Chapter 10
Pav kept his hands steady on the cyclic as the storm battered the helicopter from every direction at once. Every gust sent a structural tremor through the pedals, up his boots, into his teeth.
Instruments glowed green. Altimeter climbing too slowly. Airspeed low but stable. Compass heading south-southwest. He flew by the gauges because there was nothing else—only endless white noise beyond the windshield.
His temple throbbed where something had caught him in the compound. He couldn’t remember what. That was the problem with adrenaline—it borrowed from later.
Somewhere back at the airstrip, this had stopped being an extraction and become survival. Women evacuated from a trafficking camp with no real exit plan. A girl bleeding out in the back. And a doctor beside him who looked like she’d draw a line and stand in it.
He checked the fuel gauge, knocking it with his knuckle.
It bobbed wildly. The needle settled just above the quarter mark, but he didn’t trust it.
He didn’t trust any of the gauges in this heap of junk.
The altimeter could be off by a hundred feet, and he’d never know until mountain appeared where sky should be.
Behind him, Sasha’s breathing rasped. He’d strapped her in himself—head braced, belt cinched, coat folded over her wounded side to keep pressure. It wasn’t enough. None of it was enough, but the nearest medical facility was across the border.
Next to him in the co-pilot seat, Harper hung on to her harness straps as if letting go might tilt the helicopter apart. She hadn’t spoken since takeoff. Her breathing was controlled—too controlled, the deliberate rhythm people used when they were trying not to fall apart.
The storm threw the helicopter sideways, and he compensated, pedals and cyclic working together. Warning lights flared, brief and ugly, before the gyro stabilized again.
Pav corrected on instinct. The engine whined in protest, torque fighting him. He rode it out and let the storm spend itself while he held the margins.
In his peripheral vision, Harper went rigid, breath hitching—but the altimeter steadied, the airspeed crept back into the green, and the vibration eased.
Pav kept the bird flying. That was the only way through.
“Where are we going?” Her voice cut through the engine noise, stronger than he’d expected.
“South.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is if you can read a compass.”
Silence. Her stare made his skin prickle, but he didn’t look.
“How long until we land?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“Weather. Fuel. Who’s still trying to kill us.”
She gave a frustrated exhale. “You’re very helpful.”
“You’re very loud.”
That shut her up.
He adjusted heading two degrees east to compensate for the crosswind, checked the dodgy fuel gauge again. Half a tank now. Of course it was.
The storm eased for thirty seconds—a pocket of relative calm where the windshield cleared enough to show black peaks below, snow clinging to their knife-edge ridges. Then the white wall hit again.
Sasha coughed in the back. A wet, clogged sound.
Harper twisted in her seat, one hand already reaching back toward the blood-dark bundle of cloth pressed to Sasha’s side. “Her breathing’s changed. It’s more congested.”
He risked a glance. “Can you do anything from here?”
“Not unless you want me to unbuckle—"
“At altitude in a storm? No.”
“Then I need you to get us down. Soon.”
“Working on it.”
The border was forty minutes at this speed, assuming the headwind held and didn’t worsen. But the engine sounded like it was clearing its throat every third rotation. Forty minutes was optimistic.
A light flickered on the panel. Amber. Oil pressure dropping.
Not now.
He adjusted the throttle, eased back on airspeed. The light held amber.
“What’s wrong?” Harper’s voice rose in pitch over the helicopter’s revs.
“Nothing.” He did not look at her.
“That light wasn’t on before—”
“Lights lie.” He made an adjustment and the juddering shifted pitch, climbing higher. The helicopter pulled fractionally left, forcing him to correct.
His skin itched. Harper was watching him.
“You’ve crashed before.”
That was the problem with smart people.
He glanced at her. Dark eyes, sharp enough to know if he lied. Dirt on her jaw. Blood smeared her cheek.
“Once.”
“And survived.”
“That was the objective.”
She crossed her arms, and he turned back to the gauges. Oil pressure was holding. Allegedly. Minutes passed. The controls softened under his hands. Hydraulics were struggling.
“How did you learn to fly?”
