Read Online Day One (Book 2): Choices by Michael Mcdonald - Free Book Online Page B

comes back! My mind again screamed to me. I listened and hauled ass.
    The helicopter was now within grasp and I watched from cover as Johnny made his approach, scanned the area a few times, and then made his way up to the aircraft. I was certain that if anything was going to happen, this would be the time. I flicked the safety off my weapon and took a single glance toward my secondary route, in the event that things spiraled out of control and planned how I’d get there through a hail of gunfire. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, not to mention the fact that I would have to run in order to make it to the fence, and that put Kember in greater danger than me.
    “Don’t let this go down wrong, I beg of you,” I said to the man upstairs softly.
    A chill ran up my spine as I got the thumbs up from Johnny. I tightened the grip on my weapon, said another quick prayer and gave him a thumbs up in return.
    The night was calm and windless. No sounds scurried up from the nearby pond, no animals calling into the night and singing their lonely songs. It was as if there was no one alive but Johnny, Kember, and I. That was bad, as there would be nothing to mask the startup of the aircraft, which for all intense and purposes would be extremely noticeable… and very loud.
    I watched with great anxiety building as Johnny fumbled around in the cockpit and I began to worry that maybe he couldn’t fly the bird as he had stated earlier. Perhaps he had gotten a bit ahead of himself, thinking it would be easy. I felt the need to turn and run back to the small room and let him deal with what was surely to come any second now.
    I was about to turn when I heard a foreign noise and looked to see the aircraft starting up. There was a slight whine, which was followed several seconds later by the turbine engine kicking in and powering up. He’d done it, the bird was coming alive and soon every soldier on the base would be rushing out to stop us. I couldn’t let that happen.
    “Here it goes,” I said and dug in to my firing position. I had been versed lightly on the use of firing sectors. To explain it in layman’s terms, it just meant that my weapon only had so many degrees in either left or right in which I could shoot before I’d cross my firing line and accidentally shoot the wrong people. From where I was oriented, I covered from four o’clock to eight o’clock. Anything past eight was a danger to Johnny and anything less than four shouldn’t be there in the first place. 
    The rotor blades began to spin and pick up speed. The whooshing sound they made cutting through the air increased and I felt my heart pull itself back up into the middle of my chest. The turbine whined heavier and I loved the sound it made. I had to physically pull myself back into the moment to cover the tent fronts to my left, in case the soldiers scrambled out them faster than first thought. The wind from the steel bird flooded out in all directions and having my NVG’s on kept me from having to look away.
    Within sixty seconds the aircraft was maintaining itself and ready to fly. Johnny waved for me to approach and I did. Even with all the heavy gear on and my Daughter snuggly in the jerry rigged backpack, I was amazed at how quickly I was able to cover the short distance to the aircraft. I reached the door on the right side of the bird, opened the rear one and crawled in. “Can we go now?” I yelled to Johnny, although with his helmet on and the blasting sound from the whipping blades and roar of the turbine, he didn’t hear me at first.
    He turned to see what I was doing and I asked again. He pointed to a headset just above my head. I put them on and screamed into the mic, deafening him by accident. I pulled Kember from the backpack, she was very much awake now and crying, although under the mechanical tempest, I was unable to hear her.
    “Can we go now?” I asked.
    “Get up front!” Johnny shouted to me.
    I took the headset off and was back out on the ground,