downs helos

“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,” yelled Lieutenant Mick Flaherty as he and his crew bent to run through the rotor wash from the big Sikorsky MH-60T Jayhawk. The pilot was already at the stick and the big General Electric gas turbines were filling the air with an urgent whine.

The normal crew of four ran with two extra men, both of them sharpshooters from the SEALs. A second crew ran toward the other helicopter. Both birds were painted with the red and white of the Coast Guard, though neither was actually attached to that service. This joint special operations group worked as extensions of the DMS Special Projects Office. They extended the reach and added extra muscle to the field teams based at the Pier and at Department Zero, the big office in Los Angeles. Most of the men and women in this unit were candidates for promotion to the DMS. Each of them had flown combat missions many times.

And all of them understood the severity of the current assignment.

Capture or kill Esteban Santoro.

Failure was not acceptable.

Flaherty slapped his people on the back as they climbed inside, then he went forward and slid into the copilot’s chair, put on his headset, and twirled his finger.

“Don’t take the scenic route, Duffy,” he yelled.

The pilot powered up and the heavy machine lifted free of the tarmac, then it swept around in a high-climbing turn, heading toward Oceanside.

There was a sudden piercing burst of static on the radio that stabbed Duffy and Flaherty and both men flinched back from it. “What the hell was that?” demanded the lieutenant. But the pilot didn’t answer. Instead he began yelling into the microphone.

“Power’s out,” he roared. “I’ve got a dead stick, repeat, I’ve got a dead stick.”

The engine stopped.

Just like that.

The blades continued to whip around, pushed by their own momentum, but then they stopped, too, as the helicopter suddenly tilted down toward the earth.

Like a dead bird, it fell.

Duffy screamed as he fought to restart the engines.

Flaherty screamed as he tried to help.

Inside the chopper, all of the men screamed.

All the way down to the unforgiving ground.

None of them saw the other helos cant sideways and fall, too.

-Kill Switch pg. 431-432, Kindle Edition.