Cobra Strike Read Online Free Page B

begin strafing or fire their rockets, the three Americans and
     the Afghan tribesmen had time to scramble back into a jumble of big boulders at the lower lip of an old landslide. The two
     gunships whapped into them with rockets, a pair from each ship, but all these did was crack open some of the boulders and
     send blasts of loose stones hurtling through the air. The men on the ground kept their headsdown and got off with a few scratches and minor burns. Then the gunships swung sideways and raked the rocky landscape with
     their flex guns. The Afghan with the light machine gun emptied a couple of drums at the choppers, but they kept changing their
     hover levels, and their powerful guns forced him into only occasional short bursts from the cover of rocks.
    Sayad Jan ran like a crazy man from rock to rock, the Russian gunners ripping the stone into white powder with a tearing staccato
     of bullets. He spoke a few words in each man’s ear and moved on to the next. When he came to Baker, he twisted one hand above
     his head like a chopper rotor, pointed to his feet, made a small jump, and waved his Kalashnikov in the American’s face. Baker
     nodded urgently that he understood.
    He yelled to the other two, not far away. “Russian bastards want to keep us pinned down here while they land troops to take
     us on the ground.”
    The Afghans were already moving out, under the covering fire of the light machine gunner, who had now abandoned all caution
     and was trying to match Turner’s feat of taking out a door gunner on one of the gunships. He didn’t succeed, but he kept the
     two choppers from coming in close enough to prevent all ground movement.
    Baker and Winston followed Turner. Bullets zinged off the rocks around them as they ran from cover to cover, not wasting time
     firing at the gunships but trying to keep solid rock between them and the door gunners. Baker and Winston blindly followed
     at first, believing that Turner was leading them to safety. In an instant of horror they realized that they were not running
     but attacking! It was too late now to back off—they had to keep going.
    Three Russian slicks were unloading personnel. Two were settled on the landing zone, a small, naturally level area on the
     rocky, scrubby slope, and the third was hovering to the rear with no room to touch down till one of the others lifted off.
     It hovered thirty feet up with armed men in fatigues standing out on its skids, ready to go. Turner blew two of them off with
     a burst of fire from his AK-47, and they toppled headlong to the ground below. Baker knocked someof the men to their knees in the slick’s doorway, and Winston drew zigzag lines across the bubble and either hit the pilot
     or took out one of the controls, causing the chopper to nose down. The stricken machine swung wildly sideways, losing altitude
     fast. The main rotor hit the ground, each blade snapping on contact, and the chopper’s carcass thumped on the rocks like a
     landed fish.
    Baker and Winston were kind of surprised that it didn’t explode into flames, like downed choppers always did on TV. The three
     Americans cut down the men trying to crawl out of the wreck. They had forgotten all about the other Russians already on the
     ground from the other two slicks. Their blood was roused—they no longer thought of themselves as vulnerable; they no longer
     thought of themselves at all. They were now instruments of death against the Soviet invaders, fighting as much out of their
     own personal rage as for Afghan freedom. Lucky for the Americans, Sayad Jan and his men kept these Soviet troopers occupied.
    One of the two slicks on the landing zone lifted off maybe fifteen feet into the air, but then landed again immediately. Maybe
     the pilot got radio orders to put down. The other chopper stayed where it was, resting on its skids on the ground, its rotors
     turning and whipping up dust. The gunships were nowhere in sight, leaving the firefight to the Soviet