Dmitri took the wooden guest chair. “I’m not sure that’s important for you to know.” He reached for one of his black cigarettes.
“On the contrary,” Len argued, handing him a lighter. “I need to provide for security. What it is not important for me to know is where you plan to take them next.”
“Even I do not know that. Moscow has not shared their plans with me.”
Len assumed Dmitri was lying because Dmitri didn’t know how to tell the truth. “Then tell me what time the trucks arrive tonight to clear the chapel.”
“After dark, that’s all I know.”
Len sighed. “Dmitri, I am not a spy. We have been colleagues long enough to dislike each other, but that is of no operational relevance. You have already doubled the guard here, and now you’re bringing in even more. All of these people need to be fed. There are logistical concerns.”
Dmitri waited a long time before answering. “They will arrive around midnight.”
“And will they have guards to protect the shipments?”
“Impractical,” Dmitri said. He waved away his cloud of smoke. “These will be unremarkable vehicles. Neither new nor old, big enough to carry a few launchers and warheads apiece, but not so large as to draw attention. Thus, no guards, no convoys.”
“How do you get these to America?”
“Missiles are not so much larger than drugs.”
Len took that to mean that they would use the same border crossings.
Dmitri laughed. “Americans are so predictable. If a smuggler is white with a nice haircut and a cross dangling from his rearview mirror, he can move anything across the border. You’ll notice there’s no talk of a fence across the Canadian border.”
“That’s because Canadians are happy to be in Canada.” They chuckled together.
“About the new guards who showed up this morning,” Len said, shifting back to business. “Where do they come from and how much do they know? They don’t speak much to me or the rest of my normal staff.”
“That is because I told them not to,” Dmitri explained.
“I’ve heard them speak among themselves, and they don’t sound Russian.”
“They are not Russian,” Dmitri said. “They are not Canadian, they are not American, and they are not Kenyan, although I believe that some were born in each of those countries. Their loyalty is to the man who is paying them today.”
“Mercenaries.”
Dmitri shrugged. “If you wish.”
Len didn’t wish. In his experience, mercenaries were merely well-paid thugs and murderers, fine for taking down a rival warlord, but useless for strategic thought.
“I can read your mind, Comrade. You do not respect such men.”
“No one respects such men,” Len said. “They don’t even want respect as far as I can tell. They’re all about fear.”
“Fear and respect are very close cousins.”
“But who are we trying to intimidate?” Len let the question hang in the air, and then he saw his own answer. “You no longer trust me, Dmitri?”
The other man exhaled a cloud and tapped the cigarette on the edge of the ash tray. “If I didn’t trust you, you would be dead now,” he said. “But I worry about how much you have changed. I worry that as we close in on victory, you seem to be pulling away.”
“I will be loyal,” Len insisted.
“I’m sure you will. But what was it that Comrade Gorbachev’s best friend told the world? Trust but verify. Think of my little army as a form of insurance. Now, didn’t you say something about food?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Boxers clearly was pissed to be consigned to firearms instruction while Jonathan checked out the aircraft, but even he knew that it was the best choice. Despite the fact the Big Guy didn’t particularly like people—or perhaps because of it—he was a terrific instructor when it came to shooting. In the few hours that he would spend with David and Becky and the First Lady, they would know how to operate a Colt M4 and a Beretta M9 pistol with their eyes closed. That wouldn’t necessarily make them good marksmen—that was a skill that took years to develop—but they would know enough to keep up a steady stream of fire without shooting each other.
Or, even better, they would know to keep the safety engaged until there was no choice but to shoot.
Carl led Jonathan through the snow across the expansive lawn toward the barn-hangars.
“How many aircraft do you have?” Jonathan asked.
“In total?” Striker looked toward the sky as he considered the question. “Right now, as we speak, I’ve got six on hand, but not all of them are in as good working order as the others.” His cane seemed to be particularly important to him in the knee-deep snow.
“Where do you get them?” As he asked the question, Jonathan tried to modulate his tone to be conversational, when in fact the line about not all being in as good a shape as others had spooked him.
“All kinds of places,” he said. “You just need to know where to look.”
“Such as?”
“Company secret, Dig. A good businessman never shares company secrets.”
Their trajectory was taking them directly toward the UH-1 Jonathan had seen poking through the door on the way in. “We’re not taking a Huey, are we?” Jonathan asked.
“One of the best choppers ever made,” Carl said.
“With all the stealth of a brass band,” Jonathan countered.
Carl chuckled. “That sound scared the shit out of the Viet Cong back in the day.”
In fact, the Viet Cong called that distinctive wop-wop sound “muttering death.” Even battle-hardened NVA were known to dump their weapons in a ditch when they heard the sound, unaware of the swarm of copper-jacketed bees that were on their way.
“Well, you know, this mission of yours is a tough nut,” Striker said. “You want to fly a heavy load, yet you want to be stealthy, and you have a lot of people.” They arrived at the front door and Carl pulled on the left-hand door.
“Need me to pull the other one?” Jonathan offered.
“Nope, just need enough space to get through.” He led the way inside.
