by Eric Dabbs
Seconds later, the small army of militants returned fire in an overwhelming show of force, pinning them behind the tool boxes. Alex and Wilson popped out on occasion squeezing off a few rounds, but were hemmed in again. Outmanned and outgunned, they had to stall for time and conserve ammo to survive.
Alex could only hope the Marines were well on their way.
53
Alex peeked around the corner of the tool box, fired off a round at one of Coraco's men. The shot missed.
Wilson looked around his tool box. Both boxes were riddled with holes. "The hangar doors are raising. This is not good."
In the middle of the hangar, Raziz rushed the flight lieutenant to the plane and moments later, the stealth bomber’s engines ignited. A tow truck was supposed to pull the aircraft to the runway, but in the race to get the bomber in the air, its thrusters scorched everything in its path. Fortunately, the exhaust cones were high enough to clear the drums of jet fuel. As the plane angled for the doorway to make a turn for the tarmac, the heat from the exhaust flashed over Alex and Wilson. Shielded by the tool boxes, they scrambled for the back corner of the building and dove headlong to the concrete floor.
The roasting heat moved away as the plane started to exit the hangar, forcing most of Coraco and Raziz’s men to flee through the open doors. Wilson offered a hand to Alex and gave him a lift to his feet.
"Hang loose," Alex yelled over the sound of the plane's engines as it left the confined space. "I'm going after that old truck, see if I can head them off on the runway."
"Then I'm going after Reed or Raziz, or whichever one I come across first," Wilson replied.
In the chaos, Alex took off toward the truck, firing rounds at the few militants that remained indoors while Wilson sprinted in the direction of the small office located off to the side of the hangar. The big agent must have caught a glimpse of Reed because Alex saw Raziz dashing for the transport truck on the other side of the hangar—the same truck he needed to use to stop the plane from taking off.
Alex charged after him, staying low, bullets zipping by his head as he ran. Raziz rounded the front of the truck as Alex closed in on the rear of the vehicle.
Raziz scampered up the foot board and scooted into the driver's seat. Just as his fingers curled around the steering wheel, Alex reached up and grabbed him by the shirt collar, jerking him out of the truck and flinging him to the concrete.
Raziz tried to gain his feet, but caught a boot to the gut before he could roll away. His body rose with the kick, expelling a burst of air from his lungs before he fell to the floor.
A fire of rage and adrenaline burned within Alex as he yanked Raziz up by the hair, dragged him across the floor and rammed his head into the truck door. He had Raziz right where he wanted him, reeling, under his control. He wadded hair in both hands and swiveled him around. Raziz teetered for balance, bent over at the waist.
Alex brought his leg back, set to knee him in the face, but Raziz launched himself forward, got within reach and swung his arm in a wild arc, landing a body blow with a fist full of knuckles.
An explosion of pain erupted in Alex's side. He assumed he had a hairline fractured rib when he fell from the cargo plane's landing gear back in Marbella, but now the bone snapped with a sickening crunch.
Alex released Raziz's hair and backpedaled in retreat. He gritted his teeth and groaned, wincing from the incapacitating pain. It felt like a hellfire missile blasting into his side.
Raziz seized the opportunity, snatching a hand full of ribs.
Alex yelped, the lights blinking out for a few seconds.
The tables turned, Raziz swung Alex around and drove him into the truck door, his back absorbing the impact.
"I must have cracked one of your ribs earlier." Raziz pulled Alex to him, a hand still gripping his side. With malice, he bounced him off the truck again.
Alex cried out. "Don't flatter yourself. You had nothing to do with it."
Raziz snarled, fingers digging into ribs.
"You know," Alex said, his voice gurgling with a raspy growl of determination, "I'm gonna kill you."
"What was that? You sound choked up, like you're in pain."
"I'm gonna kill you," Alex spat, his eyes watering with mind numbing tears.
His blurry gaze dropped to a slender object in a sheath on Raziz's belt. Then he barreled forward and head-butted him square in the nose. Blood gushed from Raziz's crushed cartilage as he stumbled backwards on his heels.
