The Ultimate Escape

by Tom Clancy

  One such briefing had just ended. Colonel Stegar decided that it would be the last. It was time for him to let his men rest.

  Colonel Stegar checked the mission clock on his wrist. In less than four hours, they would exit the underwater hatch and, using high-tech underwater gear, swim to the shore of Corteguay under the cover of night.

  It would be a dangerous time. The defenses that were sabotaged last trip might have been repaired without their knowing it. Or a casual fisherman strolling on the beach might see them as they emerged from the ocean.

  Stegar knew that a thousand things could go wrong.

  And that was only the first phase of the mission called Raptor…. to the Director’s office. They were informed that Jay Gridley was in a meeting with the Speaker of the House of Representatives, but he would be there shortly.

  Matt decided to convene the meeting without the Director.

  His first act after the meeting began surprised everyone. Matt turned to Andy Moore and put his hand on the other’s shoulder.

  “Whatever happens next,” Matt said, “we owe it all to you, Andy.”

  None of the other Net Force Explorers had a clue as to what happened after they were knocked out of the running, so Matt told them about Andy giving up his chance to take down Dieter Rosengarten to come to Mart’s aid. He explained how Andy had rammed the mysterious jet planes to bring them down, which took him out too.

  “If you hadn’t done that, I would never have been able to talk to Julio,” Matt explained. “You saved the day, Andy.”

  “Wow,” David Gray said, slapping Andy on the back. “I know how much you wanted to shoot down Dieter Rosengarten. You did good, my man!”

  “It takes a real man to sacrifice himself for the good of another,” Megan O’Malley added.

  “I can’t believe that you had Baron von Dieter on the run!” Mark Gridley said.

  But it was Megan who spoke the words that made Andy feel truly special. After the others had congratulated him, she stepped up to Andy and looked into his eyes.

  “Your father would be proud of you,” she said simply.

  Andy Moore was too surprised to say anything then. He accepted the acclaim and Megan’s heartfelt words with awkward humility. He even blushed.

  The often abrasive Andy just wasn’t used to praise, and he didn’t know how to handle it.

  A few moments later, Andy was rescued from his uncomfortable position as a hero by the arrival of Director Jay Gridley, with another agent in tow.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he said, getting down to business at once. “Now tell me, what have you got?”

  Matt took a deep breath, then he closed his eyes. Here goes, he thought. Then he told them all he had learned… .

  Matt Hunter was not happy with the Director’s solutions.

  Matt had told the head of Net Force, along with the rest of the Net Force Explorers, everything Julio had said in the veeyar simulator. As he related the story, Matt groped to recall every tiny detail. While Matt spoke, Jay Gridley recorded it all. “

  When Matt was finished, he looked at Jay Gridley expectantly, hoping that the director could suggest a course of action to solve this dilemma.

  Unfortunately, Matt had been disappointed.

  Instead of offering solutions, the Director insisted that they stay the course at the Institute, and keep to the same strategy as before. The Net Force Explorers were supposed to remain silent about what was happening, and wait for the Director to contact the State Department, the military, or whoever else needed to be informed.

  It was a bureaucratic answer, not the answer Matt Hunter wanted to hear.

  After admonishing them all to keep what they’d learned a secret, Jay Gridley left the Lounge. Soon after, Matt adjourned the meeting.

  As everyone prepared to depart, Mark Gridley approached his friend.

  “What are you going to do now?” Mark asked.

  Matt sighed. “I’m not sure,” he said guardedly.

  Matt knew that if he went against Jay Gridley’s wishes, then he didn’t want the director’s own son implicated in any wrongdoing. It was Matt’s way of protecting his young friend.

  Mark seemed to understand without having it explained to him. He nodded, and spoke.

  “I just wanted to say that I will support your decision,” Mark said, “as a Net Force Explorer and as your friend, no matter what you decide.”

  Matt was grateful for the vote of confidence, but he knew he had to take the next step on his own.

  “Matt!” his mother said when she returned home. “It’s after midnight, what are you doing up so late?”

