Primary target anthology, p.116
Primary Target Anthology, page 116
Malik was wise. Omar had become lost in the moment.
Against all odds, they had brought the American President to the Sharia courts.
Omar looked at the pilot.
“Can you get up and land the plane?”
Blood was leaking from the sides of the man’s mouth. His teeth were gritted. He spit the words out, barely loud enough to hear.
“I’ll need a doctor when we land.”
Omar shrugged. This man was badly injured, his long-term health was hardly a priority, and Mogadishu was not known for its world-class healthcare. Did he think Omar would not pursue a doctor for himself first?
“I’ll see to it,” he said.
The pilot nodded. “Okay.”
Omar looked at Malik.
“Lock the cockpit door. Then help me get him up.”
* * *
Luke took the stairs two at a time, gun out in front of him.
He reached the flight deck. The cockpit was straight ahead. A man was there, an older man, heavyset, with a black and gray beard. His face was covered in blood.
He was shutting the door to the cockpit.
Luke put his shoulder down and plowed into the door, knocking the man backwards. The man raised a gun to Luke’s face.
BANG!
Luke shot the man in the chest, raised his aim just a bit, and…
BANG!
…shot him in the head.
The man collapsed onto the instruments, then slid to the floor. Alarms were going crazy. BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP… Something was wrong with the plane. In front of Luke, through the windshield, a large city was approaching. A pilot was on the floor, bleeding from the chest. His eyes were open. He was breathing.
Luke turned to his left. The small man from downstairs stood there.
He was quick. He was very good. The barrel of his gun was an inch from Luke’s head. Luke brought his own gun around…
Too late.
Luke was about to die. The man squeezed his trigger.
Click.
The firing pin hit an empty chamber.
He had run out of bullets. He pulled the trigger again. And again. And again. To no avail. Luke slapped the gun away. It was a .38 revolver, six rounds, maybe seven, depending on the model. And the man had fired them all without reloading. It was a dumb way to die.
The man made a burst through the doorway, trying to escape.
Luke shot him.
BANG!
He shot him again.
BANG!
And again.
BANG!
The man tumbled down the stairs, head over heels. He crashed to the landing where the stairs turned. His head was at an odd angle to his body. His neck seemed to be broken. From the top of the stairs, Luke shot him again for good measure.
He put it in the man’s head. A small spray of bone and blood flew.
BANG!
You have to get this plane on the ground.
Luke holstered his gun, went back into the cockpit, and kneeled by the pilot. The pilot was a young guy, big, and in bad shape. His eyes were still open, and his face was contorted in pain. His breathing was ragged. His white shirt was soaked in his own blood. He had what appeared to be a large exit wound in his chest. Luke could practically put a fist in there.
“Can you hear me?” Luke said.
The pilot nodded.
“I need you to land this airplane, if you think you can.”
“I know,” the pilot gasped.
“I’m going to help you up and put you in that chair, okay? It might hurt.”
The man nodded.
“Okay,” Luke said. “On three.”
He hated to do this to the man, but there was no other choice. Luke could not land this airplane. This pilot could, if he lived long enough. And if he could, it was important that he do so.
Luke counted to three, then lifted the pilot around the chest.
The man screamed, but worked with Luke to get up. Luke guided him to a pilot’s chair, then slid into the seat next to him.
“Let me help you with your seatbelt.”
The pilot held up his hands and swallowed hard. “Don’t fasten my belt. I need freedom of movement.”
Instead, Luke clasped his own lap and shoulder belt. For the first time, he noticed the other pilot was here in the cockpit, dead on the floor in the right corner.
He flicked on the radio. They were surrounded by American aircraft. Someone out there would hear a message from them.
“This is Agent Luke Stone, of the FBI Special Response Team,” he said. “We have regained control of Air Force One. Repeat: Americans control Air Force One. The President is alive. Repeat: President Clement Dixon is alive. One pilot is dead, one pilot seriously injured. Instrumentation is cooked. We are coming in for a hard landing, Mogadishu Airport. I repeat, Air Force One, possible hard landing, Mogadishu Airport. Requesting assistance of all American military and medical assets in this region. Repeat: Air Force One requesting immediate emergency assistance.”
He paused.
“Mogadishu. See you there.”
A voice crackled over the radio: “Air Force One, what is the status of the President?”
“Alive,” Luke said.
“Health status? Vital signs?”
“I’m not a doctor, Jack. The flight doctor is dead. Just put boots on the ground, will you? And an emergency medical team. The pilot is shot. He needs immediate medical assistance.”
“Roger that,” the voice said. “See you on the ground.”
They were passing over the city now. Luke hoped that no joker with a surface to air missile decided now was the time to make his name.
He glanced at the pilot. The pilot’s eyes were half open. His face was white.
“How are we doing?” Luke said.
The pilot gasped instead of speaking. “Clear skies. High visibility. Landing gear operational. We’re okay.”
