Cloudburst

by Pearson, Ryne Douglas

  “Christ.”

  Drummond could now identify the feeling behind Logan’s words—apprehension. “We transmitted three requests to him. He was supposed to tell us (a) if there is a nuclear bomb on board, (b) if not, what it is, and (c) as much of the technical detail on the cargo as he was able to get. Now this diagram can only be a response to the last request, but what about the other two? He says he’ll give us the last response when we extract him. That leaves one unaccounted for.”

  It wasn’t difficult to make an inference from the situation. Donner had broken his pattern, and worse yet, he wasn’t delivering as requested. Logan was instantly unnerved by it all. “This isn’t good. It doesn’t endear this mission to me.

  “Could he have been turned?”

  Logan pondered that. “I don’t know. This certainly isn’t like him. From what I know about him, though, it’s not likely anyone could turn him. He’d rather die.”

  There was another possibility, the DDI knew. “Then maybe he’s deliberately leading us into a trap.”

  Us? “You mean you think he might have been playing us all along?”

  “Or recently,” Drummond responded. “It’s a consideration. Maybe part of this overall situation.”

  “And what would his motivation be?”

  “I don’t know, because I don’t know him. None of us do.”

  That was a truism that hit Logan with force. DONNER was a mystery to them. Aside from his past performance, no one had any real sense of what the man was about, or what drove him. “So, we have a problem. What are our options?”

  “We be prudent and call off the extraction, which means we don’t have a chance at the other message or messages.”

  The DDI felt that would be the safest option. He didn’t want to send a case officer and a bunch of troops into a bushwhack. But then “safe” wasn’t always an acceptable prime objective of his line of work. “Or we go.”

  That ‘we’ stuff again. “We go. I’ll just be taking in a few extra pounds of worry.”

  “And a flak vest.”

  Logan already had that ready and waiting on his bunk.

  Flight 422

  It was the moment after the terror, when one’s body tried to recover from the physical drain that came with the aftermath of an adrenaline rush. Captain Bart Hendrickson and First Officer Buzz Elkins were feeling that now. Buzz was flopped back in the seat, his head even farther back. The captain continued his grip on the stick, his eyes focused a hundred feet in front of the Maiden.

  “We almost bought it, Bart.” Buzz still avoided looking at the runway’s end just before them.

  “Our brakes sure did,” Hendrickson said. The antiskid brakes were thoroughly strained when stopping the overloaded aircraft. “But we’re down.”

  “What about next time?” Buzz asked. “Are we gonna be able to stop then, with this load?”

  Maybe not, the captain realized. “We may not have to worry about that, considering number three.” The number three engine was down to 70 percent available power, an unacceptable limit under any circumstances.

  Buzz straightened up and looked back to the pirate. He was staring, eyes wide, past both men, but not at anything. Just off somewhere. The first officer turned back forward. “So what do we do? We had a hard enough time getting off the ground with four good engines. There ain’t no way we can do it with what we got in the belly, and in the way of power.”

  He was right. Dead right. The captain had few alternatives to deal with the problem, none of them foolproof, and one of them dangerous. That point had been proven on the ground in Libya. It was that option, though, that afforded the only real chance for a successful takeoff. It might also help with the braking if they ever got that far to need brakes again.

  Hendrickson took a silent, deep breath for courage, and looked back. “Are we going to leave here?”

  There was not an immediate response, but the gaze was broken. Hadad’s eyes met the captain’s. “Did you not learn?”

  “I am not defying you, if that’s what you think.” The captain focused on the passengers; their safety was his prime concern. He had to weave this request skillfully. “If you want us to leave here, then we have to shed some weight. We have to be lighter. One of our engines, the inboard one on that side, is going down in performance. We’re losing up to one fourth of our liftoff power. You saw how close it was leaving Benghazi. The simple fact is that we’re too heavy with four good engines. With three we aren’t going anywhere.”

