WHOOSH! Balla fired his RPV in full gallop. It smashed into the rear of the nearest DPV, blasting it into a cloud of fiery metal. Pearce cheered along with the others riding beside him. But their joy was premature. The final DPV’s launcher erupted, still chasing the other Algerians. Dozens of grenades exploded beneath the feet of the fleeing camels, breaking them open, spilling their intestines, snapping their legs in half. The last Algerian Tuaregs and their animals died screaming in the reddening sand.
And then the DPV wheeled around, guns blazing.
Pearce felt the 7.62mm slugs pounding into his camel’s chest and the great beast lunging downward. Pearce jerked as hard as he could out of the saddle to leap clear, but the fifteen-hundred-pound animal collapsed, landing on top of Pearce’s leg. Searing pain jolted though his knee and up his thigh.
Instinctively, he knew it wasn’t broken. The soft sand had saved him. So had the dead camel as more rounds pummeled into its corpse, now shielding Pearce from the DPV. Pearce glanced up just in time to watch Moctar and Balla charge.
Moctar’s belly crimsoned and his upper body fell away. The lower half stayed in the saddle, hot blood geysering onto his galloping camel.
Balla shouted and fired his weapon, but he aimed too high and missed. Bullets pounded his chest like angry fists and threw him to the ground.
Mossa charged madly at the DPV, flinging his AK aside and raising his takouba high in the air. The faceless gunner turned his gun but held his fire—waiting until Mossa had closed within inches. The gun erupted. Mossa’s upper body disintegrated in a hail of fragmenting grenades. The DPV gunned its engine and sped away toward the north.
Pearce leveraged his free foot against the saddle and pulled on his pinned thigh with his hands. His luck held. His leg was trapped beneath the dead camel’s shoulder, near the neck. Otherwise, he might have been trapped for good. A few moments later, he worked his injured leg free. It was sore like a bad sprain, but he tested it and it was still mostly functional. He suddenly realized Judy was screaming in his earpiece.
“Troy! Troy!”
“Judy?”
“Thank God! You’re alive!”
“Apparently.”
“Where are you? Are you okay?”
“I’m south-southeast of the airstrip, about two hundred meters, about even with the hangar.” Pearce limped over to Mossa’s camel. It knelt down next to its master’s corpse like a grieving dog.
“Yes, I see you now. I’m coming in.”
“No! It’s too dangerous. There’s a fast-attack vehicle down here.”
“I see it. It’s heading north, about three hundred meters north of you. Plenty of room.”
“Don’t argue with me, damn it. I said wave off.”
“Sorry, Troy, but she’s following my orders,” Myers said. “Hope your bags are packed. How soon can you be at the hangar?”
“Two minutes.”
“We’ll be there.”
Pearce approached Mossa’s camel. It opened its huge mouth and growled.
“Shut up and ride!” Pearce threw his good leg over the beast and it complied, rising up quickly. Pearce grunted “Het-het” and got the camel galloping back toward the hangar.
The bullet-wrecked DPV flew over the crest of the dune and slid to a halt on the far side about a kilometer north of Guo’s position, out of sight of the hangar as per Guo’s instructions. Guo remained in his sniper hide beneath the reflective cover, waiting for the Americans to clear the area. He didn’t want to give Pearce the satisfaction of a last-minute Hellfire missile strike with victory in his hand. Guo had killed Mossa, so his primary objective was achieved. Capturing Pearce was only a desired outcome, not a mission priority.
There was one more mission objective to be achieved. There were several options to achieve it. With Zhao’s permission, he’d initiate the most necessary one.
Judy surveyed the wreckage in her windscreen. She was still five hundred feet off the deck. Three smoldering DPVs were to her right, and the smashed Hummingbird airframe blocked the end of the runway. Judy would have to get up a good head of steam if she hoped to clear that wreck on takeoff. The Aviocar needed four hundred meters of runway to get airborne. That would be cutting it darn close, but that was the least of her worries at the moment.
“There he is,” Myers said, pointing to the east. Pearce was up ahead, a hundred yards from the tarmac, galloping toward the hangar, his head still wrapped in the indigo tagelmust. Myers called in her headset. “We see you, Troy.”
His voice crackled back. “Last one to the hangar buys the beer.”
“He looks friggin’ cool. I want one of those,” Kavanagh said.
“The camel or the turban, Colonel?” Myers asked.
“Both.”
Judy set the Aviocar down smooth as silk on the cracked runway but couldn’t avoid the debris scattered on the tarmac from the smashed Hummingbird. The Aviocar’s heavy rubber wheels threw chunks of metal against the fuselage. She prayed the wheels hadn’t been punctured or the airframe damaged. She’d have to check before they tried to take off again.
“Nice landing,” Kavanagh said into the headphone mic, grinning behind his aviators. “Your dad would be proud.”
“If our luck doesn’t hold, you might be meeting him sooner than you think.”
She taxied past the burning wreckage of the two DPVs taken out by Ian’s Reaper. Judy ordered Kavanagh to feather down the engines while she braked the plane, parking in front of the hangar, leaving the two motors running at low RPMs.
Judy waved at Mann crouching in the shade of the hangar. He smiled and waved back, his other arm draped protectively over the Italian woman Pearce had described earlier as his wife. She looked like she’d been through hell and back after six days of desert travel and the nightmare that had just transpired here, but she still looked gorgeous. It wasn’t fair, Judy thought.
The Red One team sensor operator called in. “Colonel, you’ve got company heading your way.” He was patched into everyone’s headset. Kavanagh had ordered the second Reaper at Karem AFB into the air and both teams on duty. If he was going to go out in a blaze of glory, he wanted all hands on deck to witness the folly.
“What is it?”
“Three bogies coming in hot and low on the deck—about ten meters.”
“Fighters?”
“Cruise missiles.”
“ETA?”
“Three minutes, tops.”
“You heard it, people,” Kavanagh said. “Let’s get this train loaded and rolling.”
“Troy? Did you catch that?” Myers asked.
“Yeah.” He was breathless in the headphones.
Wolfit pushed the cargo door open and jumped out, M4 at the ready, just as Pearce’s camel thundered past the plane’s rudder.
Myers, Kavanagh, and Judy scrambled out after Wolfit. Everybody ran for the hangar except Judy, who ducked beneath the plane to check for damage.
Pearce halted the camel at the hangar entrance and slipped off before the camel had a chance to kneel. He slapped its flank and it bellowed in protest, then trotted into the hangar where the two remaining camels knelt.
Cella ran up and threw her arms around Pearce’s neck. Myers ran up, too, with Wolfit and Kavanagh at her side.
“Troy, we’ve got to go,” Myers said.
“Mossa?” Cella asked. “The others?”
Pearce shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
Cella swore bitterly.
“You’re coming with us,” Pearce ordered.
Cella glared at him, then softened, nodding yes.
“Good.” He turned to Myers. “Take her, please.”
“What about you?”