by A P Bateman
“This road looks more like a private track,” said Rashid. He looked out across the seemingly endless expanse of grass. “We’ll be in the shit if it takes us directly there.”
“It doesn’t,” said Marnie. She was seated in the front seat and twisted the screen so that Rashid could see. “There are smaller tracks intersecting. But the more I study the map, the more it looks like the area around the signal has no roads at all. Not even a track.”
Caroline leaned forwards from the rear seat. “Why is that area blurred?”
Marnie reverse pinched the touchscreen with her thumb and forefinger and nodded. “All I can assume is the Pentagon has deemed the area a no-go zone, without labelling it. Google Earth doesn’t record imagery that is politically sensitive,” she said. She switched to another tab and tutted. “Nothing to show, yet. But Ramsay has requested a fly-over. Re-tasking a satellite is a big deal, but GCHQ are piggy-backing a network of satellites and Simon Mereweather is convinced the boys and girls in Cheltenham can get us what we need, soon.”
“And what will that give us?” Caroline asked indifferently.
“Now that we have the signal, then a full and detailed picture of where he is. We can use that as a background map, much like we are using now.”
“This terrain looks okay to go off-road,” Rashid commented. “There’s more agricultural wire fencing than I imagined, but most of it looks decades old and I’ve got a wire-cutter in my kit.”
There was a distant mountain range North-West of them and the Black Hills behind them. Other than that, the grassland stretched on for hundreds of miles back along South Dakota to their right and Wyoming to their left. The sky was an azure blue, almost completely cloudless. The land and sky contrast reminded Caroline of being at sea, out of sight of land. Big skies. She looked back at the signal and frowned. “Is it me, or is it bleeping slower than before?”
Marnie studied the screen. She turned and looked at Caroline. “I’m sorry, but I think we have to face the fact that the signal is weakening.”
“Why?” Caroline retorted. “That’s not good enough!” She shook her head in frustration, but also because she realised how maniacal she had sounded.
“I’m sorry, but I suppose the battery is running out.” She took a screenshot of the map and saved it to the desktop. “Look, we have this signal and coordinates saved and we’re only twenty-miles away.”
“But this is a reconnaissance!” Caroline snapped. “We’re a hundred miles from Custer on a shitty road and the signal is dying! We need to scope the place out, return to confer, plan what to do and return! It’s so damned remote, we’re miles away from anywhere!” She flung herself back in the seat and rubbed her temples. “Oh, god!”
Marnie turned around in her seat and reached a hand back to her. She squeezed Caroline’s knee and said, “Then we’ll forget the recce and go in.”
“Excuse me?” Rashid said. He looked at her like she was mad. “That’s what a reconnaissance is for – to plan. If we go in blind, we risk being killed. It’s almost a certainty.”
“We risk being killed, anyway,” said Marnie.
“Have you ever even fired a gun?”
“No, well, my brother’s air rifle when we were kids.”
“Then please, keep quiet.”
“Excuse me?” she glared. “A – don’t ever speak to me like that again. And B – Caroline has a point. If the signal dies, then Alex will be lost forever. Face it, this is the United States and they aren’t exactly the land of the free, anymore. Not with prisons that fall outside of Miranda rights and the judicial system. And the objective all along was to snatch Vladimir Zukovsky to ascertain what he knows about the virus. Without King and the signal, we won’t get him out.”
“We can still get to Zukovsky…”
“Rashid!” Marnie snapped.
“King knew the risks,” he said. “I tried several times to talk him out of it. Zukovsky is the target, King was the stalking horse to get into the place.”
“Was?” Caroline leaned forwards between them. “You’ve written him off already?”
