by Larry Bond
“It’s my left arm. I’m fine.”
He’d rigged a simple sling to help keep his arm against his body. If he didn’t think about it too much—or look at it—the pain was bearable. Rankin checked his Beretta. Even with one hand, he’d have preferred his Uzi, but it was back in Bologna.
The truck stopped near George Burns’s body. Rankin waited until two of the men began poking around the nose of the plane.
“Crawl until we’re ten yards from the plane, or until they see us,” he said. “I’ll yell.”
Neither man actually crawled; it was more like a three and four-point scamper across the hot sand. When they were about forty yards from the plane, one of the men walked toward the tail section, looking in their direction. Rankin raised his gun to fire, but Guns beat him; the man fell as the shot cracked the air. Guns dropped to his knee, training his pistol on the left side of the plane. Rankin kept running, trying to cut down the distance between him and the men with the truck.
A man jumped from the cab and fired a pistol at him; Rankin fired back, but missed badly. Rankin started to sprawl in the sand to avoid the return fire; as he threw himself down he remembered his broken arm and tried to land on his shoulder to deflect some of the impact. But it was too late. The shock ran through his entire body, as if his bones had been pierced by hot steel nails.
Guns didn’t have an angle on the man behind the truck. He moved to his right, starting to flank the aircraft, when he spotted one of the other men coming out from behind the left engine and wing. The man saw him at almost the exact same moment, but Guns was faster with the pistol than he was with the rifle, and a pair of bullets in his stomach laid him down.
Rankin’s pain was so intense that he couldn’t see or hear the bullets flying around him. He felt as if someone were squeezing his entire upper body; the pain radiated so fiercely that he couldn’t even have said where he was injured.
When it finally lifted, it was as if he’d caught his breath. He saw the man huddled behind the truck, shooting at Guns. Rankin fired a shot just close enough to get him to duck back.
“Guns, you OK?” Rankin yelled.
“Yeah.”
“Can you sweep around and get behind this guy?”
“I’ll try,” shouted Guns. “There’s another one somewhere. Watch out for him.”
“Yeah,” said Rankin. He saw the shooter moving behind the truck and fired, this time hitting the vehicle close to the man’s head. The man threw himself to the ground.
Guns, meanwhile, ran to the man who’d fallen near the tail of the airplane and grabbed the AK-47 he’d dropped. He was starting to move around the wing when he heard a loud cracking noise; he dove into the sand as the fourth man began shooting from inside the burned-out plane through a passenger window.
By the time Guns got himself turned back around and in a position to fire, the man had pulled back from the window. The Marine tucked the Beretta into his belt, and with the AK-47 ready he crawled toward the nose of the plane, expecting that the man would try to get out. Then Guns got a better idea—he jumped up and dashed to the side of the aircraft, flattening his body hard against it. He felt the fuselage shake and heard someone moving around, pulling himself through the windshield as Guns and Rankin had earlier.
A barrel appeared near the edge of the aircraft; Guns waited until he saw flesh and then fired, almost pointblank, into the cheek of the gunman. The bullets shattered the man’s cheekbone with enough force to throw his turban headgear into the air; he fell to the side and Guns jumped forward, firing into the pulp that had been the man’s face.
Rankin was having a harder time with his gunman. They were less than thirty yards from each other, and together had fired a dozen shots, but so far neither had hit the other. The pain of Rankin’s broken arm kept him off-balance, his world tilting hard left. His right arm couldn’t seem to keep the pistol’s recoil from raising the barrel. Finally he stretched down on the ground, trying to regain his breath and clear his head.
His opponent, meanwhile, had his own problems. One of Rankin’s first shots had broken the back windshield on the truck and sent bits of glass into his opponent’s face. None had gotten into his eyes, but the blood streaming down his forehead made it hard to see. Unlike the others, the man was an ethnic African with no particular wish to die in jihad. Nearly out of bullets, he decided his best bet was to try to run away. He backed away from the truck, then saw something moving near the nose of the airplane.
