Deception Game (24 page)

Tripoli International Airport

Sitting in the cockpit of his private aircraft with the engines turning over, Chandra watched as the Turkish Airways 737 ahead of him rocketed off down the runway, jet turbines roaring and trailing blue flames. The nose went first, followed a few seconds later by the rear wheels as the heavy beast of an aircraft lumbered into the night sky.

Next to that, Chandra’s own twin-prop Beechcraft C-12 cargo transport seemed like a toy. But it was a toy on which four people’s lives might well depend tonight.

With that thought hanging over him, he keyed his radio to the control-tower frequency and hit transmit. ‘Tripoli tower, this is Golf-Zulu-Six-Eight-Two. I’m in final position. Requesting clearance for takeoff.’

A moment later, his headset crackled with a tinny voice in response. ‘Understood, Six-Eight-Two. You’re cleared for takeoff.’

Gripping the throttle controls, he increased power to both engines, feeling the vibrations through the airframe as their output rose to meet his demands. A final check of his instruments confirmed the plane was functioning normally in all respects. Satisfied, Chandra released the brakes, allowing the aircraft to ease forward, slowly and tentatively taking its place at the runway threshold.

Pausing a few moments to make sure the nose was lined up with the centre line, Chandra let out a breath and checked his radio to make sure he wasn’t transmitting.

‘I hope you are ready for this, Ryan,’ he whispered, throttling up to full power.

The Beechcraft C-12 might have been an old propeller-driven workhorse dating back thirty years or so, but there was plenty of life still left in her. He felt the familiar lurch in the pit of his stomach as the plane surged forwards, quickly gathering pace as the engines roared with power, twin propellers clawing the night air. Off to his left, the bright lights of the terminal building flitted by, moving faster with every passing moment.

The nose seemed to rise up almost of its own accord as the lift generated by the wings drove it skyward. Checking that his ground speed was sufficient to lift off without stalling, Chandra eased back the stick. There was a bump, and then suddenly his passage seemed to smooth out. He was airborne.

This was it; no going back now. Now that he was aloft, he would be tracked by the Libyan air-traffic-control network, his course and speed carefully monitored by both military and civilian radar. Any deviation from his official flight plan would be met with a stern interrogation over the radio, most likely followed by a military interception if he failed to respond or comply immediately.

In short, he was committed to his course now. All he could do was hope that Drake and the others were waiting for him when he arrived.

With over a million residents and stretching nearly twenty miles from its western tip to its eastern suburbs, Tripoli was by far the largest and most populous city in Libya. However it was a long and straggling sort of place, with most of its population crowding in close to the shores of the Mediterranean. Rarely did it extend more than a few miles inland.

Heading almost due south at well over the speed limit, Drake and his companions soon found the densely packed urban streets giving way to wider suburban sprawl, and finally to scattered villages and settlements interspersed with irrigated fields. The road-quality declined noticeably once they were away from the main highways, pristine asphalt gradually deteriorating into rough potholed tarmac that felt like driving over a dried riverbed.

The only consolation was the almost total absence of other vehicles, particularly police cruisers. McKnight wasted no time in taking advantage of this, pushing the engine hard. The speedometer crept up to 70 mph, which was about as fast as any of them would risk driving on a rough road in the dead of night.

Reaching into the pack that was now by his feet, Drake removed a plastic bottle of water and downed a mouthful. He couldn’t say what it was about operations like this, whether it was the ambient temperature or the tension and nervous energy that caused them all to overheat, but by the time it was over he was always possessed by a ravenous thirst. And judging by the way Frost and Mason were attacking their own water canteens, he wasn’t the only one.

Taking another gulp, he held the bottle out to McKnight, who was happy to accept it. ‘Thanks,’ she said, gulping it down. ‘I’d prefer a beer, though.’

‘When we get out of here, I’ll buy you a case.’

Sparing him a momentary glance, she offered a playful smile. ‘I’ll hold you to that.’

He knew deep down that it was too soon to start celebrating. No operation was over until you were on that flight home, but despite himself, Drake couldn’t help feeling good about their work tonight. Despite numerous problems and a few close calls during the house-assault, they had overcome the challenges like they always did – together, as a team. They were on the home stretch now. A few more miles, and they would reunite with Chandra, bearing their prize away with them.

