Authors: Dale Brown
Kbely Airport
B
reanna snugged her seat belt and looked out the window as the C–20 dropped toward the runway, catching a glimpse of Prague in the dim blue haze of early dawn. The buildings had a brownish hue that made them look like a set of miniatures rather than part of a real city.
The sound of the plane’s engines increased as the wheels touched down. As the pilot took the plane to the end of the runway and onto a taxiway to the terminal, Breanna gathered her things, her excitement at surprising her husband and daughter rising.
Besides the aircraft on display, a number of VIPs were arriving this morning, and Breanna’s aircraft had been assigned a parking spot just beyond an Antonov transport. Standing on the ladder at the door, she got her bearings, then went down in a semijog, her suitcase with her.
She was surprised to see Turk, waving at her near the other plane.
“Hey, boss!” yelled the pilot, who was standing with several other men. He was still dressed in his flight suit. “About time you got here.”
“Turk!”
“Had to hook with the maintainers,” said the pilot. He gestured toward the hangars. “They just got here ahead of you like five minutes. They’re going over the plane now.” He turned to the men he was with. “I want you to meet some friends of mine—this is Major Andrei Krufts—I met him a while back at a Red Flag. He’s a great Ukrainian fighter pilot. And this is his boss, General Josef. He’s in charge of the Ukrainian air force.”
Breanna suddenly felt underdressed and unprepared—she hadn’t even done her lipstick.
“General, nice to meet you,” she said, extending her hand to the Ukrainian official.
“My pleasure, Ms. Stockard. We have always admired the work of Dreamland.”
“Thank you.”
“I don’t believe you know our defense minister,” added the general as a tall, elderly gentleman approached from the stairway of the Antonov. “Dr. Gustov.”
“No, I don’t think we’ve met,” said Breanna.
Despite his age—Gustov was seventy-seven—he moved quickly across the tarmac. Dressed in a blue pin-striped suit, with a full head of jet black hair brushed straight back against his scalp, he held himself perfectly erect, with an athletic air. His face was smooth and his gestures elegant; Breanna thought he must have been quite a ladies’ man in his youth.
Perhaps even now.
“Dr. Gustav, allow me to introduce Breanna Stockard, a member of the U.S. Pentagon,” said General Josef.
The minister took her hand. For a moment she thought he was going to kiss it in the old-world style, but instead he held it and bowed his head slightly. It was just as charming.
“A pleasure, Ms. Stockard. You are with the Pentagon?”
“I’m the director of the Office of Technology.”
“Stockard—I know the name.”
“She was a member of Dreamland,” said the general.
“Ah, Dreamland,” said the minister. “We heard of your battles.”
“We still study the encounters,” said Major Krufts.
“When you faced the Chinese and flew over their capital, were you scared?” asked Minister Gustov.
“I think you may be talking about my father,” said Breanna. “I don’t think he was scared of anything.
Is
scared,” she said, realizing she had talked about him in the past tense. “But I did have a few encounters with them,” she said hastily. “Some of their pilots were quite good.”
“Who were the best pilots you encountered?” asked the general.
“Hard to say.” They had all been difficult, and Breanna didn’t like to rank them. She was asked the question a lot, though, so she gave the answer she usually did. “Probably the Indians. Their technology at the time was very underrated. They took a lot of Russian equipment and upgraded it tremendously. And they trained very effectively.”
“And now you are on to other things,” said General Josef. He turned to the defense minister. “We saw the plane while you were on the phone. It’s quite an aircraft.”
“Turk already gave you a tour?” Breanna asked.
“He showed us the plane. But of course we would all like to see it fly.”
“I told them we could probably arrange a private fly-by in a couple of hours,” said Turk. “Have to do a check flight anyway.”
“By all means.”
“I’d go right now, but the minister has a meeting,” added Turk. “That’s one of the design benefits—plane can be turned around for a sortie like in nothing flat.”
You don’t have to sell them, thought Breanna. They can’t afford it.
“You feel like flying again so soon after coming across the ocean and continent?” asked the minister.
“There’s never a time I don’t feel like flying.”
Everyone, including Turk, laughed.
“It’s good be young,” said General Josef.
Major Krufts glanced at his watch. “General, I hate to be the one to remind you . . .”
“Contractors,” said the defense minister. “Always trying to sell us new toys.”
“Upgrades,” said the general. “Necessary.”
The minister gave a skeptical “Hmmm.”
“We have a meeting. Breakfast,” said the general. “We should get going.”
“Our meeting is at the Old Castle,” the defense minister explained to Breanna. “The Czechs have renovated the ruins to appear as if they are still in medieval times. You should tour the museum.”
“As a matter of fact, I’m on my way there to meet my husband and daughter.”
