Condor

by M. L. Buchman

  Then she remembered.

  Elayne cursed as she twisted too quickly to look at the dark-haired copilot climbing out of her chair.

  Black hair. Neatly cut.

  But when she turned and leaned back against the console beside the engineer, she had Holly Harper’s face—just as battered as the engineer’s.

  She’d wanted to rip it off, but three against one? She hadn’t succeeded.

  “Where are we going?” Her throat was dry…and incredibly sore.

  Right.

  The bitch had gotten her in a chokehold. Even swallowing hurt like hell.

  “Water.”

  Tim reached for a bottle.

  “Aspirin too if you’ve got it.”

  “Go to hell!” He held the bottle for her, yanking it away before she’d had half-enough.

  He wasn’t the problem.

  Holly was.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Somewhere you won’t like at all.” Holly spoke for the first time. One eye a clear blue, the other like a fake watercolor in contrast to the field of purple that surrounded it.

  “I gotta pee.” Maybe if she could get out of this chair, she’d have a chance. Holly and the one remaining man looked much the worse for wear.

  The pilot hadn’t left his seat for the fight, but neither had he come to her rescue. Noncombatant. Good to have around as she couldn’t fly the Antonov if she overpowered the other two.

  But she could certainly hold a gun on the pilot and make him go where she wanted.

  “Not a chance,” Holly said it softly.

  “Piss your pants. I couldn’t care,” the guy folded his arms over his chest.

  They’d both been very good.

  Only surprise had gotten her past the first fighter’s guard. Even down, he’d pinned her legs. Special Ops. American Special Operations.

  And Holly?

  What woman fought like that?

  “What are you?”

  “Australian SASR.”

  Elayne could only gape at her. What was an Aussie SASR doing on an American accident investigation team?

  That meant that Holly knew far more than she’d said. Worse, Holly had played her all along.

  If Holly knew enough to entice her aboard… That meant that Miranda’s cute little “I’m so odd and quirky” game had been a complete and total sham.

  Goddamn it! And she’d fallen for it.

  Now the pieces were falling into place.

  Persona satellite.

  Holly and her team aboard the transport craft.

  Holly hadn’t missed the flight or sent Elayne on some wild goose chase. They’d hijacked it right out of Samara and then egged her on until she’d just walked aboard.

  The Americans had a plan to steal it and Elayne was the only one who even knew about it. She was also the only one in a position to stop them, except she’d lost.

  She didn’t look down, but she did flex different combinations of muscles. They all hurt, but there was little give. Not even enough to get free.

  Something was missing.

  Her back pocket was empty. Her phone—

  She spotted it on the console beside the engineer. Disassembled. Battery and SIM card extracted.

  No use to her now. Several other weapons lay alongside it—the knife she’d put in a leg sheath, and the leg sheath, plus her backup Markov pistol. Every single item from the kit that the Moscow pilot had supplied her was there. So close and yet completely out of reach.

  Elayne had held it in.

  Played it cool.

  But this was too much. She was hurting. And she was about to lose a two-hundred-billion-ruble satellite to this…toad!

  Elayne screamed. She unleashed everything she had, managing enough freedom to thrash a fist on the chair arm.

  Who knew what else might loosen.

  As much as it hurt physically, she threw a full-blown tantrum—jerking and twisting for all she was worth—while she described Holly’s asexual nature being the reason Mike had never touched her. She—

  “Wow. She’s chuckin’ a proper wobbly. Dose her.” She heard Holly say.

  One of her ankles came partway loose just as the engineer pulled out a field injector.

  “About fucking time,” he jabbed it into her neck.

  His mutter was the last thing she heard as the drug took her under.

  73

  “Miranda?”

  “Yes?” She turned to Lizzy.

  “Holly wants to speak to you. An actual call, which is risky, but encrypted, so a short one should be okay.”

  Miranda looked at the main screen. The timer said they were still an hour from the airplane switchover point.

