The second guy dropped to his belly and rolled. Mitchell fired on him, but Rutang's red smoke began wafting back over the hill, blanketing the entire area.

Even as Mitchell squinted hard, rounds suddenly chewed into the rocks at his shoulder, ricocheting and sparking, sending him down low behind the rock. He swore and caught his breath.

One of the Black Hawks wheeled overhead, the door gunner leaning hard into his M134, rounds and tracers lashing out into the jungle like a phosphorescent tongue.

Mitchell came back around the rock, blasted by rotor wash and smoke, but even through burning eyes he spotted the thug below, who was running straight up at him to avoid the minigun fire stitching into his path.

All three of Mitchell's rounds punched into the guy's chest. He staggered back, fell onto his side, and rolled right into the door gunner's fire.

Before Mitchell's lips could even curl in a smile, something flashed from within a tree cluster across the valley.

And from that flash came a fiery streak of light, an RPG to be sure, arrowing straight for the Black Hawk.

In the time it took for Mitchell to crane his neck, the rocket struck the chopper and detonated inside the bay. Rapt by the surreal image, Mitchell just stood there a second as the bird pitched and turned erratically, trailing smoke and descending directly toward him.

One of the door gunners, his body engulfed in flames, bailed out, dropping some thirty feet to the ground.

Mitchell blinked--and the enormity of the moment took hold. He dove onto his gut as the Black Hawk wailed over him, passing within twenty feet, one of its landing skids scraping into the rocks behind him as the bird continued on, over the hill, then suddenly plunged down toward the trees.

He couldn't see the chopper, but he heard the rotors chewing into the limbs and the horrific whining of its engine until a series of smaller explosions and loud creaking of metal echoed away.

"Scott, this is Rutang, over? Scott, this is Rutang?"

"I'm here," he answered, picking himself up out of the mud. "Somehow."

"I'm up to the edge with the NVGs. I think I see Captain Yano's guys out there."

"Tell him he needs to help secure this area. I'm going over to the chopper to see if anyone made it."

"Don't waste your time. I can see it from here. Nobody survived that."

"I'm going anyway. Be right back, out."

Mitchell rushed down the hill, then worked his way through the trees toward the column of smoke.

The other two Black Hawks were off to the west, both door gunners hosing down the mountains, their laser beams of lead flickering in an eerie light show.

At the top of the next hill, Mitchell paused to survey the crash site with his NVGs, panning 180 degrees around the forest.