The Shadow Protocol

by Andy McDermott

  “Bianca!” Adam yelled. “Set up the PERSONA!”

  “What?” she shrieked back, on the verge of panic. “What for?”

  “The pilot! If we transfer his persona, I can fly us out of here!”

  “No!” gasped Tony, stirring weakly. “It’ll wipe al-Rais’s persona. We can’t afford to lose it.”

  “We’ve got the recording. And keeping it in my head won’t be any use if we’re all dead. John, you’ve got to get the pilot to Bianca. It’s our only chance.”

  Baxter was uncertain, but set his jaw. “We’ll get him. Listen up!” he shouted to the others, issuing orders.

  “Adam,” said Morgan through the earwig, “Tony’s right. If we lose al-Rais—”

  “We’ve already lost him,” Adam said, curt. “Tony, what happened?”

  “I don’t know,” Tony said, eyes screwed up in pain. “I was walking just ahead of him, and—he must have gotten free somehow, grabbed Trenton’s gun and hit me. I don’t remember anything after that.”

  “How the hell did he get free?” growled Baxter. “His hands were cuffed behind his back!”

  “He had a knife,” Adam remembered. “But—no, your team found it when you searched him. He knew how to break flex-cuffs, though. Najjar taught him. That doesn’t matter now, though. John, are you set?”

  “Yeah.” Baxter brought up his rifle. “Okay, guys, ready—and go!”

  He aimed the gun at the large building, ready to fire at the slightest sign of movement. Along the cutting, other squad members did the same, covering Perez as he ran into the open to drag the pilot back to cover. The Russian screamed again, his cry echoing off the ruined buildings.

  Adam raised his own pistol. Where was al-Rais? What was he planning? Would he attack Perez and the pilot while they were vulnerable in the open? No, the terrorist’s persona told him. Even if I hit them, the moment I fire the Americans will shoot back. All I have to do is stop them from reaching the plane, and wait until Sevnik arrives …

  He was covering the jetty, then. From where? A clear vantage point, but with cover. The wooden walls would give no protection against rifle bullets. Adam looked along the icy shore to the south. There was a small hut behind the former mine offices. Near it was a pile of snow-covered debris; broken wood, garbage—

  Something moved behind it.

  Adam fired three shots. The shape ducked, then reappeared, running for the hut. Adam fired again, but al-Rais had already thrown himself behind the little structure.

  “Watch Tony,” Adam told Baxter as he ran to Bianca. Perez pulled the pilot behind the scrap pile. “He’s behind that building!” he warned the troops, pointing.

  “Adam, I’ve just spotted the Hind,” Kyle said.

  “How long before it gets here?”

  “A few minutes, but it’s coming at full steam. You’ve got to get out of there.”

  “That’s the plan. Bianca, are you ready?”

  She regarded the writhing pilot, appalled. “We can’t make a transfer from him! He’s been shot!”

  “Yeah, and we’ll be shot in about three minutes if you don’t. The gunship’s coming back!”

  She hesitated, then began to put the skullcap on the Russian’s head. He cried out, babbling. “Hold him down,” she told Perez.

  Adam took the jet injector from the case, then sat with his back against the scrap pile. “This is still set for the right dose, yes?”

  “It should be,” Bianca replied. He brought the device to his neck. “No, wait! I’ll do it.”

  “No time.” He gasped at the sharp pain, then lay back and waited for the drug to take effect.

  He felt al-Rais’s persona clawing at his mind, desperate to hold on as the Neutharsine washed through it. But even the terrorist leader’s willpower was not enough to resist the chain reaction of chemical processes. The other voice in his head seemed to scream before dissolving to nothingness …

  “Adam!” He opened his eyes to see Bianca leaning over him anxiously, and realized that his own skullcap was now in place. “Did it work? Is al-Rais’s persona gone?”

  “I … I think so.” He tried to think of the Saudi’s parents, his lovers. No memories came to him. “Are you ready?”

  She had the other injector primed with a dose of Hyperthymexine. “Yes, but … he’s injured, I don’t know what’ll happen. It might kill him!”

  “It’s our only chance. Do it!”

