Deep Black (23 page)

43

Karr didn’t have time to figure out how he’d missed the guards outside when he’d checked the UAV image before they started
down the hallway. He ran back to the stairs, Dean’s gun in his left hand and his in his right. He got down to the first floor,
slung the second rifle over his shoulder, then pushed out. He ran into the computer room they’d examined earlier, jumping
over the security system’s detection beams. He just barely kept his balance.

There were no windows, but there was a door that led to another room. It was locked. Karr threw his shoulder against it, but
it stayed put. With no time for finesse, he took out the pistol and bored out the lock mechanism.

This room had two windows. He pushed the door shut behind him, then ran to them quickly. Dean was saying something in English
over the com system; it went dead before Karr could figure out what it was.

The windows were alarmed, but it was a simple wire system, easily defeated with a clip and wire set. He pushed the window
open, then paused, checking the Bagel scan carefully. He saw now why he’d missed the sentries—there was a ladder up the side
of the roof, hidden by an overhang. They were making for it now.

It was on the opposite side of the building, away from Building Two.

Karr pulled up the cursor and clicked it on Dean’s IR profile, prompting the computer to memorize it. It could now locate
him at will.

Assuming they didn’t kill him first, of course.

Building Two had a set of steps that led to a steel door in the basement. Karr ran to them, once more using his .22 to blow
out the lock. But this door had a dead bolt or something else securing it: it jammed when he tried to get in.

There came a time in every show when you had to play the luck card. Tommy Karr hated to play it this early, but there was
no other choice. He ran up the steps, glancing at the feed from the Bagel—the sentries were coming around the side of Building
One. He bashed the nearest window with his gun and then dived inside the building, rolling in the darkness on a surprisingly
thick and relatively soft rug.

Like a pig in shit, he thought to himself, jumping up.

44

“What the hell’s going on, Karr? Where are you?” Lia hissed.

“Building Two. Aren’t you watching?”

“I’m still trying to get the feed from the Bagel.”

“Just use the sitrep. Did you get all the weapons loaded?”

“Of course.”

“Did Fashona bitch about the jacks?”

“Is the pope Catholic?”

Specially designed trolleys and hydraulic jacks were used to load the weapons pods onto the wings. While these machines did
all the heavy lifting, they had to be positioned just so beneath the hard points; it was not a job for an impatient man, and
inevitably left the pilot in a foul mood.

Lia clicked into the map, which showed Karr’s and Dean’s positions. Dean was on Building One, moving toward the side.

Christ, the bastards were going to throw him off.

“We’re coming in,” she said.

“Just hold on,” Karr told her. “Let me find Martin first.”

“They’re going to kill Dean.”

“Relax. They’ll question him before they kill him.”

“Jesus.”

“Don’t go postal, honey.”

“Postal? You’re fuckin’ hyperventilating.”

“I’m out of breath. Look, you guys have to stay on schedule or you’ll get nailed by the SA-6. Wait until they take out the
van. I’ll get Martin, then I’ll bail out Dean.”

She bounced back to the sit map, which showed the team’s location.

“Karr.”

“You have ten minutes. You can’t sit tight until then?”

She was worried about Dean. She was
really
worried about Dean.

Would she have worried so much about Karr?

Damn straight.

Maybe.

“Take out the guns, then get the two guards on the inside of the gate, in case they have shoulder-launched SAMs,” Karr reminded
her.

“I know my fucking job.”

“Then do it,” he said. “Gotta go.”

His channel remained open. Lia pressed the mike button for the helicopter’s interphone. “Ray—”

“I heard,” said the pilot. “The SA-6 van blows in seven and a half minutes.”

“God, they’ll be dead before we get there.”

“Probably not.”

“Shit, Ray,
go
! Let’s go now—we can take it out ourselves.”

“If you want to get out and push, be my guest. If not, we do it the way Tommy drew it up.”

“If Dean and Karr die in there, I swear to God, I’ll never talk to you again,” she said.

“Yeah, well, they ain’t going to die, so don’t get your hopes up.”

45

Dean moved down the fire escape–like ladder as slowly as he could. Every five seconds of delay would increase Karr’s chances
of getting away, which in turn increased his own odds of survival. Finally, the man above him had enough and began stomping
at his fingers to make him go faster. Dean jumped the last two rungs and pretended to crumble to the ground, but the Russians
were having none of that—the man who’d gone down first put his rifle about two inches from Dean’s face.

Dean had surrendered the .22 and his combat knife, along with his pack and all of his grenades. He still had a small Glock
hideaway strapped to his calf and another under his vest. But at the moment there was no way he could get them before being
perforated.

