Cobra

by David E. Meadows

  “There, Dale. There’s a good place. At least it’s got some cover.”

  As if hearing Luke, the engine coughed several times and then quit. Only the autorotation kept the main rotor turning, slowing slightly the rush of the helicopter toward the earth.

  Dale stretched his neck to see where Luke pointed. Luke was right — thank God — because they had little choice now. The softer sound of the wind buffeting off the round nose of the helicopter filled the silence created by the loss of power. The smell of burning oil filtered into the cockpit. A flat area within a small depression, surrounded by rocks and tall bushes slightly to the right of where Luke pointed seemed better to Luke. He pulled the stick to the right and was grateful when the heavy helicopter slowly pivoted tpward the new landing site. Dale glanced briefly at the flight control instruments. Temperature was pegged all the way into the red. Oil was the same. Shit! The only thing not in the red was the altitude. It was fifty feet, and the needle was moving downward like a second hand on a clock.

  The huge helicopter came in hard and fast. The wheels slammed into the ground, bouncing the Super Stallion back into the air several feet before it hit again, rocking from side to side. Dale thought at first it was going to flip over, but at the last second the helicopter righted itself and settled. He and Luke flipped the switches, securing the revolving rotor. He hit the extinguisher button, flooding the smoking engines with CO2. The important thing was reducing the chance of fire.

  No doubt, the enemy would be here muy rapido.

  Duncan unstrapped as soon as the helicopter quit rocking. “Beau, get out there and secure the area. Be prepared for anything.” Bending over, Duncan moved to the cockpit.

  The two pilots were unstrapping from their seats. “Captain, guess we’ll walk the last ten miles, sir,” Dale said. He jammed his gloves into his flight suit and tossed his headset onto the seat.

  He and Luke unstrapped the crew chief and lowered the body down to the deck.

  Duncan reached down and put two fingers against the young man’s neck.

  “He’s dead.” Dale picked up the body by the shoulders. “Grab the legs, Luke. We’re not going to leave him.”

  Duncan moved out of the way as the two pilots carried the third member of the CH-53 team out of the cockpit and out of the helicopter. He looked around, saw a couple bottles of water, and grabbed them. They would need them if they were going to hike ten miles while evading these fanatics. Outside, Beau’s familiar voice, shouting something to HJ and Monkey, was followed by the familiar sound of gunfire. He tossed the two bottles of water out the door, grabbed his carbine, and leaped from the helicopter. Black smoke from the damaged engines rose into the sky.

  Might as well be flares, he thought as he unlimbered his carbine and rushed to the lip of the depression where they had landed.

  He rolled up against Beau, pointing his carbine over the lip. Across a paved road about five hundred feet from their position, a line of Algerian rebels charged. Must be at least a hundred of them. A gust of wind blew sand into his face. If he survived this, he was never, ever going to another beach for the rest of his life. He pulled the trigger, his bullets joining the others, as he blinked his eyes, clearing the sand from them.

  SIX

  Vasilev pulled a cloth from his white overcoat and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He leaned away from the warhead, turning slightly on the mobile platform to see what progress the others were making on the other missiles. Four missiles down, Yuri stood on tiptoes at the top of a stepladder, his head inside an open bay of a warhead. Two missiles farther, Fedorov grinned as he held up a canister in a toast toward Vasilev. Vasilev waved in acknowledgement. They both started down the ladders at the same time.

  Two other Russian scientists pushed a cart down the middle space separating the twelve missiles. Yuri leaned out of the compartment and nearly fell, but he grabbed the lip of the hatch at the last moment to regain his balance.

  “Be careful,” Hova Vaitsay, the Hungarian scientist, warned from the base of the platform.

  “Be careful, Yuri,” Vasilev added softly. “If anyone hurts himself here, there will be no one to help him.”

  Grimacing, Yuri climbed down the stepladder to join the other two at the cart.

