Assassin's Strike

by Ward Larsen

  “Ten miles on a bearing of three-two-zero,” the sensor operator said, referencing location data on their moving target being streamed from Langley.

  The pilot banked ten degrees right.

  “Still nothing on the camera. If we … wait, hang on.”

  The pilot saw it as well in the video feed: beneath the drifting coordinate symbol, a lone hot blob fronting a cloud of dust. As they closed in the software began to filter and define, and soon the white blob resolved to become a vehicle. One man driving.

  Their objective in sight, the sensor operator zoomed out and saw a group of five vehicles giving chase. Half a mile farther back was a second, smaller group.

  “This guy really could use some help,” the sensor man said.

  As if on cue, the pilot pulled back the throttle and eased the nose down. The vertical speed on his flight display registered a gentle descent of five hundred feet per minute. “Prepare to deploy.”

  The Reaper closed in.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  Sorensen transmitted the basics of the extraction procedure. “You’ll need to keep up your speed as best you can.”

  Slaton was jolted airborne in his seat again, nearly getting tossed into the back with his other deceased passenger. Easy for you to say, he thought. He had a death grip on his phone—lose that and he would truly be alone. His eyes were locked on the onrushing trail a hundred feet ahead, the limits of the feeble headlights. “I can’t see the road very well. Does it continue straight ahead?”

  “As far as I can tell, yes. What’s your speed?”

  Slaton checked. “Sixty-five … that’s kilometers per hour.”

  A pause. “Okay, that’s thirty-five knots. The drone operator would like a little more.”

  Slaton cursed under his breath. He chanced a look back and saw his pursuers. Not gaining, but holding steady. He realized his back seat companion had disappeared, no doubt bucked out into the desert.

  He pushed the accelerator down slightly, trying to keep some semblance of control. He put the phone back to his ear. “How far out is my ride?”

  “Stand by…”

  * * *

  “One hundred and ten knots,” the pilot called out. “In line with target now. Throttling back.”

  “Wind three-four-zero at twelve,” the sensor operator announced. “That gives us a ten-knot headwind component.”

  “Landing gear down. Ninety knots. Flaps extended.”

  “Groundspeed seventy-eight. Range to target … five hundred feet.”

  The pilot reached for the special icon on his touchscreen weapon select panel. “Ready … and … trap deployed.”

  “You think they saw us?” the sensor operator wondered aloud. Moments ago, they’d passed directly over the trucks pursuing Slaton, yet they could no longer see them—the Reaper’s only operating eye, its IR camera, was locked on the UAZ ahead.

  “Doubtful,” said the pilot. “Even if they did, there’s not much they can do about it.”

  “They could take potshots. We’re a big target.”

  “If it was daytime, maybe, but I don’t think they’re stargazing right now. Anyway, nothing to be done.”

  “High on glidepath.”

  “Correcting. Give Langley the one-minute call.”

  The sensor operator typed out the message, sent it. As soon as he looked up, something in the distance drew his attention. He slewed the camera and adjusted the magnification.

  “Ah, boss … we have a problem.”

  The pilot shifted his eyes from the truck that was filling his screen and saw what was ahead. “Holy crap!”

  * * *

  “David, we have an issue!”

  Slaton flicked his eyes momentarily to the phone. As if doing so might transmit his disbelief. He had a lot of issues right now. The urgency in Sorensen’s voice didn’t bode well. “What is it?”

  “The road you’re on … it ends in two miles.”

  “I’ll never keep up this speed over open desert.”

  “Actually, that isn’t an option. The road doesn’t turn into desert. It dead ends into a ravine—a pretty deep one.”

  He glanced over his shoulder. The headlights were still there, jolting over the road. Thanks to his kamikaze-inspired driving style, the convoy had fallen back slightly. But they weren’t going away. “A U-turn is not an option!”

  “The Reaper is right behind you.”

