Target Deck - 02 (18 page)

When he came up to the overpass, he pulled the car off the side of the road while grabbing for the phone and the camera bag. Once the car came to a halt, the mercenary dove out of the door and scrambled up alongside the over pass. Climbing up the embankment to the taxiway, he pushed and clawed his way through the thick bushes.

The black
federale
vehicles screamed to a stop down below, the pop of gunshots searching him out. Coming to the crest of the hill, Deckard hit the ground as a bullet cracked over his head. Crawling forwards, he could hear the federal cops breaking brush behind him. They couldn't move the way Deckard could, but they were closing the distance.

Careful not the silhouette himself, he reached the top of the embankment just in time to see the Gulfstream V turn onto the taxiway in front of him. Rolling over, Deckard palmed the Glock 19 pistol and began firing downwards into the bushes to give some suppressive fire. Normally he wouldn't fire on law enforcement officials but these were the goons who had lent Bashir top cover while he ran his child porn operation. They did more crime protection than law enforcement.

The twin engines on the Gulfstream whined as it grew closer. The
federales
were hugging dirt, unable to react to persistent contact the way infantry troops would. Once the Gulfstream pulled around the folding stairs dropped down. Both the Samruk mercenaries piled out and ran to Deckard. Aiming their AK-103 rifles they sent a barrage of semi-automatic gunfire down the embankment and into the idling
federale
vehicles.

It was just in the nick of time Deckard realized as he noted that his Glock was in slide lock as he had fired his last round.

“Cease fire,” Deckard ordered. “That's enough, we're getting the hell out of here.”

Deckard grabbing the Kazakhs by the sleeves, the three turned and ran for the Gulfstream, climbing back inside.

The pilot was through playing games and disengaged the air brakes. The private jet jerked forward nearly throwing Deckard back out of the door as he was retracting the folding stairs. He barely got the door shut and locked into place before they swung onto the runway. Blowing off the warning from the control tower, the CIA pilot hauled ass the down the runway throwing the three mercenaries in the cabin to the floor as he sped for takeoff.

The Gulfstream was only halfway down the runway when it lifted off the ground and soared into the sky.

19

“We're not out of the briar patch yet,” the pilot growled.

“What is it,” Deckard asked as he braced himself in the door to the cockpit. They were still gaining altitude rapidly.

“From the radio traffic I'm hearing it sounds like they scrambled fighters from Merida the second they realized that you were making a run for the airport.”

“Fighter jets?”

“F-5's.”

“Weapons?”

“Raphael Defense air-to-air missiles.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. Thank god for our Military Assistance Program in Mexico.”

“I take it Havana is out of the question as an escape route?”

“We are heading for Grand Cayman but we will never make it. We will be intercepted in less than ten minutes. They got a head start on us and will clear the Yucatan in a few minutes.”

Now the co-pilot turned around.

“What the hell happened down there?”

“Classified.”

“I should have known. Whatever happened, you stirred up a real shit storm.”

“Couldn't be helped.”

The pilot leveled out the aircraft as they reached 30,000 feet. With the co-pilot looking out the opposite side of the window, they both scanned the sky.

“Three o' clock,” the co-pilot announced. “Nice size formation.”

The pilot nosed their aircraft towards the lone cloud formation off in the distance, the shadows shifting in the cabin behind Deckard as the jet changed its heading. The co-pilot was listening to something in his headset.

“Two F-5s. They are reporting to the control tower that they are eight minutes to intercept.”

“We'll make it,” the pilot announced but Deckard saw the sweat beading on his forehead.

The dark clouds in front of them were quickly moving to fill up the cockpit's windshield. Once inside they would gain visual concealment but Deckard knew that modern aviators often flew by instrument alone.

“I appreciate what you guys are doing,” Deckard said nervously. “But getting into those clouds isn't going to hide us from their radar.”

The pilot's eyes remained fixed on his instruments.

“We know what we are doing,” the pilot lectured him. “This happened to us in Switzerland last year. The Swiss Air Force tried to ground us as we flew through their airspace. Some jerk off in their parliament didn't like us flying captured terrorists from Kabul to Morocco so they tried to intercept us with a couple fighters.”

“What happened?”

“We disappeared.”

“How?”

“Classified,” the pilot shot back.

Finally, the cockpit went dark as they blasted into the cloud formation. The co-pilot leaned over what looked like a navigation panel and starting flicking switches. It was then that it dawned on Deckard that beneath what looked like a normal console was actually something entirely different.

