by Tom Clancy
Noboru lifted a finger and said, “Captain, I know we did a good job—based on the limited information we had—but the mission failed. Not sure how impressive that is.”
Brent stared a moment into the Japanese man’s frown, then quickly responded: “I wrote it up as, ‘Due to circumstances beyond our control and limited intelligence, we arrived at the target location too late to run either an ambush or an effective blocking operation.’ We couldn’t control that. And I’m not focusing on losing the target. I’m talking about what we did do ...”
“I thought we rocked the house,” said Riggs, wriggling her brows at the others, even turning around so those behind her could see. “We took out nearly half that Spetsnaz team—and not a single one of us took a hit.”
“Hoo-ah!” cried Heston.
“You’re damned right we did good,” said Brent. “Now we’re going to drop into London and do it again. It’s not the misses that count; it’s the hits.”
“So we’re back to wearing civilian clothes, packing very light, and running tight surveillance,” said Heston with his Texas drawl.
“I know you’d all prefer a stand-up fight. But you’ve been around long enough to know how it goes. I’m counting on every one of you to give one hundred and ten percent here.” Brent lifted his voice. “Are you with me?”
They all cried in unison, “Sir, yes, sir!”
Brent held up a fist, shook it, then returned to his seat and closed his eyes. He was trembling.
About fifteen minutes before they were set to land, Lakota took the chair beside Brent. She motioned for him to turn on his intercom to channel three so they could talk privately.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“I’ll help you.”
“That’s nice,” he said, unable to disguise his sarcasm. “I was kind of hoping for that.”
“You know what I mean.”
He gave her a look. “Uh, I don’t.”
“Rumors get around, and I’m sure your briefing with Dennison didn’t go so well. Here’s what I think. I think she told you if we fail in London, it’s all over for us. They’ll break up the team again, and as for you ... I don’t know ... but she gave you the ultimatum, right?”
“What are you? A fortune-teller?”
“You’re just like my ex-husband. Easy to read. When he was trying to tell me he wanted a divorce, I’d already had the papers drawn up.”
“Ouch.”
“For him, not for me.”
“Sorry about that.”
“I’m sorry you haven’t asked about it. That’s your problem, Captain. You need to be more nosy. You need to know us better. Pry. I mean, you haven’t even hit on me.”
“Are you crazy? I respect your privacy.”
“We don’t want it respected. Ask about our personal lives. There isn’t a hell of a lot there anyway. This is pretty much all we got. But ask.”
Brent shrugged. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t be telling you this, but you’re right. I’m hanging on by a thread here.”
“And like I said, we’ll help. You were good back on the island. I’m proud to serve with you. We just need to get her in London.”
Brent took in a long breath. “Yes, we do.”
She was about to get up, but he stopped her. “Thanks. I can’t do it without you . . . or them. I know that.”
She winked. “Tell them.”
By the time Lakota made it back to her seat, their pilot was on the intercom, his voice tense. “Sorry, guys, but we’ve just been diverted to RAF Lakenheath.”
“Why’s that?” asked Brent.
“It doesn’t sound good,” answered the pilot.
“What’s happening?” Brent demanded.
“The Russians have some heavy troop transports en route.”
“They’re coming here? They’re crazy.”
“I thought the same thing. I don’t know if it’s an occupying force or what, and they’ve got fighters in the air. The Brits are worried about shooting them down because of collateral damage. Hold on a second. We’ve been locked! We’ve been locked!”
Suddenly, the Sphinx banked hard right, and Brent felt his stomach slam into his ribs.
“Oh my God,” gasped the pilot. “Brace for impact!”
NINE
Sandhurst, England
Warda had told Chopra that according to her father’s wishes, Hussein would be given lessons in all the major subjects by officers from the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, commonly known as Sandhurst. These officers would tutor the boy at a small, nondescript home on the outskirts of the town, where he would reside for nine months out of the year. The tutoring had begun last year, when Hussein had turned fifteen. Prior to that he’d been moved every few months and instructed by a select few teachers who traveled with him. The boy’s father had wanted him to be formally trained and educated, and he’d always had great respect and admiration for the British education system and for its military officers; thus, he’d left specific instructions for Hussein’s preparations to become a well-rounded individual.
The e-mails and videos from her father were difficult to read and watch, and Warda had spent many days crying over them. It seemed that in the months prior to the nuclear exchange, tensions had grown so high that her father had actually been planning for his own death and preparing as much as he could for the survival of his country. However, most of his wishes had been thrown by the wayside when, for the most part, the people who would have enacted them had also been killed during that fateful and horrible day.
With Westerdale’s help, Chopra had obtained excellent documentation and two things to alter his appearance: He’d bought a much thicker pair of plastic frames instead of his usual ultralight titanium glasses, and he had shaven his head completely bald. He typically wore a short, conservative haircut, his salt-and-pepper locks parted to one side and held in place with a squirt of hair spray. Now he was bald with thicker glasses and resembled an overage punk rocker or insecure artist type. Looking in the mirror proved unsettling.
