by Mack Maloney
The first bus? Sure, if its crews had been able to shoot down a few American airliners, that would have been a big plus. But in reality Ryder knew now it had been a diversion all along, something to keep them busy and the people of the country on edge, not to mention quadrupling the intrigue in Washington, while all that time laying low with the second bus, planning to do this one big hit by killing thousands of unsuspecting Americans and shooting down the cream of the American military’s air force. It was the Big Plan approach to terrorism, somehow explained by the scribble on a coffee-stained napkin. And it had gone off nearly flawlessly.
But A1 Qaeda had not factored in one thing: the ghosts.
It was the interpretation of that coffee-stained napkin that had brought them here, at this moment, to this place, as the one last hope to avert disaster. There was no time to call the cops, no time to get the air police to converge on the Greyhound bus. It was up to them — and the 1,200 gallons of really bad stuff sloshing around in their holding tanks.
Their wild buzzing was not doing much to improve the condition of their engines; in fact, it was making them worse. But it was necessary. Typically cowardly, the terrorists had parked their vehicle in the midst of many; Ryder knew he’d have to buzz the area below at least a few times to get as many innocent people out of the way as possible.
It was Puglisi who’d come up with the idea of showing the Revolutionary War flag one more time. Jammed between the forward hatch and frame, it was flapping mightily now — this all in hopes that people on the ground would see it, recognize it, and know who they were, and then clear out as quickly as they could.
And this seemed to be happening below them now as Ryder pulled up from a very shallow dive right over the Greyhound to see military people down below hustling people out of the area.
But again this was a timing thing — and it appeared that time was finally running out for the ghosts.
The veterans’ flight was now just a few seconds away from arriving over the base. Most of its aircraft were already within range of the Stinger missiles. Ryder could almost feel the disruption in the air around him as the collection of warplanes came in, this as he was pulling out of what had to be their last mock dive.
It was at that moment that they saw the top of the Greyhound bus disappear. It looked like it simply vanished — actually, the roof was cut in two, with each side on hinges, and these doors dropped away. Looking over his shoulder and climbing, Ryder could see the interior of the bus. A chill went through him. There were 18 mooks, some in soccer uniforms, some not, each with a Stinger missile on his shoulder.
Ryder turned the plane over on its wing. Bates was still in the copilot’s seat. Fox and Puglisi were holding on for dear life behind them. The plane was in no position to fire the big fifties; most of their ammo was gone anyway.
“Those bastards!” Fox screamed now as he saw what was happening on the bus below. Ryder and Bates were turning the CL-215 as hard as they could, trying to muscle it into one last dive — but again, they were just a few seconds too late.
What happened next happened in slow motion, for Ryder, for all of them. As soon as Fox screamed, they saw six of the terrorists below fire their missiles. They weren’t aiming the weapons exactly, just pointing them in the general direction of the veterans’ flight, which was flying right over the main runway. In combat terms, it presented a target-rich environment if there ever was one. But at the instant that the team saw the first ignition flash for the first missile to be fired, Ryder hit the water release button on the CL-215’s control panel. The problem was, he was still in the act of turning the firefighting plane, not diving as they had intended when this outlandish bombing mission was so hastily planned out.
These simultaneous actions meant that the first barrage of six missiles actually flew into the cloud of combustible water the CL had dropped. Two of the missiles exploded on hitting the liquid; two more went right through it and exploded above. One missile corkscrewed away. The last one went through the rear of the CL plane — and kept on going.
The 1,200 gallons of liquid hit the bus a second later — but not before another handful of missiles were launched. It might have been the fiery exhaust from the missiles that ignited the fire, but whatever the spark, as soon as the load of gas-water hit the bus, it went up in a tremendous explosion. Red, orange, blue, even white flames soared into the sky, climbing into an instantaneous fireball that immediately sought to envelop the CL-215. Ryder saw nothing but fire coming up at them. They’d accomplished what they’d set out to do. But now the CL was about to be cooked. He screamed at Bates to get out of the copilot’s seat, something the egghead did very quickly. The great wash of flame hit the plane head-on an instant later. It was like hitting a brick wall.
