"James Clavell - Whirlwind" - читать интересную книгу автора (Clavell James)

"thank god for that," scot gavallan said. "you set to get out?"

"how's the surface look to you?"

scot heard the caution in lochart's voice, instantly aborted the landing, put on power and went into a hover. christ, he thought, almost in panic at his stupidity, if tom hadn't nudged me i'd've put down there and christ knows how deep the snow is or what's underneath! he steadied at a hundred feet and searched the mountainside. "thanks, tom. what about over there?"

the new clearing was smaller, a few hundred yards away across the other side of the valley, lower down with a good escape route if they needed one, and protected from the wind. the ground was almost clear of snow, rough but serviceable.

"looks better to me too.,' lochart slid one earphone away and looked back. "hey, lean-luc," he shouted over the engines, "you all right?"

"yes. i heard something go."

"so did we. jordon, you all right?"

"course i'm all offing for gawd's sake," jordon shouted back sourly. he was a lean, tough australian and he was shaking his head like a dog. "just banged my bleeding head, didn't 1? bloody offing bullets! i thought scot said things were getting bleeding better with the bleeding shah gone and khomeini bleeding back. better? now they're bleeding firing at us! they've never done that before what the eff's going on?"

"how the hell do i know? probably just a trigger-happy putter. sit tight, i'm going to take a quick look. if the undercart's okay we'll set down and you and rod can make a check."

"how's the offing oil pressure?" jordon shouted.

"in the green." lochart settled back, automatically scanning the dials, the clearing, the sky, left, right, overhead, and below. they were descending nicely,

two hundred feet to go. through his headset he heard gavallan humming tonelessly. "you did very well, scot."

"the hell i did," the younger man said, trying to sound matter-of-fact. "i'd've pranged. i was bloody paralyzed when the bullets hit, and if it hadn't been for you i'dtve gone in."

"most of it was my fault. i bashed the collective without warning. sorry about that but i had to get us out of the bastard's line of fire fast. i learned that in malaya." lochart had spent a year there with the british forces in their war against communist insurgents. "no time to warn you. set down as fast as you can." he watched approvingly as gavallan went into a hover, searching the terrain carefully.

"did you see who fired at us, tom?"

"no, but then i wasn't looking for hostiles. where you going to land?"

"over there, well away from the fallen tree. okay?"

"looks fine to me. quick as you can. hold her off about a foot."

the hover was perfect. a few inches above the snow, as steady as the rocks below though the wind was gusting. lochart opened the door. the sudden cold chilled him. he zipped up his padded flight jacket, slid out carefully, keeping his head well down from the whirling blades.

the front of the skid was scraped and badly dented and a little twisted but the rivets holding it to the undercarriage mounts were firm. quickly he checked the other side, rechecked the damaged skid, then gave the thumbs-up. gavallan eased off the throttle a hair and set her down, soft as thistledown.

at once the three men in the back piled out. jean-luc sessonne, the french pilot, ducked out of the way to let the two mechanics begin their inspection, one port, the other starboard, working back from nose to tail. the wind from the rotors tore at their clothes, whipping them. lochart was under the helicopter now looking for oil or gasoline seepage but he could find none, so he got up and followed rodrigues. the man was american and very good his own mechanic who, for a year now, had serviced the 212 he normally flew. rodrigues unclipped an inspection panel and peered inside, his gray-flecked hair and clothes tugged by the airflow.

s-g safety standards were the highest of all iranian helicopter operators, so the maze of cables, pipes, and fuel lines was neat, clean, and optimum. but suddenly rodrigues pointed. there was a deep score on the crankcase where a bullet had ricocheted. carefully they backtracked the line of the bullet. again he pointed into the maze, this time using a flash. one of the oil lines was nicked. when he brought out his hand it was oil heavy. "shit," he said.

"shut her down, rod?" lochart shouted.

"hell no, there may be more of those trigger-happy bastards around, an'

this's no place to spend the night." rodriguespulled out a piece of waste and a spanner. "you check aft, tom."