Thankfully, Beslan returned to his usual businesslike demeanor. "Closest friendly airbase, it is being deep in the Belarus, my friend. It will be taking us some time to get there.” He switched to Russian. “As we lifted off back there, someone lit our asses up with a Stinger."
"Fuck me," Cooper growled.
“What?” asked Kyrsten, leaning toward him. “What is it?”
Cooper shook his head. Continuing in Russian, he asked, "Anything launch?"
Kirsten's hand found his and squeezed. He tried to squeeze back but only three fingers replied his command. That wasn't a good sign.
"Nyet,” replied Beslan. “The signal disappeared almost as soon as it pinged us. We got away due to my fancy flying, thank you very much…"
"You almost threw me out the fuckin’ hatch, thanks to your fancy flying…"
"So? At least the lady is safe," Beslan said with a laugh.
“Will someone please say something I can understand?” asked Kyrsten.
"This is the worst flight I've ever been on…" Cooper muttered in English, his eyes closed tight against the pain. In the cockpit, Beslan laughed.
"There," Darius said, nudging the driver with his elbow. "Turn left, right here."
"Here? There's nothing down this road! We need to keep going straight, they're already gaining too much ground on us…" the driver argued.
Darius frowned. Enough was enough. He drew his sidearm and placed the barrel against the driver’s temple. "If you don't drive the way I tell you, I'm going to blow your brains through the fucking window and I'll drive. There’s a Council airstrip, used for covert ops, just down that road. Now turn."
"Okay, okay!” the driver complained, turning the wheel. “How the hell does the Chechen know about it?" he asked.
Darius pulled his pistol back and holstered it. "Because that son of a bitch took out the personnel stationed at that airbase last year. I was sent in to do the cleanup and investigation. We never reopened it, but that's the only place around here that would still have enough fuel to get that fat pig he's flying into Belarus.”
“Why go to the Belarus?” asked the driver.
Darius sighed. “To reach a US airbase. In Germany."
"I don't understand…why would he want to go to a US airbase? I thought the Chechen was on their wanted list?"
Darius scratched his jaw. "He is," he allowed, bracing himself as the car bounced through deliberately placed potholes. The Council had covered its tracks well and turned the secretive airstrip into what looked like an abandoned farm.
The winding road had been laced with pot marks and anti-vehicle measures—most of which were destroyed during the Chechen's raid. The rest had been deactivated when Darius arrived to clean up the site. Anyone driving down this road now would take the risk of trashing their drivetrain, but wouldn’t explode.
"He must have extracted the ambassador—or his wife. That's the only thing that can explain him going this way. I know the Chechen’s got contacts all over eastern Russia and Ukraine. He could be going anywhere, but because he's heading to this airbase, it means he needs fuel. And the only reason he needs fuel is to reach an American airbase.”
Darius thought for a moment. “And that means Braaten has to be alive—probably injured. For the Chechen to blow his cover like this means he could be gravely injured."
Darius looked at the driver. "Are you going to go any faster or do I have to persuade you again?"
Cooper opened his eyes and took a couple long seconds to focus his vision as he felt the helicopter nose up and lose momentum. "What's the plan?" he called out, surprised at how weak his voice sounded.
"If we’re heading to the closest US airbase—”
“Wait, who said anything about a US airbase?” Cooper interjected.
Beslan laughed. “You think you’re going to live to see another day if don’t?”
“You need to get to a hospital,” Kyrsten explained patiently. “I insisted.”
Beslan took over the conversation again. “Anyway, we’re going to need to refuel.”
“But…” Cooper tried.
Beslan ignored him. “There's this little spot I know…just sit tight. I’ll bring us down through a tight patch in the trees. We should have enough space to clear…"
"Should have…?" Kyrsten asked, her voice high with worry.
Cooper did his best to squeeze her hand reassuringly, but as he rolled his head to the side and glanced out the window, the sickening lurch of trees outside the window—and their extreme proximity to said window—made him close his eyes once more.
