Tankian rolled back, his hand slapping the lever that opened the back ramp. The wind whistled in as Tankian charged Harwood, who leaped to his right. Tankian’s wingspan stretched across the cubic dimensions of the interior. A massive claw snatched his ankle as he kicked at Tankian’s face.
From his prone position, Harwood could see the shoreline where Lake Michigan met Wisconsin, most likely. Tankian kept his iron grip on Harwood’s ankle despite Harwood’s repetitive kicks. Harwood reached up and grabbed the bungee cord securing the silver tanks. It snapped loose in his hand, the containers tumbling onto the floor, banging and clanging together. Metal on metal. Something in Tankian’s eyes told Harwood these were no oxygen containers.
The containers rolled off the ramp, dropping into the lake like bombs from a World War II D-day bomber. Harwood whipped Tankian’s face with the hook of the bungee cord. Tankian wasn’t fazed. Slowly, inch by inch, Tankian regained strength. He wiped the blood from his eyes and leered at Harwood, whose ankle felt as if it were shackled in a manacle. Whatever concerned him about the loose containers had evaporated. Tankian took another glance over his shoulder at the port side of the aircraft. More containers. Something registered in his eyes. The leering smile reappeared.
The aircraft jerked right and then leveled, causing them to shift and hang on. The wind whipped across the open ramp.
Tankian spat. Blood framed his teeth like a bad vampire costume on Halloween. Tankian’s other hand reached for Harwood, who kicked Tankian in the face multiple times. The man howled with pain but kept coming. Tankian’s movements had slowly brought them both to the edge of the ramp. They were both flapping in the breeze. One wrong move and they would fall a half mile to the lake.
Tankian lifted Harwood, who was holding on to the hydraulic rod of the ramp. The grease and hydraulic fluid didn’t help him. His hand slipped, and if Tankian hadn’t been holding him, he might have fallen, but he could see in Tankian’s eyes that the big man wanted one last moment with him.
Harwood twisted and wrenched his ankle free. He fell from the ramp, his only purchase that of the slippery hydraulic rod. He was a gymnast doing a perpendicular body hold as the aircraft followed its GPS waypoints.
Tankian smiled, eyed Harwood’s two hands that were losing traction by the millisecond. Harwood swung his left leg up to the ramp and dug his heel into the nonskid pad. Tankian towered above him, standing on the ramp, hair blowing in the breeze like a surfer riding a wave.
He raised his foot and aimed at Harwood’s hands.
* * *
Sassi watched General Cartwright throw the smoke grenades on the deck when they had seen Harwood falling into the ocean and Corporal Nolte fending off terrorists like Mike Durant in Mogadishu. Dead bodies were piled around him like cordwood.
As they banked to avoid enemy fire and circled back around, the cargo drone escaped from the bow of the ship. He ordered the pilot to land on the deck in the smoke, a dangerous task, and pick up Corporal Nolte, which they did.
Now they sped after the drone that was traveling a solid fifty knots. The Black Hawk had far more power, but as they closed with the drone, he saw Harwood and Tankian battling on the lip of the ramp.
“Nolte. Get a fresh mag and do your thing,” Cartwright said. “Chief, get some rope and secure it like we were rappelling.”
The crew chief handed Nolte some 5.56 mm ammunition, nodded, grabbed a coiled rope beneath him, and said, “Roger.”
Nolte zipped a monkey harness around his torso and snapped into the anchor ring on the floor as he leveled the rifle onto Tankian.
The crew chief tied a bowline into the anchor ring and knelt next to Nolte, holding the rope. They were maybe fifty yards from the drone. Close enough for the shot, but too far to help Harwood, who slipped and fell from the ramp. He held on to the hydraulic rod that controlled the angle of the ramp. He wouldn’t last ten seconds like that.
Tankian rose above Harwood for the coup de grâce. The big man towered over Harwood’s powerful body, holding on by the thinnest of threads, maybe two fingers on each hand gripping the metal bar like a rock climber on El Capitan, knowing those fingers were all that stood between him and an unceremonious fall to the base.