Then, when they had reached the safety of a remote house in a neutral country, they would find out what exactly what Sowan knew. But that was a concern for tomorrow. Tonight, they could be content with the knowledge that they had succeeded.

‘I hate to shit on this feel-good vibe, but we’ve got a problem,’ Frost said from the back seat, breaking his momentary spell of optimism. ‘A big one.’

Twisting around in his seat, Drake frowned at her. ‘Talk to me.’

‘I’ve been watching the GPS. We’re falling behind, Ryan. At this rate we’re going to miss our window.’

‘That’s impossible,’ Mason countered. ‘We worked out the route in advance. Timings, roads, everything.’

‘But we’re not following the route,’ the young woman explained. ‘We’re all over the place. Half the roads on our maps don’t even exist.’

Drake winced inwardly, realizing now that he’d underestimated the difficulties of traversing such a haphazard and primitive road network. Despite McKnight’s best efforts to keep them on course, the winding roads and awkward junctions, many of which didn’t exist on the unit's inbuilt map, kept forcing them to make detours and sudden turns. They were wasting time, taking a long and indirect route towards the airfield where they were soon to rendezvous with Chandra.

‘Shit, she’s right,’ Mason said. ‘We’re not making up the time.’

McKnight shook her head. ‘If we go much faster, we’ll drive right off the road. What do you want me to do, Ryan?’

Drake chewed his lip as he considered their situation. The road they were currently barrelling down seemed to run between a pair of fields, probably irrigated as there certainly wasn’t enough rainwater in this part of the world to sustain crops. This was remote farmland, even the scattered shanty-town settlements that clustered around the city having petered out.

He glanced at the GPS, as if searching for answers. Sure enough, the road was gradually curving away towards the north-east, carrying them further away from their destination. At this rate they could spend all night trying to negotiate the spider’s web of farm tracks that crisscrossed the region.

‘This car’s an off-roader, right?’ he said, deciding to go with the only idea that had come to mind. It wasn’t exactly elegant, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

McKnight glanced at him, saying nothing.

‘It’s time we went off road.’

If McKnight was harbouring any reservations about his plan, she gave no voice to them. Instead she reached up for her seatbelt, pulled it across and carefully locked it in place. Drake did likewise.

‘Get strapped in,’ he warned his two teammates in the back. ‘This could get rough.’

‘Fuck,’ Frost said under her breath, fumbling with her own belt. ‘And I was having a ball until now.’

There was nothing they could do about their two unwilling passengers in the trunk, except hope that they emerged at their destination with nothing more than a few bruises and a bad attitude.

Giving McKnight a nod, Drake braced himself as she swung the wheel over. Straightaway they veered right, leaving the potholed road in a spray of dust and stones before rolling down a shallow embankment and into the field beyond.

The SUV resounded with an almost painfully loud bang as they hit the ground at high speed, suspension and shock absorbers strained to their limit by the impact. Nonetheless, the engine was still running and the wheels clawed at the rutted ground, forcing them onwards.

Whatever crops they were growing here presented no obstacle to the Toyota’s relentless momentum, parting like the sea before an ocean liner and flattening beneath their wheels.

‘Don’t turn, just take us straight there,’ Drake ordered, keeping his eye on the GPS as the distance to destination slowly crept down. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the rumble of uneven ground beneath them.

‘Good thing this isn’t a rental,’ Mason remarked as the big SUV rumbled through a deep hole in the ground, taking the abuse like a pro rally car. Likely this little jaunt would put the car’s undercarriage out of commission, not that it mattered as long as they made their destination.

As it turned out, the field was bordered by another road about half a mile distant. Reluctantly obeying Drake’s instructions, McKnight took them straight up and over it, barely slowing down. She did her best to ignore the protesting groans and bangs coming from beneath the car as they landed hard on the other side. Broken shock absorbers wouldn’t prove fatal, but if they snapped an axle or a tracking rod, it was game over.

Nonetheless, somehow the sturdy car held together, carrying them across a couple of miles of rough open ground that didn’t seem to be used for much of anything. Even the lights of the city had faded into the distance, the only illumination provided by the vehicle’s dipped headlights.