The driver shook his head. "I lost them…I don't see them…"
Darius ignored the driver and poked the large touchscreen built into the SUVs dashboard. He tapped into the Council’s back-channel access to several European military satellite feeds and in short order, linked up with a Russian airspace monitoring system. He watched as the GPS landscape zoomed in, showing a squarish patch through the treetops and a white-hot heat signature filling the void.
"Crazy son of a bitch dropped right down through the chute." Darius shook his head. "Step on it, they landed. "
"Landed? In this?" the driver asked, gesturing at the solid wall of trees on either side of the road.
"There's a turnoff up ahead, take the right fork. We need to gain some distance and get around to the far side of the airbase. There's a small hill overlooking the site."
"How the hell do you know that?" asked the driver.
Darius thought back to his cleanup mission at the ruined airbase. He remembered standing on a hill overlooking the smoking ruins of the covert operations outpost. His hand ached from the shovel handle after digging several graves, and he’d smelled like fresh dirt and aircraft fuel for days. His nose itched involuntarily with the memory of aviation fuel.
Darius glanced at the driver. "Because I'm the one who found it. Pull over here—the top of this hill.”
The blissful silence of the Hind’s now dormant engines crept up on Cooper. He opened his eyes, blinked, and tried to sit up but found himself restrained to his jumpseat. He glanced down at the thick metal buckle and webbing straps across his chest, then relaxed. Cooper turned and looked at Kyrsten, her hand still clasped in his, streaked with blood—whether his or hers, he couldn't tell.
"How long was I out?" he rasped. Jesus, I sound like death warmed over.
She smiled. A lock of hair fell down across her forehead under the intercom headset. "Not long…only a couple minutes. He…" She frowned, glancing at the empty cockpit. "I don't even know his name…"
"Beslan," Cooper supplied weakly.
Kyrsten's face relaxed, and the worry lines over her eyebrows vanished. "He left a couple minutes ago—after we landed. I heard some thumping around outside, but I've been too scared to get out of my seat."
Cooper nodded, regretting the movement as soon as the world started swimming again. "It's fine…he's refueling…there's an old Council outpost here that they used…"
Cooper turned and looked at her, resting the side of his head against the seat. "You don’t have any idea what I'm talking about do you?"
Kyrsten shrugged and shook her head. "I'm sorry…I’ve heard about them…the ones who launched the bioweapon attack in England, right?"
Cooper squeezed her hand. "They were behind the attack on America, too.”
A wrinkle appeared between her brows as she frowned. “I thought the North Koreans did that?”
“Nevermind…” Cooper said, the air in his lungs escaping in a sigh. “He's refueling. We’ll be out of here soon."
Before she could respond, an insistent beeping erupted from the cockpit. Cooper’s brain flooded his system with adrenaline, and he jerked his head, up focusing on the red light blinking in the cockpit.
"Oh, shit…"
"That doesn’t sound good…What is it?" Kyrsten asked, stiffening in the seat next to him.
Cooper slapped at the hatch next to him and fumbled with his blood slick fingers to ope
n the side door. "Somebody's got a goddamn missile out there—they’re trying to lock onto us! We've got to warn Beslan!"
"Oh, my God," Kyrsten breathed.
Cooper managed to get the hatch open a few inches. His arm gave out and the last of his strength left his body. "Beslan! Your friend with the missile is back!" he hollered as loud as he could.
The pilot’s door opened and Beslan stuck his head in from the front, yelling over the sound of a diesel pump in the background. "What?"
Cooper pointed at the cockpit. "Missile!" The last of his energy spent, his arm dropped limp into his lap, and the world went black around him.
Darius shoved the driver out of the way. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" He demanded, lifting the missile from its protective casing, and stepping away from the Land Rover. "You activated the seeker head again."
Without waiting for his inept guide’s response, Darius shouldered the missile and limped to the edge of the hill, activating the guidance and propulsion systems, and using his thumb to turn on the IR seeker.
