Helius Legacy Page 6

  Caine heard confused yells to his right as he raced across the yard. When he was about halfway to the tree line, Caine heard automatic weapons fire coming from a gun equipped with a suppressor. The shooter traced a line across the yard just behind the Cat. Caine pressed himself flat against the machine, expecting the shooter to correct his line of fire, but then it was too late. The Cat rocketed through the trees and roared into the dark forest beyond.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTEEN

  San Bernardino County, California

  December 5, 2000 / Sunday / 2:45 a.m.

  Severino and Juan, one of the two Nicaraguan soldiers, were approaching the west side of the backyard when Caine fired the flare. Both men dropped to their knees and watched in confusion as the flare raced upward into the night sky.

  “What’s this shit?” Severino said as he watched the flare’s trajectory. Seconds later, there was an explosion and a flash of brilliant white. Severino closed his eyes. When he opened them again, a white after-image clouded his vision. He was temporarily blind.

  As he struggled to blink away the after-image, Severino heard the roar of a high-pitched engine coming from the rear of the cabin. He pointed the Uzi in the direction of the sound and squeezed off a burst, but then he stopped. Anders and Miguel were on the east side of the cabin. If he fired blind, they could be hit.

  Severino stood up and stumbled into the backyard, the Uzi held in front of him. His eyes were watering, but his vision was coming back. The engine noise that he’d heard was rapidly fading to the south. Severino fired a long burst in that direction. It was a snowmobile. The bastard has a snowmobile and he’s getting away.

  Juan ran into the yard, holding his hand over his eyes as if to shade them from the sun and raised his Uzi to fire. Severino’s harsh rebuke stopped him.

  “Stop, you idiot. Can’t you see the son of a bitch is gone!”

  Severino called out to Anders over his face mic.

  “Anders, where are you? Anders!”

  “Here, goddamn it.”

  “Where? I can’t see you.”

  “How the fuck do I know? I can’t see anything but white,” Anders growled back, giving Severino a moment of satisfaction. Severino squinted hard at the eastern edge of the yard and saw Anders trudge out of the tree line, followed by Miguel. Anders was holding his shotgun in one hand and rubbing his eyes with the other.

  Severino yanked out his cell phone and dialed Cochrane.

  “Hey y’all, what the hell—”

  “Can it, Cochrane, I need that chopper here now! The bastard’s getting away on a goddamn snowmobile! You hear me, Cochrane? Now!”

  “Roger that.”

  Severino’s frustration grew as he listened to the whine of the snowmobile fade in the distance. Five minutes later, the big chopper appeared over the yard and slowly descended into the open space. Severino ran to the passenger side door and pulled it open.

  “A map. I need a map,” Severino yelled to Cochrane over the deafening noise of the rotors.

  Cochrane pulled out an aerial map from between the two seats and handed it to Severino. Cochrane pointed to a small structure on the map that was circled in red. “That’s the cabin. Due west is the town of Snow Valley on Route 18. My guess is our boy will head for the town. There’s a five- … maybe six-mile stretch of forest between the cabin and the outskirts of the town. No one lives there. We’ve got to stop him within the first three or four miles, or it’s over.”

  Severino looked over his shoulder into the rear of the chopper. Anders, Miguel, and Juan were inside.

  “Go,” said Severino, grudgingly impressed by Cochrane’s analysis.

  The chopper rapidly gained altitude and began a controlled slide to the west. Severino struggled to understand what had just happened. The flare unnerved him. Who would have something like that? Who is this guy, some kind of wacko survivalist? A loud string of curses coming from the rear of the chopper drew his attention.

  “I’m gonna blow the shit out that goddamn son of a bitch,” Anders yelled as he pulled the tarp off the big machine gun. Cochrane noticed what he was doing in the mirror and yelled back to him.

  “Y’all know how to use that M60?”

  “Shit yeah, I can use any goddamned gun,” Anders yelled back.