Westerdale had also reported that Warda was now in the hands of the Americans, which was, for the most part, not a bad stroke of luck. He doubted they would hold her against her wishes and suggested that Chopra share this news with Hussein or Hussein’s people so that they might attempt to locate her.
Chopra arrived at London Heathrow Airport and caught a black cab out to Shepperton, where he changed cabs again, then headed down to Windlesham and did likewise once more, all in an effort to thwart anyone trying to tail him. He instructed the last driver to pull up outside the Premier Inn, where at such time a nondescript sedan was waiting for him. He paid the driver and climbed into the other car.
Ironically, he recognized the sedan’s driver, a white-haired man named John Southland, an American who had been working for the Al Maktoum family for decades as a professional mechanic and driver.
“Mr. Chopra, it’s been a long time,” said Southland.
“Much too long,” answered Chopra, growing a bit misty-eyed. “I thought you’d been killed.”
“They sent me away early with the children. I urged them to come, but they insisted on staying. He thought if he evacuated he would be deemed a coward by the people. And he paid for that with his life. But we are still here and have been with the children ever since.”
“And how many others?”
“Just four of us. And two more with the sisters. They have an apartment nearby.”
“You’ve done an excellent job of protecting them.”
“We didn’t do it alone. And I’ve heard that everything could change now. We are understandably concerned.”
Chopra took a long breath. “I have what is rightfully his. And he, under the guidance of a regent, can now assume leadership of the country.”
“The Americans are calling Dubai the Wild West. No rule, with refugees moving in and out, and radiation still a problem. You are handing him a garbage heap.”
“No. Dubai will rise again. This
needs to happen.”
“The Russians will not be happy.”
“That’s why we must protect him.”
“I’m confused, Manoj. It’s not even your country.”
“You’re wrong. I wouldn’t have a life if it weren’t for them. I’m a man of two countries. Hussein will rebuild his nation, our nation.”
Southland chuckled under his breath. “You’ll have fun convincing him of that.”
“Oh, really?”
“You’ll see. He’s not the boy you remember.”
They fell silent as Southland took them to the Owls-moor section of Sandhurst and turned down Horsham Road to park beside a four-bedroom detached house similar to an American townhome. These were modest quarters for the young sheikh, but that was part of remaining subtle and keeping a lower profile here in Europe. Time spent away in places like the Seychelles was obviously another matter.
As he climbed out of the car, Chopra frowned over the deep thrumming that emanated from the house, and as he followed Southland toward the side-entrance door, the thrumming became a distinctly deep and steady pulse.
“He likes to listen to his music in the morning,” said Southland.
“What about headphones?” asked Chopra.
Southland rolled his eyes. “Oh, we’ve tried ...”
Once inside, Chopra winced at the booming and shouting coming from an upstairs bedroom. He wasn’t sure if they called it rap or hip-hop or had invented some new term, but the sounds were headache-producing, the language unabashed.
They moved into the kitchen area, where seated around the table were two men and a woman, again all of them middle-aged and familiar to Chopra. The leaner man and the woman were private tutors, and the other, more stocky man was one of the family’s personal bodyguards. Chopra had forgotten his name but remembered that he’d retired from the Saudi Ministry of Defense and Aviation.
He greeted them, but they were, in a word, cold, barely glancing up from their toast and cereal, which smelled wonderful since all he’d had was bitter airport coffee.
“I’m sorry,” said Southland. “We don’t quite agree with what’s happening here.”
“Why is that?” asked Chopra.
“Because he’s not ready for such responsibility,” said the woman.
Chopra glanced at her emphatically. “He’s sixteen. We all know the story of Sheikh Maktoum bin Buti.”
Southland snorted. “We’re living in much different times.”
“History repeats itself,” said Chopra. “He, too, will rise back to power.”
“Maktoum bin Buti was very young, yes, but he was courageous. Hussein is a product of the computer age, bloated with information and blinded by his own desires for stimulus and pleasure.”
This eloquent argument had come from the female teacher, and her surname finally came to Chopra: Werner. Mrs. Werner, a British college professor who’d been swept up out of graduate school to work exclusively with Hussein and his sisters.
“I didn’t come to debate this,” said Chopra. “I need to speak with him. I need to remind him of who he is and what I’ve been protecting for all these years.”
“You’re an idealist, Chopra,” Werner said, staring up at him over the rim of her glasses. “And I hope you’ve braced yourself for disappointment.”
“You’re making him out to be a monster. He’s a sixteen-year-old boy.”
The volume on the stereo upstairs suddenly spiked, and Southland lifted his voice like an irate father. “Hussein, that is much too loud!”
The volume increased further.
After a deep breath, Chopra headed for the staircase. He wound his way up to the first landing, and the music became so loud that he thought his eyes would begin to tear. He found the nearest bedroom door at the top and gave a loud knock.
No answer. He knocked again, much more loudly, and when the door swung open, Chopra took one look and remained there, aghast ...
The Snow Maiden had just finished launching her own surveillance drone, which separated into four distinct modules, each sensor no larger than her thumb and attaching itself to the house. She’d just finished listening to Chopra speak to the boy’s staff, and she decided that she would move soon to catch them all in one place, when they were most vulnerable.