It was weird what happened next. The windshield evaporated, covering Ryder with a hot shower of broken glass. At the same moment, he started pulling like crazy on the steering column, trying to get them out of the aerial conflagration. And in that heartbeat, he looked over at the empty copilot’s seat and it was as if an invisible set of hands was pulling up on that side of the column, too.
Whose ghost could that be? he thought crazily, frozen for a moment in time. Was it Gallant? Or “Dirt” Phelan, his wingman who’d died during the Hormuz attack? Or Woody, his old flying buddy who disappeared years ago, not far from here, up around Area 51? Or may be the Ruckers’ long-lost son, whose medal Ryder was still carrying with him.
Or maybe he was just imagining the whole thing.
Whatever the case, somehow the CL-215 made it through the fireball. But as a result, it was now nearly covered in flames.
Behind them Ryder could see one of the Harriers had been hit by a Stinger. The pilot was in the process of bailing out, this after steering his jump jet away from the crowd and toward the open part of the main runway. Another missile clipped the S-2 Viking carrier bomber. Its crew was able to put some air under its wings, bringing it up to reasonable altitude. Again pointed away from the crowd, they, too, were in the process of ejecting.
Ryder turned the CL ship over the crowd now. That’s when they saw another missile corkscrew its way into a hangar and detonate. Luckily, this was the same hangar that had lost electricity earlier in the day — and had remained unoccupied. Still another missile was on its way toward the Las Vegas Strip itself.
Somehow Ryder nursed the burning plane away from the crowd and now saw nothing but desert and runway ahead. But unlike the military planes around them, those inside the CL-215 didn’t have the luxury of ejection seats or even parachutes. They were riding this one in.
The plane dipped so low, it nearly clipped an antenna forest near the Nellis control tower. Fire was working its way up both sides of the airplane. They knew that it was just a matter of time, seconds or less, before the flames would reach the dump buckets. True, they were empty, but just the fumes alone would be enough to obliterate the plane — and everything onboard.
It got to the point where Fox and Bates shook hands with Puglisi. Ryder looked over his shoulder and yelled, “What are you guys doing?”
“Saying good-bye,” Fox shouted back darkly.
Ryder almost laughed. “No need to get so dramatic,” he said. “Just hang on ….”
They were instantly above the runway. Ryder yanked the plane hard left, then hard right, bleeding off what little speed they had remaining. Then he pushed down on the controls; a second later, they hit the runway.
They bounced once, then twice. Ryder was yanking the controls back and forth, trying to get the plane to stop. But all he was doing was causing more sparks and making the fire in the back of the plane even worse.
It was like going through a car accident that lasted 15 long seconds, in ultraslow motion. The four of them were hurled all over the cabin, side windows smashing, metal twisting, the unmistakable screech of an airplane going through a crash.
But then finally, they stopped. About halfway down the runway, the plane’s forward wheel just collapsed
and they were all thrown forward, smashing against the control panel and the backs of the seats.
But this was where they finally got lucky. The aircraft was so badly damaged, the whole front end simply came off. The four ghosts literally fell out onto the runway. The fire still swirling around them; the others helped Bates, who fell to the tarmac the hardest, dragging him as far away from the burning wreckage as possible.
Ryder finally stopped them about a hundred and fifty feet away. They all looked at one another — their faces were black, their hands and uniforms burnt. But they were alive.
Then they looked back at the flaming wreck; it was going to go up any second. But then suddenly Puglisi jumped to his feet and ran right into the flames.
“What the fuck!” Fox screamed.
But Ryder knew what Puglisi was doing. The Delta soldier had gone back for Finch’s flag.
It was dumb, but just as quickly as he was gone they saw him emerge from the flames, running in slow motion just like a movie. An instant later, the CL-215 blew up for good.
