Time was running out for the hostages, grains of sand slipping away — there had to be an answer.
“There might be a way to do this,” Carol said slowly. He could hear her tapping on a keyboard. “I’ve been recording the audio of the transmissions…if I can get physical access to one of their radios, I can use the recording to ‘reply’ to Tarik.”
Physical access. He knew what she was saying, knew the danger it could place her in.
But the mission…it was all that mattered. “Meet us in five,” he whispered. “I’ll find a way to get the radio back up to you.”
“They’re saying it’s an Antonov An-12,” Lasker said, looking up from his screens.
Kranemeyer swore. “That’s an old Russian job — hundreds of them in existence, all over the world. And enough range to fly KSM anywhere in this hemisphere…maybe even across the Atlantic if they play their cards right.”
“They’ll have a visual within five minutes,” the CLANDOPS comm chief replied. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and it will have a tail number?”
“We should be so blessed,” Kranemeyer murmured. This wasn’t going to end well — he could feel it in his bones. Releasing a terrorist…even for a little while. There were too many variables, too many things that could go wrong. Negotiating with terrorists.
He felt the burner phone vibrate in his inner pocket — the last number he had activated and given to Thomas.
“I’ll be right back.” He moved past the rows of cubicles in the op-center, bank after bank of plasma screens, monitoring a night that seemed to be exploding around them.
“Yes?”
“Good evening, director,” a familiar voice greeted him. The last voice he had expected to hear on this night.
Nichols. “Evening,” he replied, careful not to use names. “As you’ll see from your television, I’m having a busy night. What’s this about?”
“I’m here, director. In Vegas. Preparing to launch an assault on the Bellagio’s theatre as we speak.”
What? Kranemeyer glanced back to the workstation where Lasker was coordinating the situation, struggling to process what he had just been told. “How?”
“Long story. There’s something wrong here with this demand for the release of KSM — something I don’t think we’re even looking at.”
They were both feeling the same thing, instincts born of years out in the night. “What’s your gut telling you?”
“That Tarik didn’t come all this way for one man. That he’s after something much bigger than the long-shot release of an aging terrorist — only a fool would believe that was his endgame.”
He was right. “You know what they say about fools and politicians…I don’t have the authority to overrule the President in this.”
“I know that…but assuming that the release of KSM is not the goal — why Gitmo?”
“He spent a lot of years there…” Kranemeyer responded, suddenly realizing where Nichols was headed. “You’re saying that this is personal.”
“Targeting Gilpin was.” Harry paused. “We don’t have much time, director. I need you to keep that plane from landing for at least another ten minutes.”
“And what then?”
“By then…the hostages will be safe.”
The man in the pilot’s seat of the Antonov couldn’t have been much more than twenty-two years of age — slender fingers dancing over the big plane’s instrument panel, a thin, dark beard shrouding the lower half of his face. Eyes ringed with darkness, the look of a man on the point of exhaustion, yet those orbs glistened with a weary excitement. The eyes of the desert from whence he came.
He was alone, had been ever since leaving the military airfield on the outskirts of Maracaibo over three hours earlier. One man, to pilot an aircraft designed for five.
Insh’allah.
He twisted half-way in his seat, glancing back into the Antonov’s cavernous cargo hold. A hold packed with drums of aviation fuel, lined with high explosives.
The dark shadow of the Cuban coast stretched in front of him, the lights of the American military base twinkling in the dark.
The moment for which he had been training so long — all the long days in flight school, all the hours he had logged. For this.
“EAGLE SIX…I have the solution.” A whisper, nothing more — a ghost in the night that surrounded him like a cloak.
Harry glanced down from the catwalk into the darkness below him, shadows mingling in odd shades of green in the view of his night-vision. “Roger that, LONGBOW,” he replied, acknowledging the transmission.
Thomas was in position. Providing overwatch from a maintenance platform high above the theatre itself, his perch shrouded amidst the scaffolding, the lights.
Their insurance policy.
Stillness. Harry held his breath, listening for any movement, any sign of life from below.
Nothing. Motioning for Tex to hand him the thick nylon rope, he clipped it to one of supports of the catwalk, looping it around the railing and tying it fast. There was no more time for guilt, for recriminations over those they hadn’t been able to save.
Time to do this.
Wrapping his hands around the rope, Harry climbed over the railing to stand on the edge — feet pushing away.
And he was falling, the rope burning between his fingers as he descended. The floor rushing up to meet him.
His boots came together on the rope, serving as rude brakes. Not enough.
He hit harder than he’d intended, nearly doubling over as pain shot through his bruised ribs, his feet connecting with the floor in an all-too-audible thud.
Stabbing pain. He found himself gasping for breath, gritting his teeth to keep from crying out. Letting go of the rope, he left it to dangle, unslinging his H&K from his back.
“He just transmitted, Harry.” Carol’s voice through his earpiece, from back on the catwalk.
The three minutes started now. “The FLIR has him about ten meters ahead of you…moving your way.”
He’d heard the sound. No time for the pain, not now. He stumbled forward, the UMP-45’s stock pressed against his shoulder, as he came around a pile of stage equipment.
There. A luminescent figure in his night-vision, not even a man — not really. A target.
The H&K’s iron sights centered on the terrorist’s forehead as Harry squeezed the trigger — a figure crumpling back into the darkness. Dead before the scream on his lips could even be uttered.
Vengeance. For all that had already fallen this night.
Harry limped over to the body, kicking the Kalashnikov assault rifle away from its lifeless hands. “Tango down.”
“Inform the director that the plane will land at Guantanamo as scheduled,” President Hancock replied. He shot a tired look at Cahill. “Bernard Kranemeyer may be the acting DCIA, but I’m the president, and I’m not having the blood of more innocent Americans on my hands just because we decided to push the envelope. What is he thinking?”
His chief of staff shrugged as if it was an impossible question to answer, glancing at his watch. “The Antonov should be landing in moments, Mr. President.”