"Oh, that's right," McLeod grumbled. "I keep forgetting what a major threat to American national security one batty Scotsman could be."
Gwen reached down and stuck a hand in her pants pocket. She pulled out her miniature cell phone, which Noah realized she must have kept on vibrate mode, because he had never heard it ring. "Gwen Savard," she said and listened a moment. "Okay, we're on our way." She put the phone back in her pocket as she stood up from the table. "Noah, we have to go. Now."
Haldane grabbed his hat and gloves and then reached over and patted McLeod on the shoulder. "Think of it this way, Duncan," he said with a wink. "It's one less of those
godforsaken
places you have to visit."
McLeod waved them away with a swing of his arm. "Get the hell out of here. Go!" He flashed a half grin. "And for the love of Christ, stay safe!"
Haldane and Savard were led directly into the Secretary of Homeland Security's roomy office in the Nebraska Avenue Center. "Doctors," Ted Hart said in his hoarse tone and rose to greet them.
They stood by his desk, but he didn't offer them seats. "Dr. Haldane, after our meeting this morning, a few members of the NSC, including the President, stayed behind to discuss the situation. We decided it would be a good idea for you to go to Somalia."
Haldane nodded without comment.
"Once the terrorist camp is secure, of course." Hart stopped to hack a harsh cough. "We were hoping you would join the site survey team. Your expertise would be invaluable in assessing the state of their lab and so on."
Haldane felt a rush of adrenaline. "Of course, Mr. Secretary."
"Absolutely!" Gwen pointed to her chest. "We'll both go."
"Both?" Hart turned to Gwen with surprise. "No. No. Just Dr. Haldane."
"Ted--" Gwen started.
Hart waved his open palms at her. "No, Gwen! You have a crucial job to perform. The country is relying on you to stay here at home and do it."
Gwen shook her head defiantly. "Everything is unfolding here as we planned. There's little more I can do right now except wait like everyone else."
Hart frowned. "And what can you do over there?" he asked pointedly.
"I am a scientist, too, Ted. I know as much or more about microbiology labs than Noah does." She stared back at Hart, her face fixed in fierce determination. "I know what we're looking for. I feel it in my bones."
"Gwen is right," Haldane said. "She would be a help."
Hart shook his head but with less authority.
Gwen looked down and spoke to the floor. "Ted, they attacked us with the unthinkable. I need to be over there to see this through. You can understand that, can't you?"
Hart stared at her for several seconds before he sighed heavily. "Lucky for you I've run out of time to argue. We need to get you to Andrews Air Force Base ASAP. Your flight leaves in a half an hour."
Gwen offered her boss a grateful smile. "We're gone, Ted."
Haldane had never experienced such a smooth transfer. Their limo pulled up onto the tarmac of the Andrews Air Force Base. They stepped out of the car and walked up the steps into the cabin of the C37A twin-engine jet. Two prepacked generic overnight bags awaited them. And within moments of boarding, they were airborne.
Aside from the flight crew, consisting of a pilot, a copilot, and a junior officer who functioned as a flight attendant, there were no other passengers in the spacious cabin, which wasn't much smaller than a commercial airliner. Once at cruising altitude, the pilot's friendly voice came over the loudspeaker. "Hi, Doctors, we'll be cruising at close to the speed of sound, which should get us to Yemen in just over eight hours," he said. Noah consulted his watch and did the calculation, realizing they should touch down around 12:30 A.M. local time, less than two hours before Operation Antiseptic was set to commence.
Though comfortable in the cabin, Haldane was too keyed up to sleep. Gwen sat beside him, lost in the laptop computer in front of her. He touched her shoulder. "How are you doing?" he asked.
"Good." She smiled distractedly. "Glad to be along for the ride."
"Nervous?"
She turned away from the computer and studied Haldane with a quizzical frown. "They won't let us near the action."
Haldane let his hand linger a second longer on her shoulder before pulling back. "I didn't mean that. It's just that it's all coming to a head."