Alex slapped his hand on the back of Raziz's scalp, yanked his head down and kneed him in his ruined septum. More crimson splattered onto the concrete. With that, Alex thumbed off the leather strap restraining his Ka-Bar knife—which Raziz had stolen from him—ripped the blade out by the handle, and then stabbed it to the hilt into the side of Raziz's head, the blade penetrating his ear canal with a fleshy squish.
Raziz shuddered, his limbs quaking with a tremor.
More blood flowed.
Then his hands dropped, hanging loosely as his brain lost control of his motor functions.
Alex shoved his motionless body to the floor.
"Their getting away," Wilson shouted as he ran toward Alex, his finger jabbing in the direction of the stealth bomber as it made a turn for the runway. "I beat Reed unconscious. He didn't stand a chance. He's laid out over the desk in the office over there."
"Hate I missed it, but I need to move."
Alex spun on his feet and lumbered toward the transport truck. He fought a rumbling wave of pain in his side as he opened the door and hauled himself up into the seat behind the steering wheel.
Wilson climbed in on the other side. "You didn't expect me to just hang out by that charcoaled tool box, did you?"
"I guess not. Get ready to rumble cause the bomber's on the runway."
Alex jammed his foot on the gas pedal and the archaic truck lurched forward. With Coraco and Raziz's men fleeing the hangar because of the moving plane, Alex and Wilson had the whole place to themselves.
For the moment...
Then the transport truck thundered into the night air, rejoining the action. Bullets whizzed by, some of the shots ripping through the metal frame of the truck, blasting like mini explosions in Alex's ears.
The sleek bomber lined up for takeoff at the end of the tarmac. Alex angled the jostling truck for the other end of the runway.
Automatic gunfire shifted from the front and sides of the old vehicle to the rear, giving them some protection as they accelerated for the final stretch. At the other end of the airstrip, Alex lined up the truck and punched the brakes. Flipped on the headlights. For all he knew, it was three or four in the morning, and the Marines could be seconds away from storming the airbase.
But the only thing that mattered now was the amount of time it took for the old truck to reach the stealth bomber and stop it from going airborne.
The plane started creeping forward and within seconds, it was on its way.
Alex floored the gas.
The truck rumbled, accelerating toward a collision course with the plane. The distance shortened as the aircraft and the old truck raced to meet each other. Two hundred yards. A hundred and fifty yards. Then a hundred yards as the truck surpassed eighty kilometers per hour, which translated to about fifty miles an hour in Alex's head.
Wilson eyed him warily. "You know what you're doing?"
"No." Alex didn't blink, but dropped his leaden foot heavier on the gas pedal, forcing the old rig up to ninety kilometers an hour, and then up to a hundred.
"O...kay." Wilson fastened his seatbelt. "Let's do this."
With fifty yards of runway separating the plane and the truck, the stealth bomber began rising from the tarmac, the distance closing at what seemed like light speed.
Then with a sudden burst of air under its hawk like wings, the aircraft pulled up from the runway and roared over the transport truck. As it soared over them, a wave of hot air rattled the vehicle to its core.
Alex slammed on the bra
kes, bringing the truck to a screeching halt in the middle of the runway.
He drove his fists into the steering wheel and shouted with frustration as the stealth bomber disappeared into the night sky, blazing toward its target, the eastern seaboard of the United States.
They could only climb out of the cab and stand by the truck in defeat.
Wilson’s face was awash with grief.
Alex was about to get back behind the wheel and head toward the battle with Coraco and Raziz's men when the sound of rotors thundered overhead, engulfing the transport. Alex looked up to see four Huey helicopters as they touched down near the edge of the tarmac.
Marines spilled from the choppers and opened fire on the front of the hangar where the militants had retreated for cover. Alex and Wilson watched as they surged forward, out flanking the terrorists on each side of the hangar doors. Thankfully, for the first time, the numbers were in their favor.
Raziz's men fought to the death as the relentless wave of Marines advanced, flooding the airbase. Eventually, Coraco's small army surrendered under dwindling numbers. And finally, with the battle over, Reed was taken into custody.
