Shadow zero, p.19
SHADOW ZERO, page 19
Maya’s heart sank. In a vehicle, they could easily have covered those five miles during the time the three of them had already spent here. “Then they’re probably in the air already,” she said, hiding her disappointment. “Tell Todd someone needs to bring that plane down. It’s very visible, but I don’t think we have a choice anymore.”
“Actually, they’re not in the air. The vehicle has to take a winding route to the airfield. They’re traveling twenty-eight miles. According to my satellite data, they’ve managed four of those miles so far. I’m thinking it’ll take them another forty-five minutes to get to their plane if they don’t care about beating their truck to hell on the way. If you guys move, you can beat them.”
Maya nodded. “Thank you. We’re on our way.”
“Perfect. Todd has an extraction team on the way. They’ll be about fifteen minutes behind the North Koreans. If you can’t stop them, at least try to hold them off until Bolton and his team gets there.”
“Bolton’s coming?” She grimaced. “Have Todd warn him against using too many explosives.”
Alan chuckled. “Already did. I’m told that’s not something he can promise.”
Maya sighed. “Good enough. I’ll talk to you soon.”
Zero held his hand out for the radio. Maya ignored him and put it in her pocket. “Grab weapons,” she commanded the other two. “Then follow me. We have forty-five minutes to get to the Kenyan border over crap terrain.” She looked her dad in the eye. “I hope you’ve kept in shape, because I’m not going to wait if you fall behind.”
She hated it, but a small part of her was happy to hear the edge in his voice when he replied, “I won’t fall behind.”
She grabbed a rifle and two spare magazines from the North Koreans. The rifle was an AK-12M1, the latest generation of the Kalashnikov rifle family that began with the storied AK-47. The rifle was chambered in 5.45x39mm, a round that was roughly equivalent to 5.56x45mm NATO. A little less powerful, but that was splitting hairs.
Zero and Trent followed suit, and Zero also grabbed a helmet so he could use the night vision goggles attached to it. Maya’s cheeks burned as she realized she should have had that idea herself, but she swallowed her pride and took another helmet without a word to her father.
She started up the slope, bounding through the foliage like a lemur. Her anger and adrenaline pushed her forward in spite of the pain still radiating through her body. Trent cursed under his breath as he started after her.
They reached the top of the slope in three minutes. Once on level ground, Maya broke into a run, heading due north. She realized she hadn’t asked Alan for the coordinates of the airfield, so she pulled the radio out. “Alan, can you see us?”
“I’ve got you,” he replied. “You’re going the right way. The airfield is due north of your position.” He paused a second, then said, “Go easy on your dad, huh? He was just doing what he thought was best.”
Maya gritted her teeth. “Not the time, Alan.”
“Yeah, right. Sorry. Keep going. I’ll call if anything changes.”
She dropped the radio in her pocket and looked behind to make sure the two men were keeping up. She felt a perverse satisfaction when she saw Zero in the rear, five yards behind Trent. He was breathing steadily but heavier than she was.
He lifted his head, saw her looking, smiled, and gave her a thumbs up. When he did that, he looked exactly like her father, not Zero or Kent Steele but Reid Lawson, the man who had bandaged her scraped knees and read her bedtime stories.
A lump formed in her throat, and she turned her eyes ahead. She wasn’t sure yet if she was glad he was back or if she wished he really was dead, but she’d figure that out later.
They had a nuclear war to stop.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
Zero's lungs burned within ten minutes of leaving the compound. His brief moment of heroism where his old skill came through had lost most of his endurance, and he was now running on fumes.
So much for thinking I was in shape, he thought ruefully.
He kept up with Maya and Trent, though. Even when the terrain grew rough, and they spent half of their time sliding downhill and the other half scrambling over rocks and pulling themselves up loose dirt slopes by roots and branches, he stayed close to them.
He was man enough to admit that part of the reason he pushed through his exhaustion was just to prove to Maya that he could. He hadn’t expected a warm welcome, really, but he hadn’t expected the level of hate he received from her, especially after saving her life.
Trent hadn’t reacted much differently, now that he thought back. Come to think of it, Alan hadn’t reacted much differently either. So far, everyone who had learned of Zero’s return had seemed more angry to see him than happy to see him. Well, Alan hadn’t actually seen him, but the point still stood.
Well, you already said you didn’t expect a hero’s welcome.
The voice that rebuked Zero was Reid Lawson’s, but Zero couldn’t use split personalities as some kind of excuse. Reid Lawson was Zero was Kent Steele. He couldn’t blame the actions of one on the thought processes of another.
As he pistoned his legs, churning dirt on his way up a slope that didn’t have roots to hold onto, he wondered how the rest of his family would react. Todd would probably be just as pissed as Alan but probably let go of his anger quickly enough. More than any of them, he knew about making serious sacrifices to do the right thing. Penny would probably be the only one not angry with him. In his short time knowing that woman, she had proven excellent at allowing bygones to be bygones. Well, except for a brief spat with Todd, but that was different.
But Mischa and Sara? How would they feel when the father they thought had died two years ago appeared out of nowhere? Was it even fair of him to go back and put them through this?
