First Team (51 page)

“Can you climb over the fence with that grenade launcher on your back?” Ferguson asked.

“If I have to.”

“If it’s too heavy, leave it. Once you’re in, move down the ditch,” said Ferguson. “They’re not going to be watching the middle of the base. When you find the entrance, let me know. Your meter working?”

“It claims it is,” said Conners, who had checked it at the perimeter.

“Take the Prussian blue,” he told Conners, referring to the antiradiation sickness pills they carried. Though not a panacea, the drug helped ward off some effects of radiation sickness. “We get in there, we just get a general idea of what’s going on. We don’t have to collect autographs.”

“I ain’t arguing with you. What should I do with Daruyev if you get nailed?” asked Conners.

“I ain’t fucking getting nailed,” said Ferguson, starting away.

Conners thought to himself that he was getting old and tired, confusing caution with wisdom. His body ached, and his eyes were stinging from the lack of sleep. Worse, he could feel the thirst for a beer in his mouth.

He stood up, pushing away the fatigue as Ferg went over the fence.

Ferguson slid down to the ground next to the fence, trying to make his body as compact as possible. Empty, rock-strewn fields dotted by nubs of thick grass lay on either side of the runway. It was several hundred yards across to the buildings. To his right, the mountainside jutted out and cut off whatever was there.

He took out the rad meter, got nothing. The device had an audible alarm; he set it, put the earphone in his ear, then put it back in his pocket. He worked his legs beneath him into a crouch, then sprang across the dirt perimeter roadway, making it in two bounds. Slowly, he began to crawl toward the runway.

After nearly ten minutes, much of it spent on his belly or all fours, he reached a set of runway lights near the edge of the concrete. There were lights in the metal jacket, though one of them had been broken. Ferguson huddled near the structure, listening—he could hear voices riding over the base from the buildings, but couldn’t see anyone. Nor did he have a sufficient angle on the cave entrance yet.

Ferguson hunched down and ran to the nearby ditch. He crawled along it about ten yards, looking for a good spot to cross the runway, but of course he would be exposed no matter where he went. Finally, he just thought screw it all, hopped up out of the ditch, and ran for the other side.

It took forever to get there, days out in the bright sun, exposed to the world. Finally, he landed in the other ditch, his heart thumping so loudly he wouldn’t have been surprised if the people in the buildings heard it beating.

After catching his breath, he started crawling again, this time angling to his left. A light was on at the side of the building; its circle ended about twenty yards from the fence at a pile of rocks. He thought if he could get into the rocks, he’d be able to get around them, then work his way behind the building, maybe even right up to it.

But to do that, he had to cross the edge of the field, exposed not only to the front of the buildings but the guard post at the gate. He was more worried about the guard post than the buildings, even though he was probably five times as far from it; there were definitely people there. Of course, their job was to look outside the base, not inside, but Ferguson wasn’t in a position to hand out demerits if they spotted him.

He continued to crawl, the earth cold against his chest. Twice he stopped to make sure the earbud was still in place, surprised that he’d found no radiation yet.

About ten yards from the flank of the building, he heard voices again. He froze, waiting for them to grow louder. When they didn’t, he began inching forward again, finally getting to what he had thought were rocks but turned out to be a collection of cut-up tires. Ferguson pulled himself behind them, caught his breath.

There was another light at the back of the buildings; he’d have to walk through it to see inside.

Ferguson brushed some of the dirt from his shirt and pants, then started out again.

~ * ~

21

OVER EASTERN TURKEY

Van Buren decided that rather than waiting on the runway, they would launch the planes and fly to a point just across the border, waiting for word. The increase in risk and logistics problems—tanker time had to be coordinated like a complicated minuet—was well worth the decrease in the time to strike. As far as possible, the flight patterns were arranged to make it appear to anyone watching—which would include the Russians—that the mission was headed toward Iraq.

Van Buren tried to fight off the adrenaline that built as his Herky Bird left the tarmac. Getting too keyed up, too hot for action, would blur his judgment. He had to be just south of the power line—just on the calm edge of the hurricane.

