“Don’t!” Her eyes were now steely blue as they shifted to Glaser.
His Ma would always joke about when Charlie would get really mad, his eyes would go “kitten-blue.” Not this woman. She could do welding, like heavy machine shop welding, with those eyes.
She seemed to be wavering on her feet.
But she wasn’t.
It was him.
“Slow,” the welding lady said to Glaser.
Glaser took her hand off her holstered sidearm, then carefully plucked it out of the holster with her thumb and forefinger before setting it on the seat. She dropped a knife and a backup piece beside it.
“Unload him. No tricks or the round will go through both your heads. And don’t get any blood on your uniform.”
Glaser mouthed a “sorry” as she took his sidearm and knife. She didn’t bend down for the rifle, instead nudging it forward with her foot.
“Sit!” She waved one of her pistols at him.
His knees were weak enough that he collapsed back onto one of the plush seats. His shoulder roared with agony again as he instinctively tried to use his arm on the armrest. Instead, he tumbled into the seat—which hurt even worse!
Glaser had missed his backup piece, but it was on his injured left side, no way to reach it with the right.
“Strip.”
Charlie didn’t know if he could manage. But then he realized that she was talking to Glaser, not him.
He faded in and out as she did so.
Vest, weapons belt, boots, clothes. The blonde insisted on the t-shirt too until Glaser was standing there in just bra and panties. She had a far better body than he’d thought. Betty Glaser was soldier hot. About time somebody at al-Tanf was.
She stood half a row in front of him.
A tattoo at the base of her spine was of a red-and-gold dragon. That tattoo changed a lot of his guesses about her. He’d bet that she’d learn to fit the job just fine.
Had to be tough to wear a dragon like that. Make a good soldier—
The shot to Glaser’s heart was almost silent, just a click of the slide ejecting the round and loading the next.
Blood fountained out her back, partly hiding the dragon behind a spray of red rain that spattered over him too, though he could do no more than blink it away.
She seemed to collapse in slow motion to lie flat on her back in the aisle. It was funny that she lay down there when there were all these ultra-classy seats on the plane. Or maybe it was better. The bloody red hole in her chest was making a mess.
The blonde stripped off her own blood-soaked uniform.
If Betty was—had been—soldier-hot, the blonde was in a whole other league.
Model-hot? Nope.
Magazine-hot? That wasn’t it either.
Oh! Centerfold-hot.
That was it.
Though maybe not with the crazy welding eyes.
The right side of her bra was blood-soaked, too. As were her ribs and hip.
Some jingle about rinse the stain out slipped by, but he couldn’t quite latch on to it.
She followed the direction of his gaze and looked down at the stains.
They both looked at Glaser’s bra, but even not counting the bullet hole, it was in far worse condition than her own. Too bad. It looked as if Glaser’s had been nice breasts. He supposed he should feel something looking at Betty Glaser lying there all dead like a piece of roadkill, but he couldn’t think of what at the moment.
Cold! When did it get so cold in the desert? He couldn’t even shake with the chill.
The blonde said something that sounded very foul and…Russian. Shit! He’d been trapped but good. The Ruskies had crossed way inside the DCZ border, and he hadn’t called in anyone.
She looked at him and muttered something about, “Waste of another bullet.”
Between one slow blink and the next, she was fully kitted in Betty’s clothes and gear, including vest, helmet, and sunglasses.
The next blink she was outside the window, setting something under the wing with a metallic clunk. Twice more, fore and aft.
Next: his M-ATV was leaving without him. He’d bet that it wasn’t heading to the US patrol line.
He again thought about calling it in.
That’s when he noticed that his radio was missing, not that he had the energy to care.
He watched Glaser’s dead form.
Not squished like roadkill after all.
Just lying like she was asleep in the aisle…just waiting for him. By the blood still welling under his hand, he supposed that would be true soon enough.
Twenty minutes later, though his heart was still beating slowly, Sergeant Charlie Wiggins didn’t notice when the timer set by Zaslon operative Elayne Kasprak ran out.
She’d placed three breaching charges along the Falcon 7X’s three lower fuselage fuel tanks: fore, center, and aft.
The airplane had been fully refueled at Diego Garcia in preparation for the long return flight to Australia. The flight to Syria had used just half of the forty-seven hundred gallons.
The JP-5 jet fuel went up in a fireball that would scatter everyone’s remains far too wide to ever be gathered together again.
60
“Thanks for not shoving me out midflight, Captain.”
“Our pleasure, ma’am.” The Air Force pilot was a patient man, but Holly knew she’d pushed his limits during the flight.
At a loss for where Elayne might have gone, she’d headed to rejoin Miranda on the fastest plane remaining at Diego Garcia—an ancient US Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker.
It had been developed from the same prototype—and at the same time—as the original Boeing 707. The newest one was fifty-five years old, this one was closer to sixty-five.
But it was still a jet, just thirteen miles an hour slower than the Falcon 7X would have gotten her there.
To the Air Force’s credit, it had only taken them twenty minutes to get the plane aloft from the end of Clarissa’s phone call, not that she’d ever admit her appreciation for that efficiency to Clarissa.