Jonathan followed. The difference between the snow glare and the darkness of the hangar’s interior left him momentarily blind. Reflexively, he moved his hand closer to his .45. Blindness was never an advantage.
“Easy there, cowboy,” Carl said. “Weapons down. How long you been out of the unit?”
“A while,” Jonathan said.
“You guys always were quick to draw down.” Carl chuckled. “I remember flying some of you guys into some Golf Foxtrot and as we touched down, one of your Unit brothers pickled a round past my ear and out through the windscreen to kill a skinny who was running right at us. Scared the shit outta me and saved my life all at twenty-three hundred feet per second.”
Jonathan knew exactly who that unit guy was. He stared back at him from the mirror every morning. “You’re welcome.”
Now that Jonathan’s eyes were adjusting, he could see Carl just well enough to note the smile. “No shit, that was you?”
“It was,” Jonathan said. He reminded him of the exact location on the world map.
“Well, then hell yeah. Thanks. Anyway, we’ve got this logistical problem of invading a friendly nation, snatching some good guys, and getting out without getting tagged.”
Jonathan could make out the developing silhouettes of the various aircraft.
“For quiet, you can’t beat the Little Bird,” Striker said, patting the skin of the MH-6 that lurked just behind the Huey. “But you’re talking a two-fifty roundtrip with a heavy load. If she’s got it in her, it isn’t by much, know what I mean?”
“You don’t want to break your record of zero crashes.”
“Exactly. And even the Huey you’re worried about. While it can handle the mileage and the load with change on both ends, look at the size of the son of a bitch. You need half a football field just to set her down. Plus, she’s got some serious gray in h
er hair.”
Anything that made Striker nervous scared the living shit out of Jonathan.
Carl wandered to the front wall and flipped a switch, igniting some intense floodlighting. “Given all of the variables, I think this bird is our best bet.”
The two-handed reveal pose Carl struck reminded Jonathan of a television model from The Price is Right. The chopper he presented looked like a Little Bird that had taken a deep, deep breath. It still had the pregnant-mosquito look, but this one took up twice the footprint.
“European Helicopter?” Jonathan guessed, naming one of the world’s most respected chopper-makers.
“The EC135,” Carl said.
Jonathan planted his fists on his hips. “That’s a new aircraft, isn’t it?”
“This one is looking forward to her eighth birthday.”
“That must be a million-dollar aircraft,” Jonathan said. What he didn’t say was, where did you steal this from?
“Actually, she’s more like four million new,” Striker said. “But I got a real deal on her.”
Warning bell. “How?”
“Do you really want to know?”
Jonathan steeled himself with a breath. “Given the stakes,” he said, “I think I do.”
“Let’s just say that this one landed kind of hard,” Carl said.
Shit.
“But don’t worry,” Striker went on, “I’ve done all the repairs myself. She’s like new.”
The chopper looked like it just rolled off the factory floor, except for the rust-brown primer coat where there should have been paint.
“Note the shrouded tail rotor,” Carl said. “That takes out a lot of the engine noise. You’re still going to get some whopping from the main rotor disk, but against the night sky, we’ll look like a medevac chopper. A lot of jurisdictions use these as medevacs. She’s fast, and I sprung for SOTA FLIR.”
Jonathan recognized SOTA as state-of-the-art, and FLIR as forward-looking infrared, which meant that the bird could fly full-throttle at treetop level.
“What do you know about US-Canada air defense?” Jonathan asked.
“Not a thing.”
He appreciated the honesty, even if it didn’t help him. Jonathan said, “I’m betting that the Canadians are less worried about people invading their air space from the US than America is worried about invasions from the north.”
“If you feel good believing that, I’ll feel good believing it, too.”
In the distance, a ripple of gunfire rattled the otherwise still morning air. Boxers’ students had taken their first shot.
“So, is this really what you do, Dig?” Carl asked. “I’ve heard rumors through the Community, but you know how reliable they are.”
“Exactly,” Jonathan said, being deliberately obtuse. “Company secrets.”
Striker seemed to understand the gentle rebuke. “Well, for what it’s worth, I heard that you did some very cool, very noble work on behalf of Boomer Nasbe. I won’t ask you to verify, but if it’s true, and I assume it is, I bow at your friggin’ feet. If that’s the shit you’re doing to pay your bills, I want you to know that I’m part of your team any time you make the phone call.”
Jonathan kept a poker face. He had, in fact, helped the Nasbe family out of a jam a while ago, but it made no sense to confirm the rumor.
“I’ve made you uncomfortable,” Striker said. “I’m sorry. That’s the polar opposite of what I wanted to do. You’re still working for the Community, and I don’t think there’s a greater calling than that.”
“Tell me that this bird is airworthy,” Jonathan said.
“And then some,” Striker said. “And like I said, she’s quiet.” He pointed again like a proud father to the shrouded tail rotor.
Unlike most helicopters, in which the tail rotor was open to the atmosphere and therefore noisy, the shrouded tail rotor provided the most basic of QTR—quiet tail rotor—technology, knocking the noise signature down by fifteen decibels, three times the sound pressure, as registered from the ground. That might just give them the edge they needed to get across the border and back without being reported by someone who was pissed because their rerun of Seinfeld was interrupted by aircraft noise.
