Collateral Damage d-14

by Jim DeFelice

  “I don’t believe you,” whispered Kharon. The words were barely audible.

  “It wasn’t an accident,” said Rubeo. “I know they didn’t tell you the whole story. It’s still classified.”

  Kharon didn’t react.

  “The accident was actually sabotage,” Rubeo continued. “We had a Russian agent at the base. It was the tail end of the Cold War.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “No.” Rubeo closed his eyes, remembering Dreamland. Kharon’s mother’s death was just one of several incidents that had eventually led to the shake-up, the threats of closing, and finally the coming of Tecumseh Bastian.

  So good did come of it. Though it was impossible to explain that to Kharon. Nothing would ever compensate the ten-year-old who had lost his mother.

  “I don’t blame you for not believing me.” Rubeo leaned his head forward, trying to undo the terrible muscle knot forming at the back of his neck. “I think if you ask Breanna Stockard, she’ll tell you. She knew your mother.”

  Kharon didn’t answer. Rubeo wondered if he had passed out again, until finally he realized the young man was crying uncontrollably.

  6

  Sicily

  Danny jumped from the Hummer and trotted toward the waiting Osprey. Boston was hanging out the door, waving him on.

  The huge propellers, which rotated on their nacelles at the wingtips, whipped overhead, anxious to pull the craft into the air. Danny ran behind the wing to the door, shading his eyes against the dust kicked up by the rotors. Boston grabbed him by the forearm and helped him up. Not a half second later, the Osprey leapt forward, pushing into the stiff Sicilian wind.

  “Body armor over there,” said Boston, pointing to the side bench as the hatchway closed behind them. “Gear and weapons.”

  “Thanks,” said Danny, going over to suit up.

  * * *

  Across the tarmac from the Osprey, Turk sat at the controls of the Tigershark II, waiting as a long queue of NATO fighter-bombers moved up the taxi ramp to the runway. The com section bleeped; he cleared it, and the image of Danny Freah appeared in front of him.

  “Turk?”

  “I’m here, Colonel. Just waiting for clearance to take off.”

  “Thank you for getting ready so quickly.”

  “My pleasure,” said Turk. He meant it — he wanted nothing better than a chance to get back in the air and prove himself.

  Again. Which he shouldn’t have to do.

  “Dr. Rubeo wears a locating device that tracks his location continually,” said Danny. “The information has been tied into MY-PID, and we’re uploading into your connection now.”

  Turk was sitting behind a transport and a tanker, waiting for clearance. As the aircraft in front of him moved forward, he nudged the Tigershark to follow.

  The tower gave clearances and directions to a pair of other planes, the controller’s voice drowning out Danny’s.

  “You got that?” asked Danny.

  “Stand by. I’m queuing to take off,” Turk told him. He reached his arm up and touched the virtual switch to open the map panel. “MY-PID interface.” The computer blinked. “Find Rubeo,” he told his computer.

  The map panel flickered. Turk used his fingers to zoom out a bit, getting some perspective — the indicator dot was some eighty miles south of Tripoli. According to the computer, the vehicle was moving at roughly fifty miles an hour on a paved highway toward the city of Mizdah.

  “Plot intercept at maximum speed,” he told the computer.

  “Nineteen minutes, twenty-eight seconds from takeoff,” said the flight computer. The distance was a little over four hundred miles.

  “We can do better than that,” Turk told it.

  “Command not recognized.”

  “You’re a slowpoke.”

  “Command not recognized.”

  “Turk?”

  “I see it. It’s going to take me about twenty minutes to get there.”

  The plane in front of him jerked forward. He was now next in line.

  “I need you to get there as fast as you can,” Danny told.

  “Yeah, roger that, Colonel.” That was the funny thing about ground officers — they always assumed jets could simply get to where they needed instantly. “ROEs?”

  “Avoid contact with the enemy. You’re just scouting.”

  “What if they come for me?”

