AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“We found her.”
“Have you apprehended her?”
“No, but we know where she is and she’s currently cornered in a building. We need some backup here, though. It’s a big building.”
“Where at?”
“In the city. It’s a bigass glass complex sitting on a little hill surrounded by trees and stuff. Sticks out like a sore thumb. Have them come in off the first exit and keep heading straight. They won’t be able to miss it.”
“Get inside and make sure she doesn’t escape. They’ll be there shortly.”
The radio went dead and the injured man tossed it back in the car. He pulled his pistol out of his waistband, wincing as he bumped it against his arm. “You ready?”
The uninjured man lowered the binoculars again and nodded. “Let’s do it.”
Chapter 13
Twenty Minutes North of Washington, D.C.
“Derr’mo!” Isayev curses in his native tongue as he fights with the Bear’s controls, desperately trying to keep them level and on course. Without a functional long-range radar system on board the aircraft, the storm cell had appeared almost without warning. The storm buffets the aircraft, causing the metal to groan and strain as opposing air forces stretch it to its limits. Hail beats against the metal and the windows, the ice still soft enough to be chopped up by the propellers but hard enough to put dents in the roof.
Designed for high-altitude flight, the Tupolev Tu-95 is a long, narrow cylinder with wide wings and four super-sonic propellers. It is designed for smooth sailing high-altitude flight, not for low-altitude work in the middle of a thunderstorm. Isayev and Aliyev work in unison, trying to respond to the changes in wind speed as they pass through the storm without losing too much altitude.
Blov and Yermakov sit behind Isayev and Aliyev, their eyes closed as they cling to their seats and harnesses, trying desperately not to throw up. Their silent prayer is that the turbulence they experienced earlier in the flight will return to replace the storm that feels like it will yank them out of the sky and throw them into the ground at any moment.
“Engine three is out! That makes two!” Sitting in the co-pilot seat, Aliyev shouts at Isayev through his headset. “How close are we to the destination?”
“Not close enough. Besides, we can’t bail out in the middle of the storm!” Isayev shouts back.
“If we lose another engine we won’t—” Aliyev’s reply is cut short by a deafening crack of thunder. The sky directly outside the plane is, for a brief instant, illuminated like the surface of the sun as a bolt of lighting appears directly off the starboard side of the plane. The two technicians who had been holding themselves together admirably in the face of the storm have now resorted to shouting into their headsets, trying desperately to tell the two Spetsnaz officers that they should land the plane as quickly as possible. Aliyev merely rolls his eyes at the technicians’ hysterics and switches off their headset microphones remotely, focusing back on the task of keeping everyone alive.
“As soon as we get clear of the worst of this storm we’ll need to jump, okay?” Isayev doesn’t look up from his controls as he yells at his co-pilot over the noise.
“You want me to get them ready now?”
Isayev nods. “Yes. We’ll have to be fast about this; we’re nearly out of fuel anyway.”
Aliyev groans as he unbuckles his harness, a particularly brutal piece of wind nearly tossing him out of his seat and onto the floor. He holds tight to straps hanging from the ceiling and sides of the aircraft as he moves back until he’s face-to-face with the technicians. Both of them have their eyes screwed shut and he taps them on the chest until they reply.
“Gentlemen!” Aliyev crouches down, keys his microphone and shouts into it. The technicians look at him, their eyes wide with fear.
“Your parachutes are still on, correct?” Both men nod.
“You remember how to use them, yes?” Both men nod.
Aliyev points at a hatch on the side of the plane, behind the right wing. “We’ll be jumping as soon as we clear the storm. I will go first, then you two will go, then Isayev will go. Do you understand?” Both men nod.
“Good. Be ready! We jump soon!” Aliyev starts to move back to the front of the plane when the craft violently shudders. He stumbles, loses his grip and slams into the side of the craft before pushing himself back upright. He ignores the pain in his arm and side as he stumbles back to his seat. “What happened?!”
“Engine one is out! Number four is the last one!”
“That’s the one leaking fuel, isn’t it!”
Isayev nods. “We have to jump soon; I won’t be able to maintain altitude much longer!”
“The storm’s still terrible!”
“We won’t have much of a choice! We can keep her up for a few more minutes at most, then we must go otherwise we’ll be too low!”