But Alfred Coraco was nowhere to be found.
54
Alex stood next to an antsy Agent Wilson, and a Marine officer with a stoic expression etched on his face. He felt like a referee, or better yet a counselor in the middle of a family feud. The marine had a satellite phone pressed to his ear, listening intently to a man on the other end of the line.
While he waited, Alex clutched his side and forced shallow breaths through his nose. The pain from his broken rib, or ribs, spiked with each inhalation, making it a struggle to satisfy his lungs with a sufficient amount of air. Unfortunately, he wouldn't know the magnitude of his injury without an X-ray, something that would have to wait until later. For now, he'd push through despite the discomfort and pain, focusing instead on the officer before him.
When the conversation ended, or more accurately, the tongue lashing bled away to silence, Alex took the phone and handed it to Wilson.
The marine wore desert fatigues with an insignia on his shoulder of a golden oak leaf, indicating his rank. The man's closely cropped hair was typical of the gung-ho warriors. This particular marine exuded confidence like a veteran and a fair bit of stubbornness when he first arrived on the airbase, especially when it came to taking orders from a mysterious spook who refused to tell him what branch of government he worked for. The three men stood beside the transport truck, which Alex had moved off the runway and parked next to the hangar.
"What's your name, Major?" Alex asked the older marine.
"Major John Bentley," the marine replied, slightly more cordial than a moment ago.
Initially, Major Bentley expressed his doubts as to Alex's place on the chain of command, but after the sat phone conversation with his superior, General Bill Stokes, his hardened demeanor softened and he adopted a more cooperative posture.
"Major Bentley, we've got a serious problem. I'm not sure the extent to which you've been briefed, but a stolen British bomber with stealth capabilities just took off with a twenty kiloton nuclear weapon, big enough to wipe out a major U.S. city. We have every reason to believe it's headed for American soil."
"Any idea of the precise target, city, or landmark?" The major didn't flinch a muscle, but stared back at Alex with large round eyes.
"Not an exact one," Alex said between winces.
Wilson's eyes darted about, and then he blurted, "We just need someone to—”
"Do you have anyone who can fly that bird over there?" Major Bentley pointed to the cargo plane on the other side of the runway.
Wilson's hands went to his hips.
"I was hoping you'd have someone," Alex said, ignoring his partner's impatience.
"We've got a few chopper pilots, but no one qualified to fly a large plane like that."
Wilson sighed, and finally said, "If they can't help us, then I'll fly it."
Alex swiveled his head. Blinked. "Really? You know how to fly a plane?"
"It's been over a decade, but I used to fly a B-52 back in my Air Force days. I thought that sort of thing was in my past. Now, all I ever do is fly recreational. Small stuff. Like the Cessna 172. But I guess it's back to the big time for me."
"Sounds like you're the man for the job," Alex said, and then turned back to Major Bentley. "Since it's a stealth, we won't be able to track it on radar, but I managed to attach a homing device to the bomb itself." He gazed back at the hangar. "I had a hand-held tracking computer. One of the terrorists confiscated it, then I found it. Then I got in a fight with their leader, and in the middle of him squeezing my broken ribs for the sheer joy of torture; he bounced me off that truck door and the computer must have flew out of my pocket."
"So you lost it...after you found it?"
"That's right. It's in there somewhere. I just haven't had a chance to look for it."
A passing marine stopped in his tracks. "Did you say a hand-held computer, a little smaller than an iPad mini? Like an extra-large phone?"
"That's it. You know where it is?"
"Yes, sir. There's a pile of weapons and gear we found in one of the rooms. We figured the stash belonged to you guys cause of the M4 and Colt 45. The pistol is what tipped me off. Anyway, we found the computer on the floor near the drums of jet fuel. We put it with the stash."
"The Colt 45 is mine," Wilson said.
"I'll get your gear back, ASAP." The young marine turned to leave, but stopped. "By the way, you're awfully lucky that plane didn't ignite all that jet fuel. Half of that place is as black as soot in there. It wouldn't have been pretty."
