“What about you?” Oleg asked.
“I’ll cover you. The second you get on that plane, hit the deck.”
“What does that mean?”
“Get on the floor and stay there.”
“Okay.”
“Tell the pilot to pull up the stairs, taxi, and take off.”
“What if you’re not on board yet?”
“I’ll be there.”
“But if you’re not?”
“Then I’m not coming.”
Marcus tapped the brakes and skidded to a stop in front of the G4. Grabbing the machine gun and kicking open the driver’s-side door, he looked back at Oleg and shouted, “Run!”
All three police cruisers tried to brake. One slid right past them and smashed into the side of the terminal. The others stopped more successfully, within twenty yards of them. Marcus pivoted into the snow and opened fire. Oleg watched him for a moment, then jumped out and raced up the steps of the Gulfstream while a hail of bullets erupted all around him. Marcus kept firing in short bursts as he moved around the hood of the car. When he saw he’d clipped the officer firing from beside the wrecked cruiser, he popped out a spent magazine and reloaded. Then he opened fire again—still in short bursts—as he crouched low and worked his way backward up the steps.
Rounds pinged off the metal stairs and the fuselage. Then someone opened fire from just over his right shoulder. He glanced around and saw Morris.
“Get in,” she yelled. “I’ve got you.”
Marcus turned and scrambled up the last few stairs as Morris hit the switch and the stairs folded into the plane. Together, they shut and locked the door behind them and headed for their respective seats in the cockpit.
“Take a seat and buckle in,” Marcus shouted to Oleg as Morris revved the engines and began taxiing away from the terminal. “Recline the seat all the way, and whatever you do, keep your head down and don’t look out the window.”
Suddenly rounds began hitting the side of the plane again. From his vantage point, Marcus couldn’t see who was firing, but he urged Morris to push the engines harder and stay out of the taxi lanes. This wasn’t a normal takeoff. These were combat conditions, and they needed to get this thing in the air before more police cars arrived and blocked their exit or shot out their tires or their windows.
Morris did what he told her but said nothing.
Marcus craned his neck to one side and then the other, scanning for threats. When he turned back to her, he saw her wince, then saw blood all over her jacket and shirt.
95
“You’re hit,” he said calmly.
“I’m fine, Ryker,” Morris replied just as calmly. “We’ll deal with it in the air.”
But she wasn’t merely wincing now. She could barely sit upright.
“You’re not fine,” he said.
“Never… never mind… me,” she gasped. “Do… your job.”
She was having trouble breathing as well.
“You’re not going to be able to get us off the ground,” Marcus said.
“I have to.”
“But you can’t, so tell me what to do.”
Morris tried to protest, but she couldn’t get the words out.
“Conserve your energy,” he told her. “Lean back. Point to things. Use as few words as possible. I’ll get us up.”
Finally she nodded, and Marcus took the controls. She walked him through everything even as she began coughing up blood.
Ground control was ordering them to stop. Marcus could see flashing lights coming from all directions. The G4 was approaching the first possible runway, but the ground lights were all red, indicating they had to stop for an aircraft either about to take off or land. Marcus looked to his left and saw no plane on the runway. He looked right and saw nothing on the ground, but there were lights in the sky at two o’clock. The sirens were getting louder, which meant they were getting closer. Oleg began shouting that the police cars heading toward them were being joined by armored personnel carriers with .50-caliber mounted machine guns.
That was it. They were out of time. He couldn’t wait any longer. Marcus increased speed and eased the G4 out onto the runway, turning right, toward the approaching plane.
“No,” Morris groaned. “You can’t.”
Marcus didn’t respond.
“You’re insane,” she said almost in a whisper. “Stop.”
But Marcus wasn’t listening. He checked the flaps. They were at the zero position. Preparing for a short takeoff, he throttled forward to full power while pressing hard on the brakes. The high-pitched whine of the dual Rolls-Royce engines filled the cockpit. Then he released the brakes. They all snapped back in their seats as the Gulfstream began hurtling down the runway.
The Aeroflot jumbo jet was dead ahead of them, less than a mile out, on approach for the runway they were on and putting down its landing gear.
“You’re gonna get us all killed,” Oleg screamed, watching what was happening through the open cockpit door.
Marcus didn’t respond. They were committed now. He was trying desperately to keep the plane centered on the runway with the rudder pedals, but with so little experience flying, and none in a business jet, they were veering to the right, then lurching back to the left. They were in danger of sliding off the icy runway, but they were picking up speed. There was a chain-link fence at the end of the ten-thousand-foot strip. It was covered in snow and ice, but it was coming up fast. Panicked, Morris briefly took the pedals. She recentered the jet and ordered Marcus to increase flaps to takeoff position. The moment he did, they reached 150 miles an hour.
“Now!” she yelled.
Marcus pulled back on the yoke. The instant their wheels were off the ground, he abandoned gentility and pulled harder, creating a far steeper angle for takeoff. The ground controllers were cursing at him. They were heading straight into the Aeroflot, but Marcus refused to change course. Alarms sounded in the G4 cockpit.
“Caution, obstacle. Caution, obstacle.”
The Russian plane filled with hundreds of passengers was coming directly at them. Despite the storm, Marcus could actually see the pilots in their cockpit, frantically waving them off. He could hear them yelling at him over the radio. Yet he kept increasing speed. He was not going to divert. Too much was at stake. They had to gain speed and altitude if they had any chance of survival, even if that meant playing chicken with a jumbo jet.
At the last second, the Aeroflot banked hard to the right, retracted its landing gear, and boosted power. The G4 surged by, clearing the Russian jet by less than fifty yards. Marcus raised his landing gear and pulled the Gulfstream into the clouds and the freak storm bearing down on Moscow.
Morris was ashen, but both she and Oleg were quiet. The immediate danger had passed, but each of them knew what lay ahead.
“Where’s the transponder?” Marcus asked as they passed two thousand feet.
“Why?” Morris asked, her voice thin and raspy.
“I’m going to turn it off,” he said. “We’ve got to go dark.”
Morris looked at him like he needed to be institutionalized. Marcus didn’t care. He proceeded to turn off all the external lights and all the cabin and cockpit lights as well. Only the glow of the instrumentation remained. Relenting, Morris pointed to the transponder switch, in the lower right section of the center console, then used hand gestures to indicate he should turn it three clicks to the left.
Marcus did, and their digital signature—the communications system telling air traffic controllers precisely who they were and where they were at any given moment—shut down. The G4 would still show up as a blip on radar, of course, but now they were an unidentified blip. That certainly didn’t make them impossible to track or intercept, but it made it harder.