Chapter 47 - The Fireline Defense
"He's bluffing," Donald Vance shrieked, his flexicuffs rattling as he threw himself against the fuselage of the helicopter. "The boy is a weakling! He spent two years begging me for commercial real estate loans in town! He doesn't have the stomach to strike a match!"
Kevin did not answer. He flipped the safety cover on the left toggle switch.
A sharp, electric *click* echoed across the paddock.
Fifty yards to the north, at the far edge of the landing zone where no one stood, a test charge detonated with a deafening *CRACK*. A geyser of black earth, rocks, and shattered roots erupted twenty feet into the air, showering the rotor blades of the transport with gravel.
The downdraft from the blades instantly sucked the sulfurous smoke into the turbine intakes. The engine coughed, a harsh, metallic rattle vibrating through the transmission housing as warning lights flared red within the cockpit.
"Pilot to Command!" the voice squawked through the contractor’s open radio. "We have foreign object debris in engine one! Turbine temperature exceeding limits! We must lift off or shut down immediately!"
"Shoot that boy!" Von Lange roared, pointing his cane at Kevin. "Shoot him now!"
The two contractors on the left raised their rifles, but before their fingers could squeeze the triggers, a volley of rifle fire erupted from the high ridge behind them. Laurent, firing with the steady, measured cadence of a French colonial marksman, placed three heavy rounds directly into the tail rotor hub of the black helicopter.
Hydraulic fluid sprayed across the grass in a bright red mist. The tail rotor shrieked as its seals failed, throwing off a cloud of vaporized lubricant.
"The bird is dead!" the lead contractor yelled, grabbing Von Lange by the arm. "Sir, we have no extraction! The aircraft is non-operational!"
Dorothy did not flinch, did not duck, did not move an inch from where she stood in the center of the clover. The wind from the failing rotors whipped her gray hair around her ears, but her gaze never left Von Lange’s eyes.
"Drop your weapons," Dorothy said.
Her voice wasn't loud, but in the sudden quiet between the dying turbine whines, it carried the weight of an iron anvil falling on stone.
"You have no jurisdiction here," Von Lange hissed, his face purple with rage. "You are peasants! You are nothing but caretakers of land that belonged to kings!"
"The kings lost their heads in 1793, Baron," Dorothy said, taking one measured step forward. "And the men who think they can steal a widow's home in Vermont usually find out that the dirt here is too hard to dig graves for strangers. Put the guns in the grass, or my son will throw the right switch. And there won't be enough left of your cashmere coat to make a rag for my milk cans."
The contractors looked at each other. They were professional mercenaries, paid to intimidate farmers and outrun local sheriffs, not to be vaporized in an old woman’s pasture for a trust fund that was already frozen in Zurich.
The lead operator lowered his carbine. With a deliberate, careful movement, he laid the weapon flat in the clover, stepped back two paces, and raised his open palms.
"Coward!" Von Lange screamed, lunging at the man with his walking stick. "I pay you thirty-thousand euros a week!"
"Then pay us to walk through an airport, Baron," the contractor spat, his Eastern European accent thick with disgust. "The birds are dead. The perimeter is blown. We are done."
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One by one, the other three men stripped off their chest rigs, laid their firearms beside the landing gear, and stepped away toward the southern boundary line, leaving Von Lange and Donald Vance standing alone beside the disabled aircraft.
***