Rankin, holding his gun out in front of him, saw the man raise his arm to fire.
“Guns!” Rankin yelled, squeezing off three, four, five shots.
The African fell. Rankin collapsed.
“Where’d he get you?” Guns asked a few minutes later.
“Didn’t,” said Rankin. “I don’t think. But man, this arm is killing me.”
Guns found a first-aid kit in the plane. They fashioned a splint to keep the arm and bone inside straight, lessening the chance of the break worsening. The strongest thing for pain in the kit was a bottle of aspirin.
“Not even worth it,” said Rankin. But he took four anyway.
“Try this,” said Guns, emerging from the aircraft with a full bottle of Jack Daniel’s. George Burns had stashed it beneath his seat in the cockpit.
Rankin refused at first, then decided he might as well. He took a strong pull, then winced.
“This stuff’ll kill me if the fracture doesn’t,” he said, before taking another swig.
18
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Corrine Alston was working on a new draft of the finding authorizing action against Iran when her encrypted phone buzzed with a call from Parnelles. She picked it up, hoping to hear that she didn’t have to bother finishing the finding.
“Corrine, this is Thomas Parnelles. I need a favor.”
“What kind?”
“MI6 is giving us hell, and I’d like Ferguson to make nice to their agent, Hamilton. He doesn’t have to kiss him, just answer one or two of his phone calls.”
“Why aren’t you going to tell him yourself?”
“Ordinarily, I don’t talk to Robert in the middle of an operation,” said Parnelles coldly. “That would be your job.”
Corrine knew that Parnelles could easily talk to Ferguson himself if he wanted to; she was fairly certain that he had on other missions. Of course, a call from her had a different weight than a call from him.
It also meant he would not be connected to an order that Ferguson was bound not to like.
“If I talk to him,” she told Parnelles, “I’ll tell him this was your idea.”
“You can tell him what you want. If you do mention me, say that I told you I owe him an apology.”
19
APPROACHING TRIPOLI, LIBYA
Thera handed Rostislawitch the folded surgical pants and shirt when the navy C-2A Greyhound transport aircraft was fifteen minutes from the airport.
“You can put them on over your clothes if they fit,” she told him. “We have to be ready when we land.”
The scientist nodded.
“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to,” she told him. “We’ll fly you to the States. You’ll be safe.”
Ferguson had told Rostislawitch the same thing. But he knew that Atha was more likely to fall for the plan if he was there. He was the bait in the trap—the peanut butter his mother used to put on the spring so they could catch the mouse eating their larder.
Thera helped him pull the green pants over his shoes. An ambulance would meet them at the airport and they would pretend to transport a sick patient into the city. Just in case the Iranian had spies at the airport, they planned to actually go to the hospital, where a car would meet them to take them to the hotel—not the Alfonse, where the message had directed Atha to meet him, but the Americano, two blocks away. The Marines would go straight there, and be waiting when they arrived.
Thera pulled a blue pair of hospital clothes over her jeans and blouse, then tied her hai
r at the back with a rubber band. The navy had loaned her a pair of handguns; she wore one in a holster beneath her top, and would keep the other in the stretcher with their “patient,” one of the Greyhound’s crewmen.
The pilot announced that they were about to begin their final approach. Thera strapped herself in. Rostislawitch sat next to her.
“I hope you don’t mind,” the scientist told her. “But I don’t like airplanes when they land.”
“They have to land sometime.”
“True,” he said. Then he closed his eyes and gripped her hand.
It was cold and wet, and made Thera worry even more that he might not be able to stand the stress of meeting with Atha.
The sound of the plane grew as they pulled down onto the runway. They bounced slightly; Rostislawitch tightened his grip. Then the ride smoothed out and the brakes caught.
“We have a long way to taxi,” warned the pilot from the front.