  San Bernardino Forest

  December 5, 1999 / Sunday / 3:09 a.m.

  Caine stopped the Arctic Cat about a half mile west of the cabin on the far side of a steep ridge. He put the machine in neutral and listened. The noise was unmistakable: a chopper was landing near the cabin. He suspected it was the same chopper that had woken him up thirty minutes before the hit team showed up. One of two things would happen. Either his pursuers would make a quick exit and consider the mission a failure, or they’d continue the hunt in the chopper. Caine listened quietly until he was sure of their choice. The chopper was coming his way.

  Caine considered trying to escape through the forest on the Arctic Cat, but rejected the option. The forest was patchy, and his trail would be easily visible in the snow. Once they spotted it, the chopper would run him down in seconds. If he wanted to get out of the forest alive, he had to change the game.

  Based on the approaching sound, Caine estimated that he had three or four minutes before the chopper found his trail and caught up with him. He scanned the area around him. There was an open space on the far side of the hill. He drove the Arctic Cat down the hill until he was near the bottom of the slope. Then he parked the machine and pushed it over onto its side. He took off his ski jacket, laid it on the ground next to the Cat and stuffed it with snow. If he was lucky, the chopper would descend and investigate.

  When he finished, Caine ran to the nearby tree line and pulled a Franchi SPAS-12 shotgun from his pack and began loading the magazine tube. The close-quarters combat weapon had a pistol grip, and offered the shooter the option of selecting a semiautomatic or a pumpaction mode. Caine finished loading the last of the eight rounds into the magazine tube as the chopper came over the hill.

  The chopper passed overhead and circled around. When it approached the second time, automatic weapons fire was pouring out of the open side door. Puffs of snow were flying into the air all around the Arctic Cat. When the machine settled into a hover, Caine heard a loud guttural roar over the sound of the engine, and heavier projectiles pounded into the slope around the Cat. The noise stopped and then started up again. Caine was confused for a moment, and then he recognized the heavier weapon. They have an M60 on that chopper. Caine watched the fire pattern. Whoever was firing the M60 was an amateur. Not one of the bursts hit the Cat.

  Caine watched the chopper slowly descend. The sliding door on the left side of the chopper was closed, which made that side blind and defenseless. If the chopper came down another fifty feet, he might have a chance.

  San Bernardino Forest

  December 5, 1999 / Sunday / 3:45 a.m.

  “Lower, Cochrane, lower, I can’t see shit,” Severino yelled over the roar of the engine.

  “I am. I am. Do you want to end up in the goddamn trees?” Cochrane answered as he struggled to keep the big machine in the center of the open space.

  Severino was holding the passenger-side door open with his right foot. The Uzi in his hands was pointed out the door. Anders was standing at one end of the doorway in the rear, holding his shotgun at the ready. The Nicaraguans were at the other end.

  Severino smiled. They’d caught up with the bastard in nothing flat. Where are you, asshole? Just stick your head out and I’ll blow your ass away.

  Three blasts split the air and the chopper suddenly yawed to the right, throwing him back in his seat.

  “What the—”

  Cochrane’s yell cut him off. “Shit! He’s on the left. He’s blowing the shit out of us!”

  Severino glanced past Cochrane out the window on the left and saw a figure rhythmically pumping round after round into the chopper from a short black shotgun. For a moment, he was mesmerized by the sight, and then
the chopper whirled past the man’s position. Rage flowed through him.

  “Turn this piece of shit around now! I want that bastard dead!” Severino yelled, looking wildly from left to right, trying to find the shooter again in the dark. Cochrane slowly wheeled the big machine around, trying to bring the target back into their field of fire again. Severino tightened his seat belt and braced his foot against the door frame.

  Anders and the two Nicaraguans began laying down a hail of fire even before the target came into view. Without thinking, Severino responded to this uncontrolled firing by firing a burst from his own weapon out the door. As the machine wheeled around, the speed of the turn increased, giving Severino only seconds over the area where the target was a moment ago. Severino turned toward Cochrane, enraged.

