controls while he waited.
Kim snapped off the light and stepped forward. “Any time you’re ready.”
“Are you famous, Miss Drake?” He clicked two pictures.
“No, not yet. Working on it.” Broad smile, hands on hips, blond hair in helmet hairspray mode. American Idol.
“I find that difficult to believe. Obviously you’re talented, or you would not be here.” Two more pictures. “Very good. My thanks to all of you. The company will be pleased up to get these. You are okay here, so I’ll just be off now to check the other van. Some Italian chaps.”
He repeated the drill with the Italian van, where only a technician was on duty. There was one big difference. Inside the truck, Juba tilted the driver’s seat forward and unscrewed a panel door, and the aroma of fresh coffee filled the interior. “That smells good. Are you brewing a pot of coffee down there?” asked the man at the console.
Juba explained over his shoulder that they packed coffee around some of the more sensitive avionic components to absorb excess moisture because the damp climates of Scotland and England played havoc with the delicate equipment. In reality, the strong coffee smell masked the scent of the large brick of C-4 explosive attached to a small lead-lined box. Sniffing dogs had moved right over it during the final security inspections. Juba fished out his camera and took a few pictures, then reached inside the lead-shielded compartment and clicked a metal switch attached to the explosive, which lay beside a large aerosol canister. The weapon was armed. He set the timer on a backup detonator, poured in some fresh coffee beans to cover it, screwed the panel back in place, and lowered the seat.
“There. That’s it, now. I will be going along. Good luck.” The technician paid no attention as he left.
Kimberly Drake was in a pool of bright light, facing a TV camera on a tripod and smoothing her navy blue jacket over the pink button-down shirt. Her hair and the top half of her outfit were perfect, but since she would only be shown from the waist up, she also wore jeans and white sneakers. She held a microphone in one hand.
She seemed to be talking to herself, muttering as she rehearsed her report. As Juba passed, she glanced up. “Thanks for coming by,” Kim said. “Keep watching TV and maybe you’ll see me someday, rich and famous.”
Juba returned the smile. “I have no doubt of that at all, Miss Drake. I am sure that after tomorrow, the entire world will know your name.”
“One can always hope,” she said. “’Night.”
6
THE DULL BLACK SPECIAL ops helicopter sliced high above the border between Iran and Iraq in the cold early morning hours at 175 miles per hour, and wind howled through the open cabin. Three heavily clad men stood attached to safety harnesses behind the 7.62 miniguns mounted at the side door and the port side escape hatch and a.50 caliber machine gun on the lowered rear deck. The U.S. Air Force pilots had engaged the stealth capabilities of the big MH-53J Pave Low III Enhanced helicopter, such as the infrared engine exhaust suppressors, and the sensor package in the craft’s bulbous nose sniffed for danger signals.
The Pave Low had gone across the border at a high altitude but then swooped down like a hawk through the night, the pilots trusting the terrain-following radar as they hurtled the machine forward only a hundred feet off the deck. The biggest helicopter the Air Force had, the versatile Pave Low, a direct descendant of the Vietnam-era Super Jolly Green Giant, was the platform of choice for covert insertions and extractions deep in enemy territory. Two large General Electric engines fed the huge single rotor that allowed extra armor plating, and it could fly in any sort of weather. The eight Marines aboard were an extremely light cargo for the helicopter, for thirty more could have fit into the cavernous cargo space. That absence of weight allowed the Pave Low to perform even more niftily than usual.
Kyle Swanson hunched against the icy blast, protected somewhat by the extra insulation and activated charcoal lining in his bulky hazmat suit. The Mission Oriented Protective Posture (MOPP) outfits were to protect them against chemical, biological, and aerosol agents, but the heavy rubber gloves, masks, and booties made Kyle feel as if he were wading through syrup. On top of the suits, they carried full combat loads, including double water, ammo, and chow for three days.
Swanson breathed steadily, easily. The goal was reconnaissance only, so they would not be going into a hot LZ. It was to be hide-and-seek and not a combat engagement. In fact, Kyle would regard it as a failure if the lightly armed Marine team made any contact at all with Iranian armed forces.
The crew chief’s voice cut through the communications link into Swanson’s black flight helmet, telling them to get ready. Kyle signaled: two minutes out.
The Marines wobbled to their feet and grabbed handholds as the chopper flared into a hover and lowered. Double-Oh was at the head of one stick of Marines, and Captain Newman led the other, and through the open hatch they could begin making out some details of the land below. Kyle was in the rear to make sure everybody got off. At a motion from the crewman, they all scrambled down the rear ramp and had to hop only about a foot to hit the dirt. Swanson watched them all go, gave a signal to the crew chief, and leaped from the lip of the ramp himself as the Pave Low tilted nose down and soared into a two-thousand-feet-per-minute climbing turn for the return to Camp Doha.
The team sprinted into a perimeter position and hit the dirt with weapons covering all 360 degrees. It was dark out there and also very quiet, an almost tangible feeling of solitude after the racket of the helicopter insertion. Swanson unpacked the chemical and biological detection devices and scanned the area. To give themselves plenty of distance from the suspect site and minimize contamination danger, they had landed four kilometers away. There was nothing dangerous on the breeze. He peeled off his hood and the rebreathing mask and motioned for the others to do the same. They had to do a fast march to find an observation point, and the Marines quickly shed the MOPP suits, which prevented anyone from doing anything quickly.
Newman did a map check with Double-Oh through the red lens of a flashlight and a GPS locator and determined they were just where they were supposed to be. Had they come in by parachute, they would have been scattered all over the terrain, but instead they had landed and could move as a cohesive unit. “Rawls,” whispered the captain. “Lead out.” Newman pointed in a specific direction, and Darren Rawls stepped away, flipping down his night vision goggles and going over a rise. One by one, the others followed him, weapons at the ready and moving deeper into hostile Iran with every step.
The quietness was eerie and unsettling. Even in the middle of the night,
Kyle kept a close read on the dials of his instruments, but they remained steady and in the neutral zone. “Some wicked shit,” he said to Double-Oh. Whatever had killed everything was no longer around, but its evil sign was everywhere. He spoke to Captain Newman. “Palace of Death should be only a half mile now. Let’s set up a security position here and then patrol out to find an observation point.”
They were exposed on a plain, and daylight was not far away, but they could not hide in a gulley or a low wadi. Chemicals and biologicals were heavier than air and tended to settle into the lowest points around, and the dirt in a hole might still grip some of the deadly material. The team would have to make a home on high ground, but there was little of that available. While everyone else took a break and filled up with water, Joe Tipp and Travis Hughes ventured closer to the designated area and came back within thirty minutes, puzzled.
“There’s nothing much out there,” Hughes reported. “Didn’t see anything but a small bunker complex inside a fenced area. Apparently deserted.”
“No palace?” asked Swanson.
“None,” Hughes said. “I thought we would find something like Cinderella’s castle. This thing looks like a small parking garage on the bad side of Detroit.”
“Huh,” Kyle grunted.
