The Aleppo Code (The Jerusalem Prophecies) (62 page)

“Don’t think about it,” said Whalen, reading Bohannon’s thoughts. “It’s what we trained for.” Whalen grasped Bohannon’s left shoulder with a level of intensity and sincerity that sent a powerful message. “It’s been a pleasure, Tom. A pleasure to play even a small role in what God’s got cooking here. And a pleasure to know you. You’re a good man, Bohannon. A man after God’s own heart. He can do a lot with that. I’ll be praying for you.”

His eyes blinking, perplexed, Tom tried to absorb the significance of all Whalen just shared when Steve Vordenberg and Fred Atkins joined their boss.

“Good luck, Bohannon,” said Atkins. “Stay safe.”

“And ask Annie to put in a good word with Vince Kasper,” said Vordenberg. “I could use a long vacation after all this excitement.”

“Oh! Wait,” said Whalen, turning and jogging back to their Rover. Tom looked over his shoulder. He didn’t see what he expected. Annie, saying goodbye to Kabir. Instead, Annie was waiting, right behind him. “I already said goodbye,” she grabbed his hand as she looked into the sky at the approaching jet. “Oh, Tom.
Are
we finally going home?”

It was Rizzo talking with Kabir. Kabir pulled his curved dagger from its scabbard and, with it laying across his open palms, handed it to Rizzo, who promptly slashed it through the air while dancing around the sheik. Kabir’s laughter echoed off the walls of sand.

“Annie … here …” Whalen called from the other Rover. “You can’t forget these.”

Hanging from his raised fist Whalen was holding her camera bag. Annie walked over to the Rover while Tom went in Kabir’s direction.

“Who knows what images you’ve got in your cameras,” said Whalen, “maybe another cover.”

Annie took the cameras in her left hand and threw her right arm around Whalen.

“Thanks, Mike. I owe you big-time.”

“Great. Just get me a credit when you score that next cover. Comes with a nice bonus, you know?”

Rizzo was just walking away, still waving the dagger above his head, when Tom came up to Kabir.

Sometimes, words fail a man. Even in those most crucial moments. When the depth of a heart can only be shared by the sincerity of a look. Kabir shared one of those looks with Bohannon and communicated a lifetime.

“I would have enjoyed meeting you earlier, too,” said the sheik, stealing the words from Tom’s mind. His fingers touched his heart then his lips as he bowed his head in Tom’s direction. “May the miles be good to you and bring you safely home.”

In the distance, they heard the screech of tires on concrete. Time was short. “Thanks for taking care of Annie when—”

Mayhem made a landing with the Gulfstream.

6:34 p.m., Al Asad air base, Iraq

Thump. Thump. Thump.
The pounding noise shocked their ears and joined in the ripping rattle of death that advanced down the runway.

Bohannon’s head snapped to the east as two attack helicopters swept out of the edges of the storm, their cannons drowning out the
whomp
of the rotor blades, tearing up the concrete at a couple hundred rounds per minute as they advanced on the still rolling form of the Gulfstream.

“Militia!”

It sounded like a hundred muffled voices shouting at once while everything and everyone was moving at the same time. “Take cover. Get off the runway. Get to the airplane.”

“Get down,” Joe yelled, grabbing Sammy by the shoulder and pulling him into the lee of the Land Rover. Rizzo skidded along the concrete on his knees, crashing into the rear tire with his left hip, pain rushing down his legs like runaway electricity. But as soon as he hit the tire, Rizzo was back up on his feet, peering through the Rover’s window as the choppers swept past, their cannons pumping lead.

Spinning on his heel, Tom shot a frantic glance down the runway as he began to run west, not toward the Gulfstream, but toward the Land Rover. Whalen had grabbed Annie and pushed her down against the flank of the vehicle, away from the oncoming choppers, while he joined Vordenberg and Atkins pulling weapons from a compartment underneath the vehicle’s floor. Before Tom could call Annie’s name, the three combat veterans were launching a fusillade at the swooping choppers. The fury and intensity of their onslaught forced the helicopters to peel away from the landing strip in opposite directions, but the pilots kept their cannons churning, and Tom kept running, as cannon rounds ripped across the back of the Land Rover, shattering glass and shredding metal as the vehicle shook like a dishtowel in a hurricane.

