First Team

by Larry Bond

  “We’re working up new intelligence,” said Corrigan, trying to sort everything out. His brain felt like it had taken some of the rounds exploding near Conners.

  “We’ll be at the target inside forty minutes,” said Van Buren. “We’ll get them out.”

  “Good,” said Corrine.

  Thomas stood on the balls of his feet, bobbing slightly. Debra stood behind him, shaking her head.

  “All right. What do we have?” Corrigan asked.

  Thomas smoothed out the paper and explained. Corrigan’s brain was suffering from the effects of far too much coffee and far too little sleep; he couldn’t quite follow the logic.

  “You were supposed to look for an airplane,” said Corrigan.

  “Yes, but here—they have a hangar in Manila. They’ve purchased jet fuel,” said Thomas.

  “What do they need fuel for if they don’t have an airplane?” said Corrigan.

  “That’s my point!”

  Corrigan put up his hand. “Okay,” he told Thomas. “See if you can flesh this out with more information. And Thomas, you can use the phone, right? You can call me, rather than running down here.”

  “Is there one in my office?” asked Thomas, honestly not remembering seeing it.

  26

  SOUTHERN CHECHNYA

  As soon as the truck blew, Ferguson turned and began running down the ditch toward Conners. As he reached him, a flare ignited above; the night went crimson, then bluish white, then quickly black.

  “Cheap Russian flares,” he said, spotting Conners coming toward him.

  “Stay down, Ferg. There’s another truck heading toward the top of the runway.”

  “You call in Van Buren?”

  Before Conners could answer, one of the guerrillas in the back of the truck began firing a machine gun. It took a few moments for the Americans to realize they weren’t being targeted.

  “The assault group’s on their way. Forty minutes, give or take.”

  The machine gun stopped. The truck raced by, not fifty yards away, speeding toward the southern end of the runway.

  “Can we get the missile van from here?” asked Ferguson.

  “If I knew where it was, I could tell you,” said Conners.

  “In that general direction,” said Ferg.

  “You sound more and more like an officer every day, Ferg.”

  “It ought to be near the gate,” said Ferguson, starting in that direction.

  Conners took the launcher and bumped behind him, trying to keep up. The Chechens, meanwhile, seemed to have convinced themselves that their enemy was at the southern side of the base and were concentrating there. Every so often, someone fired an automatic weapon at the shadows.

  Ferg and Conners were just about at the end of the ditch when the Chechens lofted another flare. They hunkered down, but several rounds of automatic fire showed they’d been spotted.

  “Let’s go, let’s go,” said Ferguson, jumping up and running. Conners fired about half his clip, then hustled after Ferguson, who crossed the paved area and threw himself into the weeds and rocks beyond the start of the runway. Something green lit up the area to the right, and the ground to the right of them churned into dust and rocks.

  Conners slapped the grenade launcher down and fired into the burbling stream of tracers. He got off two rounds before the maelstrom swung lower. Conners found himself in a sea of dust and debris. He couldn’t breathe. Coughing, he fell on his back, struggling to get away.

  A large rock splintered from one of the shells hit him in the leg, smacking him so hard he flew back from the launcher. Pelted by fresh dirt, he had started to get up when a piece of metal hit his chest. He screamed with the pain, even as it pushed him over into the ground. Then something began dragging him away.

  Ferguson had grabbed him and started to retreat back toward the ditch, only to find his path swirling with the 23 mm slugs spit out by the gun. He changed direction, pulling Conners back near the fence where they’d come in as the ZSU-23 churned up the field near the runway.

  “I couldn’t nail it,” said Conners.

  “Yeah,” said Ferguson. “F-117s’ll have to get it on their own. You all right?”

  “Beat to shit.”

  “Bleeding?”

  “That or I pissed in my pants.”

  Automatic fire stoked up again. Headlights circled the field, and a searchlight, apparently on a vehicle, appeared at the far end of the base, near the entrance.

  “Think you can make it over the fence where we came in?” Ferguson asked. “I think it’s probably quieter for us there.”

  “My leg’s fucked up,” said Conners.

