Strike Force Charlie (34 page)

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Authors: Mack Maloney

BOOK: Strike Force Charlie
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It was the first kind of water-scooping maneuver Ryder had ever done of course. He wished more than once that Gallant was there with him; he would have made it look easy. Hitting the top of the evaporation pool, the plane not only sucked up the gas-laden water into its engines; it also took on the 1,200 gallons unevenly. There was more of the combustible water in one tank than the other, making the plane dangerously unbalanced. Combined with the engine problems, it was amazing that they'd made it more than a
few miles beyond Stinky Valley, never mind all the way to Vegas.
But here they were, and now they had one last job to do before they crashed.
They could see the Greyhound bus down below them—the same one described by Mann way back when. It was shiny and gleaming and new—and once you were looking for it, it stood out as if it had a spotlight on it. It looked very out of place.
But there was a convergence of events happening now that the ghosts had no control over. The veterans' flight was coming in, and it appeared it was going to do its fly-over no matter what. Of course, this had been the scenario the terrorists had wanted all along. Sneak 18 Stinger missiles into Nellis under the guise of a handicapped placard, launch those missiles at the veterans' flight, hoping to hit anything and everything, from a huge C-5 full of American heroes, to one of the B-52s or a Thunderbird or one of the Blue Angels or the Raptor or the F-35. Eighteen missiles, all fired at once, into such a crowded sky? They were going to hit something—and probably something very big.
And
this
was the most sinister aspect of the terrorists' plan. Low-flying, slow-moving aircraft hit by ground missiles tended to crash immediately—that was a given. But what was worse, they frequently cartwheeled when they hit the ground, this due to factors that had to do with forward airspeed, suddenly interrupted. One fighter alone crashing into this crowd could kill hundreds, if not thousands. If one of the big bombers or even the C-5 was hit and went down anywhere in the throng, the death toll could be in the tens of thousands.
And even in these eternal seconds, with Ryder trying to keep the CL-215 in the air just a few seconds longer, it all became very clear. It had been a typical Al Qaeda move. Do one thing, whether it be setting off car bombs in Europe or spreading germs in Israel or sending teams throughout the United States to shoot down individual American airliners, all to get U.S. intelligence agencies going one way, then do
something bigger, deadlier, while you're going the other way. Distraction, disinformation, deflection. It almost worked at Hormuz. Now it was close to working again.
The first bus? Sure, if its crews had been able to shoot down a few American airliners, that would have been a big plus. But in reality Ryder knew now it had been a diversion all along, something to keep them busy and the people of the country on edge, not to mention quadrupling the intrigue in Washington, while all that time laying low with the second bus, planning to do this one big hit by killing thousands of unsuspecting Americans
and
shooting down the cream of the American military's air force. It was the Big Plan approach to terrorism, somehow explained by the scribble on a coffee-stained napkin. And it had gone off nearly flawlessly.
But A1 Qaeda had not factored in one thing: the ghosts.
It was the interpretation of that coffee-stained napkin that had brought them here, at this moment, to this place, as the one last hope to avert disaster. There was no time to call the cops, no time to get the air police to converge on the Greyhound bus. It was up to them—and the 1,200 gallons of really bad stuff sloshing around in their holding tanks.
Their wild buzzing was not doing much to improve the condition of their engines; in fact, it was making them worse. But it was necessary. Typically cowardly, the terrorists had parked their vehicle in the midst of many; Ryder knew he'd have to buzz the area below at least a few times to get as many innocent people out of the way as possible.
It was Puglisi who'd come up with the idea of showing the Revolutionary War flag one more time. Jammed between the forward hatch and frame, it was flapping mightily now—this all in hopes that people on the ground would see it, recognize it, and know who they were, and then clear out as quickly as they could.
And this seemed to be happening below them now as Ryder pulled up from a very shallow dive right over the Greyhound to see military people down below hustling people out of the area.