Stop that. We went over this. You’re going back. People will be upset with you. Grow a pair and deal with it.
Zero frowned. That argument was unassailable, which took away any chance he had of finding some way to justify his feelings.
Fortunately, he didn’t have to dwell on that for very long because they burst through the trees a moment later and came into view of the airfield.
“Damn it!” Maya exclaimed. “They’re already boarding the plane!”
Zero looked across the grassy field ahead of them at the airfield. The hangar and control tower were cracked and crumbling, and the tarmac looked to be in similarly poor condition, but the runway was remarkably smooth and looked recently paved. He guessed that the Waswahili Liberation Front used the runway to receive shipments from the Triads and send them north to Europe.
At least they used to. With their leader dead and the others scattered, Zero suspected that the Waswahili Liberation Front was no more.
Of more immediate concern was the airplane Maya had pointed out. It was an enormous Antonov An-22 transport, the largest turboprop plane in the world. Its four massive engines with contra-rotating props were already turning. Two men were dragging a hose away from the wing, presumably having just filled the fuel tanks. The vehicle the two surviving North Koreans had used to escape the Liberation Front compound—a truck that looked like a clone of a Chinese BAIC four-wheel-drive SUV—was driving up the ramp of the transport. The men on the ground looked at the approaching Americans, tossed the fuel line on the ground and ran for the airplane.
Kent Steele’s knowledge took over. He sprinted toward the airplane. “Maya! go to the end of the runway and cover for me! Shoot the airplane’s tires if it starts picking up speed. Trent, get to that fuel line and prepare to set it on fire on my command!”
“No!” Maya grabbed his wrist. “Zero… Dad… You need to let me do this.”
He frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re the least physically fit out of the three of us right now. You’ve been out of practice for two years. You’re already nearly out of energy; I can see it. You go to the runway and cover me. I’ll board the plane.”
Zero looked pensively at the runway. Maya had a point, but he couldn’t put her in danger again. He couldn’t watch her die so soon after finding her.
“Dad.”
He looked back down at her, at the hazel eyes she’d gotten from him.
“I’ll be okay,” she said. “I can do this.”
Zero swallowed. Then he nodded. “Okay.”
She gave him a brief smile, then rushed toward the airplane’s cargo door, just starting to close as the airplane turned ponderously toward the runway.
Zero sprinted toward the front of the runway, willing himself to reach it before his lungs gave out.
God, I feel so old.
Reid Lawson replied immediately. Feel old later. You just put your daughter in danger. If you can’t handle the hard part, then make damned sure you can handle your part.
He checked his magazines as he ran. The two spare box magazines each held thirty rounds, and the one currently in his rifle held twenty-seven. The previous owner of this gun had only fired one burst before Zero killed hm.
That should be enough for what Zero planned to do, but what he planned to do hinged on Maya being able to retrieve the core and get out of the airplane, preferably before it was too far down the runway.
He nodded and when he reached the end of the runway, he slid down the grass embankment, aimed his rifle at his target, took a deep breath and waited.
It’s up to you now, Agent Specter.
***
Maya was far more worn out than she let on after the past three days and the five-mile sprint through the jungle. To make matters worse, she was beginning to feel thirsty again. She knew that she was far from seriously dehydrated the way she was the day before, but it was just one more straw on top of all of the other crap she had to work through.
Suck it up, Agent. Don’t let Zero see you falter.
She wasn't sure what it said about her that a large part of her motivation to succeed right now was just a spiteful desire to prove that she was better than her father. Probably, it said that the two of them had a lot of things to work through, and they would have to spend some quality time doing just that when they got home.
But that was for later. The cargo door at the rear of the airplane was closing, and she needed to be inside the plane before that happened.
She pushed herself to her limit, running faster than she ever had in her life. She had won several West Point competitions when she was in school, but she wasn’t beaten, dehydrated, starved, thrown off a ravine, then beaten again prior to those competitions.
Enough focus on the negative. Focus on the positive.
She jumped, and when her leap carried her not to the lip of the door but straight through it, her confidence soared. You see that, Dad? I’m a freaking Jedi.
Her celebration ended when a North Korean soldier stepped forward and swung a knife toward her throat with a backhand blow. She slipped outside the blow, wrapped her arm around the man’s chest in a seatbelt grip and threw him over her hip. As she did, she brought her rifle up and shot a second man who tried to throw his knife at her. The knife went wide, clattering against the wall.
She shot the man below her before he could recover, then moved deeper into the cavernous hold. Two men popped up from behind the truck and threw knives at her head, but she dropped low and fired at them. They ducked, and her bullets poked holes through the aircraft’s ceiling instead.
One of the men cried out, “Ani, meongcheonghan nyeon-a! No, you dumb bitch!”
It occurred to her that the reason her attackers were using knives was because they didn’t want to punch holes in the aircraft that could affect the hull’s pressurization and force them to fly at a lower altitude. Airplanes had less range at lower altitudes. She didn’t know what the range of this behemoth was, but North Korea was a long way away.
She took that idea and ran with it, aiming her rifle at the ceiling and firing repeated bursts. Sunlight streamed through the openings like Swiss cheese.
