by John Weisman
Quickly, the pilot reached for the upper right side of the control panel and pushed the landing-gear lever up. Ritzik felt a slight rumble as the wheels retracted. Then Shingis added flaps. He banked the plane to the left, gave it more power, and increased his angle of attack. Then he banked right, brought the aircraft into a more horizontal position, and eased off slightly on his throttles and flaps. He pulled back on the wheel and the Yak gained more altitude.
Altynbayev turned so he could see Ritzik’s face. “Good takeoff, huh, for a solo guy?”
Ritzik gave the pilot an upturned thumb. “First-class, Shingis.”
The pilot beamed. Looking at his face, Ritzik realized how fortunate he had been to trust his instincts about Altynbayev.
On Ritzik’s previous deployment in Kazakhstan, he had required an aircraft on which to train Umarov’s counterterrorist unit in low-level parachute insertions. There were no American planes available, and so the military attaché at the embassy instructed him to make a formal request through the Kazakh Ministry of Defense.
Ritzik did as ordered. But the ministry, which was institutionally hostile to the elite unit Ritzik was helping to train, informed him that the request would take at least two weeks to process. By that time, the Kazakh apparatchiks knew, Ritzik and his people would be out of the country, and the training—which might come in handy if the CT unit ever participated in a coup—would not take place.
Talgat, however, suggested that his cousin Shingis might handle the matter quickly and discreetly. Ritzik, frustrated with the bureaucracy, agreed. Eight hours later, Altynbayev dropped out of the sky in the cockpit of a decrepit Antonov An-2, a short, stubby Soviet-era biplane with a small, single rear wheel that gave it the same 1930s, Art Deco, nose-in-the-air look as a DC-3. The Antonov, which was far older than any of the people who would be jumping from it, had faded CCCP Air Force markings and was configured as a parachute trainer, with space for fourteen jumpers. When Ritzik checked the plane out, he’d found crumpled packs of Russian cigarettes on the deck and empty vodka bottles jammed behind the crude canvas benches. He’d asked where Shingis had come up with the aircraft, but Altynbayev deflected the question with a sly smile and a slight bow, and said, “It was my pleasure to be of service, Major.”
The exercise had gone exceptionally well. Ritzik offered Shingis an extravagant “consulting fee” for his assistance—and for obtaining the aircraft.
The pilot had turned him down cold. “You have helped my cousin Talgat,” he explained. “You brought him to the United States. You provided him training, and materials. You treat him as more than your ally. You are loyal to him. You are his friend. And therefore, I am loyal to you, Major. I am your friend.”
And from that point on, whenever Ritzik needed anything to do with an aircraft, Talgat would get hold of cousin Shingis—and whatever equipment Ritzik was looking for would suddenly appear.
It was Rowdy, who had become an avid student of Central Asian society, who explained things to Ritzik after they returned to Bragg. “In that part of the world, boss, you don’t just recruit an individual. You recruit the whole clan. In Central Asia the society is totally family-oriented. It’s friggin’ tribal. By trusting Talgat’s cousin, you demonstrated to Talgat that you trusted him. And they both respect you for it.”
“The old friend-of-my-friend-is-my-friend way of life,” Ritzik said.
“You got it, boss.”
“But you and I know that wasn’t why it happened. It was just easier to go through Talgat than it was to do all the stupid paperwork.”
“I understand,” Rowdy’d spat Copenhagen into his omnipresent plastic foam cup. “But this was one of those times when all you should do is thank the God of War for serendipity and take yes for an answer.”
1731. Ritzik looked at his watch and was horrified to realize that he wasn’t on oxygen yet. He backed out of the cockpit and waddled to seat 3-B, where he grabbed one of the three walk-around bottles seat-belted down. He coupled the spring-loaded bayonet connector from his mask into the regulator, turned the knurled knob until he sensed the O2 flowing into his mask, and hung the bottle over his shoulder. Then he one-handed the other two walk-around bottles, careful not to damage the attached mask units, and made his way back to the cockpit.
He handed one of the walk-around bottles to Umarov. “Strap this on, then make sure Shingis gets his mask secure and his O-two turned on as soon as we’ve leveled off.”
