Hammer of Angels: A Novel of Shadowstorm by G. T. Almasi Page A

blood all over the control panel and windscreen.
    I leap up front, clench another knuckle sandwich together, and smash it into Pilot Left’s face. While he drifts off to dreamland, I hop onto his lap and take the controls. I’m not an expert at flying helicopters, but I know the basics. My right hand clutches the cyclic stick, and my left hand grabs the collective controller. I twist the throttle to zero and force the collective down. The bottom drops out of the world as we free-fall back to the clearing.
    The aircraft smashes into the ground. Our thunderous impact sets off a chorus of warning lights and wailing sirens. Beneath the high-pitched screeching is the drumbeat of metal grinding itself into scrap. The tachometer spiked when the main rotor blades snapped off. Without their wind resistance the engine has nothing to do but spin like a Tasmanian dreidel.
    Poor Pilot Schmidt bails out again and runs toward the woods. I unbuckle the remaining pilots and shove them out their doors. Then I jump out.
    â€œDarwin, we good?”
    â€œFantastic. The clearing isn’t big enough for more than two choppers at once, so the other three can’t land to help.”
    I gallop out of the clearing the way I came in. Once I’m back in the trees, I turn and unload a volley of Incendiaries into the engines of the two helicopter-shaped doorstops.
    I haul ass back to where Brando has our gear stashed. He’s already there, strapping on his pack and his X-bag. I shoulder my bag and we vanish into the shadowy woods. When we’re a safe distance away, we turn and watch the burning helicopters for a minute. Two huge explosions light the forest up like lightning. The German troops are sharply silhouetted as their rides blow up in their faces.
    If I were a Girl Scout, I’d have to rewrite their slogan as “Take only pictures, leave only blazing helicopters.”
    CORE MIS-ANGEL-212
    TO: Office of the President of the United States
    FROM: Office of the Executive Intelligence Chairman
    SUBJECT: Popular opinion of the Gestapo within GG
    Dear Mr. President,
    As requested, we have discreetly polled the citizens of Greater Germany about their notorious secret police. In brief, it is the most loathed organization in Europe.
    One of the few holdovers from the Nazi era, the Geheime Staatspolizei has retained the Nazis’ history of racism and terror-mongering. Citizens labeled as dissidents are routinely murdered by Gestapo officers to “protect the Reich from social weakness.” Most Germans are appalled, frightened, and frustrated that, “… an advanced people like us should act this way.” It can be fairly said no German in their right mind welcomes a visit from the paranoid and violently unpredictable agents of the Gestapo.
    We conclude that officers of the Geheime Staatspolizei should be considered “fair game” during Operation ANGEL and Germany’s current antislavery sentiment will be immune to the fate of these sadists. No one will miss them but their mothers.
    Yours,
    George H. W. Bush, XIC

12
    Next morning, Thursday, February 5, 1981, 3:30 A.M. GMT
    Gestapo Headquarters, York, Province of Great Britain, GG
    We lurk in the shadows like a pack of coyotes waiting for the shepherd to go home. Our four sets of eyes beam from a gloomy alley up the street from Gestapo headquarters in York. This alley is a block away from the town hall where Brando and I snatched Mayor Brun two days ago. Now we’re here to spring the forty or fifty people caught in last night’s roundups. Ironically, one of those people was Mayor Brun.
    York is a small city. The place occupies less ground than Washington’s National Mall. The old town is a charmingly disorganized heap of bricks and cobblestones dominated by a towering cathedral called the Minster.
    The Germans, like the English before them, use York as a central location for controlling northern Britain. Before the war, the town hall