“I’m here.”
“What if I have Fred drop me off and then redirect to Scout Four’s target? Could he make it in time?”
“Let me check.”
Rapp waited, noting that turbulence was increasing again.
“Marcus? What the hell are you doing? I asked a simple question.”
“Stop yelling at me, Mitch. You know it makes me nervous. We’re trying to factor wind speed and direction into Fred’s travel time.”
Dumond was a hacker who had been on his way to jail when Rapp’s brother brought him to the CIA’s attention. His skills were undeniable-incredible, really-but he didn’t like time crunches or being involved in life-or-death situations.
“I don’t need it down to the second, Marcus. Now kick it in the ass.”
Dumond finally came back on. “If he turns pretty much right now, he might make it. But it’s going to be tight. We go from having a forty-minute cushion to more like a three-minute cushion.”
“Mitch,” Mason said over his headset, “keep in mind that if I take that detour, I won’t have enough fuel to get back to base.”
“Then you’ll have to do a little walking.”
“Have I mentioned my ditching fee?”
Rapp picked up the laptop and held it out to Bazzi. “This is your op now, Captain. Do you understand your responsibilities?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re certain? Because if you don’t, you better hope I never make it back.”
The young Saudi officer nodded convincingly. “Wasem was an arrogant fool. Your strategy is the only logical one.”
Rapp leaned back in his seat again, more or less satisfied. The kid was a little green but he wasn’t stupid. And he seemed anxious to stay inside the chopper.
“What’s the story?” Mason said over Rapp’s headset. “You getting out or not?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I’ve got some bad news for you.”
“You charge extra.”
“Goes without saying. But that’s not the worst of it.”
“What is?”
“I can land this bird, but with the wind I can’t guarantee that I’ll ever be able to get her back up again.”
“Do we have rappelling gear?”
“That’s a negative.”
“So I’m jumping?”
“Yeah.”
“How far?”
“Well, the way-”
“How far, Fred?”
“I can probably get you to within thirty feet. You know. Roughly.”
Rapp unstrapped from his seat and moved to the chopper’s open door. Dangling his legs out the side, he squinted at the desert floor flashing by. The temperature was hovering at just over a hundred, and he could feel the sun burning into the thin fabric covering his legs. There was a one-liter water bottle strapped to the side of the seat next to him and he started chugging it.
This part of the operation had always been a long shot. The hope was that he could get to the abandoned oil facility in time to neutralize ISIS’s command structure before the Saudi aircraft attacked. It would significantly reduce the chances of a detonation, but it wasn’t as simple as taking out a couple of guys driving through the open desert. The facility was immense, complicated, and hiding a force of unknown strength. Now he was going to have to cover a lot of ground on foot with no practical way to carry water and armed only with a Glock that might or might not shoot straight.
Fred Mason’s voice came over the comm as they slowed to an unsteady hover above the southern face of a massive dune. “This is about the best I can do, Mitch.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“What are you complaining about? I don’t see any rocks.”
Rapp removed his headset and put his feet onto the skids, leaning out over the desert. A gust caused the helicopter’s nose to dip and he let go, falling for what felt like way too long before hitting the sand and plummeting down the slope. He didn’t fight it, staying relaxed and letting gravity do its work until he bogged down twenty feet from the bottom.
CHAPTER 53
RAPP lay on his stomach in the sand, completely motionless. There was no sign of life in the oil-production facility intermittently visible four hundred yards away. But that was expected. His gut told him the ISIS men were there. The question was how many, how well armed, and in which of a thousand tactically viable positions?
A particularly strong gust tore across the landscape and Rapp leapt to his feet, running almost fifty yards before being forced down again by the clearing air.
While waiting for another opportunity to advance, he examined the details of the structure. At this range, the size and complexity of it made a serious impression. Countless thousands of tons of steel had been fashioned into a maze of pipes, ladders, and walkways. The sand was drifted up beneath one end but otherwise the facility looked like it could still be in operation.
His earpiece started to crackle, but the bulky radio clipped to his belt wasn’t enough to fully pick up the signal. He maxed out the volume and a few intelligible words emerged from the static. Bazzi checking in with his men. Responses were spotty due to the limitations of Rapp’s equipment, but the Saudi officer’s calm tone suggested that the remaining choppers were all still in the air.
“This is Scout Six,” Rapp said into his throat mike. “Come in, command.”
“Go ahe-” Static drowned out Bazzi’s voice. “I repeat. Go ahead, Scout Six.”
“I’ve got too much ground to cover and not enough time, Captain. If I move fast, I’m going to risk being spotted and blowing this whole thing to shit.”
“Copy that, Scout Six. I understand that you’re going to hold your position until I give the attack order. Please confirm.”
“That’s an affirmative, command. Good luck.”
“May Allah be with you, Scout Six.”
• • •
“How much longer?” Captain Bazzi said into his headset.
“The ETA on your screen’s about right,” Mason responded. “A little less than five minutes.”
“That’s cutting it very close, Mr. Mason.”
“I’m dealing with the laws of aerodynamics up here, Captain. Unless God owes you a serious favor, this is as fast as we go.”
Bazzi saw no reason to question the man further. He had flown with Saudi Arabia’s best pilots and none were even remotely as skilled. The engines were pushed to-or perhaps past-their limit and no compromises were being made in the interest of safety. Outside the door to his left, the desert floor was speeding by far too close for the conditions and visibility had gone from poor to disastrous.
On the laptop screen, the dots continued to glow, indifferent to his situation. The CIA was constantly updating the data and as of now they were projecting the soonest possible detonation at approximately seven minutes.
“Status report,” he said into his headset.
Every one of his men responded that they were in position and holding, one minute out from their target.
Bazzi wiped the gritty sweat from his forehead and continued to stare at the screen. In the end, there was only on realistic option-to follow Mitch Rapp’s orders to the letter. The man had more experience in these kinds of operations than anyone alive and his list of failures was shockingly short. Further, if the worst happened, his reputation suggested that he could be counted on to take responsibility and stand in support of a meaningless young Saudi captain. Men like him-and American soldiers in general-were loath to turn their backs on people loyal to them.
“Hold your position and await my orders,” Bazzi said, realizing that those were likely the most critical words he would ever speak. “We will be going in approximately two minutes.”
Those one hundred twenty seconds seemed to stretch into infinity as he stared blankly at the seat that he wished Mitch Rapp still occupied. Finally, Mason’s voice came over his headset.
“We’re one minute out, Captain.”