Hostile Fire (27 page)

“Once we leave Halifax, Boston Oceanic won’t know we are there. Now it’s clear sailing. No way that the Oceanic people can track us without our radio positions.”

“We stopping in Miami?” the third man in the cockpit, the flight engineer, asked.

“Not a chance. Remember that route I blocked out for you? You can put it into the machine now. We go down the coast about seventeen hundred miles and land in Nassau, the Bahamas. We pick up fuel there, then take off and turn to the right, miss the tip of Florida by at least sixty miles, and the Miami air controllers, and head through the Gulf of Mexico for Mexico City.”

“Your first plot showed that we could make it without refueling after Nassau. Do you still say that?”

“Depends how much head wind we hit. But we should be able to get there with plenty of our fuel to spare.”

“Good,” Fouad said. “You guys fly the plane. I’m going to have a nap. Let me know when we hit Halifax airspace.” He scowled at them. And remember, I can fly this plane. Any deviation from my orders and you both get killed and I fly the plane into Mexico City. Let me know when we’re approaching Halifax.”

The Azores

Murdock went to the airport manager in the Azores and found a confused and irritable man. He spoke enough English that they could communicate.

“I know nothing of this plane. Yes, yes, it landed here, a BAC One-Eleven. But at that time we had no reason to question it. It landed, refueled, filed a flight plan for Lisbon, and took off. Nothing unusual. Now your government tells me it could be carrying terrorists. How was I to know?”

“What was the logo on the side?” Murdock asked. “What airline did it claim to be?”

“He listed it as DAF, Domestic Air Freight of Morocco.”

“Is there such a company?”

“Yes, but we rarely see it out here.”

Murdock frowned. “At least we have a logo and color. When did the plane take off?”

“A little over nine hours ago. You’ll never catch up on a commercial flight.”

“Did your flight control radar show them heading for Lisbon?”

“Yes, but it reaches out only sixty miles.”

“And they could have reversed their course and you’d never know it.” Murdock slammed his palm down on the desk and left without another word. Nine hours. That meant the craft they hunted could already be in Halifax, or maybe refueled and gone on the next leg of its flight. He called Stroh on a pay phone, was surprised to get through so easily, and reported what he knew.

“So, we missed him in Halifax. I’ve had a report by one of our men there. He’s found a record of the plane landing, fueling, and taking off. The flight plan said the plane was heading back to the Azores. We’ll try Halifax again. They might know something more now. Their air traffic control should have something on him.”

“If the plane has a transponder.”

“They have to now to get off the ground.”

“You still think he’s heading for Mexico?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll work on it. In the meantime, get yourself into town. We may need you south of the border.”

“Where is the rest of the platoon?”

“On their way. Kat raised all sorts of hell and got Gypsy a free pass home. She’s been yelling at my boss and threatening to go straight to the President. Which she could do. I think the Company got her satisfied. She’s staying in Kuwait until Gypsy is well enough to fly; then they both will come back. Gypsy will go on the payroll when she’s well. Kat is pleased and all is well on that score.”

“When will the platoon hit the States?”

“Who knows? They’re hitchhiking back on military planes when there’s room and when they’re coming this way. Give them three or four days.”

“My flight was just called. We’re out of here. See you tomorrow.”

In Washington, D.C., Don Stroh put the phone down and rubbed his face with both hands. In fifteen minutes he, six other Company men, and the FBI contingent had a meeting with the Director of the Department of Homeland Security. Twelve men were going to figure out what to do? Better they asked the man on the street. Mexico still looked good. He wasn’t sure of the range of a BAC One-Eleven. If it took on extra fuel, it might be able to fly from Halifax down the coast. It could refuel in Bermuda or the Bahamas and then have enough juice to get below Florida and slant over into Mexico. Where in Mexico? Mexico City would be an idea. Lots of air traffic. Easy to get lost in the jumble. It was a big, busy airport.

What about air traffic control over the ocean, off the coast? He knew some of the radar that picked up incoming planes could reach out for sixty miles. There were no checks or tracking of planes over the ocean, except by radio. Planes could fly up and down the coast as long as they didn’t punch into U.S. airspace. If they did, they would answer to the Air Defense Command.

Stroh sipped at a cup of hot coffee and nodded. He could call the Air Traffic Control System Command Center and ask if with the new security they were monitoring flights farther off the coast now. He could, but he wasn’t going to. He was sure of the sixty mile limit. Mexico, it had to be Mexico.
But where in Mexico? He was thinking in circles. He and Murdock had gone over this before. A nap. He needed a nap. A research outfit said that workers who took a half-hour nap during the day awoke refreshed and worked at a much higher efficiency level than those same type workers who plowed straight through the day. Yeah.

His office door opened and Milly pushed inside. She was forty, thirty pounds overweight and didn’t care, and had yogurt every day for lunch. She grinned at him.

“Hey, Mr. S. Time for your meeting. The main conference room. Looks like quite a bunch coming in. You want me to run interference for you?”

He groaned, stood, picked up his notes from his talk with Murdock, and angled for the door.

“This time I’ve got to do my own downfield blocking, but thanks, Milly. Next time for sure I’ll get you out in front. If Murdock calls, have him give you a number. I’ll need to talk to him as soon as he hits town.”

“Yes, Mr. S. I’ll do that.” She smiled. “You get in there and get this thing straightened out.”

“Wish I could, Milly. I do so wish that it was that easy.” He walked down the hall and went into the conference room. Ten or twelve men with notebooks and pads of paper sat around the big table. The Director of the Department of Homeland Security rapped his water glass and the men sat down.