  She’d done her best to distract herself with work, but each passing minute made it harder and harder.

  “Put her on.”

  Lizzy tapped the conference phone.

  “Are you okay, Holly?”

  “Yes. Where’s Jeremy?”

  “He’s still in Seattle, but I’ve kept him on conference call in case you need him.”

  “Hi, Holly,” Jeremy spoke right up. “What’s it like flying the Antonov? I wish I could fly it to compare it with the C-5 Galaxy we took to Seattle. Not that I flew the C-5, but I felt what it was like to fly in it and I was thinking….”

  Holly’s laugh was a little rough, like it hurt. Miranda had never laughed until it hurt, but she’d cried until it hurt. She’d cried for three days when she found out about her parents’ deaths. They said you can’t remember pain, but she remembered everything. Including that her voice had sounded like Holly’s afterward.

  “You sound…tired.”

  “It’s been a long day,” Holly admitted.

  “It has.” Twenty-six hours ago she’d been worried about the identity of Ewan MacGregor. She’d taken a moment when no one was watching to look him up online. She now knew who he was, but it didn’t help her figure out how to describe him in Charades. So, he was still in a corner of her mind, worrying at her.

  “I want to try something,” Holly continued. “I’ve got a Russian cell phone here. My question is how do we cheat its signal onto the other plane, the decoy. After the switchover. Can we do that?”

  “It’s Elayne’s phone?” Miranda didn’t know why she made it a question. It was the only logical conclusion.

  Everyone twisted to look at her in surprise.

  Jeremy’s exclamation of “What?” was the only sound.

  Holly sighed. “Was trying to keep you from knowing about her.”

  “It’s a logical conclusion based on your actions at the crash site and the difficulties you had in flight a few hours ago. Is she…alive?” Miranda hated to ask but she needed to know.

  “Yes.” Holly’s answer was short and flat.

  “Okay. That’s good.” Miranda could only feel overwhelming relief. She couldn’t have faced Holly again otherwise.

  “So much for keeping you safely in the dark. Sorry, Miranda. I won’t try that again. Anyway, Elayne Kasprak is insanely dangerous, Russian terrorism squad—they’d call it counterterrorism. She took out the first Antonov and she almost got this one before we stopped her. I want to spoof her phone signal onto the decoy plane so that when the Russians shoot it down, they’ll think she’s as dead as the Persona satellite. Maybe even think she’s the one who tried to steal it, casting doubt on her past and maybe her entire cadre.”

  “I like it,” Drake muttered. “It’s nasty, underhanded, and I like it. What are you going to do with her?”

  “Well, if she behaves, I won’t shove her out a hatch. Though she’s definitely tempting me. Don’t worry. I’ve put her on a road train to nowhere. About the phone?”

  “I’m working on it,” Jeremy announced.

  In the small video link they’d been sharing, Miranda could see him working fast on a keyboard.

  “Um, neither plane is equipped for it.”

  Holly sighed. “Oh well, it was worth asking. Everything in place for the swit
chover?”

  “But I have an idea. What if we do the switchover near some remote cell tower? Have her place a phone call, then unplug the SIM card?”

  “What would that achieve? Who would she call?”

  There was a brief silence.

  Then Drake began to laugh softly.

  Miranda studied the sound. She was fairly sure that it was a joke meant for one single person, Drake himself, rather than a group. Indeed, no one else joined in his laughter, but she couldn’t identify any unique distinguishing characteristics that would assist her in the future.

  She slipped out her personal notebook and marked it as yet another category of humor.

  Drake read off a phone number with a country code that Miranda didn’t recognize.

  “Who’s that?”

  Drake smiled. “Trust me.”

  Miranda did.

  But did Holly?

  Holly answered the question for herself.

  “Thanks, Drake.” And Holly was gone.

  They were a good team. Miranda could definitely get used to the idea of having a team of people close to her.

  Who else would she keep close to her?

  Now that was an interesting question.

