“What the hell was that?” said President Kempt, looking around the room at his advisers.
“An old Russian helicopter by the looks of it,” replied Patterson.
“Is it hostile?” asked the vice president.
“Doubtful. It looks more like a transport or heavy-lift helicopter than an attack helicopter,” replied Patterson.
A moment later, the UAV’s cameras focused on the convoy.
Kempt leaned forward and studied the image. It was Houston, of that he had no doubt; however, his gut was telling him to be wary. He said to Dan Leonard, “Dan, can we share this feed with Jack O’Reilly and his people?”
Leonard looked over at a young Air Force captain, who nodded her head. It took her less than ten seconds to get the UAV’s live feed transferred on a secure line to a screen in O’Reilly’s office.
“Put me on speakerphone,” said President Kempt.
“You’re on, sir,” replied a technician.
“General O’Reilly, this is the President of the United States on the line, do you recognize my voice?”
“Loud and clear,” answered O’Reilly.
“General, I want you to take a good look at the live image being sent back to us via a UAV in the skies over Albania and tell me what you see.”
“Sir, can you have your people zoom in on the convoy and then have the camera pan around?” asked O’Reilly.
“One second,” replied Kempt, while the orders were given over the phone to the UAV operators in Bulgaria.
Kempt could hear other voices over the line besides O’Reilly’s having a short but animated discussion.
“Sir, the first four vehicles are deemed to be hostile,” said O’Reilly over the line. “The Land Rover following right behind the armored truck has one of my men in it. The woman driving the Rover is not one of mine but is probably a friendly. We believe that the semi-trailer is being driven by another one of my men and that the MI-10 helicopter flying overhead is under the control of my people.”
“Very good, General. Now that your people have caught up with David Houston, what do you believe they will attempt to do next?”
The line went quiet for a second and then O’Reilly spoke. “Sir, if Houston has the anthrax with him, they’ll go after the anthrax.”
Kempt stood up and ran a hand through his short, gray hair. “General, are you sure?”
“Positive,” replied O’Reilly firmly.
Kempt looked over at Patterson. “ETA for the Special Forces team?”
“Ten minutes.”
Kempt knew that every second counted. There was no way to judge what a man like David Houston might do. He might be crazy enough to release the anthrax into the air before anyone could stop him. The weight of the office had never seemed to weigh so heavily on his shoulders.
Kempt took a long, deep breath, set his hands on the table and looked down at the speakerphone and said, “Okay then, Jack, what can we do to help your people?”
51
Mountain Road
McMasters furiously smashed his hands on the dash and called Houston’s secretary. Why Houston couldn’t answer his own calls, especially at a time like this, galled McMasters.
Before Houston could say a word, McMasters said angrily, “The bastards have the semi-trailer in their possession and are right behind me.”
“Are you sure?” asked Houston.
“Sir, I watched them take the rig and, until Mitchell shot out my camera, I could see him right behind me.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“What am I going to do about it? Not a lot, right now. It’s not as if we have a lot of room to maneuver on this road, do we? Also, we may have another problem. Did you see the UAV which flew over the convoy a minute ago?”
“Yes,” replied Houston tersely.
“Well, it’s a safe bet that it’s an American UAV.”
“Will they fire on us?”
“If they can get off a clean shot, yes, they will.”
Houston suggested, “Perhaps we should split up and make it harder for them to take us out.”
“No, sir, that’s the worst thing we could do right now,” replied McMasters. “As long as we have the weaponized anthrax with us, they won’t risk attacking us for fear of releasing it into the air.”
“Okay then, what do you recommend we do?”
“It’s obvious that they know you’re behind all of this. There’s only one thing you can do. Tell them to back off, or we’ll release the anthrax.”
“I will,” replied Houston, realizing that his plan was now in tatters. If he could make it to Venezuela, at least he would be beyond the reach of the U.S. authorities.
Houston said, “Keep Mitchell behind you while I make the call.”
Vice President Grant felt his phone buzz in his jacket. Taking it out, his eyes widened when he saw who was calling him. He snapped his fingers in the air to get everyone’s attention in the room. A second later, Grant answered the call.
“Good evening, Dave, or is it already morning in D.C.?” asked Houston.
“It’s the morning, Mister Houston,” replied Grant without hiding his disdain for his former friend.
“There’s no need to be so hostile, Dave. We’ve been friends for years. I would hate for our friendship to end over this misunderstanding.”
“Misunderstanding?” snapped Grant. “Mister, you’ve got one hell of a lot of explaining to do.”
“Dave, let’s not waste any more time chatting. I know you know what I’m up to. If you had played your cards right, you could have been a part of this.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not a traitorous SOB like you.”
“Another aging boy scout,” said Houston contemptuously.
Grant fought to control his volcanic temper. “What do you want, Houston?”
