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There’s a harsh stutter of gunfire, so loud I have to take my ear-piece out. Jordan and Santiago stand closer to me, and even they can hear the desperate battle going on somewhere up there in these harsh mountains.
“Zulu One.”
A hiss of static, more gunfire.
“Zulu One!”
A very loud gunshot, a grunt, and a whispered obscenity.
“Jeremy!”I say, raising my voice and breaking radio protocol, as if doing so could magically make him hear.
A harsh cough.
His voice comes back, speaking rapidly.
“Zulu One and Two are signing off, destroying our equipment. A pleasure working with you all.”
Before I can say anything else, there’s dead silence.
CHAPTER 3
JORDAN AND Santiago stare at me—so bulky and confident in their background, their experience, and the deadliest and most upto-date weaponry in the world—and I know they’re feeling exactly what I’m feeling: utter failure.
We’ve lost our comrades.
I stick in the earpiece and nod. Like the pros they are, Jordan and Santiago keep moving. Ahead of us, we all hear a low hum that sounds like a leaf blower at work.
There are no leaves here.
And positively no leaf blower.
But that soft noise is our way out of here.
As the wadi comes into view, it’s 8:59 a.m.—a minute ahead of schedule. But I can already sense the catastrophe that’s going to echo loudly between Langley and London in the next few days. Jeremy and Oliver will shortly be captured, tortured, and probably paraded around or made the topic of a propaganda tape by whatever armed group has found them.
We’ve all been “sheep-dipped,” meaning that whatever paperwork we carry identifies us as contract workers for Global Security Solutions. That means in the event of our capture or death, our respective governments will have plausible deniability for us mercenaries in the field.
A nice cover story, which would no doubt last about as long as it would take an al-Qaeda type to come after one of our feet or hands with a chainsaw.
We’re off the trail and at the outskirts of the wadi. Santiago mutters a prayer in Spanish, then says, “There she is. Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?”
Truth is, this latest classified and stealth helicopter is one ugly bird. It has droopy rotor blades and retractable landing skids, and its current color matches the rocky slabs nearby. The fuselage, all sharp angles, has a high-tech liquid-crystal exterior, meaning that when the helicopter finally gets off the ground, its exterior will match the surrounding sky.
Radar can’t see it, and bare eyes will detect only flickering shadows, like a distant flock of birds.
Oh, yeah, it’s ugly, expensive, and a bitch to fly—and I want to be on it so bad I can taste it. Its engine is humming along nicely, and we move forward and the rotors start to rotate. I look behind me, tail-end Charlie, watching our six, hoping against hope that our British comrades have broken free and are now running down the trail.
No such luck.
The engine is at full power now, the sound a loud hum, the blades spinning into a blur, and I see the frame of the helicopter rise just a bit.
So close.
I check my watch.
It’s 9:02.
One after another, I clap Jordan and Santiago on the shoulders.
