Blue Warrior
Page 32
“We have permission to take this plane,” Myers said. “Colonel Kavanagh authorized it.”
Wolfit shifted his gaze to Myers. “I know, ma’am. I’m here to ask permission to join you.”
“Why?” Judy asked.
He tapped his rifle. “Sometimes men are handier than drones.”
“Permission granted. And please, call me Margaret.”
Wolfit’s flinty face broke into a wide grin. “Thank you, ma’am.”
Judy pushed past Wolfit and into the cargo door, turning left for the cockpit. Someone else was in the copilot’s seat, also in civilian clothes.
“Who are you?”
The silver-haired man smiled. “I’m a friend of Margaret’s. Name’s Kavanagh.” The colonel extended his hand. Judy shook it.
“Hopper.” She fell into the pilot’s seat.
“We already ran the preflight check. You’re good to go.”
“Thanks.” Judy reached into an oversize shirt pocket. Pulled out a Polaroid.
“Hope you don’t mind the company, Hopper.”
“Not as long as you keep your hands off the yoke.”
Kavanagh laughed. “I like your moxie, kid. But I probably have a few more years in the pilot seat than you.”
“Don’t bet on it.” Judy pulled the gum out of her mouth and stuck it on the instrument panel, then fixed the Polaroid on the gum. Her good-luck charm. It was a faded picture of her as a young girl on her father’s lap flying an airplane for the first time. Seemed especially appropriate now. There was a very good chance this flight would be her last.
56
Aéropostale Station 11
Tamanghasset, Southern Algeria
15 May
Pearce ran to his camel and pulled off the Pelican case, flung it open, and grabbed the firing tube, already loaded with the fully charged Switchblade UAV. He wished like hell he had grenades for the M-25, but he’d already used them all back at Anou. But at least he could use the Switchblade for surveillance.
Pearce ran to the hangar entrance, pulled the launch tube over his shoulder, and fired. The pneumatic whump spit the five-and-a-half-pound drone into the air high enough for its electric motor to kick in. The small plane sped into the hazy blue sky. If there were any bad guys out there, the Switchblade should be able to see them.
“I have an image,” Mann said, holding the tablet in his hands that served as both a flight controller and view screen. Pearce cross-trained all of his people to handle all kinds of vehicles for emergency situations like this. Even though Mann was a UGV specialist, he could pilot a UAV when the occasion called for it. Mann used the tablet only because he hadn’t practiced with the MetaPro glasses yet.
Pearce cursed himself for not thinking about the UAV earlier. He should’ve been more cautious. He packed the tube back into the case and crossed back over to Mann. Mossa and the other Tuaregs were peering around the German’s shoulders, too, trying to see what was going on. These hardened desert fighters had never seen such technology.
“Troy!”
Pearce whipped around. Cella pointed northeast, toward the horizon. He ran over to her.
“Look!
Pearce saw it. A white speck running low and fast, racing toward them. Looked like a chopper. Might be Ian’s backup ride.
Or not.
“Troy!”
Pearce ran back to Mann. Wished his friend had brought his comm set.
“I’m counting six vehicles. Due west of our position, about two kilometers, and closing fast.” He handed Pearce the tablet. Mann was right. They were screaming across the desert floor. He tried to zoom in, but when he did, he lost them—they’d race right out of the frame. When he zoomed back, he could see them but not really make them out. Looked like desert patrol vehicles, militarized versions of dune buggies. Two men each. Full-faced helmets. Fixed weapons on the platforms.
“Hostiles?”
“Identification unclear. But they don’t look like taco trucks to me.”
Pearce couldn’t help but grin. The last time Mann had visited him in San Diego, he had feasted on every Asian-fusion taco truck in town. Swore he’d buy himself his own truck when he got back home to Germany.
The noise volume in the hangar rose. The familiar echo of beating rotor blades. That chopper was suddenly closer.
