by Ward Larsen
Antonelli edged her head into the cockpit. After an awkward silence, she said, “I went to the hangar first, but couldn’t find you.”
“Why the hell did you even come back?” he snapped.
The doctor just stood there and stared. Didn’t answer. They both already knew.
As Fadi Jibril was watching his computer monitor, he felt Khoury’s presence over his shoulder.
“Are we on schedule?” the imam asked.
“Yes, no more than a minute behind,” Jibril answered. “We will reach the staging point in two hours. When can we expect to receive the final targeting information?”
“Soon, Fadi. Achmed is handling it. He will take the coordinates over the radio from our man on the ground in Israel.”
Jibril moved the cursor back and forth on the computer screen. As if his mind was on his work. In truth, he found himself analyzing the imam’s words. He had left this one unresolved task to Khoury—the receipt of the final coordinates. Over the radio … from our man on the ground in Israel. How could this be? Jibril wondered. This airplane had four radios, two he’d specially designed and installed. Jibril had positioned and checked every antenna, analyzed the configuration for interference, susceptibility to icing, and power requirements. He knew, by precise calculation, the range of each component. Israel was seven hundred miles away, over two hundred from the staging point. That was the closest they would ever get. The range of the best VHF radio on the airplane was less than one hundred sixty miles, even under the most favorable atmospheric conditions. They could never receive a signal from Israel. Did the imam not know this? Then Jibril recalled the other thing that had been bothering him—the Israeli prime minster was supposedly in Washington today. Jibril had not followed his instinct to verify this—it would have been simple enough. Instead, he had trusted Khoury blindly.
“Sheik …” Jibril hesitated, “are you sure we can receive this report?”
“Of course,” Khoury said, a comforting hand falling to Jibril’s shoulder. “Achmed is in contact with our operative as we speak. All is on schedule.” The hand stayed on Jibril’s shoulder for some time before Khoury said, “I must go and check with him now.” The imam went to the cockpit.
Jibril’s hand fumbled over the controls, and his stomach churned. He manipulated his computer to show a new readout. He had thought it useful to create a program to monitor the VHF radios, giving him the ability to track the frequencies tuned by each component. Presently, two were controlling the drone as expected. One of the airplane radios was tuned to an air-traffic-control frequency. Jibril studied the last radio, the auxiliary VHF on the flight deck. It was tuned to 127.5 MHz, a frequency that meant nothing to Jibril. Was this the frequency that would be used to receive the targeting coordinates? It had to be. But how at this range? He saw the imam engaging one of the two security men. Again Jibril felt uneasy, and for the first time asked himself why Khoury had even seen a need to bring these men.
Jibril had also programmed the ability to listen to the radios, and so he clicked a symbol on his screen to send the audio from 127.5 MHz to his headset.
Fadi Jibril heard nothing.
The airplane was steady on a heading of three five zero. Almost due north.
Antonelli had taken the copilot’s station—not for any duties, but simply because that was the only other seat on the aircraft. Davis watched her scanning the sky, watched the early light play through her raven hair. She was beautiful. She was maddening. He had tried to be angry with her for not going to the embassy, for not extracting herself from the danger he’d put her in. It was all but impossible. Antonelli had done exactly what he would have done.
As the airplane climbed, he explained what he’d found at the hangar. He told her that Blackstar was on its way to an attack, and that the United States was being set up to take the blame. “The only thing I can’t figure out,” he said with one hand on the control column, “is what they’re targeting.”
“We are heading north. Could it be something in Israel?”
“That was my first guess, but now I’m not so sure.”
“Why?”
In truth, Davis couldn’t peg where his reservations had come from. He said, “I took a look through Khoury’s Land Rover, the one that was near the—” his voice trailed off.
“Body? I have seen bodies before, Jammer. I also see the wound on your head, so I won’t pass judgment.”
“Fair enough.” He had taken one of the posters from the Rover, folded it up and stuffed it in a pocket. He pulled it out and showed Antonelli. “Any idea who this guy is?”