The Russian said something, probably telling him to move forward to the front of the building, where there was a vehicle.
Dean didn’t have to pretend not to understand; he stood with his hands out, as dumb a look on his face as he could muster—which
was pretty dumb.

“I don’t speak Russian,” he said.

The Marine said something that sounded like “pash-lee, pash-lee,” which Dean recognized as Russian for “let’s go.” As he started
to move, the Marine behind him decided he wasn’t moving fast enough and slammed his rifle butt into Dean’s kidney. The American
fell to the ground, this time not faking it. The Marine went to jab him again, this time with the barrel end. Instinctively
Dean grabbed the gun.

He realized this was a big mistake about half a second before it fired.

One minute, Stephen Martin was having a glorious wet dream, banging two models on a pristine Aruba beach. The scent of sunscreen
mixed with tequila and the heavy odor of women in heat.

The next minute, he was being pulled out of bed by his undershirt, dragged across the cold cement floor.

“Fuck,” he mumbled as he tried to grab whatever had him. “Jesus. Let me wake up.”

He jerked his elbow into something hard, then felt himself spinning backward. His head slammed against the cement.

What the hell were the idiot Russians doing now?

“You better be fuckin’ Martin,” said a voice in English.

American English.

“I am,” he muttered. He realized he was still dreaming, but damn—
damn
—this felt real. He was lifted up and tossed down, carried over someone’s shoulder.

Not a dream. The man carrying him ran from the room, down the hallway to the steps.

“What’s going on?”

“I’m rescuing you. How the hell are you still alive? You a cat?”

“Put me down.”

“Sshhh.”

Martin’s rescuer paused at the base of the stairwell, glanced at something in his hand, then started running up the steps,
taking them two at a time. He paused again at the top. Two men lay sprawled on the floor above.

Martin pushed his torso off the man’s back, trying to twist down. The man was large, with hair so blond it nearly shone. He
had a handheld computer in his left hand and a long, boxlike gun in his right.

NSA!

“Hey, are you from Desk Three?” asked Martin.

“Let’s save the songs for later, OK? We still got to get the hell out of here and I don’t know if the place is bugged.”

“There are five hundred troops here, and scientists.”

“The troops are mostly gone, and I’m not worrying about any eggheads. Can you walk?”

“Yes.”

“Nice underwear,” said the NSA op, putting him down.

“You look good in white.”

Martin felt himself flush. The man studied the handheld, which seemed to be getting a live video feed. Martin realized it
must be a surveillance arrangement showing what was going on outside.

“OK, when I say go, you go, OK? Run right behind me.

When you see the helicopter, run for it.”

“Helicopter?” asked Martin.

“Get ready.”

47

As built, the Hind used a reasonably accurate, if somewhat kludgy, KPS-53AW sight, aiming its chin gun via a pair of control
wheels and a primitive optical aiming set. Missiles were aimed with an ocular that looked something like what might be found
on a microscope circa 1960.

The Poles had kindly removed these quaint, if obsolescent, devices before selling the chopper to Petro-UK. And while some—Fashona
specifically—claimed to prefer some of the old muscle, the items the NSA wizards had selected to replace the original weapons
were a vast improvement.

Six Hellfire missiles—considerably more accurate than the original AT-2 Swatters, or even the AT-3 Spirals fitted on E models—sat
on triple rails that rode the outside of the winglets. Two GAU-13/A Gatling 30mm cannons, fitted into slightly modified Pave
Claw GPU-5/A pods, sat next to the Hellfires. A four-barrel development of the highly successful GAU-8/A Avenger designed
and fitted exclusively to the A-10 Warthog, the guns spewed 30mm armor-piercing and high-explosive incendiary versions at
a rate around twenty-four hundred a minute. Not that you’d actually keep your finger on the trigger that long.

Last but not least were the two rocket pods. Here the Hind went native—the weapons were Russian 142mm S-5K rockets that could
penetrate roughly nine inches of armor at about four thousand yards.

Which was maybe nine times as thick as the armor on the skins of the two ZSU-23s that Lia had zeroed in on the aiming reticule
as the Hind popped up over the fence. The RWR sounded in the cabin behind her, indicating that the SA-6 radar had found and
was locking on the helicopter. A half-second later, a space-launched missile known simply as a Vessel flashed down from above,
smacking through the radar van at the opposite end of the compound like a Pedro Martinez fastball dividing a bowl of jelly.
Three seconds after that, two more Vessels collided in the air opposite the east fence, temporarily drawing everyone’s attention
from the approaching Hind.

