They finally cleared the tops of the buildings and started streaking east. Above, Maslick was rigging the winch to pull them up and Rapp tightened his grip on Coleman despite the fact that the muscles in his forearms felt like they were on fire. The SEAL slipped and Rapp barely managed to loop a leg around him in time to keep him from dropping four hundred feet to the street below.
By the time they made it to the chopper door, Rapp had been forced to grab Coleman’s shirt in his teeth to make up for the fatigue in his arms. The metallic taste of blood was yet another reminder of his friend’s condition.
“I’ve got him!”
Maslick’s powerful arms appeared and dragged Coleman’s limp body upward. When he was safe, Rapp grabbed the skids and pulled himself inside, rolling across the floor as the aircraft’s nose tilted forward and Fred Mason pushed the chopper to its limit.
CHAPTER 20
CIA AIRFIELD
CENTRAL PAKISTAN
RAPP leaned over the chopper pilot’s shoulder and pointed at a C-17 Globemaster transport plane below. It was parked at the end of a line of buildings containing the Reaper drones the CIA used against terrorist cells operating in the region. “Put us down there!”
The skids touched down about twenty yards from the Globemaster’s open rear cargo door. The sun had dipped below the horizon and the lights inside the plane silhouetted a group of soldiers pushing a gurney in their direction. Inside the plane, Rapp could see rows of bunks and walls lined with state-of-the-art medical equipment. For all intents and purposes, the plane was a flying hospital-manned by multiple medical teams and equipped to handle everything from basic triage to severe burns.
With so many unknowns relating to the Pakistan operation, Kennedy had kept the Globemaster close in case things went south. Rapp didn’t like to plan for failure, but Kennedy was obsessed with covering every angle. In this case-as in so many before-she’d made the right call. Coleman could be stabilized on their way to the U.S. military hospital in Germany.
Rapp jumped out of the open door as Joe Maslick and the copilot began sliding the stretcher containing Scott Coleman toward him.
They’d managed to stop the visible bleeding, but there was no question that he had internal injuries beyond their ability to deal with. The former SEAL’s skin had gone pale, creating a stark contrast to the blood spattered all over it. He’d still been alive when they’d checked ten minutes ago, but it was impossible to tell just by looking at him if that was still the case.
He didn’t move at all as Rapp took one end of the stretcher and started siding it out of the aircraft. Shouts became audible from behind and a moment later he was enveloped by one of the C-17’s medical teams. A moment later they had Coleman on a two-wheeled gurney and were rushing him back to the plane. A nurse in desert camo was straddling him, pulling off his bandages and checking for a carotid pulse. Another was running alongside, cutting through Coleman’s pants leg with a pair of scissors.
One of the corpsmen lagged and Rapp grabbed him by the back of the collar, jerking him to a stop.
“We need one more gurney.”
“Sir?” the kid said, eyes widening. “We were told one injured man.”
He had the look of a new recruit. Smart and well trained, but not yet certain of his role in this shit storm.
“Just get me the gurney,” Rapp said.
“We have another team. I’ll-”
“Stop talking and listen to me. Don’t get another team. Don’t ask for help or tell anyone what you’re doing. Just get me the fucking gurney. Is that clear?”
The man was understandably scared and confused, but nodded.
“You have one minute.”
When he started to run, Rapp pushed himself back into the chopper and pointed to the nuke. “Let’s get it out of here.”
It took some wrestling, but they managed to drag the warhead to the doors just as the corpsman reappeared. He took a hesitant step backward when he saw his new patient and then another when they rolled it into a position where the radiation hazard symbol was visible.
“Sir? We’re authorized to pick up three men. One injured. No one told me anything about…” His voice faded for a moment. “About anything else.”
“I’m telling you about it now,” Rapp said, pushing the gurney to the edge of the chopper’s door. Maslick and the copilot put their shoulders to the warhead and gave it one last shove. The gurney’s tires bulged when the weapon landed, but everything held together. Rapp threw a blanket over it before pointing at Maslick and then to the Globemaster. The former Delta operator jumped out and helped the corpsman push the warhead toward the open cargo hold.
Rapp slapped an open palm loudly against the side of the chopper and leaned inside. “Get out of here, Fred. And like always, forget any of this ever happened.”
“That’ll be a pleasure,” the pilot said, flipping a few switches above him. “Tell Scott we’re pulling for him.”
Rapp jogged toward the plane as the dust kicked up and the helicopter started rising into a darkening sky. The C-17’s four jet engines were already spooling and the cargo bay door was on its way up. Rapp grabbed its edge and flipped himself onto it, rolling to his feet inside.
He ignored Maslick and the corpsman trying to strap the nuke into a bunk and walked forward. There was a dividing wall near the front and he skirted around it before stopping at its edge. Coleman had five people working on him. IVs and oxygen were in place and his clothes were gone. Bloody rags that had been used to clean him up enough to search for hidden wounds were piled on the floor.
Rapp wasn’t sure how long he watched. How long he listened to the voices go from commanding to desperate and back again. The details of what they were doing, the meaning of what they were saying, was lost on him.
A scalpel flashed in the overhead lights and Rapp saw it slide between Coleman’s ribs. He just lay there like a piece of meat.
“Mitch?”
Rapp ignored the voice behind him and continued to watch the medical team work on his friend.
“Mitch? Dr. Kennedy is on the phone for you.”
Rapp turned slowly toward Maslick, who was sheepishly holding out a satphone.
Instead of taking it, he grabbed the man by the throat and drove him back into the fuselage. “I told you to get that nuke out of there! Were my orders not clear or are you just too stupid to understand them?”
“I’m sorry,” Maslick managed to get out past the pressure on his windpipe. “Dr. Kennedy overrode you. She sent us back.”
Rapp could hear her tinny voice shouting unintelligibly from the phone lying at his feet. The plane started to taxi and he finally released Maslick, shoving him toward the back of the plane. The former soldier retreated unsteadily as Rapp scooped up the handset.
“Mitch!” Kennedy said. “Are you there? Mitch!”
“I’m here.”
“Joe went back on my express orders. He tried to talk me out of it.”
“Not smart, Irene. The cops were moving in and we had no idea what their capabilities were. They could have taken down Fred’s bird.”
“There was no other option. I contacted President Chutani but he said there was nothing he could do to pull them back. General Shirani wouldn’t even take my call.”
“Then you should have left us.”
“I guarantee you that Shirani was going to force a fight. Video of you gunning down a bunch of soldiers before getting taken out by an RPG is just what he needs to stoke Pakistan’s anti-American elements. It might have been enough to turn the tide against the civilian government.”
She was probably right, Rapp knew. Her grasp of the intricate power struggles from Washington to Beijing to Islamabad was second to none. The nuke was safe, he was alive, and Coleman was in the hands of the best combat trauma people in the world. It didn’t help, though. His anger just kept building.