  “Let’s play it by ear. We’re authorized to use deadly force to get Rubeo back, if it comes to that.”

  “Roger that. Understood.”

  The space in front of him was empty. It was his turn to fly.

  “Whiplash, I’m clear for takeoff — talk to you in a few.”

  * * *

  Aboard the Osprey, Danny studied the same map that Turk was viewing, using a portable touch computer that accessed MY-PID. It was hard to like anything that he saw. Rubeo was being taken toward a city ostensibly still held by the government.

  There was a small army base to the west. A large number of soldiers there had deserted, and the latest intelligence estimated that no more than three thousand were still in uniform and willing to fight. But three thousand was still far more than the Whiplash team was prepared to deal with.

  Danny didn’t have enough people to take down a well-guarded house in the city — and guarantee that Rubeo would be alive. If he went into the city, he would have to call for backup. He’d already alerted the U.S. Special Operations Command, or SOCCOM, which had placed a platoon of SEALs at his disposal. They were on a carrier in the Mediterranean; he could send one of the Ospreys back to pick them up if necessary.

  Turk would get there in twenty minutes. That would put the truck just outside the city. The Osprey would be roughly an hour away.

  He went up to the cockpit.

  “Tell Whiplash Osprey Two to double back and rendezvous with the SEAL platoon,” Danny told the copilot. “I’ll talk to the SEALs.”

  “We’re still heading south?” asked the pilot.

  “As fast you can.”

  7

  Libya

  Rubeo knew his people would be tracking them by now. The best thing to do was to stay alive until they were rescued.

  But that was far too passive.

  It was true, he wasn’t a soldier. But he wasn’t a wimp either.

  Searching the back of the van for something to cut the ropes, he hit on the idea of using the hinge edge. It wasn’t quite sharp enough to cut the rope, but by wiggling the rope against it, he was able to stretch the strands. The pressure on his wrists hurt, cutting off his circulation to the point where his fingers felt numb, but when he stopped, the restraints were loosened. He worked them back and forth, finally getting one free.

  He pulled the other out, then went over to Kharon, facedown on the floor.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, reaching to the young man’s hands, which were tied behind his back.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to untie you.”

  “Why?”

  “So we can get the hell out of here.”

  “I still hate you.”

  “Should I just leave you?”

  Kharon didn’t answer. The knot was difficult, but Rubeo kept at it. Finally it came undone. Rubeo slid back, unsure what the other man would do.

  * * *

  Kharon’s arms felt as if they were paralyzed. They’d been behind his back so long that the muscles were stiff and his nerves were tingling, making them feel almost limp. He flexed them, trying to get some circulation back, trying to get control of them.

  The strange thing was, he believed Rubeo.

  But he still hated him.

  He had so much anger and emotion, it needed to focus on someone. He hated that his mother had died, that her death had destroyed his father, that he had been left on his own, abandoned.

  Angry at his mother? How could he be mad at her?

  The faceless saboteur? Even if that was true, how could he hate someone he di
dn’t know?

  “Come on,” said Rubeo, standing up. He had to duck so he wouldn’t hit his head. “Undo your legs.”

  “We can’t just jump out of the truck,” said Kharon.

  “Why not?”

  “They’ll kill us.”

  “I doubt staying in the vehicle will decrease those chances,” said Rubeo. “We can roll out. It should be dark by now. They may not see us. My people will rescue us soon.”

  “We need weapons.”

  “If you find any, let me know.”

  Rubeo went to the back door. The truck rattled, but it was impossible to judge even their speed from what he heard or felt.

  Surely they were in the desert somewhere. Getting out made more sense — it would be easier in the open space than in a city. Rubeo knew that from Dreamland.

  “They’ll kill us,” said Kharon as Rubeo felt around for the lock. It was in a small pocket at the door and impossible to see in the dim light.

  “Are you coming or what?” asked Rubeo.

  “I don’t know.”