  Stepkolov reached over and took Professor Vasilev Malenkomoff’s canister. The heavy white gloves held the biological component of the warhead carefully as the second man on the cart, Popov, opened the security chamber. Yuri and Fe dorov impatiently waited their turn. The canister fit perfectly into a hole designed for the deadly warheads. Hova stood a few feet away, looking ready to run if anyone dropped the steel encased canisters.

  “The longer we stay here in the missile storage facility, Vasilev, the more danger we are in. If that madman catches us here, he will kill us.”

  Vasilev nodded. “Yuri, what other options do we have? I asked him yesterday that we be allowed to leave. What happened? He refused to let us even go to our own rooms. We are confined to the laboratory, according to that evil-looking sergeant that stayed behind for a few minutes.” Vasilev sighed, held his hands out, and with a resigned look met the eyes of the other scientists. “And I think we all know why.”

  “He is going to kill us, isn’t he?” Stepkolov asked, taking the canister from Yuri and putting it in the cart.

  “I don’t think he intends to pin the Order of Lenin on us,” Popov said.

  Vasilev shrugged his shoulders. “We don’t know he is going to kill us for sure,” he said unconvincingly. “Could be we are being confined for security reasons.” He looked at the other faces.

  Popov snorted and spat on the floor. “If you believe that, comrade, you are a fool.” Popov was a dedicated, unreformed communist. Of course, a communist who knew the value of money and had leaped at the chance to earn a few Yankee dollars doing clandestine work. “I will tell all of you, comrades. When they return to move these missiles, they will remove us if we are still here.” He wagged a finger at them.

  “Then we should go now,” Hova suggested.

  “How are we going to go?” Stepkolov said sharply. “There are only two ways out of here. The elevator or stairs leading up or the tunnels behind those heavy doors. The elevator and stairs are guarded, and we don’t know the combo to the hangar doors.”

  Vasilev sighed deeply and audibly, the noise echoing within the large hangar.

  “Maybe I am overreacting. Maybe they will honor their agreement. Maybe we will get our money and return to mother Russia to lead a long and prosperous life with our loved ones,” said Yuri.

  “And, maybe we, too, will have forty virgins waiting when he kills us.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. We are fools. We made a deal with the devil, and now we are paying. We allowed the smell of money to cloud our common sense. Why do you think Vasilev talked us into taking Karol’s anthrax vaccine for the last two weeks?” Fedorov asked.

  Popov ran his hand through his unruly shock of graying hair. “He will kill us. It is something I would do if I was a madman and not just an extraordinary ex-Soviet scientist. Fedorov, my boy, if you had been observant like the scientist you are, you would know this, too. He cannot afford for the world to know we have done this, even if he never intends to use the weapons. No one must know the true story behind how Libya produced biological warheads. Do you think Russia or Hungary would step in to help us? They don’t even know we are here, and if they did, they would run to their NATO allies and tell them. NATO would tell America and, like Afghanistan, they would come after Libya with a vengeance.”

  “Three more,” Stepkolov interrupted, leaning back and nodding toward the holding chamber. He wiped his hand on a moist sterilization cloth.

  “Stepkolov is right. We need to be working, not talking,” Vasilev said.

  “There is always the chance that he will live up to his bargain.”

  “You are living in a dream, comrade. We must be prepared in case he doesn’t.”

  “Here, Stepkolov. With this one
,” he said, handing the scientist his canister. “You only need two more.”

  Stepkolov took the canister from Fedorov. “Be quiet for a moment and let me put these away,” Stepkolov growled. “If I drop one and it breaks …“

  Hova took another few steps backward.

  Popov laughed. He took the one from Fedorov, stared at Hova, and dropped the canister. The clang of metal hitting the concrete floor echoed off the walls. Even Vasilev jumped back like the others.

  Hova ran toward the ladder stairwell leading to the platform overlooking the missile chamber.

  “Hova, you coward!” laughed Popov, his bass laughter echoing through the cavernous chamber.

  Hova stopped with one foot on the ladder. He turned around but remained at the foot of the ladder.

  “Stop clowning, Popov,” Vasilev said angrily.

