Fly by Night (34 page)

She walked hurriedly to Davis and went straight into his arms.

“You’ve seen the soldiers?” she asked.

“Yeah. How long have they been here?”

“Not long. They were just beginning to search when the storm hit.”

“All right. We need to get you out of here.”

Antonelli didn’t ask why, so she’d already come to the same troubling conclusion he had. By helping him, she had put herself at risk.

“Did you complete your dive?” she asked.

Davis thought,
All except the last two minutes when I almost drowned
. He said, “Yes, and I figured out who was flying that airplane when it crashed.”

“Who?”

“Nobody.”

She looked at him quizzically.

“At least not anybody on board. The whole flight deck had been modified—the pilot’s seats were gone, part of the instrument panel ripped out. There was a big box mounted directly over the spot where the captain’s control column used to be. I’m sure it was hooked into the flight controls.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. “How can an airplane fly without pilots?”

“Happens all the time these days. This particular airplane used to be an experimental model, a flying testbed. A long time ago it was modified to be controlled by computers. I think somebody working for Rafiq Khoury modified it further. I think they put in new flight control servos, a little telemetry, and turned it into a full-scale remote controlled airplane.”

“You mean it was flown by radio commands?”

“Exactly. There was another airplane out flying that night, right alongside the one that crashed. A ship to control the one they modified. They both took off from Khartoum and flew all the way to the Red Sea before something went wrong.”

“But why would Rafiq Khoury do this?”

“I don’t know.” Davis hesitated, then added, “But that other airplane, the control ship, is probably sitting in Khoury’s magic hangar right now. And I think there might be something else parked next to it—a CIA drone that crashed last winter.”

“An American drone? You mean like the ones that are always in the news?”

Davis nodded. “I think Khoury is trying to get it into the air. I think this old DC-3 I found in the sea was put together as a test airframe to make sure everything worked.”

“This sounds so complicated. Why would anyone go to such trouble?”

“That’s the big question. It doesn’t make sense, does it? If Khoury only wanted to crash an airplane into something valuable, he could do that with a suicide bomber. A cleric like him must have plenty of loyal followers who’d be willing. In fact, I’ve already met one of them. But whatever the end game is, it’s got to be big to justify so much planning and expense. Looking back, I’ll bet FBN Aviation was established from the beginning for no other reason than to fly this drone. The timing is too much of a coincidence—FBN was set up right after the CIA lost its drone. The rest of their business, shipping cargo and gun-running to the subcontinent, that was only eyewash. This is a well funded, well thought out operation that’s leading to something serious. And it’s going to happen soon.”

Davis heard noise outside, men laughing. They weren’t close, but the mere fact that he could hear them meant the wind was howling less. The storm was losing its punch. Antonelli noticed too, and they exchanged a cautious glance.

“Do you think the government is part of it?” she asked. “These soldiers here now?”

“I don’t know.”

“But what can we do?” she wondered aloud.

“Right now, two things. I need to get you safe. And I have to get back to Khartoum.”

“How? Our truck is not even here.”

“Where is it?”

“Raheem took it to another village east of here. He won’t be back until tomorrow.”

“Great. Are there any other vehicles in town?”

“Only the two the soldiers brought.”

Davis smiled.

He’d assumed that the squad looking for him now would be sharper than Scarface’s bunch. He was wrong. The two vehicles parked at the perimeter of the village had been left unguarded.

His first job had been to get Antonelli safe. She was hunkered near a storage shed just outside the village, ready for a rendezvous that he hoped would come sooner rather than later. On returning to the village, Davis watched the soldiers long enough to establish that they were indeed together in one building near the center. He gave the circumstances some thought, the enemy’s position and objectives and capabilities. Then he considered his relative standing, and a plan came together. The hornet’s nest was right there in front of him. All Davis had to do was kick it at the right time.

