in about fifteen minutes. Pretty quickly after we get there, we’ll make our run down the valley. You’ll get one shot at this. My boss reported before I headed out to Minerva that all the pyrotechnics are ready to go.”
“Who’s Minerva?” An ugly spike of regret poked her in the side. Of course this cover-model guy had a gorgeous, confident, sexy girlfriend with an exotic name.
He patted the top of the dashboard. “This is Minerva.”
“You named your helicopter?” Ahh. He’d named it after his gorgeous, confident, sexy girlfriend, then.
He shrugged. “Yeah. I call every ’copter I fly after my grandmother.”
His grandmother? That was so sweet! Although he emphatically struck her as the kind of guy who wouldn’t appreciate being called “sweet.”
“She took me in and forced me to get my head together when my mom died.”
“Oh,” Marley said cautiously. But she didn’t have a chance to ask him about it.
“Five minutes to target,” Archer announced in a businesslike tone. He got busy on the radio talking to the film’s DP—the director of photography—and she turned her attention to her camera.
She pulled her viewfinder in front of her face once more. Beside her right knee, a small joystick remotely moved her camera on its nose mount outside. She tested it carefully, and it responded like a charm. Tall stands of pines skimmed past as the helicopter raced across the mountainous Northern California landscape toward the site of today’s shoot. The crew had spent all morning wiring the pyrotechnics and explosions, and it had taken most of the afternoon to position all the tanks, personnel carriers and extras dressed as soldiers. Which was why the director, Adrian Turnow, was having to race to get in this shot before they lost their light.
As it was, she had to adjust the light aperture to capture more of the late-afternoon sun’s lingering rays. The quality of the light out here was extraordinary, though. The sky was a deep cerulean blue, the trees a rich, lush evergreen with gray and blue undertones. And the mountains themselves, the northern end of the Sierras northwest of Lake Tahoe, were dark and forbidding, a few even topped with caps of snow. So stark and majestic. She’d love to photograph them sometime.
The helicopter slowed, topped a ridge, and hovered at the head of a long, narrow valley. Its granite walls were silvery gray, the valley floor a carpet of green. Cattle had grazed this valley for long enough that the trees were mostly gone. It made for a perfect movie battlefield, level and open with sweeping views.
“You good to go?” Archer asked her.
“Yup,” she muttered, her eyes glued to her viewfinder. She’d gone over computer simulations of this valley with the DP and the ground camera crew, and she’d chair-flown filming this sequence in her head a hundred times, but seeing it in the flesh was still different. And once the tracers and fake missiles started firing, all bets were off. It would be up to her to see and adapt to capture the best possible shot on film. The footage she shot today would likely determine whether or not she continued to work on this project.
Adrian Turnow’s voice came over her headset. “I’m turning over control of the shoot to Steve Prescott, head stunt coordinator. Whenever you’re ready, Steve.”
She listened as Prescott got thumbs-ups over the radio from a dozen stuntmen and explosives operators. He was the ex–Marine officer who’d set up this combat scene to be as realistic as possible. And then he started checking off the cameras. Finally, he announced, “Heli-cam?”
“Ready,” she replied as snappily as her knocking knees and trembling hands would allow.
“On my mark, everyone,” Prescott ordered. “Three. Two. One. Go for explosion one.” His orders came hard and fast as wave after wave of gunfire, tanks rolling, soldiers charging on foot, fake missiles, tracer rounds and who knew what else was put into motion. Hundreds of actors, extras and stunt coordinators launched into the complicated ballet that was a big action scene. A dozen cameras rolled, catching the action from every conceivable angle.
Prescott’s voice came on again. “Archer, start your run on my mark. Three. Two. One. Go.”
Beside her, Archer slammed the throttles forward and shoved Minerva’s nose down. The helicopter swooped down into the valley in a stomach-dropping dive that threw the bird at the treetops with dizzying speed.
She felt Archer tense beside her, but her concentration was riveted on her viewfinder. Wow. All hell had broken loose before her. So much was going on she wouldn’t have known where to point her camera had they not gone over it carefully in the simulations. She chanted the sequence in her head. Pan left slowly, zoom fast to the line of soldiers charging. Tank explosion. Hard bank right by the helicopter...
“You’re supposed to bank right,” she mumbled to Archer.
“I’m trying,” he ground out.
A tracer whizzed by wicked close, and although she jerked in surprise, she doggedly held her camera steady. The projectile streaked by dramatically, leaving a trail of sparks and smoke that the helicopter blasted through. That was going to look awesome on film. Good call by Archer to delay the turn.
They were on top of the action now, and deafening explosions rocked the helicopter. Hard to believe these were fake charges. She couldn’t imagine what the real deal must be like. Hell on earth if she had to guess. Her camera mount had inertial stabilizers built into it, so her shot remained steady in spite of the concussions slamming into Minerva.
“Time to turn, Archer,” she called out loudly enough to be heard over the war zone outside.
Columns of smoke rose around them and Archer dropped the bird even lower, skimming across the ground barely above the grass. They buzzed a line of extras dressed as soldiers low enough that some of them hit the dirt in fear of getting brained by the helicopter’s skids. The grunt’s-eye view from her camera was unplanned, but amazing. She went with it, panning across the field of fire and zooming toward the enemy line as Archer raced toward it.
Something exploded directly in front of them, rocking the helicopter violently. They weren’t supposed to get that close to any pyrotechnics! She lifted her face from her viewfinder to glance over at Archer. “You need to pull up higher and turn the helicopter,” she said distinctly. “All I’m going to be shooting in a minute is dirt.”
He didn’t in any way acknowledge her. His concentration was one hundred percent on flying. He looked to be fighting hard with the helicopter controls. Was that normal? She knew pilots tended to be fit, muscular guys. Was this why? His jaw was clenched and his knuckles were white on the controls. As well they should be. Minerva was tearing along only feet above the ground.
“Archer?”
No response.
She glanced outside, and the end of the valley was coming up. Fast. Damned fast. A sheer granite cliff rose in front of them.
“Archer!”
Nada.
“Hey! What’s going on?” She slapped him on the upper arm to get his attention. But it was as if he was on another planet. He ignored her completely. She let go of her camera controls and tried to turn in her seat, but the tight harness stopped her. She ripped at the