Puglisi landed in a heap at their feet, flag ripped and smoldering but, like them all, miraculously in one piece. That was when they looked up and saw a crowd of people and vehicles heading right for them.
“Well, last chapter, man,” Ryder said, lying on his back looking up at the smoky Nevada sky.
“We greased them,” Fox said with a cough. “The fucking nightmare is complete. They can send me back to Gitmo after this. I can use the peace and quiet.”
But, it was not over ….
Amid the noise of the veterans flight aircraft, circling the base one more time before landing, the ghosts heard yet another sound. Two huge engines, higher in pitch, not jets, but not from a prop plane, either.
They looked above them to see a V-22 Osprey had appeared out of nowhere and was now hovering overhead. It was a strange craft, half-airplane, half-helicopter, with a wing that tilted, allowing it to land and take off vertically. And this was not one of the all-white experimental-looking V-22s that they were most used to seeing. This one was painted in sinister black and seemed to be bulging with exotic weaponry.
“Something tells me this isn’t our ride home,” Fox moaned.
Its wing tilted full up, the V-22 landed practically on top of them, and a large group of heavily armed men tumbled out. They were dressed head to toe in black combat suits and were wearing huge Fritz helmets, their faces hidden by opaque blast shields attached to those helmets. Their weapons only faintly resembled M16s; they were lousy with wires and cable attachments and even what appeared to be tiny satellite dishes poking out of the muzzles. Almost two dozen in all, these guys looked like they’d just walked in from a sci-fi movie.
At the same time this was happening, a convoy of base admin cars, Humvees, and ambulances also arrived at the CL-215 crash site. They were followed by four firefighting trucks that immediately began spraying flame-retardant foam everywhere, including all over the four ghosts. Suddenly it looked like it was snowing in the hot Nevada sun. Many civilian spectators were running towards the crash site as well.
The four foam-covered ghosts looked up at all these people with twin expressions of relief and confusion. “We should get paid for this,” Fox cracked. “We’re the hit of the entire show ….”
The armed men from the Osprey immediately sought to take command. Turning their guns on everyone from the base admin people to the firefighters and the civilians, they tried to surround the four ghosts, keeping everyone else away.
“You guys are coming with us!” one of them barked from behind his mask. “Those are the orders from Washington ….”
But at that moment, another base admin car arrived with a screech. It was Captain Audette. He’d seen what the ghosts had done back at the RV holding area; he was one of the few people involved who had any idea what had really happened.
“You’re not taking these people anywhere!” he yelled at the black-suited gunmen. “They just saved a few thousand lives back there.”
One of the men in black got in Audette’s face.
“We are in charge here!” he insisted.
But instinct told Audette these guys from the Osprey were bad news. “By whose authority?” he demanded.
“Ever hear of General Rushton?” the man in black replied snidely. “We are under his orders to take these people with us.”
Audette fired back, “Take them where?”
The man in black was suddenly stumped. He had no good answer for that.
Several hundred civilians had reached the site by this time. They were taking phone-photo images and videos of the bizarre scene, something that made the men from the Osprey very uncomfortable.
Meanwhile, many of the planes from the veterans’ flight were still screaming overhead. The earsplitting whine of the C-5 especially made any kind of coherent dialogue impossible; the huge plane went right over, touching down on an auxiliary runway not far from the crash site.
All this time, the four ghosts just stayed where they were, on the ground, still stunned, listening to the two sides argue back and forth. And out on the periphery, one man in a black uniform and helmet stood apart, watching it all, his body language indicating some confusion. It was Captain Pershing Nash. And for what seemed to be the thousandth time in the past few days he muttered again, “What the hell am I doing here?”
The man from the Osprey who was doing most of the talking barked out an order above the scream of jet engines. His men started for the four ghosts on the ground. But then Audette yelled a similar order, and his men — air techs and Air Police mostly — closed in on the ghosts as well. A melee broke out as the two sides pushed each other around for about thirty seconds, this while the ghosts continued to watch it all with dark amusement.