  “How fucked up?” Ferguson took out his phone, pushed out the antenna arm, and hit power. But the phone didn’t come on.

  “I can walk.” Conners pushed it under him and rocked a bit. The pain increased, but they couldn’t stay there, and he thought he might be able to hobble away.

  Ferguson rapped the phone against the ground, trying to get it to work.

  “I can tell you’re Irish,” said Conners.

  “Give me your phone.”

  Conners reached for it, but it was gone; he’d lost it somewhere in the confusion.

  They ducked as lights swung toward them. Ferguson shoved the phone back into his pocket, then belatedly slipped a fresh clip into his gun.

  “Patrol,” warned Conners. “They’re going to the ditch.”

  “Let’s get some distance between us and them,” said Ferguson. He grabbed the back of Conners’s jacket and pulled him upright, getting Conners to lean on him as they ran along the fence toward a spot he’d seen earlier where they could crawl under. Ferguson found it, then held it up for Conners as he squeezed through. The trooper’s pant leg had been torn to shreds, and Ferg guessed his leg had been mangled as well. Ferguson grabbed his side, working his body against Conners’s to push him through, then sliding under himself. He got under the soldier and levered him upward, tottering forward to the outer fence.

  “Gonna be mines around here,” Conners groaned.

  “You think?”

  “Ferg.”

  “We’re clear. Come on,” said Ferguson, pushing him to the fence. The ravine they’d come down earlier was somewhere nearby, but he couldn’t find it. His head raced. Something seemed to move above him; Ferguson pushed up, raising his rifle, but there was nothing there.

  The ZSU-23 started firing again, its four barrels spitting great bolts of lightning across the field and runway.

  “If moonshine don’t kill me, I’ll live’til I die,” mumbled Conners, singing the words to the song.

  “Stay with me, Dad.”

  “It’s there. The hole is there,” said Conners, pounding on the fence. He surprised himself by lifting his body up on the fence. Suddenly he realized his leg didn’t hurt anymore—he pulled himself upright, then rather than sliding below he climbed up and over, holding himself carefully before starting back down.

  Ferguson crawled through and met him below. The waste area where they’d left Daruyev was up about ten yards on his left. Conners started along the fence, leaning against it for support. As he went, he took out his pistol.

  “Daruyev, we’re back,” yelled Ferguson.

  “No!” yelled the Chechen.

  A hail of bullets followed. Ferguson and Conners threw themselves to the ground as the fusillade tore through the fence.

  “You fucks,” shouted Ferg. He jumped up, finger nailing the trigger on his gun. Fire burned his brain—he was the gun, spitting bullets, ferocious fury thunder mangling the twisted metal and rocks before. The magazine clicked empty—he changed it without thinking, still the bullets smashing through the guerrillas who’d ambushed his prisoner.

  Conners had left the grenade launcher and its charges, but he still had his hand grenades. He took one from his jacket, set it, and yelled to Ferguson to duck as he heaved it as far as he could.

  Ferguson didn’t hear the warning. The blast slapped him onto his ba
ck.

  By the time he got up, a fresh flare shot up from the base behind them. In the grayish white shadowlight, Ferguson saw Daruyev twenty yards away, slumped over his bound hands. There were bodies all around him. Ferguson watched in the fitful light of the flare, expecting Daruyev to move. When he didn’t, the CIA officer began clambering up the pile of debris, making his way toward Daruyev.

  Three figures started down the slope, maybe seventy yards away, silhouetted by the light of the flare. Ferguson hunched down, carefully took aim, then burned his clip on them, folding the three guerrillas in half.

  Daruyev remained slumped over. Ferguson reached to push his head up, to see if he was breathing, but as he did his fingers felt wet and mushy, and he realized two or three bullets had gone into the back of the Chechen’s skull, fired from so close that they had come clean through. He let go and began making his way back down.

  Conners rested against the fence, waiting, a grenade in his hand. A new song played in his head, but he couldn’t place the words; they were tangled somehow, confused. His leg didn’t hurt, but his head pounded from the inside out, as if he had a ticking bomb there.

  “Dad, let’s go,” said Ferguson, reaching him.

