Imminent danger.
The next sound, seconds later, was instantly recognizable. Boss Man started screaming. The driver shifted to the right—no, slumped was more accurate—his entire camo jacket coming into view. In the dim light, Conza got a glimpse of what was above the jacket—a devastated cranium covered in blood and brain matter. And just like that, everything coalesced. The initial sound, the movement, the screaming. The situation.
A bullet had arrived, penetrating glass, flesh, and bone. Someone had taken out the driver.
Before Conza could react, the truck swerved to the right, pitching him against the sidewall. Then it reversed violently to the left. Out the front window, the truck’s twin headlights skipped over a reeling desert landscape. Everyone and everything inside the GAZ was thrown to the right. Equipment and bodies slammed into panels and doors.
Having started on the floor on the left side, Conza didn’t have far to go—he smacked into the big electronic contraption that was bolted to the floor. The truck went into a spin, sliding sideways, and then its wheels struck something unforgiving. With a massive groan everything tipped toward the right.
For a long moment Conza’s tiny world seemed to freeze, the GAZ poised to roll on its right side. He was half falling, half leaningon the massive metal box. Then a crack like a gunshot—one of the big bolts anchoring the great device to the floor snapped. The box shifted and the GAZ’s fate was sealed. The roll continued. Conza threw himself on top of a metal container the size of a dining room table, his bound hands scrambling for a grip and his legs spread wide. The move was full of pain, but not nearly what he risked suffering if he tumbled toward the far sidewall.
The container broke free of its anchors and slammed down like an anvil as the truck upended. Gravity took hold and the crunch of crumpling metal overrode every other sound. Conza hung on for dear life as the box truck skidded and lurched across the desert on its side.
Finally, with deathly suddenness, the world fell still.
Conza had ended up on the top of the great box, the fingertips of his bound hands clinging to its edge in a death grip. He struggled to orient himself. Dust and smoke swirled through the cargo bay, obscuring everything. Slowly it began to clear, and he saw debris strewn wildly, a carnage of hardware and broken lumber. He looked back and saw that one of the GAZ’s two loading doors had burst open. It gave a bit of ambient light and vented the swirling dust.
Conza’s gaze snagged on a slight glint. Slightly to his right was a jagged shard of sheet metal—a panel from the device had been ripped away, but its ragged base remained attached. It was nothing less than providence. Conza rolled toward it, twisted to put his wrists on either side of the sharp edge, and began sawing the band of his plastic cuffs. In less than a minute he was free.
The half-open back door beckoned. Then he heard a low groan from up front.
Conza turned to get a better look and saw Boss Man in the passenger seat. He was breathing, but not moving. He shifted abit higher, his body protesting, and saw Beanie. Or what was left of him. He’d been thrown to the right-hand sidewall and was now crushed beneath the huge electronic device. He was clearly dead.
Which left only Neck Tat.
Conza crawled forward and peered down into the gap between the container and the front seats. A stunned Neck Tat looked straight up at him. Two hands lunged out, reaching for Conza’s throat. In an instinct honed by years of close-quarters combat training, Conza let him have it. But not without a price.
He bladed his hands, working them under his adversary’s upper arms and over his collarbone. Conza then pushed ahead, letting himself fall. Gravity did the rest, his two hundred pounds creating leverage, his triceps forging outward. The smaller man’s grip broke, and in two seconds Conza was exactly where he wanted to be—behind his opponent with a deep rear choke hold. The pain in his ribs was excruciating, but having the creator of that pain in his grasp was profoundly motivating. He hooked his right leg around the man’s waist and turned up the pressure on his trachea and larynx.
The man fought for a moment, but with his airway cut off all coordinated countermeasures gave way to panic. Conza upped the pressure, his left bicep crushing the man’s neck. Arms flailed and legs kicked. Conza didn’t relent, not even when the man stopped moving. He did it for the Black Hawk crew. For those aboard SAM 719. And, if he were honest, as payback for the pain these men had caused him.
His strength was fading, his arms quaking, when he heard a crash from behind. Conza was suddenly blinded by white light.
The next thing he heard was “Well I’ll be damned, if it isn’t John Conza. We gotta stop meeting like this.”
32
Turkey/Georgia Border
0019 Local Time
Conza was sitting on the ramp of the C-41. He recoiled as Wu, playing combat medic, rubbed clotting agent on a gash on his forehead.
“Sorry, mate,” Wu said in his East London accent.
“All good,” Conza replied. He studied Wu more closely. “Last time I saw you was on a ship in Bohai Bay.”
“Small world, huh? But glad to be here. We owed you one from that day.”
“I don’t keep those kind of scores, but if it’s still on y’all’s minds, then so be it.”
Conza took in the scene in the distance. The GAZ lay on its side, its hulking frame still smoking. Clark was extracting the only surviving member of the squad from the wreckage—Boss Man. Clark had smashed in the front windshield to gain access and wasn’t being particularly gentle about dragging the man out. The rest of his team was gathered around the cargo compartment of the overturned truck, doubtless to gather intel on the GPS spoofing device. A man and a woman in civvies were standingnear the wing of the aircraft. They were watching the road, probably keeping an eye out for oncoming vehicles.
“Thanks for getting here as fast as you did,” Conza said to Wu. “Glad to see Mr. Clark kept the team together.”
“I’m glad, too. And we found you quick because we had good intel.”
“I should get word to my boss in Bodrum that I’m okay.”