Rashid slammed on the brakes and Caroline had to press against the two seats to stop herself going through the gap. The SUV slewed to a halt on the deserted track. He turned and glared at her. “The objective is Zukovsky. Just in case you’ve forgotten what we saw on those files in Lapland! King is an operative and he knew the risks. But believe me, if we go into this secret prison without a recce, then there will be deaths on our hands. Big Dave, Powell, Adams and Mick. Marnie and myself. Ramsay, wherever the hell he is. He’ll be waiting for us back at the motel with intel he’s collected. And from a chopper, he may well get us vital information. And then, you. So close to King, but you could get killed at the last hurdle. We’ll walk into a fight we can’t win. We need subterfuge, an infiltration plan, an exit strategy. And that’s assuming King can locate Zukovsky. We have one chance of that.”
“And we need that bloody signal! Not just to locate him, but for the second phase… getting Zukovsky out!”
“We won’t need a second phase if we go in blind!” Rashid drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Fuck it!” He took out his phone and got out of the car, slamming the door closed so hard it rocked the two-tonne behemoth on its wheels.
“We’ve got the satellite footage,” Marnie said. “It’s decoding right now.”
Caroline leaned forwards and looked at the screen. Marnie turned it towards her, shielding it from the sunlight with her hand. The decoding finished, and the screen pixilated, then rested on an image. The image cleared, and Marnie clicked on an icon and brought the magnification up.
“So, what are we looking at?” Caroline asked. “Grass?”
“Pretty much,” Marnie replied. “And a hangar. It’s covered with turf, but you can make out the size, like a knoll.” She increased the image. “And there’s a communication tower, and an airstrip.” She pointed to the corner of the screen. “There’s a large military-style helicopter, laid up just outside the hangar.”
“But no roads,” Caroline commented. “So, everything, or everyone, comes in by air.”
Marnie nodded, looked out the tinted window at Rashid, who was talking animatedly on his mobile. “Who’s he calling?”
Caroline smiled. “I imagine he’s re-routing the SAS boys. I think we wore him down,” she said.
Marnie laughed. “Always…”
Chapter Forty-Six
There was no hood this time. Johnson didn’t care what King saw from now on. He was loaded into the front seat of a civilian Jeep Wrangler. The convertible model. It had been painted a dull olive colour and had a spare wheel fixed to the bonnet and another on the rear door. There were snow shovels strapped to each front panel and snow chains coiled and bolted to the roll bars. The guard who had been present while King had been strung up drove, and he looked pissed off. He had lost two buddies and he was looking forward to taking out some payback on King. He had placed a long-handled shovel and a pick behind the front seat and let King know what they were for. Cole sat in the rear seat, a .40 calibre Sig Sauer pistol in his hand.
King couldn’t see a way out of his cuffs, his hands behind his back and his ribs and stomach still aching from the beating. His shoulder was on the cusp of dislocating, and the slightest movement emitted a sickening twinge. Some physio would sort it, but it didn’t look to be on the cards now. He always hedged his bets, but it wasn’t looking good. The guard had keys on his belt, next to his own set of cuffs. They would be common to this unit, but they might as well have been at the bottom of the ocean. Getting to them couldn’t be any more difficult.
They drove for twenty-minutes over a variety of tracks which looked to have been made by animals, before the guard took the vehicle off road and out across what looked like well-grazed grassland. After another twenty-minutes the guard slowed the vehicle and pulled a lazy circle.
“Here’s about right,” the guard said. He stopped the vehicle and switched off the en
gine. “Time to get digging.”
Cole got out of the rear, leaping over the side and onto the grass. He winced, rubbed the side of his neck through the neck-brace. The guard walked around the Jeep and pulled King out of the open door. He pushed him back against the side of the vehicle. Cole covered King with the pistol.
“Who’s digging?” asked the guard.
“Well, I sure as hell ain’t,” said Cole.
“Looks like it’s you, shithead,” the guard said to King. He fumbled for his keys, then spun King around and undid the cuffs. He pulled King back around and pressed him back against the Jeep. “Time to dig your own grave.” He reached into the Jeep and pulled out the shovel, thrusting the handle into King’s chest.
