by Brad Taylor
Rafik lowered his weapon and smiled at Kamil. Before he could say anything, they heard gunfire erupt at the rear of the plane, the rattling sound of AK-47s on full automatic competing with a lower popping from pistols.
Rafik and Kamil threw themselves onto the deck of the aircraft and began snaking their way to the rear. In the distance, Rafik heard the Egyptian soldiers on guard begin firing in every direction, with rounds puncturing the thin skin of the aircraft.
They’ll ruin the plane. “Quit shooting!” he screamed. “Stop firing!” He knew as long as his men kept pulling the trigger, the Egyptians would respond.
Someone from outside shouted, “The truck will get away!”
Kamil said, “If that truck reaches the terminal, they might be able to convince the guards to attack. It’s their money the Egyptians took. We’ll be fighting our way through an army.”
Rafik began running toward the plane’s door, hoping a lucky round didn’t take him out. Kamil followed.
Collapsing behind the van, he berated the first man he saw. “How could you mess this up? All you had to do was kill the men in the truck.”
“They suspected something. They fired first.”
Rafik looked around the corner of the van and saw the pickup fifty meters away, the nose facing the front of the plane. He could see the legs of two men underneath the chassis, near the rear wheel. As he considered his options, one popped up and began shooting. Rafik’s men returned fire, followed by the distant flashes of the soldiers on the perimeter. Rounds began sprinkling around them, most striking the biggest target available—the airframe.
Every bullet that ripped through the skin caused Rafik to cringe. “Stop pulling the trigger! Now!”
Underneath the truck, he saw one man move to the cab. He’d have to crawl across the seat, but once he was behind the wheel, they’d be gone. Rafik rolled underneath the belly of the plane, stood up, and raced toward the cockpit, the airframe shielding him from the truck’s view.
Circling the nose, he saw the man had reached the steering wheel. The truck sprang to life, the headlights blinding him for a second. He heard the tires squeal, and he ran out, blocking the path of the pickup with his body. He raised the weapon as the vehicle bore down, stitching the front of the windshield with multiple rounds. The truck picked up speed, right at him. He refused to move, raking the AK left and right until the magazine emptied, the bolt slamming home with a clunk. He threw the weapon at the windshield, the vehicle so close it clanged off the driver’s-side mirror. The vehicle veered to the left, missing him by two feet. After thirty meters, it veered back to the right, now going fifty miles an hour. It slashed across the tarmac and slammed into a ditch, the nose crumpling inward with a shriek of twisted metal.
Rafik took a deep breath. The night became still, the only sound the hissing of the radiator of the truck. He walked back to the rear of the aircraft. The men were looking at him in awe.
“Get the Indonesians and their paint. Clean up that truck.”
He walked to the driver’s-side door of the van. The contact was cowering in the well by the pedals. He pulled him up by the hair.
“Go talk to the security perimeter. Tell them a story. Whatever, I don’t care, as long as you tell them that the transfer was successful and we appreciate their help. Hand me my bag.”
The man did as he asked. Rafik pulled out a thick wad of American dollars. “Give this to whoever is the best choice. Come back when you’re done.”
As the van pulled away, he turned to the Indonesians.
“Get to work on the numbers.”
As all three began to move, he grabbed the loadmaster. “Not you.”
The loadmaster whimpered, making Rafik want to gut him right there. The pilot who was his partner began to panic. “What are you doing? You said we’d all fly.”
“No. I said you’d all be fine. And you will.”
He pulled out the fillet knife, the dried blood black in the dim light of the runway.
“But if you don’t meet us in Prague, I’ll cause him so much pain that you’ll feel it long after he’s dead.”
Han had just settled into his suite, toying with the idea of getting a late-night massage at the spa, when the contact phone began to ring.
“Hello. I’m assuming that now this is the twenty-four-hour call.”
