The landing was more a controlled crash than a touchdown. The 212 came down hard on the skids, but they held. Murphy was already unsnapping his safety harness.
“Driver,” he said, smiling, “just keep her running—I’ll only be a minute.”
Opening the door, he stepped out and a few feet back and opened the cargo door. Then he removed a pair of snowshoes, which he attached to his feet. Pulling another coat over the one he was already wearing, he began to dig in a crate, placing the items he needed into a backpack.
“Hold down the fort,” he shouted to the front of the helicopter. “I’m going to set the charges.”
Gurt nodded, then watched as Murphy disappeared into the blowing snow. Then he began to play with his radio. He found little to hear, so he switched back to the regular frequency.
“SHERPA, Sherpa, Sherpa, this is the Oregon, over.” In the control room, Eric Stone looked at Hanley with worry.
“That’s the fifth time, nothing.”
“Sherpa, Sherpa, Sherpa, this is the Oregon, over.”
“Oregon, this is Sherpa,” Gurt answered. “Read you eight by eight.”
There was a two-second delay as the signal bounced off the ionosphere and down to the ship.
“Where are you?” Hanley said, taking the microphone.
“We’re on site,” Gurt reported. “Your man just left for the appointment.”
“We just intercepted a communication from the bad guys,” Hanley said. “Someone heard you go over and they’ve been asked to investigate.”
“This is not good, Oregon,” Gurt said quickly. “I have no way to reach Murphy and warn him. Plus, it’s going to take us some time to lift off.”
“Okay,” Hanley said, “we can send a signal to Murph’s beeper—we’ll tell him to return to where you are. In the meantime, keep a close eye for anyone approaching. If they do, you take to the air.”
“Send a message to Murphy to withdraw,” Hanley said to Stone, who quickly punched the commands into his keyboard.
“My visibility is around thirty to forty feet,” Gurt said, “and I’m not leaving Murph—no way.”
“No, we don’t want you to—” Hanley started to say.
“Oregon,” Gurt shouted over the radio. “There are Chinese troops coming through the snow.”
Murphy was bent over, placing the charges in the snow, when his beeper chirped. He finished attaching the detonation cord, then rose up and removed the beeper from his pocket.
“Damn,” he said, flipping the switch open so the charge could be remotely detonated. Then he pulled his M-16 around from his back on its sling and began heading back in the direction of the helicopter.
Gurt reached behind his seat and felt for a handgun in a rack. The Chinese troops were struggling through the thick snow, making slow but steady progress toward the Bell. They were holding rifles, but they had yet to take a shot.
Murphy stumbled along as fast as one could run on snowshoes. While he ran, he was folding out a grenade launcher. Reaching over his shoulder into the pack, he removed a rocket-propelled grenade and started fitting it into the launcher. He was on a sloping ridge, racing down, when he first caught sight of the Chinese troops. They were twenty-five feet from the Bell. Murphy estimated his angle and fired a grenade. It went over the heads of the Chinese troops and exploded. They flopped on their bellies in the deep snow.
“What the—” Gurt started to say as he turned and saw Murphy approaching in the distance.
Adding fuel to the turbine, Gurt tried to lift off. Nothing. Murphy was twenty feet away now and racing toward the helicopter. The first few Chinese troops began to rise from the snow and shoulder their rifles. Gurt started firing the handgun from the window. A couple seconds later, Murphy’s M-16 opened up.
Ten feet now. Gurt reached across and opened the copilot’s door. Murphy paused in his firing, removed his pack, placed it gingerly behind his seat and climbed inside, holding the M-16 in his lap. Gurt was firing the handgun and fiddling with the collective at the same time.
“Morning,” Murphy said when there was a moment of quiet. “Anything exciting happen while I was away?”
“We have no lift,” Gurt said before squeezing off a few rounds. “I’ll need to milk the cyclic to get us off the ground.”
The Chinese troops had stopped advancing. Now they were digging in to make their kill shot.
Murphy slipped between the seats into the rear and yanked open both cargo doors. “Quit firing and take us up, Gurt. I’ll handle these boys.”