“Gentlemen, thanks for coming. We have facing us what may be the greatest threat to the United States in our history. It’s up to us to come up with some answers, and some way to detour, detect, and destroy this nuclear threat that even now may be hidden in the heart of one of our great cities. First I’d like to hear from Don Stroh, who has been shepherding this situation from the start and has the latest information about the possible location, destination, and maybe even the target of this nuclear device. Mr. Stroh.”

Ramstein Air Force Base, Germany

Gunner’s Mate First Class Miguel Fernandez sat on his bunk in the transient barracks at the U.S. Air Force base and thought back over his work in Iraq. He shook his head. He didn’t even know how many men he had killed. Several. Two, ten, fifteen? He had been on the assault fire and some of the other firefights. Did it bother him? He rubbed one ear that had been itching lately for no apparent reason.

Yes, the killing now did bother him. Was it enough to make him quit the SEALs? He didn’t know. Death had suddenly become a factor. After over six years of close and dirty combat with the SEALs, he was starting to feel the strain. Was it the actual killing or the idea that someone’s brother or father or son would not be returning home from his military post that bothered him? He simply didn’t know. He could go talk to an air force chaplain. No, he couldn’t. They were on a fifteen-minute alert schedule. They would have only that much time to get their gear together and rush to the flight line for a ride to the next military base. He hated this hitchhiking. They became just so much cargo for these air transport guys.

So he couldn’t risk missing a flight by going to a chaplain. He sure as hell wasn’t going to let any of the men in the platoon know how he felt—except Murdock. Death had become more important to him since his grandfather died two months ago. The old guy was almost eighty, but spry and witty and still worked part-time in his small restaurant. He had died with his boots on, or more properly his apron, where he stood at the stove in the kitchen grilling a pair of steaks. He had gone in a flash and there was no chance to revive
him when the paramedics came. A heart attack—massive, unstoppable, and deadly.

His grandfather was his first relative who had died in ten years. He didn’t think too much about it at the time. The large, extended Mexican family had the usual mass, wake, funeral, and burial. It had all seemed routine at the time. This was simply what a family did when a member died.

Now he realized that the loss of the old man had been more than routine for him. His grandfather had taken him on his first fishing trip and to his first baseball game. Had come to watch him play baseball in high school. His own father had been navy and often out on six-month blue-water trips, so he wasn’t home that much. When he was there, he was distant, unresponsive. Not your best hands on Dad. The death of Grandfather Hernando had been a severe blow; he just didn’t realize it at the time. Now he was paying for it.

Damn it, he was doing what he had been trained to do. Six long months of training. He was good at this job. It was work that had to be done by someone. They had taken on the country’s enemies in dozens of different locales and situations, and had won. He had faced death himself twenty, thirty times in those six years and had survived. Maybe that was what was meant to be? He didn’t believe in fate. Man made his own way, and sometimes luck of the draw was a factor, but certainly nothing was preordained. A man lived or died mostly by his own decisions and actions. Sure, a plane might go down and all on board be killed. A chance happening. A man did not have “a time to die.” He hated it when people said, “Well, I guess it was Joe’s time to go.” That was nonsense. No person of even average intelligence could possibly believe that.

So where did that leave him? He didn’t know. He’d see how he felt when this mission was over. Maybe it was over. Or maybe they would be chasing that fourth nuke all over the world. He wondered where it was by now. Had the bad guys moved it where they wanted to set it off? That would more than likely be some target city in the United States. He just hoped that it wasn’t San Diego.

“On your feet, troops,” Senior Chief Neal bellowed. “We have exactly sixteen minutes to get to the flight line. We’ve
got a ticket to fly straight into Washington, D.C., good old Andrews Air Force Base just outside of the District. Move it.”

Over the Atlantic Ocean
Along the U.S. Coast

Asrar Fouad grinned as the BAC’s radio spoke again.

“Last call, BAF-235. We have no position for you after your takeoff from Halifax on our screens at Boston Oceanatic Control. Do you read me? Do you read me? Please respond.”

“Yes. They can’t find us,” Fouad said. “That’s the best news we’ve had yet. They don’t know where the hell we are. That’s good.”

“I can get in huge trouble for doing this,” the pilot said. “Turning off the transponder and not answering the AT control. I’ll lose my license at the very least. I could land in jail.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Fouad said. “Who is going to report what happened? Not me, not your engineer. You’re safe and going to be a rich man. Hell, you don’t even have to go back to Jordan if you don’t want to.”

The engineer laughed. “Hey, we stay in Mexico City, learn to speak Spanish, and keep the plane to start up our own airfreight business. Or we sell the plane. Must be worth at least two million dinar.”

The pilot shook his head. “That would really make us criminals. Jordanian cops would come looking for us.”

Later the flight engineer told Fouad they were two hundred miles down the United States coast from Halifax. Boston had been trying to reach them since they cut the switch to the transponder after leaving Halifax. They were a hundred miles off the United States coast.

“So we may officially be dead,” Fouad said, smiling broadly. “They had us heading for the Azores, then we vanished. Tough luck, guys, you must be sleeping with the fishes.” The Jordanian nationals frowned at his remark.

“Don’t worry about it. That’s a term from a movie about American mafia criminals. Just keep us heading south and we’ll be in good shape. How long until we come to Nassau?”

The flight engineer made some calculations.

“About two and a half hours more,” the engineers said.

“Good.” Fouad’s smile broadened. “Hey, I’m hungry. You guys want another one of those airline dinners?”

They said they did, and Fouad went back to the small galley and heated up meals in the microwave. There were still twenty frozen dinners waiting. It was dark out now. It would stay dark as they came around Florida and headed across the Gulf of Mexico. Fouad’s eyes lit up as he realized that the plan was working to perfection. Soon they would be in Mexico City and he would make the final preparations.