  Slaton glanced behind again, this time searching higher … and he did see something. It was only a glimmer at first, then a slim shadow materialized. His head swiveled like a spastic metronome, alternating between the road ahead and the sky behind.

  “Okay, I see it!” he said, shouting to be heard over the UAZ’s straining engine.

  “You’re only going to have one chance, David! The drone can’t go any slower. If you miss the handle on this pass, there won’t be time to come around again.”

  Slaton didn’t respond. He kept glancing back as the drone closed in. The Reaper was fifty feet behind him now, no more than twenty feet over his head. It was gaining definition, a shadowed apparition materializing out of the night. It seemed huge, like a massive bird of prey swooping down for a kill. He discerned the landing gear and fuselage, the long thin wings. And finally, the “trap” as Sorensen had referred to it. He knew the term was short for trapeze, which seemed eminently appropriate—two heavy ropes connected by three composite bars. A circus act beneath an airplane.

  He could hear the drone’s engine now, saw the aircraft bobbling as the pilot tried to hold a steady path. Slaton put the phone to speaker and dropped it in his front shirt pocket. Contorting in the seat, he put his right foot on the gas pedal, his left hand on the steering wheel. He half stood to get as high as possible, his knees bending for balance—he felt like he was at sea in a storm.

  The drone was closing in at the relative speed of a steady run—eight miles an hour, maybe ten. Slaton focused on the lowest bar of the trapeze, a two-foot-wide objective swaying under the aircraft. He decided to grip it with one hand, then launch himself upward to get a second handhold.

  Twenty feet now. The Reaper dipped suddenly. The pilot corrected, but too much, and the bar lifted out of his grasp.

  “Lower!” he shouted, not even knowing if the phone could pick up his voice. The din of the truck’s engine was drowned out by that of the drone’s.

  Slaton took what he hoped was his last glance ahead, then wished he hadn’t. The dirt road in the truck’s headlights went momentarily to scrub—then nothing at all. Only a black abyss that blended into the night.

  The bar dropped abruptly, smacking the truck’s tailgate. For a moment he thought the drone was going to crash into the truck—part of the landing gear actually touched the spare tire. Slaton reached out and got his fingers to the bar, only to have it swing out of reach. He sensed the cliff coming, some internal clock counting down. The bar oscillated back to a point just above him, but it was beyond his reach and moving away. His only way home was just out of grasp.

  Slaton screamed in frustration. The UAZ shuddered.

  His internal clock hit zeros.

  Time was up.

  He took his foot off the gas, stepped momentarily on the seat, and launched himself upward. One hand skipped off the bar, but the other snagged the rope on one side. He didn’t so much pull himself skyward as the UAZ fell away beneath him. Slaton was dangling by one hand, and he felt the Reaper lurch. His weight had changed the dynamics for the pilot. Increased weight, increased drag.

  The Reaper’s engine rose to a screaming pitch. The churning propeller was behind Slaton, a “pusher” mounted on the aircraft’s tail. One more bit of sensory overload. The bar was swinging wildly, and he timed the oscillation to get a grip with his second hand. He failed on his first try. On the second he got the bottom bar.

  Hanging by two arms was better than one, but still a finite existence. Within minutes his hands would tire, give way. Having two solid points of contact, he looked up and studied the
trapeze. Nylon loops above him were available as either handholds or footholds. There was also a harness of sorts with straps and what looked like a quick-release buckle.

  With the oscillations dampening, he started to climb. It was all arms and shoulders to begin with. The noise was deafening, the wind extreme. He guessed the pilot was flying at the Reaper’s minimum maneuvering speed, but for Slaton it was like climbing a rope ladder in a Category 2 hurricane.

  His hands began to tremble, but the strain was relieved when he got his left foot on the lower bar. From that point it was a matter of maneuvering until he had four points of contact. He did his best with the harness, which distributed the weight further.

  Huffing like he’d scaled a mountain, Slaton shouted toward his shirt pocket, “Okay, now what?”

