“Master Sergeant Stone, huh? You don’t see a lot of Master Sergeants out doing field work.”
“I volunteered, sir.”
“Good for you.”
“And you can call me ‘Top,’ sir.”
“We’ve got a rescue to plan, Top.” Iggy reached into one of the pilot’s salesman’s cases and dug around until he found a pen, paper and a calculator. He sighed. “I hate this back-of-the-napkin math when roughing out a mission. Let’s see, we can knock the back rows out of the Pave Hawks and stick in two one-hundred-eighty-five-gallon tanks and that will up our fuel to-three-sixty plus two times…” His voice trailed off, but he continued to move his lips and scribble on the notepad. “A gallon of JP8 weighs six point eight pounds…accounting for all the weight from the extra fuel coupled with the high altitude flying out of Bagram, I calculate a burn rate of nine hundred sixty pounds an hour, give or take twenty.”
“Just listening to your calculus, I’d say you’ve got about five hours of flying time,” Stone said as he tried to read Iggy’s ciphers.
Iggy looked over at Stone. “You’re good-four hours, fifty minutes plus the twenty minute emergency reserve. Average of one-twenty knots is a safe bet, so we need four and a half hours to target. That means refueling twice which isn’t easy.”
“Ferry tanks?”
“Too much drag. We don’t have that kind of time. We’ve got refueling arrangements with the big military for Combat Shadows and Combat Talons, but that’s usually when we’re working jobs across the border in Pakistan or Iran, and it’s expensive.”
“Air-to-air refueling is the way to go-Stella has Pave Hawks?”
“Afghan theater-right where we’re headed.”
“Too bad she doesn’t have Pave Lows so we could take more troops in.”
“We’ve got ’em, but they’re all committed right now. When I left, it was very hot in Northern Pakistan, chasing down another lead on Abdullah. I might be able to move some around. I’ll do what I can. We’ve also got a half-dozen Super Cobras with the latest upgrades.” Iggy turned in his seat and shouted. “GENGHIS, you still with us?”
“Haven’t got rid of me yet,” GENGHIS yelled back.
“I’m not coming up with any good ideas about how to get into that camp,” Stone said. “It’ll be risky, but I’m thinking we’re going to have to pass as tangos and try the main gate.”
“Nah,” Iggy shook his head and pointed to the larger crater. “We’ll fly a Pave Hawk right up to their backside. We’ll come in at night, drop down into the pit at the far end-I’d say it’s about twenty clicks from the camp-we fly inside the bowl right up to the rock ridge. It’ll give us both audio and visual cover.” Iggy motioned to the ridge between the two pits with his artificial finger. A narrow bench along the south tip of the ridge joined the two craters. “You fly. How tough is it to fly that in the dark?”
Stone laughed. “I can barely keep a helo in the air. You need real bus drivers-the best ones you’ve got.”
Iggy pursed his lips and made a whistling noise as he exhaled through them. “My top flier is in Iraq. He’s a cocky son of a bitch, but Beach Dog could pierce the eye of a needle in a sandstorm.”
“I know the guy. Real friendly type.” Stone banked the plane in another circle. “It’s about fifteen hundred miles from Baghdad to Bagram-around three hours by jet if you’re not exactly respectful of everyone’s airspace. It’ll be tight. What the hell is taking Ashland so long?”
“Cam’s been wanting to buy a jet. We could sure use one of our own right now.”
“Outsource it. Get Blackwater to fly Beach Dog up. They rent out.”
“Great idea.” Iggy swiveled in the seat, starting to get up. “I’ve got a secure satellite phone in one of the rucksacks. I’ll start putting everything into place. We’ve got to get to Cam tonight before they fuck her up too bad.”
Stone stopped him before he could leave. “You can’t possibly trust Ashland,” he said in a low voice.
“He’s French,” Iggy said, as if he had used his strongest swear word. “They ally with you only because they don’t have the cajones to take you on, mano-a-mano. But we might need him.”
Ashland cleared his throat. He stood in the doorway of the flight deck. “Camera’s full.”
“Get us out of here,” Iggy said as he stood, ignoring Ashland.
He hopped to the door, but Ashland didn’t move.
Ashland said. “Let’s be clear. When it comes to stopping terrorists, we’re allies-the War on Terror is where we have differences. I’ve risked my life for two years to infiltrate Rubicon-an American company funding terrorists to secure future business-and what’s your CIA doing? Tell me who has cajones.”
Iggy pursed his lips and took a deep breath. He wanted to punch him out on principle, but the son of a bitch was right.
Iggy pushed by him and hopped down the aisle to search for the sat phone and a laptop so he could rough out the SMEAC. If they were going to pull it off tonight, he needed his operation orders ready when they landed.
Chapter Seventy-Five
Shangri-la
The picture of the bearded leader was plastered everywhere in the camp-on banners, on murals painted on the sides of buildings and woven into tents. She had tried to listen in on several conversations to at least pick up which one he was, but she couldn’t decipher anything. As the truck carrying Camille pulled into the terrorist training compound, the driver started honking his horn nonstop. Young men poured outside and circled around the pickup, glaring at her. Half of them wore white dishdashi, the other trousers and shirts. From the hatred in their eyes, she could only guess that some saw her as a Western whore, others as the devil herself. Their rage jabbed her from all directions. Any moment, they could mob her and she sure as hell was going to take as many with her as possible. Her hands were tied in front and she was confident she could at least spray an AK. She eyed the tango with the nearest assault rifle and prepared to ram herself into him and seize it for her big finale.
One of the men grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her feet. He yelled something to the crowd and they started chanting. If she threw her body weight against the cross-eyed tango, she could probably get his weapon. The crowd was ready to rock any moment and she preferred to be the one on the offense.
Three. She took a deep breath.
Two. She leaned back to give herself a little more force.
One.
At that instant, she saw a man step from a tent and everyone looked toward him. He had a long peppery white beard and flowing white robe.
The Osama wannabe.
Abort.
The leader of al Qaeda, or at least one faction of al Qaeda, was less than ten meters from her. She could no longer grab an AK and spray.
She now had to aim.
The al Qaeda leader said something that quieted everyone down, then dispersed the crowd. He slipped back into a small white tent with stylized Arabic phrases over the doorway. She guessed they were verses from the Koran. It was the only tent without his image plastered on it. She had just located his lair.
A man in his mid-thirties, an elder in the crowd, directed the men in the pickup, pointing to a small building near one of the construction sites on the far side of the camp, deeper into the crater. The truck engine started and the driver honked for the leftover crowd to get out of his way. He didn’t wait, just started moving, bumping into anyone in his way.
Haji was on a mission from god.
The pickup weaved through the center of the camp and she was starting to feel a little carsick. It was so hot the doors of the buildings, tent flaps and sides of tents were open. Most of the tents seemed to be dormitories and the fixed structures included a mosque, an open-air madressa and an office building crowned with satellite dishes and antennae.