Authors: Dale Brown
Northwestern Moldova
T
he Rattlesnake lowered Nuri in a whirl of dust, setting him and the box gently in a field about a mile and a half from the Moldovans.
“Protect me,” he told MY-PID as soon as he managed to get on his feet.
“Command accepted. Perimeter established,” said the computer, directing the two robot helicopters to orbit above him.
“Connect me with Boston,” said Nuri.
His arms felt as if they had been pulled from their sockets. His neck bulged, all the muscles spasming. It was as if everything between his skin and his bones had been turned into sharp rocks.
“Nuri, what’s going on?” asked Boston, coming on the line.
“I shot the captain. He was trying to kill me. I need backup.”
“I have Sugar on her way with help. I see your location. Can you stay there?”
“I’ll try. I have the helicopters above me.”
“I’m tapping into the feed . . . It looks like you’re clear. I don’t see any of the Moldovans heading in your direction.”
Not yet, thought Nuri. He wiped his face with his sleeve, trying to clear some of the grit that was caked around his eyes, then dropped down to look at the box. It was locked, but keyed with a pattern so simple he could have opened it with a paper clip.
Unfortunately he didn’t have a paper clip, and he’d lost the small lock picking tools he kept in his belt. He scrambled around looking for something to use, but the field was used for growing wheat, not thin shards of metal. Grabbing the box, he started walking in the direction of the road. As he reached it he saw a house about a half mile down the road.
He was about to head toward it to see if he could borrow something to open the box when he saw an oversized SUV truck heading in his direction. He almost ordered the Rattlesnakes to fire before realizing it must be Sugar.
He ran to the driver’s side as the car stopped. Sugar and two other Whiplash troopers jumped out, guns drawn, forming a defensive perimeter.
“I need a paper clip,” said Nuri.
Sugar looked at him as if he was insane.
“I gotta open this box,” said Nuri. “I just need a little piece of metal.”
“Will a bobby pin do?” she asked.
“Yeah, if you got one.”
Undoing the lock took only a few seconds. Starting to raise the lid, he realized belatedly that it might be booby-trapped, and ducked back.
Nothing happened.
“What’s it say?” asked Sugar, peering over his shoulder.
The box contained five small notebooks. Nuri took the first one out, examining it. The pages were filled with Russian script.
“I can’t really read Russian,” he told her, taking out his MY-PID controller. “I’ll have to get the computer to read it for us.”
“We better do it in the truck,” she said, holding her head to the ear set. “A couple of the people you pissed off up at the farm are headed in our direction.”
Czech Republic
T
he Black Wolf needed more of the drug. It was a thirst, a ravenous hunger, a power he couldn’t resist. But he had none, and there was nothing he could do to fill the desire, to stop it, to calm his pounding heart.
He looked across the interior of the helicopter, staring at the man they’d brought as a hostage. Zen. He was lying prostrate on the deck of the chopper, a pathetic cipher.
Someone from his past.
It was a trick. He had no past.
But he did. And it involved a helicopter. There had been a flight. Something like this.
No. Not like this. Nothing was like this.
Czech Republic
C
leared of the traffic around the airport, Turk found he had open skies for miles and miles in front of him.
Not a good thing. He wanted to see a helicopter.
He tried reaching a Czech controller but couldn’t get anything on the frequency that he could understand. He tried switching the Tigershark’s communications section into its satellite com module so he could talk to Breanna on her satellite phone. But the call failed to go through.
What would the original Dreamland team have done in this situation fifteen years ago? They didn’t have instant com connections with everyone in the world.
They’d find the damn helicopter, first off.
Turk figured the helo had somewhere in the area of a twenty to thirty-minute lead over him. Traveling at 200 knots, tops, it could have gone one hundred miles from the Old State Castle.
“I need a standard search pattern, 150-mile radius of Kbely Airfield,” he told the flight computer. “I’m searching for a helicopter.”
The flight computer flashed a pattern on the screen, a series of crisscrossing arcs that would have him fly in a circle around the airport. It was a logical pattern, and to fly it he would have to turn immediately south and cut his speed.
But Turk resisted. It was
too
logical.
If he was the helo pilot, what would he do?
Fly like a bat out of hell.
Until he knew he was being followed. Then he’d stop somewhere, wait for the aircraft to go away, and start up again.
Which would help him, since once it set down, he could disable it safely and wait for the ground forces to surround it.
But the helicopter pilot didn’t know he was being followed. The Tigershark would be invisible to his radar until well after Turk saw the helo.
Turk could fix that. He tilted his wings, edging toward the outer radius of the search area the computer had outlined on the screen. Then he hit his flares.
Czech Republic
Z
en dragged himself to the bench seat at the side of the helicopter, then pulled himself upright.
It was definitely Stoner; he had no doubt. But in some sense it wasn’t Stoner—there was a curtain up behind his eyes, beyond the blank expression.
The others called him “Black” and “Black Wolf.” That was his identity now.
“You have a prosthetic leg,” said Zen, studying the way Stoner held himself against the bulkhead. “Both of them?”
Stoner stared at him.