  He heard no response. At first, he thought it was due to the noise. Then he checked his pocket. The phone was gone, lost during his leap to reach the trap.

  Slaton was again on his own.

  He did his best to get comfortable, but soon realized it was a relative term. Looking into the night, he tried to determine which way they were flying. The ground was barely visible, but he guessed the pilot was flying at five, maybe seven thousand feet. Slaton hoped he didn’t go any higher. At ten thousand oxygen deprivation became an issue—something his rescuers would certainly know.

  He wished he’d queried Sorensen for more details about the system. For all his skepticism, the maneuver had actually worked. He’d been extracted from nearly impossible circumstances. Yet one great question loomed as he took in the scene around him—highlighted by the fact that he was at that moment hanging five feet lower than the Reaper’s landing gear.

  “What the hell do I do now?” Slaton said into the night sky above Syria.

  FIFTY-SIX

  “What the hell do we do now?” Sorensen asked.

  The operations center had gone quiet, transfixed by the astonishing scene. The mission had crested in a minute of heart-gripping terror. Because the Reaper’s camera was tracking the UAZ, it had followed the vehicle unfailingly as it went airborne and plummeted into a sixty-foot-deep ravine. Slaton was clearly no longer in the driver’s seat, but the question of whether he too had plunged over the cliff loomed heavy. The tension had only been cut when the sensor operator slewed the camera back toward the trapeze. They all saw the operative known as Corsair clinging one-handed to the bottom bar. Everyone in the ops center had watched breathlessly as he clawed his way upward. The collective sigh was audible when he stabilized beneath the drone and strapped into the harness.

  “We’ve been updating our options, ma’am,” said the comm officer. “The navy has a littoral combat ship standing by thirty miles off the coast of Israel, the Jackson. Unfortunately, the seas are high—eight to ten feet. We’ve never tested a recovery under conditions like that. It would also take nearly an hour to get there.”

  “Too long. What about the other possibility?”

  “That’s more promising. Our station chief in Tel Aviv has been working out the details since the mission was green-lighted. All the authorizations are in place—airspace, search and rescue.”

  “How far away is the zone?”

  “From the Reaper’s present position … forty-six nautical miles. At current speed, roughly thirty minutes.”

  “Okay,” Sorensen said, hoping Slaton could hang on for that long. “Then that’s where we’re going.”

  * * *

  Slaton rearranged his feet, trying for a better stance. His hands were beginning to cramp, and he intermittently wrapped his forearms around the upper bar to relieve the pressure. The harness helped, but the straps were too narrow, cutting into his back and shoulders. He was mentally logging ideas for improvements in the design.

  Hopefully I’ll live long enough to put my suggestions in the box, he thought.

  The engine noise had lessened—no longer thunderous, but a steady drone. This suggested the aircraft was no longer climbing and had reached its cruise altitude. Even so, the rush of wind was unrelenting. In effect, he was riding outside an airplane like a barnstormer at an airshow.

  He estimated, referencing the stars and the geography he could make out on the clear night, that the drone was taking him southwest. He saw the coastline in the distance on his right. Damascus and Beirut were obvious, one over each shoulder. At this point Slaton was along for the ride, but there was a vague sense of comfort when he realized his destination: he was headed into Israel. From the agency’s point of view, it made sense. Friendly country, capable military, good intelligence organizations. Still, the question of what would happen when he got there weighed heavily. When Sorensen had first briefed him on the extraction method, he’d been less than impressed. She’d shown him a video of a soldier making the transition from a fast-moving Hummer onto the trapeze.

  For Slaton, that had been enough. The whole concept seemed so speculative, so risk-laden, he’d not bothered to watch the rest of the video. Now he wished he’d stayed for the end of the show. He couldn’t imagine how the drone was going to land with him hanging from the trapeze. He’d done his best to survey the aircraft’s belly, yet in the darkness he could see no sign of a compartment or higher handholds, no cradle that would put him above the level of the landing gear. A parachute would have been worth its weight in gold. Try as he might, he couldn’t imagine what the plan was for dismounting this carnival ride.