The storm was ebbing, and a few drops of rain began to fall in the gusty aftermath. Big globules splattered to the ground and disappeared immediately into parched, dust-laden earth. Like they’d landed on a sponge. Davis had the diving mask strung on an arm now as he skirted the edge of the village—he could get by with just squinting, and didn’t
want to sacrifice any peripheral vision. He had to work fast, because soon the soldiers would be coming out to pick up their search.

The big truck was a three-and-a-half-ton Dong Feng, a People’s Republic of China knock-off troop carrier. It looked heavy and slow. The jeep was an ancient BJ-212, the kind of thing China had been selling on the cheap to Third World countries for decades. It looked by far the more nimble of the two, and carried two jerry cans for gas, hopefully full. The jeep also had the only radio, so it was the obvious choice. Davis moved fast, angling first toward the big truck. He found what he wanted in the troop bed, a lug wrench secured to one side-wall with a wingnut. He removed it and went to work on the truck.

When he was done, Davis kept the wrench and climbed into the jeep. He hit the start button and the engine churned, but didn’t start.

“Damn it!”

Davis checked the hornet’s nest, just in view around a mud-brick wall. No response. He cranked the engine again, and this time it caught. He put the jeep in gear and turned south toward the desert. He paused when he had a hundred yards of separation, waiting for the swarm. Nothing happened. He revved the engine. Still nothing.

Christ these guys are stupid.

He leaned on the horn, and finally three men stumbled outside. The wind was still strong enough to flatten their uniforms against their bodies. Davis was about to wave when one man shouldered a rifle. Davis revved the engine and the jeep lunged forward—as much as a Chinese jeep could.

He was steering toward the open desert when the first bullet pinged off the frame of his windshield.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

He was high on khat, driving a Chinese jeep as fast as he could through a sandstorm in the world’s largest desert. People were shooting at him. But at least he was wearing his diving mask.

How do I get into this shit?

Davis decided the khat had dulled his decision making. He went for max speed just to see what the jeep could do, and at sixty-five miles an hour had the accelerator pegged to the floorboard. Not great, but maybe good enough. The steering was exactly what you’d expect from a mass-produced Communist military vehicle—the wheel seemed to float in his hands as he careened over the semi-improved road.

Davis looked over his shoulder and saw the truck behind him. Right now, given the visibility, he figured he had to keep his adversary within half a mile—any more and they’d lose him. But he didn’t want much less either, because they had the artillery. He estimated there were four, maybe five soldiers in the truck, which meant that his plan, drug-addled as it certainly was, seemed to be working. Davis had known he was going to need a good head start to get clear of al-Asmat, yet the tactical impediment had been obvious. The soldiers had brought two vehicles. There was no way to steal both without getting Antonelli involved. Taking one and disabling the other was an option, but that carried consequences. At that point, whoever was in charge would have no choice but to call for backup—a fresh vehicle or even a whole new squad. Replacements would arrive in an hour if they came by chopper, two if it was by land or sea. In that time window, Davis might get fifty miles of separation, a hundred if he was lucky. He wanted more.

Thus his plan to split the force. Right now he was leading half the soldiers deep into the desert. The other half were back in the village, out of the fight. The group back in al-Asmat might well have access to a satellite phone or a handheld radio. If not, they might confiscate one in the village. But they wouldn’t send for backup—not yet. That call, Davis knew, was one no field commander would make except as a last resort. It was admitting defeat, and defeat never looked good on a performance report. As long as there was a chance they could wrap Davis up on their own, nobody in this unit would call for help. So with the guys behind him engaged in hot pursuit, the soldiers back in the village would sit patiently, wait for their buddies to return with their trophy. That was Davis’ logic, anyway.

Having successfully divided the enemy, it was time to conquer.

With the chase established, Davis kept his speed up. Soon, however, he saw a problem. The truck was gaining. Worst case, he had figured the two vehicles for equals on performance. He’d been wrong. What do to about it? Davis had decades of military training under his belt. He knew how to fight with jets and fists and guns. Fighting with Chinese four-wheel-drive utility vehicles—not a clue. So he did what any rugby player would do. He mashed his big foot harder on the accelerator.

