by Tom Clancy
“I put out the word. Every base on our West and East Coast is on alert.”
“Good,” Fisher said. “If Zhao’s got an ace up his sleeve, that’s it. The question is, what exactly is it and when will he play it?”
* * *
The Osprey lifted off and they banked northwest, picking up speed as they skimmed thirty feet over the hills and grasslands. They were flying dark, with no navigation lights and all emission sources powered down: no IFF transponder, radio, or FLIR (Forward-Looking Infrared Radar).
Within minutes, they’d skirted Ashgabat, which lay fifteen miles out the side window. Fisher could see headlights moving along the highways and surface streets.
They passed over the black oval of a lake and a rail line, and then the terrain began to change, hillocks turning into the rolling foothills of the Köpetdag. Redding sat at the console, watching the same map Bird and Sandy were using to navigate. One by one, villages disappeared behind them. Fisher read their names on the screen — Bagir, Chuli, Firyuza — until they were all gone and there was nothing but empty land.
“Five miles from the border,” Bird called.
Fisher went to the cockpit and knelt between the seats. Through the windscreen he could see the Köpetdag Range, an expanse of jagged peaks and ridgelines stacked against the even darker night sky.
A red light started flashing on Bird’s console, followed by a beeping. A robotic female said, “Warning, radar source at—” Bird punched a button, shutting off the voice. “Redding?” he called.
“I see it. We’re at the edge of its range. Turn coming up in thirty seconds.”
Bird turned to Fisher. “Better go get strapped in. The ride is about to get wild.”
51
“Stand by!” Redding called. “Border in five… four… three… two… one!”
Fisher clutched the armrests as Bird put the Osprey into a sharp bank.
In the cockpit, the radar warning alarm was beeping. Across the aisle, Fisher watched the monitor over Redding’s shoulder. Redding had changed the view to split sreen: overhead view on the left, first-person on the right. On overhead, a pair of peaks to their left and right front were topped with pulsing red squares. On the first-person view, the Osprey was nosing over a ridgeline into a gorge. The granite walls flashed past, jagged outcroppings reaching for the wingtips.
“Course change in twenty seconds,” Redding said. “New course, two-two-one, sharp descent to thirty feet.”
Now the radar alarms were overlapping one another as the twin radar stations drew nearer. Fisher leaned over in his seat and looked forward. The view through the cockpit window was dizzying. The black line of the horizon twisted and rolled as Bird negotiated the terrain.
“SAM site two miles off our starboard bow,” Redding called.
“Spare me the nautical crap,” Bird yelled back. “Just tell me where!”
“Two miles, front right! Course change in three… two… one… now!”
Fisher was thrown against his seat back, then shoved sideways as the Osprey heeled over. On Redding’s monitor he’d switched to full-screen first-person. They were flying through a notch between two peaks. The Osprey’s wingtips were perpendicular to the ground.
“Break out the barf bags,” Sandy yelled, then whooped.
The radar alarm suddenly went silent.
“What’s next?” Bird called.
“Three miles to Sarani.” Redding answered. “Ridgeline coming up fast. Gonna have to pop up five hundred feet, then bank hard and hit the deck.”
They flew in silence for twenty seconds, and then the radar alarm started beeping again.
“Hard left!” Redding called.
The Osprey flipped over. Strapped to the bulkhead by cargo webbing, his hands, feet, and mouth covered in duct tape, Marjani had regained consciousness. He let out a muffled scream. His eyes bulged. Fisher gave him a wink and a wave.
“Whoa!” Redding shouted. “Right turn! Now!”
Fisher was thrown in the opposite direction. His ribs slammed against the armrest. A duffel bag came loose from the rack and tumbled across the deck, bounced off Marjani, and slammed into the ramp.
“What the hell happened?” Bird called.
“Fire-control radar,” Redding said. “A SAM site. Wasn’t on the map!”
“Did they paint us?”
“Doubt it. Not enough time to lock on.”
Fisher called, “That’s what I like to hear: optimism.”
