Writing an action packed start - Part 5

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We're past the start now and moving on to the consequences.

Our hero is in a spot of bother.


This was supposed to be a milk run.  There had been no reported activity in our zone and the pilot had decided to go up just the log some more air time.

He was hoping after reaching a 1,000 hours so he might be able to move to fixed wing aircraft and then move on to becoming an airline pilot.  Unfortunately, he was not going become anything now.
That didn't explain why we encountered a convoy out in the desert, especially one with a rocket launcher and English speaking soldier types.

Did we stumble across another outfit running a secret operation and mistook us for the enemy?  It didn't seem the case, our helicopter was distinctively marked just so we wouldn't be mistaken, and then there was the fact the man knew my name.

How could that happen?  It would need someone back at the base to tell someone of the fact the helicopter was going up and who was in it, and there weren't too many people who knew that information.

And only one who knew exactly when and where we would be.  Unless, of course, the pilot had strayed into a no-fly zone.  There was only one that I knew of and it was nowhere near our flight path.  Of course, it wouldn't take much to bamboozle me in the air because I had no sense of direction.

Unless the pilot had another agenda.  I could hardly tell where we were because desert all looked the same to me, and navigation wasn't my strongest point.

After the first few miles of very bumpy road, I managed to get into a sitting position and look in the direction we were heading.

More desert.

Ten minutes later I could see an encampment in the distance, literally an oasis in the middle of nowhere.  A secret base camp or something else?


As we got closer I could see it was mostly covered by camouflage so it couldn't be seen from above. Clever.  Chances were we had no idea this place was in the desert.


So, from the frying pan into the fire, as they say in the classics...

© Charles Heath 2019


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