Han pulled the phone away from his ear, the shouting coming from it incoherent. Congressman Ellis sounded like he was hyperventilating, babbling about the American they’d tried to kill and the equipment transfer. Han could barely make out what he was saying. He cut Ellis off.
“Stop. Start over. What has happened to the shipment?”
“It’s gone! Someone stole it! I’m not lying. It had to be that Nephilim guy. I told you to do something about him.”
“What do you mean, gone?”
“The plane came in tonight. I was going to transfer the equipment to you tomorrow, but someone came in and took it. My Egyptian contacts are all saying the transfer occurred and the plane flew away, but I can’t get any of my men on the phone. Neither the men who were bringing the equipment to Cairo or the flight crew. They’ve disappeared, and so has the cargo.”
Han considered for a second. Ellis could be lying, but he didn’t think the man was capable of such acting. The voice on the other end of the phone was on the verge of breaking.
“How do you know it was the American?”
“I don’t, dammit! But who the fuck else would it be? You need to get it back. Get it back and kill Nephilim, before he can talk. And the woman, too.”
The man Han had tasked to follow the American hadn’t reported in a couple of days, but that in itself wasn’t unusual. He’d been told to report only if something suspicious happened, and it appeared that the American cared about nothing but his friend in the hospital.
“Are you sure the plane’s gone?”
“Yes! The Egyptians told me the plane flew away. Why would they lie?”
“So why aren’t you sure the transfer happened? Maybe your men just have phone trouble.”
“No, no, no. This was too important. I had three numbers. They were instructed to call immediately. I’ve heard nothing and had to call my Egyptian contact to get the information I’m giving you. Something’s wrong, and that American is at the heart of it.”
Han’s voice became brittle. “Before you call me in a panic, find out the facts. All of them. I’ll find the American. You confirm the loss of the equipment. For your sake, you’d better hope it’s just a mistake.”
Han hung up the phone and called the team leader he’d brought from China.
“Have you heard from Wan?”
“No, but the last report was nothing except back and forth to the hospital. I told him to quit bothering me with useless information.”
“Find him and get the American man and woman that survived the bomb. The mission’s changed. Don’t kill them. Bring them to me.”
“You want both?”
“No. I only need one. If you can get both, fine. But don’t work too hard at it.”
28
I
saw Jennifer finally pull off the rutted dirt road we’d been traveling down for what seemed like days. Or nights, as it were. She flashed her brakes twice to let me know this was it, and shut off the truck. I pulled in beside her and killed the engine. If things went according to plan, we had about forty-five minutes before the team jumped. Plenty of time to get the drop zone established. We’d rented a couple of Toyota Hilux pickup trucks, ubiquitous in the desert, and had traveled south on Highway 2, then cut east before Beni Suef on Highway 54. Jennifer had found a deserted spot about three and a half hours away from Cairo, which was harder than it sounds. She kept bumping into Bedouins, forcing her deeper and deeper into the Eastern Desert.
She’d done her usual perfectionist job, bringing me the grid references for the DZ along with digital photos, which I relayed to the Taskforce. She’d treated me with detached professionalism, like a r
eceptionist at a dentist’s office. I wanted to talk to her, to connect again, but didn’t know how. For her part, she seemed to be forcing the façade. But then again, maybe I was projecting what I wanted to see.
Jennifer said, “Well, does this work?”
“Yeah. Of course. As long as we don’t get company.”
“That’s what took me so long. There’s nothing for miles around here. We’re good.”
I smiled at her, getting a nod in return. Without a word, she turned and began to dig into a bag. Jesus. Melt the glacier a little.
She pulled out what looked like a small calculator and a penlight. “You want to rope?”
“Yeah, hook up the radio.”
She disassembled the antennae to her truck until she could get at the cable leading to the radio. She stripped the insulation until bare wire showed. Opening the battery box to the calculator, she pulled out two alligator clips and snapped them into the wire. She powered up the device, getting a series of ones across the screen.
“We’re secure.”