King gripped the shovel with both hands, then thrust it downwards into the guard’s foot. It sliced through the soft desert boot and cut deeply into the man’s instep, breaking the leader bones in his foot. The man howled, but King shoulder-barged him towards Cole, blocking his aim. King swung the shovel and had it scything in the air, missing the top of the falling guard’s head, but embedding the blade into Cole’s shoulder as he struggled to aim the pistol without a clear shot. The gun went off as Cole started to spin, but King was already adjusting his aim on his backward swing, which caught Cole’s right arm and forced him to drop the pistol.
Although in great pain, the guard was already countering his balance to attack when King sent the shovel into the side of his head. The blade of the shovel caught against his shattered skull, and the handle was pulled from his clasp as the man started to fall. King was closer to the pistol than Cole, and he picked it up as Cole made a last-ditch attempt and dived closer. King merely stepped backwards, and Cole thudded onto his stomach. He shot the moaning guard in the head without emotion or ceremony, then turned the pistol back to Cole.
“I’ll say it once,” said King. “Don’t move a muscle.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“That look you gave me in the interrogation cell, what the hell was that about?”
Cole hesitated, but then he was desperately unsure about moving. He slowly looked up at King, straight into the muzzle of a .40. “I was going to let you go,” he said. “On account of what I did, or at least, tried to do to you.”
“You mean murder the man who saved you and your two buddies from the hands of ISIS?”
Cole winced at the memory. “Yeah, I guess. I couldn’t see a way out for you, and I knew things were going to get worse. Look, I don’t know what shit you’re trying to pull here, but the reports came back from the FBI. The devices planted in the Willis Tower were incendiary. Low fuel. A lot of smoke and no chance of any lasting, or catastrophic damage. Risk to life, low. Johnson went apeshit. He knew it was a ploy, and in that case, something to buy you some time. However you’re doing it, it’s clear you have a plan with outside help.”
“So, why didn’t you save me just now?”
“Man, you just moved too fast!”
King shrugged. “Too much at stake, got to take the opportunities when they’re there.”
“So, we’re cool?” Cole asked, starting to get up.
King fired the pistol and a sod of grassy earth blew up into Cole’s face. The ex-SEAL froze, shaking his head as King laughed. “No, we are not cool,” he said, bending down and retrieving the handcuffs. He tossed them in front of Cole’s face. “It would have been great, but unfortunately I’ll never know. It could be the sort of crap that someone who tries to kill the man who saved his life says when he’s neck-deep in shit. Now, cuff one hand, then roll back onto your stomach and put your hands behind your back. And stay still while I cuff the other hand, or your brains will be fertiliser.”
“Seriously? What the hell are you going to do to me?”
“Nothing,” said King. “But you’re going to sit right beside me when we drive back into that place.”
“You’re going back?” Cole asked incredulously. “What the hell for?”
“To finish my job,” King said quietly. “To finish my bloody job.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
“I don’t understand that.” The pilot pulled back on the yoke and collective, increasing the power and pitch and the helicopter climbed steeply. “There’s a considerable sized runway down there, and enough hangar space to house several aircraft.”
Ramsay found himself grabbing hold of the door handle grab-strap. The helicopter entered a tight turn to the left and the pilot made another run towards the area.
“And there are no airports listed here?”
“No.” The pilot levelled out the helicopter and said, “Now’s your chance with the camera. If this is a protected zone, then someone is going to want to know there’s a god damned airstrip in the middle of it.”
Ramsay took some pictures but struggled to release his grip on the handle. “No roads,” he said. “No way in or out except by air.”
“Or cross country,” the pilot replied, then added, “But that sure as hell ain’t happening in the winter. The snow’s three-feet deep for six months of the year out here.”
Ramsay looked down on the area. He hadn’t expected to see as much, and in truth, he hadn’t expected the pilot to fly directly over the area until it was too late. It was happening, and Ramsay prayed that the people down there didn’t know they’d been overflown. The helicopter banked to the right.