Sassi had worked with soldiers in many combat zones. She watched Cartwright, Harwood, Nolte, and the crew chief all focus on a single task. She’d never seen anything like it during her time abroad. The gritty determination and sheer willpower. Bodies hanging out of a helicopter to save their buddy on the cargo ramp of a drone. Harwood dueling with a giant of a man and barely hanging on. She wanted desperately do something, but sometimes it was best to stay out of the way, let the team work their magic on the field. This was one of those moments.
The Milwaukee skyline was closing in on them fast. The Northwestern Mutual building loomed large, and they were rapidly gaining on it. Beneath that was the Milwaukee Art Museum with its fish-spine spires poking high into the sky. In a few seconds, they’d either bore through the glass high-rise or impale themselves on the white spikes reflecting in the morning sun.
Nolte fired, stopping the big man for a moment, but Tankian kept going. Nolte fired again. And again. Finally, Tankian stood on the deck, unmoving, and looked at the helicopter as if he’d figured it out. He tried to move, but evidently didn’t have control. He began to fall toward Harwood, which would be fatal for them both. Nolte emptied the mag into Tankian, who stumbled once, twice, and then fell inside the cargo bay.
Harwood’s hands were slipping. The crew chief was frozen, indecisive.
Sassi snatched the rope from him, tied a bowline knot around her waist, and shouted at the crew chief, “Closer!”
The Black Hawk inched to within ten meters and slightly above. The white fish bones of the art museum were approaching fast. Sassi ran from the starboard to the port sides of the helicopter and leaped, cycling her arms and legs through the air as she scrambled to get enough altitude and distance to land on the ramp.
She made it, rolled lightly, and popped up as she reached over and grabbed Harwood by his outer tactical vest, the only thing she could reach.
Harwood slipped and let go of the hydraulic rod, Sassi’s strength being the only force preventing him from falling. The drone banked as it approached land and began to lose altitude and airspeed about a quarter mile away from the skyline. Sassi’s grip failed briefly, but she managed to get her other hand on the vest.
She was prone on the cargo ramp, holding Harwood, whose arms were pinwheeling in the air until one hand managed to find the ramp. Slowly, Sassi pulled him in and up onto the ramp as if she were retrieving a man overboard.
The tilt-rotors made another adjustment at a moment when neither of them was holding on to anything structural. They stumbled but managed. A dark shadow emerged from the cargo hold.
Tankian. Somehow the beast was still alive. He took a wobbly step forward. His eyes were blank, soulless, blacked-out headlights.
Harwood turned and tackled Tankian, slitting his throat with his Blackhawk knife, severing the neck all the way to his spine.
The Milwaukee skyline was closing in fast. Sassi retied the rope around both their waists. The drone corrected again. It was headed directly toward the tallest building in downtown Milwaukee. The helicopter wasn’t going to be able to maintain its parallel separation with the drone. The rope between the helicopter and Sassi and Harwood was going to pull them all into the face of the building if they didn’t make that leap of faith.
Sassi hugged Harwood and started to leap, but Harwood stopped her.
“Chemicals!” he shouted. “Where’s your knife?”
Sassi didn’t hesitate and produced her knife, cut the rope, and followed Harwood inside. The drone was aimed directly at one of the most populated office buildings in Milwaukee. It picked up speed to achieve maximum ramming force and explosive property.
Harwood dove into the cargo hold over Tankian and found the controls. He couldn’t see through the nose cone but knew it was only a ma
tter of seconds before impact. If the drone collided with the building, there would be a chemical catastrophe not unlike the attacks Assad had delivered on his people.
On the GPS display, the buildings and streets were in three-dimensional relief. He pushed the manual override button and felt the drone drop like a rock until he worked the cockpit handle just like a video game. He banked hard to the right, watched the GPS, stayed centerline over the road, waited for an opening, and turned east over the lake.
He slowed the drone, its engines whining as he tilted them from forward propulsion to vertical landing. They were maybe two hundred meters over the lake when bullets began to stitch across the side of the fuselage. One of the chemical tanks was pierced and began hissing.