  Matt met his mother’s eyes. “I have to talk to you, Mom,” he said. Marissa Hunter blinked, and Matt could tell that his mother was uncomfortable. Again, he suspected she was hiding something.

  “It’s about Julio.” Matt said, tripping over his words in his haste to get the truth out. “I saw him again. In the veeyar.”

  Marissa Hunter visibly paled, and Matt’s suspicions were all but confirmed.

  I have to level with her, Matt decided. It’s the only way. I can’t expect the truth from her if I don’t admit everything.

  Matt took a deep breath, sat down opposite his mother, and told her the whole story, from the beginning.

  When Matt finished, they both sat together in silence.

  Matt sensed that he’d somehow put his mother into a compromising position, though he wasn’t sure quite how. But he was sure that she could do something to save his friend. She worked in the Pentagon, after all.

  It was the only hope Matt had to cling to….

  He saw his mother hesitate, as though torn between conflicting loyalties, or maybe unable to decide what the proper course of action was. Then, all of a sudden, she relaxed. Whatever was bugging her, she’d finally made up her mind what to do about it.

  She reached out and took his hand in hers. “I have something to tell you, Matt,” she said.

  At that very moment, thousands of miles away, nine people in scuba gear slipped out of the Pacific Ocean and crawled across a darkened beach in Corteguay.

  One by one the SEALs emerged from the cool ocean, carrying huge waterproof bundles of weapons and equipment. As Colonel Stegar dragged his own equipment ashore and ducked into a line of trees, he checked his digital wristwatch.

  When he saw the dully glowing numbers displayed, he cursed inwardly.

  They were already sixteen minutes behind schedule.

  The delay had been unavoidable. The SEAL team had had to linger underwater while a heavily armed Corteguan patrol boat motored toward the Misty Water. When the colonel saw the captain of the Corteguan vessel hail the cargo ship, he got worried.

  With his head just above the surface of the waves, and using the high-tech scuba helmet to amplify the voices of the men on the boats, Stegar heard all that transpired. He watched, wondering if the patrol crew would linger near the beach long enough to end their mission then and there.

  Stegar breathed a sigh of relief when he realized that the patrol boat was out tonight in the hope of trading black market goods with the crew of the Misty Water. Stegar listened as the crew of the cargo ship haggled in Spanish with the men on the patrol boat. In the end, some goods and some real currency—not electronic transactions—were exchanged.

  Then the patrol craft sped off into the night, probably looking for more customers for their black market stash. When they were out of sight, Stegar led his men to shore, as the Misty Water idled in the distance.

  At this point in the mission, they started stripping off their scuba gear. One of the crewmen off the Misty Water, also a SEAL, had come ashore with them. His job was to drag their scuba gear back to the ship with him. If for some reason they needed to do a sea evacuation instead of the planned helicopter pickup, he would bring it back to the beach at their signal. This gave the SEALs a couple of escape options and improved their chances of remaining undetected.

  While the men donned their smartsuits and re
adied their equipment and weapons for the long jungle march, the sailor from the cargo ship packed their scuba gear up in the waterproof bags for the return trip.

  “Good luck, Colonel,” die sailor whispered when he was finished. “I wish I was going with you.”

  Stegar shook the man’s hand. Then the crewman slipped back into the ocean, dragging the gear behind him. In seconds he vanished beneath the waves, without even a ripple to mark his passing.

  The SEAL team was ready to go, so Stegar rose from the sand.

  “Let’s pull out,” he whispered. “Knappert, Connolly. You’re on point.”

  As one, the soldiers moved into position and melted into the dark jungle.

  Matt listened as his mother told him about the Raptor file.

  The SEAL team is already in Corteguay, Matt thought, and the anxiety he’d felt since he’d seen Julio in the simulator for the first time reached a fever pitch. Then he turned to his mother.

  “Is there any way to stop the attack, or delay it a day or so?” he asked. She shook her head.

  “Every second those men are in enemy territory they are in danger,” she told her son. “They could abort if they had to, but that would be the end of it. The mission goes off now, before the election in Corteguay, or not at all,” she concluded.