As tracers from the ZSUs began arcing in the air, Lia got the launch cue from the targeting computer. Her first rocket missed
high, sailing into the dirt directly behind it. The second rocket obliterated the top two barrels of the antiaircraft gun
on the right. The third and fourth missiles, fired from the other winglet, took out the ZSU she’d actually been aiming at.

“Swinging around!” yelled Fashona, ducking the front of the helicopter.

Lia moved her thumb down on the joystick, selecting the left cannon pod only. She could see one of the sentries raising his
gun toward them.

She pressed the trigger and erased him.

The helicopter stuttered in the air as the big gun reverberated and its stream of gas pushed against the tail. Fashona threw
the Hind sideways, spinning around. As he did, Lia saw a tank or armored car moving near the bank of ZSUs she’d targeted earlier.
She selected the Hellfires, locked, and fired.

“I thought we were saving the Hellfires until we’re sure they’re out of the building,” said Fashona as the vehicle exploded.
“Otherwise you should’ve used them on the guns.”

“Just find Charlie, huh?”

“Troop truck, coming out of the barracks.” She selected the cannon, then stopped when she saw something else moving behind
it.

“I’m on it—shit! Another armored car.”

“Hellfire the motherfucker.”

“What kind of language is that?” she asked, locking and launching the missile. “You can’t use Hellfire as a verb.”

48

As soon as Karr heard the Hind he shoved open the door. Two Russian Marines stood in awe about five yards away, staring in
disbelief as the helicopter raked the compound with rocket and gunfire. Karr’s A-2 cracked twice and both men fell over as
if they’d been sawed in half.

“Go! Martin! Go!” he yelled, moving out from the doorway. He did a quick turn, made sure the way was clear, then reached back
and pulled the bewildered rescuee out from the door. He pushed Martin along the alley, then across the back to Building One.
He got him down and glanced at the handheld display from the Bagel—the Russians and Charlie Dean had disappeared somewhere.
One of the Zeus antiaircraft guns began firing from the far end of the base. Karr knew from the briefing that it wouldn’t
be able to hit the Hind, but he also knew Fashona and Lia should have taken it out.

“Up the ladder, up the ladder!” he yelled to Martin. “Go! Go!”

Martin started to complain. He hadn’t put on his shoes, and his feet were cut and bleeding.

“Just get the fuck up
now,
” Karr said, grabbing his shirt and pushing him toward the ladder as two Russians came charging down the road. Karr leveled
his gun and fired four bursts, missing with all as the men threw themselves to the ground. That was good enough for now, though—he
jumped on the ladder and climbed up so quickly he nearly knocked Martin off at the top.

The compound rocked with gunfire, rockets, and secondary explosions. Karr saw one of the men he’d missed coming down the alley
and fired another burst, cratering the man’s skull.

“Fashona!” he yelled as the helo whipped toward them. “We’re on the roof. Put down a line and haul Martin up.”

“Don’t have ropes,” said Fashona. “I got no crew, remember?”

“Fuck me.”

“I’d love to, honey, but you’re not my style.”

“Shit. I don’t trust this roof. Can you land in front of the building?”

“Yeah, if Lia can stop playing with the stinking cannon.”

The helicopter whipped around about twenty feet from them, tilting on its axis as the cannon on the right side of the fuselage
roared. A truck at the far end of the compound caught fire.

“All right, I’m going to send Martin down. I’ll cover him from here, then go and get Dean.”

“We’ll cover him,” said Lia. “Get Dean and let’s get the hell out of here.”

Karr whirled around to Martin. “You gotta go back down the ladder. Helicopter’s coming for you.

“I-I can’t.”

“Yeah, man, you go now,” said Karr. He spotted a car moving down the road from the area of the SAMs. “Go! I’ll worry about
the car.”

“What car?”

“Go,” said Karr. He pushed him toward the ladder, then burned the entire magazine—more than eighty bullets were left—tearing
through the front end of the vehicle. By the time he was done, the remains would have fit in a coffee can.

He pulled out his handheld to look for Dean as he slammed in a new ammo box. Karr hit the Bagel’s control screen, pushing
the small UAV closer toward the base. Then he went back out to the view screen and from there directed the computer to find
the image he’d earlier associated with Dean. It took several long seconds; finally, the screen popped into map mode and a
white box outlined three figures running toward the main gate.

The Hind swept in from behind him, shooting its cannon as it did.

“Lia! Watch out for Dean!” yelled Karr. “Don’t fire at the gate.”

“Where is he? I’m not getting a feed with the locator system.”

“He’s near the gate.”

As Karr looked down to update the position, the screen went blank.