Alex nodded in silent agreement and thanked the marine. Then the young man departed for the hangar.
Major Bentley said, "Suppose you track this thing down, how do you plan on stopping it?"
Alex pulled out the locator card from a pocket and held it up.
"What's that little thing?"
He turned the silvery object over with his fingers. It had a small cutout section on one end of the square with a tiny recessed glass eye.
"It plugs into a fiber optics outlet inside a compartment on the plane, behind the cockpit. Basically, it's a beacon, a tracking signal that the British can lock onto and seize control of the stealth bomber by remote control."
"Remote control?" Major Bentley took the locator card, gave it a once over and then handed it back to Alex. "The things they come up with these days." His face grew serious again. "I do have another question. How do you suppose you're gonna plug that thing in?"
"Using the steel cable on a winch that's located in the aft section of the cargo plane. I checked it out a few minutes ago. I'll leave the details to your imagination. I'm sure you can figure it out."
Major Bentley narrowed his eyes at Alex. "Won't the stealth bomber pick us up on radar?"
"Fortunately, the pilot had to disable it in order to keep the British from assuming control of the plane by remote, but this will change that." Alex brandished the locator card one last time and returned it to his pocket.
"I'll grab one of the harnesses we use for rescue ops and meet you at the plane." With that, Major Bentley was off, rushing over to one of the Huey helicopters.
A few minutes later, the young marine returned, his arms filled to capacity with their gear. He handed Wilson his M4 carbine and Colt 45 pistol, and then he gave Alex his M4 and tracking computer.
"What's your name and rank?" Alex asked, respectfully.
"Lance Corporal Luke Carson, sir."
Alex assumed the lance corporal probably said 'sir' to almost anyone who was older than himself or outranked him. "Would you like to help us out? We're about to take off and I need help pulling off a high risk maneuver."
Before Carson could reply, Major Bentley returned with an armful of harnesses. "Thought you guys were headed to the plane."
Alex replied, "Do you mind if the lance corporal tags along? I could use someone with his spirit
."
The major, maybe a little gun shy at objecting to Alex, possibly fearing another talk with General Stokes, gave a quick approval, and the four of them hustled over to the waiting aircraft, which happened to be fueled to capacity, most likely so Alfred Coraco could make a quick getaway. Of course, he had found another method of escape or had gone into hiding.
Alex followed Wilson and the two marines up the loading ramp and into the plane. While Major Bentley made sure everything was sealed up and ready for takeoff in the aft section, Wilson lowered himself into the pilot's chair and Alex took the chair across from him.
"How good's your Russian?" Wilson said. "All the labeling looks like somebody couldn't win a spelling bee to save their life."
"Might as well be Greek to me."
"Well," Wilson held his hands out ready to get things started, "most of the gauges and controls seem to be the same as with any airplane."
He flipped a series of switches, all foreign to Alex, cutting on a number of multicolored lights on the dash. Then he pressed a round button with one of his fat fingers and the plane shuddered and coughed. After a few spits and sputters, the engines fired under both wings and hummed with a steady rumble.
Wilson grinned at Alex. "We got the control wheel. The rudder and brake pedals down low. I should be able to handle pitch and roll." He tapped a screen that glowed a deep green. "Radar display and the altitude indicator next to it."
"Then we're ready to hit it?"
Wilson gripped the throttle handle and pushed it forward. With his other hand on the control wheel, and beads of sweat on his forehead, he maneuvered the aircraft onto the tarmac and lined it up on the runway.
"That was easy enough," Alex said.
"Yeah, now comes the fun part." Wilson increased the throttle and the plane began to roll down the runway, gaining momentum ever so slowly.
The fuselage vibrated and creaked as they gained speed, approaching take off. Wilson nudged the throttle forward another notch. His lower jaw sagged as the landing gear lifted off the tarmac. With the runway zipping by some thirty feet below, Alex felt the cabin tilt sideways to starboard. Wilson made the correction to port and leveled out the aircraft.