Page 121 of Clive Cussler Ghost Soldier

“Let’s vamoose!” Cabrillo shouted.

The twin Pratt & Whitney engines roared like demons as Gomez shoved the throttles to the stops.

Juan and Linc held on for dear life as the tilt-rotor lifted into the sky, the wind spinning them like tops as the hydraulic lifts pulled them up.

Murph pulled each man forward into the cabin, then jumped back into his seat, threw on his goggles, and picked up his controller, ready to resume the flight.

Juan dashed into the cockpit and fell into the copilot’s chair.

“We owe you big-time on this one,” Juan said.

“First round’s on you back at the barn,” Gomez said as he steered the aircraft over the water. “Second one’s on me.”

Tracers suddenly licked past the windscreen. Gomez yanked his stick and stomped his pedals to dive away from the stream of gunfire.

“It’s one of the RHIBs,” Murph shouted over the comms. The AW’s Gatling gun roared for a short burst just as several bullets hit the plane’s starboard engine.

“Got ’em,” Murph said.

But Gomez was focused on the smoke pouring out of the big Pratt & Whitney.

Not good.

They were still a long way from theOregon.

61

Aboard theOregon

Max wore a comms set as he stood on the deck, his eyes fixed on the wobbling tilt-rotor, its Gatling gun retracted back into its belly for landing. Designed to fly on two engines, the tilt-rotor yawed and slewed in the air like a drunken seagull, trailing a plume of black smoke from its dead starboard motor. How Gomez managed to keep the bird in the air for as long as he had was anyone’s guess.

Three red-shirted firefighters stood by theOregon’s landing deck, extinguishers and firehoses gripped in their hands. The red team lead, Jesse Benson, was a tall, lanky former senior chief on the USSRonald Reagan.

Dr. Huxley stood next to them carrying an emergency medical kit, as did her physician assistant, Amy Forrester.

“Gomez, you go ahead and ditch if you need to,” Max said. “We’ll pull you out of the drink before your feet get wet.”

“Can’t do it,” Gomez said over the comms. “My insurance rates will go up.”

“Juan?” Max asked. He was worried Gomez was pushing it too far. The AW looked more like a tumbling leaf than a helicopter attempting a landing.

“He’s the captain. I just pass out the salted peanuts.”

“You ready down there?” Gomez asked.

“Bring her in,” Max said. He watched Gomez maneuver the shuddering bird into its glide path.

Three minutes later, the roaring AW thudded onto the retractable steel landing deck in a smoking whirlwind. The red shirts attacked the red-hot engine cowling with clouds of white CO2as Linc, Juan, Murph, and Gomez dashed out of the craft.

It wasn’t the prettiest landing Gomez had ever made, Max thought, but probably his best.

?

Juan sat in the Kirk Chair, his eyes fixed on the Island of Sorrows looming on the big forward screen, the Vendor’s three-story HQ centered in the view. They were five miles away.

TheOregonwas skimming along at flank speed, more than sixty knots, and throwing an incredible wake behind it.

Cabrillo had already briefed Max and the op center crew on the flight back to theOregon. Their goal was to return to the island as quickly as possible and mount an assault on the Vendor’s HQ to capture or neutralize him before he fled.