But again this was a timing thing—and it appeared that time was finally running out for the ghosts.
The veterans' flight was now just a few seconds away from arriving over the base. Most of its aircraft were already within range of the Stinger missiles. Ryder could almost feel the disruption in the air around him as the collection of warplanes came in, this as he was pulling out of what had to be their last mock dive.
It was at that moment that they saw the top of the Greyhound bus disappear. It looked like it simply vanished—actually, the roof was cut in two, with each side on hinges, and these doors dropped away. Looking over his shoulder and climbing, Ryder could see the interior of the bus. A chill went through him. There were 18 mooks, some in soccer uniforms, some not, each with a Stinger missile on his shoulder.
Ryder turned the plane over on its wing. Bates was still in the copilot's seat. Fox and Puglisi were holding on for dear life behind them. The plane was in no position to fire the big fifties; most of their ammo was gone anyway.
“Those bastards!” Fox screamed now as he saw what was happening on the bus below. Ryder and Bates were turning the CL-215 as hard as they could, trying to muscle it into one last dive—but again, they were just a few seconds too late.
What happened next happened in slow motion, for Ryder, for all of them. As soon as Fox screamed, they saw six of the terrorists below fire their missiles. They weren't aiming the weapons exactly, just pointing them in the general direction of the veterans' flight, which was flying right over the main runway. In combat terms, it presented a target-rich environment if there ever was one. But at the instant that the team saw the first ignition flash for the first missile to be fired, Ryder hit the water release button on the CL-215's control panel. The problem was, he was still in the act of turning the firefighting plane, not diving as they had intended when this outlandish bombing mission was so hastily planned out.
These simultaneous actions meant that the first barrage of
six missiles actually flew
into
the cloud of combustible water the CL had dropped. Two of the missiles exploded on hitting the liquid; two more went right through it and exploded above. One missile corkscrewed away. The last one went through the rear of the CL plane—and kept on going.
The 1,200 gallons of liquid hit the bus a second later—but not before another handful of missiles were launched. It might have been the fiery exhaust from the missiles that ignited the fire, but whatever the spark, as soon as the load of gas-water hit the bus, it went up in a tremendous explosion. Red, orange, blue, even white flames soared into the sky, climbing into an instantaneous fireball that immediately sought to envelop the CL-215. Ryder saw nothing but fire coming up at them. They'd accomplished what they'd set out to do. But now the CL was about to be cooked. He screamed at Bates to get out of the copilot's seat, something the egghead did very quickly. The great wash of flame hit the plane head-on an instant later. It was like hitting a brick wall.
It was weird what happened next. The windshield evaporated, covering Ryder with a hot shower of broken glass. At the same moment, he started pulling like crazy on the steering column, trying to get them out of the aerial conflagration. And in that heartbeat, he looked over at the empty copilot's seat and it was as if an invisible set of hands was pulling up on that side of the column, too.
Whose ghost could that be?
he thought crazily, frozen for a moment in time. Was it Gallant? Or “Dirt” Phelan, his wingman who'd died during the Hormuz attack? Or Woody, his old flying buddy who disappeared years ago, not far from here, up around Area 51? Or may be the Ruckers' long-lost son, whose medal Ryder was still carrying with him.
Or maybe he was just imagining the whole thing.
Whatever the case, somehow the CL-215 made it through the fireball. But as a result, it was now nearly covered in flames.
Behind them Ryder could see one of the Harriers had been hit by a Stinger. The pilot was in the process of bailing out, this after steering his jump jet away from the crowd and
toward the open part of the main runway. Another missile clipped the S-2 Viking carrier bomber. Its crew was able to put some air under its wings, bringing it up to reasonable altitude. Again pointed away from the crowd, they, too, were in the process of ejecting.
Ryder turned the CL ship over the crowd now. That's when they saw another missile corkscrew its way into a hangar and detonate. Luckily, this was the same hangar that had lost electricity earlier in the day—and had remained unoccupied. Still another missile was on its way toward the Las Vegas Strip itself.