“Keep me posted,” Pearce said, handing the tablet back to Mann. He ran back to Cella. Moctar and Balla followed him. Mossa stayed with Mann, fascinated by the technology in the German’s hand.
The helicopter was less than a thousand yards away now. It kicked up sandy dust in spinning vortices as it raced toward the hangar.
“You see the bird?” Early asked in Pearce’s earpiece.
“Yeah.”
“And the vehicles with guns heading our way?”
“Noted.”
“Any bets on who gets here first?”
—
A kilometer past the northeast end of the Aéropostale runway, Guo lay prone on the far side of a dune, hidden beneath a sand-colored sheet woven with reflective materials impervious to infrared sensors. He would be invisible to any optical camera overhead, and on an infrared monitor he would likely appear, if at all, as a glitch in the sensor.
His eye tracked back and forth through the high-powered scope. What made the modified rifle and scope special was the bullet it fired, developed by Dr. Weng especially for him. It was, in effect, a miniature guided missile. Based upon a design stolen from Sandia Labs, the bullet contained a miniature CPU, actuated fins, an optical sensor, and a power supply. The rifle scope contained a laser. All Guo had to do was paint the target with the laser and fire the bullet. The bullet’s CPU would instantly course-correct against variables such as wind speed, friction, and even the Coriolis effect.
Guo had observed Al Rus’s clumsy attack on Mossa’s caravan from a safe distance and the ease with which the AQS fighters had been dispatched by the fast-running UGV drones Pearce deployed. What wasn’t clear was the aerial strike against Al Rus directly. Was that UAV deployed by Pearce or someone else? Until he was sure, he would remain as invisible as possible.
Once again, Mossa and Pearce had escaped, but Guo knew exactly where they were headed for an extraction. The Aéropostale runway was the only logical choice out here. The best chance Guo now had to capture Pearce and kill Mossa was to intercept them there. He reported back to Zhao and explained the desperate tactical situation. Zhao authorized the deployment of Guo’s specially trained team of handpicked fighters from the PLA’s famed “Fierce Falcons” airborne assault unit. Guo kept them in reserve in Bamako, hoping never to deploy them. Now they were on the ground, racing for the airfield, two men each in fast-attack desert patrol vehicles equipped with Type 87 automatic grenade launcher rifles and 7.62mm machine guns. If they couldn’t kill Mossa, Guo would, and if necessary, Pearce too—along with his entire team.
—
Those DPVs are about a minute out,” Early reported. “Permission to fire.”
“Not until we know who there are.” Pearce stood at the hangar entrance again, next to Cella. Balla and Moctar had joined him as well. Pearce had a clear visual on the copter now. The noise volume in the hangar had cranked up to eleven as Dr. Ashley’s A-160 Hummingbird approached for landing on the far end of the runway. Ian had instructed Ashley to program the Hummingbird’s AI navigation system to home in on Pearce’s internal tracking device and to land at least one hundred yards away for safety. It had worked perfectly.
Moctar and Balla laughed, shielding their eyes from the dust, marveling at the pilotless Hummingbird flaring as it touched down on the tarmac.
Pearce had only seen photos of the pilotless air-rescue vehicle and the four coffin-shaped litters attached to the bottom like missiles on a rail. At least they were clear plastic. Maybe his claustrophobia wouldn’t get the better of him.
Early ignored Pearce’s offer, tempting as it was. “Permission to fire on the vehicles?”
“Hold your fire. We still don’t know if they’re friendlies.”
The hangar noise was deafening. The Hummingbird’s Pratt & Whitney turboshaft engine had barely slowed, just enough to not take off again. Pearce could barely hear Ian shouting in his earpiece.
“What’s the holdup?” Ian said. “You need to leave—now!”
Mann ran up to him, followed by Mossa. Pearce was blind to the advancing DPVs inside the hangar. The German pointed at the tablet. Leaned in close to Pearce’s ear. Screamed to be heard.
“Six vehicles! Two split north, two south, two holding!”
Mossa slapped Pearce’s shoulder. “Go! Get on! We will cover you!”