  “What the fuck are you doing?”

  “I’m trying to get—”

  The windshield on Cochrane’s left exploded, cutting him off. Cochrane instinctively raised his left hand up to cover his eyes. Severino heard Anders yelling over the rapid series of booms coming from outside the chopper.

  “He’s behind the tree! Get down!”

  The shock of the attack paralyzed Severino. The chopper whirled around, again putting the shooter on the blind side of the chopper. Severino turned to yell at Cochrane, but stopped when he saw his face. Blood was pouring down from a gash on his forehead into his eyes. The pilot was struggling to keep the blood out of his eyes, without losing control of the chopper. As Severino watched, the chopper started to slide downward and to the left. He looked out the front window and involuntarily started to stand up when he realized how close they now were to the giant fir trees on the far side of the slope.

  “Shit! We’re going down!”

  Anders looked into the cockpit when he heard Severino’s yell. His eyes were drawn instantly to the front windshield. As they watched in horror, the hovering machine slued in slow motion into a stand of snow-covered firs. For a second, the big machine seemed to rest on the nearest tree. Then the rear rotor shattered against the heavy boughs and the chopper began to plunge downward.

  San Bernardino Forest

  December 5, 1999 / Sunday / 4:05 a.m.

  As soon as the chopper hit the trees, Caine ran down the slope to the far side of the Arctic Cat and pushed it upright. A few of the gauges were shattered and he could smell gas, but the engine came to life when he punched the ignition. As Caine raced up the next hill, he glanced over his shoulder. The chopper was plunging into a dense stand of trees.

  Caine stopped a half mile away from the downed chopper and checked the compass on the dash. The needle pointed due west. If he stayed on this heading, he should be able to see the lights of Snow Valley within twenty minutes. When he put the Cat in gear again, Caine realized that he’d left his winter coat back at the ambush site in his rush to escape. Now that the adrenaline in his system was beginning to recede, he could feel the intense cold. If he didn’t find shelter soon, hypothermia would begin to take hold.

  As he drove through the dark forest, Caine tried to ignore the cold and focus on what he would do when he reached the town. Snow Valley was a small town, with only three or four small inns. Whoever was after him could pull up a list of these places on the Internet, or just stop by the local coffee shop and ask about nearby accommodations. With that information in hand, finding out whether a guest had arrived within the last hour or two would just require a phone call.

  Caine wasn’t prepared to take that risk. He had to find a place to stay where they couldn’t find him. Like most of the resort towns in the area, Snow Valley had a number of weekend cabins. At this time in the morning, he should be able to break into one of these homes without drawing attention, and find food and water. More important, he should be able to find a coat. Once the sun came up, he could work on getting transportation off the mountain.

  CHAPTER

  FOURTEEN

  Austin, Texas

  December 5, 1999 / Sunday / 4:15 a.m.

  Paquin was advised of Mason’s attempts to contact him as the Learjet passed over the West Coast of Florida. He dialed Mason’s private line.

  “Mason here.”

  “It’s Paquin.”

  “Where … never mind that. We have a problem.”

  The strain and impatience in Mason’s voice surprised Paquin. Mason was typically calm, even cold, in their conversations.

  “This problem must be eliminated quickly and quietly,” Mason said.

  Paquin didn’t respond and Mason continued.

  “A reporter from the Statesman discovered something … information that could severely damage the company. The reporter is dead, but we have—”

  “Were there any complications?” Paquin interrupted.

  “No. Vargas will fill you in,” Mason said. “We have two other problems. The reporter sent a package containing the damaging information to a lawyer here in Austin. Your people have the shipping receipt, so we know the package will arrive on Monday, by FedEx. You have to get that package, before anyone opens it. I don’t care how—”

  “We’ll get the package,” Paquin said quietly.