From the cockpit, Sandy said, “I see the ridgeline… Hey, Redding, that looks a lot taller than five hundred feet.”
“Nope, four-ninety-one. Trust me, you’ll have nine feet to spare.”
Bird replied, “Oh, well… nine feet. Plenty.”
“Start climbing in three… two… one…”
Fisher kept his eyes locked on Redding’s monitor. The ridge, a jagged line of rock and scrub trees, seemed to rise up to meet them. Then it was gone. Beneath his feet he heard something scrape the underbelly of the fuselage, like a giant snare brush trailing over a drumhead.
“Picked up some leaves on that one!” Bird called.
“Dive, dive, dive!”
Bird pushed the stick forward. The Osprey nosed over. In the cockpit, the robotic voice said, “Warning, warning. Collision imminent. Pull up, pull up, pull up… ”
“Shut her up, Sandy.”
The voice went silent and was immediately replaced by another radar alarm.
“We’re at its outer range,” Redding said. “Ten seconds to turn. A quick jink to the right, then pull up and bank left.”
Jink? Fisher thought. Jink didn’t sound like a technical flying term.
“How many radar sites left?” Bird called.
“This one, and one more, then we’re at the LZ. Turn now!”
This time Fisher was ready for it. He braced his legs against the deck, pressing his back into the seat. He clutched the armrests until his knuckles were bloodless. The Osprey seemed to turn nearly upside down. Fisher felt his stomach rise into his throat. A Styrofoam coffee cup floated past his face, then dropped straight to the deck and skittered away.
“So, Bird, is that what you call a jink?” Fisher called.
“No, son, that’s a super jink. Walk in the park.”
“Last radar station dead ahead, one mile,” Redding called.
Fisher glanced at the monitor. The Osprey was flying low and level over a boulder-strewn valley floor. The altitude gauge read eighteen feet. The radar alarm chirped, then went silent for a few seconds, then chirped again.
“We’re skimming below the detection nadir,” Redding announced. “The waves are skipping along the fuselage.”
“Nadir?” Sandy repeated. “Been reading the dictionary again, Will?”
“It means—”
“I know what it means, you dummy.”
“Gimme steering,” Bird called. “The ground is sloping up. They’re gonna paint us.”
“Hard right turn in seven seconds,” Redding replied. “Course zero-nine-eight.”
“I don’t see anything!” Sandy called.
“It’s a gorge. Trust me, it’s there.”
“How wide?”
“Wide enough. Stand by… Three… two… one, now!”
* * *
Redding was right: The gorge was wide enough, but barely, and Fisher could hear Bird in the cockpit muttering, “Missed me… missed me… missed me…” as he made tiny course corrections to avoid rock outcrops. After thirty seconds of this, the walls begin to widen as the gorge smoothed into another valley.
“Landing zone coming up,” Redding called. “A gentle dogleg left, then you should see a narrow river. The north bank is your spot.”
A few seconds later, Bird called, “I see it, I see it… Hot damn! If that ain’t the sweetest piece of dirt on the planet… ”
* * *
He set the Osprey down and Fisher unbuckled and began donning his gear. Redding handed him the OPSAT. “It’s updated with
the new map. There’s an Army outpost about four miles away in Qoppoz. They send out regular patrols, but with this terrain you should hear them coming a mile away.”
Fisher nodded and walked to the cockpit. Bird was leaning back in his seat, a bottle of Gatorade halfway to his mouth. His hair was wet with sweat. “Good flying, you two,” Fisher said.
“We aim to please,” Sandy replied.
“Keep the engines warm. If I need you…”
“Ninety seconds from your call I’ll have a rope dangling over your head.”
* * *
Fisher trotted down the ramp, then turned and started jogging. He had a mile to cover before the valley opened into the bowl in which Sarani sat, and at this time of night he doubted anyone would be about. Still, he varied his course, zigzagging between boulders and stopping every hundred yards or so to look for signs of movement or heat.
