“I’m up for it,” she said.
“Our engines make a lot of noise,” said Ross. “What if they hear us coming?”
“I’ve driven a GAZ,” Ding replied. “It’s like riding in a rock crusher. Noise from the engine and transmission drown out everything. But after one or two shots wewilllose the element of surprise. To make them count, I’d need you to keep the airplane as stable as possible.”
“Down that low there’s always a little turbulence.”
“It doesn’t have to be perfect, just do your best.”
They began working out details. In principle the plan was simple. In execution it was laden with complications. After two minutes, Clark was satisfied. He liked the plan, perhaps because it came with an edge of unpredictability. More likely, because nobody had a better idea.
“I see them,” Ross said. She was flying now, her night vision optics directed forward. “Three miles. I’ll start slowing.”
Ding turned toward the back. After a few steps, Clark put a hand on his shoulder to corral him. Out of earshot of the others, he asked, “You really think you can do this?”
“Are you asking as my commander or as the grandparent of my son?” It rarely came into play downrange that Ding was married to Clark’s daughter, Patsy.
“Both, I guess.”
Ding gave a big thumbs-up. “I got this, Mr. C.”
“Okay…give it your best shot.”
—
A twenty-millimeter wrench. A half-liter can of oil. A pair of wire strippers. One massive roll of duct tape.
That was what Conza had to work with. He’d spent ten minutes squirming around the greasy floor, searching for anything he could use as a weapon. Every movement was agony, the beating they’d given him truly settling in. Swelling reaching its high point, blood pooling, endorphins wearing off. It forced limitations, but none that were debilitating. Conza was facing pain, but pain could be endured.
It could also be a motivator.
The cargo area was dark, and that worked in his favor for not drawing attention. The flip side was that surveying the junk-strewn floor of the truck had been a challenge. His tactile sense turned out to be the most valuable. He’d groped around as far as his arms could reach, pushing aside spent food containers, wire fragments, and oily rags. Conza had little to show for his effort. The wrench might be useful if he could get close enough to take a swing at somebody’s head. He’d stuffed that in his hip pocket, the dull steel handle protruding. The idea of starting a fire with the oil had come and gone quickly. He had no ignition source and motor oil wasn’t particularly volatile. It would probably be a self-defeating scheme anyway—setting fire to one’s prison cell was rarely a path to victory.
The only true weapons he’d seen were in front. There were two assault rifles on the floor near the passenger seat in the cab, and Boss Man was carrying a holstered Glock. As things stood, there was no way to get close to any of them without someonenoticing. The geometry remained the same. The driver and Boss Man were still up front, with Beanie and Neck Tat sitting on the crate behind them. Everyone’s attention was directed forward, and he noted no particular tension. All of that was in his favor.
Conza did his best to keep his legs locked together as if they were still bound. In the darkness it would take a hard look for anyone to notice he’d freed them. He tried to forward-think what opportunities might arise, but without knowing the intentions of his captors it was hard to figure. Taking him as a hostage, he was sure, had been purely opportunistic, and he saw only two possible end games. First was that he would be handed over to the mastermind of this plot when they arrived wherever they were going. That meant more questioning, more duress.
But any way Conza looked at it, it was better than the other option.
He wondered again about the explosions and gunfire he’d heard earlier. Who had been behind that? He wondered what Katie was doing right now. She surely knew that the Black Hawk had gone down, and also that he’d gone missing. It wasn’t out of the question that someone in D.C. was tracking the GAZ at that moment.
Conza looked up at the metal ceiling and imagined a satellite hundreds of miles overhead. He hoped to hell it wasn’t just wishful thinking.
For a plain-text version of this image, go to this page.
31
Turkey/Georgia Border
2356 Local Time
The night air swirled furiously, brushing his cheeks and sweeping through his close-cropped hair. The darkness before him was absolute.
Ding held steady.
He was splayed out in a prone firing position, his legs scissored wide for stability on the cold metal ramp. One leg was bent to keep his boot from hanging into the buffeting slipstream. The edge of the deployed ramp was immediately to his right, a three-hundred-foot drop to unforgiving terrain—dirt and rock fused solid by a million years of heat and erosion. To his left the rest of the team stood watching: they were rigged up and ready to go. Cast members waiting for their cue to go onstage.
And in front of him? Ding saw nothing at all.