“Then you will go in our car, and we can continue this conversation,” said the minister. “General, wouldn’t you say?”
“I think it’s an excellent idea.”
Breanna glanced at Turk. “Is everything OK with the Tigershark?”
“I could take off in ten minutes if you want,” he told her.
“You should get some rest.”
“I’m fine.”
Breanna turned to the Dr. Gustov.
“It would be my pleasure to ride with you,” she told him. “Please lead the way.”
Old State Castle
T
he early guests in the small restaurant were an inconvenience, not a complication. The Black Wolf had them brought into the kitchen with the workers, while he finished examining the room where the meeting was to take place.
There was not much to it—he would stand near the door and shoot the general, then the minister. It would be over in seconds.
Then they would leave. The helicopter would land moments after the alarm was sounded. He was sure of this, since he himself would sound the alarm.
He would take one of the civilians, someone from the kitchen staff, as a hostage, insurance just in case something unforeseen happened.
No—he would grab one of the men who had been having breakfast. They were important guests; their death would be more sensational.
“Done,” said Gray Wolf, coming back. “They are locked in the storage pantry.”
“And they can’t get out?” asked the Black Wolf.
“Blue is there.”
The Black Wolf nodded. The men used English to communicate, since they came from different countries. The teams were always mixed. The Black Wolf had worked with all of the men involved on this mission before, but not together.
“The one with the wheelchair was trying to make a phone call. I stopped him,” added Gray.
“A wheelchair?”
Gray repeated the word in German.
“I understood the word,” said the Black Wolf.
“Yes, a chair. Here is the phone.”
Gray handed him a BlackBerry. Black Wolf stuffed it into his pocket, then put his hand to his ear set.
“Cafeteria is secure. Red, what is the situation?”
“Nothing on the road.”
“We will wait,” said Black Wolf. “It should not be long now.”
Z
en rolled the wheelchair back against the shelf unit in the storeroom, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the light. Besides himself and Lynch, there were three other people inside the large pantry storeroom—the waiter, a cook, and his assistant, a woman roughly Caroline’s age. All had been searched, the contents of their pockets emptied.
“Is this a robbery?” whispered Lynch.
“No,” said Zen. “My bet is they’re after whoever’s coming to that meeting the staff was setting up for. It’s a kidnapping or an assassination.”
“Bloody hell. Leave us out of it.”
“We’ll be lucky if they do,” said Zen. He thought of the girls upstairs. There was no way to get a message to them.
Had the man he’d seen been Stoner?
It couldn’t have been. And if it was, it wouldn’t help.
“There wouldn’t happen to be a trapdoor in the place?” Lynch asked the others. “A secret exit or something?”
“No,” said the waiter.
“How about a ventilation shaft?” asked Zen. “For the air conditioner or heating?”
The waiter said something to the cook. They spoke for a few minutes.
“No. There is no vent here—this is a closet,” said the waiter finally. “In the kitchen—over the range. That is where the ventilation is.”
“Is it wide enough for someone to get through?” asked Zen.
“You’re not thinking of climbing through, are you?” asked Lynch.
“I was thinking someone with legs would be more useful,” said Zen.
“Kess could fit,” said the waiter. “She’s thin.”
Zen glanced at her. She was fairly small.
“The shaft goes to the second floor and out,” continued the waiter, translating for the chef. “There are two large fans at the side, on the wall where the vent opens. She would have to push them out.”
“Could she?” asked Zen.
He turned toward the young woman. It was too dark to see much of her face.
“Do you think you can climb through?” he asked.
“I will try.”
“To do this, she would have to be in the kitchen,” said the waiter.
“How do we get in the kitchen?” asked Lynch. “The door is locked.”
“We’ll have to get them to open it,” said Zen.
Ruzyne-Prague Airport
D
anny turned on his sat phone as soon as they landed, checking to see if Zen had replied to his message.
He hadn’t.
He decided to try him by phone. He punched in the number and waited for the call to connect, watching out the window as the plane trundled toward the terminal.
The call was just about to go to voice mail when the line clicked open.
“Zen?” said Danny. “Jeff—are you there? Zen? Yo, Zen?”
There was no answer. But there was definitely someone on the line.
“Zen? Hey, it’s Danny Freah. What do we have, a bad connection? Are you there? Zen?”
“Who are you looking for?” said the voice.
“Zen. I—”
The line clicked dead.
Danny looked at the phone, making sure the preset number had dialed correctly. It had. He tried again. This time it went to voice mail.
What the hell was going on? Had the lines crossed?
He gave another call. This time someone picked up, but there was no answer.
“Zen? Jeff? Zen?”
It clicked off.
The plane had stopped. The other passengers were starting to get off. Danny remained in his seat, punching the quick dial to get the night operator who handled Whiplash operations.
