As far as Rankin could tell, George Burns had only one thing in common with his namesake — he liked to smoke big, thick cigars. And he liked to smoke them in his plane, which stank up the entire aircraft.
Which was saying something, because the airplane was comparatively large- a 1960s-vintage two-engine Hawker Siddely 748 that in its prime regularly carried forty-eight passengers. The plane had seen use as both a passenger and a cargo aircraft, ferrying people first around India and then around Africa. George Burns had bought it from a somewhat shady government official in Senegal, overhauled the engines, replaced the avionics, and given it a fresh coat of paint.
Rankin sat in the copilot’s seat. Guns made do with a jump seat immediately behind the pilot.
“Not much of a view,” said Rankin as they flew over the desert.
George Burns didn’t answer. He occasionally reached for the throttle lever between the seats, and every so often would glance at his global positioning map. But otherwise he stared straight ahead at the mountains that marked the edge of the desert.
“You don’t really know where it is, do you?” asked Rankin. “You just have a general idea.”
George Burns took his cigar out of his mouth, examined the ash — two inches long — then put it back.
Rankin saw a shadow on the desert floor to the west. It was from an airplane, and for a moment he thought it was their shadow, cast in an odd direction. Then he realized that it was too small, and shaped wrong. He spotted the plane a few feet above the shadow, moving across the earth as if it were part of a toy display
“Hey, another airplane,” he said, pointing.
George Burns turned and looked, staring as the aircraft moved past. It was no more than a mile and a half away.
“We’re getting closer,” he said, and then he didn’t say anything else.
13
Col. Charles Van Buren jogged up the ladder into the command center of the 777th’s MC.-17, a Globemaster III combat cargo aircraft specially equipped to support the Special Forces Group. Van Buren and his men had just arrived from Aviano, Italy, relocating here so they could strike into Africa if needed. Additional support units, including tankers, C-130s, and Osprey aircraft, were being scrambled to assist.
“Mr. Ferguson for you, sir,” said the communications specialist, holding up the phone.
Van Buren took the phone and sat down at the console. “Ferg, what’s going?”
“Hey, Van. Corrigan give you the background yet?”
“We’re looking for an Iranian with Russian biological warfare material. Maybe he’s in Libya, maybe the Sudan. They’re looking. That’s what I know.”
“Rankin and Guns have a lead on a possible camp. They hired a pilot to take them out there. He’s real paranoid, so he may be right. If they find something, I say you hit it. But if Atha were smart, he’d be already back in Iran.”
“Are you going to follow him?”
“Actually, I’m trying to get him to come to me,” Ferguson said. He explained that he had convinced the Russian scientist to set a trap in Tripoli. “I could use some muscle there, three or four guys who can blend in.”
They worked out the details.
“You doing all right, Ferg? You sound a little tired,” said Van Buren when they were done.
“Yeah, I’m cool. Listen, be ready for anything on this. The professor says this stuff will tear your insides out and make you happy to die. You guys go in, you wear space suits, all right? MOPP NBCs, no fooling around.”
“My guys are checking them out right now, Ferg. Talk to you later.”
14
When Dr. Hamid first heard the airplane in the distance, he thought Atha had turned back for some reason. But after listening for a few more moments, Hamid realized the drone was of something larger. His first thought was that it was a relief plane, though they rarely passed this way. Then he thought it might be a flight from Chad, which had propeller-driven SF 260 trainers converted to attack craft, which its air force used against “insurgents” — which in actual practice meant defenseless civilians in camps like theirs.
“Be ready with the missiles,” he told the Palestinian. Then Hamid went and put the bacteria into a safe where it would survive a bombing attack.
The Palestinian had already assembled his missile teams by the time the aircraft appeared. It was a two- engine plane that he did not recognize — not a fighter, he thought, but not a relief craft, either. It flew at about a thousand feet over the jagged ridge to the west; in his experience, no plane would fly that low unless it meant to land or strafe.
“Observe,” he told the men over the radio. There were two teams, each with an American-made Stinger heat-seeking missile. Shoulder-launched, the weapons had been given nearly two decades before to freedom fighters in Afghanistan, then sold after the war on the black market. Though old, they were nonetheless potent; a low-flying, slow plane like this was an easy target.
The airplane passed overhead without turning to land. Just as the Palestinian was going to order the group on the east to fire, it turned back.
“Observe,” he told his men again. “Be ready.”
15
Rankin used binoculars to get a look at the camp. There was a landing strip, but no plane. The puzzling thing was the buses — it looked as if it were a school parking lot.
“Looks more like a camping ground than a refugee camp,” said Rankin as George Burns circled back. “You sure that’s it?”
George Burns didn’t say anything. His cigar had burned down to a nub, the ash nearly at his lips, but it didn’t seem to bother him.
Guns leaned close to the window over Rankin’s shoulder, taking pictures with his small digital camera.
“What’s with the buses?” Guns asked George Burns.
“Don’t know.” The pilot spoke in short bursts, keeping the cigar riveted to his lips. “Never saw them before. Only been over twice.”
Burns pulled back on the wheel. He’d come down low so they could take pictures, but now he wasn’t feeling too good about it. Even for fifty thousand dollars, there was only so much risk he was willing to take.
“There’s no lab or anything down there,” said Rankin. “If the Iranian came here, he didn’t stay. Where can you go from here?”
“Shit!” yelled George Burns, spitting the cigar from his mouth.
Rankin thought he’d burned himself, then saw there was a red light flashing at the left side of the pilot’s panel. He heard something like a waterfall behind him.
Protective flares. Someone had fired a missile.
“Fuck,” said George Burns again, and a sharp shudder gripped the plane.
The missile hit the right engine, blowing it apart and starting a fire in the wing. If it weren’t for the fire,
