“There’s a turn coming up on your left,” Deep Blue intoned.
Bishop saw the side road, which angled away from the opposite lane, before anyone else. Without warning, he cranked the wheel over hard. To his credit, he managed to keep all four tires on the pavement, but everyone inside was subjected to more punishment. Over the screech of the controlled skid, the sound of gunshots was audible, but none of the rounds found their mark, and as Bishop straightened the wheels, the tumult momentarily diminished.
“Stay on this road,” Deep Blue said. “It will get you to the pick-up zone.”
“How far?” King said.
“Twenty klicks, give or take. Senior Citizen will meet you there.”
King covered his microphone so that only Bishop would hear him. “Can we make it that far?”
Bishop glanced at the dashboard where the temperature gauge was starting to climb, and then shook his head.
Behind them, the police had regrouped and were now filing onto the side road to resume the pursuit. Even if they were able to reach the rendezvous, the police would overtake them as soon as they stopped.
They needed a new plan.
King glanced up, through the gaping hole the frankenstein had torn in the roof. Somewhere up there, a supersonic stealth transport plane was racing to a rendezvous that Chess Team would never make.
Suddenly, he realized the answer was staring him in the face.
He twisted around to the others. “Queen, get Sasha into a STARS harness. Rook, Knight… We need to turn this thing into a convertible.”
Rook was the first to figure it out…or at least the first to say something. “Tell me you are not thinking what I think you’re thinking.”
“It’s fundamentally the same thing we were planning to do anyway.” King wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince Rook or himself.
“I can think of one pretty fundamental difference,” Rook grumbled.
Knight rolled his eyes and started digging in his pack.
“Don’t be such as sissy,” Queen chided. “It’s probably not the craziest thing you’ve ever done.”
She had already retrieved the large rucksack that contained the STARS gear, and after digging out a rig of nylon web belts identical to the ones they were all wearing, she rested a hand on Sasha’s shoulder to get her attention. The cryptanalyst, who had been practically catatonic since the battle with the frankenstein, nearly jumped out of her skin.
“Hey, it’s okay.” Queen’s manner was surprisingly soothing, a striking contrast to the tone she’d used with Rook. “It’s all going to be over in few minutes.”
She’s right about that, thought King. One way or another.
While Rook and Knight set to work, affixing small shaped charges to the door posts and support beams that held the SUV’s roof in place, King called Deep Blue and told him the new plan.
There was a long silence.
“Deep Blue, did you copy my last?”
“I copied, King. I’m just not sure it will work.”
“Unless you’ve got a better option, we’re going to make it work.”
“I admire your ‘can-do’ attitude, but this is a question of physics. I’m not sure this can be done. Or that you will survive it.”
King eyed the temperature gauge. The needle was creeping toward the red zone. “No time to discuss this,” he said. “We’re going ahead with it. Let Senior Citizen know. King, out.”
“Jeez, it sounds like you’re asking grandpa for a ride,” Rook muttered. “We really need another name for that damn plane.”
“Put it in the suggestion box,” King replied. “Give me some detcord. I’ll get the front.”
Knight passed forward a spool of what looked like thick orange wire, but which was actually Primacord — plastic tubing filled with a thread-thin strand of the high-explosive compound pentaerythritol tetranitrate. King reeled off about two feet and carefully cut it with his KA-BAR.
“All set here,” Queen announced, giving Sasha’s harness a final cinch for good measure.
As King wrapped a length of detcord around the front doorpost on his side, Rook and Knight signaled that they were ready to go. There was a blast of warmth from the Surf’s vents. Bishop had turned on the heater in an effort to bleed off some of the rising engine heat. It was a stopgap measure, and one that wouldn’t keep up with the spiking temperature from the near constant acceleration. King tied the detcord off and then pressed a small blasting cap into one end of the tube. He repeated the procedure on the driver’s side, awkwardly reaching past Bishop to do so, and then settled back into his seat.
“All set.”
“Get down if you can.” Knight’s voice was eerily calm, but everyone took his admonition seriously. “Three… two… one… Fire in the hole.”
The charges all detonated simultaneously with a noise as loud as a gunshot, but the smoke and heat of the small explosions was whisked away in the rush of air that swept through the now exposed interior of the SUV. The roof, cut loose from its supports, was gone, skittering along the road in their wake.
King now had an unobstructed view of the landscape in all directions. They had left Maragheh behind and were now traveling through the lightly wooded countryside. That was something in their favor at least. The open road meant almost no traffic to impede them, but it also meant there was nothing to slow down the pursuit. Behind them, the line of flashing colored lights swerved around the remains of the Surf’s roof; the lead police car was perhaps only a quarter-mile behind them.
Queen passed King a pair of heavy-duty locking carabiners, both of which were connected at intervals to a long rope that sprouted from the rucksack. Everyone in the back seat was already clipped in. He hooked one to Bishop’s harness and then secured the remaining one to his own.
Despite the noise of rushing air, King could now hear a rapid ticking sound, the noise of the engine block starting to expand as it heated up. In a few seconds, one of the pistons would probably seize and the motor would stall, leaving them at the mercy of their pursuers.
“Rook, send up the balloon.”
Rook pulled a shapeless mass — it looked like an enormous deflated red football — from the rucksack and held it over his head. “Ladies and gentleman, in preparation for our flight, please make sure that your seat backs and tray tables are in the upright position, and I want to stress this, make sure that your seat belts are not fastened.”
There was a whooshing sound as the object in Rook’s hands suddenly expanded, filling up with pressurized helium. The wind whipped against the inflating bladder, but Rook held on until it was nearly bursting at the seams. When he let go, the rush of air seemed to yank it straight back, but as soon as it was clear of the Surf, it started rising, trailing a heavy line out behind it — the same rope to which they were all attached. There was a weird zipping sound, like two pieces of fabric rubbing together, as the cable spooled out from the rucksack. The balloon rose up and out of sight, and then with a twang, the line went taut.
Sasha gaped in disbelief, finally overcoming her shell-shocked paralysis. “That balloon isn’t big enough to lift all of us.”
“Nope,” agreed Rook, sounding almost miserable. “But grandpa is.”
“What?”
King heard a new voice over the radio. “Chess Team, this is Senior Citizen. We have visual contact. Hang on to your nuts.”
Queen gave a derisive snort…and then she was gone.
FORTY-THREE
In 1950, the CIA and the Air Force decided to tackle the problem of how to quickly retrieve personnel who were deep in enemy territory, well beyond the range of the helicopters of the day and in areas that were too unsafe for a plane to land. The ultimate product of that endeavor was the Fulton surface-to-air-recovery-system — STARS — named for inventor Robert Fulton Jr. who had spent nearly a decade designing and refining the system. It was known more commonly by the nickname ‘Skyhook.’