He gulped. Tears began streaming down his face.
“The runway is north to south. It’s plenty long. We need to go out over the ocean, bank around to the right, and approach from the southeast.”
He coughed, hacking up thick fluid. His face turned dark red.
“I think I’m going to die.”
Luke shook his head.
“You have an exit wound. The bullet went through your body and came out the other side. If it had severed anything important, you’d already be dead. We’re going to get you all the help you need as soon as we’re on the ground. So just hang with me, and put this thing down. It’s the best chance you have.”
Luke had no idea if that statement was true or false. Control of the Mogadishu airport was going to be a brawl.
“I’m fading in and out,” the pilot said. “I might need your help to land.”
Luke nodded. “You’ve got it.”
* * *
Omar was alive.
He was surprised to learn this. He had floated in darkness for what seemed like a very long time. It could have been a hundred years. It could have been a thousand, or ten thousand. No one was there with him. The prophets of all times were not there. Allah did not greet him and open to him the gates of Paradise.
It was just black and empty.
But now he saw that it was a lie, or a dream. He was still here, in the physical realm. Though not for much longer.
He had been shot. He did not know how many times. He had broken something when he fell down the stairs. He could no longer feel anything below his waist. He supposed that was for the best. The pain in his chest, and his shoulder, and his torso, was more than enough.
The man shot you in the head.
Yes, it was true. But how could it be? Gingerly, he reached a hand to his head, where the pain was. He touched something soft there, where bone was missing. A wave of pain and revulsion went through him. His brain, or some wet substance of some kind, was exposed to the air. His hand came away quickly.
He had heard tell of this, of bullets doing strange things when they touched the curved surface of the skull. Sometimes they skated around the edge of it, without ever penetrating. In his case…
This mission was over. Everyone from the original seven was dead. Hassan was dead. Malik was dead. Omar did not know where Siddiq was, but the presence of the American commando suggested he too was dead.
The commando would fight to protect the President at the Mogadishu airport, or perhaps would try to land somewhere else entirely. Either way, American planes and helicopters would be free to fire upon any believers they spotted on the ground.
The Americans would have the upper hand. Except…
If the President were already dead.
Omar pulled himself to the edge of the stairs, dragging his body behind him, and tumbled down the last remaining steps. He stifled a shriek of agony. It was best to be completely silent.
Darkness closed in on the edge of his vision, but he did not black out again. That was good. He crawled into the narrow corridor, his dead legs trailing him like a long tail. He pressed his body up against the shell of the airplane.
He was cold, and he began to shiver.
“Allahu akbar,” he whispered, reaffirming the central fact of his life, the principle that had brought him to the edge of death again and again. And today, it would bring him across the threshold.
“God is most great.”
He reached inside his pocket and took out the cigarette lighter. He flicked it and held the flame to the blasting cap on his suicide belt. The belt was powerful, with eight blocks of plastic explosive mounted upon it.
Omar was pleased because it was the end, and there was no hesitation.
He was ready.
* * *
They came in low above the ancient whitewashed buildings of the city.
“I can’t gain any altitude,” the pilot said.
BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP…
Luke looked at him. The man was pale. His face was drenched in sweat. Luke realized he didn’t even know the guy’s name.
“The plane,” the man said.
Right. The plane was not in good shape. There was a hole in it. The controls here in the cockpit had taken a beating. Luke had a thought. He didn’t know if it would work or not.
“Maybe we should just cut directly to…”
An explosion rocked the plane, somewhere below them. It was so loud, Luke couldn’t really hear it. To his left, through the wraparound windshield, he saw the top edge of an orange and yellow fireball.
The glass blew inward, engulfing them.
Luke turned away and tried to duck, but he was held secure by his seatbelt. The pilot had slipped to the floor between his seat and the instrument panel.
The plane was shuddering.
They were barely above the rooftops, coming down hard.
Luke grabbed the radio mic.
“Mayday, mayday,” he said. “This is Air Force One. Mayday, mayd—”
The plane clipped the roof of a five-story building. Luke was thrown forward, then jerked back by the belt again. He looked up. They were between buildings, moving fast.
The ground was coming. They hit, plowing through dirt. He was thrown forward, and jerked back again.
There was nothing in front of him. Nothing but darkness.
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
11:30 a.m. East Africa Time
(4:30 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time)
Baledogle Airfield
Wanlaweyn District, Lower Shabelle
Somalia
“I don’t believe it.”
Swann and Trudy were in the drone flight command center beneath the Baledogle Airfield. A few seconds ago, they had been watching real-time footage of Air Force One’s approach to Mogadishu International Airport.
Maybe twenty minutes ago, the two of them had convinced the commanders here to send special operators by helicopter to Mogadishu. As it turned out, most of the special operators at this base were actually drone pilot desk jockeys.
