"What I'm thinking:" Castillo said and stopped when he saw the look on McNab's face.
"Go on, Charley," McNab said. "Let's see how much you remember of all that you learned with me as your all-wise mentor."
"What I was thinking, sir, is that I don't think the other two are pilots. Which means if we can take out the two pilots, the airplane couldn't be flown."
"And how do we get the pilots-or any of these people-to obligingly line themselves up for the attention of Sergeants Orson and Stedder?"
"A diversion," Castillo began, thoughtfully.
Chapter XIX
[ONE]
Tomas Guardia International Airport
Liberia, Costa Rica
1415 10 June 2005
Major C. G. Castillo, now wearing a black flight suit with subdued insignia that included the wings of a master Army aviator and identified him as CWO-5 B.D. SHINE, lay beside a small concrete-block building hoping he was further concealed by a fifty-five-gallon drum full of aromatic waste. His face was streaked with brown, black, and green grease. He had binoculars to his eyes and wore a headset, putting a small receiver in his right ear and a microphone at his lips. A CAR-4 lay on the ground beside him.
Immediately to his left, the other side of the reeking garbage drum, was Sergeant First Class Paul T. Orson, who was armed with a dull black bolt-action rifle based on the Remington Model 700. 308 Winchester caliber hunting rifle. About the only things that hadn't been changed were the caliber-known in the Army as "7.62x55mm NATO"-and the action. It now had a carefully chosen and tested barrel and, in place of glossy walnut, a matt black stock made up of fiberglass, Kevlar, and graphite. A dull black 10x42 Leupold Ultra optical sight was mounted on top.
Immediately behind them-literally, behind the garbage drum-and also armed with a CAR-4, was Colonel Jake Torine, USAF, now wearing a black flight suit whose subdued insignia identified him as CWO-3 P.J. LEFKOWITZ, a senior Army aviator.
A good deal was about to happen-Sergeant Orson thought of this as all hell was about to break loose -but there was no indication of this on the tarmac in front of them.
Another open-bodied Ford one-and-a-half-ton truck was pulled up close to the 727. A man on the truck handed down, four at a time, long, thin cardboard boxes to two men on the ground. They carried the boxes to the movable stairs rolled up to the front door and to the lowered rear stairway of the airplane. There they were passed to men wearing short-sleeved white shirts with captain's and first officer's shoulder boards and quickly carried up the stairs into the airplane.
Castillo had recognized the face of one of the aircrew as the guy had run up and down the stairs. He had seen his photographs in Philadelphia. He had not seen the second Philadelphia mullah nor had he recognized the two men who had also carried flowers into the aircraft up the rear stairs. But they had intelligent faces and he wondered if he had been wrong, that everybody was a pilot.
How the hell can you calmly load an airplane – with flowers, for Christ's sake – knowing you're going to die in it?
"Five: four: three: two: one," General McNab's voice said in Castillo's earpiece. "Showtime!"
"Heads up," Castillo said softly and, a moment later, realized it was entirely unnecessary. Sergeant Orson had his eye to the Leupold scope and the rifle was trained on the rear stairs of the 727.
The first thing to disturb the peace and tranquillity of Tomas Guardia International Airport was that of artillery simulators detonated near a small concrete-block building, painted in a red-and-white-checkerboard pattern, to one side of the runway. The simulators were intended to sound exactly like that of a 105mm howitzer shell coming through the air and detonating on contact. And they did.
At precisely that moment, two Little Birds popped up past the end of the runway where Castillo, Sherman, and Torine had fallen down the hill. Rocket fire exploded from the left Little Bird and a stream of 40mm grenades from the other. The rockets struck a fuel truck parked out of line of sight of the 727, causing an immediate explosion, and the grenades exploded in a line parallel to, and a few feet the other side of, the runway.
The face of the man near the bottom of the rear stairway was familiar to Castillo through his binoculars.
"Take him," he ordered.
There was an immediate crack as the sniper rifle fired.
There was no question in Castillo's mind that Orson would hit his target.
I have just killed that guy as surely as if I had pulled the trigger myself.
This philosophical observation was immediately challenged when the man in his binocular view, though obviously disturbed and surprised by what was happening-he was now looking up the stairs-was obviously still very much alive.
I'll be a sonofabitch, he missed!
Castillo looked over at Sergeant Orson just as the rifle fired again.
Castillo hastily put the binoculars to his eyes again.
The man on the rear stairway was now sliding, facedown, down the stairs.
"There was another one, farther up on the stairs," Sergeant Orson said. "I figured I'd take him first."
Four unarmed Little Birds now suddenly appeared, from four different directions, and rapidly approached the 727. There were six Gray Fox soldiers on the outside platforms of each, all dressed in black outfits topped with black balaclavas.
The Little Birds had made a "fly the needles" approach to the 727. Their onboard computer directed navigation systems, knowing within six feet both their position and that of the 727, had provided the pilots with indicators-"the needles"-on the control panel. So long as the pilots kept the needles where they were supposed be-increasing or decreasing airspeed, changing direction or altitude caused the needles to move-all four of the Little Birds were able to arrive, from four different directions, at a little better than seventy-five miles per hour, within seconds of one another.
The Gray Fox soldiers dropped nimbly from the benches before the skids of the Little Birds actually touched down. Some of them fired close to-not at-the security personnel, which caused the defending force to immediately raise their hands, fall to their knees, or both.
One special operator dashed to the flower truck, somewhat rudely removed the driver from behind the wheel, got behind the wheel, started the truck, drove toward the Central American Aerial Freight Forwarding building, and then jumped out, leaving the truck on a collision course with a Peugeot sedan parked in front of the building, which, in fact, occurred some thirty seconds later.
During those thirty seconds:
Two four-man teams of Gray Fox men rushed to the forward stairs. One man ran halfway up the stairs, from where he threw a Whiz Bang grenade through the open door. A Whiz Bang goes off with a great deal of noise and a blinding flash but does not produce shrapnel. Those in close proximity to a detonated Whiz Bang, however, usually have trouble hearing and seeing and generally appear confused.
As soon as the Whiz Bang went off, the man who had thrown it rushed the rest of the way up the stairs, closely followed by the three other members of what General McNab had dubbed the "Front Door Team." To get into the aircraft, it was necessary for the Front Door Team to step over the bodies of two men on the stairs.
Fifteen seconds after they entered the fuselage, two of the Gray Fox men came back out the door, went to the fallen men, and unceremoniously dragged them into the airplane.
As soon as they had cleared the door, the "Moving Stairs Team" of four Gray Fox soldiers started to push the stairs away from the aircraft.
Meanwhile, four Gray Fox soldiers-the "Tug and Chocks Team"-had approached the tug. One of them climbed aboard while the other three detached the tug's link to the front wheel of the aircraft and removed the wooden blocks from the aircraft's wheels. As soon as that was done, the tug started to move off. The Gray Fox driver set it on a collision course with the Peugeot and jumped off.