“We’ll let her know.”
Conza looked at him suspiciously. He hadn’t mentioned that his boss was a female.
“Like I said,” Wu repeated, “we had good intel.”
“What about the crew from the Black Hawk?”
“Only one made it, the crew chief, and he’s pretty banged up.”
“Damn.” He regarded the man Clark was propping against the hood of the GAZ. “Any idea who these guys are?”
“We’re trying to figure that out,” Wu said. “That one speaks fluent Russian. The others are hard to say. Based on tats, one’s likely a Kazakh, and another has a Serbian mob symbol on his neck.”
“So that’s what that was.”
“Is that what you were wondering when you choked him out?”
“Just trying to stay on this side of heaven, brother.”
“Aren’t we all.”
“I guess the bigger question is, who are they working for?”
“I think our intrepid leader is pursuing that question.”
Conza saw Charlie approach Clark from the back of the truck. She handed him a big roll of duct tape—no doubt the one he’d spotted when he’d been searching for a weapon. Clark used it to secure his prisoner, wrapping him repeatedly with the roll of tape and binding him to the bent bumper. Conza thought it seemed strange, since the man could barely move to begin with.
When he was done, Clark went to the back of the truck andspoke at length with Hyori. Then he walked over to the senior pilot and exchanged a few words. Clark motioned for everyone to join up at the back of the overturned GAZ.
As Wu began moving, Clark called out, “JC, you can stay there if you want.”
Conza stood uneasily and limped over to join the team—just as Clark had probably known he would.
“Here’s the plan,” Clark began when they’d all arrived. “We’re supposed to recover this hardware if we can manage it. The problem is that this thing weighs half a ton. Major Wheeler says the C-41 can handle the weight, so the challenge will be transferring it. I think we can do it, but we have to be quick. We’ve already been on the ground fifteen minutes, and I don’t have any interest in finding out how the Republic of Georgia or Turkey or anybody else is going to respond to our little incursion. Let’s make it happen.”
It all came together quickly. Bauer and Wu retrieved the longest two-by-fours they could find inside the GAZ. They slid the lumber into metal lift points on the corners of the container. From there, it became an all-hands effort. The seven members of Task Force 99, along with the two pilots and a marginally functional Conza, dispersed themselves to the four corners and managed to lift the device.
The hardest part was shimmying the big case clear of the wrecked GAZ. Once the device was outside, they turned it right-side up, then set out along the road like stevedores hauling a massive steamer trunk, the two-by-fours planted on their shoulders. Everyone was grunting and straining by the time they reached the C-41, and with a final burst of effort they carried it up the ramp and set it on the steel floor of the cargo bay. Wheeler had used the half-full sandbag that had been Ding’s shooting base to mark the exact spot where he wanted it. A heavy load in a small aircrafthad to be placed near the center of gravity; too far forward or aft could make the airplane unstable in flight.
Clark ordered everyone to prepare for launch. The pilots went up front and began flipping switches. Wu and Bauer ratcheted tie-downs to secure their new cargo.
“Boss, we have a visitor,” said Charlie, who was now outside on watch duty.
The team members went outside and looked up the road. A single pair of headlights were approaching from the north, roughly two miles away.
Charlie raised a set of low-light binoculars, and said, “Doesn’t appear to be a threat. Civilian vehicle. As best as I can tell, two occupants.”
Clark surveyed the team. His eyes settle on Conza. He stepped forward and handed Conza an assault rifle. “Go deal with it.”
Conza took the rifle willingly, but struggled to comprehend why he’d been chosen. To the others, Clark’s logic was obvious. Conza was bruised, bloodied, and bandaged. His peg leg projected from a torn pant leg. Topped off with an assault rifle, not to mention the dirt and grime from two crashes—one helicopter and one truck—he was a sight to behold. Any civilian with functioning eyesight would take one look at him and turn tail like they’d stumbled into the zombie apocalypse.
When Conza saw the others looking at him and smiling, it finally hit home. With a grin, he said in a salty sea dog voice, “Aye, cap’n.” He hobbled away to do his duty.
Ding approached Clark, thumbing toward their lone prisoner. “What about him?”
Clark regarded the man, and as he did something in his demeanor shifted.
Ding had known his father-in-law for a very long time. Heknew him as a family member, and also as well as any soldier could know another. Yet in that moment, he couldn’t read Clark. On most days, his blue eyes didn’t reflect his mood as much as his circumstances. Playful, menacing, loving, cold. His gaze was what he needed it to be. But right now, Ding was at a loss.