There were sixteen combat operators in the whole place. At the moment, they were on their way to Mogadishu aboard four Little Bird choppers. But it was still going to be a little while before they arrived.
On the video screen in front of them, the fuselage of Air Force One appeared to lie in three large pieces in the middle of a street in a densely packed neighborhood. Its wings had broken off and disintegrated. And much of the plane was on fire.
“Air Force One down,” a voice said over the public address system in the command center. There was a long moment of silence.
Swann watched the flames eating the airplane on the video screen. His mind was locked. He couldn’t think of a thing to say or do.
“They’ve crashed,” the voice said. “Air Force One is down in the city.”
Swann stared and stared. Finally, a thought came.
The drones.
“If they’re alive in there,” Swann said, “we need to keep them alive.”
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
11:31 a.m. East Africa Time
(4:31 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time)
The Skies Over Mogadishu
Somalia
“Circle back!” Ed Newsam said. “You have to put me in there.”
He was back at the hatchway door. The pilot hadn’t locked it, and Ed had yanked it open. They were higher than before. Ed checked the fat altimeter on his wrist. 12,345. He had no additional oxygen supply. It was a little harder to breathe at this height.
They were over the ocean, headed north along the beaches.
Ed could see the downtown of the city in the near distance, dark smoke rising where Air Force One had gone down.
He had dropped the zipline harness a while back. But he was still wearing his parachute. Behind him, there was a pile of weapons and gear on the floor. Two MP5s and several loaded magazines for them. A shotgun. A hunting knife. Two canteens of water. A half dozen energy bars.
“No can do,” a voice said in Ed’s helmet. “This area is lousy with anti-aircraft guns. We go back in there, we could end up in the same boat as they did. I don’t even feel good about being out here.”
Ed stifled an urge to threaten the pilot. That would go nowhere.
“The President of the United States is down there.”
“Yes, we’re aware of that.”
“And?”
“Not our mandate. Sorry. We have no orders to—”
“You have no orders because no one knows who the hell you are!”
There was a pause. No reply came from the cockpit. Ed tried to think of something to convince them.
“My buddy is down there.”
“We met him. He’s a big boy, probably can take care of himself.”
Who were these guys?
“My boss’s wife is on that plane.”
“What?”
Ed nodded. “Yeah. She was a guest. Now she’s a hostage.”
Another long paused followed.
“One run,” the voice said. “Right through the heart of the city. When we say jump, you jump. Then we’re out, and we don’t go back in. If we hang around too long, the bad boys will draw a bead on us, and we are carrying thousands of gallons of additional jet fuel. We’re basically a flying bomb up here. We cannot afford to get shot down. Understood?”
“Understood,” Ed said.
Already, he was strapping the guns on and stuffing the extra magazines into his pockets.
“One run,” the voice said again. “If you don’t like what you see, if you miss your window, if you get cold feet for any reason, that’s on you.”
“Got it,” Ed said.
“Banking now. Get ready.”
“I was born ready,” Ed said.
He stuffed the energy bars into the pockets of his cargo pants. He kneeled, pulled up his pant leg, and taped the knife to his calf. The plane banked to the left, nearly throwing him off balance. The engine roar went up several decibels. They were accelerating.
“Here. We. Go.”
Ed looked out the hatch. The whitewashed buildings of the city zoomed past far below him. Up ahead, there was the smoke where the plane went down. Ed thought he could see flames reaching into the air.
Don’t miss your window.
When the time came, there could be no hesitation.
Ed always hesitated, or felt that he did. Maybe every man did. Maybe it just wasn’t visible to others. He went to the open hatch door. There was nothing in front of him but bright open space and wind.
He wasn’t looking down at the city anymore. He wasn’t thinking about the firefight he was bound to encounter on the ground, the violence and the death. He was thinking about leaving the airplane.
“Good luck out there,” the voice said. “Godspeed.”
It was the same thing he said last time.
“Thanks,” Ed said.
He wanted it to be smooth, to happen automatically. But there was always that moment, that split second, when his entire body, his entire being, rebelled against the jump. There was nothing natural about jumping out of an airplane.
“On our go,” the voice said.
“On your go,” Ed echoed.
“Ready…”
Ed took a deep breath.
“Go! Jump! Jump!”
Ed pushed hard with his legs and his arms.
He was out, curled into a ball.
He tumbled away, and the plane was gone in an instant. For several seconds, all of life was a rushing sensation. The world swirled around him, moving terribly fast.
Then the chute opened, and he was jerked back violently.
The city was below. The scene began to take shape. The plane was in pieces, and parts of it were on fire. He passed through a cloud of the dark smoke, obscuring his vision for a few seconds.
People were running through the streets.
Vehicles were moving toward the wreck.
Above his head, jet fighters that had been in Air Force One’s entourage screamed by in a show of force.
And then the shooting started. The sound of it floated up to him like the crackles and pops of distant fireworks.
