The sentry asked him something. Carver did not reply.
The sentry tried again. Carver leaned toward him, pointing at his ears and jerking his head in time to the beat. He grinned like an idiot and shouted, “Straight Outta Compton, yeah!!” in what he hoped was a vaguely Serbian accent.
The sentry looked at him blankly for a second, and then he saved his own life. He grinned and started jerking his head, too, in time to the sibilant beats hissing from Carver’s earphones. Then he handed back the I.D. card and waved him in.
The other vehicles were already halfway across the tarmac apron, and the blast doors were rolling apart to greet them. Carver hit the gas and took his place in the line, turning off the music with a sigh of relief and a loosening of shoulders that, he suddenly realized, were hunched up with tension. Something about the blaring in his ears, the sensation of inescapable noise, had really disturbed him. His teeth were grinding, his body sweating, and he felt weirdly disturbed, as though that noise had triggered a reaction to some dark, shapeless memory lurking below the surface of his mind.
And then he drove into the hangar, and all thoughts of his own issues were forgotten as he looked around in wonder.
A vast space had been hollowed out from the living rock of the mountain. In the foreground, McCabe’s jet was parked by the newly arrived helicopter: two splendid machines, worth millions and capable of extraordinary feats, yet in these surroundings they looked no bigger or more significant than toys. The hangar stretched back as far as Carver could see. In the distance, more jets were lined up in neat rows, at least two squadrons’ worth of Yugoslav Air Force fighters: old-fashioned MiG-21s, their nose cones poking out of stubby, stocky bodies, and much newer MiG-29s-sleek, hungry twin-tailed raptors.
A man in ground-crew overalls directed Carver to park his truck in an area to the left of the entrance, next to the other three newly arrived vehicles. As Carver drove up, he saw men springing down from the backs of the trucks, dressed in a motley assortment of combat fatigues, denim, leather jackets, and even sportswear, but all carrying weapons. Most of the men stayed by the trucks, leaning against them and lighting up cigarettes in blithe disregard for the vast amounts of aviation fuel that must be stored nearby. But one of them, responding to an order shouted from the Land Cruiser, walked across, his gun slung around his shoulders, opened one of the rear doors, and dragged out a bedraggled, blond-headed figure by his cuffed hands. It was Vermulen. So McCabe really had double-crossed him. Carver didn’t feel much sympathy. A man as astute and experienced as Vermulen should have seen it coming. But he was alone, so at least he’d been smart enough to leave Alix somewhere safe. That was something.
A second man emerged from the other rear door of the Land Cruiser. He had swept-back black hair and the sort of Italianate looks whose impeccable grooming suggests that the owner will never see a face he loves as much as his own. The man wore his smugness like expensive aftershave as he walked around to the back of the vehicle, a shockproof aluminum case in his hand, and watched while a battered brown leather suitcase was removed with extreme caution by two more armed men. They placed it on a long-handled, two-wheeled cart and pushed it away, still supervised by the Latin loverboy, toward a line of offices ranged against the far wall of the hangar, at least fifty yards away.
The Land Cruiser produced one last passenger, with a phone clamped to his ear. He concluded his conversation and strode briskly toward the man pushing the trolley, giving instructions as he went. This, thought Carver, must be Darko. He was certainly the man in charge. Vermulen, meanwhile, brought up the rear, doing his best to maintain an upright, dignified posture as he walked with his captor’s gun pressed into the small of his back.
Carver watched as two shaven-headed men emerged from one of the offices to meet the little procession. They were wearing shades, with ear-pieces in their ears, the unmistakable look of private security goons who want to pretend they’re U.S. Secret Service. Their jackets bulged with the clear presence of weapons. The goons watched as the line of men, plus the cart, made their way in. Then they closed the door and stood outside it, arms folded like nightclub bouncers, doing their best to look menacing.
Wankers, thought Carver to himself. But the men had given him an idea. From the moment that Jaworski told him to stay out of this “domestic matter,” he had assumed that the Americans were planning some kind of stunt to recover the bomb and take out McCabe, Vermulen, and anyone else who got in the way. But he wasn’t going to sit around with his thumb up his arse, waiting for the Seventh Cavalry to ride to the rescue. He’d let McCabe get away from him once, and it wouldn’t happen again. That much he’d decided back at the roadblock. He’d also known, in principle, what he wanted to do.
Now he’d worked out precisely how he was going to do it.
94
The three Black Hawk helicopters flew due south from Tuzla, the pilots pushing their performance to the limit, covering seventy-five miles in a little over twenty minutes, before they turned southeast toward the border. They crossed from Bosnia into Montenegro just south of Foca and followed the Tara River southeast toward the airport at Slatina. The helicopters hugged the valley floors, skimming the treetops, hurdling power lines, and skirting the edge of the hills and mountains of that craggy terrain, avoiding towns and villages like night creatures shying from human contact. Kady Jones was in the third aircraft, with the explosive-ordnance-disposal team. She’d been talking to the team leader, agreeing on the protocols under which they would examine and, if necessary, deal with any bomb they found, when their pilot cut in.
“Okay, folks-we’re into hostile territory. This is where it gets interesting.”
In the White House Situation Room, Ted Jaworski let out a cry of triumph: “Gotcha, you bastard!”
Within the past quarter-hour, an MQ-1 Predator drone from the Tuzla Air Base had arrived over Slatina and begun broadcasting real-time infrared imagery, via the ground-control station at Tuzla, back to the United States. It had spotted the helicopter’s arrival, and then the vivid flare of light as the hangar blast doors opened to admit it. Now that they knew where McCabe was hidden, the mission had become a lot simpler. Within minutes, an army general was in contact with Dave Gretsch, in the lead Black Hawk, updating his orders. Meanwhile, U.S. Air Force officers were readying fighter squadrons across the Balkan theater of operations and the Middle East to intercept and destroy McCabe’s plane, in the event that it took off before the Black Hawks reached Pristina, no matter where in the region it was heading.
When the general had finished with Gretsch, Jaworski got on the line.
“Major, this is Ted Jaworski, from the Agency. Just wanted to inform you that the Brits may have a man inside the airport facility where you will be deploying. He was tasked to get inside, but we don’t know if he made it. The
