Another explosion erupted to his left. Danny felt a surge of air against his face, found another body rolling against his. He grabbed it and pushed it toward the tarmac. He rolled down after it, saw it was Talcom.
“Where’s Hernandez? Where the fuck is Hernandez?” he screamed.
Powder, dazed, maybe unconscious, didn’t answer. Danny clambered back up the jagged side of the plane, prodding through the acrid brown stench. He reached the floor of the passenger compartment, got to his feet, and near nearly fell backward as flames erupted in his face. The heat was so intense he could only retreat, tumbling over backward and falling out of the plane headfirst. He managed to grab a piece of metal, slowing himself but ripping his uniform and cutting his arm as he pirouetted around. He fell next to Talcom, who as trying to stand; both men slammed down and flattened the still-dazed Iranian pilot.
It would have been comical had the fuel truck nearby not erupted.
Somehow, Danny managed to pull Talcom and the pilot away. All three collapsed about twenty yards from the jetliner, gasping for breath and feeling the hot flame of the tanker truck.
“Hernandez, we lost Hernandez,” said Freah when Liu grabbed him.
“No, he’s in the Osprey,” said the medic. “Come on. We have to go. Fighter are coming. Let’s go. They blew the hangar.”
Danny shook his head clear, bolting to his feet. He’d lost his MP-5, but he seemed okay; he didn’t think he’d been hurt.
Sunburned maybe. Damn fire was hot.
“My team,” he shouted, twisting back.
“We’re all here!” yelled Liu. “Come on, Captain.”
A massive black cloud hung over the hangar at the other end of the field. The Delta Osprey was taxiing away from it, toward them. An APC was rumbling thirty yards away.
Danny stood motionless as the armored personnel carrier’s turret began to revolve in the direction of the Delta Osprey. Then he started to run toward the APC with all his strength.
“Captain! Captain!” shouted Liu.
As Danny ran. He reached into his pocket for the grenade.
Nothing but MP-5 clips.
Cursing, he kept running. He remembered he’d used the grenade in the airplane and reached for the other pocket, retrieving a stun-grenade. The grenade wasn’t powerful enough to do anything to the exterior of the vehicle; it would have to be thrown inside.
He fumbled with the taped pin as he bolted atop the APC. It was an ancient vehicle, a BTR-60P with an eight-wheeled chassis and a 12.7mm gun mounted in a turret at the front. The gun barrel lurched back, firing toward the Osprey. Danny grappled with the hatch, but there was no way to open it once locked from the inside. He threw himself on top of the gun turret, thinking he might stuff the grenade through the gun opening, but he saw there’d be no chance of that as the gun fired again; desperate, he pulled his Beretta out and stuff the barrel against the small viewing slot at the side of the front of the truck; Danny fell to the ground. The Osprey was revving its rotor furiously, pulling away. Danny rolled the grenade beneath the APC and ran back for his own craft, expecting at any moment to be shot. The ground rippled near him and he felt himself flying into the air.
Liu and Hernandez caught him just before he hit the ground, stumbling but managing to keep their balance as their Osprey lurched backward toward them. The others grabbed them and Danny felt himself suddenly pulled upward, the rotorcraft taking off with its bay open.
“We’re in! We’re in!” yelped Talcom.
Bison stood near the open doorway, firing his SAW. The APC continued to fire at them.
“Shit,” said Freah.
Chapter 5
TV time
Ethiopia
23 October, 1540
You could smell a combat base. Part of it was the sweat in the air. Part of it was spent fuel, and the ammo being packed.
Another part was fear.
Zen smelled it as he worked his way down the Megafortress;s stair ramp, levering himself sideways down each step, aware that he was being stared at – or actually, that people were pretending not to stare at him. He used his arms and shifted his weight carefully as he lowered his butt; he wanted to come down on his own power, but he also didn’t want to fall on his face.
It had been more than five years now since he’d been on a combat base, not counting his brief rotation in Turkey to enforce the no-fly zone in Iraq. This felt different for all kinds of reasons. For one thing, he’d probably had more sleep on his flight over than his whole time during the Air War.
And for another, well, he hadn’t had to use his arms quite so much.
Sergeant Parsons held the wheelchair for him on the tarmac. Zen came off the side into it, managing to swing himself upward and fall perfectly – almost perfectly – onto the chair.
“I’m getting too heavy,” he told Parsons. “Have to lay off the ice cream.”
“You find ice cream here, you let me know,” said the sergeant. “Let me go check on our birds.”
Parsons ducked under the wing to examine the Flighthawks, which were attached to the inner wing spars of Raven. Zen pushed himself a few feet away, taking stock of the crowded air base. Tensions had continued to escalate during the night. There had been raids against bases in Northern Somalia. The Iranians had sunk a ship in the Red Sea. Two U.S. aircraft carriers were steaming from the western end of Mediterranean. The Saudis and Egyptians were furious about U.S. overflights and reconnaissance missions, to say nothing of the President’s decision to use Israeli airports as refueling stops.
Four C-130 Hercules, two painted black and two in dark green jungle camouflage schemes, were lined up near the Megafortress. Beyond them were a parcel of Blackhawk and Huey helicopters, along with a pair of large Pave Lows. Three F-117’s and five F-16 were also lined up at the edge of the strip, parked dangerously close together.
The runway had been expanded, but Cheshire had still had to dump fuel before landing. Taking off was going to be a bitch; Jeff wondered how the F-117’s managed it, since the bat planes typically needed a good long run to get off the ground.
“God, Zen, is that you?”
Zen spun his chair around and saw Hal Briggs, hands on hips, frown on face, standing behind him.
“Hey, Major.”
“You brought the Flighthawks?” said Briggs. “You’re here to fly them?”
“Who’d you think would fly them?” Rubeo?”
Briggs frowned, but at least he didn’t offer the usual ‘sorry about your legs’ routine. Zen waited while Briggs greeted Sergeant Parsons and the others. Major Cheshire came down onto the runway; Hal began filling her in on the situation, walking with her toward his Humvee. Zen followed, listening to Briggs explain why he believed the captured Americans were in the Sudan. They were mounting a comprehensive search mission, he told her; Raven would be an invaluable part. Briggs and Cheshire got into the vehicle. Zen pushed to follow.
“Whoa! Whoa!” he yelled as Briggs started without him. “Yo! I’m not in yet.”
“Uh, sorry, Major,” said Briggs. “There’s food and a lounge inside this building here. We’re going over to our command center.”
“Yeah, no shit. that’s where I’m going.” Jeff pulled open the rear door, working the wheelchair as close as possible. It was too long a stretch, but at this point he didn’t care.
“Well,” started Briggs. “No offense, but –”
“I’m in charge of the Flighthawks,” Zen told him. “Since I’m going to be working the major part of the mission, I sure as shit ought to be in on the planning, don’t you think?”