Pearce’s eyes pleaded with Cella. He grabbed her arm. “That thing can carry four of us, including you.”
She shook her head, nodded at Mossa: I’m not leaving without him.
“They’re right on top of us, boss!” Early shouted.
“Switchblade down!” Mann shouted.
“Hold your fire, Mikey—”
BOOOOOM!
The Hummingbird erupted in a fireball. Flaming debris scattered like a shotgun blast. A rotor blade shot through the hangar door over their heads with a shraaang!, spearing into the back wall, then crashing to the floor.
The camels leaped up, bellowing. The Tuaregs grabbed the rope bridles, trying to keep the huge animals from bolting out of the hangar.
“Guess we know they’re not friendlies!” Early’s SCAR opened up overhead, roaring in Pearce’s earpiece. So did Early, shouting his war cry.
BAM! BAM! BAM!
Grenade explosions pounded the hangar walls. Dust rose like a low fog off of the floor even as it descended from the rafters. Pearce grabbed Cella by the arm and ran with her for cover in the hangar. The camels bellowed louder and shat.
Pearce shouted in Mossa’s ear. “Take your men! Take cover! They’re coming!”
More grenade rounds crashed into the walls. Still no one wounded. In the corner the floor was slick with piss and camel dung.
And then it was quiet. Not even Early’s gun was firing.
“Mikey! You all right?”
“Reloading, that’s all. Got my head down.”
“Stay down!”
Pearce tapped his comm link. “Ian! Where the hell is my backup?”
“Thirty seconds away,” Ian said.
Two desert patrol vehicles whipped around the burning Hummingbird wreck and slammed to a halt a hundred yards in front of Early’s position. Two more DPVs whipped around the far side of the hangar and stopped a hundred yards opposite Pearce’s position, guns manned and pointed directly at them.
Everybody pressed against the far wall, trying to keep out of the line of sight of the DPVs.
“Mr. Pearce. Can you hear me?”
It was Guo, in Pearce’s earpiece.
Pearce didn’t recognize the voice. How did he break into his comm link?
“Mr. Pearce?”
“Who the fuck is this?”
“Put down your weapons. You are surrounded.”
“Ian, you hearing this?” Pearce asked.
“Hearing what?”
“Someone else on my comm link.”
“Can’t hear him on my end.”
“Change channels anyway.”
“Will do.”
“Mr. Pearce?”
“You broke my helicopter, asshole. Who’s gonna pay for that?”
“Put down your weapons. You and the bandit Mossa must come out. Your friends will not be harmed. Do it now, or my men will open fire.”
“Give me one minute to talk to my people first.”
“You have thirty seconds.”
Pearce told Mossa what the voice had just said. Cella translated for Balla and Moctar. The two Tuaregs protested. Mossa calmed them down.
“They would rather die than see me surrender,” Mossa told Pearce.
“They’re about to get their chance.”
“What time is it?” Mossa asked.
Pearce checked his watch. “Noon, give or take. Why?”
Mossa sighed. “The cavalry does not always arrive in time, do they?”
“Inshallah,” Pearce said.
—
Piloting the stolen Reaper from Dearborn was less than easy. Ian’s control signals were bounced off of a satellite Pearce Systems leased from the Israelis three hundred miles into space, but the overall distance between Ian and the Reaper’s location over Algeria was several thousand miles. This created a four-second transmission delay, which meant that anything Ian was seeing was four seconds old. That made hitting moving targets a real challenge. The Air Force forward-located their drone base in Niger to avoid that very problem.
With the burning Hummingbird wreckage on the tarmac and six unknown vehicles surrounding the airfield, it wasn’t hard to determine that Pearce and his team were facing hostiles. Ian’s Presbyterian father had taught him it was always better to ask forgiveness than permission, so when the DPVs stopped moving, Ian fired at the two vehicles closest to Pearce.