  “Yeah,” said Conners.

  Somehow, Ferguson had kept his knapsack through all of the confusion. He pulled it off his back, sorting through the contents as he searched for more clips for his rifle. He had the laptop and the roll-printer, another shirt, a second pistol with ammo, first-aid kit—

  “Ferg!” insisted Conners, reaching for him. “We’re sitting ducks here.”

  “All right, let’s move,” said Ferguson, finally finding a pair of clips at the bottom. He cinched the bag. He reached for the fence, then lost his balance and fell through—the Chechen gunfire had ripped through one of the posts, and the metal swung open like a rusty screen door.

  Ferguson helped Conners through, then found the hole in the second fence. The SF soldier’s cheek was wet; he’d been hit somewhere in the face and was bleeding. Conners felt an overwhelming urge simply to lie down and sleep, but he knew he couldn’t, knew in his head that he had to watch out for Ferguson. They began working their way toward the cave area, their goal now not recce, but survival. Meanwhile, the Chechens gathered for a sweep across the base, starting from the top of the runway.

  The fence ended with a roll of barbed wire and a large cement column that had been set into the rocks. They moved into the tumble of rocks slowly, looking for a place they might hide until the assault began. Ferguson’s boot kicked a low cement curb in the darkness, and he tripped, just barely getting his hands out in front of him as he fell. He pushed up, grunted at Conners to warn him, then realized there was a door directly ahead of him on the side of the mountain, camouflaged by an overhang and a boulder at the side.

  Something moved on his right. A voice asked in Chechen who he was.

  Ferguson froze, then slipped his right hand back to his belt, grabbing his knife. The Chechen said something again; it sounded like a name, and Ferguson—the rifle now in his left hand pointed at the shadow—took a chance and repeated part of it, clipping it off as if he were annoyed.

  This elicited more words from the guard, enough so that Ferguson finally got a good idea where he was, ten feet away. The man’s legs started to crunch the gravel of the narrow path.

  Ferguson slipped down, waiting. The man walked forward, cursing his companion for running off and leaving his post.

  In the darkness, Ferguson’s aim was off, and rather than pulling the knife around the front of the man’s neck and cutting him cleanly, he jabbed it on the side, pulling down to the left as he did. But his momentum as he leapt was so great the blade severed the external carotid artery as well as the jugular and sliced the man’s windpipe. Ferguson heard him gurgle, felt the convulsions as the man tried desperately to grab back his life.

  Conners waited a few yards away, clutching his pistol. His head had begun to feel light, and when Ferguson rose and called to him, he thought he said it was time to grab a beer. Conners stumbled on the path, nearly tripping over the dead guard before he reached Ferguson by the doorway.

  “Let’s see what’s inside,” said Ferg, nudging it open. He could hear machinery humming somewhere ahead of them. Ferguson took a few steps forward, his eyes adjusting to the dim light. He was on a narrow ramp leading to a wellconstructed bunker. There was light beyond, and a much larger hangar area. The facility had been built by the Soviets, not to house their spy planes, but rather a small squadron of planes equipped with hydrogen bombs. It had been camouflaged to avoid detection from the air, or space for that matter.

  “Dad, you with me?” he asked Conners, who was still back by the door.

  Conners grunted. “My head’s fucked up,” he told the CIA officer when he came back to him. “Something smacked it.”

  “Let’s find a place for you to stay while I reconnoiter,” Ferguson told him as he tossed the first-aid pack to him. “Our friends’ll be landing soon.”

  “I’m OK, Ferg,” Conners insisted.

  “Don’t be a crybaby,” said Ferguson. They moved down the ramp, toward the light.

  Samman Bin Saqr yelled at the team that was supposed to be readying the plane. The men were in the way, fumbling at their duties rather than moving expeditiously. Time was of the essence; from the alarms that had been sent, he thought the infidel Russians had discovered the operation and sent soldiers to infiltrate it. Soon they would call in bombers for the attack.

  In his fury he considered changing his target and flying to Moscow rather than striking the American paradise as he planned. But that was vanity, jealousy at being found—it was not what God had directed.