The Kazakh pressed the mask to his face, hooked the straps, pulled them tight, and gave an upturned thumb to Ritzik’s back. But the American was already shuffling aft.
13
12,000 Feet Above the Shilik River, Kazakhstan.
1738 Hours Local Time.
RITZIK DISCONNECTED the walk-around bottle and plugged his O2 rig into the prebreather unit. Then he plucked the pilot’s map out of Rowdy’s hand.
“Point of contact still make sense to you?”
The sergeant major’s head bobbed up and down once. “Target’s moving at a more or less constant twenty kliks an hour.” Rowdy tapped the handheld screen on his right wrist. “That puts them at the northern end of Yarkant Köl in six hours thirty minutes—just after midnight. We’ll have a workable margin of error if Shingis gets us to here”—Yates tapped a spot on the big map slightly northeast of Kashgar—“and we exit the plane. It’s a fifty-mile glide, almost due southeast. A little long—and a bumpy ride for the first half hour. But the winds will be behind us and we’ll make it in plenty of time to position ourselves.”
“Are you sure about the winds?”
Yates tapped the map. “It’s a law of nature, Mike. Winds flow upslope on warm days in mountainous terrain—it’s called a ‘valley breeze.’ In the evenings, the air masses cool, and the flow reverses downward, into a ‘mountain breeze.’ The weather has been constant: warm days and cold nights. The satellites don’t show any anomalies. So if Shingis turns south, running along this ridge… “ Yates’s finger traced a rough route. “ … it’s just over seventeen thousand feet here, and the ridge where we’ll be exiting is nine thousand feet above sea level … we should be in good shape when we jump.”
“You’re the jumpmeister. I’m the overpaid RTO.” Ritzik folded the map, disconnected from the prebreather console, plugged his hose into the walk-around bottle, and waddled forward to the cockpit. “Shingis—”
The pilot was speaking on the radio. He raised his hand and Ritzik waited. The Kazakh completed his transmission and banked the plane slightly to the south, still in a gentle climb.
“It is okay now,” he finally said, his voice muffled by the oxygen mask. He swiveled his head toward Ritzik. “What is up?”
Ritzik handed him the map. “Here’s how it works.” The tip of his index finger tapped the runway at Almaty. “We came out of here, then turned west, correct?”
Shingis’s head bobbed up and down once.
Ritzik’s finger moved in a big circle across the map. “We’re coming around now, and we’ll head east, parallel to the Kyrgyz border.”
“Affirmative.”
“That takes us between the mountain ranges.”
The pilot’s head bobbed up and down. “Yes.”
“And we finally cross into China just north of Tekes, right?”
“Affirmative.” Altynbayev tapped a wristwatch hanging next to his vent window. “Do not forget—the time changes by two hours.”
Ritzik noted that the digital readout was two hours later than the watch on his own wrist. He cursed silently because he hadn’t remembered the detail. “Thank you, Shingis. Okay—your normal route overflies Kuqa and Korla, then north to Yanqi and into Ürümqi, right?”
The pilot’s attention was momentarily diverted by someone speaking on his headset. He raised an index finger and Ritzik halted.
Finally, Altynbayev spoke. “I am sorry. That was Almaty control talking to another flight. I wanted to listen.”
“It’s okay.” Ritzik tapped the map. “So far every
thing is normal. But right here—” Ritzik retrieved a marking pen from his sleeve and put a dot on the map. “Right here, you turn southwest.”
“Yes?”
“Ürümqi control will want to know what’s happening.”
“Of course.”
“Let them try to contact you once or twice before you respond. Then, you declare an emergency. Tell ‘em you can’t make Ürümqi. You have to divert and take an alternate route back to Almaty.” He paused. “Can you do that?”
“Yes,” Altynbayev said. “That can be done.”
Ritzik put a second black spot on the map. “From here, you give me every bit of speed you can muster, for sixteen minutes, bitching all the time to Ürümqi that the plane is unmanageable—lost pressure, engine-oil leak, hydraulic failure—whatever you can get away with. After twelve minutes, we should be … here, right?” Ritzik put another dot on the map.
The pilot thought about it for a few seconds. “Yes, more or less.”