In the moonlight the terrain had an otherworldly feel: sharp spires or rock rising into the dark sky, sheer walls, and clumps of boulders, some as large as houses. The dirt was so fine it felt like flour; his every footfall kicked up a puff of dust that hung in the air.
After twelve minutes of running, OPSAT told him he was getting close, so he slowed down and began picking his way forward, moving from boulder to boulder until the ground sloped up to a ridgeline. He dropped flat and crawled to the edge.
Down the opposite slope, a quarter mile away, was Sarani. All was quiet and dark save for a few lighted windows. In the distance a dog barked twice, then went silent. The sound echoed off the rocks before fading away.
Sarani was a collection of a few dozen mud brick buildings in shades of ochre and cream. In the middle of the village was a central square and a small mosque. Some of the homes were perched in tiers on the far slope with the uppermost tier backed up against a bluff. Each house was fronted by an arched walkway.
Fisher checked the OPSAT map, rotating and zooming until he found Kavad Abelzada’s home. It was one of the homes sitting against the bluff. He zoomed in and scanned first with NV, which revealed nothing, then in infrared. Again, nothing. He was about to look away when a flicker of red caught his eye. Down the walkway beside Abelzada’s home, he saw a man’s arm move into view. Someone was there, sitting in the dark. Leaning next to him was an object. Fisher immediately recognized the shape: AK-47.
Where there was one bodyguard there would be more — especially given who Abelzada was. With thousands of fanatical followers, there was no telling how many people in this village — his own birthplace — would lay down their lives to protect him. Almost all, Fisher suspected, which was probably why Abelzada had fled here after being released from prison. If Tehran wanted him again, they’d have to fight their way in.
Fisher scanned the slope for weaknesses, and wasn’t pleased. The way to reach Abelzada’s home was through the village and up a narrow switchback path. If even one person looked out their window and saw him, he’d find himself trapped with no retreat.
That left him only one option.
52
His option would add an hour to his time on the ground, but there was no helping it. Going through the village would be suicide.
He back-crawled away from the ridge, then turned and slid butt-first down the loose rock until he reached the bottom. He called up his map screen on the OPSAT and spent five minutes scrolling and zooming until he found what he was looking for.
He started jogging.
* * *
His path took him on a wide arc around Sarani, starting with the notch in the canyon wall he’d seen on his way in. The cleft was no wider than ten feet and the walls five times that high. After a few hundred yards the notch forked, one branch heading east, the other west. Fisher chose the eastern one, and followed it until it was bisected by a dry creek bed, which he followed north for another mile until the walls widened into a dry gulch. The rock walls were smoother here, water-worn by millennia of seasonal rivers. Fisher stopped to catch his breath and check the OPSAT. He was dead west of Sarani.
Now to see if he’d paid attention in high school geography class.
During the rainy season, this gulch would be coursing with runoff from the Köpetdag’s higher elevations, and the RADSAT’s pictures of the area had revealed the rims of the plateau’s above were crenellated from thousands of years of overspill. In the monsoon season, overspill meant waterfalls; in the dry season, natural stairways.
It took fifteen minutes to find what he was looking for: a deep, vertical fissure in the rock with a gentle grade and plenty of handholds. He started climbing.
Five feet from the top, he froze. He closed his eyes and listened. The wind had shifted, whistling down the fissure and bringing with it the scent of burning tobacco. He adjusted his feet so he was braced in the fissure, then drew the SC-20 and thumbed the selector to ASE. He gauged the wind and then fired.
He holstered the SC-20, then changed screens on the OPSAT and adjusted the ASE to infrared. The plateau showed as a cool blue oval. To Fisher’s left, over the edge of the plateau, he could see tiny blooms of dull orange; these would be the dying fires of cookstoves in the houses in Sarani.
Fifty hundred yards to his front were two prone figures cast in yellow, red, and green. They were hidden behind rocks along the northern and western edges. Snipers, one for each canyon leading into Sarani.
Tricky, gentlemen, Fisher thought. But not tricky enough.
The ASE was drifting away, gliding over Sarani and down the canyon. He let it go a half mile, then transmitted the self-destruct signal.