I dialed the radio to 88.9, hearing soft static. We couldn’t talk to the bird, but he could now talk to us. He’d transmit on a standard FM frequency, which would come in encrypted but would be decrypted by the device Jennifer had just attached and come out through the stereo speakers just like a DJ.
We spent the next thirty minutes in uncomfortable silence. I was on the verge of doing a perimeter recce just to get away, when the radio crackled to life.
“Prometheus, Prometheus, this is Stork. Do you copy?”
I turned on the penlight. Nothing visible happened, but I knew an infrared beam was now stabbing into the night, looking like a spotlight at a car dealer’s to the men flying with night vision goggles. I began to do slow loops in the sky, like I was working a lasso.
“Roger, Prometheus, got your rope. Stand by.”
Retro saw the jumpmaster touch his wrist where a watch would be and hold up two hands, fingers spread. Ten minutes. He felt the adrenaline start to rise. There was always a chance the jump would be called off, but the call told him it was a go. He saw the jumpmaster key his radio, and his earpiece crackled to life. “Retro, this is Decoy, you hear me?”
“Yeah, I got you.”
“Help the loadmaster with Buckshot’s bundle. We’re closer than I thought.”
“Roger.”
To his front was a six-foot-by-three-foot tube full of the team’s equipment. Another man on the team, Buckshot, would strap himself to it and ride it out into the night tandem, parachuting with the entire team’s gear. He saw Buckshot begin working the myriad of clips and buckles on the bundle and knew he was grinning under his oxygen mask, the whites of his eyes stark against his ebony skin. Crazy fucker. Strapping himself to a death ride.
Buckshot was one of those guys who loved jumping, and did it on the weekends just for kicks. Retro was not. He despised it. Even when it was just a “Hollywood” jump, with no equipment on a crystal-clear day. Especially when it was in the dead of night at 26,000 feet. With another man strapped to a torpedo. Into a blind drop zone. At least you’re not jumping equipment. With the exception of a Glock 30 in a pancake holster on his hip, all other team gear was in the tandem bundle—ammunition, long guns, beacons, and whatever other special equipment they thought they’d need—which Buckshot would ride. In Retro’s mind, there was a reason HALO parachute infiltrations were classified as a “life support activity” by the military. Because people fucking die doing this shit.
He cinched down his leg straps and did a final check of his parachute harness, touching his rip cord and cutaway pillow while mentally going through what he would do if his main parachute failed. The jumpmaster, Decoy, cleared the loadmaster to open the ramp. Retro watched it lower, each inch escalating the sense of dread, his breath now coming in rapid pants, his goggles beginning to fog. Soon. Going soon.
Buckshot tapped his arm and motioned to the small drogue parachute container on the enormous pack he wore, something that was necessary to keep him above the bundle as he hurtled to earth. Retro secured it, waiting on the inevitable follow-on commands that would cause them to leave the safety of the aircraft.
He looked out the ramp and could barely make out the distinction between the earth and the sky. The night was huge. A black pool waiting to swallow him. He saw the stars blinking, the frigid air from the altitude mixing with the sweat of his fear. He calmed himself down like he always did, by remembering he didn’t have to worry about the part where he jumped off the ramp. The two minutes of free fall are painless. It’s the sudden stop at the end that hurts.
Kneeling at the juncture of the ramp and the aircraft frame, Decoy stuck his head into the wind, making sure the pilots weren’t two grid squares off. He stood up and gave the two-minute warning. Retro saw the jump light go green, and barely noticed the loadmaster unhooking his oxygen tube from the floor-mounted console, allowing him to breathe straight from the bottle on his harness. He inched forward with his hand on the drogue as Buckshot pushed the bundle toward the open chasm.
Decoy looked off the ramp again, making sure they were in the correct location for the release. He pulled back into the aircraft and extended his arm, his hand giving a thumbs-up. He bounced the hand off the floor and stood. Retro’s adrenaline skyrocketed.
Here we go. Here we go.
