Recall (22 page)

R
ed stood behind the front wheel and alternated his attention between the fence and the cockpit. The ambulance was pulling away from the overturned police car. Something moved down the road. The trucks again? He squinted, then dread pitted his stomach.

“Lori! We need to get moving
now
!” He ran to the end of the truck and pointed down the road. A tall-tracked armored personnel carrier was running toward the trucks waiting outside the gate. “Looks like an M113. We've got nothing against that.”

“Crawler!” Jim shouted. “Unhook the fuel truck. Lori, get us airborne.”

“Two-thirds full,” came her reply from the cockpit. A low growling came from under the engine cowling. “I need a few minutes to get wound up.”

“Crawler, grab the steward and get him in front where they can see him,” Jim said.

Red turned his ear toward the engine. Starting a jet wasn't like a piston aircraft, was it? Were the controls even written in English? Maybe she needed Marksman to read something. The Iranians wouldn't care about hostages. In two minutes, they'd be overrun. They had to get in the air.

“Marksman, I've got an idea that could buy us a couple minutes,” Red said. “Next to the gate. What is it?”

Marksman adjusted his rifle a few degrees. “A fuel station. Little planes over that side. Props.”

“That a fuel truck?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you set it off?”

“Jet fuel don't work like that,” Crawler said, shoving the barrel of his 9mm into the side of the steward's neck. “It's like diesel. You can throw a match into a can and it won't burn.”

Red pointed to the fuel truck. “We're not at a military base. You said those are props over there. The truck could have some avgas in it.”

Marksman's clip clattered onto the hood of the truck. He pulled another from a satchel near the small of his back.

“Incendiaries?” Red asked.

Marksman's stock pushed up against his cheek. “I wish. Armor piercing. All I've got. Maybe it'll spark on the way through.”

The large green trucks lumbered behind the APC like tired trail horses. Marksman got off a shot. Nothing. Marksman lifted his rifle a little higher. Red wondered, could he even see the truck through the scope at that angle? A large tanker, but at this distance it would still take luck to hit it. The APC pivoted on its tracks, turning off the road, heading to the gate. Marksman's rifle rang: two, three, four times. The gate blew open and slapped against the fence as the APC hit it center on.

Maybe Red could cripple it if he rammed it with the truck. He was groping in his pocket for the key when a flash of heat hit his face. An orange balloon rose silently, several stories high where the fuel truck used to be. It faded to yellow, supported by a column of black soot. A section of piping shot out from it, flipping like a leaf blown by a passing car. A second explosion, maybe from a divided tank, shot yellow-blue sideways and low, soaking the gate and several small planes in flame.

A crack, then a guttural rumble shook their truck, like hearing distant thunderstorms over the Chesapeake. The blaze stuck to the ground, burning hot like napalm. The APC emerged from the fireball covered in flames. It slowed and three tiki torches stumbled from the back, dancing a short time, silhouetted against the backdrop of black soot, then fell and burned out.

Red's smile faded as he remembered one of Father Ingram's sermons on hell. “Separate from God. No one to hear your scream, or even care.” He imagined being one of the tikis, skin scorching, running around with his only consolation being it would be over soon. Or would it? A howl from Crawler shook him from his stupor.

“Beautiful.” Jim slapped Marksman's shoulder. “Get ready for the rest!” He squatted and yelled under the plane. “Richards, anything on your side?”

“Negative.”

The engines whined and everyone looked at Jim. The ten-wheelers and several jeeps skidded around the edge of the flames, running in the open grass, moving fast.

“Hold your positions,” Jim ordered. He walked to the nose of Red's truck and pressed his comm. “
Can't have any alive.
”

Even a lucky shot from a sidearm could take down a jet. It was good the trucks were coming now instead of when they started down the runway. If Artesh had any sense, they'd wait till the plane was moving, most vulnerable. This might still work out for the better.

Next to Jim, Red laid several clips on the hood. Lanyard knelt at the bumper. Crawler shoved the steward toward the terminal and the guy ran off, hands skyward. Artesh wouldn't be stopping for hostages. The trucks spread out when they crossed the runway. One of the jeeps smashed a raised red landing light on a yellow pedestal in its grille.

