settled into the pilot’s right-side seat, Scar Face on the left. Sybil and I in the back. The same relative positions as yesterday. Except that Scar Face, caught by surprise, did not have a weapon, at least showing, although there could be a pistol holstered under his fatigue blouse. And Sybil, instead of her sawed-off scatter gun, had the big, two-handed, awkward Uzi. Better and better.
Birdsong wound up the engine and we lifted off fast with a head-snapping bounce. That was the time to hit them. In one motion, my right hand went out to pin the barrel of the machine gun while I rolled my hips toward Sybil, bringing my left leg up and over, cocking my knee to clear the backs of the front seats, arching my foot, and then releasing all that muscle tension and kinetic motion into a point on her forehead. Her head struck the rear bulkhead with a thunk that could be heard above the rotors. Continuing my body twist, I flipped over almost onto my stomach, catching myself and pushing up with my left hand against the seat cushions. Bracing a foot somewhere on Sybil’s neck and shoulder, I dove forward over the back of Scar Face’s seat, drawing in my right fist and then pistoning it, with my whole moving weight behind it, into his quickly turning face. His body recoiled into the control stick and the instrument panel.
By this time, Birdsong had the helicopter about thirty feet in the air and moving forward. He had instinctively pulled back on the stick when I erupted in the cabin, and that motion saved us from nosing in when Scar Face’s body pushed the stick forward.
“Fly!” I screamed at Birdsong.
My hands scrambled across the front of Scar Face’s fatigues trying to haul him off the controls and also to kill him. The blow had just barely stunned him; he was blindly fighting me and working his hands under his blouse to get that holstered pistol. I would have climbed into the front with him, except my belt buckle had caught against the seat’s back frame. I was stretched across the length of the cabin and could feel Sybil stirring down near my feet.
Sensei Kan had always warned us about head shots. The face is full of small bones and teeth, he’d say; they cost your opponent nothing in losing them except pain, but these sharp little bones damage your hands when you strike against them. The skull, fragile as a porcelain vase, is still well protected by cushioning layers of muscle, cartilage, and hair. Also, a blow to the head is too variable: The same force that will kill one man may not even distract another. Better to go for the body structure, the joints, and the nerves, Kan would say.
I would have, Sensei, I really would have, if human bodies sitting in a confined space offered any better—more structural —targets. So here I was, caught on my stomach between two half-stunned terrorists who still had their guns.
The other thing Kan had always said was: When you run out of options in the middle of a fight, don’t stop moving.
And my internal battle computer said that, based on elapsed time alone, Sybil needed to be hit again. I slid down off the seat back, twisted to face her, and let fly with a one-two-three-four-five series of straight punches to the base of her throat. I then snatched the Uzi from her loose fingers and whirled to see what Scar Face was doing.
He was crouching behind the seat cushion, exposing just the top of his head, two eyes, and the muzzle of the biggest pistol I had ever seen. Clearly he was afraid: The whites of his eyes showed all around as he tracked my movements. His gun jerked right and left trying to get a bead on me without hitting Sybil. I pulled the Uzi’s trigger and unloaded a full clip through the back of his seat. The roar drowned out all the noise of rotor wash and engine. The inside of the windshield fogged up with star cracks and blood.
Chapter 6
Billy Birdsong: Dolabella
I was braced for the impact when the big terrorist’s body—what was left of
Birdsong wound up the engine and we lifted off fast with a head-snapping bounce. That was the time to hit them. In one motion, my right hand went out to pin the barrel of the machine gun while I rolled my hips toward Sybil, bringing my left leg up and over, cocking my knee to clear the backs of the front seats, arching my foot, and then releasing all that muscle tension and kinetic motion into a point on her forehead. Her head struck the rear bulkhead with a thunk that could be heard above the rotors. Continuing my body twist, I flipped over almost onto my stomach, catching myself and pushing up with my left hand against the seat cushions. Bracing a foot somewhere on Sybil’s neck and shoulder, I dove forward over the back of Scar Face’s seat, drawing in my right fist and then pistoning it, with my whole moving weight behind it, into his quickly turning face. His body recoiled into the control stick and the instrument panel.
By this time, Birdsong had the helicopter about thirty feet in the air and moving forward. He had instinctively pulled back on the stick when I erupted in the cabin, and that motion saved us from nosing in when Scar Face’s body pushed the stick forward.
“Fly!” I screamed at Birdsong.
My hands scrambled across the front of Scar Face’s fatigues trying to haul him off the controls and also to kill him. The blow had just barely stunned him; he was blindly fighting me and working his hands under his blouse to get that holstered pistol. I would have climbed into the front with him, except my belt buckle had caught against the seat’s back frame. I was stretched across the length of the cabin and could feel Sybil stirring down near my feet.
Sensei Kan had always warned us about head shots. The face is full of small bones and teeth, he’d say; they cost your opponent nothing in losing them except pain, but these sharp little bones damage your hands when you strike against them. The skull, fragile as a porcelain vase, is still well protected by cushioning layers of muscle, cartilage, and hair. Also, a blow to the head is too variable: The same force that will kill one man may not even distract another. Better to go for the body structure, the joints, and the nerves, Kan would say.
I would have, Sensei, I really would have, if human bodies sitting in a confined space offered any better—more structural —targets. So here I was, caught on my stomach between two half-stunned terrorists who still had their guns.
The other thing Kan had always said was: When you run out of options in the middle of a fight, don’t stop moving.
And my internal battle computer said that, based on elapsed time alone, Sybil needed to be hit again. I slid down off the seat back, twisted to face her, and let fly with a one-two-three-four-five series of straight punches to the base of her throat. I then snatched the Uzi from her loose fingers and whirled to see what Scar Face was doing.
He was crouching behind the seat cushion, exposing just the top of his head, two eyes, and the muzzle of the biggest pistol I had ever seen. Clearly he was afraid: The whites of his eyes showed all around as he tracked my movements. His gun jerked right and left trying to get a bead on me without hitting Sybil. I pulled the Uzi’s trigger and unloaded a full clip through the back of his seat. The roar drowned out all the noise of rotor wash and engine. The inside of the windshield fogged up with star cracks and blood.
Chapter 6
Billy Birdsong: Dolabella
I was braced for the impact when the big terrorist’s body—what was left of
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