She looked closely. “I may have seen his picture before. But I definitely recognize the name. General Ali is the Sudanese minister of defense.”
“Okay,” he said. “Now look closer, at the bottom. Check the title.”
Antonelli did, and the revelation clearly hit her. “What could this mean?”
Davis studied the picture again, and had the same odd feeling he’d had earlier—that he’d seen it before. Then it dawned on him. He hadn’t recognized the picture. It was the pose. Eyes cast downward slightly. Watching. Just like the propaganda photos of the president that were hung in every office of every building in Sudan. There were a thousand copies of General Ali’s photo back in the Land Rover, all cut to fit in the very same picture frames. Davis stared at the poster.
“Contessa …” he hesitated.
“What is it?”
“I haven’t seen much news lately, but that Arab League conference is taking place today, right?”
He could see her run a quick calendar in her head. “Yes, it is scheduled for this morning.”
“And who will be there?”
“The leaders of virtually every Arab country,” she said.
“What about the Sudanese president?”
“Of course, it has been in the local papers for weeks.”
That’s it, Davis thought. It all made perfect, wicked sense. He stared at Antonelli and waited. She was a smart lady, so it didn’t take long.
“A coup d’état?” she exclaimed.
“Disguised as an attack by the United States. Ten or twenty heads of state killed, including the Sudanese president. If it happens, there will be power struggles all across the region tonight, just like after the uprisings that got rid of Mubarak and the rest. The Arab world will be so shocked and incensed by the idea of a U.S. attack that nobody will give a second thought to the minister of defense taking charge in Khartoum.”
Antonelli stared out the front window. “What can we do?” she asked.
Davis checked the manifold pressure on the engines and bumped up the throttles, pushing the old radials as hard as he dared.
“We can fly faster.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The clock moved with glacial speed.
Davis tried the radio every five minutes. Twelve times in the first hour. The second hour he called every three minutes. Not a word came in reply. He was in a familiar arena, indeed his area of expertise—one airplane hunting another. Only he didn’t have radar for guidance, and wasn’t talking to anyone who did. He was fighting blind, just lumbering along as fast as the big machine would go, hoping like hell they were flying in the right direction. He figured the geometry of the intercept for a classic tail chase. His only chance was speed, but in that respect Davis was on unfamiliar ground. If he were flying an F-16 in full afterburner, he’d be somewhere over Europe right now, albeit out of gas. As it was, he might be gaining ten miles an hour on the pair of aircraft in front. Assuming they were in front.
He knew he couldn’t rely on radio contact alone. Schmitt might not be in a position to reply. Truth was, he might already have a bullet in his head like the two poor Ukrainian bastards. So Davis kept a keen eye out the window, looking for a slow-moving dot. Or better yet, two. It was like playing hide-and-seek, only the playground was the size of a country, a hundred thousand square miles of empty sky.
“I need to look at that,” Anton
elli said, interrupting his thoughts. She was staring at the side of his head, the place where an oak log had slammed into his skull.
Davis didn’t argue.
Her hands held his head gently, and after a brief appraisal the doctor disappeared for a time into the aft cabin. She came back with a first-aid kit.
“Is that really necessary?” he asked.
Antonelli didn’t bother to reply. She cleaned and dressed the wound, and at the end wrapped a long bandage around his head three times. Davis saw his reflection in the side window.
“I look like a pirate.”
“Good, because you often act like one.”
He grinned. “Anyway, thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Now can you tell me where we are?”
“Egypt, I think.” Davis left it at that because there were no positives in an expanded answer. He was sure they’d crossed the border, and that was a problem. He hadn’t talked to an air traffic controller all morning. Not that he was concerned about air traffic—running into another airplane over the middle of the Sahara Desert was one chance in a billion. But he was very worried about an Egyptian fighter draped in missiles swooping up on his wing. Not by choice, Davis had reverted to bygone days. He was flying this old crate like pilots had flown her when she was fresh out of the factory. Maneuvering a slow airplane in a big sky, keeping out a sharp eye.