  Reluctantly, she injected the copilot. He let out a gurgling shriek, flecks of spittle around his mouth tinged with blood. Bianca grimaced, then activated the PERSONA.

  At the jetty, Tony struggled to sit up. “John,” he groaned. “Give me a hand.”

  Baxter pulled him into a crouch. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m gonna need a truckload of Advil, but I’ll live.” He reached into his coat and took out his silenced SIG. “Where’s al-Rais?”

  “Somewhere behind that building.”

  “Adam?”

  “With Childs. They’re using the machine on the pilot.”

  “Damn it. I told him—never mind.” His headset had been dislodged; he fumbled it back into place. “Holly Jo, Kyle, what’s the situation?”

  “Chopper’s coming in fast,” Kyle warned.

  “Okay, whatever happens here, you need to be ready to get into the air. Tell the pilot to start the engines and stand by. If you lose contact with us, then he takes off immediately and heads back to US airspace at maximum speed. Understand?”

  “But we can’t leave you behind,” protested Holly Jo.

  “If that Hind does what it was designed to do, there won’t be anything of us left behind. That’s an order, okay? Tell him to power up, now.”

  “What do we tell the Russians?”

  “Anything you have to. Just get the plane ready for takeoff. Out.” He exchanged a grim look with Baxter; then they turned their eyes and weapons back to the search for al-Rais.

  Despite the cold, Bianca was sweating. She watched the columns of scrolling figures with a growing sense of hopelessness. “Come on, faster,” she muttered, willing the numbers to speed up—but knowing that they wouldn’t.

  She couldn’t bring herself to look at the pilot, shuddering in the snow. Instead she checked Adam. His eyes were flickering as he took in the Russian’s memories. Another look at the screen. What had been normal was now excruciatingly slow. “Come on!”

  Perez scuttled from the scrap pile to duck behind an overturned mine cart some forty feet away. Rifle raised, he surveyed the woods opposite before glancing up at the mine. “Dr. Childs—you’d better move back into the trees.”

  “I can’t leave them,” she protested, indicating the two men beside her.

  “You need to get out of sight.” A distant drumming became audible, the rapid tattoo echoing off the surrounding hills. “We’re about to have company!”

  With a despairing look at Adam, Bianca unwillingly backed up to the trees. The sound grew louder—

  The gunship rose over the summit like a bird of prey and swooped down toward the lake.

  Fire flashed from the Hind’s nose with a fearsome chain-saw rasp as its twin-barreled autocannon spewed out fifty rounds every second. A line of eruptions ripped along the ground. They raced toward the Vityaz—which shook under the metallic hammer blows before disintegrating in a blinding fireball, a black mushroom cloud swelling skyward.

  But the line didn’t stop there. It raced snake-like through the cutting, hunting for prey—then finding it, and striking.

  The cart was no protection against the gunship’s explosive 30mm rounds. They ripped through it, shattering the corroded steel—and hitting the man behind it. Perez didn’t even have time to scream as he was torn apart by shells and shrapnel.

  And the deadly serpent raced on, seeing more victims ahead—the pilot and Adam, lying helpless on the ground—

  The line of fire suddenly swerved. Shells hit the pile of rusted scrap rather than the men behind it as the Hind banked. The gunship bla
sted overhead, rotor wash kicking up a freezing whirlwind of snow in its wake. It crossed the shoreline and headed out over the lagoon, beginning a long, sweeping turn for a second attack.

  The downdraft had dislodged lumps of snow from the trees, leaving Bianca covered. Coughing, she shook off the icy deposits and looked out with trepidation into the cutting. To her relief, Adam was unharmed—but the sight of what was left of Perez almost made her vomit. Acidic bile burning in her throat, she stumbled out into the open and crouched beside the agent, wiping snow off the PERSONA.

  The activity on the screen was dying down. Heart pounding, Bianca pulled off a glove and stabbed at the keyboard. CALCULATING LATENCY ESTIMATES. The figures finally appeared. They were only just within the limits she had been taught were acceptable—but she didn’t care. “Adam, wake up!”

  She tugged at the skullcap. Adam stirred—and sprang upright with an anguished scream. Bianca fell backward in fright. He clutched at his side, wailing in Russian—then stopped, panting.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” Bianca gasped.

