Covert One 5 - The Lazarus Vendetta (48 page)

Frowning, Peter banked the Black Hawk tightly, turning in toward the
airfield. Santa Maria's
coastline loomed larger, rapidly taking on shape and definition as they flew
toward it at one hundred knots. The Englishman turned his head for just a
moment, looking at Randi. “You'd better break out the weapons.”

She nodded. The three of them were already wearing Kevlar body armor, and
the helicopter had come equipped with three M4 carbines, cut-down versions of
the U.S.
military's M16 assault rifle. She moved back into the troop compartment,
careful to keep a tight grip with at least one hand on anything bolted down.

Abruptly Peter banked the Black Hawk through another tight turn— this time
swinging the helicopter north to fly parallel to the runway. “Half a tick,”
he said. “Why do this the hard way? Why not just hover above these damned
drones and shoot them down over the sea?”

Smith thought the suggestion through. It made perfect sense. He reddened.
“I should have thought of that,” he admitted reluctantly.

Peter grinned. “Studying medicine when you should have been studying
tactics, eh?” He pulled back on the controls. The UH-60 rose steadily,
climbing several hundred feet above the sea in a matter of seconds. “Keep
an eye on that first drone, Jon. Let me know when it's aloft.”

Smith nodded. He leaned back in his seat to stare out the cabin's right-side
window, over Peter's shoulder. A sudden bright white flash and a puff of dust
near the airfield caught his eye. A small dart sped toward them, riding fast on
a pillar of fire. For a fraction of a second he stared in disbelief. Then his
survival instincts kicked in. “SAM! SAM!” he roared. “At three
o'clock!”

“Hell's teeth!” Peter exclaimed. He yanked hard on the controls,
adroitly handling the foot pedals, collective, and cyclic stick to throw the
Black Hawk into a tight descending turn toward the oncoming missile. At the
same time, he stabbed a switch on the control panel, activating the
helicopter's IR flare dispenser.

Incandescent flares spewed through a wide arc behind the diving UH-60.
Looking up, Smith saw the incoming surface-to-air missile streak right overhead
and then curve away sharply, following one of the decoy flares as it tumbled
slowly toward the ocean. He breathed out. “Must have been a heat seeker,”
he commented, irked to hear a tremor in his voice.

Peter nodded. His lips were pressed tight together. “Man-portable SAMs
usually are.” He sighed. “Back to square one, I'm afraid. We daren't
mess about at altitude —not with a missile threat like that sitting right
behind us.”

“So in we go?” Smith suggested.

“Too right,” Peter said, baring his teeth in a fierce fighting
grin. He brought the Black Hawk down so low that its main landing gear seemed
to be skimming right over the curling waves. The airfield, now dead ahead, grew
rapidly through the forward canopy. “We go in hard and fast, Jon. You
clear the left. I'll clear the right. And Randi, God bless her, will do
whatever else needs doing!”

“Sounds like a plan!” Randi agreed from behind them. She handed
Smith one of the M4 carbines and three thirty-round magazines. With a shortened
barrel and a telescoping stock, the M4 was a somewhat lighter and handier
weapon than its parent, the M16. He snapped one magazine into the rifle and
tucked the spare clips away in his pockets. The third carbine went to Peter,
who wedged it beside him on the pilot's seat.

“Thanks! Now, buckle in,” Peter yelled back at her. “The
landing will be just a tad bumpy!”

There were more flashes rippling along the runway ahead of them. Several men
were standing out in the open, steadily firing at the oncoming helicopter with
assault rifles. Five-point-fifty-six mm rounds smacked into
the Black Hawk—pinging off the main rotor, ricocheting off its armored canopy
and cockpit, and punching through the thin alloy sides of the fuselage.

Smith saw Nomura's first flying wing lift off the ground and begin climbing.
He slammed his fist onto the side of his seat in frustration. “Damn!”

“There are still two more on the ground! We'll deal with that one
later,” Peter assured him. “Assuming there is a later, that is,”
he added under his breath.

The Black Hawk clattered low over the tarmac and spun rapidly through a
half-circle, flaring out to thump heavily into the long grass growing beside
the runway. More rifle bullets spanged off the canopy and went whirring away in
showers of sparks. Smith hammered the seat belt buckle hard, opening it,
grabbed his M4 carbine, and forced his way back into the troop compartment.
Peter followed closely, pausing only to set a couple of switches on the control
panel. Overhead, the rotor blades slowed dramatically—but they kept turning.