“Who knew we were so popular?” Puglisi asked drily.
In the end it was the fact that so many civilians were on hand, with so many recording devices, that caused the men in black to back down. They’d been under strict orders not to be photographed, not to be seen at all, but that aspect of their mission to capture and eliminate the ghosts had gone overboard a long time ago. Audette was still pushing the lead man in black, asking him for papers, IDs, anything that would show he had more authority over the four ghosts than someone actually based at Nellis.
Finally, Rushton’s guy backed down. Their cover was already blown, and he could see there was no way they could do anything with the four rogues, not with such a crowd around. But he was not going quietly.
He barked at Audette, “Well, what the hell are you going to do with them?”
Audette had to think a moment. He was just a public affairs guy. There were many other officers at Nellis who outranked him, and he didn’t want to do the wrong thing, not with so many eyes watching him. So, he went by the book.
“I’m going to have them arrested,” he pronounced suddenly. “And put into protective custody.”
This seemed to stun everyone, including the men in black.
“Arrested?” the lead gunman said. “For what?”
Audette looked at the four ghosts and then at their smoldering airplane.
“Trespassing,” he said. “And unlawful operation of a civilian aircraft above a military installation.”
With that, Audette gave a signal to the Air Police. Four of them walked past Rushton’s guys, got the rogues to their feet, and led them to one of their waiting Humvees.
As they were passing by, one of the men in black intentionally bumped into Bates.
“You haven’t seen the last of us,” the man growled.
Chapter 24
Washington, D.C.
It had not been a good 24 hours for General Rushton. Spooked by the near hit at the Oak House two nights before, he’d quintupled his force of Global Security bodyguards, both near his home and in his traveling entourage. But even his closest friends were indicating now that so many armed men surrounding him were becoming an embarrassment and, even worse, way too visible. Enough was eno
ugh. Even the President was taking notice, and no one wanted that.
This did little to help Rushton’s demeanor. He was paranoid anyway and growing more so by the hour, afraid that he had bitten off more than he could ever chew. Grand plans, counterplans, deceptions, deceit — it was all becoming too much for him. In a strange way, he longed for the “old days” just a few months before, when he was simply the military whip on the NSC, cleaning up messes and barging into the President’s office anytime he wanted.
Maybe it was all those trips to the Oval Office that had got to him. Maybe that whiff, so close to power, was what did it. But whatever the cause, he was in very deep now. Too deep to get out. Too deep to turn back. Too deep to do anything but complete the plan.
It was now almost 5:00 P.M. He’d been holed up in his secret office near the top floor of the EOB ever since the assassination attempt He’d gone to the Oak House club that night to sign up more allies in his plan, a necessary trip, he had believed. But as it turned out, most of the members he’d wanted to speak to were not on hand, scared away that night by all the security Rushton was towing around with him.
This was not good. These people, the real power brokers in D.C., knew the score more than the President or anyone else at the top of the Washington political hierarchy. They knew that the rogue team had escaped from Gitmo and that these escapees were crazy and that once they had you in their sights you became crazy, too — whether you were an Al Qaeda operative or a Saudi Prince. Or an uber-ambitious general. While they still supported Rushton and his grand scheme — which they secretly referred to as the May 7 Plan — that support could slip away at any moment, should one more wrong move be made.
Which was just one reason Rushton was feeling so low. Things were looking shaky across-the-board. He knew about the events in West Texas, at Stinky Valley, and now at Nellis. He knew that his hit squad had arrived too late to do anything but watch the rogues be carted away by the Air Force. How he wished he’d just killed them all after he rounded them up in the Philippines. They were ghosts all right, and they’d been haunting him ever since he’d first become aware of their existence. And now they were after him — or at least someone was. That was the feeling that had got under his skin.