He tried to raise Schmitt again on the radio. Still nothing. Davis checked his fuel state and saw another worry. In thirty minutes, maybe forty, things would get very quiet. Antonelli had her eyes glued to the sky now, helping him look. She was clearly anxious, and Davis decided she could use a distraction. He handed over the microphone.
“Here,” he said, “keep calling. Electrons are free.”
“What do I do?”
“Just press the button and talk. The captain’s name is Schmitt. No wait—his call sign is Schmitthead.”
With a questioning look, Antonelli put the microphone to her lips.
Fadi Jibril heard the woman’s voice. He pressed his headset to his ears and listened more closely.
“I repeat, are you there?”
Jibril wanted desperately to say something, yet he had not designed the workstation with any capability to transmit. From his seat, he could monitor the frequencies but not talk. Jibril was trying to think of a way around this when a familiar hand grasped his shoulder. The gesture that had once comforted now felt like the hand of death.
“Is the drone in position?” Khoury asked.
Jibril pointed to the screen. “Yes, here. It is established in a holding pattern at the initial point, very near our own position but at a lower altitude. If you go forward and look out the window, slightly to the right, you should see it.”
Khoury didn’t move. “It is time to finish our work, Fadi. Achmed has received the final coordinates.”
For Jibril, these were the words that brought the truth crashing down. It was a lie, pure and absolute. He had been listening to the auxiliary frequency for the last two hours. There had been no instructions from any contact in Israel. The only thing Jibril had heard was the desperate voice of an unknown woman. He suddenly realized that Rafiq Khoury was not alone behind him. One of the guards was standing at his side.
“Yes, of course, sheik.”
Khoury placed a handwritten set of coordinates on the work table in front of Jibril. N29°58′50.95″ E31°09′0.10″.
“Now!” Khoury commanded.
Jibril’s hands went slowly to the keyboard. The coordinates were not in Israel—he knew this instantly—but without a map he could only estimate. Jibril tried to mentally plot the lat-long pairing using the map on his display. Somewhere north of their present position. Near Cairo perhaps? He thought about questioning the numbers, but Khoury would only grow suspicious.
The hand of death left his shoulder.
Jibril decided that identifying the target was not important. All that mattered was the evil around him. Deftly, he brushed a finger on the caps lock key and began typing the sequence. The coordinate field on the screen became populated with an indecipherable mash of symbols.
“What are you doing?” Khoury objected.
“I don’t know what is wrong, sheik. The—”
Two arms wrapped around Jibril’s chest, restraining him like a straightjacket. Khoury leaned in and entered the final coordinates, just as Jibril had taught him. The same scramble of symbols.
“What have you done?” Khoury hissed.
Fixed to his chair, Jibril watched as the imam figured out the problem. He released the caps lock key, and his second attempt succeeded. The message FINAL POSITION UPDATE CONFIRMED flashed for three seconds, followed by a lone word in surreal green letters at the center of the screen. AUTONOMOUS. In a matter of minutes, Blackstar would turn north on its final course, guided in the terminal phase by onboard systems that would hold to an accuracy of less than ten meters. Precise enough, Jibril supposed, for whatever Khoury had in mind. Worst of all, there was no way to change the command or abort. Blackstar was now irretrievable.
Jibril began to struggle against the arms that anchored him to his chair. Struggled until something blunt crashed into his head. Dazed, Jibril went limp and felt warmth oozing down one cheek.
Khoury leaned forward to be in his field of vision. “In the end you have failed me, Fadi. Fortunately, your American conscience is too late.”
“My … my what?”
Khoury started to speak again, but was interrupted by shouts from the cockpit. The words were indistinguishable to Jibril—his headset still covered one ear, and the other was ringing from the blow he’d taken. But his eyes were sharp enough. He saw Achmed coming aft again. He began jabbering to Khoury, gesticulating wildly. Only when he got closer did the words register for Jibril.
“Again he sends me here!” Achmed complained. “There is nothing wrong, I tell you. He is a madman!”