Through the dense canopy of hibernating trees at the base of the hill, he could see only bits and pieces of the helicopter’s heat signature.
"I've got you now, you slippery Chechen bastard…"
As soon as that helicopter lifted off, all Darius had to do was pull the trigger and blast it out of the sky. There was no room for the pilot to maneuver, or gain speed—and nowhere to run. The only option was up, right into the trap Darius had spread. He smiled, thinking of the reward Jayne would give him.
"Where did he go? Why is he leaving us?" Kyrsten demanded, peering out the grimy port window. "He grabbed that gun and ran off into the trees!"
Cooper tried to laugh, but coughed. "Don't worry…sniper…"
"What? What the hell does that have to do with anything?" Kyrsten demanded, her face suddenly large in front of Cooper, her eyes distorted into orbs the size of dinner plates.
Cooper felt the soft edge of unconsciousness creep up on him. His fingertips felt cold.
"Lost…too much…"
His mouth wouldn't work, he couldn't say blood. He must still have an open wound somewhere…but he was too weak to ask for help.
"What's wrong with you?" she asked, her voice fading in and out of hearing range. She looked down, and a moment later, her head disappeared from his distorted view. He felt someone tugging on his pants, and his mouth twitched.
No time for that, honey…
"…still bleeding!" her voice drifted to him.
The last thing Cooper remembered was feeling one of his pockets ripped open and a hand digging around next to his thigh.
No…wrong pocket…tourniquet’s on the other side…
Darius waited, leaning against the car, missile at the ready on his shoulder. All he had to do was let the Hind lift off and get a few feet above the trees, then he’d pull the trigger—after the missile achieved a good lock—and wait for the fireworks.
The driver stepped up next to him, holding the second launcher across his chest.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Darius growled, eyeing the driver askance.
The Russian shrugged. "In case you miss. We need a quick follow-up shot, right?"
Fucking amateurs…
Darius sighed. He settled his shoulders against the weight of the missile launcher and looked through the infrared sight again.
A new heat signature flashed for a moment, well away and to the left of the helicopter. It was too small to be another vehicle. "Who the hell is that?"
"What?" asked the driver.
Darius opened his mouth to shout a warning when he saw the telltale heat signature of a cold steel barrel swing in front of the person who emerged from the trees. The driver’s head exploded in a shower of bone and gore, liberally coating the inside of Darius' mouth. He fell to the side and gagged, landing on the missile which promptly beeped a warning that it had lost its target.
A split second later, the loud crack and thunder of the Chechen’s legendary sniper rifle rumbled up the hill.
The first shot was an expert kill—Darius was more than impressed. His opponent had sprinted through the trees and took off the head of a target almost a hundred yards distant. The Chechen had earned his near-mythic status as a world-renowned sniper the hard way.
Holes appeared in the side of the Land Rover as the Chechen poured suppressing fire on the hill.
Darius cursed and squirmed away from the car toward the back side of the hill to gain shelter and distance. The last thing he needed was for a lucky shot to ignite the fuel tank on the now bullet-riddled SUV.
"God dammit…" he growled, struggling to his feet on the far side of the sedan. He dragged the missile with him and risked a parting glance at the twitching body of his local guide. Darius spit more of the man’s blood from his mouth.
It just got a lot harder for him to get out of Russia.
Incoming fire took off the Land Rover’s side-view mirror in a shower of sparks, and Darius flinched, rolling a few feet down the backside of the hill, abandoning the missile launcher where it lay.
Pressure on Cooper's hand woke him up. The tingling sensation in his fingertips had spread to the palm of his hand, but he still felt Kyrsten squeeze.