“Did you lose them in the crash?” asked Zen. “We looked for you. We figured out later that you must have ordered the helicopter pilot to make your aircraft the target so the others could escape. It was you, wasn’t it?”
“It . . . made sense,” said Stoner.
E
verything came back.
Mark Stoner, CIA officer.
I am Mark Stoner. American.
Romania. Moldova.
And Asia before that.
This was Zen Stockard.
Zen.
Breanna’s husband, Jeff.
He remembered the beer. He remembered Dog. And Bree. Danny Freah and everyone else.
“Where the hell were you fifteen years ago?” Stoner asked. “Why didn’t you help me?”
“We didn’t think anyone could have survived that crash.”
No, no one could have survived. No one had survived—they’d taken what was left of him and shoveled him into this—a body of two phony legs from the hips down, a phony arm, a brain held in what was left of his skull by plastic.
A body that needed drugs to survive, drugs he thirsted for now.
“Stoner, we have to go back,” said Zen.
“There’s no going back, Jeff. We’re gone.” He pointed at his legs. “You know that.”
“Black, there’s a flare ahead,” yelled the helicopter pilot from the cockpit.
“Evade,” said Stoner flatly.
T
urk let off a volley of flares and checked his speed, lowering it to 200 knots. This was considerably slower than the aircraft liked, and it whimpered slightly, lowering its nose like a chastised pony.
“Contact at two o’clock, altitude sixty feet AG,” said the computer, telling the pilot its radar had spotted something about sixty feet off the ground to his right. “Distance at one-point-two miles.”
“Identify aircraft,” said Turk, glancing at the plot screen.
The helicopter was heading southeast at about 98 knots. He pulled to his left, starting a circle that would take him around so he could approach from the rear.
“Type is Russian-made Mil, Mi–16,” said the computer. It used the video cameras to capture the image and identify it in its library of types. “No identifying marks. Paint scheme similar to Czech air force.”
“Is it a Czech helicopter?”
“Camouflage is similar to Czech air force.”
“Similar but not the same?”
“Out of visual contact. Insufficient data.”
“We can fix that,” said Turk, coming out of his turn. The helo had ducked even lower: it was now just under ten feet from the ground, running along a road through the Czech hills.
Turk switched to the emergency or “Guard” band, a common frequency monitored by all aircraft.
“Mil helicopter, this is U.S. Air Force Tigershark. You are ordered to land at Kbely Air Field. Do you copy?”
There was no answer.
“Mil helicopter, I have orders to get you on the ground,” he said, improvising. “I can do that in any number of ways. Most of them not good for you.”
The helicopter took a hard turn right, flying over a field. Turk, who was already going almost twice as fast as the chopper, couldn’t follow; instead, he banked in the other direction and came around, lining up again on its tail.
What was he going to do? He had no missiles in his bays and no bullets in his gun. Even if he had, he’d be reluctant as hell to use them. His childhood hero was aboard the damn aircraft, for God’s sakes.
Only one option: bluff the crap out of him.
S
toner leaned over the pilot’s shoulder, looking at the terrain. They were five miles from Plegeau, a town outside of Mestecko and one of their alternate escape points. Two vehicles were stashed in a barn there.
The aircraft chasing them was American. It would be hard for him to coordinate with ground units. They could get away.
“Give me your map,” Stoner told the pilot.
The copilot handed him a folded-over chart. It took a moment for him to orient himself, then pick out the location.
“Fly to this spot,” he said, pressing his finger there. “You will see a barn painted green at the top of the hill. We will land next to a red barn on the next hill over, just to the east of that one. Do you understand?”
“The pilot of the aircraft is warning that he will shoot us down,” said the pilot.
“He’s an American,” replied Stoner. “He won’t dare.”
“T
igershark, are you on this channel?”
Breanna’s voice came loud and clear in Turk’s headset.
“Hey, roger that, boss—can you hear me?”
“Affirmative. What’s your situation?”
“I have the helicopter in sight. Not answering hails.”
“Describe the helicopter.”
“Hold on.”
Turk throttled back again as the helicopter jinked hard to the right. It was very close to the ground—so close that he thought it was going to hit a house as it turned.
“Mi–16. If this isn’t the helicopter, it’s sure doing a great impression,” he told Breanna. “Brown on tan camo in a scheme similar to the Czech air force, but not precisely the same.”
“I’m going to attempt to make contact,” Breanna told him. “In the meantime, I have a Czech air force staff officer ready to contact you. Stand by for the frequency.”
Z
en looked at the two other men who’d gotten into the aircraft. They were watching Stoner, not him. But there was no way he could overpower even one of them, let alone both.
“Where are we going?” Zen asked them.
They pretended not to hear. He asked it again. It was Stoner who answered, coming back into the cargo area.
“We’re getting away,” he said. “We can go anywhere. Our network is worldwide.”
“Do you work for the Russians?” Zen asked.
“I work for myself.”
“Really? Who put you back together?”
Stoner frowned, then shook his head. “I wish it had never happened,” he said. “I wish I had died that day.”
“You don’t really wish that, do you, Mark?”
But he could see that Stoner did. There was real pain in his eyes—deep anguish.
Regret, maybe?
