The Vets (Stephen Leather Thrillers) Read Free Page B

subconscious mind had recorded every step of his journey through the jungle and was now replaying it in reverse because it knew that if it made one wrong move he’d be dead. His breath came in ragged bursts and his arms pumped up and down as he ran, his eyes wide with fear, his muscles screaming in agony as his feet pounded on the jungle floor.
    He burst out of the jungle into the clearing and ran headlong towards the Huey, throwing himself into the pilot’s seat and pulling on the collective before he’d even sat down. The turbine whined and the blades speeded up until they were a blurred circle above his head. Relieved of the weight of its four passengers and cargo it soared almost vertically out of the clearing. From the corner of his eye he saw the four Special Forces men tear out of the undergrowth and point their guns at him. Red dots streamed past the Huey and up into the night and he heard a series of bangs behind him, thuds of metal against metal. He waggled his directional pedals frantically, jerking the slick from left to right to make himself less of a target, all the time increasing the power to the rotors to give it extra lift.
    It was only when the altimeter showed 2,000 feet that he relaxed. He put the Huey into a hover while he considered his next move. He pushed the right pedal and nudged the cyclic to the right and pointed the nose of the Huey east, towards Vietnam. A thousand thoughts crowded into his head, all seeking attention, but they were dulled by the conflicting emotions he felt: horror at what he’d seen, guilt for not doing anything to stop it, anger at the men behind the massacre, terror at being hunted, fear of what would happen to him when he got back to the ship. If he got back. He took deep breaths and tried to focus his thoughts, to bring some sort of order to his bewildered mind. When it happened it happened suddenly, without him knowing, the way water freezes, turning from liquid to solid so quickly that there is no borderline between the two states. One moment he was in total confusion, the next he knew with perfect clarity what he would do.
    He pushed the cyclic to the left and pressed the left foot pedal, swinging the Huey round and losing height because he didn’t increase power, until the helicopter was pointing in the opposite direction, due west. He hovered for a moment, steadying his breathing, concentrating on the block of ice in his mind, feeling the helicopter react to the small, almost imperceptible, movements of his hands and feet, absorbing the data from the instruments. He sighed, a deep mournful emptying of his lungs, then pulled on the collective and pushed the cyclic forward. The turbine roared and the Huey jumped forward as if eager to go. Within minutes the pilot had the Huey up to its maximum speed of 138 mph, flying low and level, just above the treetops, as the ice block slowly melted to cool, clear water.
     
    The rain had caught Paris by surprise and many of those walking down the Champs-Elysées on pre-Christmas shopping trips were shivering damply as they looked in the store windows. The weather forecast had been for a mild day, sunny even, and the Parisians were accustomed to taking the forecasters at their word. Anthony Chung trusted no one’s judgment other than his own, however, and he’d worn his black mohair coat after scrutinising the steely grey morning sky from the window of his penthouse flat in Rue de Sèvres. He wore a slightly smug expression as he walked out of the Charles de Gaulle Etoile Métro station and into the fierce rain-spotted wind that blew up the thoroughfare from Place de la Concorde.
    He walked by shops packed with some of the best names in European fashion: Guy Laroche, Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Nina Ricci; but above them, atop the centuries-old buildings, were the signs of the new economic masters of the world: Toshiba, NEC, and Ricoh. Even in France, one of the most chauvinistic of countries, the Japanese displayed their