I’ve got ’em right where I want ’em.
The most pressing question was where they were going. Roughly half an hour ago, he’d heard two explosions and felt the big GAZ shudder. That was followed by a short barrage of gunfire—he’d heard the crackle of small arms, and the tap of rounds striking the truck’s chassis. Conza knew an IED ambush when he heard one. But it had ended quickly, the GAZ outrunning the attack. Eversince, the four men up front had been engaged in nonstop conversation. The optimist in him wanted to believe it had been some kind of rescue attempt. The pessimist knew that if that was the case, it had failed.
His captors were all in front now, paying him no attention other than an occasional glance. Beanie and Neck Tat were sitting on a crate, while Boss Man had taken the passenger seat. The driver was still nothing more than a shoulder in a camo jacket. Conza knew they were speaking Russian, but it might as well have been ancient Aramaic. He spoke two languages besides English, Arabic and Farsi, courtesy of the Defense Language Institute in beautiful Monterey. Neither would help him today.
He looked down at his wrists. Since beating him unconscious, the Russians had bound his arms and legs. He saw two implications in that, and both were positive. First was that he wasn’t already on the road shoulder with a bullet in his head. Second was that they were ignoring him. The question of what lay beyond that, in the next hours and days, wasn’t worth dwelling on.
His bindings were heavy-gauge plastic zip ties. One pair was threaded tightly around his wrists and a second connected his right ankle to the lower shaft of his prosthesis. They’d made two mistakes. First, his wrists were bound in front of him, giving Conza greater use of his hands than if they were secured behind his back. As far as his legs went, he could forgive them their incompetence—they’d probably never taken a peg-leg pirate prisoner before.
Conza glanced up front and confirmed that nobody was looking his way. He used the motion of the truck as cover. With each sway and bounce he jackknifed his body at the hips, moving an inch at a time. After three minutes, he was bent at roughly a right angle. He extended his hands and could almost reach his ankle.All these movements came at a cost. His ribs screamed in agony and nerve pain bolted through his shoulder. He fought through it.
The large generator-like contraption next to him took up most of the cargo bay. It had to be the device they’d used to alter GPS signals. He recalled the SAM launch that had taken down the Black Hawk. Had the missile been a backup in case the spoofing attack failed? He pushed the question away. Now wasn’t the time.
The floor creaked loudly through another hard turn. The way the speeding truck was rocking, Conza was thankful the massive device was bolted to the floor. Its sheer size was now working in his favor. It concealed the lower half of his body from the eyes up front.
Conza had recently received a new lightweight prosthesis. It was more comfortable than the previous models he’d used, with a nice gel liner that attached securely to his upper leg. More critically in that moment, it could be broken down—the pylon detached easily from the foot for storage. He reached down with his bound hands, found the release button by feel, and disconnected the foot from the pylon. He slid the zip tie off the pylon and then reattached everything. It had all taken no more than ten seconds.
After squirming back into his beginning position, he again checked his captors. They were still talking, the tone and volume suggesting an argument. They had no idea their captive was now mobile.
Conza wasn’t sure how he would leverage that, but being able to move was a step in the right direction. The next task was to find a cutting tool to remove his wrist restraints. Maybe even a weapon. His eyes scoured the grimy floor of the compartment hoping for something.
Hoping for anything.
29
Situation Room
The White House
Washington, D.C.
1637 Local Time
“Where the hell are they going?” Mary Pat asked.
“Do you really have to ask?” the President replied.
They had been in the whizzer for hours, watching Task Force 99 engage with all its wrath. The entire National Security Council was now in the room, save for the vice president, who was attending a state funeral in Ecuador. The main screen was the primary focus, a map display that combined the most relevant feeds. Everyone in the room had a god’s-eye view of the operating area.
And at that moment, the gods were not pleased.
The blue symbol representing Clark’s C-41 was crossing the border into Georgia. On the road ten miles in front of them was a red dot representing the GAZ truck. It was moving northward at a steady speed on a lightly traveled road. Next to the main screen, a small monitor displayed a satellite close-up of the GAZ in near real time. All the surveillance was being managed byMAADN, seamless visuals from multiple perspectives. Scrolling at the bottom like a news channel crawl was secondary information. The speed of the GAZ, potential destinations, and SIGINT analysis confirming that the Georgian authorities had not yet noticed the breach. It was a level of situational awareness that past decision-makers could only have dreamed of.
Unfortunately, situational awareness was a hollow advantage when your operators were going off script.
Ryan said, “Didn’t we tell Clark that jumping borders was off the table?”
“We did, and I also told the pilots,” Mary Pat replied. “But you know John. He has a tendency to bend the rules in the heat of battle. I could try to reach him on his sat phone, but I’m not sure if we want to turn him around at this point.”
Ryan knew she was right. Clark had a penchant for pressing the limits, and that was precisely what he was doing now. Yet the President wasn’t completely unhappy about it. There was a dark side to the man, a hell-or-highwater fury that Ryan abhorred as a commander, but admired as a human. Everyone, at some point in their life, needed a Mr. Clark. Right now, the person in need was Lieutenant John Conza.
“No,” Ryan said. “Let it play out.”
He was convinced that the vehicle they were chasing was involved in the downing of SAM 719. The abduction of Conza only raised the stakes further. Ryan wanted answers, and the most immediate means of getting them were in the truck Clark’s team was chasing. They needed to talk to whoever was inside, and hopefully seize, or at least photograph, any equipment in the back. Do that, and they might learn who had attacked America.
“What do the amber lines signify?” SecDef Burgess asked.
He was referring to projected paths ahead of the GAZ truck.At various points an amber line forked in different directions and eventually became broken, spreading like the branches of a tree.
