Black Friday (or Black Market) - James Patterson [115]
Heavy machine gun fire welled up from below. The pilot temporarily revived, moaning, grabbed both his legs. The helicopter had begun to fall, to somersault and plummet helplessly. Parrish didn’t notice.
Carroll fired his M-16 at one of the attacking Cobras. The red light winked derisively—then the copter calmly disappeared from sight.
Carroll froze. He was pressed extremely hard into his helicopter seat Blood was rushing, swirling through his head. The police helicopter had suddenly flipped completely upside down.
Then the helicopter was in a dead fall, sailing and spinning into the gauzy gray nothingness of the Brooklyn Navy Yard below.
A flat black rooftop with a water tower mounted on it suddenly loomed enormously, coming as fast as another airplane at the, copter’s windshield. The flailing helicopter skimmed over an expanse of shadowy factory buildings a block long, at least. It missed a smoking industrial chimney by inches. The copter’s tail was clipped off by a high brick retaining wall.
A deserted grid of avenues and streets appeared through the windshield as the helicopter cleared the last building. Cars were parked in long, uneven lines up both sides.
Carroll reflexively grabbed at the controls. He knew what everything was, from too many trips in “Viet Nam, though not how to really use any of it. His body was trembling. Deep, jolting spasms flew up his spine.
He was beyond any compartment of fear he’d previously known. Beyond anything he’d felt in combat or police action. He was in a new realm of sensation—a clear, hard place where he seemed acutely conscious of everything going on around him.
This was the moment of impending death, he thought without real comprehension,
The helicopter’s belly cleanly sheared the rooftops off a half dozen parked cars. Carroll covered his face. He shielded the wounded police pilot as best he could with his body.
The helicopter struck the street on a side angle. It skidded, bounded violently. The copter’s belly issued a grinding shriek, and Carroll could feel his blood turn to ice.
Sparks, plumes of intense red flames, flew in every possible direction. Whole sides of parked automobiles, headlights and bumpers were effortlessly cut away. A red fire hydrant popped out of the cement like a bathtub plug.
The police helicopter, skidding on its side, finally slowed. It plowed to a tearing, screaming, crunching halt up against two crushed compact cars.
A man in a factory security uniform was running crazily, zigzagging down the deserted street toward the unbelievable accident.
“Hey, hey! That’s my car! That’s my car!
Carroll was cradling the badly wounded pilot, “Grab hold. You just hold me,” he whispered, hoping the man wasn’t already dead. “Just hold me, Luther.”
Then he was limping away from the burning helicopter wreckage. He was half-dragging, half-carrying the hulking NYPD pilot in his arms.
His eyes nervously searched the skies for the attacking Vets’ Cobras, but there was nothing there now.
Nothing at all.
The choppers might as well have been the vehicles of some unlikely nightmare. It was like being in the war again. It was exactly like combat duty.
Except that the helicopter crash had happened right here on the streets of Brooklyn.
Chapter 87
THE VETS CABS proceeded northeast, then almost due east across Brooklyn.
They were moving inexorably toward Monserrat. They were headed toward the appointed end of Green Band.
Erect and alert behind the wheel, David Hudson was experiencing a moment of anxiety. It had something to do with being this close to the end. They were less than seven minutes from the rendezvous point with Monserrat.
Hudson tried to concentrate as if he were entering a combat zone. Nothing could distract him from Green Band now.
Nothing could look mildly suspicious either…
Monserrat’s soldiers could be watching the streets from neighborhood rooftops