Chapter 125
Rachel
Outside The Mansion
As my head poked through the vines on the ground, I took stock of my surroundings.
But the most important thing was the five helicopters hovering in the air above the mansion.
They were Bell 412s – civilian versions of the American Huey helicopters used in the Vietnam War.
Government agencies and corporations used Bell 412s for search and rescue, transport, even power line maintenance.
It made sense. Whoever these assholes were, they’d come in civilian copters because they didn’t want to draw the attention of the Italian military. They could fly Bell 412s anywhere in the country without raising eyebrows.
The most recognizable feature of Bell 412s was the removable side doors. Back in Vietnam, the open bays had allowed for door gunners with machine guns.
These helicopters weren’t equipped with weapons –
But the men inside were.
Even at a distance, I could make out the black fatigues, combat helmets, and submachine guns.
Mercenaries, most likely. Definitely not Italian, UK, or American soldiers.
I watched as one of them braced a two-foot-long cylinder on top of his shoulder.
A second later, a projectile shot out, trailing a plume of smoke –
And a section of the mansion’s stone facade exploded.
SHIT –
They’re using LAW rocket launchers.
LAW stood for Light Anti-armor Weapon. The most common was the M72, a portable, single-use, 66mm disposable rocket system used since the 1960s. They were used to blow up everything from tanks to bunkers –
And 600-year-old mansions.
M72s were light-weight, easy to use, effective in combat, and extremely cheap for what they could do.
$2000 per shot for something that could disable a $24 million tank? An absolute bargain.
You had to aim LAWs manually, so they weren’t incredibly accurate from long distances –
But these helicopters were all within 300 feet of their target, and the shooters were aiming at a building 800 feet wide. They couldn’t miss.
The mansion was a lost cause –
But I figured these guys were here for a ground assault. They were just softening up resistance before they moved in.
Which meant I had a job to do:
Seriously fucking dissuade them.
I was pretty sure that nobody in the choppers was looking this way, so I tore through the vines and darted for the nearest tree.
This part of the property was mostly a huge field, but there were lots of ornamental clusters of Italian cypresses, the tall, skinny trees iconic to this region.
Northern California had redwoods and sequoias, Los Angeles and Florida had palm trees, Japan had cherry blossoms –
And Tuscany had Italian cypresses.
The problem was that they were a bitch to climb.
I knew that because Lars had decided to incorporate scaling them into the foot soldiers’ training.
You had to fight your way up through a ton of tiny branches that were incredibly dense, but didn’t offer much in the way of handholds.
That’s why I had the nylon gun straps: I was going to clip them together in a loop and use it the way loggers used tree-climbing saddles to shimmy up trees. Most cypress tree trunks were less than three feet in diameter, so it was totally doable.
I could’ve just set up shop at the base of one of the trees –
But I needed as much height as I could so I could fire into the helicopters.
And if I were down on the ground, I’d be more visible. Better to be camouflaged way up in the branches. Nobody would be looking for me there.
I hoped.
I picked a sturdy tree amidst a group of five, looped the gun straps around the trunk, and fastened them around my waist.
Then I began to climb.
The Heckler & Koch was on its own strap, slung over my shoulder, so I had both hands free – which was good. Pulling myself up was like swimming through tree branches.
When I got about 30 feet off the ground, I planted my feet, leaned back, and let the nylon straps keep me in place.
Then I pulled the sniper rifle off my shoulder and poked it through the tree branches.
Most of the helicopters were substantially higher up than I was –
But one wasn’t. It hovered on the same level as the mansion’s roof, about 40 feet above the ground.
Why was it so close?
Because Lucca, Tullio, and Santino were doing their fucking jobs, God bless them.
The three foot soldiers were up on the rooftop deck of the mansion, hiding behind the stone railings and firing at the helicopters. I could hear the chatter of gunfire and see the muzzle bursts from their assault rifles.
They were distracting the helicopters. All eyes were on the roof –
And nobody was watching me.
I sighted through the scope on my rifle.
I could’ve easily popped any of the mercenaries in the open bay door –
But that would have only killed one man.
I wanted to take down all of them –
Which meant I had to aim for the pilot.
I had explosive-tipped bullets, and civilian Bell helicopters didn’t have bulletproof glass.
I might have been able to blow out the glass and kill the pilot with a second shot –
But most of the helicopters were in constant motion, which made the logistics nearly impossible.
The lowest helicopter, however, was hovering fairly still.
Unfortunately, the cockpit was facing away from me.
So I was going to have to shoot through the open bay door.
An extremely difficult shot –
But I’d made harder ones.
I adjusted for distance and air speed –
Found the bay door –
And sighted through my rifle scope.
At my angle in relation to the chopper, there wasn’t much space between the edge of the open bay’s doorframe and the cockpit. Just a couple of inches.
It would have to be enough.
Inside the crosshairs of my scope, I found the backseat of the pilot –
Then the edge of his white helmet.
I doubted it could stand up to an explosive-tipped round.
At least, I hoped.
I breathed out…
Waited for the space between heartbeats…
And pulled the trigger.
CRACK.
In the scope, the inside of the cockpit glass was sprayed red.
YES!
A one-in-a-thousand shot, and I’d done it.
The pilot slumped forward, dead.
The helicopter suddenly slewed to the side –
And its main blade slammed into the stone front of the house.
OH SHIT.
It was like watching a spinning lawnmower blade strike a boulder.
The rotors sparked against stone –
Crumpled like crushed drinking straws –
Stopped spinning –
And the entire helicopter slammed into the front of the mansion and crashed 40 feet to the ground, where it was crushed by an avalanche of stones from the building’s facade.
HOLY MOTHER OF GOD.
The other helicopters panicked.
They thought the shot had come from Luca, Tullio, or Santino, so two of the choppers started circling the roof –
While the other two landed on the lawn behind the house and immediately started disgorging mercenaries.
The ground assault had begun.
The helicopters in the air were moving around and were too difficult to hit –
But the choppers on the ground were sitting ducks.
It’s an old-fashioned shooting gallery, I thought as I sighted through my scope.
My first shot blew out the helicopter’s cockpit window –
And the second blew the pilot’s head apart.
Then I set my sights on the other copter.
That was when the mercenaries on the ground spotted me.