Georgi wept with joy.
Clark, Chavez, Gummesson, and Rainbow planners spent the entire day in their heated tent in the parking lot of the Sputnik Hotel, going over schematics and maps and photographs and other materials to help them prepare for an attack on the Cosmodrome.
By noon Clark had come up with ideas that Spetsnaz had not thought of for their hit, and by three Chavez and Clark had an attack plan that was marveled at by the Rainbow officers, men who had been forced into a risk- aversion mentality in the past year and a half. They took a short break, and then the various assault teams broke off for unit planning while Clark and Chavez briefed Russian Air Force pilots.
At seven p.m. Chavez lay down on a bunk for ninety minutes of rest. He was tired, but he was already amped up about the evening ahead.
Georgi Safronov was told that Israpil Nabiyev would arrive in a Russian Air Force transport helicopter around 10:30 p.m. The Dagestani rocket entrepreneur and terrorist, after conferring with some of the thirty-four remaining rebels, told Gamov how the transfer would be made. His stipulations were specific to ensure that there were no tricks on the part of the Russians. He wanted Commander Nabiyev’s chopper to land on the far side of the parking lot at the LCC, and Nabiyev alone to walk the seventy meters to the front entrance. The entire time he would be under bright spotlights mounted on the roof of the LCC. There would be gunmen on the roof as well as gunmen at the front entrance of the LCC to ensure no one else got out of the chopper.
Gamov wrote everything down, conferred with the crisis center, who agreed to all Safronov’s requests. They did have one caveat. They demanded that all the foreign prisoners be released from the LCC at the same time Nabiyev was released from the helicopter.
Safronov smelled a trap. “Director, please, no tricks. I will require simultaneous video feed from inside the helicopter linked to us here in launch control. I will also require direct radio comms with Commander Nabiyev for the journey from the airport to the LCC. If you stock the helicopter with your troops, I will know it.” Gamov again left the call to confer with others, but when he returned he agreed that an audio/video link with Nabiyev inside the helicopter could be established en route from the airport so Safronov and his people at the LCC could see that the Dagestani military commander was in the helicopter with only a few crewmen and minimal security watching over him.
Georgi was satisfied, and he ended the call to notify his men of the arrangement.
The streets of Lahore were still chaotic at nine p.m. Jack and Dominic were alone at the time, sitting in a fast food restaurant a quarter-mile from where Rehan and his entourage had gone into a mosque. Al Darkur had sent one of his own men into the mosque to keep an eye on the general, and al Darkur himself had gone to a nearby police station to requisition body armor and rifles. He had also contacted a friend in an SSG unit stationed nearby, asking the captain to send men to assist him on an intelligence operation in the city, but the SSG had been inexplicably ordered to remain in their base.
Ryan and Dom watched the news on a TV set up on the counter of the restaurant. They were hoping for news of events in Kazakhstan, but in Lahore, Pakistan, at the moment at least, all news was local.
They had just finished their fried chicken and were sipping their Cokes when a booming explosion rocked the street outside. The glass panes in the windows shook, but they did not break.
The two Americans ran out of the restaurant to see what had happened, but just as they made it onto the sidewalk, another explosion, this one closer, nearly knocked them down.
They assumed a pair of bombs had gone off, but then they heard a hellish sound like ripping paper broadcast through an amplifier. This sound ended with another explosion, this one even closer than the first two.
“That’s incoming, cuz!” Dominic said, and both men joined the crowd on the sidewalk running in the other direction.
Another ripping-fabric noise and another crash, this one a block away to the east, turned much of the crowd to the south.
Jack and Dom stopped running. Ryan said, “Let’s get inside. Not much else we can do.” They ran into a bank building and got far from the windows. There were another half-dozen explosions, some barely audible in the distance. The sounds of sirens filled the air, and then distant chattering of automatic gunfire.
“Shit. Did the war just start?” Dom asked, but Jack thought it likely that Pakistani forces in the city were getting jumpy.
“Like Darkur said, this could be some Rehan-allied PDF artillery battery swinging their own guns around on orders from their leader.”
Dom shook his head. “Fucking beards.”
Outside the bank, PDF armored cars raced by, civilian vehicles swerved out of their way.
Jack’s phone chirped, and he answered it.
It was al Darkur. “Rehan is on the move!”
Rehan finally left his flat near the Sunehri Mosque at nine p.m., during the height of rush hour in the congested city. In addition to the commuters, the rush out of town continued, clogging streets that were filling up quickly with Pakistani Defense Force armor and troops.
Ryan, Caruso, al Darkur, and two of the major’s subordinates had trouble tailing the general and his entourage at first, but when Rehan and his small team pulled into a parking lot on Canal Bank Road, where they met up with three carloads of young bearded men in civilian dress, the van following them found them easier to keep an eye on.
Ryan said, “There must be a dozen guys in those cars, plus Rehan and his crew makes sixteen.”
The major nodded. “And these new men do not look like ISI or PDF. They are LeT, I would swear it.”
Ryan said, “Mohammed, if we have to go up against sixteen bad guys, I could use a little more firepower.”
“I’ll arrange for that, do not worry.” And with that the major grabbed his mobile phone.
78
Clark and Chavez stood outside a Russian Air Force Antonov An-72 transport airplane parked on the tarmac at Krayniy airport near the town of Baikonur, twenty-five miles south of the Dnepr facility at the Cosmodrome and forty miles south of Yubileinaya Airport. The Antonov’s engines roared, even at idle.
Also parked there on the tarmac were four Mi-17 helicopters, a smaller Mi-8 helicopter, and a gargantuan Mi-26 helicopter. A flurry of men and women moved around the machines, fueling them and loading them under the artificial lights of auxiliary power units and portable spotlights.
A light blowing snow whipped around the only two Americans on the airfield.
“Has Nabiyev arrived yet?” Ding asked John.
“Yep, he’s up at Yubileinaya. He’ll be ferried over at 22:30.”
“Good.” Chavez was head to toe in black Nomex. He wore a helmet on his head, and an oxygen mask dangled from it. On his chest an HK UMP submachine gun, 40 caliber, hung over a chest rig full of magazines. Even with the