  Hadad did remember the close call in Benghazi. Though he had since put it out of his mind, it did strike him. He had been assured that the plane would have no difficulty carrying the load, that it had powerful new engines unique to the latest version. What was wrong, then?

  “Listen, I just want to get this aircraft off the ground, if that’s what you intend to do. We need to get rid of some weight.” Hendrickson let that hang for a moment, seeing some realization in the hijacker’s face, and possibly acceptance. “We’re all going to die if we try to take off.”

  There was acceptance, but it would come with a useful twist. Something to keep the world guessing, and to give them cause to wonder. “How many?”

  The captain figured it quickly, most of it guesswork. “Everyone from the number three door back.” It would be almost two hundred people.

  It was something Hadad was prepared to do. The mission would continue, would go on to success. It would also give the Americans a false sense of hope. “Make it happen.” And there was a surprise to add. “Contact the tower for what you need to evacuate the passengers, and to inform them of our destination.”

  “Which is?”

  Hadad smiled and motioned to the hand-held microphone. This task he would enjoy.

  Springer Seven-Three

  “Sir,” the com officer said, “they’re talking to the tower.”

  The commander switched his headset over to the communications intercept net. He listened with the com officer, taking quick notes on his console. His pencil snapped halfway through, and he simply tossed it aside and finished the transcription with a pen. “Who’s that?” he asked, noticing the voice change.

  The message was spoken in English, though inflected with a Middle Eastern accent. It was brief, to the point, and out of the ordinary considering the play of the hijacking so far.

  When the air went dead the commander tried to figure it out. “You catch that, Major?”

  The Sentry’s second in command was on the same net, though not visible to his boss. “Yep. So they’re releasing two hundred hostages...why?”

  “Good question. But that’s small potatoes. Why announce their destination, and why did the hijacker do that himself?” The commander was playing analyst. He motioned to the com officer to send the message off to the Pentagon. “Why let one of the crew ask for a ramp, and then take the mike himself?”

  “That’s one for the psych boys,” the major observed.

  “There’s plenty of those where they’re heading,” the commander joked.

  The White House

  “It doesn’t surprise me,” Bud said. “If they have a nuclear bomb, Chicago will give them a couple million hostages.”

  Meyerson’s head shook in disgust. “Damn good thing the Spanish are letting us in.”

  “It’s a shaky approval at best,” Coventry said, swallowing two orange slices from the bowl on the table. A steward had refilled the Oval Office’s fruit dishes just prior to the meeting. “We should still consider what they want in Chicago.”

  “It’s our nightmare, first of all,” Bud said to the other three. “They can exploit our helplessness. If they want concessions, what can we do? We have to look at it as though they have a weapon on board. If they get in, we lose. Period.”

  It was probably going to be the shortest discussion of any point during the crisis. Meyerson agreed completely with Bud’s analysis.

  Coventry still thought that something might be gained, some advantage, by knowing what the hijac
kers’ intentions were. “But why Chicago? What is there that they see as important? Terrorists don’t just pick a target for its size alone. There are tens of cities that would fit the bill. Chicago has other draws that might be as important as its population.”

  “Jim, the point is moot if we know that letting them in is unacceptable,” Meyerson reminded the secretary of state.

  “True,” Bud joined in.

  The secretary of state, a classic thinking intellectual, was working the obvious through several mental filters. What was left didn’t necessarily add up. “Not true. If we look at how to counter what we think they intend to do, and we’re wrong, then we may end up jeopardizing lives unnecessarily. So what I’m asking is why did they tell us Chicago? Why tell us anything? I don’t think it’s meant to scare us, or to snub us: Terrorists who behave professionally have an end in mind, and they don’t muddle it with worthless trickery. They will, however, use deception if it suits them.”

  “So you believe this might be a trick?” the president asked.

  Coventry smiled. “My logic doesn’t always come with answers, Mr. President.”