“Ms. Alston for you, sir,” his communications specialist told him.

Van Buren nodded, and his headset clicked on. She was aboard the MH-17, which was airborne to the west.

“We’re still waiting for word from the ground,” she said.

“Yes we are,” he said.

“I’ve been speaking to Corrigan. The NSA has netted two intercepts with the Russians mentioning the base. At the moment they’re decrypting more material. They seem to think it’s something worth checking into as well. Still not proof,” she added.

“That’s why we have the Team there,” said Van Buren.

“Very good, Colonel. Break a leg.”

“Break a leg?”

“It’s a theater expression. It means good luck, which is supposed to be bad luck to say.”

“Break a leg,” said Van Buren.

~ * ~

22

SOUTHERN CHECHNYA

Ferguson leaned against the window, staring inside the large hangarlike building, trying to interpret the different shadows inside. He could see several trucks and a number of crates in the area to the left. Beyond that was a wall that seemed as if it blocked off another section of the building, maybe for use as offices or barracks.

The only way to know what was going on inside was to climb in. The window was the casement kind; it worked by a crank. Ferguson put his knife in and pushed. As the blade threatened to bend, he backed off the pressure. The window squirted open about a quarter inch, just enough for him to put his fingers on the edge and pull.

With the window open, Ferguson got a light click in his earbud: gamma radiation, though at a level barely above background.

The window was so narrow he couldn’t fit through with his ruck and rifle, so he placed them against the wall where he could reach back for them and began squeezing through. He had one foot on the floor and was twisting his back to bring the other through the window when the lights went on.

~ * ~

onners had remained in the shadows by the fence as Ferguson worked his way across the field toward the buildings. He didn’t move until Ferguson was on the other side of the runway. Then he ran directly to the trench, his chest heaving as he slid feetfirst into the depression. One of the legs of the grenade launcher’s tripod poked him as he got down, but having come that far with the weapon, he wasn’t about to give it up.

There was definitely activity at the cave or whatever it was at the mountain flank; he could hear machinery and people moving and see a whitish glow that had to be coming from floodlights. But the entrance was angled away; to see it he would have to go almost to the end of the runway.

And so he began to crawl on his hands and knees.

~ * ~

erguson let his body fall through the window to the floor, as if he were a sack of rice. He thumped loudly—but not quite as loudly as the cough of the truck motor turning over and catching about fifty feet away. He lay on his back for a moment, then turned over. Truck wheels moved on his right; another engine started up, the place smelled like exhaust. Ferguson drew himself to his knees and got up, moving quickly to his right to get behind more vehicles. There were voices, loud—he put his hand over the tailgate of a pickup and rolled over, sliding into the bed as a truck a few yards away started up. He heard the beeping of a backup signal echoing in the empty building.

Then he realized it wasn’t a backup warning at all—it was his rad meter.

The door to the pickup opened, and the truck shook as someone got in. Ferguson reached his hand down for his pistol: He could take out the driver, whoever was nearby, call Conners, get the assault started before they wasted him.

Someone shouted something. Ferguson drew his gun up, ready.

The door of the pickup slammed shut. There were footsteps nearby.

Another truck started up. Ferguson leaned against the side of the pickup, waiting.

More trucks, more exhaust. He felt himself starting to gag on the fumes.

Then the terrorists were gone.

~ * ~

onners had gotten about fifty yards from the spot where he’d gone into the ditch when he heard the first truck back near the building. He stopped, staring in its direction.

Where the hell was Ferguson, he wondered. He brought his gun up and began moving back in the direction he had come. Another truck appeared from the building, then another and another. They stopped in front of the second building; men came out from it and got into the vehicles. Then, with their headlights still off, they drove onto the dirt road that ran around the fence, heading toward the cave area.

Knowing Ferguson, Conners thought, he’s in one of the damn trucks.

He had just started to move along the ditch again when the sat phone began vibrating.

“Yeah?” he whispered into it.

“Pay dirt,” said Ferguson. His voice was only slightly lower than normal. “Gamma-wave generators around, trace stuff—they stored stuff here. The real shit must be over in the mountain.”