  He considered the information. What could the reporter have discovered that was so damaging? All of Helius’s black ops were under his supervision. Tying one of those operations back to Helius would be extremely difficult. All of his people worked for corporate blinds in countries that took their secrecy laws seriously, and he would have been alerted if anyone had started to investigate.

  “Very well. Our second problem is more complex. There’s another individual who’s a threat. In fact, he’s an even greater threat than the reporter. Your lieutenant, Severino, assured me that this problem would be eliminated last night, but it’s after 4:00 a.m. and I’ve heard nothing. I need answers, Mr. Paquin, and I need them now,” Mason said, cold anger in his voice.

  Paquin had a number of questions for Mason, but this was not the time, and the red call-waiting button on the Airfone was blinking. After what Mason had just told him, he wanted to take the call. It had to be from either Vargas or Severino.

  “I’ll deal with the problem.”

  “Do that,” Mason said and hung up.

  Paquin picked up the other line.

  “Paquin.”

  “It’s Vargas. Severino and his team are in deep … a critical situation. He needs to talk with you. You can reach him on his cell.”

  “I see,” Paquin said.

  He dialed Severino’s cell phone.

  “Severino here.”

  “This is Paquin. What’s the status of your mission?”

  There was a distinct hesitation, and then Severino spoke in a tightly controlled voice. His description of the mission plan struck Paquin as overkill, but he didn’t make any comment. Severino typically favored muscle over stealth, and the pressure from Mason would only have exacerbated the tendency. Severino’s description of the events became louder and harsher as he continued.

  “An hour ago, we landed about a mile from the target’s cabin. Four of us approached the site. We were setting up a perimeter when the target fired some kind of flare into the sky. The fucking thing exploded and blinded us. That shit—”

  “Go on,” Paquin interrupted.

  “The target used the flare as a diversion and took off into the forest on a snowmobile. We followed his tracks in the chopper. The bastard, he set up an ambush. He waited until the chopper dropped down to investigate what looked like a crash, and then he took out the chopper with a shotgun. That fuck—”

  “Mr. Severino, I need to know your situation, no more. Are we clear?”

  Paquin’s interruption choked off Severino’s tirade.

  “Clear. The crash site is several miles from the cabin. It’s deep in the forest, so it should remain out of sight for a while. We suffered minor injuries, but everyone can walk out of here. The target escaped in the direction of the town on the snowmobile. We need to get rid of this wreck, we need directions out of here, and … shit, we’ll need t
ransport.”

  Paquin was stunned by the scope of the disaster. They would have to move quickly to get the situation under control.

  “Give me the GPS coordinates for the crash site,” Paquin said.

  Severino had anticipated the request and relayed the coordinates to Paquin from his handheld GPS device. Paquin instructed Severino to hold.

  Four minutes later, Paquin came back on the line.

  “Walk due south of your position for a mile and you’ll hit a dirt road. Follow that road southwest for a half mile to a paved road. Go west on that road for another three miles. That will put you in the town of Snow Valley. You’ll be contacted within twenty minutes with more information.”

  Paquin leaned back in the leather seat after the call and considered his options. He needed to deal with the crash site immediately. The chopper would have to come out in pieces to avoid discovery.

  Paquin picked up the phone and dialed Simon Vargas.

  “Vargas, it’s Paquin.”

  “Did you reach Severino?” Vargas said.

  “Yes. We need to get rid of that chopper … in pieces, quickly and quietly. I don’t want to use locals we can’t control unless we have no other choice,” Paquin said, thinking his way through the problem as he spoke.

  Vargas hesitated before responding.

  “There’s a way. Helius has an oil field services outfit in Long Beach. They repair the offshore rigs, so they should have top-of-the-line cutting and welding equipment there. If you can get me access to that equipment and another chopper, I can put it together.”

  “Where are you going to get the labor?” Paquin said.

  “Tijuana is two hours south. It’s full of chop shops. I have a contact there. He should be able to line up five or six cutters real quick, for a price. If everything works out, we can have that bird cut up and trucked out of there in twelve hours, max,” Vargas said.