The DC-3’s starboard engine began to crank. Davis watched the ground crewman pull chocks from under the wheels, then scurry over and stand next to Blackstar. But he didn’t touch those chocks. Black-star stayed where it was as the DC-3 began to move, taxiing to one side of the concrete apron.
Davis kept running, his feet pounding sand while his brain cranked logistics. How would it work? How could they get both aircraft aloft? Which would take off first? He didn’t see how Blackstar could even reach the active runway — the machine would have to negotiate over a mile of connecting taxiways. A normal airplane was guided to the runway by pilots. Getting a drone into the air was different. You had to tow it to the end of the runway with a utility tug, point it in the right direction, and then light the fuse like you would a rocket, maybe a few gentle directional inputs once the airflow was sufficient over the flight controls. So a drone parked in a hangar with its engine running made no sense at all.
Yet Davis was sure of one thing — if he could get close enough to Blackstar, he could stop it. He could throw something under the lopsided landing gear while it was moving. No, toss a wrench or a rock into the engine inlet. Something big and dense to get sucked in and act like a bomb, turbine blades chewing themselves to bits, the engine trashed in a matter of seconds. He could make that happen.
But he had to get closer.
With two hundred meters to go, he tripped over a bush and went sprawling through the scrub. Davis scrambled to his feet and kept moving, faster now, his eyes locked on the black dart at the mouth of the hangar. He saw the ground crewman pull the chocks from under Blackstar’s wheels, heard the engine wind up to a higher power setting. Much higher.
The machine began to shriek. It jumped out of the hangar and began rolling down the long taxiway. Davis saw the flight controls flexing at the trailing edge, moving up and down as the aircraft picked up speed. Right then, he realized his mistake. Blackstar wasn’t going to use the primary runway for takeoff. A mile-long stretch of reinforced taxiway would do just as well.
Davis watched helplessly as the drone accelerated, watched it pass by on the taxiway at eighty knots, then a hundred. The nosewheel rotated slowly upward, and the craft began to fly. The landing gear retracted, including the wheel that was crooked, and the drone began a smooth climb. Soon Blackstar faded from sight, just as it was designed to do.
A black weapon disappearing into a black sky.
Rafiq Khoury’s heart had nearly jumped out of his chest when the DC-3’s big engines exploded to life, popping and backfiring. The noise and vibration were much greater than he’d expected, although not as worrisome as General Ali’s cursed helicopter. It was peculiar, Khoury imagined, that he had never before flown in one of these craft — he was the de facto owner of the airline. But then, this would be a day of many firsts.
He was standing next to Jibril, who was focused intently on the computer screen at his workstation. A map display was selected, and Khoury could see Blackstar drifting slowly to the north, represented by a capital letter C. In a rare idle moment, Jibril had earlier explained that he’d chosen this symbol as an insult to Cal Tech, an American university that had denied him admission. An academic’s sense of humor, Khoury supposed.
“We have good signal strength,” Jibril announced. “All channels are active.”
Khoury assumed this was good news. “What distance can we allow?” he asked.
“With our aircraft on the ground, and the drone at ten thousand feet, we should stay within twenty miles. Once we are airborne, this distance increases.”
Khoury felt the big airplane begin to move under his feet. He looked to the rear of the cabin and saw his two guards situated on fold-down seats. They were his best men, fully committed, armed, and very capable. Khoury doubted they would be necessary, but he could not deny the comfort of their presence. In the other direction, he saw two familiar shoulders at the threshold of the flight deck — Schmitt in the captain’s seat and Achmed to the right. The American was the weakest link in the chain, Khoury knew, but there was simply no other way. Achmed was not enough of an aviator to make the plan work — he had admitted as much — and so Schmitt was a necessary evil. But as Schmitt watched the airplane, Achmed would watch him. Khoury had promised the American a substantial payday for this last mission, along with safe passage after their landing in Egypt. But he had also offered no alternatives to the arrangement, an omission that certainly spoke volumes. The imam was an expert at sizing men up, and he was sure that his chief pilot was no more than an opportunist. Bob Schmitt would do what was best for Bob Schmitt. The other two, Boudreau and Johnson, Khoury would never have trusted on a mere bribe. They were now in the custody of General Ali’s men, and in a matter of hours all would rendezvous at the abandoned airfield in northern Sudan. There, the last act would be staged, this very airplane set ablaze. A fiery finale, meticulously documented for the world.
“How fast is it going?” Khoury asked, eyeing Blackstar on the screen.
Jibril pointed to numbers at the bottom of his display. “One hundred knots.”
“That seems rather slow.”
“Unmanned aircraft are not designed for speed. They are meant to stay aloft for long periods of time. Anyway, our own aircraft will struggle to keep that pace. The flight to the staging point in Egypt will take a full three hours.”
Khoury checked his watch. So far, all was on schedule. The engines roared to a crescendo, and as the DC-3 began to accelerate Khoury felt a surge of confidence.
Davis sprinted toward the taxiway, his lungs straining. He had miscalculated and missed his chance with Blackstar. All that was left now was the DC-3. But what could he do? Rocks and wrenches? He could throw them all day and not stop the old tank. They don’t build ’em like this anymore. Davis imagined someone inside the airplane’s cabin hunched over a workstation, watching a rudimentary instrument display. They’d be pushing and pulling a joystick like a teenager at a gaming console. Flying Blackstar. But the DC-3 had to get airborne because Blackstar was moving. If the drone got out of range and lost its controlling signals, it would cease to be a drone. It would become a ballistic projectile — exactly what had happened eight months ago when Blackstar crashed into the African desert.
He was running hard, harder than he ever had in the Rugby Union Over-30s. The taxiway was still a hundred meters in front of him. An Olympic sprinter on a good track could get there in ten seconds. An oversized prop forward stumbling through the desert in the dark? A lot more. The DC-3’s massive radial engines were rumbling at full power. He guessed the airplane would use the same procedure Blackstar had — a takeoff run on the taxiway. At this hour there wouldn’t be air traffic to avoid on the other runways. Chances were, the control tower wasn’t even manned. So in a matter of seconds the airplane would barrel past on the strip of asphalt ahead.
Davis’ chest was heaving, pulling massive gulps of air. He tripped again, but didn’t go down. Breaking out of the brush, he slid to a stop on the taxiway’s dirt and rock shoulder. The DC-3 was approaching fast, gaining speed. The fuselage was a shadow now, no longer washed in the bright lights of the compound. Davis saw a white glow from the cockpit, reflections from the flight instruments and perhaps a dome light. Enough to see a familiar silhouette. A thick round face topped by a mop of black Brillo.