Randi already had the left-side door open. She crouched in the opening,
sighting down the barrel of her carbine. She glanced over her shoulder.
“All set?”

Jon nodded. “Let's go!”

With Randi right behind him, he leaped out of the helicopter and dashed
south along the fringe of the runway. Rifle rounds cracked low overhead, coming
from a pair of guards running toward them across the concrete. Smith threw
himself down in the tall grass and opened fire-squeezing off three-round bursts
in an arc from left to right.

One of the guards screamed shrilly and flopped forward, cut almost in half
by two high-velocity bullets. The other dropped flat on the concrete and kept
shooting.

From her position on Smith's right, Randi coolly took aim. She waited until
the sights settled on the goggles of the guard's gas mask and then gently
pulled the trigger. His head exploded.

Jon swallowed hard, looking away. He checked their surroundings. They were
about a third of the way along the runway—just a few hundred meters from the
massive hangar at the southern end. An enormous tin-roofed warehouse stretched
east not far behind them. There appeared to be only one entrance on this side,
a solid-looking steel door with a keypad lock. His eyes narrowed as suspicion
hardened into certainty. No one put that kind of fortress-like door on a
run-of-the-mill storage facility. Nomura's secret nanophage lab must be
somewhere inside. You could hide a dozen biochemical factories inside that
vast, cavernous space and still have plenty of room left over.

The second of the huge flying-wing planes was rolling down the runway in
their direction, slowly gathering speed as its propellers spun faster and
faster. Jon could see the deadly canisters clustered beneath its single
enormous wing. The third drone aircraft was stopped just outside the hangar,
waiting for its turn in the takeoff pattern.

Gunfire erupted to the north, on the other side of the Black Hawk. Another
guard screamed and fell back—riddled with bullets fired by Peter. As he
toppled, the dying man triggered the Russian-made SA-16 SAM he had been trying
to aim. The missile ignited. Trailing a dense cloud of gray

and white smoke, it soared straight up, turned
east, and then plummeted harmlessly to explode in the empty pastures beyond the
perimeter fence.

Smith spotted more movement to the south, not far from the second aircraft.
Three more gunmen, led by a much taller man, were advancing along the western
edge of the runway—generally keeping pace with the oncoming drone plane. They
were bounding in pairs, taking turns covering each other as they came forward.

He winced. Great, he thought. These guys were professionals. And they
were being led the third of the superhuman Horatii.

“Watch your front, Jon!” Randi called. She gestured toward the
open ground on the other side of the runway. A little knot of men in gas masks
and respirators was falling back there, retreating from the battle raging
around the tarmac. Most appeared to be unarmed. But
two carried submachine guns slung over their shoulders, and they were dragging
an older white-haired man between them. A man who was not
wearing a gas mask. A man in handcuffs.

“I'll deal with the planes,” Smith said. He pointed toward the
retreating men. “You take care of them!”

Randi nodded, seeing Jon already moving along the edge of the runway—heading
toward the giant flying wing lumbering north. Smoke from the errant SAM launch
wafted across the tarmac, cutting off her view of him.

Left alone, she jumped to her feet and sprinted across the wide bare stretch
of oil- and jet fuel-stained concrete. One of the fleeing men saw her coming.
He yelled a frantic warning to his companions. They threw themselves prone in
the grass. The two guards tossed the old man down beside them and turned toward
her. Their submachine guns came up.

Randi fired from the hip, squeezing off three-round bursts on the run. One
of the guards spun away and fell heavily, bleeding from several wounds. The
other shot back, firing off a full twenty-round clip from his Uzi.

The air around Randi was suddenly full of bullets and fragments of shattered
concrete. She dived to the side. Something smashed into her left arm —hurling
her backward. A ricochet tumbling off the concrete had hit hard enough to break
her arm just above the elbow. White-hot agony sleeted up from the injury. She
rolled away, desperately trying to get clear before the gunman could zero in
and nail her.

Stunned to see her still alive, the guard yanked out his empty clip and
fumbled for another.