  “His strongest memory—it’s being shot!” He looked down at himself, almost surprised to find that he was unhurt. “I thought I’d been shot too.”

  “You nearly were! The helicopter—it killed Perez!” Keeping her eyes averted, she pointed toward the mine carts.

  “Jesus,” said Adam as he saw the dead man. He looked for the Hind. It was still making its turn; the heavily armored flying tank did not possess dragonfly maneuverability. “Get the gear packed up. We’ve got to get to the plane.”

  “Can you fly it?”

  Despite the tension of the situation, the emotion that crossed his face was embarrassment. “Ah … kind of.”

  “What do you mean, ‘kind of’?”

  “I mean, this guy was still learning! He’s only made two takeoffs from water, and both times he had an instructor helping.”

  “Well, that’s just fantastic!” Bianca started to remove the copilot’s electrode cap, only to pull back in horror. The Russian was still and silent, unmoving eyes staring at the leaden sky. “Oh God!”

  Adam knew what she was thinking. “You didn’t kill him,” he assured her, indicating the spreading red stain in the snow at the pilot’s side. “Al-Rais shot him, not you.”

  “But—but if we’d done something for him, he might—”

  “Bianca, if we don’t get out of here, we’ll be dead too. Come on!” He yanked the skullcap off the dead man and tossed it into the case, then slammed the PERSONA’s screen shut and shoved the machine into its foam bed. “I’ll take this—you carry the recorder.” He looked around at the lagoon—and froze.

  The Hind was coming back.

  Sevnik was in the gunner’s seat, finger on the cannon’s trigger as he surveyed the scene below on the hooded gunsight screen. It had been many years since he had flown in actual combat, attacking rebels in the Second Chechen War, but he had not forgotten how to fight.

  “Come right three degrees,” he told the pilot in the seat behind him. Unlike earlier models of the Mi-24, which had a rotating turret, the 30mm autocannons on this machine’s nose were fixed and required the entire aircraft to be lined up on its target. The chopper banked gently. “Hold.” He switched the gunsight’s mode to infrared, the cold landscape becoming a dark gray with hot white spots revealing the Americans that al-Rais had warned him about.

  Two of the spots were at the shore end of the jetty. The line showing where the cannon shells would impact ran right over them. “Move in.”

  Small flashes of light on the IR display. The Americans were shooting at him! An act of pure desperation: Even if they scored a hit, the gunship’s armor was impervious to anything smaller than a .50-caliber round.

  His finger tightened on the trigger, ready to fire …

  Something flicked through his peripheral vision—not on the screen, but outside the cockpit canopy. The pilot reacted in surprise. “What—”

  The helicopter shuddered as something hit the engine intakes above the cockpit and exploded.

  * * *

  “What the hell?” shouted Baxter as fire and smoke burst from the Hind’s upper fuselage. Debris dropped into the water. The gunship banked sharply, turning away from the pier and crossing the shoreline to drop behind the trees to the south. “We didn’t hit it that hard!”

  Tony knew what had happened. “Kyle! Was that you?”

  No answer. Kyle had used the UAV’s self-destruct to make a kamikaze attack on the helicopter—but with the drone destroyed, they had also lost its communications relay. Their headsets, and Adam’s earwig, had only limited range and power. Transmissions to the op center aboard the plane were now blocked by the hills.

  “Sounds like it’s landing,” said Baxter. The rumbling slap of the Hind’s rotors changed in pitch as it moved into a hover. “We’re gonna be outnumbered any minute!”

  “Adam!” shouted Tony as two scurrying figures approached. “Can you fly the plane?”

  Adam jumped down into the cover of the jetty, Bianca following. “Touch and go,” he said.

  “What does that mean?” Baxter demanded.

  “It means we’ll either go, or we’ll touch something—very hard.”

  “Make it the first one,” said Tony. He glanced at the Beriev. “How long will it take to get that thing moving?”

  “I can do an emergency start-up quickly enough—it’s getting it into the air that’ll be tricky.”

  “Get aboard,” Tony ordered. He called out to the others. “Everyone give Adam cover!”

  “Bring Qasid,” Adam told him.