“Andwae! Geumanhae! No, don’t! Stop it!”
The owner of that voice rushed toward her. She switched her empty magazine out for a new one. He reached her before she could shoot him, so she flicked the butt of the rifle at his nose instead. It bursts in a shower of blood and snot, and he staggered backwards.
She spun her rifle around and shot him, then aimed at the other man, who was fleeing toward the cockpit.
She didn't pull the trigger, though. Her instincts told her to wait and follow instead.
She did, and a moment later, her instincts paid off. The man pounded on the door of the cockpit. He turned around and saw her, cursed and spun toward her, drawing his handgun. The cockpit door opened just as she fired.
The man who opened the cockpit cursed and tried to close the door, but the dead man fell into it, pushing it open. He kicked the body out of the way, but Maya was on him by then. She fired, but he moved like a blur, pushing the barrel away. Her burst spiderwebbed the windshield instead.
The pilot flinched, turned toward her, cursed, and pushed the throttles forward. The airplane started to accelerate.
Maya couldn’t let the airplane take off. When her father told Trent to prepare to light the fuel, Maya deduced his plan right away. She would retrieve the data core and leave the plane. Then Trent would set the fuel on fire, and the three of them would get as far away as they could before the underground tanks ignited and blew up the entire airfield.
That probably wasn’t that far, but it would make sure that the North Koreans didn’t make it home to tell their superiors about the American agents who tore apart their whole operation. It was a good plan, a great one even. That both irritated Maya and filled her with pride.
Whatever her feelings, though, she needed to stop the plane taking off. The first officer still had hold of her rifle, so she released it and ran into the cockpit. She raked her fingernails across the first officer’s eye as she passed him. He cried out, but she didn’t look to see how much she’d debilitated him.
She grabbed the throttles with both hands and pulled them backwards, straining to overpower the pilot. The pilot cursed and turned around, holding a handgun. She threw herself to the side, and the bullet meant for her struck the first officer instead.
The pilot’s eyes popped open as his companion fell to his knees, eyes fluttering, blood spurting from his neck. Maya took advantage of his distraction, lunging forward and throwing a hard left hook behind his ear. His head smashed against the window, and he twisted the yoke.
On the ground and moving slowly, the aircraft couldn’t bank, but it did shudder violently, slowing it further. She pulled the throttles to idle and looked around for the core.
It wasn’t in the cockpit. Duh. It was probably still in the vehicle.
She ran back into the cabin. The truck’s doors were locked, so Maya shielded her face and slammed her elbow into the window, shattering the glass. She opened the door and looked in the cabin of the truck for the core. It wasn’t there, but there was no bulkhead between the cabin and the passenger compartment of the truck, so she climbed over the driver’s seat and into the compartment.
The core was strapped to one of the benches. She breathed a sigh of relief and hefted it, then turned toward the front of the cabin.
The plane lurched forward, causing her to fall backward. The pilot must have woken up.
Sher cursed and got to her feet, leaving the core in the truck. She would need to finish the job first, then come back for the core.
She jumped out of the truck and stopped. The pilot stood in the doorway, snarling and holding her rifle.
Maya, you idiot! You left your damned gun!
She couldn’t spend any more time scolding herself, though. The pilot fired, and she leaped out of the way just before the rifle burst took her head off. It punched more holes in the plane’s hull, but considering the pilot was accelerating and not pulling up on the wheel to lift the plane into the sky, she guessed he didn’t care about that anymore.
The pilot blinked and looked forward with alarm. So he did care about it, he just forgot to think about it for a moment.
Maya took advantage of her opponent’s distraction once more, sprinting to the front of the plane. She made it nearly to the pilot when the plane lurched. A shrieking sound came from outside, and Maya stumbled forward into the pilot, knocking him sprawling into the dash.
She grabbed the throttles and pulled them back to idle. The pilot cursed and tried to aim the rifle at her, but she threw her weight into him and wrestled him back against the dash.
Through the window, she caught a glimpse of her father at the end of the runway, firing his rifle at the airplane. She realized the reason for the lurch now. Zero had shot the nosewheel out.
The plane lurched again and veered toward the left as he shot one of the port side main gears out. That slowed the plane but caused Maya to lose her leverage. The pilot shoved her off of him, and she fell over the pilot’s seat.
He tried to aim at her again, but she kicked him hard, shoving him back over the first officer’s seat. She got to her feet, and the plane lurched once more, this time to starboard.
She fell on top of the North Korean terrorist, sprawling into his arms like a lover. She felt a flash of irritation at having her attack foiled once again. Dad, I love you, but this is too much of a good thing.
The shrieking from outside became a roar as more and more tires exploded. The terrorist shoved Maya off of her, but Maya was able to tear the rifle from his grasp. He got to his feet, and Maya slammed the butt of the rifle into his face. She felt his orbital bone crunch and hit him again before he could react. He released a hoarse, wet scream, and she hit him again, then again, then again.
Finally, she backed away, breathing hard. The terrorist’s face was caved in on the right side. Maya turned away, her stomach lurching. The image of the brutal killing she’d just committed fought to remain at the forefront of her mind, but she shut it out and forced herself to focus on the task at hand.