He climbed the last few feet to the top, then eased himself over the edge and crawled a few feet to a nearby boulder. He braced the SC-20 against it and peered through the scope. Since he now knew where to look and what to look for, each sniper stood out clearly in the green of the NV. Fisher wasn’t worried about the distance, but the wind over the plateau was moving at a good clip.
He zoomed in until the scope’s crosshairs were centered on the back of first man’s head, then adjusted his aim eighteen inches to the right. He fired. In a blossom of dark mist, the bullet struck the man behind the right ear. Fisher zoomed out, refocused on the next man, zoomed back in and adjusted for windage, then fired.
With the wind — and therefore sound — at his back, Fisher took his time crossing the plateau, using his OPSAT to adjust his position until he was directly above his target. He stopped a few feet from the edge, then crawled the rest of the way and peered down.
Gotta love GPS, he thought.
He was looking down into the rear courtyard of Abelzeda’s home.
The courtyard was done in rough-hewn brick and hemmed in by a six-foot-tall mud wall. At the base of the bluff, in the corner of the courtyard, was a pomegranate tree. To Fisher’s right, sitting on a bench in the side walkway, was the AK-47-armed man he’d seen earlier. Now the man had the rifle laying across his lap and appeared to be polishing it with a rag.
Fisher backed away and creeped to his right until he was over the pomegranate tree, then shimmied back to the edge. He pulled a chemlite from his waist pouch and tossed it over. It landed behind the tree. The impact activated the phosphorescence. The glow immediately caught the attention of the man, who stood up and started walking toward it. He came around the tree and stooped to pick up the chemlite. Fisher shot him in the back of the head.
* * *
Fisher inserted a rock screw into a crack, clipped his rope into the D ring, then rappelled down the face. Ten feet from the bottom, as he drew even with the house’s roofline, he slowly leaned backward until he was upside down.
The rear double doors were open. Through them Fisher saw what looked like a dining nook and next to it, a kitchen. Down a hallway, he could see the shadow of flickering flames dancing on a wall.
He righted himself, dropped the last few feet, then unclipped and sidestepped behind the pomegranate. He waited for a full minute, watching and listening. Nothing.
He moved to the rear doors.
From the side walkway, the gate creaked open, then clanged shut. Footfalls crunched on gravel. Fisher drew his pistol, stepped to the wall, pressed himself against it. A second later, the tip of an AK-47 appeared on the walkway, followed by a man.
“Samad?” the man whispered. “Samad—”
Fisher shot him in the side of the head, then rushed forward to catch the falling body. As he did so, the man’s left foot slid out from under him, kicking a shower of gravel against the wall. Fisher lowered him the rest of the way to the ground, holstered the pistol, and drew the SC-20. He stepped back to the doors, peeked through.
A figure darted across the nook and down the hall.
Fisher stepped through the doors, cleared the nook and kitchen, started down the hall. There were doorways to his left and right, both dark. He checked them: empty bedrooms. From the end of the hall came the sound of steel banging on stone and and image flashed through Fisher’s mind: a steel lid banging open against the stone floor. He heard fluttering papers and the whoosh of flame.
Fisher rushed down the hall. At the end, he peeked right, saw nothing. Left, a small living room with a tattered Oriental rug, floor cushions, and an open-hearth fireplace. A man was crouched before it, tossing papers into the flames.
“Stop right there!” Fisher called.
The man froze. He turned. His profile was lit by the flames. It was Abelzada.
He studied Fisher for a moment, then narrowed his eyes.
“Don’t do it!” Fisher warned.
Even as the words left his mouth, Abelzada’s hand was moving. From beside his foot, he snatched up an object, started swinging it around. The gun glinted in the fire-light. Abelzada yelled something, a cry for help.
He needed Abelzada alive, had to have him alive. But crouched as he was, there was no guarantee of a wounding shot and there was no time to change the SC-20’s setting. Fisher fired a round into the hearth beside Abelzada’s head. The man didn’t flinch, kept moving, bringing the gun around…