He depressed the button.
The truck went up as a huge mushroom cloud of fire before rolling into gargantuan plumes of black smoke. The barracks were reduced to their ragged foundation, with those defending them obliterated into pieces so small that closed casket funerals were all but guaranteed.
From his position, Shazad could see the rolling fireball and feel the shockwaves from the massive explosion. Mabad had done well, he reflected. He had taken out the primary line of defense and created a well-timed diversion.
Shazad eyed his watch: they had eleven minutes. He shook his head disapprovingly. They were well behind.
“Quickly!” he shouted. “Time is short!”
His team headed for an area situated behind a second set of closed doors. Unlike the entrance doors, these did not have a keypad.
The doors parted on their rollers with ease, giving passage to a large room that was, at least in Shazad’s eyes, a chamber filled with gold.
Reaper drones were lined up in two rows of five, ten altogether, with their side wings folded upward. Their bodies were lean and sleek, with each carrying a 950-shaft-horsepower turboprop engine powerful enough to carry fifteen times their original payload ordnance, and cruise at three times the speed of its predecessor, the MQ-1. This particular set of Reapers, the MQ-10’s, had been modified with stealth capabilities, making them virtually invisible at altitudes as low as ten feet to as high as 60,000. They were also equipped with an eagle-eye lens capable of surveying the land mass with high definition, even from the upper atmosphere.
In Shazad's eyes there were no equivalents to this particular stock of MQ-10s. Reconfigured to fly higher and faster with a larger payload, they were the true hunter-killers of the sky.
Shazad waved his hand maniacally. “Hurry! Load as many as you can aboard the trucks! Quickly now!”
Ramps leading to the cargo bays of the remaining three trucks were lowered. In haste the teams moved the drones in a push-pull effort with chains and pulleys, loading a single drone into each truck, leaving ample space reserved for MUAVs, or Mini-Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, termed remoras. These could be attached to the mother drone to provide additional weaponry beyond the ordinary payload of Hellfire missiles.
Shazad checked his watch again. They were falling dangerously behind, if not critically so. “Hurry!” he reiterated. “Find the remoras!”
In an adjoining room lit by the soft glow of mercury vapor lamps sat mini-drones that were no larger than birds of prey such as falcons or hawks. They proved to be light-weight and easy to move; loading commenced without delay.
“Shazad!” Azlan's voice came over his ear bud.
“Yeah. Go.”
“We have Tangos going mobile.”
Shazad had planned for every contingency — for every eventuality should his team fail to perform under the projected time limit. He was now two minutes behind, which gave the enemy time to assemble from other points and converge on their position.
Then: “Azlan.”
“Yes, Shazad.”
“We’re behind on matters. You know what you need to do.” He paused, feeling an emotional swell. Then in a tone that was soft and more subdued, he added, “May Allah see you to Paradise.”
“You too, my friend. Allahu Akbar!”
“Allahu Akbar.” He slowly raised his lip mike, knowing that he would never see or speak to Azlan again.
After a pause, Shazad cried out with a sense of urgency. “Let’s go, people! Company’s on its way!”
But Azlan would greet them at the front door and give Shazad what he needed most.
He would give him time.
Near the south-side acreage of the facility lay the Motor Pool, a structure that housed several machine-gun mounted Jeeps with .50 caliber weapons.
From an adjacent barrack, four two-man teams seized four vehicles, a driver and a gunner for each. They sped their way toward the point of contention.
In the distance the landscape was lit up with eruptions of fire, the barracks razed to a mangled foundation of twisted steel and burnt flesh. To the southeast of that location a truck bore down on them with headlong speed.
The four Jeeps quickly separated into a straight-line formation approximately twenty feet apart. The gunners were on their heels, racking the machine guns as they closed on the truck.
The truck began to weave recklessly from left to right, right to left, making it difficult for the gunners to line up their target within the crosshairs.
When Azlan saw the high-powered weaponry directed his way he grabbed the detonator, situated a thumb over the button, and called upon Allah to give him the courage to see him through.
In coordinated bursts, the .50 calibers went off in quick succession, the rounds punching holes in the pavement as the truck weaved erratically in an attempt to dodge the strikes. The evasive maneuvers failed. Bullets from the unshakable Jeeps blasted the grill, the hood, and the windshield. Glass exploded into tempered shrapnel that sliced flesh until the little shards shone like bloody diamonds.
Azlan ducked the volley as glass sprayed all through the cab’s interior.
Allah, give me strength.
More bullets tore into the truck’s engine block, crippling the vehicle further. But its momentum carried it forward, the Jeep brigade closing in until they were almost on top of each other.
Azlan raised his hand. “Allahu Ak—”
A bullet ripped into his shoulder. Another hit the side of his neck, shearing out a grooved path that tore through the carotid. A third clipped the top part of his right ear, the pain beyond intense. As his world began to fade away with the purple edges of his sight beginning to close in, Azlan had the presence of mind to do what he was tasked with.
He pressed the button on the detonator.
The truck broke apart into pieces that spread across the property in a deadly radius of heavy debris. Jeeps were lifted through the air as though they were playthings. Machine guns broke from their mounts and bodies took flight. When the corpses landed against the pavement and bounced along its surface, so many bones broke that their owners were hardly recognizable as anything human.
An immense fireball lifted skyward, reaching and rolling until it turned black with smoke.
The second of Shazad’s lines had held.
Even from his position Shazad could feel the concussive waves of the blast hit, causing the structure around him and the earth beneath him to shudder. He watched the fireball rise and dissipate into smoke.
More would be coming, he thought. But Azlan had created the second diversion that would see his team through, since the main points of the JBAB’s manpower had been eliminated. The subsequent crews arriving on scene would see the flames and gravitate towards them, rather than to his team.
Shazad waved his unit on. “Let’s go, people! We’re locked and secured!”
He quickly maneuvered behind the wheel of the lead truck, shifted into gear, and sped out of the hanger with the other trucks in tow, a predatory convoy in retreat.
They moved rapidly, the camo-painted trucks looking as if they belonged here, but at the same time, Shazad was painfully aware that no vehicle on base would be above suspicion at this point. Speed and efficiency were their friends.
When they reached Main Gate, his lieutenant, Naji Mihran, and two others who were standing sentinel by the gates, jumped into the cabs. After a quick head count and visual check, they exited the base and made their way north.
Aasif al-Shazad blinked back tears of joy. He had pulled off the impossible. Only it wasn't, he knew, as he stared at the columns of gritty smoke rising in his rear view.