Ahead of them lay a sparse, bleak landscape of dusty scrub, stony plains and rocky outcroppings that McKnight was obliged to desperately weave her way through. The car might have been an all-terrain vehicle, but even it couldn’t hope to traverse the walls of sandblasted rock that confronted them.

In the midst of this, Drake cocked his head, listening intently to the faint, crackly voice that was filtering through his radio earpiece.

‘...Monarch. Repeat...in, Monarch.’ The signal was fading in and out, occasionally overwhelmed by scrambled static. ‘Am...borne, approaching...field.’

Drake’s heartbeat stepped up a gear. It was Chandra radioing them that he was on approach, though presumably he was right at the edge of transmitting range. ‘Eagle, this is Monarch. Say again your last.’

‘Monarch, this is Eagle. Do you copy now?’

‘Go, Eagle.’

‘Am airborne and en route. ETA is less than five minutes. Are you in position?’

‘We’re close,’ Drake replied. According to the GPS, they were less than a mile from their destination.

‘Then I suggest you hurry, Monarch. Because I’m staring out into a whole lot of darkness at the moment. I can’t land without lights, and I can’t circle around for another pass. I’m flying as slow as I can without stalling, but if you’re not there when I pass by, I must leave you.’

‘Understood, Eagle. We’re on it.’ Clenching his fists, Drake looked at McKnight. ‘We need to be there now, Sam. Whatever it takes.’

McKnight’s arms were aching from constantly wrestling with the wheel, her eyes stinging with sweat, and her nerves as shredded as their tyres would be if she failed to spot one of the countless rocky spars that studded their path. It was like driving through a minefield blindfolded.

It was then that she spotted it. Standing directly across their path, easily ten feet high and stretching as far as she could see in the beams cast by the car’s headlights. A metal chainlink fence, supported by steel posts driven into the ground at ten-metre intervals.

‘Got a perimeter fence ahead,’ she warned.

Drake gritted his teeth. There was no time to go around. ‘Go through it. Hold on, everyone!’

Closing her eyes, McKnight stamped on the gas, propelling them towards the imposing-looking barrier.

The impact wasn’t what she’d expected. She felt a moment of resistance as the fence flexed under the pressure, metal links straining to hold it back, then suddenly there was a horrible wrenching, popping sound as it gave way, and the resistance vanished. A heartbeat later, the broken remains of the fence impacted the windshield, cracking the glass, before tearing across the roof and chassis. The scream of rending metal made her wince, but still she kept her foot on the gas, praying for them to power through it.

A moment later, it was over. The obstacle was behind them. She opened her eyes, hardly believing they’d made it. The ground was considerably smoother now that they’d entered the grounds of the airfield itself, though she had no idea where they were in relation to the field’s facilities.

‘I don’t see a runway,’ she said, searching the dusty ground for a sign of tarmac.

Drake shook his head. ‘I think this
is
the runway.’

The airfield was, in reality, little more than a stretch of level ground that had been fenced off and cleared of rocks and other obstructions. Drake had no idea why they’d bothered to erect a fence around a dirt landing strip when there seemed to be little here worth protecting. Perhaps the government here had intended to pave the runway and built a more substantial facility, but hadn’t gotten around to it yet.

It wasn’t going to be a fun landing for Chandra, but then, that was what he was being paid for. Anyway, Drake had seen him set down on worse.

Spotting a cluster of small buildings up ahead that he assumed were related to the operation of the airfield, Drake pointed to the nearest one. ‘This looks good. Stop by the closest building.’

Bringing the battle-scarred SUV to a halt, McKnight let out a sigh and slumped back in her seat, too drained to do anything else for the next few moments. Drake meanwhile leapt right out of the passenger side, sweeping the area with his weapon. It all seemed quiet.

There were three structures in total. One was a refuelling tank that looked like it hadn’t been used in some time, its paintwork scoured away by years of sand and wind. The other two were roughly equal in size, made from corrugated-metal sheeting probably fixed to a steel framework beneath. There was no obvious indication as to their purpose, no signs or words scrawled on them, but they were far too small to be aircraft hangars.