Khoury stared at the cockpit, suspicion in his mismatched gaze. He murmured into Achmed’s ear.
From the headset, Jibril heard the woman’s voice crackle across the airwaves again. It was maddening. If he spoke only once again in his life, it would be to warn whoever it was, hope that they could forestall the terror about to rain. But Jibril had no voice. The only way to transmit was to use the microphones in the cockpit.
Moments later, his headset buzzed as someone did exactly that.
Davis heard Schmitt growl over the radio, “Who the hell is this?”
He took the microphone from Antonelli. “Say position!”
After modest pause, Schmitt said, “We’re thirty south of Giza, near our IP.”
IP was the military abbreviation for “initial point,” the spot you used as a beginning reference for a final attack run. Davis checked his instruments and estimated that Schmitt was twenty miles ahead.
Schmitt again. “Jammer, I don’t have much time. Khoury and Achmed are getting suspicious. Can somebody tell me what the hell this is all about?”
“Yeah, I’ll tell you,” Davis said. “That drone you’re controlling is about to obliterate the Arab League conference in Giza.”
Another pause, this one much longer. Davis imagined Schmitt deciphering the ramifications of that. He wasn’t stupid—just self-centered. He’d been concentrating on a nice payday, and probably assuming that anything involving Rafiq Khoury and Fly by Night Aviation had to be minor league. Now he was thinking differently, understanding the damage about to be done.
“So what can we do?” Schmitt finally replied.
Davis had no answer. He’d come this far just to establish contact, but now what? If he were sitting in the cockpit next to Schmitt, they could put aside their miserable past and come up with a plan. Davis could swing a fist or a crash ax while Schmitt flew. From where he was, Davis was helpless.
“How much time is left?” he asked. “Do you have any idea when this strike is going to happen?”
Schmitt said, “I can see the drone now. It’s in a holding pat
tern a thousand feet below me.”
“Okay, so it hasn’t launched yet. If there’s enough time we could—”
“Ten o’clock!” Antonelli shouted from across the cockpit.
The way she blurted it out, Davis’ first instinct was to turn his head sixty degrees to the left—the ten o’clock position to any pilot—and look for an incoming missile. Then he put it in her layman’s terms, lowered the microphone, and looked at her. “Ten o’clock?” he repeated.
“That’s when it will happen.”
“How the hell could you know that?” Davis asked.
“It has been in the news for weeks. The Arab League conference begins at ten o’clock. All the heads of state will be gathered.”
Davis wasn’t wearing a watch, so he cross-checked the clock on the old airplane. Twenty-three minutes. He fumbled over the chart he’d been working with and estimated the position of Blackstar relative to Giza. Twenty minutes was just about right—if Blackstar left right now.
He keyed the microphone. “Schmitt, I think the drone is going to depart the IP any minute. We’ve got to do something now. What if you powered down all the electrical busses on your airplane? Could that interrupt the control? Maybe screw something up?”
“I could try, but it wouldn’t work for long. I’ve got two of Khoury’s goons over my right shoulder. They have guns and aren’t going to let—hang on, Jammer. I’m watching the drone right now, and it just took a turn to the north. Maybe if I—crap!”
Schmitt’s microphone went hot again, and Davis heard shouting. Schmitt was clearly struggling. More shouts in Arabic, loud and clear. Close to the microphone. Close to Bob Schmitt. He was under attack. The transmission cut off.
Davis tried to imagine what he would do in that situation. Outnumbered, outgunned. Only one idea came to mind.
“Defensive maneuvering! Push over, negative Gs! You’re strapped in but they’re not! Do it now!” Davis hoped Schmitt could still hear the radio. He repeated it all, then kept repeating it because that was all he could do. Davis saw a tiny dot ahead and thought it might be Schmitt’s DC-3, but soon he realized it was the other aircraft—the ominous arrowhead that was Blackstar. It was heading north, just like Schmitt had said, so the DC-3 had to be to its left. Davis scanned, and did see a second dot, perhaps ten miles ahead. He watched closely, and for the first few seconds the airplane was cruising straight and true.