Marksman shot first, well outside everyone else's range. Red leaned into his weapon, eyeing the lead jeep. It slowed as its fractured engine block self-destructed. Marksman fired again and the second jeep turned away. The edge of its wheel caught the pavement and the truck rolled onto its side, sparks flying from the grooved runway. At around three hundred meters everyone fired.
Get enough bullets flying, someone's got to get hit.
Red took aim at the drivers, or at least where he thought they'd be hunched below the windshields. Men leapt from the stalled trucks and followed their comrades on foot.

At a hundred meters, Crawler got off a well-placed shot with his grenade launcher. The front wheel of the lead truck dug in. Soft earth dragged it to a stop like a plowshare in a field. The driver shifted to a lower gear and it struggled forward, then stopped when Marksman punched a hole below the windshield frame.

The last truck sped forward, accelerating toward the plane. All rifles followed its progress.
Driver must be dead
, thought Red. The guy's head was slumped onto the huge steering wheel. It kept coming toward Red's position as the Gulfstream's engines wound up behind him. Everyone backed away as the dead driver crashed into Red's truck, careening off, and just missing the tail of the Gulfstream, resting once it collided with a Jetway.

The plane rolled forward a few inches.

Red ran back to the nose of his truck. Oil was leaking from under the engine, a tinge of carbon adding to the acrid stink of gunpowder. He rested his rifle on the warm, crumpled hood. Soldiers were out in the open field, sprinting from truck to truck as cover, though Marksman still brought several to a halt with rapid, accurate fire. After that they stayed put, occasionally exposing themselves to fire, but scampering back before being hit.

Jim pointed to no-man's-land. “
E1, E2, finish them off. No prisoners. Crawler, protect our backside. Everyone else, cover.
”

Red sprinted around him to the open field. As he passed, Jim knocked his legs out from under him, driving Red into the patch of warm oil under the truck. Jim opened fire. The crack of an AK-47 came from behind, bursting the bent tire in front of Red's face, loud as a grenade. Crawler knelt by the far side landing gear, firing at something hidden behind the Gulfstream.

At last, the AKs stopped. Jim's boots staggered next to the bumper. Red rolled out and caught him as he fell back.

“Doc!” Red shouted, dragging Jim to the burst wheel, leaning him against the rim. From a small hole in the chest of his blouse, blood dyed the green of his fatigues brown. Red laid him flat and pressed a palm over the wound, stopping the bleeding.

Jim stared up into the sky. When Ali leaned over and opened a green attaché, Jim wrapped one hairy fist around his collar as if grabbing a dog by the scruff of the neck. He pulled him close. “Don't let me die in this damn uniform,” Jim said.

Eyes still on Jim, Red felt the team's gaze burn into his back. He looked up, still applying pressure to Jim's chest. The men were different now, their eyes clouded with doubt. Fringed like the dust on Jannat's dress, in the basement, when she stooped over the map. They'd all stooped too low. Doubt was an infection that needed to be cut out. It rattled a cage inside his belly.

Ali pulled Red's hand off Jim's chest. “I need to get at the wound, sir.”

Sir? The entire op it'd been
Red
, or maybe
Major
. Something awoke now, inside that cage, as bullets clattered against the engine and gearbox. Thick sulfuric gear lubricant fell, mixing into the oil pool like cream in coffee. Jim was right. No-man's-land had to be cleared. Red looked at Lieutenant Richards. No, Richards shouldn't go in case Red got killed. “Lanyard, Crawler, Carter, follow me. Everyone else, cover.”

Red ran past the mangled front grille of his truck, accelerating to a sprint, Lanyard right behind him. Footfalls from the others running to keep up followed close. A hundred meters lay between them and the first dead truck. A soldier in a maroon beret stepped out beside the wheel mired deep into the earth. Red dropped to his knees, sliding in the muck, bringing his rifle to bear. His finger wasn't yet on the trigger when half the soldier's skull exploded, spraying tannish brain matter across the heads of uncut grass. That would be the last time Marksman beat him to the shot, Red resolved.