“I know it’s pretty late over there,” he told her when she came on the line. “But I want to talk to Ms. Stockard. Or Reid. Can you wake one of them up?”
“Ms. Stockard is in Prague,” said the operator. “At Kbley Airport. She just landed.”
“She did? Let me talk to her. Right away.”
Northwestern Moldova
N
uri’s head was pounding and his lungs felt as if they were coated with dirt. His clothes were caked with grit. But his fun time in the hole did bring one positive: he was wide-awake. Very, very awake, and thirsting for revenge.
The UAVs patrolling the area had returned to their base, but the Rattlesnakes were still at the staging area they had used a few miles away. After telling the others he was all right, Nuri called Boston, who was overseeing the load-out.
“I can have them in the air in ten minutes,” promised Boston. “We just have to get them off the pallet under the blimp.”
“Do it,” said Nuri.
Flash had left on the earlier blimp to supervise the load-out on the other end. Nuri hadn’t been trained to handle the aircraft directly, so Boston channeled control through MY-PID. He was as good as his word—Nuri heard the aircraft overhead before he reached the house.
The Moldovan captain in charge of the local security force wasn’t sure exactly what was going on. All he knew was that the deputy minister had just reamed him out, told him there were traitors in the force, and ordered him to secure the farm. Nuri filled in some of the blanks quickly, describing the men and the box he was looking for. Then he turned his attention to the Rattlesnakes, which were feeding their infrared scans to MY-PID.
The first thing he noticed on the small screen of his control unit was a car about a mile south, traveling at close to ninety kilometers.
“Stop the vehicle,” he told MY-PID.
The Rattlesnakes swooped toward it. One buzzed the vehicle from behind, then turned sharply in front of it, pivoting to spin its nose—and the Gatling gun there—directly toward the windshield. The other aircraft came at the car from the side, passing so close to the vehicle that its skid scraped the roof. The maneuvers had the desired effect—the driver turned the wheel hard, pushing the car off the side of the road and into the woods, where it hit a tree.
Nuri watched on the screen as the driver stumbled out of the car. It was a woman, not one of the guards.
An accomplice?
It took him a few minutes to explain where the vehicle was to the Moldovans. MY-PID, meanwhile, sent one of the helicopters back to continue searching the farm, while the other one orbited the wrecked car.
By now the Moldovans had tightened their line around the farm. It didn’t appear anyone was hiding on the property. But Nuri assumed that the two men who had attacked him and taken the box would blend in easily with the others—they were, after all, policemen just like the rest.
The captain had another theory: the men weren’t policemen at all, but imposters who had come in with the others. Insisting they weren’t among his men, he suggested they might be hiding in the trunk or somewhere else on the post.
“We are checking to see who left their post,” said the Moldovan. “So far we have not found anyone who was out of place. So, these must have been imposters.”
“Maybe,” said Nuri.
“Let us talk to the prisoner.” The captain gestured toward the driveway, where one of his cars was waiting. Nuri, a little wary, got in.
“MY-PID—keep watching the area,” he told the computer. “If anyone else leaves, let me know—and follow them with one of the Rattlesnakes.”
“Command accepted.”
Then he had another idea.
“Tell the people at the car scene that I’m coming, too,” he told the captain.
“Why?”
“Try it.”
The Moldovan gave the order.
Nuri watched on the small screen. Six officers had responded. They had the driver in custody and were seeing to her injuries. Two were searching the car. Suddenly they stopped searching and headed for one of the police SUVs.
“Flash—stop the police vehicle near the accident scene.”
“Identify vehicle,” said MY-PID.
“The one that’s moving, damn it.”
“Command unknown.”
“The SUV in the southwest.” Nuri thumbed up the grid markers. “Grid
AB
–23. Damn it. Stop it—don’t use weapons. No weapons. I want to talk to those bastards.”
And punch each one in the face when he was done. Maybe before that.
The captain was on the radio, barking his own commands. Their driver stepped on the gas, hurrying toward the stopped vehicle. He swerved down the road so sharply that Nuri thought they were going to spin off the road.
Someone ahead started shooting—a fireball shot up from around the bend.
“What the hell?” shouted Nuri.
“Unknown command,” responded MY-PID.
They skidded to a stop a few meters from the scene. The SUV was on fire, flames shooting in all directions.
Nuri got out of the car. He didn’t mind the fact that the bastards were burning to death—that part he liked. But the box was probably burning with them.
“MY-PID—have the helicopter put out the flames,” he said. “Beat them out with the rotor wash.”
“Command accepted.”
One of the Rattlesnakes swooped down. The wind from its counterrotating rotors sent a spray of dust and debris everywhere. Nuri had to turn his back to keep the grit from getting in his eyes.