Reaching the Rover, Tom launched himself, covering Annie’s body with his own as the roaring fury of the helicopters moved away from the airstrip and the world around them slipped from bedlam to terror. Raising his head, Bohannon saw Kabir’s body lying on the runway, blood bubbling from a series of wounds on his back. He started to rise, to run to Kabir’s aid, when the helicopters banked hard for a return run.

“Stay down,” Joe roared. “I’m going to help.” He was off, running toward Kabir’s bloody body.

“Fat chance of that,” Rizzo mumbled to himself.
Are there any of those weapons in this car?
Rizzo pulled open the back door of the Land Rover. In the distance he could see the helicopters making wide turns inward, turning back toward the airstrip as the Gulfstream pulled into an open hangar halfway down the concrete. He jumped on the back seat and steadied himself on the seatback with his left hand as he reached down and tried to pull up the floor of the Rover. A pulsing heat passed through his left hand and along his arm. Rizzo turned to his left where his hand was resting on
the
gun bag. “Holy guacamole, Moses’s missile launcher.”

Rizzo grabbed the pulsing bag and dragged it behind him as he crawled along the seat to the far side, pushed open the door, and jumped down to the runway.

Thump. Thump. Thump.
The helicopters had straightened out and were bearing down on the hangar, cannons blazing away nonstop.

Running to the front of the Rover, Rizzo pulled the bag to his chest.

One of the choppers fired off two rockets that slammed into the concrete runway on either side of the hangar, its cannons shredding a third of the metal building into twisted knots.

The bag was longer than he was tall. Rizzo reached up and yanked on the zippers and the flaps of the bag fell away.

Rizzo quickly looked around. Joe was leaning over Kabir. Whalen had come out from behind the Rover with some big gun planted on his hip and was blasting away at the oncoming choppers.

Rizzo grabbed Aaron’s staff, long and unwieldy, by the crook and pulled it into his side, his left hand trying to balance its surprising weight while his entire body infused with heat.

His hands began to glow.

“You don’t mess with Moses.”

The helicopter to the right, pounding out incessant cannon fire, was also taking the full brunt of Whalen’s onslaught. It turned violently away from the airstrip, smoke and fire pouring out of it. Rizzo gave his full attention to the one bearing down on him like a dragon from the pit of hell.
What do I do?

He had no clue. There was no trigger, no button to push.

“God, help me!”

Rizzo was driven back against the front of the Rover as if he had been on the wrong end of a missile launch at Cape Canaveral. A blinding white streak of light leaped from the entire length of the staff and shot into the sky, slamming into the front of the attacking chopper. For a heartbeat the helicopter shimmered and lit up like a light bulb. All the air sucked toward the copter as if the world had taken a deep breath. Then it erupted into a million tiny, flaming pieces.

“Sammy!” The voice came from down the runway.

Shaken like a rag doll, Rizzo was now sitting on the concrete runway, as he looked at his left hand for scorch marks. His fingers tingled, but there were no burns.

“I’mmm …”

Rizzo had a hard time coherently connecting his brain to his tongue. “Ooookaay,” was all he could manage. But his eyes were on this marvelous stick that now lay across his lap, as cold and inert as the bones of a dinosaur in the Natural History Museum. “Ooookaay.”

His eyes bouncing back and forth from Kabir’s bleeding body to Rizzo’s pale white face, Tom was shaken into the present when Atkins grabbed him by the shirt and started running down the airstrip. Whalen had joined Joe next to Kabir, and Vordenberg and Annie were running in their direction with a large, first-aid kit. “Kabir’s got plenty of help,” Atkins called over his shoulder, “but the plane …”

Tom looked to the west as he started running in Atkins’s wake. The far hangar was smoldering, a good third of it molten metal girders and shredded steel skin.

Home. Alex!

Before he could process his fear, Tom saw Krupp run out a side door of the hangar and race in their direction.

“Get one of the trucks,” Krupp called. “We’ve got to pull some of the debris away from the plane.”

A few minutes later, the surviving Land Rover had pulled aside piles of twisted metal, freeing the Gulfstream from its prison at the back of the hangar. The jet taxied downwind, to the end of the runway, as Bohannon and Atkins drove the vehicle back to the knot around Kabir. Rizzo sat on the back seat, Aaron’s staff resting across his lap, a look of shock and awe on his face. Annie was on her feet and moving toward them.