Free Sacrifice by Will Jordan Page A

and you’re talking about a hit probability of less than one per cent. Bad odds by anyone’s standards.’
    ‘Maybe they were lucky,’ he suggested. Just because the odds were against something, didn’t mean it couldn’t happen.
    Turning her attention back to the wrecked chopper, McKnight pointed at the engine pod again. ‘Look at it. The blast pattern’s all wrong. RPGs are designed to penetrate armour with a high-pressure jet of gas and liquid metal. In the demolitions trade, we call it brisance. But whatever the name, it should have crumpled the engine pod like a giant fist and burned a hole right through it. That didn’t happen here. It’s been shredded,as if some kind of fragmentation device exploded nearby. Like a missile with a proximity fuse.’
    ‘RPGs come with frag rounds,’ Drake reminded her. Though intended as an anti-tank weapon, they had been adapted over the years to a number of different purposes, from laying smokescreens to anti-personnel strikes.
    McKnight said nothing to this. Moving closer, she knelt down beside the chopper, reached out and pulled open a small hatch. The mechanism was stiff, having been either damaged in the crash or deformed by the resultant fireball, but with some effort she was able to free it up.
    The small compartment within held an empty metal rack, clearly designed to hold a number of small objects.
    ‘Flares,’ she explained. ‘Standard countermeasure against guided missiles. They’ve been used up. The pilot must have deployed them to try to lose whatever warhead was tracking him.’ She glanced up at him. ‘Still don’t believe me?’
    ‘All right. If it wasn’t an RPG, what do you think did this?’ Drake asked, amused at how easily she had dismantled his theory.
    Again she shrugged. ‘Hard to say. It would have to be some kind of man-portable device, probably heat-seeking since it struck the engine pod. Maybe a Russian SA-18 or even a Chinese FN6. The SA-18 wouldn’t be too hard to get hold of if you have cash and friends in the right places. Russians aren’t exactly shy about selling weapons under the table.’ She reached up to flick a lock of dark hair out of her eyes. ‘I want to have a look inside.’
    Taking a breath, Drake followed her, having to pick his way carefully past the blackened remains of what had once been a door-mounted minigun. The formidable six-barrelled weapon was still pointing skywards, thoughits breech mechanism and ammunition feed had been blasted apart when the rounds inside cooked off.
    Inside the burned-out compartment, the smell of melted plastic and other chemicals was overpowering. Even now, the stench lingered in the air, stinging his nose and making his eyes water. Wherever he stood, his boots left greasy prints on the soot-covered steel deck.
    McKnight pointed to a blasted-out section of metal plating around the rotor shaft. ‘Check this out. The explosion travelled down through the shaft and ruptured the bulkhead here. We think one of the passengers was in front of the bulkhead when it gave way. There were bits of him all over the cabin.’
    The bodies, or what was left of them, had of course been removed for repatriation back to the States, but for a moment Drake fancied he could smell something beneath the burned plastic and charred metal – the sickening stench of scorched human flesh.
    McKnight pointed to a couple of areas where the deck had warped and deformed from the extreme heat. ‘Look. It was hot enough to soften the airframe.’
    ‘So the fuel tanks ruptured at some point after the chopper crash-landed,’ Drake reasoned. ‘It couldn’t have happened too quickly, otherwise they never would have had time to kidnap Mitchell.’
    ‘It wasn’t aviation fuel that did this,’ McKnight said, deep in thought as she looked around. ‘The burning is too localised. You can see it.’ She pointed to the areas of warped decking. ‘There were two or three ignition points.’
    Struck by an idea, she hurried back