Somehow Ryder nursed the burning plane away from the crowd and now saw nothing but desert and runway ahead. But unlike the military planes around them, those inside the CL-215 didn't have the luxury of ejection seats or even parachutes. They were riding this one in.
The plane dipped so low, it nearly clipped an antenna forest near the Nellis control tower. Fire was working its way up both sides of the airplane. They knew that it was just a matter of time, seconds or less, before the flames would reach the dump buckets. True, they were empty, but just the fumes alone would be enough to obliterate the plane—and everything onboard.
It got to the point where Fox and Bates shook hands with Puglisi. Ryder looked over his shoulder and yelled, “What are you guys doing?”
“Saying good-bye,” Fox shouted back darkly.
Ryder almost laughed. “No need to get so dramatic,” he said. “Just hang on … .”
They were instantly above the runway. Ryder yanked the plane hard left, then hard right, bleeding off what little speed they had remaining. Then he pushed down on the controls; a second later, they hit the runway.
They bounced once, then twice. Ryder was yanking the controls back and forth, trying to get the plane to stop. But all he was doing was causing more sparks and making the fire in the back of the plane even worse.
It was like going through a car accident that lasted 15
long seconds, in ultraslow motion. The four of them were hurled all over the cabin, side windows smashing, metal twisting, the unmistakable screech of an airplane going through a crash.
But then finally, they stopped. About halfway down the runway, the plane's forward wheel just collapsed and they were all thrown forward, smashing against the control panel and the backs of the seats.
But this was where they finally got lucky. The aircraft was so badly damaged, the whole front end simply came off. The four ghosts literally fell out onto the runway. The fire still swirling around them; the others helped Bates, who fell to the tarmac the hardest, dragging him as far away from the burning wreckage as possible.
Ryder finally stopped them about a hundred and fifty feet away. They all looked at one another—their faces were black, their hands and uniforms burnt. But they were alive.
Then they looked back at the flaming wreck; it was going to go up any second. But then suddenly Puglisi jumped to his feet and ran right into the flames.
“What the fuck!” Fox screamed.
But Ryder knew what Puglisi was doing. The Delta soldier had gone back for Finch's flag.
It was dumb, but just as quickly as he was gone they saw him emerge from the flames, running in slow motion just like a movie. An instant later, the CL-215 blew up for good.
Puglisi landed in a heap at their feet, flag ripped and smoldering but, like them all, miraculously in one piece. That was when they looked up and saw a crowd of people and vehicles heading right for them.
“Well, last chapter, man,” Ryder said, lying on his back looking up at the smoky Nevada sky.
“We greased them,” Fox said with a cough. “The fucking nightmare is complete. They can send me back to Gitmo after this. I can use the peace and quiet.”
But, it was not over … .
Amid the noise of the veterans flight aircraft, circling the
base one more time before landing, the ghosts heard yet another sound. Two huge engines, higher in pitch, not jets, but not from a prop plane, either.
They looked above them to see a V-22 Osprey had appeared out of nowhere and was now hovering overhead. It was a strange craft, half-airplane, half-helicopter, with a wing that tilted, allowing it to land and take off vertically. And this was not one of the all-white experimental-looking V-22s that they were most used to seeing. This one was painted in sinister black and seemed to be bulging with exotic weaponry.
“Something tells me this isn't our ride home,” Fox moaned.
Its wing tilted full up, the V-22 landed practically on top of them, and a large group of heavily armed men tumbled out. They were dressed head to toe in black combat suits and were wearing huge Fritz helmets, their faces hidden by opaque blast shields attached to those helmets. Their weapons only faintly resembled M16s; they were lousy with wires and cable attachments and even what appeared to be tiny satellite dishes poking out of the muzzles. Almost two dozen in all, these guys looked like they'd just walked in from a sci-fi movie.

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