Then, two guys go out the door, one high, one low. Start shooting as you go out. No full auto. Three-round bursts and make them count, save your mags. Everybody still in the truck covers the third guy who goes out two seconds later with the bitter end of the line, heads straight for the steel bridge and takes two wraps around the rail. Got that?”
Hawke heard a sharp grinding, screeching sound above him. The cab dropped, a stomach-turning foot or so, maybe more, and jerked to a stop. A hard rain of rock and ice from above clattered on the body of the cab. Then it stopped. Nobody said anything.
“Uh, roger that last, Skipper,” Gidwitz said, finally breaking the tense silence. “Line is already secure here inside the carrier. Ring bolt in the floor. Taking it out myself. What about the loss of ballast weight when we bolt out of—”
“I can’t blame you if I’m dead, now, can I? It’s all we’ve got, Ronnie. Ready?”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Gidwitz said.
“Go.”
It was probably not much longer than two minutes, but in the swaying frozen cab it felt more like two hours before the distinctive tune of automatic-weapons fire ceased and he heard Gidwitz’s voice through his headphones again. “Double lines rigged to the bridge here, Skipper. Solid. We got six tangos down, nobody else moving up here. We’ve secured the area.”
“Good. Get a slip-harness down here to Sergeant Quick. Now. He’s still out on the roof, holding on to the .50 with a broken hand. So make it extremely quick.”
“We’re on it. Rigging a second one for you, Skipper. Uh, and Chief Patterson’s status? We heard—”
“Yeah. You heard. Two rigs will do it. He, uh—”
“For God and country, sir,” Gidwitz said, his voice choked with emotion.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Flight 00
KHALID SLIPPED OFF HIS HEADPHONES, RAISED HIS ARMS over his head and stretched, yawning deeply. He looked across at Johnny Adare in the first officer’s seat and smiled. They were flying at high altitude, maxed out at the 747’s limit, 45,000 feet, on a north-westerly heading, a thick band of clouds beneath them. He was flying at Mach .84, normal cruising speed, 567 miles per hour, helped by a slight tailwind. They were due to descend though the cloud layer to their rendezvous at 0900 hours, local time. Half an hour. Good time to take a leak, grab a cup of coffee and stretch his legs.
He reached down into his black leather flight case and pulled out the red-and-white-striped envelope the boss had given to him back at the hangar. Instructions. Bin Wazir had told him not to open it until 0830 hours, just prior to the time when he was due to initiate his descent to 35,000. At that altitude, he would look for his target. He had a good ten minutes to take a break before initiating his descent for the rendezvous.
“She’s all yours,” Khalid said, sitting back and relinquishing control of the aircraft to Johnny. “You want any coffee?” He didn’t ask the doctor. The man had been sound asleep in the jumpseat for the last two hours and Khalid had learned long ago what they say about sleeping dogs, especially a mangy little cur like this one.
“Sure, Cap’n,” Johnny said with his usual cocky grin. “Long as you’re up.”
Khalid handed him the envelope. “We’re supposed to open this just before we begin our descent to 35,000. Try not to open it till I get back.”
“Is this a test?”
“Actually, it is.”
“One day, maybe you’ll trust me.”
“Yeah. One day. Ditch the autopilot and keep an eye on this,” he said, tapping the dial of a newly installed instrument. It was military, called a TAR, Target Acquisition Radar. As Khalid had told bin Wazir, finding another airplane out here in the middle of the Pacific would be next to impossible without it. The antiquated 747’s forward- looking radar was good for only one thing, weather. Locating another airplane in the vastness of open sky and sea that was the North Pacific was going to be difficult, under the best of circumstances. Even if you possessed the plotted waypoints from the target’s own main GPS nav systems, which he did. They’d been downloaded in Singapore along with his transponder code.
“His waypoint intercept’s not coming up for another twenty-five minutes,” Adare pointed out. He had the chart on his knee, with the target’s waypoints carefully penned in red ink.
“Yeah, well. Keep an eye on it anyway. This is an uncertain world we live in.”
Khalid squeezed past Soong in the jumpseat and opened the cockpit door. He took one last look at his copilot, smiled and left the cabin, pulling the door shut behind him.
Soong’s eyes popped open.
“Yes-s!” he said, pumping his fist like some ridiculous American football hero on television.
Johnny looked over at his new business partner. Couple of million quid, what the hell. He said, “Lock that door, Dr. Soong. It is now officially time to rock and roll.”
Soong leapt up and fumbled for the bolt that would secure the cockpit. For a scientist, his knowledge of basic aircraft design was pathetic.
“The red handle,” Adare said. “Shove it left until you hear it lock into place. Jesus.”
Satisfied the cockpit door was locked, Adare now gave Khalid a few minutes. He knew his routine. He’d stroll aft, go back in the upper cabin galley to chat up the girls for a couple of minutes while he sipped his coffee, then make his way to the head on the lower deck. Satisfied this was now done, Adare reached over and twisted the dial that opened the outflow valves, dumping the cabin pressure. The effect on the passengers in the main cabin would be sudden and unpleasant. Dizziness, lightheadedness. He could already hear them complaining out there. It would only be momentary, however.
“Climb up here where I can keep an eye on you,” he said to Soong, indicating the now-vacant pilot’s seat. The doctor did as he was told, grinning like a giddy twelve-year-old. If he’d had a little pair of plastic wings, he couldn’t have been happier. “Good,” Johnny said. “I’m going to seal the cockpit and turn on the emergency oxygen up here. Reach over your left shoulder. Pilot’s emergency oxygen mask is located just there.” The cockpit had its own system, completely separate from the rest of the aircraft. Drug-free zone, Johnny thought, smiling.
He and Soong both fitted the masks over their faces. Then Johnny thumbed the switch that would cause the masks to drop from the passenger cabin overheads and start the flow of oxygen from the doctor’s newly installed canisters. Next, he switched on the intercom and spoke in his most reassuring pilot voice.
“Well, we’ve just had a loss of cabin pressure as I’m sure you’ve all noticed. Nothing serious. Some kind of temporary malfunction. Just place the emergency oxygen masks over your faces and breathe normally. I’ll begin a descent to a lower altitude. Just relax, ladies, it’s all under control.”
Only then did First Officer Adare kick off the autopilot and take full command of the 747.
It took Khalid all of ten seconds to appear outside the cockpit and start trying to beat the door down. His muffled screams could be heard clearly but Johnny decided to ignore them. He’d get tired of it after awhile, realizing there was absolutely nothing he could do at this point. The new Kevlar door was reinforced. At any rate, pretty soon Dr. Soong’s drugs would kick in, and Khalid would be a walking zombie just like the rest of them back there.
Whatever concoction Soong had added to the oxygen flowing throughout the airplane, it was now dispersed. Adare’s experience taught him that everyone was mildly panic-stricken when the masks dropped in front of their faces. They tended to gulp the oxygen and suck it deep.
0900. Johnny Adare ripped open the Pasha’s envelope and handed it to Soong. “Read it,” he said, easing the wheel forward. Time to take her down below the cloud layer and have a look around. They’d stayed at 45,000 to avoid being spotted and for better fuel efficiency in the thinner air. The only thing he was now actually concerned about was fuel consumption. The plane normally carried 64,000 U.S. gallons. Reconfigured, the plane he was flying had an additional 6,000 gallons. His calculations had them getting to LAX, no problem, but how much could he afford to burn down at low levels looking around for the target? It was a question he would have liked to put to Khalid, but Khalid was no longer a factor in his life.
“What’s it say?” he asked Soong who was scanning the contents. Soong knew everything that was contained
