Nathan’s rifle bucked against his shoulder, but he hadn’t anticipated the level of agony it would cause. His vision grayed, then quit altogether. Blind and helpless, sudden dizziness and nausea hammered him. He remembered this sickening feeling well, recalled it with hideous clarity from his days spent in a Nicaraguan cage. He was seconds from passing out. How high was he perched in this root ball? Five or six feet? High enough to snap his neck on impact. As gravity pulled him headfirst toward the ground, his right leg slipped and hung up in the interior root tangle.

He felt and heard his shinbones snap.

Tib-fib. One-two. Oh man, that’s a bad deal.

I’m so sorry, Harv. Sorry I let you down.…

Just before his head struck the earth, Nathan Daniel McBride closed his eyes, and for the second time in his life, waited for the mercy of death to take him.

Chapter 30

Chapter  30

“ETA one minute,” General Mansfield said.

Flanked by two Black Hawks, Harvey flew Nathan’s Bell 407 toward the canyon. Sitting next to him, Mansfield was coordinating the approach as the V-shaped formation of helicopters screamed over the town of Dupuyer. Harvey glanced at his watch, early by nearly twenty minutes. Nathan would just have to deal with it. No way in hell Harvey was waiting the entire two hours.

“We don’t know what to expect up there,” Harvey said. “We could take ground fire from Bridgestone. He could do some real damage with a sniper rifle.”

“That’s true, but if your partner is still alive, Bridgestone won’t fire his weapon and give away his location. We don’t have a lot of options at this point. I’m not willing to put men on the ground until we know what’s going on.”

“Agreed,” Harvey said. “We’ll be lucky to see anything at all. If they’re engaged in a sniper fight, we won’t see either of them.”

“We should make a pass down the length of the canyon. Either McBride will signal us, or Bridgestone will shoot us. I hate to say this, but if Bridgestone managed to kill McBride, he might be long gone and it might be difficult to find your partner down there.”

Harvey didn’t want to think about that possibility. “Let’s have your two birds fly the southern and northern rims of the canyon while we fly down the middle.”

“Good plan.” Mansfield passed the orders along.

The three helicopters cleared the canyon’s rim and flew directly over the original landing zone where Nathan had set down. The Black Hawk on Harvey’s right peeled off to fly the north rim of the canyon. The Black Hawk on the port side made a similar maneuver toward the south rim. Harvey slowed the Bell and expertly followed the canyon’s streambed at thirty knots.