Thera took out her phone to call Corrigan and tell him they were on the ground in Libya. She could tell something was wrong from his voice. For a moment, she thought it was Ferg. He’d gone to the airport to take a commercial flight, wanting to check out Tripoli on his own.
At least that was what he told her. Ferguson was never good at sharing mission details, and hadn’t entirely explained why he was going alone. Thera suspected it had something to do with T Rex.
Please, God, don’t let him be dead.
“Rankin and Guns crashed not too far from the Libya-Sudan border,” Corrigan told her. “They’re OK. Van’s setting up a mission to get them. They found a camp nearby—we think it’s Atha’s base. They’re going to raid it at the same time.”
“They’re all right?”
“Yeah, they’re OK.”
“Where’s Ferg?”
“His flight left Naples on time. He should get in about an hour or so after you get to the hotel.”
“All right.”
“Stay in touch, right?”
“You sound like my dad, Corrigan,” she told him, hanging up.
20
OVER THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA
Technically, one wasn’t supposed to use a satellite phone while on board an airliner. But that was exactly the sort of rule Ferguson believed in observing in the breach. He slipped his right earbud in, then angled himself against the side of the plane. His neighbor in the seat next to Ferguson could only hear his side of the conversation; so long as he was careful about what he said, there’d be no problem.
“Ferg,” he said, pressing the send button in his pocket.
“This is Van. You get the information from Corrigan?”
“Yeah. You see where they went down?”
“I have GPS coordinates,” said Colonel Van Buren. “Thing is, Ferg, they’re too close to the camp to get them without someone there noticing. We have to hit the camp at the same time.”
“When’s that?”
“We’re looking at nine your time in Tripoli,” said Van Buren. “We may be able to push it up. We’re waiting to hear on a tanker. It’s a little more than four hours from here to where the camp is. We’ll be ready to take off shortly. The problem is really on the other side, picking us up.”
It wasn’t clear from satellite photos whether the landing strip would support the weight of a C-130. Staging helicopters in for a pickup would take considerably longer, because of not only their speed but also the need to refuel. Van Buren was working on a plan that would have C-130s and helicopters as backups, so he could switch if necessary. But that involved bringing the helos in from Egypt. They were still trying to finish the arrangements.
“When are you meeting Atha?” Van Buren asked.
“It’s his call. I won’t grab him until I know you’re close. Just in case he has some way of warning them.”
“Thanks, Ferg.”
Of course, that would work both ways—if Ferguson waited too long, the camp might warn Atha. But it was a risk he’d have to take.
Ferguson tapped his phone to kill the transmission. He turned to the woman in the seat next to him. She smiled.
“You’re using a phone, right?” she asked.
“That or I’m talking to myself.”
“I do both on planes all the time,” she told him.
Even so, Ferguson waited for his seatmate to go to the bathroom before calling Guns and Rankin. Guns answered.
“Ferg?”
“What are you doing getting shot down without me?”
“Sorry, Ferg.” Guns explained the situation; they were about ten miles from the camp, on the other side of a ridge that separated it from the desert.
“Can you guys wait until about ten or so to get picked up?” Ferguson asked. “Be better for this side of the operation.”
“No sweat.”
“Be square with me, Marine.” Ferguson made his voice very serious. “Yes or no?”
“Yes.”
“All right. They’ll call you when they’re close. If things go to shit, holler. Otherwise stay under the rocks until they land.”
The phone rang a few seconds later. Ferguson slid it out of his pocket far enough to see who it was.
“Hey, Madame Butterfly,” Ferg told Corrine Alston. “What’s going on?”
“That’s my question for you.”
“I’m about an hour out of Tripoli. You hear about Rankin and Guns?”
“Corrigan told me. They say they’re OK.”
“Rankin’s not that good a liar, so maybe it’s true.”
“You have a rescue operation lined up to coincide with your grabbing Atha?”
“Yup.”
