Ali was convinced that he’d had the bad fortune to climb a mountain during an earthquake—that was how violently the rocks beneath his feet were shaking. A storm of dust came down upon them, with smoke and rocks too.
Then he and his men saw an incredible sight—and a unexplainable one as well.
With much noise and exhaust, a helicopter lifted off from the cliff, now just two hundred feet away from Ali’s position!
What was this? The chopper they’d seen crash into the cliff certainly was in no shape to take off again. Yet here it was, its engines roaring, its rotors spinning. Passing slowly right above their heads.
This seemed impossible in itself. But then, the mountain began shaking again. The vibrations increased and incredibly, another chopper appeared above them. It was as large as the one that had crashed, and was making twice as much noise. No sooner was this aircraft moving away when a third aircraft appeared. And then a fourth!
Ali was astonished. So were his men. What was going on here? Where were these choppers coming from? It made no sense.
They watched in stunned silence as the four choppers formed up and moved slowly towards the south, passing right over the stalled column again.
Ali’s radio began belching, but he was not going to answer it. He didn’t have to. He knew it was Tziz. And he was not going to talk to the major until he reached the top of the cliff—and that was what he began urging his men to do.
Somehow, his men got the chain to hook on a rock up on the cliff itself, and soon they were climbing up to the ledge. Ali was the third man to arrive on the cliff, and what he saw here made no more sense than seeing the four mysterious helicopters take off.
Up here the place was littered with shell casings, hoses, buckets, wires, empty chow packs, and puddles of gasoline everywhere. Sitting close to the edge was a helicopter—the one they’d seen crash. It was surrounded by pools of gasoline.
But there was something else. There was a small fire that had been left behind, and it was now following a trail of gasoline that reached about fifty feet into the largest pool of gas surrounding the badly damaged helicopter. Ali had just enough time to yell to his men to get down when the flame reached this pool of gas. A huge explosion shook the cliff once again. A ball of yellow and orange flame mushroomed straight up—taking much of the helicopter and the litter with it.
When it was over and the fire had died down, Ali finally had the courage to call back to Major Tziz.
“What is happening up there!” the major was screaming, so loud Ali imagined he could hear him all the way from the highway without the benefit of the radio.
“I don’t not know, sir,” Ali replied weakly. “We came up to aid one helicopter and four more appeared and took off. It does not make sense. Now everything is aflame. And if that is not the truth, sir, you may cut out my eyes and tongue.”
“That might be just what we do,” Tziz replied.
Chapter 25
Zim had just completed his daily sponge bath when Major Qank came in on his knees.
The intelligence officer took a look at the mammoth Zim sitting atop the mountain of pillows, seven Japanese girls drying his enormous partially clad body, and nearly burst out laughing. This would have been a fatal mistake, of course—but it was hard not to laugh at the huge sultan-wannabe. He looked like a character from a bad science-fiction movie. Qank bit his tongue and waited until the girls had wrapped Zim into his expansive bathrobe. It was a job equivalent to setting up a circus tent.
“This is good news, I hope,” Zim finally barked down at Qank.
The intelligence man took this as an opportunity to get off his knees and tiptoe over to the mound of pillows.
“It is, sir,” Qank said, holding up the three-ring binder in his hand. “These are the final numbers for our… well, our pending sale.”
“Of my beautiful gunship?” Zim asked him, sounding almost sincere in his sadness.
“Yes, sir,” Qank replied. “And I must say the purchase price is substantial, considering everything involved. Your guest in Room 6 has really done well by us.”
Zim nodded to his squad of sponge girls, and the nubile teens quickly exited the chamber. Another wave from Zim and the two bodyguards left the room as well. Now it was just he and Qank—and the two dozen hidden microphones that recorded everything said inside the vast room.
“Read me the details,” Zim told Qank with a yawn. “I’m much too tired to do it myself.”
Qank excitedly opened the binder. “With pleasure, sir…”
He quickly turned through the pages of handwritten notes—the man in Room 6 wrote down everything—and reached the last page.
“You will not be surprised that the gunship purchase is going to the highest bidder,” Qank began. “The offer begins with 20 F-14A Tomcat repair kits, complete with new carbon-hardened turbine blades and all-weather NACT weapons-radar retrofits.”
“Good,” Zim pronounced. “Continue…”
“Offer also includes delivery, over the next eighteen months, of twenty dozen TOW missiles, complete with new refit batteries.”
Qank paused and looked up at Zim, who looked uncharacteristically interested and engaged.
“Go on,” Zim said. “Get to the important part.”
Qank took in a deep breath.
“The remainder of the purchase price will be filled out in cash,” he said.
Zim’s left eyebrow arched a bit.
“How much?”
Qank wet his lips and began reading: “Total cash payment for the gunship will be one hundred million, American, at the dollar-trading price on the Zurich Exchange on a day of your choosing within the next sixty days.”
Zim’s eyebrow went up another half inch—a sign he was almost overjoyed.
“I hate to part with it,” he finally said. “But we cannot turn down such an offer. The man in Room 6 has indeed served us well.”
“He has, sir,” Qank parroted.
Zim thought for a few moments.
“What about our camouflage?” he asked Qank.
The intelligence man was slightly confused. “Excuse me, sir.”
“You know, for the media—in case word of this ever gets out.”
Qank thought a moment—then it hit him.
“You mean the ‘cover story,’ sir?”
Zim just nodded. Qank had come dangerously close to correcting him.
Qank began flipping through the previous handwritten pages.
“Our friend says: ‘If this transaction ever makes it into the public eye, our story will be that it was a secret third-party purchase of ten MiG-29 Fulcrums from an unnamed former Soviet republic.’”
Zim gave a little shrug. “Plausible, I guess,” he said. “Now, what about the gunship’s crew—the surviving ones anyway?”
Qank turned to another page. “They will be given a cash payment and then dispersed to the four winds.”
Zim showed agreement with this also. “And these odd special operations people?” he asked. “The ones in the funny helicopters. The ones so easily fooled. What will happen to them?”
Qank hesitated a moment. It was true. The chopper-borne special operations troops had fallen for the fake-airplane ruse perfectly and completely, filling in several holes the man in Room 6 said had to be filled before the gunship could be sold off.
And although the present location of the American chopper unit was not known at the moment, finding them would not be much of a problem—again, according to the man in Room 6. Indeed, since they had learned the chopper unit was in-country, they had followed the instructions of Zim’s special hotel guest to the letter, and so far his plans and information had been flawless. Why would they doubt him now?