“My wife and I herded all the villagers up the mountain to an ancient fortress.”

The pilots and gunners in the Apaches adjusted their helmets with the monocle over the right eye. It was a revolutionary sighting system. The pilot or gunner could slave the chain gun to his helmet, allowing him to achieve accurate sighting on a target by making the chain gun track with his head movements, aiming wherever he looked.

“Viper Two. This is Viper One. We are clear to engage.”

“Time to give them hell for breakfast.”

Viper One turned the Apache in a sharp bank and then entered the main village square, hovering twenty meters off the cobblestones.

Amando Gervais and his copilot and gunner, Rico Sabas, sat side by side in the spacious cockpit of their Mi-8 Hip gunship, one of San Martin’s fleet of five helicopters.

The Mi-8 was Russian built and was an oldie but goodie. Production had continued despite the fifty-one years since the first one took to the skies. Utilized by half the military forces in the world, the Mi-8 was considered the most successful design worldwide.

Gervais lightly touched the collective control stick to raise the Mi-8 until it was five meters off the ground. At the same time, he eased the cyclic stick forward, slowly moving the Mi-8 up the rise and around the church and into the village square. Suddenly Gervais and Sabas froze, in a state of shock. Instead of a crowd of villagers with pitchforks and shotguns firing bird shot, Gervais and Sabas found themselves staring at an array of rocket launchers hung on the most malevolent, atrocious, and evil attack helicopter in the United States arsenal.

To Sam Fargo in the bell tower, there was no more terrifying apparition than the AH-64E Apache Longbow helicopter, especially when viewed head-on. It looked like a giant, grotesque bug that could never fly.

“Santa Maria,” muttered Sabas. “Where did that come from?”

“It’s black with no markings,” said Gervais, barely above a whisper.

“What’s it doing here?”

The answer never came.

They turned white and speechless when, in the blink of an eye, they saw a flash beneath the Apache an instant before they were blown to shreds.

“Target removed, Viper Two.”

“So I heard. Hold on. My target is locked and I’m firing.”

Down the hill a few miles away, another explosion sent fire and a dense cloud of smoke into the air.

“Viper One, second aerial target eliminated.”

“So much for their air force, Viper Two. Now let’s hit their infantry.”

“Cobra One here,” Sam Fargo cut in. “The trucks and armored cars are continuing toward the village.”

“How can they think they still have air cover?”

“They didn’t see your destructive nature. You were out of sight in the village, and Viper Two was hidden in the trees.”

“Thanks, Cobra,” said Viper One’s pilot. “Keep active as our spotter.”

“Will do,” said Sam. “Glad to be back in the saddle again.”

“Okay, Viper Two. We’ll start from opposite ends with the armored cars and work toward the middle of the trucks.”

“Engage before they recover. What do you want to lay on them?”

“Begin with the Hydra missiles to knock out the armored cars and then switch to the M230 cannon against the trucks and infantry. Viper Two, you take on the front armored car. I’ll engage tail-end Charlie.”

“Just watch our line of fire so we don’t kill each other.”

“Roger, Viper Two. We’ll be as careful as ladies at a tea.”

“Roger that, Viper One.”

With a touch of a button, he sent a Hydra missile across the village square into the armored car as it reached the top of the hill. Flames enveloped the disintegrating vehicle as it vanished in a vast fireball.

Sam laughed to himself. “I’ll ring the church bell every time you guys take out a truck.”

“I’ve never forgotten your sense of humor.”

“Nothing’s changed,” said Sam.

“Ready to squeeze the pumpkin, Viper One?”

“Let’s ride the dragon,” came the answer.

The Apaches showed their stuff by flying barrel rolls over the hill and turning loops through the village, passing a few feet from Sam’s observation post.

“Where are our Mi-8 copters?” asked Russell. He pulled himself back inside the armored car. “I don’t like the looks of this. There’s no sign of them, only two plumes of black smoke.”

“Could they have collided?”

Russell shook his head. “They came at the village from opposite directions. The smoke must be from targets they destroyed in the village.”

“Then why don’t they answer our transmissions?”

“That I don’t—” Before Russell could finish, the vicious AH-64E Longbow helicopter appeared thirty meters above, the pilot smiling and waving. The Longbow suddenly rolled upward and turned to a firing position. It not only looked deadly, it was deadly.

“Get out!” shouted Russell. “Jump!”

Ruiz didn’t have to be told twice. They burst from the armored car, leaving the gun crew inside. They dropped to the ground and rolled into a ditch on the side of the road.

Less than three seconds later, Russell heard the short scream of the Hydra 70 rocket as it impacted the armored car and blew its turret to pieces. In the black killing machine, the gunner had turned the muzzle of the M230 automatic cannon, mounted under the bow of the fuselage, toward the first truck in the convoy. Called a chain gun, it could spurt six hundred fifty thirty-millimeter rounds a minute. The blast of shells tore through the first and second trucks’ canvas-covered benches, carrying the twenty-five armed killers hired by San Martin, that quickly became fiery charnel houses.

There was no time for a warning. The third truck drove off the road, spilling out the men as soon as it rolled into the ditch. One man on the fourth truck threw back the canvas cover and began to shoot a mounted gun at the Apache.

“I’m taking fire, Viper Two. I could use help to take him out.”

“I’ll send him to dreamland. Just stay on your side of the convoy.”

Viper One could hear shells thumping into the rotor blades and fuselage, which was protected by twenty-six hundred pounds of shielding.

Viper Two dipped under Viper One and unleashed a torrent of fire that smashed the man in the truck bed and his heavy machine gun to a pile of morbid junk.

“Obliged to you, Viper Two.”

“You still in one piece?”

“Roger. Engaging truck five on my goal line.”

“Let’s finish the game.”

The flames from one truck, and the explosion and concussion from another, were still tearing the air when the last truck tried to escape across the field. It was quickly smashed to a halt. The survivors spilled to the ground, followed by a hail of shells pouring from the Apache like water from a fireman’s hose.

Both Apaches obliterated the rest of the convoy and circled the area, picking off any survivors who did not throw down their weapons or hold their hands up in surrender.

As Russell and Ruiz watched from the cover of the ditch along the side of the road, the heat from their flaming armored car was like torture to them. They lay there, staring in fascinated horror at the total destruction of the convoy by the phantom black helicopters.

“It makes no sense,” Russell muttered. “Who are they and where did they come from?”

“They are not Guatemalan military,” said Ruiz.

“Let’s not wait to find out,” Russell grunted, crawling away from the burning vehicle toward the nearest forest undergrowth.

“We have to find a place to lay low ’til it’s dark.”

“Sound thinking, my friend,” Russell said. “Follow me and keep low.”

“Where to?”

“Estancia Guerrero,” answered Russell. “We’ve got to get to Miss Allersby with a story to save our hides before another survivor makes it back.”