Zen wanted to say that they could fix things, but knew it would be impossible. He had to say something, though. Not to save himself, but because he felt as if they owed Stoner somehow.
He did owe him. Stoner had saved his wife.
“Mark, listen to me—”
Stoner reached into his pocket. His phone was ringing.
Not his phone. Zen’s.
“W
hat do you want?” Stoner asked.
“Mark, this is Breanna Stockard. We know you’re in the helicopter. We’re following it. Listen, we found a box that has records of your treatment. They used powerful drugs on you. We can help reverse them.”
Breanna Stockard. It was full circle now.
“Mark, listen to me,” she continued. “You helped me once. I can help you. Let me help you.”
“I’m beyond help.” He reached his thumb for the End button.
“You’re not,” he heard her say before he clicked the phone off.
He tossed it at Zen.
“That was your wife,” he told him.
T
wo MiG–35s appeared on the radar screen just as Turk made contact with the Czech air force colonel assigned to liaison with him. The aircraft were coming off the runway at Caslave, a base about fifty miles north of him. They weren’t walking either—once off the tarmac, they poured on the afterburners, juicing over Mach 1.
Good luck with that, thought Turk. You’ll never stay close to the helicopter going that fast.
Their radars couldn’t locate the Tigershark, even when he gave them a position. The two aircraft turned a circle some 10,000 feet above him.
“American aircraft, please restate your position,” said one of the pilots.
“This is Tigershark. I am about ten angels below you, five miles south, uh, on your nine o’clock. Helo looks to be slowing down. He’s low, real low.”
“Tigershark, Checkmate One acknowledges,” said the Czech pilot, giving his call sign. “Please stand clear.”
“Uh, stand clear? Repeat?”
“Please remove from area. We are going to engage the enemy aircraft.”
“Negative, negative. Do not engage—they’ve got a hostage aboard.”
“We have orders, Tigershark. Please stand clear.”
Shit on that, thought Turk, pushing closer to the helicopter.
“T
wo kilometers,” said the pilot.
Stoner saw the green building ahead in the distance. The other barn was still out of sight.
“MiGs!” warned the copilot. “We are being tracked.”
It was exactly the same. Exactly.
“Keep going,” he said.
T
urk banked hard behind the helicopter and loosed a group of flares. He spun back left, ahead and above the helicopter, and released some more.
“Tigershark, stand off!” repeated the Czech pilot.
“Yo, bro, I ain’t movin’,” said Turk.
“We see your flares. Your aircraft is in the way.”
“That’s the idea,” he answered.
Z
en felt the helicopter weave and bob as the sky exploded around them. He thought for a moment that they were being fired on, then realized he was only seeing flares.
“Land the aircraft,” he told Stoner. “Get us down. You can surrender. We’ll fix you.”
Stoner frowned at him.
“We are landing,” he said. He turned to the other two Wolves and spoke to them in what Zen guessed was Russian.
The helicopter banked, then turned hard in the other direction, then dipped so quickly Zen felt weightless.
And then they were on the ground.
S
toner grabbed the back of Zen’s shirt as the helicopter settled down.
“Out!” he commanded. “Everyone out!”
He dragged Zen along the deck of the chopper, pulling him along as he followed the others outside. There were aircraft above—two MiGs, diving furiously in their direction, and another, smaller plane that ducked between them.
“Get the cars!” he shouted.
He still had Zen. What should he do with him?
Kill him, and make a clear break with the past. Or leave him here, as he’d been left.
But that wasn’t the same thing, was it? He’d been left to die. Zen would surely be found.
He looked toward the aircraft. The pilots, slowed by their seat harnesses, were just now getting out.
“Stoner, you can be helped,” said Zen.
“What are you doing with the American, Black?” asked Blue, shouting over the helicopter’s dying engines.
“We don’t need him anymore,” said Stoner, and he dropped Zen to the ground.
“We should take him,” said Blue. “We can always kill him later.”
“Get to the cars.”
“I wouldn’t have believed that you would turn soft for the Americans,” said Blue.
The pounding in Stoner’s head increased. His throat felt scratchy, as if it were made of sandpaper.
He knew what was coming. He saw it before it happened.
Blue spun, gun drawn. Stoner already had his gun out and shot once, through the right eye as he knew he must. Then he turned and caught Gray in the temple. The bullet struck one of the carbon plates that had been inserted in his brain, throwing Gray to the ground but not killing him. Stoner took two quick steps, leaning down as Gray struggled for his gun.
He shot him in the face. It was the only reliably vulnerable place.
Z
en saw the gun fly from the Blue Wolf’s hand as it fell. He began crawling toward it.
T
he pilots began to run as soon as the Black Wolf shot Blue.
Neither was a member of the Wolves, but they were dangerous nonetheless. They would find a way to tell Gold what had happened.
They might even be wired to do that now, Stoner realized.
They had run to the barn. Stoner began walking after them. With his third stride he broke into a run.
Stoner heard the planes buzzing above him but ignored them.
He heard something else. Unlike some of the other Wolves, his hearing was not augmented, but the techniques they had taught him for focusing his mind helped him pick out different sounds from a cacophony of noises, in effect increasing his ability.