night.

Sean threw the Hercules into a hard right-hand turn and then leveled out, flying directly along the course of the river.