Tony slumped to the cool floor between two stacks of crates and paused to catch his breath. Just fifty yards away, at the front of the hangar, the hostages were still being held at gunpoint by an unknown number of guards. Tony dared not doze off, his mind remained sharp and alert while he rested his tired muscles. Mouth parched, he longed for a cold beer.
He heard an animal snort. Quietly, Tony rose to his feet, crept to a mountain of wooden crates and peered around them. A man was there, his back to Tony. He slumped in the battered office chair beside the workbench, head lolled to the side. While Tony watched the man snored again.
Tony retreated to a massive spool of cable mounted on a rack. Irregular lengths of the black wire lay around his feet like dead snakes. He selected the most useful one and crept back to the sleeping man.
Tony moved around the work bench and behind the snoring man. It was one of the Cubans. Tony had heard the men speaking Spanish while he spied on them and recognized their accents, though how the Cubans and Chinese came together for this operation was beyond Tony’s grasp at the moment.
Crouched behind the man, Tony saw a Makarov PM tucked his belt. He longed for that weapon more than he’d wanted the beer. Peeking between boxes and banks of machinery, Tony could see a guard standing over the hostages, who were still huddled on the floor.
He would have to strike quickly and quietly, or he would die in this dusty storage room. Hands rock steady, he looped the wire, then slipped it around the man’s neck.
The Cuban’s legs kicked out and, choking, he flopped in his chair, but the only sound he made was a faint gargle. The Cuban clutched at the wire around his throat, but it was sunk so deeply into his flesh, he could not get his fingers around it. Grunting, Tony yanked harder, crushing the man’s trachea, the arteries in his neck. A final tug, and the Cuban’s neck snapped. The struggling ceased. Tony released the cable and snatched the pistol from the man’s belt.
He fumbled through the dead man’s pockets, discovered two more clips of ammunition, a fake passport identifying him as a Salvadoran. When Tony was finished tossing the corpse, he carefully adjusted the man in the chair so he would appear asleep. Then Tony faded back into the shadows of the hangar, to plot his next move.
22. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 9 A.M. AND 10 A.M. PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME
Nina and Morris circled back when they noticed Curtis was no longer following. They found him squatting on the sand next to his vehicle, which was tipped on its side. The sandrail had broken an axle and flipped over.
“It’s finished,” said Curtis, gesturing to a front wheel that was hanging askew, like a broken wing on a chicken.
“What do we—” Morris was interrupted by an electronic crackle and ran for the radio. “Come in CTU. We hear you,” he replied.
There was a pause while the transmission was scrambled. Then they listened with mounting anxiety as Jamey Farrell explained they had only three hours to liberate the base or get out of the way of the bombers. “Be advised that contact with CTU will end in two minutes, when the signal jamming resumes,” Jamey told them.
“If we’re being jammed, how do we let you know we’ve liberated the base?” Morris asked.
“At eleven fifty-seven, the jamming will cease. The B–52s will release their payload three minutes later, unless you made a radio call, identify yourself, and deliver the code word.”
Morris threw up his hands. “Code word! What’s the bloody code word?”
“Coronet Blue,” Jamey replied.
Morris shook his head. “Bleeding ridiculous spy games.”
Nina took the radio from Morris. “Have you heard from Tony?”
“Ryan is talking to him now, over a cell phone that is not secure,” Jamey replied.
“But they’re giving him the code word, no doubt!” Morris bellowed. “Some secret that is.”
“What about Jack?”
There was a pause. “We’re trying to reach him, but so far we’ve got nothing,” Jamey replied.
“What are we going to do now?” Morris said after the radio call ended.
“Is this a vote?” Curtis asked. “Then I say we go.”
Morris crossed his arms. “And I say we don’t.”
“We’re going,” Nina declared.
Curtis cleared his throat. “We have a problem, then. There are only two seats in your rail, and no room to squeeze in a third person.”
Nina pulled the safety helmet over her ebony hair. “Morris doesn’t want to go. We’ll leave him here.” “In the middle of the desert? I could perish out here,” Morris protested.
“You’ll be safe,” Curtis said. “You’re probably out of range of the bombs should they fall. And if all goes well, we’ll send someone back to get you.”
Morris watched them drive away. When they faded from view and the dust in their wake settled, he slumped down in the sand under the dubious shade of the ruined sandrail. The desert was getting hotter by the minute. Morris glanced up at the burning sun.
“Oh, what a bloody fine mess this turned out to be,” he moaned.
After the sun rose, the morning began to heat up. Dr. Reed decided to ask permission for the hangar door to be closed, the air conditioning turned on. A Cuban guard pretended not to understand her, but she persisted. Finally he took her by the arm and led her to the hangar door, where the man in charge sat on a steel chair staring out at the desert.
“Why do you need air conditioning?” Carlos Boca demanded in a surly tone. He turned then, and openly appraised her from head to toe, until Dr. Reed felt naked in her sweat-stained pink teddy and flip-flops.
“You look comfortable enough, doctor. Request denied.” Boca turned away, signaling her time was over.
The guard led her back to the hostages, but threw her down in a different spot. Because they were not allowed to move around, Megan could only make eye contact with Dani Welles, but could not speak to her.
“I tried asking for the air conditioning an hour ago,” a young woman in dirty overalls said. The white label on her breast patch had the word CONSUELO penned in bold black letters.
“Are you from the terminal crew?” Megan whispered.
The woman nodded. “After the plane landed and the shooting started, I hid in Hangar 18. Some of the soldiers found me and brought me here.”
“At least they didn’t shoot you,” Megan replied.
“Give them time. I’ve been listening,” the woman said, her dark eyes staring at the floor. “These guys are Cubans, soldiers or former soldiers, I think. I know they consider us the walking dead. They’re only waiting for orders to pull the trigger and finish the job.”
For the first time since she was captured, Megan was glad she didn’t understand what the men had been saying. It would only have made the ordeal worse.
She counted her captors. There were three men guarding them, all Spanish-speakers. She watched as the man called Carlos called to one of his men and issued instructions. The man turned his back on his commander and walked to the rear of the hangar, to disappear among the crates and machinery.
“What did he say? Where is that man going?” Megan asked.
“He said Manuel has slept long enough, and that it was time for the other man to wake him,” Consuelo replied.
She breathed a sigh of relief. At least that Carlos guy didn’t order them all to be lined up and shot… Not yet, anyway. Searching her memory, Megan recalled that there had been four guards, and that one of them had wandered off and never came back.