“I had wondered how Red Squadron had infiltrated into Pakistan while evading the military's radar systems,” Deckard said referring to the SEAL Team Six raid that had killed Osama Bin Laden. “They got flown in on some of those nifty stealth helicopters from 160th Special Operations Aviation, but you can only do such much to conceal the radar profile on a rotary wing aircraft.”

The pilot and co-pilot looked at each other.

“They tested those stealth packages at Area 51 out in Nevada so they must have known what their limitations are. Yeah, you can reduce the radar signature by using composite skin and radar absorbent paints,” Deckard thought out loud. “But those rotor blades would create a huge blip on Pakistani radar none the less. So there had to be something else involved. Maybe special electromagnetic interference?”

“Don't know what you're talking about,” the co-pilot asserted.

The pilot began circling the jet around inside the clouds, keeping them concealed from the F-5 fighters searching for the CIA black flight somewhere in the sky below, all while transmitting electronic counter-measures.

“The Mexican pilots are getting into an argument with the control tower. They don't see anything and neither do the radar operators,” the co-pilot announced.

“We'll keep circling until they run low on fuel and have to return to Merida. They burned a lot of gas scrambling out here so it shouldn't be long. Once they head back we'll shoot over to
Grand Cayman
as fast as we can,” the pilot said.

Deckard walked back into the cabin where his two mercenaries were clutching their seats nervously. Grabbing another bottle of water, he took a seat.

He had to admit, the pilots had pulled off a pretty slick maneuver by using cloud cover to visually camouflage their presence while going hot on some classified microwave weapons system to conceal their radar signature. Microwaves have the unique ability to slip through the seams of enemy radar installations and insinuate themselves into the circuitry. They sneak in through the back door and spoof the radar system or cause it to malfunction.

More than likely, this had been the secret sauce that had allowed the SEAL Team Six operators to covertly slip into Pakistani airspace aboard 160th Stealth Black Hawk helicopters. The helicopters themselves had stealth characteristics like the F-117 Stealth Fighter, but these had to be combined with microwave spoofing techniques to completely hide radar signature created by the beating rotor blades.

In this case, those same microwave weapons were perfect for concealing CIA black flights. The airplane could look perfectly normal on the exterior as not to arouse suspicion when it arrived in airports but could “go dark” to evade detection during covert operations. Deckard took a sip of his water.

Clearly, the CIA wasn't hurting for funding.

The Iridium satellite phone was picked up on the first ring.

“
Nam
?” the man answered in his native language. For a moment he was confused as to where he was and who he was talking to.

“It is a Gulfstream V. The paint job is gray but there are no commercial labels or official seals. The tail number is N44982,” the caller told him.

“Good work Arturo,” the Arab thanked him while committing the information to memory.

The Mexican intelligence official had become his go between with the Jimenez cartel and himself. It was now clear that the CIA would be of no use to them. They were perfectly happy to see the Jimenez cartel liquidated. The Arab worked for vested interests who were determined to ensure that this never happened. If Jimenez went down, there was no telling how many of the drug corridors would collapse if the American set off some kind of domino effect. They had to nip this problem in the bud.

The Arab smiled. He was good at troubleshooting these types of problems.

“You are sure he is on this flight?”

“Yes,” Arturo said. “My contact in the
federales
personally saw him board this plane just before the pilots made an illegal take off in Cancun. I would have left the problem in your hands but before I could intervene our air force sent up a couple fighters.”

“Did you have them stand down?”

Fear clenched the Arab's gut. On one hand if the Mexican Air Force shot down the jet it would save him the trouble, the job would be complete. On the other hand, he would be stuck with seven mad men that he would need to find a way to get rid of.

“No, I was too late but somehow they managed to avoid the fighters. The Air Force is still trying to figure it out. It may have been some type of radar cloaking.”

“But you are sure they are returning to
Grand Cayman
?”

“Almost certain. My sources indicate that the island was their stop off point on their way to Cancun and they were heading back in that direction when they dropped off the radar.”

“I will call you when it is finished.”

“I would appreciate that my friend,” the intelligence agent sounded uneasy. “Jimenez grows...impatient.”

“This ends today. You will hear from me soon.”

The Arab terminated the call and set the phone down.

In the muffled interior of the garage he could hear his seven charges initiating their prayers. The chants to Allah reverberated off the walls, filling the garage with their religious incantations. The Arab winced, his fingers tracing the thick scar tissue on his forearm. In the Caribbean heat it felt like the scars were tightening up on him. Soon it would be time for more plastic surgery to relieve the pain, his constant reminder of who he had been in a past life.