“I hope it’s more rather than less.” “So do I, Major.”
“You’ll drop to twenty-seven thousand feet. We’ll open the door and depressurize. After we do, you’ll swing due east, along the mountain ridge, drop airspeed to two hundred and twenty knots, and maintain a constant twenty-seven thousand feet for ninety seconds.”
The pilot pulled his mask off. “The airspeed is cutting the cloth close a little bit, Major.”
“I know. But you can do it.”
Altynbayev bit his lower lip while he performed a mental calculation. “I think I can.” He looked at the chart. “Ninety seconds at two hundred twenty-five knots would put us about here.” He tapped the paper.
“Right on the money,” Ritzik said. “As soon as you make the turn east, you’ll switch off all the interior lights so we don’t give ourselves away.”
“I will do it.”
“You signal when you’re right on target—flash all the exit and seat-belt lights—and we’ll exit the aircraft.” Ritzik examined Altynbayev’s face, but the pilot remained impassive.
“It should take less than a minute and a half. Then Talgat will close you up. You’ll swing back north, haul ass, and hope the Chinese don’t scramble fighters and shoot you down before you cross the border.”
“That will not happen,” Shingis said.
“Why?”
The pilot pulled the map onto his armrest. “There are small airports at Aksu and Kashgar,” he said, pointing to the chart. “But the closest fighter aircraft is Yining. It is too far north to intercept us when we go off course. And besides, the planes at Yining are not on standby since the end of the Soviet Union, so they will not be scrambled because it would take too long.”
“How do you know, Shingis?”
Altynbayev reached into his pilot’s briefcase and displayed a pair of binoculars. “Because Ürümqi control allows us to fly routes that used to be forbidden—and we can see that the planes are not ready.”
Ritzik listened—and marveled. The CIA’s budget was well into the scores of billions. Shingis Altynbayev made perhaps $20,000 a year as a pilot for Air Kazakhstan. But his intelligence was more current than Langley’s. And it didn’t rely on statistical models either, but old-fashioned, eyes-on reconnaissance.
“I hope you’re right,” Ritzik said. He reached over Altynbayev’s shoulder and pointed to the dot he’d made on the map where he wanted the pilot to change course. “How long until we get to this point, Shingis?”
The Kazakh returned the binoculars to his case. He sat back in the heavy chair, scratched his cheek, and checked his instruments. “Twenty-one minutes,” he said. Altynbayev slipped the O2 mask back over his nose, secured the strap, and placed both hands on the wheel. “Twenty-one minutes.”
31,500 Feet Above Wushi, China. 1808 Hours Kazakhstan Time.
THE PLANE BANKED SHARPLY to the right. The sequence had begun.
Ritzik slapped Rowdy Yates on the arm, and the sergeant major hand-signaled Doc Masland and Curtis Hansen to wrestle the length of half conduit down the aisle. When they’d set it on the floor by the rear bulkhead, they attached ten-foot lengths of webbed strap securely to their belts, then cinched the loose end of the straps around the rearmost pair of aisle seat belts.
Yates waited until the pair came forward as far as their leashes allowed and gave him “go” signals before his hands instructed the rest of the element to stand. Then he faced the right side of the aircraft and put his left hand on his left hip, paused, then extended the arm out at a forty-five-degree angle.
The troops pulled the arming pins from their ARR assemblies, performed buddy checks, then signaled Yates with upturned thumbs.
“PRICE check,” the sergeant major growled into his mike.
Wei-Liu turned to find Ritzik and shrugged when she caught his eye.
Ritzik reached around and brought them face-to-face. “It’s an acronym we use to examine our O-two systems: pressure, regulator, indicator, connections, and emergency equipment.” He tapped each element on her gear as he spoke the word. “You’re good to go, ma’am.”
31,500 Feet Above Kumblun, China.
1810 Hours Kazakhstan Time (2010 Hours Local Time).
RITZIK CHECKED the global-positioning-unit readout on his PDA, then shifted screens to make sure the convoy was more or less where it should have been. It was. He pressed his transmit button and said, “TOC, Skyhorse Element.”
“Skyhorse, TOC.” Roger Brian’s voice was five-by-five.