One of the policeman was holding an RPG launcher. Why the hell had they blown up the SUV?
Oh shit.
“I’m going to check the prisoner,” said Nuri as calmly as he could. He began walking back up the road. As soon as he was out of earshot of the others, he asked MY-PID to review the Moldovan captain’s conversation.
“I need a translation,” he told the computer. “Word for word.”
“ ‘Unit 32,’ ” said the computer, reciting what it had heard in the background of Nuri’s earlier transmission. “ ‘Unit 32—are you reading me? Reading you. Blow up the SUV. There must be no survivors. Set it on fire. Destroy it completely.’ ”
“That’s what I thought,” mumbled Nuri.
“Command disregarded.”
“Now you’re learning.”
Nuri went back over to the woman who’d been stopped, already sure she wasn’t involved. Her head was bandaged and she gave him a dazed look, not sure what was going on.
“She claims she was on her way to work,” said one of the policemen in Moldovan.
“Maybe she was,” said Nuri. “Did you check with her employer?”
They were doing that right now. Meanwhile the car had been searched. There was no sign of the box.
Nuri wasn’t surprised. Most likely it had been in the SUV.
Although there was one other place where it might be.
He walked back down the road to the captain’s car. The fire was out now. The policemen were standing around the truck’s charred remains, looking at the smoldering metal and melted glass. The stench from the fire was incredible, a mixture of barbecued formaldehyde and pulverized iron.
The captain and his driver were with the others around the SUV. Nuri pulled open the driver’s side door, reached down and pulled the latch for the car trunk.
It didn’t open.
Nuri closed the door gently, trying not to make a sound. Then he walked over to the back of the captain’s car and took out his small lock pick. Cars were generally no more difficult to open than house doors, and the lock on this one proved ridiculously easy; he flicked and prodded, and felt the tumblers give within a few seconds.
Dropping to his knees, he pushed the lid of the car up slowly.
“You are a very clever man,” said the captain behind him. His English was vastly improved.
Nuri let go of the trunk and spread his arms, rising slowly.
“When did they approach you?” Nuri asked. “Were you always on their payroll?”
“Turn around and be quiet.”
Nuri turned slowly.
“Get away from the car. Go to the side.”
“You going to shoot me or arrest me?” asked Nuri.
The other policemen were all watching.
“Put your hands on the hood of the car,” said the captain. He turned to one of his men. “Handcuff him,” he said in Moldovan.
“They’re not all in on it, are they?” said Nuri loudly. “They must not be, because you would have shot me already. At least one of them must speak English. They’ll understand. Are you going to kill them, too?”
The captain told the man with the handcuffs to get them on.
“MY-PID, take him,” whispered Nuri.
“Target required.”
“The captain, the captain.”
Nuri threw himself to the ground. For a moment there was only silence, and he worried that he had miscalculated, that MY-PID didn’t have enough data or that somehow the Moldovan officer had managed to disable the Rattlesnake.
Then the aircraft began firing. Bullets crashed into the dirt, the 20mm shells tearing the Moldovan officer into pieces. The other policemen nearby dove for cover.
The policemen would have no compunction against killing him now. Nuri jumped up and grabbed a pistol that had been dropped by one of the policemen as they dove for cover. Then he turned back to the trunk for the strongbox. He grabbed the handle—it was heavier than he thought, and he needed both hands to carry it.
Which meant he couldn’t use the gun.
“MY-PID, I need the helicopter to pick me up,” he said.
“Rephrase.”
“Have Snake Two descend—I’m going to grab the skid. It has to lift me down the road.”
“Command accepted.”
“Get Snake One over here—intimidate these guys.”
“Unknown command.”
“Scare them.”
“Unknown command.”
“Circle the area, damn it. With Snake One. Lay down covering fire. Don’t hit them.”
“Command accepted.”
One of the policemen raised his head, then pulled up his weapon to fire. Snake Two fired first, sending bullets into the road only a few meters from him. The policeman quickly ducked back down.
The wash from the rotating blades nearly knocked Nuri over. He pitched his body to the side, then pulled his arm up over the skid, grabbing the box handle again.
“Go! Go! Go!” he yelled.
The robot helicopter practically tore his arm off as it lifted straight up.
“Just down the road! Not too far! Not too far!” Nuri yelled.
His arm hurt incredibly—it felt as if his shoulder had been dislocated. He glanced down. He seemed to be miles from the ground.
“Get me down safe. Safely!” he yelled as the robot helicopter flew southward. “Put me down in one piece. One fucking piece!”
“Unknown command.”
“Put me down!” yelled Nuri. “And learn how to understand profanity, you goddamned son of a bitch!”