  Then it has to be now, Matt thought.

  “Can we talk to them, get a message to them?”

  “I don’t know. I doubt it. I imagine they’re observing radio silence throughout the course of the mission, but I can find out for you if you need to know for sure.”

  “I think that would be a good idea,” Matt said.

  He checked the timetable of the attack again. When he was finished calculating everything, including the time differences between Washington and Corteguay, Matt knew that there would be a little time to warn Julio, but not much.

  And if he, or someone else, failed to contact Julio in the Bosnian scenario, then the raid on the secret prison would go down without Julio knowing it was coming—which, by Julio’s own account, would result in his death, and the death of his entire family.

  The responsibility was crushing.

  And there wasn’t enough time to do this right.

  If they had IEI’s cooperation, Matt or somebody official could go alone into that simulator and warn Julio without interference from a bunch of people fighting war games.

  But if the past week was any example of the speed with which diplomatic negotiations took place, getting that cooperation was an impossible dream.

  Net Force, or even Matt and his friends, could crash the simulators. They’d done that before. But they couldn’t co-opt them without the full consent of IEI. And Matt, after trying to get the world to listen to him for more than a week, was sure that nobody, not even the whole U.S. government, could get that consent in time.

  If they didn’t get it, Matt would have to do what he’d done for the last two weeks. Go to class, beat world-class competition, and hope that he’d find Julio. But this time, Julio’s life, and the lives of every prisoner in the virtual prison, depended on him.

  Without Net Force to work a miracle, it was up to Matt Hunter. Matt, and the other Net Force Explorers.

  When we go into that simulator again, it will be real, Matt realized. As real as any war can be. If we fail, human beings will die.

  His mother came up behind him and put her hand on his shoulder.

  “I never thought you’d be in this position,” she said. “I’ve worked my whole life to try to make sure you’d never be embroiled in a shooting war. Even though I know you’ll be safe in that simulator, Julio is in terrible trouble. I hate that.”

  “I know,” Matt said.

  “I’ve watched you this last week. Your friend was in danger, and you did everything you could to save him. Even when I thought you were wrong about what was going on, I could see how dedicated you were to dealing with the situation. And I could see how resourceful you were. I’m so proud of the young man my son has become.”

  “Aww, Mom…”

  “Go to bed,” she said. “Get some sleep. You’ll need it.”

  Matt said good night and headed to his room. He’d done everything he could.

  But Matt didn’t sleep much that night. He tossed and turned in his bed, knowing full well that when the sun rose again, he might have to lead his fellow Net Force Explorers into an actual battle. As the hours before daybreak dragged on, Matt Hunter struggled in the darkness with his fears and doubts.

  “The Bosnian Crisis that flared up in 2007, our first major war of the twenty-first century, began much like the First World War in the twentieth century,” Dr. Lanier told them as the morning pre-flight history lesson began. “A series of alliances brokered by the United Nations and separate European nations led to a domino effect.”

  As Dr. Lanier spoke, a map of Europe appeared in three dimensions behind him.

  “When internal squabbling heated up between the Bosnian Serbs and their Muslim neighbors, the old North Atlantic Treaty Organization nations found themselves at odds with the Russian government and its Eastern European allies,” the professor continued.

  The Net Force Explorers were tense and anxious as they listened to the professor’s briefing. Right before the class began, Matt had spoken to them all. He’d couldn’t tell them about Raptor, but he had told them that Julio’s life and the lives of his parents and sister depended on their actions today.

  The Net Force Explorers were determined not to fail.

  “For two nations, Japan and Germany, this would be the first war, outside of some United Nation joint actions, that they actively participated in since the Second World War,” Dr. Lanier lectured. “A multitude of factors, from the disastrous long-term results of the Dayton Peace Accord to the West’s reluctance to offer the Russians full NATO membership, led to the short but bloody war. But we are not here to discuss the political decisions that caused the war.”

  Another map appeared on the wall behind the professor, this one of southeastern Europe. Red lines were superimposed over Greece. The lines turned right and led into Bosnia.