Harwood grabbed Sassi and leaped off the back ramp, dropping over one hundred feet into Lake Michigan.
CHAPTER 34
Harwood held on to Sassi as the Black Hawk came in low. The crew chief tossed them a rope. They tied a quick knot, and the Black Hawk lifted off with Harwood and Sassi dangling below. As they ascended, Harwood was shouting at the crew chief, whose feet were hanging over the lip of the helicopter. Harwood was certain the man couldn’t hear him over the whine of the engines and chop of the rotors.
“Drones!” Harwood shouted. “Attack drones!”
Two Hunter S-70 attack drones were lined up in formation and coming directly at them. The lead one fired two missiles, which spun into the sky like wild pitches from a pitcher tossing hundred-mile-per-hour fastballs.
The missiles whooshed past them, leaving white contrails. The drones banked high, exposing their broadside much as they had done only days before in Syria as they prepared for another gun run. The Black Hawk banked, trying to avoid the missiles and machine-gun fire from the Russian drones.
The rope slid along the sharp edge of the cargo bay, sliding and grating against the frame. Harwood knew this rope. It was the basic rappelling rope the military used, seven-sixteenths thickness and 120 feet long. Less than a half an inch was securing his and Sassi’s weight. The helicopter banked around a circular rotunda poking into the water and then dove for the water.
The rope was fraying fast. There was nothing he could do other than hold on to Sassi tightly as they once again tumbled toward Lake Michigan.
* * *
Valerie Hinojosa stood on the observation deck of Milwaukee’s Discovery World, which was a three-story white science museum that poked into Lake Michigan just south of Veterans Park where she had finished her run yesterday morning. The art museum’s spiky finials poked harshly into the sky just beyond Veterans Park. Deke Bronson stood beside her, dressed in his standard Zegna blue suit, white Boss English spread collar shirt, pink Hermès tie with tiny balloons floating upward, and burgundy Louboutin leather shoes. Conversely, Valerie was dressed in practical khaki cargo pants, brown hiking boots, Carhartt plaid shirt, and outer tactical vest with ammunition in the pouches. Her pistol hung on her right hip and a set of binos were draped around her neck.
They had traveled to Sawyer International Airport, secured the remains of the two dead soldiers, and placed Andrea Comstock in “protective custody,” which to Valerie was a prelude to arresting her. Comstock was being watched by FBI agents in her hotel room on the top floor of the Pfister Hotel, Milwaukee’s swankiest digs.
“Has to be the Reaper at the center of all of this,” Bronson said.
“Have everyone evacuate every high-rise! Look at that.”
He pointed at two types of drones swarming high in the sky. The smaller drones seemed to be finding targets while the larger drones swooped in and attacked.
“Evacuate everything. Tell people to go where they would go for a fire drill,” Bronson directed. It was a close call. Stay inside and risk a building collapsing 9/11-style or go outside and risk being strafed by the drones.
“I’ve got a call in to the air force. They should have jets on station in a few minutes, if not sooner.”
“Few minutes is too long,” Bronson said.
Two drones chased the helicopter, and the others formed up over Lake Michigan and began flying directly at them, rockets and machine-gun rounds peppering the traffic on I-794 along the Lower East Side. Traffic had been at a standstill. Now people were running from their cars and finding cover.
Valerie worked her radios and cell phones, coordinating with local and state law enforcement. They watched the action unfold as Harwood dangled below the drone. A woman leaped from the Black Hawk and saved him from the duel with the giant on the ramp. The drone smashed into the Northwestern Mutual building about midsection. Fire erupted and burned, smoke pouring from the gash in the façade. The Black Hawk disappeared to the north side of the skyline.
“Oh my God,” Valerie said. “Vick.”
“One hundred percent shit show,” Bronson said.
For a few minutes, they waited and stared at the horizon, willing the helicopter to come back into view, willing Harwood to be alive.
“Vick taught me to ask, what should I be doing that I’m not? From my vantage, we’ve got the air force on the way. We’ve got Comstock on house arrest. We’ve got law enforcement, hospitals, and first responders focused on the destruction and casualties. What are we missing?”
