Vanishing Point - Marc Cerasini [92]
The CTU agents obtained this pair from Your Desert Experience, a establishment on the outskirts of town that catered to tourists. Brad Wheeler and his brother Damon, the "longhairs in charge" as Morris put it, were happy to provide maps and suggest routes. They were happy because Nina had used her CTU credit card to pay them more money than the vehicles were worth "to rent them for an unspecified length of time." The smiling twins had even loaded the rails onto trailers and drove everyone to a site in the desert where they could get a head start.
Nina glanced over her shoulder, saw a cloud of dust trailing her six. That was Curtis, at the wheel of his own machine. He had no trouble keeping up with her, despite the blasted landscape.
"Can you raise anyone?" she asked her passenger.
Morris shook the radio in his hand. "Someone is jamming us pretty thoroughly," he shouted. "Either the Chinese, or our own military."
Nina came over a rise too fast to see the boulder, so there was no avoiding it. Not even the independent suspension system could deal with a strike like that. The front tire bounced off the rock, the sandrail leaped into the air, only to crash to the ground again. Morris' head banged against the roll bar before he was slammed back down in his inadequately-cushioned seat.
Morris adjusted the helmet, too large for his bald head, and moaned. "Mummy, are we there yet?"
Nina glanced at the terrain map taped to the dashboard.
"Not even close," she replied.
* * *
7:56:29 a.m. PDT
Over Emigrant Valley
Jack had just maneuvered over the top of the low mountain range. Now he put the Little Bird into a sharp dive. Descending into the valley, he spotted a plume of smoke in the distance. Jack knew he was over the base now, and fast approaching the edge of the runway, though it was still a mile or more away.
Peering through his mini-binoculars, Jack realized the smoke rose from the smoldering wreckage of the Boeing 737 sprawled across the scorched and pitted runway. Beyond the hazy curtain he could see the hangars.
Jack lowered the binoculars in time to see movement out of the corner of his eye. He immediately dropped the chopper lower, so he was skimming the desert at less than fifty feet. He glanced over his shoulder, spied the object streaking toward his aircraft on a plume of white smoke.
He waited until the last possible moment before he twisted the controls and spun the helicopter out of the path of the Stinger hand-held ground-to-air missile. Jack had timed his dodge just right — the sudden turn came too late and too fast for the missile's homing system to compensate. The Stinger struck the desert in a yellow flash.
Then Jack saw another plume of smoke ahead of him, two more to either side. He found himself pinned in the middle of a three pronged missile attack. No matter which way Jack turned, the Little Bird would be blown out of the sky.
The only way to go was down.
Jack cut power, pushed the chopper into a dive. At fifty feet, it took less than a second for the chopper to strike the sand. The impact bent the landing struts, and the helicopter teetered precariously on shattered legs. Jack spit blood, then released his safety belt.
Before the Little Bird tumbled onto its side, Jack dived out of the cockpit. Landing feet first, he sprinted for any cover he could find. Legs pumping, he did not look over his shoulder, even when he heard the chopper's whirling rotor blades bite into the ground, then shatter.
Their homing devices attracted by the still-spinning rotor, all three Stinger missiles struck the helicopter. The explosion caught Jack Bauer in its fiery grip. Helpless, the CTU agent was swept up like a grain of sand in a sandstorm.
21THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 8 A.M. AND 9 A.M. PACIFIC