“Call off your cavalry and give me your word that you won’t try to stop me. I have a plane waiting for me in Montenegro, and I intend to get on it. You will let it take off and make no attempt to force it to land at a U.S. military base in Europe or on U.S. soil. If you do this, everything will be okay. If you don’t back off or try to stop me in any way, I’ll order the anthrax to be released into the air. There’s a nice southeasterly breeze coming off the Adriatic today. If I were to release the anthrax, in a matter of hours most of Albania would be infected. By the end of the day, millions of people in Macedonia and Greece will be affected as well. Do you honestly want that to happen? Now, do the right thing, Dave. I’ll give you one minute to call off your dogs.”
Grant wanted to crawl into his phone and strangle the life out of Houston. “Hold on,” said Grant, putting his hand over his phone.
“What does he want?” asked Kempt.
“We have one minute to back off and let him go, or he’ll release the anthrax,” answered Grant.
“He’s going to release it anyway,” said Leonard.
“We don’t know that as an absolute certainty,” countered Hook. “This all could be about blackmail, not genocide.”
Grant looked over at Kempt.
Kempt pursed his lips and let out a resigned sigh. “Order the UAV to back off and keep the Special Forces team out of sight for now. Until we can come up with something 100% foolproof, he’s got us by the balls.”
Hook hurried to give the order for the UAV to be redirected away from the convoy.
Grant took his hand off the phone. “Okay, Houston, you win. The UAV is being redirected away from you.”
“I never said I wanted it to leave,” said Houston smugly. “You must think me stupid, my old friend. I want you to use it to destroy the Land Rover and the helicopter following me. Once you’ve done that, then you can pull your UAV from the sky.”
With a snarl, Grant threw his phone against the wall, snapping it in half.
“What’s wrong?” asked President Kempt.
“I’ll tell you what’s wrong. Houston wants us to kill O’Reilly’s people,” replied Grant.
Over the speakerphone, O’Reilly pleaded, “For God’s sake, sir, you can’t do that. Those are my people in harm’s way.”
Kempt said, “General, what would you do in my shoes?”
“I’d exhaust every possibility before ordering the death of people risking their lives to help you,” replied O’Reilly.
“General, we don’t have time to whiteboard a solution. We’re running out of time.”
A new voice came over the speakerphone. It was Mike Donaldson. He said, “Sir, I have an idea. Can your people patch us through to the MI-10?”
“The what?” asked Kempt.
“The chopper, sir,” clarified Patterson.
A Hispanic Air Force major sitting behind General Patterson stood up at attention. “Sir, we can use the AWACs patrolling off the coast to cut into their comms.”
“Do it now,” said the president.
Mitchell sat in his seat looking up at the massive helicopter flying overhead. He shook his head and keyed the talk button. “Sam, are you sure that you were speaking with Mike and not some imposter trying to screw with us?”
“I’m positive,” replied Sam. “I’d know his voice anywhere. Besides, only he could come up with something as harebrained as this on a moment’s notice.”
“That’s true. Does Yuri think he can pull it off?”
“He’s never tried it before, but he seems pretty confident that he can do it.”
“What about the UAV?”
“Mike has a plan for that, too,” replied Sam. “Back off about fifty meters if you can; we’re on our way down.”
“Okay then, the ball’s in your court. Good luck,” said Mitchell.
High above, the Predator UAV banked hard right and rose straight up into the sky. Within seconds, it was lost from sight in the clouds.
As Yuri slowly brought his helicopter down, the UAV, like a hawk diving towards its prey, shot out of the clouds and raced towards its first victim.
“Target approaching from the west,” said Cardinal into his mic as he braced himself against the open door. He knew he was only going to get one shot at the UAV. If he missed, everyone’s lives would be in danger.
Yuri heard the tension in Cardinal’s voice and slowed his descent, trying to give Cardinal as stable a platform as he could to fire from.
Cardinal waited until the UAV was seconds away before aiming his weapon’s sights on the front of the Predator. He took a deep breath, held it, placed his finger on the trigger, and waited until the UAV was less than one hundred meters away. Slowly pulling back on the trigger, Cardinal felt the AK push into his shoulder as he emptied an entire thirty-round magazine into the approaching UAV. A moment later, the Predator shot over the top of the helicopter, banked to the left and then plummeted straight into the side of the mountain, exploding in a massive fireball.
“You got it!” screamed Sam into her mic.
“I’m not sure I can take all the credit for that,” said Cardinal as he ejected the empty magazine and slid a fully loaded one on his AK. “I think the UAV operator may have helped crash the Predator. Regardless, let’s hope the bad guys think that we took it out. Yuri, take her down.”
“Da, hold on,” replied Yuri.
Sam unbuckled her seat and left the cockpit.
Lying down on the cold metal floor, Cardinal brought his rifle into his shoulder and took aim at the two lead Hummers. If Yuri was going to pull off his miracle, Cardinal knew that he had to keep the guards in the lead two vehicles from firing on their helicopter. At his range, they couldn’t miss.
“Hey there,” said Sam as she knelt down beside Cardinal.
He smiled back up at her.
After kissing Cardinal on the forehead for luck, she grabbed a headset, put it on her head, and leaned her head out the open door. “Okay Yuri, you’re about three hundred meters back and about five hundred meters in the air.”
“Da, little lady,” said Yuri as he deftly brought the helicopter down over its target.
