Chapter 9 #2
He was confident the helicopter would see them amongst the debris, but there were still too many branches to get an easy lift.
He grunted as he sank almost knee deep in mud and leaf litter. Before he had to ask, Mila climbed off.
Dobby yanked at his leg but the suction was strong.
Fuck this mission.
Mila pulled the leaf litter away, so they could see what they were working with.
The rotor blade tone changed again. Lift off. His radio squawked. “Incoming. Where are you?”
“We’re almost there.”
The helicopter cleared the hill, but it wouldn’t be able to get a line down.
“You’ve got two bogies incoming,” Radar’s voice came back. He barely heard him over the noise of the helicopter.
“Tell me.” Dobby tugged harder.
“Two motorbikes heading around the bay over all the debris from the village. They’re going fast.”
Mila dug at the mud around his leg.
“Can you get a line down?” Dobby asked.
“Negative.”
The helicopter hovered right above them, close enough for him to see Radar’s and Joker’s concerned faces as they peered out.
Damn it. He jerked his foot up and finally it popped. He shifted to the edge of the tree line and peered through. The two dirt bikes tore around the point of the bay, maybe two hundred metres away.
“Dobby, there’s an Indonesian chopper inbound. Probably carrying aid. They can’t see us pick you up.”
He bit back the swear words. Dobby gave Radar the sign to go and pulled Mila behind one of the larger tree trunks, forcing her to squat.
The helicopter peeled away as gunshots rang out. Agus’s men were firing on it.
“Where are they going?” Mila called into his ear.
“Back to the ship.” He exhaled as he considered their options, listening to discern the sound of bike engines from the fading sound of the helicopter. He didn’t dare move.
“Are they coming back?”
A great question. In a normal situation he would wait until more rescue workers arrived and then blend in with them until he could get a ride out, but Agus’s man had seen him and Agus would have people looking for Mila amongst the aid personnel.
“Damien?” The exhaustion in her voice had him squeezing her hand.
“I’ll get us out of here.” The helicopter faded and the whine of the motorbike engine grew louder. Best-case scenario Agus’s men would assume they’d been picked up by the helicopter before they’d arrived in the bay.
He got his gun ready.
“Damien?” Mila whispered.
“We’re going to be fine,” he assured her.
Worst-case scenario Agus would have two fewer henchmen.
“Stay quiet and still.” He didn’t move as the bikes stopped on the shore only a few metres away from them. The engines idled and the two men shouted at each other.
Mila was curled into a ball though her eyes were wide open in fear. He couldn’t risk reaching out to her but he gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. Maybe she’d reached her limit. She’d been through so much already, but she needed to hold it together until the henchmen left.
The engines revved again and the bikes rode off. Damien waited a few beats before he peered around the tree. Both bikes were heading back around the bay towards the village.
He exhaled. The men weren’t well trained. They should have at least searched the area, but maybe they realised they wouldn’t win a shoot-out against him. Either way he was glad. “They’re leaving.” He moved over to Mila and pulled her into his arms. She clung to him and her body trembled.
He closed his eyes. So close.
They’d been so close to getting off this godforsaken island.
He stroked her hair. “It’s all right. We’ve still got options.” Though if an Indonesian helicopter was about to fly overhead, they needed to find cover so it didn’t spot them. “Sweetheart, we need to move back into the jungle. Then you can rest.”
He pulled her to her feet and then turned so she could climb onto his back again.
This time he took a second to test the ground before putting his weight on it and moved fast, the whump whump of the new helicopter getting closer.
“Are they coming back?” Mila called.
“No. That’s not for us.”
She tensed and he stroked her thigh to soothe her as he dashed the remaining distance into the dense, undamaged forest. A moment later the helicopter tone changed. It was landing at the northern coastal village the next bay over.
He exhaled and let Mila slide off his back, before he pulled her into his arms again.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “Give me a second and I’ll stop crying.” She waved her hands at her eyes. “It’s the exhaustion making me weepy.”
He shook his head in disbelief. “If anyone’s allowed to cry, it’s you, sweetheart.” He pressed a kiss to her hair, wishing he could promise her immediate safety. No matter what happened, he was getting her off this island.
Dobby scanned the forest as a matter of habit.
Agus would hopefully think they’d been rescued, but if anyone saw them, they’d report back to him and he and Mila would become hunted again.
But with the Indonesian military on the ground there was hope for Mila.
“We need to get you to the village,” Dobby said. “You can tell the Indonesian military who you are, and they’ll take care of you.”
She brushed the tears from her eyes and sniffed. “What about you?”
He shook his head. “There’s no record of me entering Indonesia.”
Mila’s eyes widened. “Oh.” Then she shook her head, her vulnerability of a moment ago disappearing. “I’m not leaving you here when you sacrificed your safety for me.”
He scowled. “I’ll be fine. I can steal a boat tonight and get away.”
“No. We don’t know if Agus has any contacts in the military.”
“That’s a big leap.”
“Think about it. Someone outside the island must know what he does, but no one has stopped him. He has to have contacts in the police or military.”
It was a stretch. “You’re a major-general’s daughter. They’d be foolish to risk word getting out.”
Her mouth set in a determined line. “It would be easy for them to deny seeing me, and to hand me over to Agus.”
There was a very slim possibility she could be right. Could he take that risk?
She stood before him, bedraggled and filthy but with a defiance that made her breathtaking.
He swore. “Fine, but you do exactly what I tell you to do.”
Her smile was full of relief. “Of course.” She hugged him.
He held her close as he scanned the debris-ridden ocean. Nothing but trunks, leaves, and parts of houses which had washed around the island.
A boat would be their best bet. Some people may have taken their boats out into deeper water after the earthquake hit in preparation for the tsunami which meant they would still be in one piece.
They were a couple of kilometres away from the bay where the team had first landed, but the zod was no longer there.
The water swirled and pulled and would be a mess of rips and whirlpools for several days at least.
The whole coastline was going to be like this, so swimming to the islet to at least get off the island wasn’t an option.
They were both filthy, tired and needed sustenance while he made a plan.
“Let’s sit down and eat.” He pulled her behind a tree with large roots and pressed her to sit on one of them.
She exhaled. “Thank you. If it wasn’t for me you’d be flying to safety right now.”
Annoyance made him sharp. “I wasn’t leaving without you,” he said. “You rescued my whole damn team and that idiot Vance. If it wasn’t for you, we would have had a far more difficult extraction.” He shook his head, taking in her exhaustion. But it hadn’t stopped her pushing to her absolute limit.
“There’s no chance in hell I’m leaving you behind.”