From the inside, a Stratotanker looked like your average cargo plane: steel decking below, exposed sound insulation along the entire curve of the hull above, and incredibly uncomfortable fold-down seats along either side. This jet wasn’t about moving people, it was about moving airplane fuel—thirty thousand gallons at a time. They refueled everything from jet fighters to Air Force One.
At the rear, under the deck, was a large window and three lay-down tables, like you were waiting for a massage. A boom operator could lie there on their stomach and, using tiny winglets, literally fly the refueling boom to mate with thirsty aircraft in-flight.
And in the six hours and twelve minutes of flight, she’d walked an untold number of miles from the cockpit to the refueling boom and back.
As she’d paced end-to-end of the KC-135’s eighty-eight-foot cargo bay, all she could think to do was to get to Miranda and protect her. Elayne could have done anything, planned anything, while stewing in her luxury cell.
And now that she was out?
How was she supposed to guard against someone like Elayne twenty-four-seven?
It just wasn’t possible.
Holly knew that the best preparation for a mission was sleep, but that wasn’t going to happen. Only her training forced her to eat, and only her iron will kept her from puking it back up.
The pilots had let her strap down in the jump seat for the final approach and landing on the dirt at al-Tanf.
“Do me a favor, mates, don’t be ripping off any wings on landing or otherwise.”
They laughed, “Well, okay. Just because you asked so nice.”
She was glad that they thought it was a joke. Jump seat, short final, in a large jet. After yesterday’s crash on Johnston Atoll, it was no longer on her list of fun places to be.
They were less than a thousand feet up when a flash of light had her looking to the east.
“Is that where the crash is?”
&n
bsp; “No. That’s due north. There.” The copilot pointed at a cluster of vehicles around a plane’s worth of wreckage.
The flash of light turned into a fireball, then a pillar of black smoke raced up into the sky. It lay ten miles away.
This time Holly didn’t ignore the itchy feeling.
A crashed plane and a second explosion deep inside the DCZ didn’t feel like a coincidence.
Elayne had departed to the northeast. Toward India.
Was it chance that she’d been set free or part of some plan?
Had the crash in Syria been Elayne’s next move?
Oh shit!
Holly willed the plane onto the ground.
Please don’t let her be too late.
61
The perimeter guard flagged her down and double-checked Betty Glaser’s ID. She and Elayne didn’t look at all alike. Thankfully, full combat gear left very little exposed.
“Thought you were on perimeter patrol today,” the guard offered a smile, then handed back her ID.
“Hey, I just go where they tell me.”
“Ain’t that the truth. None of us getting out of the sun today,” he glanced upward.
“Whoa, take ’er easy there, Pilgrim. Don’t peak too soon.”
He laughed and waved her toward the wreck.
She wondered if John Wayne quotes always work on Americans.
Elayne sat in her M-ATV at the edge of the Senators’ plane crash and waited. Her timing was good; she’d had to sit less than a minute before the fireball of the Falcon distracted people around the site.
Climbing out into the blazing heat, she headed toward the NTSB team. Their methodical progress stood out like sore thumbs from the military personnel hustling through the wreckage. Four of them wore bright yellow ball caps as well.
She recognized and avoided Mike Munroe. He’d get his later but she couldn’t afford to be recognized as herself at the moment.
She’d also seen the Vietnamese kid at the crashes last year, but hadn’t had anything to do with him. He could live—for now.
The other two women were new.
Just as she arrived at the group, they were all turning to face the growing smoke column.
All except Miranda Chase. Just like on the crash of the Condor a year ago, she didn’t even look up. She was wholly focused on the ground as she tracked the perimeter of the debris field. Little Miss Anal.
Elayne stepped up to her, careful to keep her back to Mike, even if he was looking the other way and stood over ten meters away.
“Ms. Chase?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been asked to escort you to another crash that has just occurred,” Elayne gave it her best cross of military hustle but patience with civilians.
“But I haven’t even started this one.”
“My orders state that this new crash has a higher priority.” She should have had a “who” ready. Oh, she did. “It’s a special request from CIA Director Clarissa Reese.” Elayne had certainly talked to her often enough by phone over the last year. She was on Elayne’s list not far below Holly Harper and Mike Munroe.
One at a time, she counseled herself. One at a time.
Right now, it was Miranda Chase.
“Okay. I’ll just tell my team.”
“I already took care of that for you, ma’am. I have a vehicle waiting.” Elayne took her lightly by the elbow and turned her away.
And it was just that easy. Instead of watching where she was going, Miranda kept watching where Elayne’s hand held her arm. Her grasp was too light, it couldn’t be hurting her. It didn’t matter, Miranda stumbled along fast enough to where Elayne was guiding her.
Out of sight of the other people working on the site, she gave Miranda a morphine slap shot from the M-ATV’s medical kit to knock her out. Tape on her mouth and zip ties on her hands and feet, Elayne dropped her onto the back seat floor and tossed a blanket over her with no one the wiser.
