by Dale Brown
Inside the bank’s vestibule, he slid the card into the machine and began punching the PIN number. Just as he hit Enter he realized he’d used his PIN, not the one Stoner had given him. He cursed himself, then waited for the machine to tell him he had made a mistake.
The screen stayed blank. It seemed to have eaten his card.
Be patient, he told himself, stifling the urge to punch the machine. Just be patient.
Finally the card spit out. Ignoring the Turkish words on the screen, since he had no idea what they said, Danny put the card back into the machine and typed the right PIN. A few seconds later a screen came up, again in Turkish, asking how much money he wanted.
Fortunately, the numbers were familiar. He pressed the largest denomination: a thousand liras.
Boston and Sorina started walking as soon as they saw him come out. Danny trotted to catch up. He suddenly felt cold—the vestibule had been heated.
“Look for a taxi,” he told Boston when he got close. “We’re behind on time.”
Aboard EB-52 Johnson,
over northeastern Romania
2120
ZEN BANKED THE FLIGHTHAWK NORTHWARD, SKIRTING THE Moldovan border by less than ten feet. There was no way to gauge where the line would have been on the ground, much less in the air, and he knew that the Moldovan air defense radar couldn’t spot the Flighthawk if it flew right in front of the dish. But Colonel Bastian would know, and the mission tapes would reveal the incursion. And that’s what counted.
The Romanian forces had just boarded their helicopters a few miles to the southeast. Zen could see them on his sitrep or God’s eye-view radar—little bumblebees starting in his direction.
“Force Bravo is en route,” he told Dog.
“Roger that.”
“Any sign of our Russian friends?”
“Negative.”
“Hopefully, they got that out of their system yesterday,” said Zen. “Or maybe they fired the only missiles they had.”
Northeastern Romania
2130
THE SOLDIERS GAVE STONER AN AK-47 AND FOUR MAGAZINE boxes of ammunition. He checked them, then sat on the bench next to Colonel Brasov as the helicopter—an Aerospatiale Puma—skimmed over the ground at treetop level toward Moldova.
The wound in his leg had been a dull, low-level pain, pushed to the back of his consciousness over the past few days. Now the pain spiked, as if provoked by the geography.
Colonel Brasov clapped him on the back. “We are a few miles from the border, Mr. Stoner,” he said. “Now would be a good time to find out where we are going.”
Stoner glanced at his watch. “It should only be a minute or two.”
Istanbul, Turkey
2130
THERE WAS A FLOOD OF TRAFFIC AHEAD, CARS, BUSES, and people descending from the tourist area along Istiklal Caddessi. Danny, Boston, and Sorina had walked for nearly fifteen minutes without seeing a cab.
“Wait for the trolley, or go across?” asked Boston.
Danny looked at his watch. The trolleys, modern two-car trains, passed every twenty minutes or so.
“It’s time for us to call,” he told Sorina.
“Only from the station,” she insisted.
“Let’s walk across the bridge,” he said.
He took Sorina’s arm, steering her around a cement toad-stool placed to prevent cars from going up on the sidewalk. During the day, both sides of the bridge would be crowded with fishermen, even during the winter months. At night, though, the entire bridge was relatively empty. A few tourists and a pair of aging lovers stared out at the water from the rails.
Danny hurried along, trying to remember the layout of the streets on the opposite shore. The train station was to their left, a few blocks from the ferries. They could walk, but it would be faster with a cab.
Taxis tended to congregate near the foot of the bridge, where there was a tram stop as well as nearby ferry stations and a large mosque. He saw a short line of taxis across the way, but to get there they’d have to cross a solid wall of cars zooming along the highway.
A sign indicated an underground passage near the end of the bridge.
“This way,” he said, pointing left and nudging Sorina with him.
The stairs opened into a tunnel lined by shops. The walkway itself had been turned into a bazaar. Dealers hawked a variety of wares from blankets. Everything from baseball caps to 1970s vintage television sets was on sale.
A knot of people appeared before them. Suddenly, Danny found himself in the middle of the swarm, unable to move.
Sorina Viorica slipped from his grasp. Danny edged to the left, following her, but a river of people were descending a set of stairs nearby and the crush separated them. She turned to the left, heading up the stairs; he pushed his way through, momentarily losing her. He became more forceful, shoving to make sure he could get through.
Sorina ran up the stairs. Danny followed, barely able to see her. An elderly woman spun a few steps above him, tumbling into him. He pushed her aside as gently as he could manage, struggling upward.
Sorina was gone.
Danny cursed to himself. He reached the open air and took a step, ready to bolt as soon as he spotted her.
She was sitting on her haunches, leaning against the cement wall of the entrance to his right, breathing hard.
“I can’t take it,” she said, looking up at him. “So many people.”
“Cap?” said Boston, coming up behind him.
“Make the call,” said Danny, holding the phone out to her. “Go ahead.”
Her face was pale, her lips thin. But she shook her head.
“The station,” she insisted.
“Here’s a taxi!” yelled Boston.
Northeastern Romania
2144
EVERYONE IN THE HELICOPTER STARED AT STONER, WAITING. They were hovering near the border, waiting to proceed.