“Sit-rep, Dodger.”
“No news. Are you getting picture?”
“Affirmative. Anything from home base?” Ritzik would have liked to hear that Langley was finally doing its share of the work.
“Nothing new.”
So much for interagency cooperation. “What’s the imagery?”
Dodger said, “No changes. Changii is quiet. No other developments.”
“Roger that. Skyhorse out.”
Ritzik changed frequencies so he was on the insertion element’s net. He looked up the aisle. Talgat emerged from the cockpit, his arm extended, his thumb upraised.
There were less than sixteen minutes to go.
He looked at his men as they ran their hands over one another’s web gear, weapons, and combat packs, checking and double-checking. Until now, they’d been quiet, each one lost in his own thoughts. That was SOR They’d been preparing themselves mentally for the challenges: working out emergency scenarios, running flight sequences, dealing with the absolute certainty of the uncertainties that make up the practice of warfare.
Now they’d become decidedly animated: their eyes were wide, their respiration shallow but accelerated. It was the body’s way of dealing with the imminent physical dangers: depressurization, the shock of subfreezing air, the blackness of the void outside the aircraft’s hull, the total aloneness of HAHO insertion.
Like them, Ritzik’s breath was thin. There was a knot in his gut, too, and his sphincter was tight—all normal reactions prior to the stress of combat. He could feel the beat of his heart, rushing, and he fought to control it. There’d be enough time for a huge adrenaline surge once they’d exited the plane.
29,500 Feet Above Subexi,
China. 2019 Hours Local Time.
TALGAT CAME AFT, his O2 bottle dangling from the waist strap of his harness. He threaded his way past the Soldiers and made his way to the rear door of the aircraft. He straddled the curved metal sluice. “Time to depressurize,” he called out, and reached for the door handle.
From the middle of the aircraft, Rowdy shouted, “Talgat. Tokhta—stop. Qozghama—don’t move!”
The Kazakh froze.
Quickly, Yates unplugged from the prebreather, thrust his O2 hose connector into the jump bottle’s regulator, and pushed aft. He withdrew the demonstrator seat belts, looped one of them around the back strap of Talgat’s harness, then pulled it tight. Then he buckled the male end of the second belt to the buckle end of the loop and ran the loose end to the closest seat, where he
snapped it into a seat-belt buckle. He slammed Umarov on the chest. “Now,” he shouted. “Now you’re safe.” He motioned to the Kazakh, instructing him where to stand. “Stay there—and open the door when I give you the signal, okay?”
Umarov saw that Yates had taken him out of the door’s path and gave the American a thumbs-up. “Maqul—okay.”
27,500 Feet Above Tashik Tash,
China. 2023 Hours Local Time.
NOW YATES’S EYES turned to Ritzik. The major had attached his harness to Wei-Liu’s, and he had to contort his body so that he could be seen clearly. Yates shouted, “We’re ready, Loner.”
They heard the change in turbine pitch as Shingis throttled back to slow the aircraft down. Ritzik took a quick glance at his GPS. He focused on the coordinates, calculated, raised his arms above his head, and held all ten gloved fingers up where everyone could see them. Then he folded one finger, and then another, and then another, and another. When his left hand displayed only four, Rowdy turned, pointed toward the rear as if he were leading a cavalry charge, and screamed, “Talgat—go!”
The Kazakh threw the thick handle to the left. The door blew inward, smashing into the rear bulkhead. The loss of heat and pressure was immediate, palpable. Wei-Liu’s ears popped painfully. She saw Rowdy, Gene Shepard, and the one they called Goose wince, too. The plane vibrated violently from the stress to its airframe. It bucked and twisted left, then right, before regaining level flight. The noise from the three rear-mounted engines was overwhelming.
The interior lights went out, plunging the cabin into darkness. From his position in the aisle, Curtis Hansen produced two pairs of chem-lights. He twisted them, then shoved them between seat backs and cushions, providing the aisle with a path of glowing red light.
Doc Masland, who stood just forward of Umarov, snared the door handle and secured it with a long Velcro strap to the closest seat arm. He stepped in front of the Kazakh and, leaning into the darkness, peered out to make sure that the rear stairway had extended properly.