“All right, all right. I’m going. I love you, honey. This will all be fine. Y-you’ll see,” Arkady stuttered, moving toward the man.
“What did we do to deserve this?” she whimpered, as they put a dark canvas bag over her husband’s head.
“Trust me. I’m doing you a favor,” he said, walking over and putting his face right in front of hers. “Your husband is a very dangerous man. Very bad for the mother Russia,” he hissed and walked away.
His breath had reeked of tobacco and rotten meat, almost making her gag. She barely registered what he said about her husband. Whatever he had done, she just wanted all of this to go away. When the men finished handcuffing her husband, they pushed him through the kitchen and out the side door. Several seconds later, she heard car doors shut, and her husband was driven away to whatever fate awaited him. She wondered if this had something to do with his job at the university or the faint suspicion she always harbored that he didn’t really work there.
“Take a seat,” one of the remaining men said, gesturing toward the couch with a sawed-off shotgun.
She carefully walked to the couch and sat down, trying desperately to make as little sound as possible.
“How about some television?” the other man asked. “You have satellite?”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea. Can we just sit here quietly, please?” she offered meekly.
“Turn the television on. Don’t you watch shows after the kids go to bed?” he said, pointing a mean-looking pistol at her.
“We usually read books. We have a whole bookcase of them.”
“Fuck that. Turn the television on.”
She gripped the remote and pointed it at the flat-screen television with shaky hands. Her kids listened to shows at high volume, and the television defaulted to one of the all-day children’s channels. Turning the television on could jar them out of their sleep, killing them all. She hesitated.
“Press the button,” he insisted.
She hit the red button, and the television came to life. Her fingers furiously pressed the volume button in an attempt to cut off the sound. The volume started high, but died immediately, emitting a single burst of children’s mayhem.
“Not this shit. How about some pay-per-view? Do you have the porno channels?”
“No. Just the basic lineup,” she said, grateful that they hadn’t upgraded their satellite subscription.
She couldn’t imagine pornography leading to a good outcome. These guys looked and sounded like ruffians. Probably mafiya. She’d try to find something on network television or some of the Western channels. Anything to keep their minds off killing her children for the next eighty minutes.
Chapter 46
Major Daniel “Boogie” Borelli steadied the helicopter thirty feet above his assigned refueling position, aligning Black Magic “Zero One” with ground-based infrared markers visible to night vision equipment. His flight helmet had been fitted with a Heads Up Display (HUD) integrated L-3 GPNVG-18 (Ground Panoramic Night Vision Goggle) system, giving him a ninety-seven degree field of vision, compared to the traditional forty-degree field offered by dual-tube sets. The HUD integrated L-3 represented a breakthrough in helicopter night-flying technology, merging four separate image intensifier tubes into a wider image and superimposing vital flight information directly into the pilot’s field of vision. The system vastly increased his situational awareness outside of the cockpit, which was critical to the dicey approach he currently faced.
FARP “Blacktop” had been situated on a small plateau, concealing the equipment from prying eyes, but exposing them to the violent sweeping winds common across the Kazakhstan steppes. The FARP had been arranged according to the prevailing winds and weather predictions to accommodate landing into the wind. Unfortunately, the winds had not cooperated since they arrived, gusting from the northwest, buffeting them with a nasty crosswind. The three helicopters had plenty of lateral space between them to avoid a collision during one of the wind gusts, but setting this clunky bird down in any crosswind posed a considerable risk.
The designers had traded some of the original airframe’s aerodynamic stability for stealth, which gave these helicopters a certain level of unpredictability during the relatively unorthodox flight maneuvers common to Special Operations missions. They had hovered over the site for five minutes, timing the gusts and gauging their comfort level. There was no room for error here. A disaster at this FARP would leave operators stranded. Even the loss of a single helicopter would seriously jeopardize the team’s chances of exfiltration. He had no idea what the team’s mission might be, but judging from the fact that Washington was willing to send these helicopters anywhere near Russia emphasized the importance of retrieving Blackjack.
A heavy gust swayed the helicopter, breaking his alignment with the IR markers. He fought his urge to overcompensate, instead making dozens of minor adjustments to the cyclic and anti-torque pedals to keep him from drifting horizontally. Once the gust abated and the heavy dust cleared, he repositioned the helicopter over his landing zone and gave his task force the order to land. They should have at least another forty seconds before the next gust.
He eased up on the collective, and the helicopter slowly descended. A member of the Combat Control Team aided the descent by signaling his proximity to the ground. The night vision goggles gave him decent depth perception, and the aircraft’s radar altimeter was spot-on accurate, but adding a third, subjective component reduced the chance of mishap to nearly zero. Boogie felt the landing gear settle and locked his controls into place. He stared through the starboard side window past the copilot to confirm that the other helicopters had landed without obvious incident. Everything looked good, and the Combat Control Team hadn’t reported a problem.
“Welcome to the middle of fucking nowhere. Let’s shut her down,” he said into the helicopter’s intercom.
As the copilot started to shut down the aircraft, he opened the encrypted frequency used to communicate with SOCCOM.
“Control, this is Black Magic. The package arrived intact at Blacktop, over.”
A few seconds passed before the satellite communications system brought the reply.
“This is Control. Copy, Black Magic intact at Blacktop. Radar and electronic surveillance aircraft reports a clean ride. Refuel and stand by to commence run to Holding Area Alpha. Break. Clarified rules of engagement follow. Do not depart Alpha without clearance from Control. Once cleared to depart Alpha, under no circumstances will Black Magic cross the border or engage hostile forces located across the border. If hostile forces cross the border in pursuit of Blackjack or employ weapons to engage Blackjack from across the border, Black Magic will maintain a two-kilometer standoff distance from hostile forces. How copy, over.”
“This is Black Magic actual, copy and understand rules of engagement, over,” Major Borelli said.
“Control, out.”
“What kind of bullshit is that?” asked Captain Graves, his copilot, over the internal circuit.
Before he could answer, his crew chief, Sergeant First Class Papovich, chimed in over the system. “Cover-your-ass bullshit. That’s what.”
“D.C. does not want to lose one of these helicopters on Russian soil,” the major said.
“I get that,” Sergeant First Class Papovich said, “but the two-kilometer standoff crap is pure political horseshit. If the Ruskies are in hot pursuit, they’ll never open the distance to two kilometers. I wonder if Blackjack is aware of this.”