“OK. Good.” She paused for a moment, long enough for Ferguson to guess what was coming.
“I have another request,” she said finally. “MI6 wants in.”
“I don’t know that song. Is it Irish?”
“Mr. Parnelles called and asked that you play nice with them.”
“Yeah, see, it’s not Irish. I only do Irish folk songs. I can give you a very good ‘Finnegan’s Wake.’ ”
“It’s your call, Bob. And Mr. Parnelles says he owes you an apology.”
“It’s a really funny song. This guy dies, and they give him an Irish wake. Whiskey brings him back to life. A lot of puns, see, through the whole song. I’ll sing it for you sometime.”
“Thanks for the update, Ferg.”
Ferguson checked his watch. It was a little past three, Tripoli time. He pressed the quick-dial for the Cube.
“Corrigan.”
“No shit. Call that number I gave you the other day for Hamilton. Tell him to be on the five-thirty flight out of Naples for Tripoli.”
“You sure, Ferg?” Only an hour before, Ferguson had told Corrigan that if he even mentioned Hamilton again he’d stuff a dozen stale British scones down his throat when he got back to the States.
“There are only two more flights today, Jack. He either gets that one or waits until midnight.”
“Slott’ll be happy.”
“Yeah, well, make the call anyway.” Ferg saw his seatmate returning, and pushed the button to hang up.
21
NORTHEASTERN SUDAN
“How long you figure before they send somebody else out to look for these guys?” Guns asked Rankin after he had finished dragging the last body into the plane.
“Hour, maybe two. We got the radio. We listen for them.”
“Radio transmissions won’t get through the hills. We had better radios than this in Afghanistan and it was always a problem,” said Guns. “By the time we hear them, they’ll be pretty close.”
“Yeah.” Rankin looked around the desert.
“We got two choices—we drive out further so they can’t find us, or we go up into the hills,” said Guns.
“Then there’s door number three,” said Rankin. “We scout the place for the landing team.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“We scout the place, figure out where the defenses are. We’re ju
st sitting here, Guns. We might as well do something that’ll make a difference. Shit, we’ll be sitting on our butts until what? Nine, if we’re lucky. By the time they’re wrapped up and come looking for us, it’ll be dawn.”
Guns looked Rankin up and down, trying to decide whether he was really up to moving around or whether it was just the sedative—aka Jack Daniel’s—talking.
Maybe a little of both.
“I’m OK,” insisted Rankin. “Let’s finish getting the bodies in the plane and go. We’re sitting ducks out here anyway. Our best bet is to get closer to the camp.”
“I’m not sure about this,” said Guns.
“Come on, Marine. Don’t be chicken.”
Guns laughed. A blanket hugger calling a Marine chicken. Some things were just too funny for words.
Rankin got up. His head felt light, because of either the Jack Daniel’s or the fracture.
“I’m just bustin’ on ya,” he told Guns. “We’d better get into the hills before they come for us, right? We don’t know if it’s one road or two roads or what.”
“OK,” said Guns.
“You’re all right for a Marine,” said Rankin.
“And you’re all right for a jerk.”
Rankin cracked up.
Definitely the whiskey, thought Guns.
22
TRIPOLI, LIBYA
Fresh off the airplane at the Tripoli airport, Ferguson strolled to the nearest bank machine, Rostislawitch’s ATM card in his hand. He angled his head so the machine’s camera couldn’t get a clear shot of his face, then fed the card into the slot and punched the PIN code. He tried to withdraw a hundred dollars’ worth of Libyan money—which didn’t work, since the account was down to five rubles. He checked his balance, took the card, and slid away to the left, again being careful not to let his face be seen.
“It’s so easy to put your money in, so hard to get it out,” he said to an Egyptian woman waiting in line. She nodded in sympathy, even though she didn’t understand all his words.
Outside, Ferguson got a taxi to the Alfonse Hotel. He handed over Rostislawitch’s credit card to the clerk, reserving the room.