  “If these things were that fragile, they would never survive a missile launch and would shower their contents on the missile crew … which, come to think of it, would not be such a bad idea.” Popov picked up the canister and tossed it a couple of times into the air, catching it each time. “If warriors were put in peril when every weapon they launched could blow up and kill them, then we would have fewer weapons. Right?”

  “Popov, stop it,” Vasilev said, reaching over and snatching the canister in midair from the communist. He handed it to Stepkolov, who quickly put it inside the cart.

  Popov laughed. “I think the stress is affecting your humor, Vasilev.”

  “There! That’s it! This cart is full … six canisters. We can move it upstairs with the other one and come back for the last two,” Stepkolov said. He turned and shoved Popov. The huge man tripped a couple of steps backward before regaining his balance.

  “Hey. what was that for, comrade?”

  “That was for scaring the shit out of me, comrade, and acting stupid.”

  Vasilev put his hands on the heavy cart and began to push. The others grabbed a side, and soon they had the contraption at the door of the elevator.

  “Come on, Hova Vaitsay. Give us a hand,” Popov said, taking an exaggerated breath. “See! No anthrax. Arggg!” he shouted, grabbing his throat. “I was wrong!”

  “Stop it, Popov.”

  Popov took his hands from his throat. “The Hungarian is a coward, Vasilev. If we are going to die, then we should at least be men about it. Personally, the best way of dying is in the arms of a beautiful woman. At least then I could go out of this world a babbling idiot, but a babbling idiot with a permanent smile across my face.”

  “Screw you,” Hova said as he joined the group around the cart. They shoved the anthrax-loaded cart into the elevator.

  “We still have two more to do,” Popov said. “We don’t really need the cart. Leave me and Yuri to do them.”

  “No, we will work together. I know,” Vasilev continued. “Numbers four and twelve are the only two left. We will empty one of the carts and come back for them.” “We are playing with our own deaths,” Stepkolov said.

  “As we have for the past months, comrade?”

  “We have an agreement with the Libyans,” Yuri added, straightening his smock. “Once we finish this project, they are to allow us to go. I cannot understand why they would not.”

  The confines of the freight elevator muted Popov’s heavy bass laughter.

  “Why are Vasilev and I surrounded by fools? Of course, they are going to renege. Even if we weren’t the most costly item in their defense budget, we know too much. Vasilev is right. We have some money already in offshore accounts. We have to figure out how to escape. Once in Europe, then we can demand Alqahiray pay the remainder he owes. Of course, when he fires those missiles and they go pfffft, with the worse thing that happens is a city full of shit-filled pants, we may have to wait a couple of years for him to cool off.”

  “He may send an assassin team after us,” Hova said.

  “Yeah, and he may rape your mother, my Hungarian plains cowboy.”

  “Two more hours, and we will render their missile capability to nil. At least, if we die, then we die knowing we have stopped them from visiting death on innocent women and children,” Stepkolov said.

  “Now we become patriots and humanitarians?” Popov asked.

  The elevator stopped at the laboratory level. They pushed the cart down the hallway past the testing chamber. Vasilev stopped and looked inside at the two captive Libyan officers. Both sat on the edge of their cots and stared back. He doubted the vaccine administered yesterday would be effective. You needed about a week for the antibodies to reach a level where they stood even a small chance of protecting you. Once anthrax spores were inhaled, you were dead without immediate treatment. The vaccine was only effective if you had taken it long before being exposed. He had also given them antibiotics, but he doubted they would be effective.

  The tall, thin officer held up his hand and waved. The other ignored Vasilev and the other Russians. He lay on the bed curled in a fetal position. The way life works sometimes, Vasilev thought, the brave ones die and the cowards live, only to die later.

  Popov continued to deride the others on their naivete about the situation. Vasilev had been naive until yesterday, when the colonel showed his true colors. The two men inside the testing chamber would die. The vaccine and the antibiotics were too little, too late. He knew the intelligence officer who waved knew this, too.