"Wake up! Please wake up! I think I stopped the bleeding…" she said, her voice trembling as much as her face in front of him. "I don't really know what I'm doing…we’re the only ones out here now…I heard gunfire—it was really loud—but Beslan hasn't come back…"
Cooper managed to curl up one side of his mouth. "He’ll be back…"
A clatter in the cockpit drew his attention forward as Beslan hauled himself into the pilot’s seat and pulled his beloved sniper rifle in after him. He glanced over his shoulders and cracked a wide grin.
"Okay! We are having lift off!”
Without putting on his headset, Beslan flipped a handful of switches and kickstarted the Hind to life. Above them, the powerful turbines spooled up and a familiar vibration rumbled through the floor. Kyrsten was saying something—Cooper could see her mouth moving—but Beslan had neglected to turn on the intercom system in his haste to get the helicopter off the ground.
Cooper wobbled his head left and right to signify he couldn't hear her, then closed his eyes. His stomach tried its best to climb down to his knees when the helicopter jumped off the ground like a scolded cat. He risked a glance out the starboard window and saw tree trunks give way to branches, which quickly vanished, leaving cloudy skies as far as he could see.
Its nose dipped forward, and the helicopter raced away to the west where the first rays of dawn had yet to penetrate the night’s veil of darkness. Out Kyrsten’s window, he saw a glimpse of eastern skyline flash by as Beslan settled on a new course. Cooper closed his eyes.
Kyrsten’s hand squeezed his, and Cooper opened his eyes to see her pointing at the cockpit. Beslan was shouting something over his shoulder, but Cooper couldn't hear over the noise of the engines. What he saw was more important—the red missile warning light was blinking again, joined by a solid red triangle that indicated someone had gotten a good missile lock on the aircraft. Over the sound of the roaring engines, Cooper heard the dull thump-thump of flares and chaff being ejected out the side of the fat helicopter.
Beslan looked over his shoulder, his eyes wide and his mouth open, yelling a warning. Cooper couldn’t hear the words, but knew the meaning. The flares failed. The missile was about to knock them out of the sky. They were about to die.
Kyrsten squeezed his hand once more, and her scared expression drifted away. He was dimly aware of a sudden, intense heat and thought for a moment that he would be thrown from his seat despite the straps holding him down. His stomach shifted inside his body again, signaling a rapid altitude change.
Cooper smiled. So this is what death was like. Well, he'd have a hell of a story to tell when he met the Grim Reaper.
35
Recovery
Near the Russia/Belarus Border
Danika pulled her car around another sharp turn and stood on the brakes, bringing her ancient Yugo to a sputtering, shuddering, coughing stop in the cratered gravel road. The world before her, on the other side of the trees that surrounded the road, lit up in a bright orange-white sunrise.
The shock wave from the explosion hit a second later, causing nearby trees to sway in the over-pressure. She was too late. She'd seen Darius set up at the top of the hill but had to maneuver her ungainly vehicle closer to be of any help in time. She slammed her hands against the steering wheel in frustration.
So close! I was so close…
Crossing one last dry creek bed, she pulled the ancient Yugo up a small incline and left it in the middle of the dirt path. Running across the wooded landscape like a swift-footed deer, she drew her silenced pistol and slapped at the branches trying to slow her down.
She emerged from the treeline some 20 yards down slope from Darius' position. She spotted a Land Rover that looked like someone had used it for target practice with a very large caliber rifle. One body lay on the ground, and Darius leaned against the wrecked vehicle, a triumphant grin on his face as he stared toward the fiery wreckage.
The tracking chip that she'd implanted in Darius’ vehicle had done its job. Now it was time for her to finish things. She raised her pistol and took careful aim, bracing herself against a tree stump. Darius tossed the empty, smoking launcher tube to the ground and took a shaky step away from the car, his leg bleeding profusely.
You’re not going to walk away from this one, asshole.
Pursing her lips, she let out one short, shrill whistle. Darius turned his head immediately, and her shot pinned his left shoulder to the car, shattering what remained of the window behind him. The second shot caught him in the stomach, and he dropped, his hands already stained red, and collapsed to the ground.
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