“We’re still available for SAR,” he told the lieutenant. It was a command, not a question.
“Raven and Hawk One are tracking a seaplane,” said the pilot. “They think Major Smith is aboard.”
“Shit,” said Freah. “Get us there.”
“Captain, hang on.” The pilot pressed his hand against his earphones. “Task force is directing us to an assault ship. It’s about ten minutes away, dead north.”
“Where’s the seaplane?”
“That way,” said the pilot, pointing back toward the coast. “Captain, seriously.”
“Seriously, get us there,” insisted Danny.
“HEY, COUSIN,” SAID CASCADE, SNAPPING ONTO THE line.
The scrambled line gave voices a synthetic, machine-like sound. Even so, Jeff heard a tremor in his cousin’s voice.
“Hawk here, Cascade,” he said.
“Jeff, I got bad news. That seaplane. It has to be stopped.”
“We’re working on it. Can you verify there are Egyptian fighters en route? Raven has them now maybe thirteen, fourteen minutes away on their present course.”
“Yeah, we got that. They’re not on our side. They are, but not in the way we need them to be.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“We need the seaplane stopped. At all costs.”
“All costs how?”
“All costs.”
“Jed—you’re telling me to waste Mack Smith?”
“I’m telling you. I’m telling you there are four F-14 Tomcats en route with orders to shoot it down. I gave them the orders myself.”
“Shit. You gave orders?”
“Cuz, you have your orders.”
“Fuck. Jed what the hell is going on?”
There was no answer. Cascade had broken the circuit.
MACK TRIED TO WILL HIS HEART TO SLOW DOWN, AFRAID the thumping would tip off his captor.
Zen’s voice had sounded so foreign, so wild, it had seemed like a hallucination, a last dream before dying. But it was definitely real.
Fate? Allah?
Holy shit. Talk about luck.
Maybe. Could go the other way too. The Imam still had his aura. And his pistol.
Mack worked the controls calmly, frowning in the general direction of the fuel gauge. He’d build a pretense to land. Get down in the water, wait for the Navy to arrive. Or whoever was coming behind Stockard.
“What is the problem?” demanded the Imam.
“The engine, the right engine seems a little flaky,” Knife told him. “And I’m starting to run out of gas.”
The Iranian slid his neck back against the seat. “Both engines are fine. You have plenty of fuel. Continue on your course.”
“Good thing you’re a pilot,” said Mack. “You can take over if I have a heart attack.”
“You will not die of a heart attack today. That I guarantee,” said the Imam, moving the pistol out so there was no doubt that it was aimed at Mack’s head.
“Didn’t think so,” said Smith. “I try to watch what I eat.”
BY THE TIME THE OSPREY HAD THE ITALIAN SEAPLANE in view, they were barely ten minutes from Egyptian airspace.
“The Egyptians are scrambling planes,” Breanna told Danny. “They may try and shoot you down.”
“That’s the least of our problems,” said Zen, who was plugged into the same line.
“Easy for you to say,” Danny shot back.
“We have to take them down before the Egyptians get there,” said Zen. “And if we don’t, four Tomcats from the Nimitz will. You’re the only chance we have to get Mack out alive. I’ll make them ditch, you pick him up.”
“It’s a long shot, Major,” Danny told him. “They go down in the water, maybe we fish him out, maybe we don’t. Better to have them surrender and follow us into Greece.”
“Not going to happen,” said Jeff.
“You sure you don’t want us to fly over them and jump on the plane?” said Freah. The pilot glanced at him as if he were being serious.
Danny wasn’t entirely sure that he wasn’t.
“If you think you can make it, sure,” said Zen. “No fucking way,” said the Osprey pilot.
“I think I can take out their engines without completely destroying the plane,” said Stockard. “You guys jump in once they’re in the water.”
“What do you think his guards are going to think of that?”
“Hopefully we catch them by surprise. Maybe we offer to let them go. I don’t know. I do know that the plane has to be stopped, one way or another.”
“One way or another.”
“I can take out the engines. I guarantee it.”
“How many soldiers does he have in there with him, Jeff?” asked Freah.
“Hold on and I’ll find out.”
Danny turned back to his men. “Liu, get the snipe gear.”
“Yes, sir,” said the sergeant. He jumped up and went to grab the kit.
“I don’t know if I can hold us still enough for a sharpshooter,” said the Osprey pilot.
Danny nodded. “Yeah, I don’t think so either.”
JEFF PUSHED THE THROTTLE TO MAX, WHIPPING THE Flighthawk downward in a screaming beeline at the Piaggio’s bow. He pulled hard, cutting a near-ten-g turn almost on top of the seaplane’s windshield.
The airplane stuttered downward. Mack’s voice, obviously shaking, screamed a string of obscenities over the radio.
Jeff didn’t answer. It was pretty stupid of Mack to transmit. In fact, he should have used the diversion to knock out his captors—or jump from the plane.
Right.
Did he want to die?
“Two people, both in the front,” said Jennifer, reviewing the video at ultra-slow motion. “One on the right has got some clerical-type clothes.”
“Hopefully Mack hasn’t converted,” said Jeff, relaying the information to Danny.
THE GUN WAS AGAINST HIS NECK.
“Honest to God, I don’t know what the fuck’s going on,” repeated Mack. “They must have fired a missile at us. I just barely got the hell out of the way.”
“If anything else attacks us, if you divert from the course I have set for you, you will die,” said the Imam. “The border is ahead. When the Egyptian planes challenge you, fall in behind them.”
ONE TARGET. WITH ANY OTHER WEAPON, IT’D BE impossible.
But gray-haired of Anna Klondike’s magic gun? Child’s play, no? She’d said it could shoot through glass.
Too bad she wasn’t here to take the shot herself.
Danny took the gun in his hand. Powder was the best shot, but he took forever to aim. On a quick see-’em, nail-’em, Liu was the man to go to.
Or Danny.
Had to be Danny. He couldn’t let one of the other guys live with missing.
Because he was going to miss. They’d be moving, his target would be moving. They would be no closer than three hundred feet. He’d have an instant to aim and react.
Ha.
Danny pulled on the visor, clicked the edge to get it active. Then he edged toward the Osprey’s rear door.
“All right, lower it,” he said after strapping a belt around one of the toggle restraints.
“Let me take the shot, Captain,” said Powder. “I can make it.”
“Piece of cake with this gear,” Danny told him.
“We’re going to have maybe a half second when Major Stockard blows out the engines and we pass in front of them,” said Powder. “No offense, Cap, but you know I’m a better shot.”
The Osprey began bucking as the door was opened. “Hold it steady!” Danny screamed. “This is going to be hard enough!”
“Fuck you. I’m trying,” said the pilot over the com unit.
No way he was making the shot.
ZEN WAITED FOR THE OSPREY PILOT TO TELL HIM HE was ready. The Egyptian fighters were now less than thirty seconds away, as was their country’s border. The Tomcats were about sixty seconds behind.
Sweat poured from every pore in his body, from his forehead to his back to his toes. His mouth felt like a smelter’s forge.
“We’re ready,” said the Osprey pilot.
Did he want to kill Mack, get his revenge? He could, easily. Hell, he’d essentially been ordered to.