“Seen enough, or do you want me to put down?”
“Oh god, no!” Ramsay snapped. “Let’s get out of here, I’ve got enough shots and a film of our last pass.” He could see some movement below. “What’s that?”
The ground seemed to slowly bulge and split in a perfect square. The two halves of the square dropped back on flaps, hinged and fitted perfectly. Something protruded, rising from the middle. Ramsay squinted against the sunlight shining through the hot plexiglass of the canopy. The object started to turn towards them, like a compass needle getting a bearing.
“Oh shit! No, no, no!” The pilot heaved on the yoke and the helicopter turned sharply to the left. The speed increased with the whine of the engine, and they dropped twenty-feet in altitude. “That’s a SAM!”
“A Sam?”
“Fuck! Shit!” the pilot screamed and hammered the aircraft to the right, increasing to what could only have sounded to be full throttle. “A missile! A fucking surface to air missile!”
There was an audible bang and whoosh and seconds later, the helicopter heaved left and dropped and the missile shot past them and snaked its way across the sky. Both men watched the missile paint a white streak across the pale blue sky, then turn around and head back towards them. The pilot reached under his seat and took out a flare gun. He tossed it into Ramsay’s lap and brought the helicopter into a steep climb. Ramsay fumbled with the pistol. He looked at it blankly.
“Open your window!” the pilot shouted. “Cock back the hammer like on a regular pistol and fire out of the window when I say so!”
Ramsay thought back to the range. He had used a Glock. A hammerless weapon. He had seen enough westerns to know what the pilot meant though, but even still he struggled to pull the hammer back, his hands soaked in perspiration. He slid the plexiglass panel in his window forwards, and when he looked up, he saw the missile heading directly at them.
The pilot dropped the craft into a steep dive, putting on the power, the ground racing towards them. “Steady…” There was little height left and the helicopter came up from its dive mere feet from the ground. “Fire!”
Ramsay squeezed the trigger, but it was stiff. He squeezed harder and the flare gun kicked in his hand. He hadn’t compensated enough, and the weapon rose as the flare shot out and hit the rotor-blades above them. The flare ricocheted off the propellers and kicked up into the sky before exploding like a firework finale. The missile streaked away from them and started to climb, detonating on the white-hot pieces of phosphorus that had starburst into the clear sky.
“Yes!” screamed Ramsay. He looked at the pilot, but the man re
mained silent. He was fighting the yoke and rudders and it was only then that Ramsay noticed the smoke above them.
“You’ve blown one of the rotor-blades off!” He struggled to correct their height, but it was too late, the tail thudded into the ground and the entire aircraft bucked back up into the air, this time with the cockpit low and the tail high. “Brace! Brace! Bra…”
The helicopter smashed into the ground and pivoted forwards. The damaged rotor-blade sliced into the ground first, its alignment was off and as it dug in, the rest of the blades smashed into the ground and were ripped out of the rotor. The noise was deafening, and the plexiglass buckled and cracked into spider’s webs. The pilot had had the presence of mind to let go of the collective and the revs had died, but momentum was doing the rest, the helicopter, now free of its blades, tumbled and rolled and came to a stop some fifty-metres from where the tail had first hit the ground.
“Get out!” the pilot screamed, piercing the silence which had briefly enveloped them. “These things burn up fast!” He struggled with his harness, then started to scream. “My legs, I can’t feel my legs!”
Ramsay snapped back. He got off his own seat harness and slid into the Perspex canopy. His equilibrium was off kilter, the helicopter was on its right side – the pilot’s side – and almost inverted. Ramsay kicked at his own door, then remembered the safety briefing and removed the pin. He kicked again, and the door spun off and slid down the frame. He got the pilot’s harness undone and pulled. The pilot screamed and did so for the five-minutes it took Ramsay to get him out. The smell of fuel was nauseating and there were electrical sparks coming from the control panel.