The pilotâs body was held in place by the safety harness
Bolan reached out to help, but stopped when the Black Hawk began to spin out of control. Turning toward the side hatch, he worked the lever. It moved smoothly, but the hatch refused to budge an inch, held in place by the pressure of centrifugal force.
Bracing a boot against the minigun, Bolan grabbed the lever with both hands and exerted all of his strength. It felt as though the universe was rapidly spinning around him. The Black Hawk was a sitting duck, and the next burst of shells would blow him out of the air.
âCome on, you stubborn son of aââ The lever bent slightly, then the hatch moved and he was thrown from the spinning helicopter....
PROLOGUE
Northwest Atlantic Ocean
âRemember what happened to the southern United States when that offshore oil rig ruptured?â a man asked, easing an ammunition clip into the receiver of an AK-47 assault rifle. âNow just imagine the same thing happening to every offshore oil ring on the whole planet. It would beâ¦â He fumbled for the correct word.
âCatastrophic,â a woman supplied, working the arming bolt on her own weapon. âBut weâre not going to do that to every oil rig in the world, just the ones around the British Isles. Maybe fifty or sixty million will die, not a couple of billion.â
He grinned. âBut still, something to think about, eh?â
âOh, shut up and concentrate on your work,â another man growled, removing the clip from his assault rifle to spray some military lubricant into the receiver.
Flying at maximum speed, three massive C-160 Hercules transport planes maintained a tight formation as they cruised dangerously low over the Atlantic, just below the American coastal radar net.
On the distant horizon a raging squall, a sudden summer storm, churned the ocean in unbridled fury, and choppy waves sprayed the bellies of the huge airplanes with layers of slick moisture that flowed smoothly away from the steady stream of air churned by the powerful Allison engines.
Inside the planes, the low hum of the turboprop engines was a palpable presence among the grim passengers, and conversation was difficult, but not impossible. They were all dressed in loose civilian clothing, totally inappropriate for long-distance air travel, and heavy fur parkas.
âSoâ¦was this the first time you everâ¦you know?â a bald man asked, his voice tight with emotion. There was a bloody bandage on the side of his head where an ear had been, and his fur collar was stained dark red.
âKilled anybody?â a woman replied, her hands busy reloading an AK-47 assault rifle. âYes, of course.â The curved magazine slid easily into the receiver, and with a jerk of the arming bolt, the deadly weapon was ready for business again.
âFirst time for me, too,â another man added, disassembling his own weapon to clean the interior.
âNever saw so much blood in my life,â an older man whispered.
âShut up and concentrate on your work,â the first man growled, irritably touching the bandage. Then he savagely jerked out the clip from his assault rifle and placed it aside.
The entire group had been practicing for the past hour, disassembling an old AK-47, only to put it back together and then take it apart once more in an endless learning ritual. Naturally, all of them were familiar with hunting rifles and such, but nobody had any military training. How could they? Iceland had no army or navy, only a national police force. This bizarre Russian weapon, a combination of a 7.62 mm machine gun and 30 mm grenade launcher, was as foreign to them as the dark side of the moon. As was murder.
Killing for food, they understood. That was part of life. However, taking the life of another human was something horribly new, and most of them looked a little queasy from the recent slaughter. True, it had been necessary, but still extremely disagreeable.