She considered going back for Mike Munroe. Or just killing Miranda here, but then she saw the monstrous jet fly by low overhead as it came in to land.
It had a rear boom; one of those US Air Force tankers. The only aircraft at al-Tanf were a few helicopters. They’d have no need of an aerial refueler.
But there’d been a line of them at Diego Garcia.
Had Holly Harper somehow followed her from Diego Garcia? That should be impossible. She’d seen Holly get off the Falcon. It had totally jacked her up to be stealing Holly’s plane from right under her nose.
But Harper hadn’t followed her initial path toward India. So how—
Didn’t matter.
It was too perfect.
Elayne hopped into the M-ATV and drove in the unexpected direction.
Holly would be certain she’d gone north, making the long drive to cross into Russian-controlled Syria.
Instead she turned south and drove toward al-Tanf.
62
After getting off the KC-135 tanker, Holly grabbed the first vehicle she came upon, a technical. There was a line of two-seat Toyota Tundras, each with an M2A1 Browning machine gun mounted on a tripod in the truck bed. Each had a black-winged logo across the door and an infinity symbol across the entire cab’s roof, presumably to mark them as friendlies from the air.
Even before she reached the gate, the KC-135 was already aloft and turning south. Couldn’t get out of here fast enough.
At the gate, a guard flagged her down.
She didn’t just run him over. That counted for major patience points.
“I’m headed to the crash site.”
He eyed her carefully. She was still in the same clothes she’d put on after sleeping with Quint. But she wore a harness that Ernie Maxwell had given her. She’d hit him up for spare magazines for the air marshal’s Glock, a battle knife in addition to the one she kept up her sleeve, and a rifle. He’d given her a Desert Tech MDR rifle that rested on the seat beside her, which was damned decent.
“Hang on, ma’am. I can’t let you off the base like that.”
She almost gunned the engine to just ram the barrier and see if she made it, when he held out a Kevlar vest and helmet.
Yanking on the helmet, she tossed the vest on the seat beside her.
“It doesn’t do you any good there, ma’am. You should put it on before…” Then his voice finally petered out as he caught the look on her face.
He held up his hands for peace as he backed away, then raised the barrier.
She knew that the primary crash lay due north. Once she’d humped over the M2 highway, the tire tracks of numerous vehicles across the desert were easy to follow. She pushed the tough pickup for all it was worth over the rough ground. As she drove out, a lone soldier in an M-ATV passed her heading back to base.
Her arrival at the crash was so abrupt that a number of the guards spun to face her with weapons half-drawn. Not that they had a chance of targeting her because her sliding stop had raised a cloud of choking dust that forced her to waste twenty precious seconds holding her breath with her eyes closed.
When she opened them, several of the guards still had weapons aimed partly in her direction. When she waved, they finally eased off. Maybe the vest was good advice. She slowed just long enough to release her weapons’ harness, don the vest, and strap back in. With the rifle over her shoulder, she went looking for the team.
They found her first.
“Holly, have you seen Miranda?”
It took everything she had to not drive a fist into Mike’s worried face.
63
Clarissa’s receptionist called over the intercom.
“You have a Kurt Grice here to see you, ma’am.”
“Send him in,” she pressed the lock release on her door.
Kurt walked up to stand directly across from the center of her desk. He didn’t sit—never did.
He was of average height and build, almost completely forgettable. His slightly round face looked neither childlike nor overfed. His blond hair fell
straight to his ears and might have a touch of gray. And he was also one of the most effective field agents in the entire Special Activities Division. Prior to taking command of the SOG, he’d been particularly adept at aiding or altering the course of South American coups.
He waited for the soft click of the door swinging back into place and locking once more.
“You asked me to confirm any future orders in person.” About as many words as he ever spoke at once.
“I didn’t issue one.”
“The codes check.” He pulled a piece of paper from an inside pocket, unfolded it, then slid it across her glass desk.
SOG Baghdad.
Acquire Iraqi Su-25 Grach jet.
Deliver minimum 2kkg—two thousand kilos!—bombs to coordinates 33.567392, 38.613187.
Eject and crash en route Tiyas.
“Steal a friendly military’s Russian-built plane and drop four tons of explosives before pretending to run home to the Russians. What’s there?”
He pulled out a photograph and repeated his earlier action.
It was an aerial image of an airplane wreck.
She hadn’t really thought about the implications of a bunch of Senators being shot down in Syria.
“Someone really wants to implicate the Russians in a coverup of that crash.”
Kurt nodded.
“Do we have any people there?”
Kurt shook his head.
“Who is?”
“Local Army forces from al-Tanf Garrison. And a civilian NTSB team just arrived.”
Clarissa looked up at him very slowly.
“Miranda Chase?”
Kurt shrugged that he didn’t know.
“Okay, make it look as if you’re following the order. Borrow the plane. Get it aloft.”
Kurt nodded and headed for the door.
“And Kurt?”
He paused without turning.
“Stay close today.”
He nodded and continued out the door.
She dialed her phone.
64
Elayne had considered jumping on the M2 highway and bolting toward Russian territory. But an M-ATV topped out at a hundred kilometers an hour.
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