  74

  “You ready for this, Jon?”

  “No! Not as if I have any choice. Why did you even bother asking?”

  Elayne registered the words as she woke up. But it took her a few moments to make sense of them.

  She was still on the plane.

  Careful testing proved that she was still tied down.

  “Oh, man. I fell for that, didn’t I?” Major Jon Swift. She hadn’t noticed him earlier, but she recognized his voice from Fort Campbell, Kentucky. He must be the fourth crew member, the pilot. The noncombatant.

  “You bought it hook, line, and sinker, mate,” Holly crowed.

  Then her voice came closer.

  Elayne still didn’t move, just letting her head hang forward. Her hair masking her face to either side.

  “Okay, let’s wake her up.”

  “Uh,” the engineer’s deep voice. “I brought knock-outs, not amphetamines.”

  “How deep did you dose her?” Holly poked at Elayne, but she managed to repress any reaction.

  “Not as much as the flight crew or Tatyana Tarasova. Hated to do that. Seemed like a nice lady just doing her job. Actually, I’m surprised this bitch is still out.”

  Holly grabbed Elayne’s hair and used it to yank her head back.

  Elayne screamed as loudly as she could. Not because it hurt like a bitch—though it did—but because she was hoping to break Holly’s eardrums.

  “What the hell do you want?”

  “Hello,” Holly said complacently, giving her hair another painful yank before letting go.

  “Hello yourself, you bitch.”

  “Let’s just have a jabber.”

  “About what?”

  “Let’s start with what your real name is, Elayne Kasprak or Elizaveta Egorova?”

  Elizaveta was dead. “The first one.”

  The irritating bitch just raised an eyebrow at her.

  “Elayne Kasprak. This is something that you’ll never live to report to anyone.”

  “Zaslon, right?”

  “Yes, I’m Zaslon. And we are going to eat your country alive for this.”

  Holly leaned back comfortably against the opposite flight console. “How much would it be worth to you for me to be dead?”

  “Ten million in hard currency! US dollars. In a heartbeat. I promise that I’ll give that to anyone who kills you. Twenty if they bring you to me alive so that I can off you myself. I have slow and painful plans for you.” She looked at Tim, who didn’t react. Twenty million could buy any American—any ten Americans before the politicians drove the price up so much.

  “Real deal?”

  “Real deal,” Elayne confirmed.

  “Huh. Thought I’d be worth more than that.” Holly shook her head and made a tsk-tsking sound.

  Elayne focused on Holly’s black-and-blue eye and imagined whipping her with a truncheon until every square centimeter of her body was that same color.

  “What can you tell me about the payload on this flight?”

  “You already know.”

  “I do. Tell me anyway.”

  “I will ram this two-hundred-billion-rubles’ worth of Persona surveillance satellite up your ass. You’ll never get to keep it. We will destroy you for taking it.”

  “So you mentioned. But who said we were taking it?” Holly made it sound as if she was innocence itself.

  “What are you talking about?” Elayne tried to imagine what she was up to. It didn’t make any sense.

  “What crew would you hire to transport it?”

  “If I hired a crew, it sure as hell wouldn’t be you.”

  “Aww. I’m so hurt. Where do you think we’re going?”

  “Not America?”

  “Not America,” Holly agreed complacently.

  “Japan.”

  Holly shook her head.

  “China?” But that was impossible. America and China hated each other. But if their goal was to damage Russia, giving a Persona satellite to the Chinese would be an exceptional way to do it. “China. Better them than you.”

  “Think that’s enough?” Holly turned to Tim.

  “That’s plenty.” Tim turned away and pulled on a set of headphones.

  “Good,” and Holly turned away as if they hadn’t just been speaking.

  Elayne looked back and forth across the three crew members, but they were ignoring her.

  About two minutes later, Tim called out, “Got it. A little rough, but I like it.”

  Elayne heard her own voice speak into the cockpit.

