“You should have told us about your daughter, Kevin,” said the woman pilot. “I’m so sorry — it must have been so horrible.”
“You don’t care. None of you care.”
Minerva gripped Madrone’s arm. In an instant, he had changed from a confident, cocky pilot to a trembling, fearful man. Tears rolled down his face.
She should have shot the Americans.
“They’re trying to trick you, Kevin,” she said. “Perhaps we should give them something to make them less disagreeable.”
“Is she coming with us?” said the one in the wheelchair. “Your master?”
“There isn’t room on the plane,” answered Minerva.
“Actually, there is,” said the man. “There are four stations in the cockpit, two downstairs, two upstairs, and that’s not even counting the roll-out cot.”
Madrone turned toward her. “Come with us,” he told her. “You must.”
“I have to attend to things here, lover,” she said softly.
“You will come,” he told her sternly.
She reached to pat his hand, then saw he had a pistol in it.
“Kevin.” She stared, but before she said anything else she heard the loud whine of another jet popping up over the nearby mountain.
Chapter 89
In a perfect world, the target would have been under real-time surveillance from an army of recon drones and maybe a satellite or two, with a highly trained team aboard a JSTARS command craft interpreting the images and giving advice.
But Whiplash operated in a decidedly imperfect world. So the fact that Danny Freah was able to turn on his Combat Information Visor and get an image off the C-17’s chin array of infrared and optical cameras as they popped up over the mountains two miles from the target seemed like a real luxury.
Which didn’t make it any easier to read the blurs.
Danny pressed his hands against his helmet, trying to steady the image in the CIV. There were two large planes near hangars alongside the runway. The glowing bursts near the wings of the larger made it clear that its engines were just being started.
The EB-52? Too hard to tell.
Danny pressed the underside of the left lenses to adjust the contrast, reducing the image glare caused by the jet exhaust. He saw the image of a man in a wheelchair.
“Pop the ramp, we’re going out!” he shouted to his men over the shared laser-com system. “Get the chutes! We have thirty seconds! Planes at the end of the ramp. Engines are hot.”
The pilot, who was tied into the circuit, immediately cut in. “Captain, that’s not the way we planned it.”
“You go ahead and circle around to land. We’ll try and pick off the guards holding the crew at Galatica. Just hold on your course,” said Danny, who could see through the visor that the C-17 was aimed to pass right over the Megafortress.
“Captain, I can get back around and land in two minutes, maybe three.”
“Too long!” said Danny. The people near the plane were moving. “Go! Go! Go!” he shouted to his men. He unhooked the feed from the back of his helmet, the wire whipping back as wind began gusting through the rear of the plane.
Danny’s command was superfluous. Prepared for any contingency, the team members had been wearing their jump gear and night goggles on the approach. Team Jumpmaster Geraldo “Blow” Hernandez was already pushing guys out the open ramp. Danny went out with him, dragging his tethered rucksack clear.
He kicked his chute open on a two-count after sliding into the air. The cells flapped full and he swung backward slightly, his weight not quite balanced due to the rush. As he grabbed the toggle handles to steer, he realized he faced in the wrong direction; he leaned his body as he steered back, knowing that the ground would be coming up tremendously fast.
Low-altitude jumps into a combat situation were incredibly hazardous, as dangerous as jumping off a bridge with homemade equipment. A half second of disorientation could be fatal. That was especially true at night, even when you had help from advanced gear like the CIV. The images in the starlight view flared back and forth as Danny managed to steady his descent; the runway was dead ahead, fifty yards off, with the Megafortress beyond it. He pulled the right steering tog, hoping to coax his way across the runway and onto the parallel access ramp. He couldn’t see any defensive positions, but as his feet accelerated toward the ground he saw the flare of tracers on his right.
Chapter 90
Zen watched Madrone swing his arm around, revealing the gun.
“With us,” Madrone shouted to Lanzas.
“Kevin, no,” she said.
“They’ll kill you here.”
The Megafortress’s engines roared. A soldier with a rifle came down the EB-52’s ramp to see what was going on. Madrone fired his gun and the man’s body flew backward. In practically the same motion Kevin grabbed Lanzas and threw her onto the ramp. One of the guards took out his pistol, but then slumped downward. Gunfire erupted beyond the runway — the plane passing overhead had dropped paratroopers.
It has to be Whiplash, thought Zen. He saw Chris lash out at one of the guards, then felt himself pitched to the ground. He swung his arms, but realized he was being dragged by his useless legs toward the plane.
“Up,” Madrone told him. Automatic weapons barked around them. Madrone pointed a small, blocky pistol in his face. “I’ll kill you, Zen.”
“I can’t get up.”
As Kevin ducked down to him, something flew onto his back. It tumbled over his shoulder, a heavy weight that smashed against Zen’s upper torso, pinning his right arm.
Breanna.
Madrone, somehow not surprised by her, nor fazed by the chips of cement and bullets dancing around them, grabbed her by her bound hands and pulled her to her feet.
“Help Jeff into the plane. Now, or you die here!”
“No!” she shouted.
“He dies first.”
She reached for Jeff, starting to pull, going slow. Jeff tried to hold back, but Madrone pushed them both over onto the middle of the ramp. He swung his left arm wildly. Either he hit the lever to close the gangway, or someone in the cockpit issued the command; in any event, the ramp sprang upward moving quickly despite their weight.
As long as he was alive, Zen thought, there was a chance he could stop Madrone. He had to stay calm and work out a plan.
Then Madrone smashed Breanna on the head. Jeff propelled himself with an enraged shout, swinging both fists toward Kevin with all his might.
Had he connected, he surely would have knocked Madrone out. But he missed by at least half a foot. As his momentum carried him downward, he felt a hard smack against the side of his temple. He smelled the metal tint of blood tickle his nose. His lips tasted the smooth aluminum of the deck floor. Then everything went black.
Danny had his M-16 in his hands as he hit the ground, but the drop-off between the runway and the ramp kept him from getting a good view of the hangar area or the rest of his team.
It also made him lose his balance. He rolled forward, struggling to his feet. Snapping clear of his gear, he ran up the slope toward the ramp and hangar area, still without a target. He heard the distinct whap of a flash-bang grenade, thrown by one of his team members to paralyze the resistance.
The large planes near the hangars were definitely theirs. The EB-52 sat on the right. Someone fired from the ground near it; the shots were immediately answered with a spray of gunfire from the left.
Danny raised his rifle, clicking his thumb against the target switch that allowed him to use the CIV to aim.