McMasters glanced out his rearview mirror at the plume of black smoke marking the destroyed UAV’s crash site and swore. He couldn’t believe Mitchell’s luck. The odds of anyone shooting down a UAV with an AK were astronomical. He was about to call Houston and ask him where their Albanian military backup was when he saw the massive helicopter descend from above and begin to edge forward towards his truck. He was speechless when he saw a giant metal claw on a thick steel cable begin to lower from the bottom of the helicopter. His blood instantly turned cold. It was coming for him.
“Well, that’s something you don’t see every day,” Mitchell said to Grace as the four-fingered claw opened right above McMasters’ truck.
“That’s a first for me, too,” replied Grace.
The sound of the logging helicopter’s rotor blades cutting through the air drowned everything else out. Mitchell never heard Cardinal open up on the two Hummers as he tried to keep them from interfering.
The helicopter’s massive mechanical claw swung back and forth in the air as Yuri tried to bring it down onto the truck without being able to see his target. Sam, hanging half out of the open door, was his eyes.
Mitchell watched as the claw struck the top of McMasters’ truck and then slid off the back. He barely had time to yell a warning to Grace to duck as the claw swung through the air, just missing the top of their Rover. Looking back over his shoulder, Mitchell saw the massive metal claw bounce off the top of Jackson’s semi-trailer cab. He could just imagine the blast of curses his friend was screaming at Yuri.
With a quick adjustment for speed, the helicopter maneuvered once more over the top of the armored truck and gradually lowered the claw. This time, Sam’s aim was true as all four steel fingers fell on the outside of the truck. In an instant, the claw clamped hold of its target.
A second later, Yuri applied more power to the engines; the steel line went taut as the helicopter fought to lift the truck up into the air.
“What’s going on?” asked the scared driver of the armored truck.
“We’ve been grabbed from above!” replied McMasters.
“I’ve had enough of this,” cried the driver. “I’m pulling over and getting out.”
“No, you’re not,” said McMasters as he pulled out his pistol and dispatched the driver with a shot to the head.
He could feel the truck shake as the helicopter tried to lift it up off the road. Unlike many of Houston’s men, McMasters was a devout believer in what they were doing, and he’d had enough of Mitchell and his people. He jammed his pistol in his belt, opened his door, and took a quick look at the steel claw holding his truck tight in its grasp. He smiled when he saw several hydraulic hoses leading from a metal box to the four arms on the claw. If he could cut them, the metal hand would let go. He planted his foot on his open door and hauled himself up onto the roof of his truck. The wind pushed at his body, causing him to lean forward as he made his way towards the box containing the hydraulic hoses.
Mitchell couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw McMasters on the roof of the armored truck. He quickly brought the machine gun over and fired off a burst. The rounds went high; they were too close behind the truck. He doubted Cardinal could even see, let alone take a shot at McMasters from where he was. There was only one thing he could do. Mitchell leaned over, tapped Grace on the shoulder, and told her to close in right behind the truck.
Grace nodded and gently applied her foot to the gas pedal. Within seconds, the bumper of the Rover nudged the back of the truck.
Mitchell scampered from the back of the Rover, pushed down the windshield, and made his way out onto the vehicle’s hood. Like a surfer, he balanced himself on the hood and carefully reached over for the back of the truck. His fingers had just touched the truck when it suddenly began to rise up into the air. With his heart racing in his chest, Mitchell grabbed hold and scrambled to find a place to jam his feet as the truck left the road. With the truck climbing higher by the second, Mitchell swung his right foot over and set
it on the steel bumper that ran along the back of the vehicle. A second later, he was standing on the bumper, holding on for dear life as the wind took the truck and turned it over to the right.
McMasters felt the truck begin to move. Before he knew it, he was sliding along the roof. With his arms flailing, he turned and reached out for one of the metal arms, just as he slid over the side. With his hands wrapped around the claw, McMasters hung over the side of the truck trying desperately to scramble his way back onto the roof before he fell to his death.
Grace watched the truck lift off the ground and steadily climb up into the sky. There was now nothing between her and Houston. With the image of Midori lying dead in her mind and a burning desire for revenge in her heart, she reached over and grabbed an AK lying on the seat beside her. She set the AK on her lap, changed gears, and sped after Houston. Someone had to pay for Midori, and as far as Grace was concerned, Houston was the man behind her death and he was going to die no matter what.
52
Mountain Road
“Yuri, you’re not going to believe it, but Ryan’s hanging off the back of the truck,” said Sam into her mic.
“Is he okay?” asked Yuri.
“Looks okay, but I think there’s someone else hanging off the side of the truck, as well.”
Suddenly, the side of the helicopter seemed to tear itself apart as dozens of holes were blasted into the fuselage.
Sam ducked inside and covered her head with her hands as the bullets flew through the air just above her and Cardinal.
A moment later, a dark-green, Albanian Air Force Bo-105 helicopter shot past. Its side door was wide open. Sam saw a door-gunner wave at them before setting both hands back onto the handle of his Russian-made PKM machine gun.
Hellfire Page 30