Free 72 Hours (A Thriller) by William Casey Moreton Page B

backdrop of paradise, dark figures scurrying in every direction.  
    Archer felt the old juices kicking in, his muscles tensing, his eyes taking on a cool, calculating alertness.
    Kline said, “There have got to be hundreds.”
    “And it’s just getting started,” Archer said.   “This time tomorrow you won’t be able to count them, let alone control them.”
    The chopper banked to the east, making another sweep of the area.   Each pass revealed greater numbers of the growing multitude.
    Archer took a deep breath to center himself.   He would be dropping into hostile territory.   It was a battlefield down there.   He had to let his old instincts take over.   Instincts that had kept him alive in jungles and deserts and the crowded streets of cities from Hong Kong to Tokyo to Washington, D.C.
    Archer had been plucked from a beach in Santa Cruz and was being delivered immediately into the eye of the storm.   There had been no time to plan.   No time to strategize.   No opportunity to study the situation and formulate the best approach.   The mission had been simply thrust upon him without a moment’s notice.   As his eyes analyzed the chaos passing beneath him, his hand moved to the Beretta and his thumb bumped the safety off.
    “Like what you see?” Kline asked.
    “I’ve seen worse in far worse places,” Archer answered.
    “Set this thing down,” Kline instructed.
    The pilot frowned.   “Too much hostile fire.   We’ll have to drop away a half mile or so to avoid being hit.”
    Kline nodded.   “Do it.”
    The tail of the chopper came around as the nose dipped slightly east.   Archer felt his stomach sink as they dropped in altitude.  
    Archer’s brain was on autopilot.   “Drop me on a roof,” he said.
    The pilot nodded.  
    Archer caught a glimpse of a small grouping of dark silhouettes moving quickly between long shadows in the street.   His stomach tightened.   He touched the pistol grip of the Beretta for reassurance.   An instant later he had unfastened his lap harness and came up out of his seat.   He pulled the door handle, stepping out the door and down onto the chopper’s landing skid.
    “Just get me as close as you can,” he shouted at the pilot over the roar of the turbine.
    The chopper rocked and teetered momentarily as it hovered over the roof of a hillside home.   Archer could tell that the pilot was nervous.   They were in hostile surroundings and gunfire could come from any direction at any moment.   When the chopper was within about ten feet of the red terra cotta shingles, Archer released his grip and dropped.

CHAPTER 28

    He hit the roof off-balance, his footing less than stellar, and rolled out of control halfway down the length of the steep pitch.   He righted himself and sat up, surveying the swath of lawn beneath the overhang.   Then he stood with care and cautiously approached the edge of the roof.   Below the overhang was shadow.   It was a fifteen-foot drop with nothing down there to buffer his fall.
    Archer glanced up, saw the FBI helicopter rising into the night sky, the surrounding treetops swaying in the wake of the rotor wash.   The chopper hovered for a moment at a safe altitude before pivoting north to south and streaking off back toward the coast.   The beating of the rotors quickly faded.
    Archer took the Beretta in hand and then jumped from the roof.   He took the landing like a paratrooper, letting his knees flex, and rolling to one side.   Then he sprang up into a crouch and assessed his surroundings.
    An elderly man holding a small dog in his arms had come out of his house onto the lawn to investigate the ruckus.   “Excuse me, fellow, but this is private property.   What are you – ”
    Archer gestured with the gun, cutting him off.   “Sir, please go back inside your home where it’s safe.”
    Archer ran in a crouch along a hedgerow to the street.   He had gotten his bearings while on the roof, calculating distance and