  Rubeo went back to him.

  “I wear a device that lets the people who work for me track me. They won’t be far behind. Come on. We just have to get a little way in the dark.”

  He reached down and began undoing Kharon’s feet. Kharon pushed him away and then started untying them himself.

  “Who helped you do this?” Rubeo asked.

  “A Russian spy.”

  “Name?”

  “Like you’ll know him?”

  “I might.”

  “Foma Mitreski,” said Kharon. “He was interested in the technology you flew in. And in the transmission from your aircraft. As soon as your aircraft arrived, they contacted me and asked me to help them. We cooperated. I—”

  Kharon suddenly felt ashamed and stopped speaking. He’d been wrong — so wrong he could never make it right.

  “The Sabres?” asked Rubeo. “How did you track—”

  “No, the other one. The manned plane. The Tigershark. We recorded them. They wanted the transmission in different circumstances — they wanted to try and look at the data flow under circumstances they knew. If a radar came on—”

  “You recorded them — or you interfered with them?” asked Rubeo.

  “We didn’t interfere. The encryption and fail-safes are too good. You know yourself — if you can start to see patterns, known reactions—”

  “Then how did you order the Sabre attack?”

  Kharon felt his throat clutching.

  “You were behind the attack, weren’t you? Why did the Russians want that?”

  “I wanted it,” he mumbled. “To discredit you. To ruin you.”

  Rubeo stayed silent for a moment. “You killed innocent people to ruin me?” he asked finally, his throat dry.

  Tears flooded from Kharon’s eyes.

  “Yes!” Kharon yelled. “Yes. Yes, damn it. Yes. It was easy to insert the virus in the hangars. As soon as the aircraft were located there, I knew it would be easy.”

  “Come on,” Rubeo said. “Let’s get out of here. You’ll tell me what you did later.”

  * * *

  Hand on the latch, Rubeo pressed his ear against the door and strained to listen. But it was useless. He couldn’t hear anything beyond the low hum of the motor and the rattle of the truck.

  He glanced back at Kharon. He should have felt anger at what Kharon had done, but instead he felt something closer to relief — he wasn’t the one responsible for the deaths.

  He also felt an odd compassion. Kharon was a tormented and twisted soul, worthy of pity.

  “Come on,” Rubeo told him. “Get up and let’s go.”

  Kharon got to his feet. Rubeo took a deep breath, then pushed himself out the door.

  8

  Over Libya

  Turk spotted the two trucks moving through the desert foothills north of Mizdah just fifteen minutes after lifting off the runway in Sicily. They were nondescript cargo vans, heavy duty extended versions. He zoomed the optical camera, then uploaded the image to Danny aboard the Osprey.

  “Whiplash, this is Tigershark,” said Turk. “I have our trucks.”

  “Roger that. Seeing them now,” responded Danny.

  “How do you want me to proceed?” he asked. He started cutting back on his throttle, preparing to set up in a wide orbit around the vehicles — the Tigershark couldn’t cut back its speed slow enough to stay directly above the vehicles.

  “Just stay with them for now,” responded Danny. “We are about forty-five minutes from your location.”

  “Gonna reach the city by then,” said Turk. “Want me to slow them down?”

  “Negative. We want no chance of harming our package.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  “Check the city and the army base. See if there’s activity.”

  “On it.”

  Turk moved west, gliding over the hills at roughly 20,000 feet. He nudged the plane into an easy circle, banking over Mizdah. There were no air defenses there that could threaten him, but the computer did spot and mark out a pair of ancient ZSU–23–4 antiaircraft weapons parked near the soccer field at the center of town.

  A pair of helicopters sat in a field adjacent to a compound at the southern end of the city. They were an odd pair — an Mi–35V Hind, Russian attack/transport, and an American-made CH–47C Chinook.