  “It’s too risky,” Baxter objected. “If we waste time moving a prisoner while under fire, it’ll get someone killed!”

  Tony was silent for a moment, then nodded to Adam. “We take him with us,” he announced. Baxter was about to protest, but he cut him off. “No arguments—get him on that plane.”

  Adam gave Tony a nod of thanks, then rose. The Hind had landed somewhere on the other side of the woods. The Russian soldiers would be here in a few minutes—but al-Rais was already somewhere much closer. Even without the terrorist leader’s persona, Adam knew he would try to stop the Americans from leaving with the RTG.

  No sign of him, though. “Okay, I’m ready.”

  “Good luck,” said Tony.

  Adam jumped up onto the jetty—and ran.

  Despite some of the covering snow and ice being cleared by the men carrying the RTG, the surface was still slippery. The tip of the Beriev’s starboard wing reached halfway back along the hundred-foot pier. He passed it, skirting a dead terrorist. If al-Rais was going to take a shot, it would be now—

  A sharp crack of gunfire—but he had already ducked. The bullet snapped over him and punched a hole in the Beriev’s fuselage.

  More shots, these from a G36 as a teammate opened fire on the terrorist leader’s position. Boots skidding over the old planks, Adam threw himself through the open hatch into the Be-200’s cabin. He rolled into cover—and hit something hard and heavy.

  The RTG. The nuclear battery squatted inside its protective frame, secured to the deck by thick straps. The core’s green paint was cracked and flaking, exposing the metal of the casing.

  The shooting stopped. He glanced through the hatch. Tony and the others still had guns at the ready. They hadn’t hit al-Rais. Beyond the trees, he heard the throb of the Hind’s engines at idle. The pilot probably had no idea what had hit his aircraft, and was unwilling to risk the Americans having more of them.

  But Adam knew that as soon as the Beriev started up, Sevnik would not allow the gunship to remain grounded.

  He hurried into the cockpit. A moment of terrified shock as he saw the dead pilot still slumped in his seat, the Barrett round having blown half his head away. But he suppressed the young copilot’s horror at the sight of his dead instructor and friend and dropped into the empty second seat. The Beriev was a modern aircraft with a relatively high degree of computerization; he engag
ed the auxiliary power unit to activate the main systems, then began the procedure for an emergency start-up.

  Holly Jo ran back into the Global 6000’s cabin from the cockpit. “Better strap in!” she warned Kyle as she sat and buckled her own seat belt tightly.

  “I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Kyle said as he followed suit. The lights flickered, then the airframe trembled as the engines rose in power. There was a whine as the thrust reversers opened. The plane began to move—backward, trundling toward Provideniya’s main runway.

  Holly Jo put her headset back on. “Oh, they are not happy about this,” she said as she heard the control tower’s demands to know what was going on.

  “They want us to stop and power down,” said the pilot. “What do we do?”

  “We’ve got our orders—take off and get to US airspace,” she replied, looking through a porthole. A couple of Russian officials were running across the snow-covered concrete after the retreating jet. “Uh-oh.”

  The plane swung sharply through ninety degrees to face down the runway. Kyle peered through the window. “What’re they gonna do, try to shoot out the—Oh, shit. Oh shit! They’ve got guns—they are going to shoot out the tires!” He reactivated his own headset. “Dude, get us out of here!”

  “Miss Voss, can you keep your people’s chatter down, please?” the pilot replied testily. The thrust reversers retracted, the jet lurching to a stop.

  “What?” snapped Kyle. “No, wait—I’m not her people! She doesn’t give me orders!”

  “You are such a gynophobe, Kyle,” Holly Jo said, clutching her armrests as the engines shrieked to full power.

  “No, I’m not, whatever that is—oh Jesus!” The Russians were taking aim. “Go, go go go!”

  The pilot released the wheel brakes. Holly Jo and Kyle were shoved back in their seats as the jet surged forward. One of the Russians gawped at the Global 6000 as it raced past.

  The younger of the pair opened fire—

  He was aiming at the wheels rather than the fuselage. His bullets hit nothing but concrete and snow. The plane left the officers behind in moments and took to the sky, climbing steeply and banking to head southeast.