Gritting her teeth against the pain, Randi brought her carbine up again. She
fired another burst. Two copper-jacketed rounds slammed home, hurling the
gunman onto his back in bloodred ruin.

She forced herself back to her feet and ran on across the runway. The
unarmed men jumped up and scattered in front of her, running wildly in all
directions. They all looked alike in their hooded gas masks. Suddenly the old
man in handcuffs kicked out, tripping one of the fleeing men. Snarling, the old man rolled over onto the man he had
knocked down — pressing him facedown into the tall, tangled grass.

Randi moved closer, aiming the carbine with her good hand. “Who the
hell are you?” she snapped.

The old man smiled beatifically up at her. “I am Jinjiro Nomura,”
he said quietly. “And this,” he nodded toward the figure squirming
beneath him, “is Lazarus—the traitor who was once my son, Hideo.”

Scarcely able to believe her luck, Randi grinned back at the old man. “Delighted to meet you, Mr. Nomura.” She kept the
M4 aimed at the man writhing on the ground while Jinjiro climbed awkwardly to
his feet.

“Now stand up and take off that gas mask,” she ordered. “But
do it slowly. Otherwise I might just twitch and blow your head off.”

The younger man obeyed. Slowly, with exaggerated caution, he tugged off the
mask and respirator—revealing the gray, shocked features of Hideo Nomura.

“What will you do with him?” Jinjiro asked curiously.

Randi shrugged her good shoulder. "Take him back to the United

States for trial, I guess." She heard a new burst of firing, this time
from the north.

“Speaking of which, I suggest the three of us head back to the
helicopter right this minute. This neighborhood seems to be getting distinctly
unhealthy.”

■

Peter ghosted through the drifting haze of smoke, with his carbine cradled
against his shoulder. He heard a metallic click close by and dropped
quietly to one knee, searching ahead of him for the source of the sound.

A guard loomed up out of the slowly clearing pall. His hand was still on the
firing selector for his German-made assault rifle, switching it from
single-shot to fire three-round bursts. His mouth dropped open when he saw the
Englishman aiming at him.

“Very careless,” Peter told him softly. He squeezed the trigger.

Hit by all three shots fired at close range, the guard crumpled into the
blood-soaked grass.

Peter waited a few moments longer, allowing the smoke to clear. It rolled
west toward the ocean, slowly shredding in the light wind. He scanned the open
ground stretching before him. Nothing moved.

Satisfied, he turned and trotted back toward the helicopter.

■

White-faced with pain from her broken arm, Randi prodded her prisoner toward
the waiting Black Hawk. She stumbled once and Hideo Nomura glanced swiftly back
at her, with hatred written all over his face. She shook her head and lifted
the M4, aiming right at his chest. “I wouldn't try that. Not unless you
really believe you can rise from the dead. Even one-handed, I'm a very good
shot. Now hop in!”

Walking behind her, Jinjiro chuckled —plainly enjoying his treacherous son's
discomfiture.

The man who had called himself Lazarus turned and scrambled in-

side the helicopter. Standing by the door, Randi
motioned him into one of the forward-facing rear seats. Scowling, he obeyed.

Peter loomed up beside her. He peered into the troop compartment at her
prisoner. His eyebrows rose. “Nicely done, Randi.
Very nicely done indeed.”

Then he looked around in growing unease. “But where on earth is
Jon?”

Smith sprinted toward the four gunmen advancing alongside the rolling drone
aircraft. They were still moving in pairs. At any given moment, two of them
were prone —ready to provide covering fire for their comrades. Most of their
attention was focused on the battle raging around the grounded Black Hawk, but
they were sure to spot him soon enough.

The back of his mind yammered that this headlong charge was a particularly
stupid form of suicide, but he furiously shoved those doubts away. He did not
have any other options. He had to hit this enemy team quickly, before they
spotted him, pinned him down with suppressive fire, and then came in for the
kill.

His only real chance against these men was to seize the initiative and hold
it. Their tactics showed that they were professionals, probably more of the
veteran mercenary soldiers recruited to do the dirty work for Nomura's Lazarus
operation. In a set-piece skirmish Smith might be able to take out one of them,
possibly even two—but trying to fight all four of them at once would only be a
good way to die quickly. Still, he knew that