  “I can see some of your point, Jim,” Bud conceded. “If they give us a destination that we think is obvious, that should trigger something in us. Maybe they want us to believe that Chicago is a good place for them to be. They may have another objective.” The NSA pondered that in the silence. “We can think on that. It may help us prepare for any response. But, prior to reacting, we have to move to prevent the worst from happening.”

  “You have a proposal, Bud?” The president was sure he did.

  Bud explained it. The act itself was simple. The results, however, would be undeniably horrible.

  The president didn’t see any alternative. “Andrew?”

  The secretary of defense, like the others, understood the enormity of the option. “It will work. No doubt about it.”

  “It’s coming to this,” Coventry said thoughtfully.

  “I’ve already put the preliminary steps in motion to make this happen, sir,” Bud said. “Your final word will be required to release the equipment.”

  There was nothing more to consider. “You have it. Andrew, draft the required papers. I’ll notify the House and Senate leaders. And I want some more analysis on what their intentions might really be. Secretary Coventry, Bud...put some thought into that. And, Andrew, give Delta the green light to go from Tenerife.”

  The phone next to Meyerson preempted any reply. It was meant for him, and he listened almost entirely, saying only a few words before covering the mouthpiece. “We may have a break here, in our favor. The German ambassador contacted our military attaché in Bonn. They have four GSG-9 commandos at Tenerife airport, on their way back from Brazil. They were doing some training for the Brazilian military.”

  “Can they do anything for us?” the president inquired.

  “They are top-notch counter-terrorist troops, sir,” Bud responded.

  “Right,” Meyerson said. “And they could be invaluable debriefing some of those hostages when they’re released.”

  The president looked to the secretary of state. “Get in touch with the Spanish foreign minister again, and politely inform him that we consider the German troops to be official representatives of the United States government for the purpose of interviewing the hostages. You make that perfectly clear to him. And get someone from our embassy in Madrid out there, pronto.”

  Coventry went immediately to the small office he maintained in the White House. The secretary of defense relayed the American request back to the military attaché in Bonn, and it went immediately through channels to the GSG-9 troops on the ground in Tenerife. A short time later the most valuable intelligence yet received during the crisis was being extracted from the newly released hostages, though the plainclothes soldiers’ thick accents were something of a mystery.

  Thunder One

  The aircraft’s steady roar disappeared as the headset covered Blackjack’s ears. “McAffee.”

  “Mike, I’ve got some good intel for you,” Colonel Cadler reported from more than a thousand miles away.

  “I’m listening.”

  “We got a damn good break. Colonel Dee had some men coming back from a South American training exercise. They were conveniently at Tenerife, and they got some good stuff out of some released hostages.”

  That was new to the major. “How many off?”

  “It looks like about two hundred, probably just under. But the big news is that you were right about the HRT plan. It wouldn’t work. No way. A number of the hostages said the guy wears that bomb before they land.”

  “That clinches it,” McAffee said. Their plan was the only way now. “What about a final go?”

  “We’ve got permission to stage from Tenerife. The chief says go.”

  “Thumbs-up on this end,” Blackjack noted.

  “On this end, too, Major. And thank Graber. His plan was a damn good one.” The colonel released the radio circuit.

  Al-‘Adiyat

  Muhadesh slowly scratched his chest through the shirt, feeling the folded paper inside. There were actually two, one of which he needed to get rid of...had to get rid of.

  He paced back and forth in front of his rigid executive officer, his breath expelled in angry spurts from his nostrils. He stopped in front of Indar, looking not at him, but away, focusing on a picture of the colonel that hung on the wall. To the left and below was the fax machine, now useless. The room was lit by a pair of battery-powered lanterns, giving the faces of both men eerie lit-from-below masks.

  This was the second time Indar had been summoned to explain since the power was lost.