"Finally," she sighed. "I'm actually relieved. I was beginning to wonder if this would ever end."
Haldane smiled. "As long as it ends well."
"Yeah, that's kind of key. Truth be told, I am nervous." She bit her lip. "But a good nervous, you know?"
Haldane smiled, appreciating how pretty she looked at moments like these when she let her professional guard down.
"Hey!" She leaned forward and rummaged through her handbag at her foot. She brought her closed hand up to him and then turned it over, exposing a brown pill bottle. She popped the lid off to show the small yellow tablets inside.
Haldane studied the unmarked pills for a moment, before it dawned on him. "Dr. Moskor's wonder drug?"
"Well, the wonder part is yet to be proven, but, yeah, this is a bottle of his drug, A36112. It was waiting for me on my desk in a little box with a note that said, 'Go save the world, kid."' She chuckled. "Typical Isaac!"
Haldane pointed at the bottle. "Have to be a pretty small world to save it with those."
"True." Savard smiled and bit her lip again. "Let's hope we never need a single pill."
Shortly after midnight Yemeni time, Haldane stared out the window as the C37A began to descend into blackness. As he felt his ears pop, he wondered with slight apprehension where exactly in the darkness the pilot intended to land. Suddenly lights broke through the pitch-black, and he could see they were no more than a few hundred feet from a runway.
The plane landed without so much as a bump. As their plane taxied toward the hangar, Haldane noticed how active the airstrip was. To either side, they passed airplanes ranging from fighter jets to the huge Hercules-style transport planes. A long line of planes waiting for takeoff had formed in the opposite direction.
The C37A slowed to a halt beside the massive hangar. Gwen and Noah grabbed their bags and disembarked following the crew.
Standing in the humid Yemeni air--where at midnight it was easily fifty degrees warmer than Washington had been at midday--Haldane began to feel sticky. Glancing around, he could better appreciate the frantic buzz of activity. While the soldiers worked with silent determination, the noise was earsplitting. Cargo doors slammed open and shut. Jet engines fired up. Cars, trucks, and armored vehicles moved in all directions; some carried supplies while others drove into the hulls of the huge transport planes.
Haldane had never before been to an air force base, let alone one that was set to launch a critical military operation, but the sense of purpose was palpable in the air. He welled with patriotism, a rare emotion for him. When he glanced at Gwen, she appeared equally mesmerized by the sight of the mechanized bees' nest.
An officer dressed in fatigues and matching hat drew their attention with arms waving above his head. "Drs. Savard and Haldane?" he yelled out over the noise.
Gwen gave him the thumbs-up sign.
The man waved for them to follow him. Once inside the open hangar, Haldane noticed that the level of noise dropped several decibels to simply loud.
Haldane half expected a salute, but the muscular man with square jaw, cropped hair, and deep acne scars held out a hand for them to shake. "Evening, Doctors, I'm Major Patrick O'Toole with the Seventy-fifth Rangers Airborne, but everyone 'round here knows me as Paddy," he said with a friendly grin. "I'm to be your liaison officer."
"Gwen Savard," she said, and shook his hand.
"Noah Haldane," he said, meeting the crushing handshake. "But everyone around here will know me as 'Chicken.'"
The major laughed heartily. "Glad to meet you, Chicken. You'll fit right in." He wheeled around and pointed to the other side of the hangar as if directing a car.
Paddy led them to a quieter comer of the hangar, where a makeshift canteen offered self-serve coffee, tea, cookies, and other snacks. "Coffee?" Paddy asked as he poured a cup from the dispenser. Nauseated from the bumpy flight and the engine fumes in the hangar, Haldane declined with a shake of his head. So did Gwen. Paddy shrugged and kept the cup for himself.
They sat down at one of several empty picnic-style tables topped with a few scattered condiments. "Are you aware of the mission details?" Paddy asked.
