“I’ll send you the coordinates of the airport,” Mike said, taking a sip of tea. “Other than that, we’re good. I’ll get back with you if we find out anything on the op.”
“Roger,” the admiral said. “Good luck tonight.”
“Kildar out.”
Mike woke up at the sound of high-performance aircraft engines overhead, opening his eyes in slits. The fighter passed overhead, twice, clearly checking out the really short runway.
Mike got up, wincing at the pain in his joints, and pulled on a bathing suit. Then he checked the time. Three hours’ sleep; that would have to do.
He wandered out the door of his room, then down the hallway, scratching at his belly and yawning. The F/A-18 was headed back around and he walked out the side door to watch it come in.
The bird had every flap up, coming in at a steep angle of attack. It hit, hard, then stood on its brakes. The bird stopped about fifteen feet from the end of the runway but, what the hell, there was a slight coral rise there that would have probably stopped it before it went off the end of the runway. Of course, depending on how fast it was going it could have either bent the nosewheel into a U or jumped it into the ocean.
The jet shut down its engines and one of the Keldara walked up, opening up a step point and clambering up alongside the canopy. He handed over the shot-up GPS, then climbed down. Mission accomplished.
“Let’s hope they get something,” Daria said.
“I think we probably will tonight,” Mike said, stretching out his back. He felt like he’d been beat to crap. “How’s Yosif?”
“Conscious,” Daria said. “Doctors are testing his reflexes and psych profile today. They say that, so far, there are no ‘gross signs of degradation.’ ” She was clearly quoting and said the phrase in English.
“I need to talk to Chatham,” Mike said, walking back towards the lounge. “Any idea where he is?”
“Down by the beach,” Daria said. “Watching your harem have fun.”
“And that’s what it’s all about,” Mike said as jet engines spooled up to max power in the distance.
The F/A-18 pilot had no clue what he was carrying. The thing was in a box. It could have been a snake for all he knew.
But the mission was the shit. There were tankers stacked from here to Langley. His job was to bust ass, top speed, to Washington. “Make a record,” the captain had said.
He piled on the power until the brakes were practically smoking, then released. It wasn’t as good as a catapult launch, but he had more runway. Halfway down the runway he kicked in the afterburner. Keeping it on the ground, he nosed up at the last possible moment and damned near his stall speed. The bird, though, kept gathering speed as the wheels came up, then more as he closed the flaps. When he had enough velocity, he pointed it at the sky.
He was at three thousand feet when the left engine snuffed out. It sent the bird into an immediate flat spin with not damned much altitude.
He powered down on the right engine, fighting the spin, until a glance at the altimeter told him it just didn’t fucking matter. Then he reached over his head, pulled down the grab bar and punched.
Mike looked up at the change in the engine noise and began cursing, luridly.
“Eject, eject, fucking eject!” Chatham said, walking up behind him.
“Fuck the pilot,” Mike snarled. “That’s my god-damned intel going into the sea!”
“Fuck the pilot, huh?” Chatham said angrily.
“Yeah,” Mike replied. “Because the lives of maybe five million people just went…” The pilot ejected and his zero-altitude chair rocketed upwards to high enough for his chute to deploy, safely. But he was limp in the chute. “… into the drink…” he finished as the bird smashed into the water. “FUCK!”
He began sprinting for the dock but Randy was ahead of him, the Cigarette started to pull out and Mike leapt off the dock, landing in a sprawl in the back.
“Go!” he shouted, grabbing the handles of one of the backseats.
Randy hammered the throttles and the Cigarette practically leapt out of the water, then settled down, swinging around to the east as he cleared the breakwater. The water there was shallow, but he’d spotted a deeper cut. Now to find out if it was deep enough.
The propellers scraped across the sand, picking up the rear of the boat, but it kept going, Randy powering back and forth until they were over the bar. The pilot was still in the air as the Cigarette gained power speeding towards his probable point of impact.
The waters to the east were deeper, slightly. The props hit another underwater obstruction and Mike winced.
“Try not to break my boat, okay?” Mike yelled.
“I’m trying,” Randy said. “You ready?” The pilot had come down and his Mae West automatically inflated on impact.
“I’m good,” Mike said as the Cigarette started to slow. “But swing wider on the way back, okay?”
“You’ve got a repair group,” Randy pointed out.
“Yeah, and a doctor,” Mike replied.
The Cigarette came alongside the pilot and Mike snagged him by the back of his harness, pulling him over the side. The guy had a ripped-up leg and a big smacked spot in his helmet. He was breathing, though.
“Go,” Mike said, laying the pilot out on the deck. He’d have put a cervical collar on if he could. But wasn’t much they could do until they made it back to the island.
“The pilot has a concussion,” Dr. Arensky said. “No apparent gross damage to the cervical area but there’s only so much I can do with the X-ray machine I have here. He needs to be evacuated.”
“Kacey,” Mike said. “Load him up and take him to the carrier.”
“Okay,” the pilot said. “I hate to ask this but am I going to get any crew rest at all?”
“Tammy can take the Hind out and drop him off if you’d prefer,” Mike said. “You can do your Dragon thing tonight.”
“The Hind’s going to need some TLC, too,” Kacey said. “But, yeah, Tammy can take him. Valkyrie and all that.”
“Works,” Mikes said. “Go get some rest. I need to go find Chatham.”
“The pilot is unconscious but doesn’t appear to have sustained any critical injuries,” Mike said when he got down to the beach. He flopped in one of the chairs and grimaced. “My op just did, but not the pilot.”
“I’m finally putting two and two together,” Chatham said. “I actually did that when the news mentioned a Hind helicopter.”
“So now you know why that bird going down was so fucking important,” Mike said. “He had a GPS onboard that, while fucked up, might have led us to the source of the VX. He’d have had to use it to find it and even if the track was deleted, you can often get stuff off computers that just… lingers. Unfortunately, my top guy for doing that is in the hospital. I’ve got, I figure, one more shot at getting the intel. The op tonight. And it’s going to be a very slim chance.”
“I’m not sure we’re going to make it on time,” Vil said, shaking his head.
“And only two boats,” Dmitri said. “But we will do the mission, yes?”
“I hope that the Kildar has an idea, because I’m clueless.”
Chapter Twenty
“I am getting tired of this helicopter,” Creata said.
“Be glad you’re not with Vil,” Mike said, shaking his head. “They’ve been going flat out in cigarette boats since yesterday.”
“That would be worse, yes,” Creata admitted. “I think I have the track. It’s a fast mover, not ours, headed for the target freighter.”
“I need a vector,” Kacey said, dropping lower to the waves.