  “Now, Lieutenant, I am doing my utmost not to lose my composure with you; first, because I do not believe it is worth the effort, and, second, because I wish this entire, idiotic episode to simply be over.” Muhadesh turned only his head, but Indar’s eyes were fixed straight ahead, staring at nothing and avoiding his commander’s gaze. “Explain, please, why you have not been able to restore power four hours after you so carelessly saw to its loss.” Directing a bulldozer backward onto the power lines, laid on the ground after the poles were removed, was careless, if anything. “When we last spoke you were going to see to the generators. Why has this not been done?”

  The lieutenant’s gaze changed slightly, hinting at...fear?

  Muhadesh turned completely to face Indar. “Why?”

  Indar met his commander’s eyes. “The generators, sir, they are...gone.”

  “Gone?!” Muhadesh exploded. His arms flailed out and up, coming to rest atop his head in disbelief.

  “Yes,” Indar replied in a snap, ready to shift responsibility. “Before you returned, a unit from the airfield came and confiscated our generators. Their commander was a major. I could not defy him. He said they would be better used supporting the outer defenses of the airfield.”

  “Both of them? And you found it so unimportant that you felt you could wait to inform me until now?” Muhadesh leaned back upon the edge of his desk. His eyes searched the ceiling for some reason, for some meaning in all this. Was Allah testing him?

  “Sir—” Indar began, but was cut off by the captain’s gesture.

  “No, Indar. Your lies, and excuses, and your borderline treachery is over. Finished. Now, you will listen, and I will explain to you what will be done. You have exactly one hour, and one hour only, to restore power. Sixty minutes, and they are passing as we speak. The next thing I want to hear from you is that the power is on. No...I don’t even want to hear from you—just turn on the power. The lights will be the signal.”

  The lieutenant’s eyes fell, then came back up, glancing briefly into his commander’s black eyes. They were frightening in the unnatural light.

  “I don’t even care if you understand,” Muhadesh said, turning away. “Go.”

  He waited for the sound of the door closing before releasing his anger. It was vented in the form of a fist against the wall, connecting so
lidly with the plaster below the colonel’s photograph.

  Muhadesh held it there for what felt like minutes. He felt pain, intense pain, spread across the fingers on his right hand and it increased when contact with the wall was broken. There was no mark on the old plaster, attesting to its strength. His skin was not broken, either. He spread his fingers out, examining the trembling digits.

  One hour.

  He calmed himself. The anger was unproductive, he knew, but there were times when it surfaced, like it or not. In ninety minutes he would have to leave for the rendezvous. Thirty minutes would be cutting it close, but there was no choice. He had to get the other message off to the Americans.

  In the meantime he would wait, alone in the semidarkness of his office. He sat at his desk and turned one of the flashlights on its side to illuminate the writing blotter. There was one last message to compose. It was actually less a message and more an explanation. A justification? Muhadesh wouldn’t go that far.

  He removed his writing paper and took a pen in hand, writing the words that would soothe no one, but that he was compelled to put on paper. Amazingly, they came easily.

  Thunder One

  Blackjack walked down the right side of the Starlifter, heading aft from the com suite, which was a generous description of the radio operator’s console. He sidestepped past the Humvees, stopping at the nose of the second. “Gather round!”

  The troops sensed something, but McAffee’s face never belied his thoughts. Graber checked that they were all around, including the two drivers. Joe Anderson was still in his seat, fifteen feet back, staring intently at the message he had received.

  “The colonel just called with the following message: Execute Cloudburst.” The major’s face stayed a mask of stone, and he noticed that Graber’s, unlike the rest of the team’s, was also. The others let out a collective yell of relief. They were finally getting their chance to do the job the unit had been formed to do. “Settle down, troops. We’re going to be on the ground in less than ninety minutes. We have to be ready to go when we land, so get your gear checked, and rechecked. Captain, you see that the buddy checks get done.” Graber acknowledged the order. “Get to it. Captain, I’m going to talk to the pilot. Be back.”