  The engine suddenly throttled back. The Reaper’s nose tipped down. Whatever the plan was, he was about to find out.

  * * *

  The first thing Slaton noticed was a void of light on the ground ahead. It was the shape of an oval, a great black hole many miles wide. He was intimately familiar with the area—as a teen he’d spent years on a kibbutz not far from here. He knew he’d been delivered over the Golan, and was now soaring over northern Israel. The approaching emptiness was surrounded by a necklace of yellow light. He saw Tiberias on the edge to his right, beyond that Nazareth.

  Slaton put it all together and knew precisely what he was looking at. He was descending toward the Sea of Galilee.

  With that realization, the endgame resolved. The Reaper was low now, perhaps a thousand feet above the ground and still descending. The noise lessened considerably passing over the northern shore of the lake—a lower RPM on the engine, the onrushing hurricane one category lower.

  Then Slaton saw something that crystallized what was about to happen.

  Dead ahead, in the center of the lake, he saw a pair of lights. They looked like spotlights, separated by perhaps fifty yards. The powerful beams were playing the sky like a Hollywood premiere. One flickered momentarily across the Reaper. It wasn’t blinding, but Slaton saw it coming and closed his eyes to preserve his night vision. The light fell away, and when he looked again both began flashing on and off, long and short intervals. It might have been Morse Code, but he didn’t try to decipher it. They could only be telling him one thing.

  Slaton readjusted his four-point stance, then twisted free of the harness. The drone seemed to be slowing. The spotlights went steady and focused on a spot on the lake between the two sources—which could only be boats. The drone was getting very low, very slow.

  He saw water now in the beams of the lights. It looked black and cold, and a slight chop gave texture to the surface. With a quarter mile to go he looked down and adjusted his feet, making sure there was no way he could hang up on the trapeze. He decided the best move would be to simply let go, fall away with the wind.

  The pilot had the drone skimming just above the surface, perhaps twenty feet separating Slaton’s feet from the water. In a fleeting thought, he remembered as a schoolboy having to memorize the depth of the Sea of Galilee. Now the number escaped him, but at the time he recalled thinking it was deeper than he’d imagined. He could never have foreseen how critical that bit of learning would one day prove.

  He felt like he was water skiing from the ladder, gliding just above the lake. The target of crosshatched li
ght was coming at him like a train in the dark. Which was pretty much how it would feel if he didn’t get his water entry right.

  Legs together, arms across the chest. Spine straight, chin tucked.

  He loosened his grip, then let go, freefalling into the night.

  He struck the water at sixty miles an hour. It felt like hitting a brick wall. Slaton did his best to maintain his entry position, but the impact was crushing. The shock translated through his body, and his limbs flailed outward, no longer under his control. For an instant he felt pain in a half dozen places, ligaments finding new limits, joints pressed bone-to-bone. Yet there was one positive to the severe impact: it arrested his descent quickly. The deceleration was rapid, and he quickly sensed that forward motion had stopped. There was lingering pain in his ribs and one shoulder, but everything seemed to be working. He’d tried to time his last breath, but the impact had knocked the wind out of him. Even so, old training kicked in.

  Slaton remained motionless, letting his body go limp in the lake’s weightless void. The water was frigid, but he tuned that out as well.

  He was ten, perhaps fifteen feet below the surface. As he knew would be the case, he was completely disoriented. With a partial lungful of air to work with, he couldn’t afford to swim in the wrong direction. Fortunately, whoever was on the surface knew what he was facing. He saw the lights playing frantically across the surface, his bubbles rising toward them.

  Slaton stroked upward.

  He surfaced seconds later. Before he could get his bearings, or even blink the water from his eyes, a strong hand seized the back of his shirt.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  The boat was small and low to the water. Slaton saw another like it nearby, roughly a twin.