Home Invasion - J. A. Johnstone [124]
One of the men carried a grenade launcher. Garaldo shoved the blonde into the arms of another man and took the grenade launcher. He loaded a grenade into it and brought the weapon to his shoulder, angling it toward the sky.
If whoever was in that helicopter thought they were going to help the Americans, they were in for a big surprise. Garaldo’s forces had already shot down one chopper today.
With any luck, the general himself would make it two.
All he needed was for those clouds of smoke to clear….
“General, we can’t really see what’s going on down there!” the pilot called over his shoulder to Stone.
“Get lower,” Stone ordered. It didn’t really matter what sort of fight was taking place in Home. Soon all the combatants would be dead. But with the deadly power of the gas on his side, he could afford to indulge his curiosity, he supposed. The apparatus was already hooked up. All he had to do was twist the valve, and that wouldn’t take but a second.
The helicopter swooped down through the smoke, and the propwash from the rotors helped to disperse it. The chopper emerged abruptly from the smoke above one end of what had to be Main Street. It was littered with shot-up cars and sprawled bodies. This was war, Stone thought, but it was about to be over.
“General!” the pilot suddenly screamed. “Incoming!”
Stone’s eyes widened as he looked past the man and saw something streaking toward the chopper. The pilot reacted instinctively, trying to swerve the helicopter out of the way.
Stone’s hand flashed to the valve on the gas canister.
Before he could turn it, something slammed into the chopper’s tail section and exploded. The impact jolted Stone off his feet. As he slammed to the deck, the aircraft began to spin wildly. Somebody was cursing at the top of his lungs. Stone groped toward the canister but before he could reach it, the damaged chopper crash-landed on the pavement in the middle of Main Street.
The pilot had done a masterful job of retaining some control and getting the bird down in one piece. It would never fly again, though. Flames broke out and spread toward the fuel tank.
The lieutenant, bleeding from a gash on his forehead suffered in the crash, grabbed Stone’s arm and tried to haul him to his feet. “Sir, we’ve gotta get out of here! Now!”
Stone struggled to reach the canister. He got his hands on it and ripped the tubing free. The valve was still closed, and the canister was intact. The deadly contents were still in there.
With his aide’s help, Stone staggered to his feet. The dozen or so FPS officers who were also in the helicopter looked to him for orders. They were shaken up and had some cuts and scrapes but seemed to be largely all right.
“Get out there and fight!” Stone barked as he waved a hand at the hatch while he cradled the canister against his chest with the other hand.
“Fight who, sir?” one of the men asked.
“Whoever’s out there, damn it! Everybody in this town is an enemy! Go, go, go!”
The men piled out of the chopper and started shooting as soon as their boots hit the pavement. In a matter of seconds, chaos once again reigned in Home as the three-way battle raged along Main Street.
Pain shot through Stone every time he took a breath. He had broken some ribs when he fell, he thought, and he had a hunch at least one of them had pierced a lung. He would soon be drowning in his own blood.
But that didn’t matter, because he wouldn’t live that long. He would die quickly and painlessly, with one twist of that valve. He would be the first to die, in fact, but the gas would spread and kill everyone else who breathed it. He could only hope that the winds would disperse it throughout the town and wipe out everyone, so the President’s hands would remain clean, and the media and the gullible voters would continue to worship at his feet and America would continue to be transformed into a country where the Jews didn’t run everything.
That was