  “Hello…China. This is…Elayne Kasprak…I’m Zaslon. I have…two-hundred billion-rubles…Russia…Persona surveillance satellite…as …I promise. For…twenty million in hard currency. US dollars.” The spliced pauses were short enough to be ignored during a radio transmission.

  Elayne started to struggle.

  Holly didn’t even turn around. “You want another knock-out dose?”

  If she was knocked out, there wouldn’t be opportunity.

  She stopped, but she was far from having given up yet.

  75

  “Any bets?” Holly called out.

  Jon certainly wasn’t taking any. The fact that he was the pilot and still wouldn’t bet probably wasn’t the best vote for success, but it was all he had.

  “Tim?”

  “Twenty on the good guys.”

  “Cheapskate. I’ll go fifty, Australian.”

  “Is that even real money?”

  They both laughed.

  “Any takers? Elayne? No?” Either Holly was cocky or simply irrepressible, and Jon hadn’t decided which yet.

  “They ready, Mike?” Holly had her satellite phone on speaker now.

  Mike had become the liaison to the Groom Lake pilots flying the C-5A Galaxy from its paint job in Seattle to the pending switchover here in Russia.

  Jon had followed their route as they’d arced the remote-controlled C-5 in along the Great Circle route, crossing toward Japan until well out on the Sea of Okhotsk. They had finally slipped down below radar before Sakhalin Island. The C-5 pilots were now circling the plane in a low holding pattern of an uninhabited stretch of forest, four hundred kilometers northwest of Vostochny Cosmodrome.

  It was a route that he hoped to follow back out of Russia very soon.

  He’d flown the Antonov Condor through a complete day-cycle into the future—six hours flying plus five time zones east. Evening’s darkness would hopefully hide their next actions.

  The thing about Vostochny that played to their advantage was its position. It was close by the Russia-China border. And to the west, the Chinese border curved five hundred kilometers to the north. To stay in Russian airspace, Jon had flown far north of the best Great Circle route and was only now turning almost due south toward Vost
ochny.

  “They’re ready,” Mike reported. “Came in so low I’m surprised they didn’t smack a fishing boat or something.” For added security, the American pilots remotely flying the C-5 Galaxy only knew their route. They knew nothing about why or about Jon’s Condor. Mike was the filter there.

  “Why Mike and not Miranda? I thought she was the more experienced pilot,” he’d asked Holly.

  “She’s so freaking good you can’t imagine. But she’s also our wildcard and isn’t the best at thinking about multiple things. I don’t want her thoughts focused on the flying.”

  Even in that simple statement, Holly’s protectiveness of Miranda shone clear as day. Her entire team had made it obvious that protecting Miranda was one of their highest priorities. It just confirmed his own assessment; that Miranda was an amazing woman.

  Even his uncle and his general-girlfriend seemed to agree.

  However, Jon suspected that Miranda needed far less protecting than the people closest to her seemed to think.

  “We’ve got a cell signal. Let’s do this.” Holly took Elayne’s cell phone and dialed the number Drake had given her.

  76

  General Zhang Ru of the Chinese Central Military Commission answered his phone, raising his glass of Kentucky bourbon whiskey to General Zuocheng Li in apology as he did so.

  Between them, they’d just managed to oust a recalcitrant committee member and replace him with a far more compliant one—one who had a past gambling problem that would ruin him if it was ever revealed. He’d straighten out now, assuming he valued his family’s lives.

  Tonight was a little private celebration. With Ru’s help, Li now directly controlled fully two-thirds of the Commission’s votes, making him the second most powerful person in China after the President.

  Of course, Ru would have to wait until they parted before he found himself a whore. Li was curiously devoted to his wife and was even now pushing Ru to find himself a permanent spouse. Ru didn’t like the idea, but they both knew that Li could have him ousted, disgraced, and executed on a whim. All he’d conceded, so far, was that he’d consider the suggestion, but he could feel the day coming soon where he’d better be taking a wife.