Jonathan pulled open the side door. It should have revealed seats and restraints, but in fact revealed only open floor space. He cast a glance to Striker.
“Okay,” Striker said. “It’s not the most perfect, safest arrangement of floor space. But the beast will carry you and your equipment there, and you and your precious cargo back.” Carl stood taller. “Is that, or is that not, the point of this exercise?”
Sometimes, you had to choose between the best of bad options. In this case, it was the promise of a sound airframe, despite the lack of seats or seatbelts.
“I promise not to crash,” Carl said, as if reading Jonathan’s thoughts.
“Oh,” Jonathan said. “Well, in that case, you have a deal.” They shook on it.
It was the kind of cold that radiated all the way through David’s waterproof boots and into the bones of his feet. Boxers—Big Guy now because code names were important, though he never said why—had led them on a hike to the edge of the clearing that contained the house and barns. They faced the thick woods. Even with the leaves gone from the trees, you couldn’t see more than thirty feet in.
David, like Mrs. Darmond and Becky, wore a heavy vest—a ballistic vest, not a bulletproof vest, and no, he would never make that mistake again—that looked like the ones he saw on the news coming from war zones. Its surface was covered with all kinds of patches and pockets into which Big Guy had jammed maybe a dozen ammunition magazines—oh, good God, not clips because clips are a specific kind of magazine designed for the M-1 rifle—each of which had been loaded with a single bullet.
They’d already learned that they were shooting Colt M4 carbines, the same rifle that was standard issue to active-duty soldiers. They’d been introduced to the safety and to the switch that allowed them to change from single shot to automatic, which would turn the weapon into a submachine gun. That was the DFWI switch, according to the Big Guy—the don’t fuck with it switch. Automatic mode was bad. It wasted ammunition.
The whole session was a waste as far as David was concerned. He’d fired his own M4 on the range countless times. Granted, it was a semiautomatic version, but Big Guy was telling them not to use full-auto anyway.
“I don’t give a shit if you can hit your targets tonight,” Big Guy said. “If it comes to that, so much shit will be broken that your marksmanship probably won’t make a difference. Just don’t shoot each other, and for God’s sake, don’t shoot me. And if you do shoot me, go for a head shot because if you shoot me and I live, you will die with a rifle up your ass. Are we communicating?”
Personable guy. David nodded while Becky said, “Yes, sir.”
“The easiest shot you’ll ever get at an enemy is when he’s reloading. The best rifle in the world is just a glorified club when it’s empty, and the guy who brings a club to a gunfight always loses.”
From there David learned more than he ever thought he’d need to know about the technical aspects of reloading.
“You only have one round in your magazines because we don’t need to practice pulling the trigger. The way these weapons are designed, when you fire the last round in a mag, the bolt locks open. You don’t have to keep count of how many rounds you’ve fired. When that puppy locks open, you’ll feel it. And if you don’t feel it, you’re going to know because the next time you pull the trigger, the weapon’s going to say click instead of bang. Bang is good. Click is bad. Anybody need to take a note on that?”
By the time David realized that the Big Guy was trying to be funny, the moment had passed.
Big Guy brought his own weapon to his shoulder. His gun looked similar yet different from theirs, as if born of the same mother but with different fathers. He fired a shot at the woods, and then turned to face the class, his muzzle pointed toward the sky. The bolt was clearl
y locked open.
“Here’s what I want you to do.” He demonstrated that the mag release button was just above the trigger on either side of the weapon. “Let the mag drop to the ground. In the shit, don’t worry about it after you drop it. Here in training, take care of it, because it’s one of the ones you’ll be using later if we’re in the shit.”
He fingered the release, and the empty mag dropped away.
“Take a new one from a pouch—” He demonstrated in live slow motion. “Put your forefinger along the nose of the bullets just to make sure they’re in alignment, and insert it till it clicks.” He did those steps. “Now what’s wrong with the weapon?”
David raised his hand, happy to have something to contribute. “It won’t fire. The bolt’s still open.”
“Jimmy Olsen gets a point,” Big Guy said.
“He was a photographer,” David said.
Big Guy fired off a glare that would have been funny if it wasn’t so friggin’ scary. “Don’t cross me, son,” he said. Then he winked.
Big Guy demonstrated the bolt release button on the left-hand side of the breech. “If this isn’t closed, the weapon won’t fire.” With the bolt closed, he turned and fired another round into the woods.
“So, that’s the exercise,” Big Guy said. “One round, drop the mag, insert a new one, seat the bolt, fire a round and drop the mag and seat a new one. We’re going to do this until you’re really tired of doing this.”
Truer words had never been spoken.
By the time the exercise was done, David’s “dead time”—the interval between the last shot fired from one mag and the first shot fired from the next—was down to three seconds. Big Guy pronounced that to be survivable.
Who would not feel confident with such gushing words of encouragement?
“Dad, I’m scared,” Josef said.
“I know,” Nicholas said. The boy had only been awake for maybe fifteen minutes. Thankfully (tragically?), the drugs they’d used to knock them out were far more effective on a child than on an adult. “Try not to be.”
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