  The 47 was a powerful aircraft whose speed and cargo carrying capability belied the fact that she had been built some forty years before; her sisters were still mainstays in the U.S. armed forces. The Hind wasn’t as big, but it could carry guns and missiles, combining attack with transport.

  Turk assumed they were government aircraft, though the computer couldn’t link them with an existing unit. The computer identified the compound where they were parked as the home of a regional governor. There was no further data.

  He guessed that a small contingent was in the compound. The building wasn’t particularly large; it might hold a dozen troops.

  “Observe helicopters in grid D–3,” he told the computer. “Alert me if they power up.”

  “Observing helicopters in grid D–3. Helicopters are inert.”

  More ominous than the city were the army barracks Danny had mentioned. These were located several miles to the west, in an open area separated from the city by another group of low hills and open desert.

  Turk glanced at the threat indicator. Technically this was unnecessary since the computer would warn him verbally, but there were certain things that no self-respecting pilot could completely trust the machine to do — even if the source of the information was exactly the same set of sensors.

  The scope was clear.

  He had the camera zoom as he approached. The complex of low-slung buildings looked deserted.

  “Computer, how many individuals at the complex in grid A–6?” Turk asked.

  “Scanning.” The system took a few seconds to analyze infrared data, comparing it to information from the normal and ground-penetrating radar.

  “Complex includes Class One shelter system,” said the computer, telling Turk in advance that its estimate might not be accurate — though far better than anything aboard most aircraft, the radar aboard the Tigershark could not penetrate bunkers designed to withstand nuclear strikes. “Infrared scan determines 319 bodies within complex area. Size of underground shelter would indicate possibility of two hundred additional at nominal capacity.”

  “Three hundred is good enough for government work,” Turk told the machine.

  “Rephrase.”

  “Ignore,” Turk told the machine. The estimate was lower than the intel he’d gotten earlier, a good sign — the troops were deserting.

  He turned his attention to a large area of shelters to the northwest of the complex. These looked like long tents, half buried in the sand.

  “Identify military complex in grid B–1,” he told the computer.

  “Missile storage complex,” said the computer immediately. �
�NATO Scud B variant. One hundred seventy-three units identified in bunkers. Do you require technical information?”

  “Negative. Are there launch vehicles?”

  “Missiles are stored on TEL erectors. No activity noted.”

  “Personnel?”

  “No personnel in Missile Storage Complex.”

  “No guards?”

  “No personnel in Missile Storage Complex.”

  “That’s great,” said Turk. Enough missiles sitting out in the desert to destroy a dozen small cities, and no one was watching them.

  Turk told the computer to identify other large weapons in the general area. There was an abandoned antiaircraft facility about two miles northeast of the missile storage area, back in the direction of the highway that led to the city. Though defunct since the 1990s, six tanks were parked there, along with a number of tents and enough personnel to crew the vehicles.

  “Vehicles are identified as T–72, Libyan export variants,” said the computer. “Vehicles had moved within the last seventy-two hours.”

  “Observe tanks,” Turk told the computer. “If they move, alert me.”

  “Tanks will be observed.”

  Turk swung back over the hills, moving toward the trucks carrying Rubeo. The scientist was in the lead truck.

  “Zoom on target truck one,” directed Turk.

  Flying the Tigershark and Hogs was like night and day. He loved both, but the tools here — you couldn’t knock the computer’s help.

  As he pulled to within two miles, Turk saw something flapping at the back of the vehicle. Dust flew up and something fell at the side of the road.

  “Focus on object,” said Turk. “Identify.”

  “Two males. Subject One is Dr. Rubeo.”

  “Son of a bitch,” muttered Turk, flicking onto the Whiplash channel to tell Danny.

  9

  Libya, north of Mizdah

  Rubeo had calculated that his armored vest would absorb some of the impact as he fell. But whatever buffer it provided was negligible at best. The ground poked his ribs so hard he lost his breath. Rolling and wheezing, he scrambled desperately to get up and get to the side of the road.