  Bin Saqr mastered himself, calmly listening while Jehid, who was in charge of preparing the aircraft for flight, reported what needed to be done to finish placing the casks of high-alpha material along the outer skin, where the explosives would shatter them and produce a radiological cloud. At the same time, more work remained to set the fail-safe charges in the airplane’s freight compartment.

  There was too much to be done. The flight preparation alone stretched a half hour, and it could not be done safely in the hangar.

  And then Allah whispered the solution to Bin Saqr, as he had many times in the past.

  “Get the work teams outside,” Bin Saqr told Jehid. “Do everything at once. As soon as we are sure we can take off, we will.”

  “Some of the material may not be in place.”

  “That is immaterial now.”

  “But it means working in the darkness. It may take longer—”

  “We will leave in fifteen minutes,” snapped Samman Bin Saqr.

  Jehid turned quickly and sprinted to his work teams.

  Sound echoed oddly against the concrete of the hangar. There were people and machines somewhere beyond where they were, but Ferguson couldn’t quite figure out exactly where. He walked up the ramp into a long open area, where he saw a set of metal railings blocking off a section below. Light shone up through the space. Ferguson slid on his belly to get a look, pushing along the floor like a swimmer gliding across an Olympic-sized pool.

  An airplane sat in the massive space below. He craned his head, trying to get a view of the aircraft, a large 747 that was being worked on. Men were running around it frantically. There were two large lifts near the rear of the plane and a ladder up to the flight deck. A welder was working on something near the wingroot on the right side.

  “Fuck,” said Ferg, backing away.

  “What’d you see?” asked Conners, back by the ramp. The side of his head was caked with blood. His leg looked worse.

  “They have a plane,” said Ferguson. “I bet it’s packed with waste.”

  Ferguson took off his backpack and pulled out the rad meter. He registered enough gamma and alpha radiation to sound the alert; the isotope ID flashed: Cesium.

  And uranium. They were taking both gamma and alpha radiation, with a bit of beta thrown in for
good measure.

  “Don’t breathe,” he told Conners. The REM equivalent was pushing over a sievert.

  “Very funny.”

  “I want to look at that plane,” said Ferguson. “There’s only a bit of uranium—some sort of spill. I bet there’s more on the plane, or in it.”

  “Come on—don’t be crazy. There’ll be guards all over,” said Conners.

  Ferguson slid back to the front, adjusting the meter’s sensitivity as he tried to work out where the waste was. The workers were moving—there was a loud cranking sound, and a rush of air.

  The bastards were going to take off.

  Ferguson began moving along the railing, looking for a way down. Conners, meanwhile, had gotten down on his hands and belly—his knees wouldn’t hold him—and pushed himself out to see what was going on. He saw Ferguson reach a stairwell at the end of the room.

  “Ferg,” he croaked, trying to stop him.

  Ferguson didn’t hear him, and wouldn’t have stopped if he had. He slid over the rail onto the steps, not daring to jump. A ramp ran alongside them. At the foot there were barrels and crates, most empty, which had once contained waste.

  The large jet just barely fit in the space; its tail towered over two rows of large crates at the back of the hangar. There were toolboxes and other gear scattered along the floor at the left.

  Ferguson dropped behind the crates at the back as two men approached. He pointed his gun in their direction, but the men stopped at a tool case, picking it up by the handles at the side and walking toward the front. He could see as he peered around the side that the door to the hangar was open.

  Ferguson thought he might be able to shoot out the tires of the plane, but he’d have to get under it to do so. He took a step out from the crate, then saw feet walking toward him. He took a step and jumped onto the side of a mobile ramp, flattening himself against it. Conners crawled around above, reaching the ramp next to the stairs. He pulled himself up on the railing, hugging it as he slid down.

  Ferguson climbed up the scissor apparatus that lifted the mobile ramp, then pulled himself onto the platform, above the Chechen workers who’d come for more tools. He aimed his rifle at them, no more than six feet away, but once more the workers were too absorbed to notice him. When they turned around and walked toward the front, Ferguson went to the machine to climb down and saw Conners at the end of the ramp next to the stairs.