“Where are our targets?” asked Colonel Brasov.
“I’ll find out in a minute,” Stoner told him.
“You said that fifteen minutes ago. I have no time for these games.”
Stoner didn’t reply. There was no sense saying anything until he heard from Sorina.
The colonel turned around to one of his men and began speaking in loud, fast Romanian. Stoner caught a few words, including an expression he’d been told never to use because of its vulgarity.
Had she played him? Or did she simply have second thoughts?
He hoped it was the latter. He didn’t like to think he could be fooled.
But everybody could be fooled. Everybody.
The sat phone rang.
Stoner continued to stare out the front of the helicopter’s windscreen for another second, then reached for the phone.
Istanbul, Turkey
2145
“I’M SORRY WE’RE SO LATE,” DANNY TOLD STONER WHEN he answered the phone.
“It’s all right.”
Two trains were coming in, pulling head first into the platform. Danny stepped forward, watching Sorina punch the buttons on the automated ticket machine. She’d already bought four tickets; she was trying to make it hard for them to trace her.
“He’s on the line.” Danny held the phone out to her.
Sorina shook her head and reached into her pocket for a piece of paper.
“You tell me now,” said Danny.
She gave him the paper.
He took a step toward the light and opened it. They were GPS coordinates in Moldova.
“Stoner, plug these coordinates into your GPS,” said Danny.
Danny read them off. Sorina stood at the machine, buying even more tickets.
A few yards away, Boston eyed the station warily. There were about a dozen people on the platform, young people mostly, going or coming from a night out; it was impossible to say. Two women in traditional Muslim dresses, long scarves covering their heads, stood together near a small patch of bushes where the trains would stop.
Sorina looked down a
t her tickets, shuffling through them.
“All right, Captain, we have them,” said Stoner. “You can let her go.”
Danny held the phone out toward her.
“You want to say good-bye?” he asked.
She hesitated for just a second before shaking her head.
And with that she turned and ran to the nearby train, reaching it just as the door slapped shut to keep her out. She drew back; the doors opened again and she slipped in. Danny watched it pull from the station.
“Hey, Cap, you know what’s strange?” asked Boston.
“What’s that?” said Danny, without turning around.
“Clock has different times on each side,” said Boston. He pointed to the large disk just overhead. “You’d think they could synchronize it.”
“Yeah,” said Danny, not paying attention as he watched the train disappear around the curve.
Over northeastern Romania
2150
STONER CHECKED THE COORDINATES AGAINST THE MAP and satellite photos. The camp to the north was a small farm with a single large barn, an outbuilding, and a few small cottages nearby. Three-quarters of the boundary was formed by a ragged, meandering creek. The last side of the property was marked by a road that ran along the base of a long rift in the hills. The high spot provided a good area for the main landing; a field about a half mile away would allow a smaller group to land and circle around the rear of the property. The trucks, which had already crossed the border and were nearly thirty miles into Moldova, would arrive roughly ten minutes after the helicopters touched down.
The second target was a church and related buildings in the middle of a small town. A single main street zigged through the hamlet, ducking and weaving around a quartet of gentle hills. An orchard of small trees and an open field sat to one side of the church; a row of houses were on the other. A cemetery spread out behind the church. The easiest landing here would be in the field near the orchard; the geography would make it difficult to surround the building before beginning an attack. The trucks would take another twenty minutes to reach the church; they’d be reinforcements only.
The fact that the target was a church bothered Colonel Brasov a great deal.
“This will be a propaganda coup if you are wrong,” he told Stoner.
“Yes.”
“And if you are right, it is a great sacrilege.”
Stoner nodded.
“You will be with me in this group,” the colonel told him. “Our helicopter will be the first down.”
“Right.”
Again Stoner wondered if it was a setup, if he’d been fooled. Perhaps the charges had been set weeks before and were waiting now for the troops—waiting for him.
Doubt gripped him. He thought about the Dreamland pilots, watching from across the border. He envied them. Their jobs were entirely physical. They could push their bodies to perform, rely on their trained reactions, their instincts. They trained and retrained for different situations, dogfights and bombing runs, missile attacks and low level escapes. But Stoner had no such luxury. There was no way to train for what he did. Knowing how to fire a gun into a skull at close range, to fake a language—these were important and helpful tools, but not the substance of his success. His test had come days before in Bucharest, when he’d stared into Sorina’s eyes, when he’d stroked her side, when he’d gauged her intent.
That moment was dark to him, lost somewhere down the gap between the ledges he was jumping between.
“We are ten minutes away,” the colonel told him.
“I’m ready,” said Stoner.
Aboard EB-52 Johnson,
over northeastern Romania
2152
ZEN NUDGED THE THROTTLE, PUSHING HAWK ONE CLOSER to the last of the helicopters carrying the Romanian troops. The chopper was flying just above treetop level, tail up, moving fast for a helo but slow compared to the Flighthawk.
“Border in zero-five seconds,” warned the computer.
“Thanks,” mumbled Zen. He pulled hard on the stick, banking away just before crossing the line.