  “Forces from the United States and Germany patrolled what came to be called the Sarajevo Corridor,” Dr. Lanier said. “Fighters and bombers from land bases in Greece and from carriers in the Mediterranean flew daily missions into Bosnia. A second corridor, through Romania, was patrolled by the British, French, and Japanese,” Lanier said as a green arrow appeared, tracing that patrol area.

  “In these corridors, the Allies were opposed both by the small Serbian Air Force, flying old MiG-23 Floggers and MiG-29 Fulcrums, and by the more modern Russian Air Force, armed with the formidable Mikoyan 1-42 and MiG-33’s.” As the professor spoke, schematics of all the aircraft appeared behind him and rotated so that the Net Force Explorers could see the planes from every direction.

  “An unwillingness among the Allies and Russia to commit large-scale ground forces to the war led to the Bosnian Crisis becoming a war of air strikes and counterstrikes among the major powers, and a war of attrition among the original combatants,” Lanier said.

  The flat-screen on the wall filled with images of fighters racing through the sky, missiles launching from wing pylons to strike targets on the ground below, and general footage of American pilots scrambling for their F-15E Strike Eagles, F-16 Fighting Falcons, F-22 Lightning II’s, and F-117 Stealth Fighters.

  “This air war soon became a machine-versus-machine showdown, altogether unlike the contests you’ve previously participated in. Most of the Allied planes lost in combat were taken out by ground-based surface-to-air missiles, or SAMs. These SAMs were launched both from permanent installations and from mobile platforms. In order for the fighter pilots and bombers to fly their missions through the war zone, the first priority of the Allied forces was to disable the SAM sites. But they weren’t easy to find.

  “Some of the intelligence for tactical strikes was gathered by satellite, augmented by real-time surveillance video from unma
nned drone planes,” Lanier said.

  All around them, holograms of the small radio-controlled aircraft filled the air.

  “In addition to being useful for collecting information, the drones also served as launch platforms for a variety of small munitions, and pinpointed targets for guided missiles.”

  Camouflaged missile launchers ringed by antiaircraft guns appeared before them, framed by the little drones. An AGM-130 precision-guided modular glide bomb hurtled through the air above the target, seemingly coming from nowhere, as the Net Force Explorers watched. The missile landed and the SAM emplacement exploded.

  “The use of these flying drones increased the Allies’ available airpower by freeing planes and pilots from high-risk missions. The drones were cheap and easy to produce, while the expensive equipment to control and monitor them stayed safely behind the lines, so large quantities could be deployed and large losses of the drones sustained.

  ’ ‘But some of the intelligence still had to be gathered the hard way. This was often true of SAM sites. Drones weren’t often attractive enough targets to bring SAMs into play. The best way to find the launchers was to home in on the radar or DR beacon that they used to guide their missiles to the targets, then shoot a HARM anti-radiation or IRST infrared search-and-track missile at it. But they only turned on those beacons when worthwhile targets were within range. Pilots flying F-15’s outfitted as Wild Weasels, or SAM assault aircraft, made this their specialty. They would fly escort for strike aircraft, and when the SAJM batteries prepared to launch their deadly weapons into the sky, the Wild Weasels would destroy them by firing missiles at close range, dodging the SAMs, often flying in the teeth of covering fire. It was one of the most dangerous missions of the war. Once the SAMs were taken out, then the bombers and fighters could proceed to their targets. This kind of flying was originally done by F-100’s and F-105’s in the late 1960’s in Vietnam, and later by F-4Gs in 1991 during the Gulf War.

  “In addition to the support of Wild Weasels, fighter aircraft depended on many other aircraft to successfully accomplish their missions. In-flight refueling by tanker planes extended the range and hours of operation of all the aircraft in the theater of operations. And airborne warning and control planes, or AWACs, like the E-3 Sentry provided long-range target acquisition and identification, as well as control, coordination, and communication between the Allied forces. Because of the Sentries, every Allied pilot knew where every other plane in the sky was, and which aircraft were friendly and which were not.