First Team (55 page)

Conners grunted and started after him. As Ferguson began to run, he heard a sound similar to a vacuum cleaner and felt the aircraft starting to shake. The dim light narrowed. The engines whined to life.

“The door,” yelled Conners.

Ferguson tripped as he ran. He grabbed his rifle, but then stopped himself from firing as the mechanism slapped shut. They were in the dark.

“There’s got to be some sort of switch if it’s powered,” Ferguson told Conners. “We’ll get it later if we have to. Let’s try to get in the cockpit. Come on.”

Ferguson reached the wall at the front of the plane and slapped at it with his hands, trying to feel for a ladder or something that would take him up to the flight deck, which on a 747 sat at the top of the plane, almost like the second story of a two-story building. There was no ladder, and he couldn’t find a handhold. He went to the side, found a place to climb up, but lost his balance and tumbled to the floor of the plane, smacking his head so hard as he landed that he temporarily lost consciousness.

Conners, unable to climb, felt around with his hands for a ladder or steps. As he did, he smelled metal burning. A loud secondary explosion sounded in the distance, rocking the jet.

“Get down here, you guys,” he called to the assault team, as if they might hear him over the engines on the plane. He stepped back, pulled his rifle up, and aimed it at the door. But as he started to press the trigger, the plane jerked forward. Conners lost his balance, and the three slugs buried themselves harmlessly in the material wedged along the roof of the fuselage.

~ * ~

29

OVER CHECHNYA

The AC-130 located not one but two different active antiaircraft batteries. The first shot from its howitzer nailed one of the ZSU-23s in the center of its chassis, causing the four barrels to fold in on themselves midshot. Flames crescendoed in every direction, red and yellow streamers that unfolded like the petals of a flower.

The pilot of the AC-130 U “U-boat” had to come hard south to get a shot on the second battery, which had been located to the east of the camp proper. As he pulled the big Herk on to her mark, he saw that the Chechens had moved an airplane onto the end of the runway.

They were committed to the flak dealer, which began spraying lead in their direction. The pilot got a cue on his target screen and hit the trigger, but the shot trailed off as the Herk hit a sudden updraft current. He worked the stick and the rudder as if he were piloting a World War II dive bomber, homing in on its prey. Sparks flew across his bow, but he had the shot. The large aircraft shuddered, then seemed to push forward and simultaneously dip her right wing. They’d been hit—but they’d also nailed the ZSU-23-4.

~ * ~

30

SOUTHERN CHECHNYA

Samman Bin Saqr realized with the first explosion that he had miscalculated badly—it was not the Russians who had found him, but the Americans. As calmly as he could, he worked the plane, starting the engines, securing the hatches, moving forward on the runway.

His flight engineer had not come aboard, but that was a minor matter. He began to turn as he reached the northern end of the runway, his right wing nearly scraping the side of the building as he turned. He hesitated for a second, fearful that in his ineptitude he had failed Allah. But then God smiled at him—he cleared the building and had the nose of the plane pointing into the wind, directly down the runway.

“Let us proceed,” he told his copilot, Vesh Ahmamoody. Vesh reached for the thrusters, propelling the flying bomb into the sky.

~ * ~

~ * ~

1

ABOARD EAST ASIA CARGO FLIGHT 203,

OVER SIBERIA

Rankin settled into the seat on the upper deck of the Antonov An-22, trying to compensate for the thin padding by adding one of the blankets he’d found in the overhead compartment. He hoped to start catching up on his sleep, though between the seat and the loud snores of Guns and Massette behind him-—somehow managing to pierce the drone of the four turboprops on the wings—his prospects were rather dim.

The An-22 the three SF soldiers were flying in had been designed in the 1960s as a long-distance freight hauler for the Soviet military; this particular version had ferried T-62 tanks around the country for nearly two decades before being surplused and then sold—illegally, though its papers demonstrated otherwise—to a small airfreight company based in Germany. The company had gone bankrupt, and one of its creditors ended up with the plane; the creditor had in turn sold it at auction, and within a few months the aircraft belonged to a private company partly owned by a man known to have connections with the Egyptian secret service. These connections were actually a cover for his true relationship with the American CIA, a connection that had allowed Corrigan to arrange for the Team’s transport to Japan relatively quickly.

Though in Rankin’s opinion, delays that would have meant a more comfortable flight and something to eat would have been well worth the time. He hoped they’d be able to grab something in Tokyo before going back to the States. His end of the mission had been pretty much a wipeout. Worse, he knew from Corrigan that Ferguson and Conners had hit pay dirt and was pissed that he had missed it.

The plane hit a run of turbulence and began skittering up and down like a kite. When it finally settled down, Rankin bunched the blanket up behind his head to take another go at trying to sleep. As he closed his eyes, his sat phone buzzed.

“Rankin, we need you in Manila, right away,” said Corrigan. “We’re getting a flight for you into Tokyo.”

“Yeah?”

“We’re still pulling the details together. The assault’s under way, but we have information on a hangar in Manila. It fits with the LA theory. Things are fluid.”

“I’m hungry,” Rankin told him.

Corrigan couldn’t quite compute what the comment meant. He took a shallow breath, then stuttered. “What are you talking about?”

“I want to get some food in Japan,” Rankin told him. “I’m starving.”

“Shit, Rankin, I don’t have time for your crap,” said Corrigan, killing the line.

~ * ~

2

OVER CHECHNYA AND THE CAUCASUS

Van Buren didn’t understand what they were telling him at first. There was so much happening around him and on the ground that it was difficult to keep everything in place.

“There’s a plane—it’s taking off,” repeated the Air Force lieutenant. “It’s in the air.”

“What kind of plane?” asked the colonel. The first assault team had just reached the ground. Resistance appeared unorganized.

“A big jet—747. It’s off—they’re getting away.”

“Tell the escort flight,” said the colonel. “Get someone on him. Tell Ms. Alston.”

~ * ~

orrine sat at the edge of her seat in the MC-17, listening to Air Force Major Daniel Gray explain what the AWACS data meant. Gray was tasked with coordinating the SF group’s actions with any and all Air Force units that were part of the operation; much of his job involved acting as a translator for the different parts of the mission.

Russian fighters had been alerted to the activity and were now within ten minutes of the Chechen base. They were not answering radio hails. Meanwhile, the aircraft that had taken off from the base was a 747 and seemed to be heading for Iran. More than likely it was an Iranian aircraft being used as an escape plane by the Islamist terrorists.

Or, wondered Corrine, was it loaded with radioactive material?

“Where do you want our warplanes?” Gray asked.

Corrine could send the F-15s to protect her people, or attempt to shoot down the plane; she couldn’t do both.