“They have two targets,” Dog told Zen, relaying the information passed along by Stoner. “Sullivan is entering the coordinates. Both are a little more than fifty miles into Moldova. We won’t be able to go there, but we can see what’s going on.”
Dog meant that the radars on the Megafortress would give them a good idea of where the helicopters and the trucks were, and would also allow them to warn the Romanians if a large force of guerrillas or Moldovan soldiers suddenly appeared. But as far as Zen was concerned, they were voyeurs at the edge of battle, watching helplessly.
Bacau, Romania
2155
GENERAL LOCUSTA PUT DOWN THE SATELLITE PHONE AND raised his head, scanning his command center at the Second Army Corps headquarters. He needed to keep his head clear, needed to be as calm as possible. It was coming together beautifully, everything going exactly as he had hoped, as he had planned.
“Colonel Brasov has touched down,” announced the captain coordinating communications from the assault teams. “No resistance yet.”
“Yea!” yelled one of other officers.
“Who said that?” shouted Locusta.
The room fell silent. The general turned his gaze around the room.
“General, it was me,” said one of his lieutenants, rising. The young man’s face was red.
“This is not a time for youthful exuberance,” said Locusta. The man’s forthrightness impressed him and he tried to soften his tone. “We will each of us do our duty. We have jobs to do.”
“Yes, General. I apologize.”
“Accepted. Get back to work. All of you, work now. We will capture the criminals and make them pay.”
Moldova
2155
STONER TIGHTENED THE STRAP ON THE AK-47 AND WAITED as the helicopter closed in on the target in the dark. The pilots had night goggles, but even without them he could see the outlines of the spire in the distance.
Someone began shouting in the back. The helicopter bucked to the side. There was a rush of air.
Now!
Go!
The dim red of the interior lights gave the men just enough light to see as they jumped into the field, the helicopter just touching down.
There was an orange flash near the dark hull of the church, then small polka dots of yellow, tiny bursts of color that glowed into red curlicues.
They’re shooting at us, he thought.
She wasn’t lying. Thank God.
Behind him, the helicopter moved backward, escaping as a flurry of slugs began sailing through the air. Stoner ran forward, then threw himself down behind the last row of headstones in the large churchyard. Bullets exploded above his head.
The Romanian soldiers began moving up along the graves, yelling directions to each other. Stoner pushed himself to his knees, still struggling to get his breath. The stone to his right exploded into shards, raked by the heavy gun. He threw himself back down, working on his elbows and belly to his right.
The machine gun was in a stairwell next to the church. A low thud shook the ground. The machine gun fire stopped. One of the Romanians had fired a mortar point-blank into the stairwell, killing the gunner.
Someone shouted. Another person, to Stoner’s left, shouted back. A flare went off, turning the night white and black.
Six, seven dark shadows ran to the building, jumped down the stairwell. Others came toward them from the road. The mortar fired again; this time it landed short, scattering the guerrillas but not stopping them as they flowed out of the church.
A squad of soldiers had fast-roped down onto the street. They came up now, guns blazing, catching the guerrillas from the rear unawares. Their attack had been coordinated with the mortarman; no shells fell as they worked they way toward the basement stairs.
A loud series of booms followed as the soldiers forced their way inside. A second group, this one from the cemetery, ran up to reinforce them.
Stoner waited, watching. If it was a setup, the place would explode now, booby-trapped.
It didn’t. He started in motion again, picking his way through the headstones toward the houses on the other side of the church, guessing that the rebels would be housed there.
The graves were laid out in a haphazard pattern, some very close together, others wide apart, and it took Stoner time to weave his way forward. As he turned to go through a tight cluster, he spotted four or five shadows to the east of the church. His first thought was that he was seeing clothes fluttering in the wind. Then he saw sticks waving with the clothes.
He brought the AK-47 up and fired, screaming as he did.
“The guerrillas! They’re coming from the other side of the church!”
He shot the magazine so quickly he was surprised when the bolt clicked open. The guerrillas quickly got down and fired back.
Stoner reloaded, then began moving again, sure he would be killed if he stayed where was. He caught part of his arm on a crumpled rosebush. The thorns ripped his flesh.
He kept going, moving to the left. There was more gunfire now, not only in front of him but behind.
Pulling himself along the ground, Stoner felt his hand scrape on cement. He’d come to the path that ran along the east side of the church and went up toward the back of the houses.
The gunfire intensified, rifles flashing back and forth, occasionally interrupted by a grenade blast. Stoner tried to sort out where the forces were. He was facing south, crouched at the corner of the cemetery. The church was in front of him and to his right, a little to the west of his position. The guerrillas had come from a yard to his left.
But the real danger, he thought, was the houses behind him. If there were guerrillas there, they could come in and attack the attackers from the rear. The colonel had detailed a squad to come through the cemetery and head in that direction, but apparently they had been pinned down somewhere along the way.
Stoner turned around so that his back was to the church. Then he began crawling back along the cement walkway.
A line of thin bushes provided some cover to the right, throwing him in shadow. They thickened into a row of hedges after fifteen or twenty feet. Stoner hunkered next to them, trying to listen hard enough to sort the sounds of the night into some kind of sense. But he couldn’t hear much over the echoing gunfire behind him.