—
The two DPVs nearest Pearce exploded, shredding them instantly. The sound of the missile strikes erupted inside the hangar like grenades going off inside of an elevator. The Tuaregs instinctively grabbed at their ringing ears, pounding with pain.
Pearce’s ears had been damaged by combat over the years, which at the moment was a blessing, because the explosions didn’t shock him as much. Early’s SCAR opened up again.
Pearce ducked around the corner just in time to see Early’s 7.62mm rounds walking up the hood of one of the DPVs, then plowing into the driver’s torso. The standing gunner opened up on Early, but too late. Fingers of blood spurted out of the gunner’s thigh, doubling him over, exposing his head to Early’s withering fire. The helmet erupted in a gout of blood and the gunner tumbled to the tarmac.
Pearce fired his weapon at the second DPV near Early, but it was already rocketing away to a safer position beyond the reach of Early’s gun. Mike had always been the better shot. Any rational observer would have bet that the DPV with the automatic grenade launcher and machine gun would win a duel against a lone man with a sprained arm and a rifle, but that only meant they had never seen Mike Early in battle in full berserker mode or heard his bloodcurdling war cry.
“Good shooting, Mikey. Now duck your ass back down,” Pearce ordered.
Early wolf-howled. “The party’s just getting started!”
“Save your ammo, cowboy. It’s going to be a long day.”
—
Guo raged.
Two vehicles destroyed by a UAV, and another disabled by the guılao gunman in the tower. Where did the UAV come from? If Pearce had a UAV at his disposal, surely he would have used it earlier.
No matter. He would solve the UAV issue later. The guılao problem he could solve now.
“Second positions,” Guo whispered in his headset. The DPV nearest Early sped away instantly, and the two in reserve behind the hangar retreated back several hundred meters. They knew to keep moving in broad, irregular patterns to avoid the same fate as their comrades.
Guo painted Early with his laser scope, fixing the red crosshairs on the big American’s head.
—
Pearce turned around, shouted back into the hangar. “Everybody stay put. I’ll be right back.”
He scanned the tarmac. It was clear. The DPV he’d fired at was too far away to worry about. Pearce ran in a crouch out the hangar opening and toward the tower entrance, expecting a hail of machine-gun and grenade fire to cut him down before he got three feet. But his adrenalin
e had kicked in and his luck held, and moments later he sped up the crumbling cement stairs to the observation tower, shouting in his mic, “Mikey! Get covered up!”
Pearce reached the top of the stairs, greeted by Early’s toothy grin plastered on his huge, sweaty face. “God I miss this shit!”
Early’s head exploded. Blood and brain matter splattered on Pearce’s face and torso. Instinctively, he dropped to the deck. Early’s headless corpse thudded onto his back. Pearce rolled out from beneath the heavy body and sprung into a crouch, desperate to get away from his dead friend without exposing himself to the killing fire.
“Mikey . . .”
The ragged neck wound pumped hot blood onto the floor with the last beats of Early’s dying heart, the blood surging over broken glass, spent casings, cigarette butts.
“GOD DAMN IT!” Pearce’s face twisted with rage and grief.
Cella crested the stairs. Saw Early on the floor. She gasped. “Mike!” She ran to his corpse.
Pearce crashed into her, wrapping his arms around her waist, putting his back to the shooter to cover her, driving both of them back down the staircase just as another bullet smashed into the wall above their heads.
Cella screamed and cried and beat Pearce’s shoulders with her fists, grieving and hating all at the same time as he forced her back down the stairwell.
57
Aéropostale Station 11
Tamanghasset, Southern Algeria
15 May
Pearce vise-gripped Cella’s wrist and dragged her in a dead run back to the hangar entrance, slinging her inside and into Mossa’s arms. She buried her head in his chest and wept like a child. Mossa patted her head but locked eyes with Pearce, his face dark with grief.
Pearce shook his head. Mike’s dead.
Mossa led Cella over to a corner and sat her down, then returned to Pearce. Mann stood next to him.
“A sniper, but I did not see where the shot came from,” Mossa said.