The copilot shrugged. “I don’t recommend a fight, sir.”
“No shit!” the captain said bitterly, turning to Crosswhite. “I’ll land in Bozeman, but every fucking one of you is gonna swing for this.”
Crosswhite grinned. “If I had a quarter for every time somebody said that to me.” He kept Brux on the phone so he could tell him how to verify if they were flying in the right direction.
Ten minutes later the radio came to life… “Air Force Flight One Sixty-Eight. This is Nellis AFB. Please advise as to why you have not corrected course.”
Crosswhite put his hand on the pilot’s shoulder. “Don’t give them a reason to shoot us down, eh?”
The pilot gave him a look. “This is Air Force One Sixty-Eight. Nellis, we are continuing to Bozeman Yellowstone International.”
“Standby, One Sixty-Eight.” There was a ninety-second pause. “One Sixty-Eight, that’s a negative. You are ordered to divert to Creech AFB.”
“Tell them we’ve got engine trouble,” Crosswhite said.
The pilot advised they were having hydraulic trouble and that Nellis was too far.
“Um, stand by, One Sixty-Eight.”
Three minutes later… “One Sixty-Eight, you are clear to proceed to Bozeman Yellowstone. Be advised you’ll be catching the tail end of a cold front coming down from the northwest, so expect chop.”
“Roger that, Nellis. Thank you.” The pilot looked back at Crosswhite and smirked. “You think you’ve won, but they’re gonna have every cop in Montana waiting there to greet us. You wait and see.”
Gil cleared his throat from where he leaned in the doorway. “Which is why we’ll be landing ten miles away at a private airfield.” Gil handed him a slip of paper. “Those are the exact GPS coordinates.”
The pilot took the paper and passed it to his copilot. “Enter the coordinates, Lieutenant.”
60
The pilots stared out the windshield as they taxied the G-V toward a waiting midnight blue Douglas DC-3 twin-prop transport plane waiting at the end of the runway. Stenciled on the fuselage in bright yellow was the slogan “Dive the Sky!” One of the DC-3 pilots stood beside the aircraft next to a pile of parachutes and jump harnesses. The night was still heavily overcast, but the rain had ceased, leaving the air cold and damp.
Gil gave the pilot on the ground a thumbs-up. A few seconds later, the DC-3’s engines coughed and the propellers began to turn.
“Who’s C-47?” the lieutenant asked. This was the military designation for the twin-prop transport.
“Belongs to a buddy of mine,” Gil said. “A retired airborne Marine. He gives skydiving lessons now.” He looked into the back. “Gear up, men! He’s got our chutes laid out on the deck beside the plane.”
The air force captain applied the brake and killed the jet engines, and then turned around in his seat. “I seriously doubt anybody anticipated this move. I guess it helps having home field advantage.”
“We’ll see,” Gil said grimly.
He left the cockpit, accepting his .308 Remington MSR (Modular Sniper Rifle) from one of his SEALs and trotting down the stairs to greet the DC-3 pilot on the ground. Crosswhite and the other eight SEALs were quickly shrugging into their jump gear.
“Jack,” he said, offering his hand. “I can’t tell you how fucking much I appreciate this.”
“Bull butter,” replied fifty-year-old Sergeant Major Johnathan Frost. He had gray hair and a mustache, and he spoke with a Missouri accent. “Got an extra M4? I’m jumping with you guys. Bart can bring the plane back himself.”
“I can’t let you do that, Jack. You’ve got a wife waiting at home.”
“Then it’s a good thing I brought my AR along.” Frost grinned. “You can’t keep me from jumping outta my own plane, Gil.”
“Fuck,” Gil muttered. “Clancy! Get Jack an M4 outta the kit!” He turned back to Frost. “You’re an irresponsible husband, Jack Frost.”
Frost clapped him on the back. “I guess it takes the pot to call the kettle black.”
“Eat me, jarhead.”
Six minutes later, they were loaded onto the DC-3 and roaring down the runway.
61
Special Agent Carson Porter had been with the Bureau for five years, chasing bad checks all across the Big Sky State, and though he had arrested one or two tough hombres in his limited tenure, this was his first time leading an operation where gunplay was expected, and he was finding the pucker factor to be greater than he had previously anticipated.
The Highway Patrol’s local post commander, Lieutenant Quentin Miller, was just pulling up with four other cruisers in tow, and so far no one from the Gallatin County Sheriff’s Department had arrived.
Porter got out of the unmarked Ford Crown Victoria and stepped across the road. The rain had recently abated, and a chilly fog was quickly setting in. “Quentin, how are you?”
The post commander sat behind the wheel of his marked Highway Patrol car. “Tired as hell. How many bad guys are supposed to be up there? We haven’t been told shit.”
“As many as twenty with automatic weapons. Where’s everybody else?”
“Who everybody else?”
“The rest of your men? The Sheriff’s Department?”
“I don’t know. Your people didn’t contact the sheriff?”
Porter threw up his hands. “Christ, Quentin, you work hand in hand with those guys. You’re telling me you didn’t even give them a call?”
“Hey, goddamnit! I was asleep in bed when Colonel Reed called from Missoula telling me to hightail it out here with a security detail, and that’s what I did. He said the operation was under federal jurisdiction. Call me stupid, but I assumed that meant the FBI would be handling the logistics.”
Porter glanced at Agent Spencer Starks as he came across the road. Starks was an African American who had served as a loader in an M1 Abrams during the early days of the Iraq War. His tank had been hit by an RPG fired from a rooftop, and he had taken enough shrapnel in the left shoulder to send him home for the duration.
“It’s already fucked up, Spence.”
Starks shook his head. “Doesn’t surprise me.”
“Okay,” Agent Porter said. “I guess we’re it then. What did you guys bring for firepower?”
Miller thumbed over his shoulder toward the trunk. “We each got an AR in the back, standard issue. Four mags apiece.”
“No body armor?”
“Just our vests. We’re not SWATs.”
“What do you think?” Porter asked Starks.
Starks rubbed a hand over his bald head. “I think if we don’t get our butts up there pretty soon, there won’t be any reason to bother.”
“Hey, has anybody thought to call up there to the ranch?” Miller ventured. “You know, just to make sure this ain’t a snipe hunt? I know Shannon’s this big war hero and all, but it does sound pretty far-fetched. Al Qaeda here in Montana? Come on.”
“That’s no harder to believe than a nuke in DC,” Starks said.
“Did they find it yet?” Miller asked.
“No, but they’re evacuating the city as we speak.”
“Calling up to the ranch would be a good idea,” Porter said. “But I don’t have the number.”
Miller chuckled. “That’s the FBI for ya… Forgetful Bureau of Intimidation.”
“Hey, I’m doing the best I can. The DC bureau dropped this shit in my lap an hour ago with almost no intel. They were busy scrambling their asses off to evacuate the city like everybody else.”
Porter and Miller looked at each other, neither man willing to admit he didn’t want to go up that foggy country road undermanned and ill equipped.