Bazzi activated his own microphone. “Attack. I repeat. Attack.”
He took a position at the helicopter’s door gun as his teams confirmed his orders.
A few moments later, Mason came back on the comm. “I have a visual. Northwest about a kick. Hold on to your ass.”
Bazzi was slammed into the bulkhead and then into the gun as the pilot fought to put them into an attack posture. The helicopter circled east and Bazzi saw the target vehicle’s trajectory turn evasive. They’d been spotted.
Mason came to the same realization and immediately rotated the aircraft to bring the door gun to bear. The wind was now hitting them broadside and the chopper pitched wildly as Bazzi depressed the trigger.
The first rounds stitched across the SUV’s hood and he fought to adjust his aim to its passenger compartment. The CIA’s best guess was that the terrorists would be using military-grade C-4, a stable explosive that was unlikely to detonate even if it took a direct hit. The danger was that one of the men in the vehicle had the detonator in hand and at the ready.
The helicopter rocked back and Bazzi struggled to stay on target, ripping a line of gaping holes down the center of the vehicle before the rounds started slamming into the sand behind.
“Down!” he shouted. “Bring us lower!”
Mason did as he was told and Bazzi managed to realign his sights on the vehicle’s front windshield. When he opened fire, it swerved right and overturned, rolling down a steep slope to the east.
Mason tried to pull up, but it was impossible. The rotors were kicking up a dense cloud of sand now, blinding Bazzi as he tried to back away from the door.
“That’s it, Captain! Hang on! We’re going in!”
He braced himself as Mason tried to control their descent. The soft sand absorbed some of the impact but also created an unpredictable surface that was impossible to compensate for. Bazzi was thrown backward as one side of the chopper sank and the rotors dug in.
When he struggled back to his feet, he registered that his right arm was broken. Not so badly that he couldn’t use it to escape, though. He climbed out of the open door, ignoring the pain, and running toward the SUV lying on its side fifty meters away.
The man in the passenger seat was still belted in place but most of the right side of his head was missing. The driver had been thrown from the vehicle and was laying facedown ten meters away.
While neither of them appeared to be capable of detonating the weapon, the danger of a remote activation was still very real. The SUV’s doors and rear gate were still shut and Bazzi was unable to get them open. Instead, he used his good hand to push out the spiderwebbed rear window and then began dragging a large toolbox through the opening.
It was an agonizingly slow process, but he managed to get it halfway out before a gun sounded behind him. Pain flared in the back of his right thigh and his leg collapsed beneath him. From his position on the ground, he could see that the driver was on his feet, staggering in his direction with a pistol. The next round hit the side of the car only a few inches from Bazzi’s head as he tried to draw his own sidearm with his injured arm.
A rapid burst of shots erupted before he could get his pistol clear of its holster and Bazzi flattened himself in the sand. When the sound faded he looked up, confused by the fact that he was still alive. That confusion was amplified when he saw the driver motionless in the sand. Finally, he glanced back and saw Fred Mason collapse to his knees with an assault rifle in his hands.
Bazzi limped back to the window and wrestled the toolbox the rest of the way out of the vehicle. It took what seemed like a lifetime, but he managed to empty its contents and find evidence of a false bottom. Aware that it could explode at any moment, he fought to keep his hands from shaking.
The release for the bottom was relatively easy to locate and he was relieved to see that the explosive was less complex than he’d anticipated-nothing more than a digital keypad connected to a block of C-4. Next to it was a sizable sheet metal box that he assumed contained the radioactive material.
Bazzi removed the detonator probe and let out a long breath before clamping a hand over his leg wound and lurching toward Fred Mason. The pilot gave him a weak thumbs-up from his position lying in the sand, so the Saudi officer went to the chopper instead. He put on a headset and tried to get a situation report, but the comm was dead.
After a few pointless attempts to get it working, he went forward to check on Mason’s unconscious copilot. Their role in this was done. The rest was in God’s hands.
• • •
“Command,” Rapp said into his comm. “This is Scout Six. Come in.”
Once again, no response.
He’d been able to make out two confirmed kills but the rest of the chatter was too garbled to understand. Had Bazzi and the others achieved their missions? Or was there a massive radioactive cloud drifting north across Saudi Arabia?
In the end, it made little difference. One way or another, the other scouts were finished with their mission. His was just beginning.
Rapp was still about three hundred fifty yards out-a distance he had deemed safe. If a couple of ISIS fanatics were running this operation from the interior of the facility, they would immediately detonate when they discovered their comrades were under attack. But that hadn’t happened. The complex was still intact and there was still no sign of life. Either the Agency’s analysts were full of shit and the facility was empty or the man with his finger on the button had no interest in martyring himself.
Azarov.
CHAPTER 54
“PLEASE repeat your last.”
Grisha Azarov reluctantly pushed an earpiece the rest of the way into his right ear. The left was already taken by a radio link. Combined, they muffled the clang of a loose piece of sheet metal above him, but also isolated him from his environment in a way that was always dangerous.
“I am showing all teams moving into position,” Maxim Krupin said. “ETA is eight minutes. Confirm.”
It seemed pointless since they were looking at the same satellite data, but the Russian president would leave nothing to chance. Azarov used a hand to shade his cell phone and examined the washed-out map image.
“Eight minutes confirmed.”
“You have my authorization to carry out the operation. When all teams are in position, signal them to detonate.”
“Understood.”
Azarov sat with his back against the thick steel plate that made up one side of an enclosure that was one of the most defensible in the complex. After that, time started to pass with almost supernatural slowness. He was accustomed to the mind-numbing lulls of combat, but this one was intensified by the fact that it would likely be his last. He allowed his mind to drift forward-to enjoy the luxury of considering something beyond being victorious on the day. What would it be like to wake up in his home and have no mission to prepare for? No training schedule to obsessively follow or physical test to complete?
Would he… fish? It was something he hadn’t done since sawing through the frozen lakes of Russia with his father. Or perhaps surfing lessons would be in order. Cara had offered a free introduction to the sport on a number of occasions. Was it time to consider accepting that offer?
A shrill alarm sounded in his remaining earpiece and he looked down at his phone. One of the ISIS teams had gone offline. He assumed it was just a communications problem that would quickly correct itself. Instead, a second alarm sounded and another of the tiny onscreen dots flashed out of existence. The intensifying storm? Or something else?
Azarov connected to the operation’s open frequency. “All teams report.”
Static.
“All teams report,” he repeated.
Still no response.
It was more than could be explained by the storm. The images on his phone were being transmitted by a satellite link, while voice communications were being handled by a radio-based system. The chance that both were failing at the same time was remote in the extreme. Much more likely, the ISIS teams had been discovered and either succumbed to attack or detonated without his authorization.