With the truck closing fast, his clever plan was looking less clever every second. Davis got a picture in his mind, the right front wheel of the truck. He had loosened all five lug nuts, thrown three away, and left the final two half a turn from falling free. The big wheel had to be close to separating, wobbling as the truck spun and crashed over the rutted road. That was his theory. But reality was arguing otherwise. The troop carrier was only a hundred yards back now. Davis took off the mask to get a better look and promptly fumbled it out the door. Storm-driven sand was still swirling, and his eyes began to sting. The driver behind him had an enclosed cab.

He never heard the sound of the second shot—only a metallic crunch as the round exploded into the UHF radio on the dashboard. Davis began to think his plan was faulty. Could one of the two remaining lugs have bent under the uneven pressure and jammed in
place? If so, the wheel might never fall off. He figured he was five miles from the village, just what he’d had in mind. But until the wheel fell off, the rest of his scenario was out the window. He glanced over his shoulder. Eighty yards.

He who hesitates dies.

Davis yanked the wheel hard left and turned off the road, immediately hit a dune at the shoulder and flew airborne. The jeep landed hard, skewed onto the driver’s-side wheels, then righted itself in a sideways slide. Davis corrected, and loose stones peppered the wheel wells before everything straightened out. The off-road surface was punishing, and Davis had to slow down. The truck was bearing down, even closer now, but its driver faced the same dilemma and had to slow. Davis saw the men in the truck’s bed bouncing airborne and hanging on for dear life—nobody could shoot from a platform like that and expect to hit anything. Better yet, it had to be beating the hell out of the wheel lugs.

Davis yelled over the roar of the engine, “Come on, dammit! Fall off already!”

The truck wasn’t gaining anymore. Stalemate. Then the ride began to smooth as the desert settled into waves of soft sand dunes. The truck began gaining again, and another shot smacked in. Too close. Plan B was dead. Davis reverted to physics. The forces on the lug nuts had to be at their highest in a hard turn, and a left turn would pull the right wheel away from the truck. Which begged the next question—how to put the truck chasing him into a hard left turn?

Only one method came to mind.

He spun the wheel and the jeep slid through a turn, a spray of sand arcing to the outside like a skier rounding a turn. Davis got low, using the dash as a shield, and steered straight for the truck. The closure turned extreme as the speed of the two vehicles became additive. Davis kept his head down, stealing occasional glances. Two more bullets ricocheted off metal. He favored his left just slightly in the game of chicken. Fifty feet apart, Davis took one last look, then ducked down and held tight. It was up to the other driver now to lose his nerve.

He did.

In a flash, the big truck flew by on the right. Davis watched it happen over his shoulder. The truck began to slide, spraying a massive plume of sand into the air. Then it disappeared completely, lost in its own private dust storm. Davis kept his eyes padlocked on the swirl of brown, and seconds later a single wheel came bouncing out of the cloud. It rolled a hundred feet, hesitated upright for a moment, then fell on its side.

Davis eased off the accelerator and began breathing again.

He picked up Antonelli as arranged, and drove southeast along the coast road. The storm had passed, replaced by a sudden calm that was totally at odds with the maelstrom of the last hour. The haboob had left its calling card, a thick residue of dust that covered the road like brown snow.

“Did you see any more soldiers?” he asked.

“I heard shouting, but I was not close enough to the village to see what was happening.”

“That’s good.”

“What became of the others, the ones who followed you?”

It sounded like an accusation, and he noticed her grim expression. “Look, Contessa, I’m no assassin. Their truck had an accident.”

“How convenient.”

“Very.”

“We are safe then?” she asked.

“For the moment. They’ll be confused. The guys out in the desert will spend some time trying to put their truck back together, but they don’t have the right tools. I made sure of it. Eventually, they’ll walk back to the village. That’ll take some time too.”

“And the soldiers in the village?”

“They know I’m not there,” he said, “so hopefully they’ll give up the search.”

“But they have associated the two of us,” she said. “They will look for me as well.”