WOLF "THE HAMMER"

Wolf the hunter is ten minutes outbound at six hundred feet when a bullet tears a hole in the floorboard of his plane and comes out over the instrument pannel.  Before he can react, another one sings through the spars.  It takes a couple of seconds for his reflexes to shift into overdrive.  When they do, his actions are swift and automatic.  He slams the stick left forward and stands on the left rudder as he shoves the throttle to the firewall. In that instant, the plane goes into a tight descending spiral. At the beginning of the maneuver, a silo is on the nose and the d is a revolving wall.  He watches for the silo to come up again, then continues another ninety degrees before he pulls out, less than twenty feet from the ground. He is a mile down range when he turns back for an approach at corn-top level.

He reaches for the microphone.

“Hunter to base.  Over.”

“Base...go ahead, hunter.”

“Gunfire from the farmhouse in the southeast corner of grid nine.  A bullet made a hole in the floor between my feet and came out through the hood over the instrument pannel. Another one just zinged off the spar.”

“Are you all right?”

“No, but then I never was.  I’m still flying, and I don’t see blood.  That’s a good sign. I see three cars in the front yard; I’ll get a shot of the license plates then I’m through. How do you copy? Over.”

“You’re bending my needle.  Why don’t you wait while I call the Advociate, see what he says?”

“I’m going in - on top of it now.”

“It’s your grave; I’ll send flowers.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah!  I have to work fast; rain clouds are about to block out the sun.  Camera on.”

A hail of bullets followed as his wing tip almost touched the ground. Then he made a sharp bank to the left in an effort to put the barn between the plane and the shooter, reverse stick, barrel roll in the opposite direction.

“I can hear the bullets pass through the fuselage.  Five people with guns.  One rifle-a machine type pistol-and a...I can’t make out the other three.”

“The rifle put the hole in the floor...”

“That’s how I figure it. I am hit-still flying.  Three vehicles; pick-up truck, late model sedan, and a shit can.  I’ll make another pass on the license plates, then it’s out, over the cornfield...”

“Weather closing in fast.”

“Wolf, get out of there.” That is the Advociate. “We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Roger. Five seconds more, that’s all I ask - I’m out of here.”

“Wind gusting zero to sixty...”

At that moment the worst happened.  “Oh, God! I’m hit! May-day! May-day! Oil is boiling from inside the cowling-oil streak along the length of the fuselage.  Oil pressure, zero.”

“Fire is eminent,” the voice from control warned.

“Roger.”

The engine coughed, ran a few strokes, then stopped.

“May day, may day.  Dead stick.  Unable to (static) busy (static) transmis (static)...out.”

“Base to hunter units – A Hunter is down in grid 9 – ”