Buckshot checked to make sure Retro still had control of the drogue chute. He locked eyes, nodded, then pushed the bundle to the end of the ramp, inches from the abyss.
Decoy looked off the ramp for the last time, then faced into the plane. He extended his arm and pointed into the night, like Death ordering them into the grave.
Retro watched Buckshot push the bundle off the ramp like a NASCAR crew pushing a car out of pit row, the line from the drogue chute snaking out of the pack on his back. He disappeared into space, pulling the drogue chute from Retro’s hands. Retro took two quick steps and followed suit, diving headfirst into the black sky.
The subzero temperature immediately turned the fog in his goggles to ice. The wind punched him, attempting to flip him on his back, and within seconds he was traveling at one hundred and twenty miles an hour. The feeling finally relaxed him—as it always did.
He located the ChemLights of the bundle, with Buckshot attached, then the ChemLight of the jumpmaster, Decoy, both farther away than he wanted. He tucked his arms into his side and began to dive, his speed increasing until he was overtaking their fall. Before he slammed into them, he spread out and arched his back, now falling flat and stable next to Decoy, the bundle below them and to the left.
Ninety seconds later, he checked his altimeter and broke away, the adrenaline firing back up. Moment of truth.
He waved off and looked for his ripcord, a feeble light coming from the half-inch baby ChemLight he’d taped to it, a relic from a jump when his ripcord had floated free from its pocket, forcing him to find it while he hurtled to earth, the slim piece of metal whipping around in the darkness. This time, it was right where it was supposed to be. He hooked his thumb and jerked, then looked over his shoulder, feeling the pilot chute pull out the main. He felt the satisfying yank in his groin as he decelerated to a sane speed. He looked up and saw a perfect rectangle against the night sky.
One more piece of luck I’ve used up.
29
K
urt sat outside the Oval Office, waiting on President Warren to get a spare moment. He’d done this ritual more times this month than he had in his entire career, but the HALO infiltration was the topic of the day, and President Warren had demanded to know immediately if anything had gone wrong. After the secretary of state’s outbursts, Kurt secretly thought the president wanted to talk about Taskforce activities outside the view of the Oversight Council and was using the parachute infiltration as an excuse to get Kurt alone. Not a good sign. The council itself had been created by Kurt and the president to keep Project Prometheus from turning into an American Gestapo. The Taskforce was a powerful, powerful org
anization that operated completely outside of U.S. law. Both men knew that having it answer to a single man was asking for abuse, so they had created the Oversight Council, bringing in trusted advisors who were both for and against its use, thereby guaranteeing a balanced approach. Now Kurt worried that the president might be short-circuiting the very safety valve they had created.
He absently flipped through the pictures he’d been given just before he left his office. Six frames from his father’s camera, digitally restored by the best in the business. Two were of his father’s team just prior to launch, which, while grainy, had come out fairly well. One was of an open bay porch–type structure with the shadows of several men inside, looking like vague ghosts. Three were of a man standing at the front of the porch. He appeared Caucasian, but that was the extent of what could be made out.
Kurt stopped at the first one and stared hard, trying to see something that would give him a clue as to why his father had risked his life for the picture. Nothing stood out. Even the face was a no-go, with a black blotch from where the negative had been scratched on the left side of his features. He scanned the next one, then the third. None were any better. The film negative had been scratched so badly that the digital reconstruction had had nothing to work with.
He was about to put the pictures back into their folder, when he noticed that the scratches on the negatives were in the exact same spot on the face within each frame. Which was impossible. It’s not a scratch. It’s a part of the man.
He held the picture up to the light, then saw the president standing at the door of his office. He shoved everything into his bag and stood.
“Hey, Kurt. Sorry for the wait. Come on in.”
Kurt followed and got right to business, wanting to get his information out and steer clear of any discussions about operational use of the Taskforce.
“The jump went fine. Infil’s complete with all equipment on the ground. Pike’s got three men now, so he’s just one short of a full team.”