Page 29 - Archangel

fury under fire

They started taking fire from several shooters, the muzzle flashes
blinking like satanic fireflies. Seconds later, rounds started thudding into
the bateau’s thick wooden gunwales and, worse, pinging off the Honda
outboard motor cowling. Forced to compartmentalize Layla’s loss for later,
Skye and Ndara were fighting for their lives, here and now.
Relying on his special operations training, Ndara had started the
motor but then hit the deck as tracers streaked inches over their heads
and buried themselves in their hapless craft. Reaching up and guiding
the stick from below the gunwales, the Kenyan artfully reversed course
180 degrees and pointed the bow back from whence they came without
swamping themselves. But the fire was intensifying. While helping screen
themselves from the bullets, the exposed outboard motor upon which
their survival depended could not deflect many more rounds and still
get them home.
Over the motor’s roar, Skye screamed, “Change course 90 degrees.
The Hutu bastards pre-vectored our approach. Come about NOW!”
In an incredible show of seamanship, Ndara changed the yawing,
groaning bateau’s course to a new heading running parallel to the beach.
Reaching again into his captain’s bag under the bench seat, Skye this time
retrieved the HK-91 and stood beside a shocked Ndara at the stern as a
barbering bullet blew a lock of Skye’s hair airborne.
At their new course, most rounds from the shoreline shooters finally
started falling short. The deadly exception came from a sniper in a high
tree near the shore’s waterline. Skye signaled Ndara for a brief deceleration.
Knowing the H&K’s limitations from a distance, Skye slammed in a new
extended ammo clip, then arose slightly from his crouch and started
walking a lightning–like stream of fire into the tree’s crown of vegetation.
The last muzzle flashes ceased, as MacIain’s blanketed barrage of fire must
have at least wounded the sniper, but not before a final, lucky round
glanced off the motor cowling. Peering back at his colleague who had
worked navigational miracles, MacIain noticed a ‘through and through’
hole in Ndara’s lucky bush hat still tethered to his neck but blown from
his head. A superficial wound now furrowed through the curly gray hair
on his scalp.

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