Gwen nodded. "We attended General Fischer's briefing at the White House this morning."
Paddy's jaw dropped, impressed.
"He only gave an overview of the operation," she hurried to add.
"Okay," Paddy said. His expression stiffened and his tone deepened. "As you are aware, this is a modified lightning strike on the terrorist compound." He put down his cup, and drew a circle around it with his finger. He looked from Gwen to Noah. "Modified, because not only do we need to secure the target, but we can afford zero leakage." He ran two fingers through the air. "By that, I mean, the operation's success is dependent on ensuring that not one single terrorist escapes the compound alive."
Gwen shrugged at Paddy. "So how does that change the tactics of the strike?"
"Good question, ma'am." Paddy nodded. "It slows everything down a little. We have to establish full 360-degree vision from the sky and secure the perimeter to an even tighter degree than usual."
"So they will have more warning when the assault team does arrive?" Gwen asked.
"Exactly!" Paddy said. "But not a lot. We have no enemy air power to overcome. Just a matter of getting our planes and choppers in position, and getting our boys positioned on the ground. We can do that very quickly."
"So where do we fit into the equation?" Haldane asked.
"Well, I don't see a gun in your hand or a parachute on your back, so it means we're pretty much at the back of the pack," Paddy said. "Coming from the White House, you have an important job to do, but we'll have to wait until we get the word from the lead troops."
Paddy pointed toward the end of the hangar at one of the large transport planes that faced them. With its massive front cargo door open and a vehicle parked on the ramp, it looked like a monster with an appetite for metal. "We'll fly in on one of those C17s to the airstrip west of Hargeysa." He shrugged. "Then we'll wait and, with any luck, watch the battle at the mobile command center."
"And then?" Gwen prodded.
Paddy's face shed its expression of affable amusement. His eyes hardened. "My orders are to take you and the rest of the site survey team to the terrorist base once it is secure--and I cannot stress enough--that we are not going
anywhere
until we hear that the site is safe and secure."
CHAPTER 35
U.S. AIR FORCE BASE, YEMEN
An hour after landing in Yemen, Haldane and Gwen sat in the belly of a C17 Globemaster III waiting for takeoff. Unlike their previous flight, they were not the only passengers. They shared the cabin of the C17 with jeeplike HINMWVs (high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles), trucks, tanks, and several soldiers, including the other members of the site survey team. Everyone on board wore specially designed camouflage HAZMAT suits with Kevlar vests. Noah, whose nausea rebounded the moment after takeoff, was relieved to learn that they would not have to wear their face masks, which resembled pilot's oxygen masks, until on the ground and closer to the site.
Glancing around the cabin, Haldane felt a sense of protective concern for the soldiers. In the Yemeni evening they had struck him as self-assured professionals, but now in the proximity of the lit cabin he realized how young they were. They had the same hopeful faces as the students in his classes at Georgetown. He had a tough time imagining some of his students coping with life away from mom and dad, let alone poised to storm a terrorist stronghold.
Over the whirr of the C17's multiple engines, Paddy described the plane to them like he was trying to sell it. "Yes, sir! It's the most advanced, versatile, and agile transport plane in the business. Could carry a load of 110 African elephants." He laughed. "Of course, that would be one odd sortie, but you get the idea. As you can see the C17 can fly troops and tanks, but it can also drop two hundred paratroopers behind enemy lines if need be..."
While Paddy talked nonstop, Noah and Gwen hardly spoke a word during the flight. Haldane spent much of his time staring out the window, and watching the lights of the F16 escorts as they shaped into eerily beautiful formations off either wing. Fifty minutes and 250 miles after takeoff, the lights in the cabin dimmed and all conversation abruptly ceased. "We just crossed into Somali territory," Paddy whispered.
Six minutes later, a voice on the loudspeaker confirmed Paddy's assertion and added, "The U.S. Airborne Eighty-second Division has secured the western landing strip. We'll be landing in fifteen minutes."