“He’s injured, says he can’t tell what it was, but it’s huge…Some sort of animal…Bug…Something. He’s panicked.”
Trip got excited. “Bet that’s our monster!”
“Drewbeck Road in…Where’s Lutz?”
Milo got the map out in a jiffy. “South of the attack site, not too far west of where we are now.”
“Skippy, hang a left!”
Holly wasn’t much of a navigator, but Skippy got the idea, and I had to grab onto the straps again as Skippy banked us hard to the side. Sideways turned to down and all of the unsecured gear cases slid across the floor. “Easy there, Airwolf!” It would be nice for Skippy to say hang on or something before doing something crazy.
Milo began reading off numbers and Skippy corrected course. The light in the crew compartment changed as we flew toward the rapidly setting sun. “Be there…ten minutes.” The Hind began to rattle harder again as we shed altitude and gained speed. “See stupid elfs do that.”
“Cop’s radio went quiet,” Holly warned. “I’ll alert Julie.”
There’s a certain feeling that comes with the beginning of a new hunt. Excitement, tension, nervous energy, and yeah, even fear…It’s kind of addictive. I could feel it and I could see it on the faces of my companions. Except for Ed, who didn’t seem to care one way or the other. “Let’s blast this thing fast and save them the ride.”
“Think we should use the door gun?” Milo asked.
We still had a few minutes of daylight left, and after that we could always switch to night vision. “You ask that like there was any possible way I’d say no.”
Milo gave me a thumbs up, and went to unzipping the case that held the FN 240 machine gun. Trip opened an ammo can and lifted out one end of a belt of silver 7.62. We’d wait until we slowed down before opening the door to place it on its mount. It was cold outside, and I could only imagine what a two-hundred-mile-an-hour wind chill would be like. Between Milo’s belt-fed and one of Julie’s custom M-14s she’d left aboard if we needed a precise shot, we could rain down some hurt from the sky.
“Airplane above. Go same place as us,” Skippy said. “But go faster.” He sounded offended by that.
“Skip’s right.” Holly said. “Somebody just blew right past us.”
“Can you tell who it is?”
“No idea.”
“More Hunters?” I looked to Trip and Milo, but neither one of them had a clue either. “They must have heard the same distress call. Maybe they’re going to land in a field or something.”
“It’s a really rocky area,” Milo said. “Is it like a bush plane?”
“No, Milo. It’s a big, twin engine prop plane,” Holly said. “And they’re leaving us in the dust.”
“Propel-or,” grumbled Skippy. “Faster than Hind…but boring.”
“They’re way ahead now, hard to see them with the sun. Skippy, I’m borrowing these binoculars.”
That was the same type of plane the German team had rented. “Lindemann.” I know that we weren’t in this for Stricken’s stupid race, but I couldn’t help feeling angry. I’m competitive like that. Money is money, and this was MHI’s territory.“They’re probably going to land on the road.”
“Ooh, he’s good.” Milo whistled. “I wonder how much he had to bribe the rent-a-pilot to try that.”
Holly came back over the intercom. “Okay, I can see a sign for a garage ahead. Couple structures. No other buildings for half a mile. There’s the flashing lights from the police car right in front. I don’t see anything else around. There’s lots of big rocks and the road is curvy. I’m not seeing any long flat spots.”
“It’ll take the Germans a pass or two to find a place to land. We can still get in there before they do.”
“On the bright side, if they do pull it off, maybe they’ll be able to help that highway patrolman in time,” Trip said.
Leave it to Trip to be the voice of compassion. I’d been so distracted at being beaten by our rivals on our own turf that I hadn’t even thought of that unfortunate man. The sad truth of this business was that more often than not we got there to clean up after the monsters had done their thing, and actually rescuing people was rare. “True. But I still want to beat these assholes on principle.”
“Uh…guys?” Holly sounded surprised. “The Germans have gotten out.”
“What?”