True doesn’t see the unmanned jets engaging over the desert, but she hears them despite the DF-21’s insulation, despite its armor, the rumble of its engine, the rattling of its frame as Khalid leans on the accelerator, racing west to escape the battle. But there’s no way he can outrun combat aircraft. The drone fighters scream in the night, nearer, farther. Loud enough to shake the stars.
She braces with one hand on the back of Jameson’s seat, thinking of Alex and how angry he’ll be if it ends here for her, if she doesn’t make it home.
The DF-21 shoots over a slight rise. It goes briefly airborne, then comes down hard, skidding across a patch of sand. True feels the jolt in her spine as she’s held down by the bruising grip of her harness. Beside her, Fatima gasps. Angry yells erupt in back.
It takes True a second to get her harness to loosen up enough that she can move again. When she does, she turns to check Fatima, who sits hunched in her restraints, loose hair hiding her face. True looks next into the cargo bed. If anyone back there got bounced around, it could mean a broken neck, a broken back. But everyone is strapped in, strapped down. Saved by their restraints but furious all the same.
True looks to the front again and shouts over the road noise. “Khalid, you in a hurry?”
“We’re okay, Mama,” he yells back. He doesn’t slow down. “I just want to make sure we get home!” Fear lurks beneath the bravado in his voice.
“I want to get home too,” Jameson warns him from an arm’s reach away in the shotgun seat. “If you roll us, kid, I swear I’m gonna break your neck.”
Fatima raises her head. She cannot raise her hands—her restraints prevent it—so she shakes her head to get the lank hair off her face. Her oily cheeks reflect the console’s red gleam. Red glints give an unholy aura to her eyes.
“He will come,” she warns in a despairing voice. “You cannot win. He will burn us all. He will.”
“Fatima,” True says, not quite touching her. When Fatima turns, True tries to meet that hopeless gaze, despite the jerky jumpy motion of the racing truck. She tries to plant hope, saying, “He wants you to believe that, but I think we can win. And this much I know for sure: Hussam will be a prisoner of US forces by dawn, or he will be dead. For him there is no escape.”
Fatima opens her mouth as if to argue, but whatever words she intends are crushed by the thunder of a jet passing directly above them. Animal instinct kicks in and everyone ducks. Even Khalid, behind the wheel.
But no autocannon fires. No missile hits them. True grasps the reason first: “Must have been one of ours. If an Arkinson passed that close, we’d be dead.”
“Fuck!” Khalid swears as he straightens in his seat. His fingers hold the wheel in a bony grip while on his cheeks, rivulets of sweat trap the red light.
Rohan’s laugh belts out over comms. Pumped up, riding an adrenaline high he says, “Take it easy, Khalid! There’s no way we can outrun this fight. We live or die by the grace of our squadron AIs.”
“Truth,” True whispers.
Ahead of them, electric-white light bursts across the desert. Briefly, it illuminates nearly a mile of empty road. Inside the truck the chatter dies. They listen: to road noise, to the throaty bellow of the engine, the dopplered roar of jets. Waiting to learn who won.
The concussive rumble of an explosion rolls in, background soundtrack to Lincoln’s stern voice. “One enemy aircraft down. The other two are in retreat. The sky is ours.”
Cheers ring out in both cab and cargo bed, but True does not take part. “What’s Blackbird’s status?” she asks, voice cutting through the celebration.
Lincoln says: “Blackbird has overrun the rendezvous. Heading back now. Otherwise nominal.”
True’s fingers twitch as she calls up their position on her display. It’s twelve K to the rendezvous and the next phase of this mission.
“All the pieces in place?” Chris wants to know.
“On the way,” Lincoln assures him. “We delayed the transport helicopter pending the outcome of the air war, but it’s inbound now. We’ll be back on schedule soon.”
“And the merchandise?” Chris asks.
“Blackbird’s camera shows it still kicking.”
Wrapped in the backseat’s shadows, True allows herself a small private smile. Machines dominate the battlefield, but it took human soldiers to snatch a bad guy from his bedroom and recover four captives from their prison.
It’s a moment of contentment that doesn’t last.
“Shit,” Khalid says. “I see lights. Ahead of us. Goddamn army’s worth.”
Pro Bono
What now?
True leans forward to get a look at the lights and swears softly to herself. Khalid was not exaggerating. A long line of traffic is coming toward them, headlights yellowed by the dust.
“Take it easy, everyone,” Lincoln says in his gravelly, one-note voice. “That is not an army. It’s a merchant convoy, still a few klicks out.”
“Lincoln is watching over us,” Chris reminds Khalid. “We’ve got high-altitude surveillance, and the Hai-Lins patrolling the road.”
“Okay,” Khalid says. “Good. But convoys out here run armed. There are guards on those trucks, and a lot more of them than us.”
Chris says, “Just because they have weapons doesn’t mean they’re looking for trouble.”
Lincoln speaks again: “Khalid, I want you to turn your headlights on. Let the convoy see you. Let them know you’re not a threat.”
Khalid doesn’t rush to embrace this idea. “How about if we just wait off-road?”
Chris is first to reject the suggestion. “No. They’ll assume we’re waiting to pick off the last truck in the line. We don’t want to look like bandits.”
“Agreed,” Lincoln says. “These are not Hussam’s soldiers. They’re merchants, and they know an op just went down. Guaranteed someone in Tadmur called them. And they’ve heard the jets. They are not going to risk their cargo or give us any reason to hit them. And if they do? The Hai-Lins are watching. We’ll nail them before they get a window open. So turn on your headlights and make nice.”
Khalid turns the headlights on.
“What else is out there?” Chris asks. “Are we going to have quiet time to make the transfer?”
“Time enough,” Lincoln tells him. “Once the convoy is past, we’re looking at a twenty-two-minute window with no traffic. That’s your timeframe to rendezvous, transfer, and get clear.”
“We’ll get it done,” Chris assures him.
True eyes the convoy. If a firefight does break out, she’s in a bad position, on the wrong side of the DF-21 to return fire. No reason to think it will come to shooting, though.
As the convoy approaches, her visor filters the brightness of the headlights. The lead truck takes longer to arrive than she expects. “They slowing down, Lincoln?” she asks.
“Roger that,” he says. “Looks like they’re being cautious.”
“They’re as nervous as we are,” Chris adds.
True thinks about it, imagining how they must look to the lead driver: this lone armored vehicle, racing away from a night raid in Tadmur.
The first of the headlights pierces the cab. Fatima turns her head away, hunching her shoulders and hiding her face against True’s shoulder. The lead truck roars past, accelerating as it goes, rocking the DF-21 with its pressure wave. Khalid keeps their own speed steady, their course straight, as six more trucks sweep past.