Rapp pulled the pistol from his waistband and slapped it into Coleman’s limp hand. “Quit whining and make yourself useful.”
CHAPTER 19
JOE Maslick was lying on the metal floor of the chopper with his head hanging out the open door. He’d been raised by dirt-poor parents in a trailer park tucked into the mountains of South Carolina. When he graduated from high school, he’d never been out of the state. Never eaten Chinese food. Never seen the ocean, except on his family’s static-ridden TV.
Thinking back on that made him wonder how the hell he’d ended up in Pakistan, staring down at an atomic bomb. That cashier’s job at the local gas station was looking better and better.
“This thing’s swinging really bad,” he said into the mike attached to his headset.
“You want to come up here and fly, asshole?” was the predictable response.
The man at the controls was Fred Mason, a retired navy pilot who now flew search-and-rescue missions out of California. Coleman brought him in when second-best wasn’t an option.
“It’d just be good if it didn’t go into the tail rotor, you know?”
“I didn’t remember you being the nervous type, Mas.”
They climbed out of range of the cops and soldiers below, but Maslick could still make out detail around the warehouse. The front entrance was open and there were at least ten cops and soldiers lined up next to it. Smoke was curling from the bay doors but none of the men appeared to have masks on. The general impression was that no one was in charge. That should play in Rapp’s and Coleman’s favor.
The nuke settled down and he started to use the winch to reel it up. When it got close, the copilot came back to help him wrestle it inside. Even with the two of them, it was a herculean task. In addition to the weight, there wasn’t anywhere to get a good grip. They got it partway in the door a couple of times but it always hung up and fell back onto the cable.
The pilot heard all the swearing and glanced back for a moment. “Watch your asses, boys!”
The left side of the chopper suddenly dipped, slamming Maslick into the back of the door gun and rolling the nuke up onto the skid. Then the floor dipped right, tossing him into the other wall. When the aircraft leveled out again, the weapon was inside and rolling lazily toward a cargo net hanging from a set of eyebolts.
“Asshole!” Maslick said, rubbing the back of his head as the copilot trapped the nuke in the net and began securing it.
An urgent beeping indicating an incoming satellite call echoed through Maslick’s headphones and he cut out the two pilots before picking up. “Go ahead.”
“Give me a sitrep,” Irene Kennedy said in a worried tone.
“We have the nuke on board and we’re heading home, ma’am.”
There was a pause that suggested she wasn’t as happy about that as she should have been. “I’ve lost contact with Mitch.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that, ma’am. We just left him and the situation didn’t look like anything he wouldn’t be able to handle.”
Another long pause. “Scott’s injured and I can’t get through to General Shirani or the local police commander to get them to issue a stand-down order. I need you to go back for them.”
Maslick wasn’t sure how to respond. Rapp had made it clear that he was to get their cargo to safety. And, while Kennedy was technically in charge, he was only mildly afraid of her. Rapp, on the other hand…
“That’s a negative, ma’am. I have my orders.”
“You take orders from me and those orders have changed!”
He was a little startled by the force of her response. In all the years he’d known her, he’d never heard Irene Kennedy raise her voice.
Maslick suffered a rare moment of hesitation. If she was right-and she almost always was-then his team was in trouble. Rapp would never leave Coleman and the Pakistanis would eventually get organized enough to surround that building. The thought of abandoning them was a thousand times worse than the thought of dying with them. On the other hand, he had no idea what Rapp would do if his orders weren’t followed to the letter. It never really happened.
Finally he pressed a button and linked in the pilots again. “Turn us around, Fred. We’re going back.”
“What? Could you repeat that?”
“You heard me.”
“You realize you’re literally sitting on a nuclear bomb, right?”
Maslick looked down. He actually was sitting on it. “Do it, Fred.”
The chopper banked hard and Maslick used his free hand to switch to the frequency monitored by Rapp. “We are inbound to your position. Do you copy?”
The response was barely intelligible due to interference. “That’s a negative. Continue on your previous heading.”
Maslick couldn’t shake the feeling that he was a dead man. The only question was whether it was a lucky shot from a Pakistani or a perfectly placed one from Rapp. “Be advised that we are operating under revised orders and will be over your position in approximately three minutes.”
• • •
Rapp swung his rifle around the machine he’d taken cover behind and scanned through the dissipating smoke. No one had appeared in the open door. Maybe they’d finally realized they didn’t have masks and were waiting for reinforcements. If they were smart-and that was a big if-they’d put men on the surrounding buildings and position teams behind barricades to cover the exits. At that point, they could lob in some more gas or, better yet, just wait him out. With no water and temps pushing a hundred ten, he wouldn’t last much longer than twenty-four hours. And Coleman probably wouldn’t make it another twenty-four minutes.
“We’re in our descent,” came Maslick’s voice over his earpiece.
Rapp’s jaw clenched and he looked down at Coleman. The pistol had slipped from his fingers and he wasn’t moving. His head wound probably looked worse than it was, but the knife sticking out of his side was likely exactly as bad as it looked. Then there was the blood flowing from his shoulder and leg.
“Scott.”
No reaction to his voice at all. It was possible that he was dead but it didn’t matter at this point anyway. They were going out together or not at all.
He switched Maslick’s rifle to full auto and emptied the magazine into a steel pillar near the door. The metal made an impressive racket and would be enough to delay anyone who might have built up the courage to launch an offensive. He tossed the rifle and pulled Coleman onto his shoulder again. Scooping up the pistol that had fallen from his hand, Rapp started for the back of the building at a full run. He was about halfway there when the deafening whine of a chain gun started up outside. Hopefully, it was Maslick shooting and not an incoming Pakistani aircraft.
He came out into the bright sunlight just as Maslick let loose another burst. He was firing into the air over the top of the surrounding buildings, but it was enough. If there had been any soldiers in the alley before his arrival, they’d taken the hint and run like hell.
Despite Coleman’s dead weight, Rapp managed to grab the rope dangling from the chopper and attached it to his harness. He slid Coleman off his shoulder and wrapped his arms around the injured man. Maslick was leaning out the open door and when he saw that Rapp was ready, he motioned for the pilot to start climbing.
They were only about ten feet off the ground when someone started shooting from an alley to the north. Rapp’s pistol was in his waistband and there was no way to get to it. Coleman was slippery with blood and his weight was being multiplied by the chopper’s climb. It was all Rapp could do to not drop him.
“Mas! Get that son of a-”
But the former Delta operator was already ahead of him. The door gun opened up again and the alley entrance disappeared in a cloud of shattered concrete.