“You’re not going to be able to help them with that-too short range,” GENGHIS said as he grabbed for the IV needle in his arm.
“Leave that in. You need it,” Ashland said.
“Fine. But they need a long-range marksman. Help me to the door and hand me the one with the scope.”
GENGHIS pulled himself up using the armrest and grabbed the IV bag from the leather seat. Ashland hurried to support him under his arm and help him walk down the aisle. GENGHIS lowered himself onto the floor in front of the cabin door, dropping the plastic IV bag beside him. Ashland picked it up and hooked it on the bracket for the emergency flashlight instead, then handed him the Dragunov that Camille was carrying earlier.
“Check the rucksack for extra clips,” GENGHIS said as he pulled off the magazine and checked the cartridges. Eight were left. Russian ammo was foreign to him, but he trusted that Camille always worked with the best equipment and had probably acquired match-grade rounds.
“Here.” Ashland handed him three.
GENGHIS grabbed them and loaded two 7.62 rounds as fast as he could while he watched the distant dune. Iggy and Stone were skidding down it and no targets were in sight-yet. He set up the rifle’s bipod and looked through the scope, estimating the wind and ranging to the top of the dune. He adjusted the dope.
Several seconds later, he was tweaking the settings when a man with an AK came into sight above Iggy and Stone. He moved him into his crosshairs and fired. The man dropped, but then two more replaced him. As quickly as he could, he acquired the mark, squeezed off a round and without a breath, aimed and fired again just as the son of a bitch hailed bullets at Iggy and Stone.
Bullets flew past Iggy and the sand was getting softer, pouring in on top of his foot with each step, making it harder for him to pull his leg up. Just as a round zoomed too close to his head, his leg pulled out of its binding and his stump waved in the air. Flapping his arms to catch his balance, he tumbled to the ground and slid down the dune. He looked back. His dumb leg was stuck in the sand, fifteen feet above him.
The tangos were appearing as fast as GENGHIS could take them out and the growing collection of dead bodies seemed to do little to discourage them. GENGHIS had seen it before. The fuckers were determined to get to their seventy-two virgins. He pulled off the magazine and shoved more rounds into it.
Iggy saw Stone glance back, then turn around to help him, but Iggy waved him on. Using his elbows to pull himself along, Iggy dragged himself through the sand to his leg. Bullets kicked up sand all around. When he got to it, he took the knife from his ankle holster and sliced off his pant leg above his knee, cursing himself for wearing long pants. As he strapped it on, sand got into the sock over his stump. With a good seven hundred yards to the plane, it would rub blisters that would plague him for days.
He climbed to his feet and ran.
“Permission to come aboard.” Hunter shouted from the base of the Gulfstream’s stairs, waiting so he didn’t shake the plane because it didn’t take much to spoil a long range shot. Iggy hauled ass down the tarmac, a good four hundred meters away.
“Okay, now!” GENGHIS said as he refilled the mag. Hunter climbed up the stairs, taking two at a time.
GENGHIS fired off more rounds as Hunter stepped over him. GENGHIS said, “The fuckers keep coming. We’ve got to get out of here.”
Ashland moved back so he could pass. He paused and said to Ashland, “As soon as Iggy’s onboard, throw that switch to retract the airstairs, then turn the lever to secure the door.”
Hunter hurried onto the flight deck. The dead first officer was still strapped in. Hunter flipped on the APU as he climbed over the captain’s body into his seat.
As Iggy zigzagged down the runway, he could feel his stump rubbing raw against the sand that had come between him and his artificial leg. The stump had sweated so much, it felt like it was sloshing around in a bowl of water. The hot air seared his lungs, but the bullets skipping off the tarmac around him made him push harder.
It only took one, he reminded himself.
GENGHIS chambered a new round, retargeted and fired in less than five seconds-a personal record, but it wasn’t enough. More and more tangos crested the saddle and he couldn’t drop them all before they started heading down to the tarmac. He gave up on eliminating them as they came into sight and picked off the ones who were closest to Iggy. He was only a couple hundred meters out, but the hordes were gaining on him. They were running and shooting without aiming, but with enough rounds in the air, even a stray bullet could find a mark.
“Hand me an AK and keep ’em coming,” GENGHIS said. They had salvaged four from the Rubicon guards.
The tangos were now within five hundred meters and Iggy was within one hundred. GENGHIS stood, the damn IV dangling from his arm. He saw bright flashes of light and became dizzy. He steadied himself on the bulkhead as he breathed deeply. He took the assault rifle and aimed as best he could, given the iron sights, the distance and the wind.
GENGHIS laid down a curtain of fire while Iggy dashed toward the airstairs. He emptied the weapon in his hands and Ashland passed him another one. Iggy ran up the stairs and GENGHIS extended his arm, grabbed Iggy’s forearm, and pulled him inside.
“Go! Go!” Iggy yelled to Hunter.
GENGHIS threw the switch to raise the stairs and then he leaned outside and stepped onto the top stair while they were retracting. They were the type that the bottom part of the stairs folded over onto the top when they were halfway up and GENGHIS figured he could get off a couple more shots and jump back inside before they started to double over on themselves. Suddenly, the plane lurched and GENGHIS slipped.
The IV catheter ripped away from his arm and blood gushed from the vein. He grabbed for anything and latched onto a bar. Struggling to hold his legs up above the fast-moving ground, he reached for the bar on the opposite side. His muscles strained and blood was everywhere.
The bottom half of the airstairs was folding down on top of him, threatening to squeeze him to death. Bullets cracked through the air around him and he wished to god one of them would hit him. Dying in combat was supposed to be GENGHIS’ fate, not being smashed in stairs. He became dizzier and dizzier as blood drained away and the ground streaked beneath him.
GENGHIS let out a scream and pulled as hard as he could just as everything faded to black.
Iggy climbed out on the airstairs, gripped the chrome with his artificial hand, trusting the microprocessors wouldn’t fail him now because he couldn’t feel if he had a good grip or if the contraption had let go. Only if the suction broke and the artificial limb pulled off his body would he feel anything and by then it would be too late.
The ground was a blur as he leaned out of the plane. He reached under GENGHIS’ arm and pulled as hard as he could, leveraging the force of his own body weight, and yanked GENGHIS back inside. Blood smeared on him as the aircraft lifted into the sky.
Chapter Seventy-Three
Kyzyl Kum Desert, Uzbekistan
Camille searched for landmarks along the route, but all she saw were endless sand dunes, mounds of tailings. After fifteen minutes, the ground opened up into the largest open mine pit she had seen in her life. All of Baghdad, Ramadi and Fallujah could’ve fit inside with room to spare. It dropped down four to five hundred feet in wide terraced steps. She couldn’t see any equipment and some of the benches seemed to have collapsed down to the next level. When she thought they had finally passed it, it opened up again into a smaller pit, partially separated from the larger one by a high ridge of solid rock.
There was no mining equipment in the second pit and she thought it was completely abandoned until something flapping in the high winds caught her eye.