  He heard the suction sound the door leading into the laboratory facility made when it opened. The negative air pressure inside pulled the air from the hallway into it. Vasilev hurried down the hallway and around the corner in time to watch the door shut. Oh, well, the three inside were sufficient to dispose of the biological agents. He and the other three would wait outside the main facility to pass the canisters through a small boxlike window designed to pass small items back and forth. It saved the drudgery of suiting up every time they needed something from outside.

  Vasilev walked down the hall to where Alexei, suited and inside the laboratory, was removing the canisters, one by one, and placing them on the counter. The small Cossack had the unenviable task of draining off the aerosol pressure from the small canisters and then disposing of the spore tubes into a small furnace in the back. Vasilev knew from the many hours spent inside how the heat would make Alexei’s job uncomfortable.

  The unventilated space depended on undependable air-conditioning to keep their body temperatures down. He waited patiently until the last canister was on the table. This was their second trip since they started last night. He looked at his watch. Aboveground, the sun would have been up for nearly two hours, and the temperature would already be climbing toward the nineties on its way past a hundred. They would be cutting it close to finish the last two.

  The noise of the elevator doors behind him opening startled Vasilev, causing him to jump. He turned as the doors widened. Hova came around the corner and joined them.

  Sergeant Adib stepped out, along with six other Libyan soldiers. Vasilev wondered briefly if the man had changed his clothes, or if his uniform had a special chemical to keep it creased so perfectly.

  The soldiers carried AK-47s with the exception of Adib, who had, somewhere since yesterday, traded his AK-47 for a Beretta. Vasilev stepped forward.

  “Welcome, Sergeant. I guess you have come to check on the two test subjects?”

  Adib nodded curtly. “Yes, I suppose I have, Professor Malenkomoff — among other things.”

  Vasilev Malenkomoff heard the huge noise of the freight doors to the missile hangar opening. “Is something going on?” he asked, stepping toward the windows overlooking the hangar.

  Adib ignored Vasilev to peer into the window, where Alexei worked methodically in his heavy, white, protective suit. “What is he doing?” he asked, waving the pistol.

  Vasilev stepped up beside the taller Adib, feeling the inadequacy of his smaller size. “Oh, Alexei? He is cleaning away the results of our experiments and decontaminating the room as much as possible. You never know what can happen if
you don’t keep track of every item of work when you are engaged in such a dangerous job as ours. Without these special precautions, every one of us here could have anthrax spores on our clothes. Don’t you agree, Sergeant Adib?”

  Sergeant Adib took several steps to the right, putting a few feet between him and Vasilev. “You may be right, Professor.” He waved his Beretta at the scientist. “Have the other scientists join us on the floor. We are going to move the missiles to their deployment sites. Al Maadi has decided to show the West our righteousness and resolve by hanging the sword of Damocles over their heads.”

  “I don’t think you need weapons here, Sergeant. The two soldiers are quite unable to resist.”

  Adib waved his gun again. “These weapons are for our protection, Malenkomoff.”

  They walked down the hallway toward the freight elevator leading toward the main missile hangar. At the test chamber, Sergeant Adib and his men stopped to look in at the two intelligence officers.

  “Can they hear me?” he asked.

  Vasilev picked up a nearby microphone. “Press this button here and they will be able to hear you. Keep it pressed, and you can hear their reply.” Adib took the microphone and pressed the speaker button. “Good morning, sirs,” he said. “Colonel Alqahiray sends his regrets on being unable to see how you are doing this morning. He wishes to ask how you feel. He also wants you to know that he does intend to visit you in the days to come. He wants to witness how the disease progresses.” Adib laughed.

  “Your mother must have mated with a sorry, flea-bitten camel, Sergeant, to raise such an imbecile,” said the intelligence officer, who sat impassively on the edge of his cot.

  “Don’t try to anger me, sir. I never had a mother. What would you like? Me to come in there and face off with you one on one? Of course, you would love to see me angry, but in this instance, Captain, you are the stronger one. You have a power inside there that protects you from me.