Red hid behind the grille of the truck. Crawler scurried up, breathing hard. Red held up two fingers, then a fist, and pointed to the rear of the truck. Crawler smiled and pulled two grenades. He tossed them below the rear axle. The grenades boomed, one after the other, the second blast muffling a scream. Red circled around. A soldier wearing the same epaulets as Crawler was sprawled on his back in the grass, clawing away from the truck, digging in with his elbows, knees too mangled to rise. Red looked away and squeezed the trigger.

AKs clattered from the direction of the next truck only the width of a football field away. Red flattened himself behind the body of the soldier he'd shot and Lanyard dove behind the truck. He couldn't see any shooters, only muzzle flashes from behind the tires.

He stayed flat, shots passing overhead, the pressure waves slapping his back, deceptively gentle. The
crack-crack-crack
rang in his ears.

Marksman's rifle sounded again.
Thank God
. Red brought up his M4 in time to see a helmet roll out from under one of the other truck's wheels. A second soldier stood and ran away, keeping the truck between himself and Marksman. Red put his iron sights two feet ahead of the guy and squeezed the trigger, dropping him chest-first.

He held up a fist and pointed to the truck. Crawler took aim and launched a grenade behind it. Several soldiers abandoned cover and ran into the open field. Shooting them in the back as they're running away only
seems
cowardly, Red told himself, squeezing the trigger again and again, raising his sights higher for the faster ones headed to the edge of the runway. He couldn't risk even one getting a lucky shot at the Gulfstream. After that, soldiers abandoned the other vehicles like rats fleeing a warehouse fire. His team got all they could, but the smart ones would still be out there, hiding in the grass, waiting for them to move to the runway.

The pitch of the engines rose. Red ran back to the plane, Marksman's rifle punctuating the end of any Artesh soldier stupid enough to break cover. Fire came from the perimeter fence, but only a few bullets slapped the concrete.
Time to get in the air, before someone shows up with a heavy MG
.

Ali had the colonel's shirt off and a mound of bandage strapped to his chest, crimson blooming in its center. Red was glad not to see any evidence of an exit wound as he helped Ali lift Jim in a fireman's carry, staggering under the weight.

The plane rolled forward. Lori yelled something from the cockpit, her words indecipherable above the whine of the jets.

Crawler stood beside Marksman, eyeing the field as everyone scrambled up the ladder, throwing the baskets that carried their prisoners onto the floor, like thoughtless baggage handlers. Red kicked them down the aisle; Richards pulled them the rest of the way. Red envied their heroin-induced oblivion.

He leaned outside the open door and called, “Crawler, Marksman.” A bullet smacked next to his skull, and burned itself into the plastic bulkhead. It was turned sideways, keyholed, having lost ballistic stability during its long flight.

Crawler cut the tie-down straps that held the crates in the back of his truck. He pushed the stack out onto the tarmac and heaved one of the larger ones onto his back. A flat box.

Marksman had one foot on the ladder, running with the other like a skateboarder shoving off as the plane rolled forward.

“Leave it!” Red yelled, scowling. Crawler held it tightly, trotting toward the ladder.

“Son of a bitch!” Marksman said as he jumped off and pitched his M14 up to Red. He grabbed the other end of the crate and helped run it to the plane. Red jumped out of the way. The crate landed at his feet, gouging a long rip in the carpet. He was about to shove it back out but Crawler and Marksman jumped through the door and hefted it to the back of the plane.

Jim was on the floor, legs elevated on an Italian leather chair. The prisoners were still in the baskets, now atop the cracked wooden crate in front of the bathroom. Everyone else was gaping out the windows.

“Shoot through them if you see anything!” Red yelled.

Ali reached into Jim's cargo pocket and tossed the sat phone to him. He needed to get in touch with their Navy liaison. Maybe get an escort. Probably wouldn't work without notification. He hit speed dial for the Det. Judging by the echo on the other end, they had him on speakerphone in the fusion cell's command center. He gave their status, then said, “Give them our position. Make sure the trigger-happy squids know we're flying toward the Gulf, low altitude, not squawking shit.”