“Why the additional containers? They obviously had a lot already on that ship.”
Valerie thought for a moment. Indeed, why?
“WMD,” she whispered. “Oh my God. It’s got to be WMD.”
On the horizon to the east, the formation of drones looked like an air show coming in slow and low.
* * *
Max Wolff was neither happy nor unhappy with the developments. His goal had been to politically destroy Andrea Comstock and make the United States pay for what it had cost him with its withdrawal from the Iran deal.
Five billion euros.
He watched through the MasterEye software his company had developed. He could see any drone’s full-motion video or have multiple feeds up on his screen all at once. He’d purposely told Tankian to have the two chemical weapons drones loiter and then come in on the second attack wave to catch people who would have fled outside.
The Hunter S-70 in the trail of the formation was providing him the view. He could see the entire Milwaukee skyline, and while he had anticipated this attack occurring at dusk, when the convention center would be full, no plan ever went exactly as rehearsed. The martyrs that had been training in al-Ghouta had done well enough. He’d exacted his revenge and was now just leaning back in his Garmisch conference room, where he’d browbeat Andrea Comstock into submission. The ninety-inch HD display showed everything he needed to see.
Including Andrea Comstock standing on the roof of a hotel.
He moved the joystick that controlled the camera and zoomed in.
She looked disheveled. Her hair was tossed from the wind. Black streaks painted mascara lines down her face, no doubt remnants of the heavy makeup she had applied for her big TV moment. She held her heels in her hand. Her gray blazer was unbuttoned. Her head turned and looked at two men, who were holding pistols aimed at her.
FBI, Wolff thought. How appropriate. “Please die,” he whispered. With Tankian apparently having bit the bullet, Comstock was the only real link between him and everything that was occurring.
She held up her hands and mouthed something in apparent surrender.
Wolff flipped the override switch so that he could control the weapons platform of the Hunter.
As he prepared to press the button, everything went blank.
He furiously jammed his thumb on the red Fire switch, but the screen remained blank.
In his rage, he switched back to the onboard view. The camera showed Sam Kinnett standing in the bridge with no guard. Smoke boiled and then died down from the front of the ship. Kinnett retrieved the emergency kit, extracted the flare gun, and carefully opened the door that led to the ladder. Wolff switched cameras, following Kinnett as he climbed down into the flight deck area. Kinnett stopped and had a p
uzzled look on his face.
He had to be surprised that there were no containers, that it was like the inside of an aircraft carrier. To Kennett’s left was Kareem, standing in the middle of a command and control platform not unlike where he had just been at the helm. Monitors showed different sections of the Milwaukee skyline. Kareem was focused on two monitors to his left and talking into a headset at the same time.
Wolff knew that Kinnett had watched the drones fly from the ship, had seen the weapons firing, had smelled the spent gunpowder. He reached out and tried to stop Kinnett’s next action, which was to lift the flare gun and fire it into Kareem’s body. The terrorist spazzed as if he were being electrocuted with the hot phosphorous burning inside his body.
Kinnett watched him for a minute, scanned the deck of the ship for others, and then walked over to the command center, where he pushed a master override lever up, causing all the monitors to go blank.
* * *
Harwood and Sassi splashed into Lake Michigan, about a quarter mile from the shore. A coast guard boat raced toward them and slowed as it approached. Four men in life preservers and tactical gear were aiming M4 carbines at them.
Harwood gasped for air and searched frantically for Sassi. Saw her about ten meters away and swam in her direction. She was floating facedown in the water.
“Sassi!” he yelled. The musty lake water filled his nostrils and mouth. The bullet wound bit at his shoulder. Someone jumped in behind him. Another splash. Two divers secured him and Sassi, who was unconscious.
On board, they began resuscitating her.
“Sassi, wake up!”
Then he saw the bullet wound in her chest.
“We need casevac at the pier!” one of the coast guardsmen shouted. The boat raced. Sirens wailed. Everything faded away. Sassi opened her eyes and blinked, licked her lips.
Reaper: Drone Strike: A Sniper Novel Page 28