She was crouched behind Southland’s car as the man came outside to fetch the newspaper.
She took a deep breath and reached out with all of her senses.
If someone had been electronically monitoring her heart rate and respiration, the numbers would’ve barely risen. By the time she’d joined the GRU, she’d stopped counting the number of people she had killed. If you asked her, “Do you remember that night in Cairo when you had to take out that man just before he got in the cab?” she would squint into that memory. The kills had become routine—an ugly word when it came to death—but she hoped they’d remain that way. Without emotion or guilt to cloud her judgment or delay her performance, she could operate efficiently, robotically even. No drama—just the elimination of obstacles.
She got to work.
The neighbors would be heading out soon, and she scanned the doorways before acting.
Clear.
After a barely appreciable thump, Southland collapsed from a perfectly timed and executed head shot. She dragged his body behind the car and left it there, out of sight from the street or adjacent doorways. She fetched the newspaper and held it up in front of her face as she entered the side door.
“What the hell are they reporting on now?” came a man’s voice. Ah, yes, the bodyguard.
She lowered the paper, and in its place came her suppressed pistol. The bodyguard swallowed her first round. The teachers met her entrance with wide eyes and open mouths, as though they were hungry, too. She shrugged. Her gaze lifted to the ceiling. Indeed, the boy’s music helped muffle any sign of commotion.
Two more shots. The male teacher snapped back, then fell forward into his bowl of cereal. The other fell sideways off her chair. The Snow Maiden neared the table and snatched up a piece of the woman’s toast. Peach jam. Yummy.
Her phone vibrated. She checked the screen: a message from Patti. You’d better move. You’ve got trouble.
The missile struck the port-side engine, and the explosion sent the Sphinx banking hard and losing altitude. As the others swore and screamed, Brent thought, Well, all that worrying over my career was a waste of time. And the engineers who designed this contraption probably haven’t addressed the old autorotation issue that I’d been hearing about, so we’re dead.
But then the aircraft leveled off and the pilot got on the horn to say he had control.
That was the only good news.
In a voice tense and breathless he added that they were still coming down hard and fast and losing hydraulic fluid. Belly flopping like a five-hundred-pound man into an inflatable pool might be the best that he could do.
Brent checked one of the windows, a new addition to the Sphinx, and noted their angle of descent and the farmers’ fields splayed out before them. A pair of fighter jets raced by before he could identify them. He wanted to ask the pilot if he had any more information, but thought better of it. Let the guy focus on landing.
“Who’s praying with me?” cried Heston. “I’m not ready to meet Jesus, and I say we tell him that!”
“Get in crash positions,” ordered Brent. “Remember your training.”
As he listened to Heston’s prayer and leaned forward to place his head between his legs to, of course, kiss his butt good-bye, the Sphinx turned again, as though riding on broken rails like an old mining car. The shuddering began at the back of the aircraft and worked its way forward, as though a fault line were opening in the steel deck.
The pilot shouted something, his voice now burred by frustration. Brent strained to hear him, but the intercom cut off into static as the stench of jet fuel began filtering into the cabin. Oh, that was not good.
“Masks on!” Brent shouted above the din.
They fished out the O2 masks from their packs and slid them over their faces. These were not attached to the Sphinx but self-contained and man-portable units that Brent always carried when he flew the not-so-friendly skies. The oxygen flow came immediately and cleared the stench of fuel. Brent dug his fingers into his palms and kept seeing fireballs—a Corvette exploding, nuclear mushroom clouds rising, as Dennison’s voice came in a whisper, “It’s over. You’re finished.”
The Sphinx dropped as though hitting another air pocket, and the straps dug into Brent’s shoulders. His stomach now greeted his ears. The engines shifted pitch, whining now like lawn mowers burning pure alcohol. A sudden clunk from the deck indicated that the pilot was lowering the gear, but a redundant clunking alarmed Brent. He remembered that hydraulic leak. He chanced a quick look up at the window. The port engine was on fire, trailing smoke, but the drone suggested the rotor was still functional.
It would be fitting, Brent thought, if he died in a ball of flames as Villanueva had. His death would be the other bookend. Maybe that was his fate, and he was just walking toward the open door.
Another dip that made him feel weightless, and the panic rose from his gut and burned. The Sphinx now sounded like a freight train that was derailing and plunging over a cliff.
Place your tray tables in the upright position.
And prepare for “landing.”
When drunks get in car accidents many of them walk away because at the time of impact, their bodies are fully relaxed. They take the hit and conform more naturally to the trauma. Those who tense up and have white-knuckled grips at the moment of impact tend to be the worst off. Brent knew that. He’d talked to medics, seen crash victims, been told about relaxing into an impact.
So part of him said, Clear your mind and let it happen , that if he could imagine himself as a rag doll he could better survive the impact.
His more logical side argued that he was about to die and a death grip on the seat or straps was the only response. Fight or flight. You can’t deny instinct, deny nature.