He almost allowed the engine noise to fill the space, but she’d asked it too quickly. As if the silence was worse.
“Military.”
“What branch? Special forces?” She was looking at him again. “My uncle, Fox, was special forces. Is that how you know him?”
He rubbed the tender spot between his eyes.
“You’re not going to tell me anything, are you?”
“No.”
She huffed a breath. “Must be exhausting. Being this closed off.”
“No more than talking when you should be listening.”
That landed. A sharp breath, a half-second pause before she regrouped.
“I’m just trying to—”
“I know what you’re trying to do.” He flexed his aching fingers on the cyclic.
“And what’s that?”
“You talk so you don’t panic. Fill the silence and stay functional.” He checked the altimeter. “Process your fear out loud instead of inside.”
When he glanced sideways, she glared at him with an unreadable expression.
Her chin lifted. “Maybe that’s what I’m doing.”
“It’s working?”
“Yes.”
A beat.
He nodded. “Now do it quieter.”
Her mouth opened. Closed. She turned to the windshield, and he turned back to the gauges, and for a full minute neither of them spoke.
The errant fuel gauge was now creeping toward the red. Rotor noise in his ears. Not his own—a second rhythm in the storm where there should have been none.
Light.
A column of white cutting through the storm from above, sweeping across the snow like a searchlight. Because it was.
Christ.
The helicopter materialized—bigger, heavier, military-grade. A Mi-8 or something close to it, its rotors beating the air with a deep, percussive thud that vibrated through his ribs. The light swung and pinned the cockpit in white glare.
Pav thrust left, dropping the nose. The helicopter banked and dove, the storm swallowing them again.
Harper gasped. “What—”
“We have company.”
The beam swept back.
“How’d they find us?” Harper’s eyes were wide.
“Heat signature. Or they saw us lift off from the airbase.”
The Mi-8 was faster, heavier, and it had altitude on them. Through a break in the cloud he caught the silhouette—side door open, a figure braced in the frame. The muzzle flash came before the sound.
Rounds rattled through the storm—like hail on sheet metal. Something sparked off the tail. Pav threw them right. The altimeter bled—two thousand feet, nineteen hundred. He was trading height for speed and running out of both.
The searchlight found them again. Harper locked both hands around her harness.
More gunfire. Closer. A round punched through the cockpit behind his left shoulder—a crack, a whistle of cold air, and Harper screamed.
He plunged into the storm. Visibility collapsed to nothing—pure white, no ground, no sky. The hostile helicopter was still up there, hunting. Its rotors thudded through the wind, out of sync with his own.
Something hit the tail assembly. The helicopter yawed right. Pav stamped on the pedal. Nothing. Soft travel, no bite. The nose kept hunting right. The panel lit red.
No. Too soon.
He fought the controls, working the cyclic and collective, trying to keep rotor speed in the green while the damaged tail tried to turn them broadside to the storm. From the rear, a metallic whine rose rapidly.
“She’s not responding.” He scanned below for the least lethal place to hit.
The searchlight swept overhead. Let it hunt. He had bigger problems.
Eight hundred feet.
Six hundred.
“Hold your harness. Tight. Chin to your chest. Don’t fight the drop.”
Harper grabbed her straps and braced, tucking her chin in.
The helicopter dropped. His stomach lurched, but he held the descent, watching rotor RPM, guarding the last of their energy.
Four hundred.
Three.
The storm tore open for two seconds. Below—a slope. Snow-covered. Steep, but not vertical. Dark shapes that could be rocks or trees.
It was enough. Had to be.
He aimed for the widest stretch of white and flared hard. The rotor bit air, trading speed for lift. For one suspended, impossible second, they weren’t falling.
The slope rushed up. One second to choose where they hit. No time for anything else. The skids hit snow, and everything collapsed into pressure and violence.
Metal shrieked. Glass shattered. The harness slammed against his shoulder, and the helicopter slid, spun, the tail swinging wide. Something hit his head, and Pav’s vision blurred white, then crimson.
The cacophony ended. Only the howl of the wind remained.
Get them out.
Sasha.
Blood ran into his eye. He blinked it away.
Harper.
Move.