Twenty thousand feet above, Turk switched to the Tigershark’s enhanced view, trying to get a good read on what was below. The UAV and its CIA operator were roughly twenty yards from each other.
The Tigershark had been designed to carry a rail gun, which could fire metal slugs accurately to twenty miles. It still had some kinks, but would have come in very handy now.
“Whiplash Ground — Colonel Freah, I’m looking at a truck with people getting out of it. Our contact should be nearby. Are these hostiles?”
“We believe so, Tigershark. But stand by. We’re trying to contact her now.”
There was no time to stand by — the men in the truck were spreading out, moving in the direction of the CIA officer. They were carrying weapons. That made them hostile in Turk’s book.
The only weapon he had was the Tigershark itself. He pushed down the nose, determined to use it.
Melissa watched as the men moved up the road. They moved quickly — too quickly. They’re scared, she thought.
A good sign, in a way: their fire would be less accurate.
She’d take the man closest to her, the one going to the bike. Then sweep across left, then back to the truck.
She’d have to reload before she took out the truck.
Her finger started to twitch.
I can do it.
I have to do it.
Melissa took as slow a breath as she could manage, then pulled the gun up. It was awkward in her left hand. She forced her right arm toward the front of the weapon, hoping to steady it. The pain was excruciating. She twisted her trunk, putting her hand, still gripping her shirt, closer to the weapon.
Steadying herself as best she could, Melissa raised the barrel with her left arm, ready to fire.
Suddenly there was a rush of air from above, the sky cracking with what seemed a hurricane. Dirt flew everywhere, and the night flashed red and white. A howl filled her ears. Melissa threw herself down, cowering against the force of whatever bomb was exploding.
Li Han had just started to get out of the truck when there was a vortex of wind and a hard, loud snap directly above him. It didn’t sound quite like an explosion, but the wash threw him back against the vehicle. Dirt and dust flew all around; he was pelted by small rocks.
“Dso Ba!” he yelled in Chinese, even before he got back to his feet. “Go! Leave! They’re firing missiles! Go! Go!”
He pulled at the door. There had been no explosion: whatever the Americans had fired at them had missed or malfunctioned.
“Wo-men! Dso Ba!”
The driver looked at him, paralyzed. Li Han realized he was speaking Chinese.
“Go!” he shouted in English. “Leave! Leave! Get the truck out of here.”
One of the men in the back pounded on the roof of the cab. It was Amara, yelling something in Arabic.
“Go!” he added, switching to English, though it was hard to tell in his accent and excitement. “Mr. Li — tell him go!”
“Go!” repeated Li Han. “Let’s go!”
The driver began moving in slow motion. The truck lurched forward.
“Faster!” yelled Li Han. “Before they fire again.”
By the time Melissa raised her head, the truck had started moving away. The men on the road picked themselves up and began scrambling after it.
What the hell had just happened?
Had someone fired a missile? Or several of them?
But there didn’t seem to have been an explosion, just a massive rush of air.
When the men were gone, she rose slowly. She’d forgotten the pain, but it came back now with a vengeance, nearly knocking her unconscious. She fell back on her rump, head folded down against her chest. The submachine gun fell from her hand.
In a mental fog, Melissa began to gently rock back and forth, trying to soothe her injured arm as if it were a baby. Gradually her senses returned, though the pain remained, throbbing against her neck and torso.
She swung her knees around and rose, trying to jostle her arm as little as possible. Finally upright, she walked down to the road. There was no bomb crater, no debris.
Melissa retrieved her gun. Her ruck was a few yards farther up the hill. She had no memory of taking it off.
The sat phone was on the ground as well, near where she’d been crouched. She picked it up and called Jordan back at the base camp. Instead of Jordan, however, a man with a deeper, somewhat older voice answered.
“This is Danny Freah. Melissa, are you OK?”
“Who are you?”
“It’s Colonel Freah again. Are you all right?”
“Yeah.”
“Stay where you are. We’ll be at your location in twenty minutes. My Osprey is just taking off now.”
“What Osprey?”
“Listen, Ms. Ilse, you don’t know how lucky you are to be alive. Just stay where you are.”
“I’m not moving,” she said. She tried to make her words sharp, but the pain in her shoulder made it difficult to talk; she could hear the wince in her voice.
“We’ll be there as soon as we can,” said Danny, his voice softer. “Just stay on the hill, behind those rocks. You’ll be OK. The truck has moved on. I have to go — the aircraft is here. We’ll contact you when we’re zero-five from your location.”
The connection died. Melissa lowered herself to the ground, sitting as gently as she could.
Chapter 19
Breanna Stockard was never comfortable as a passenger on an airplane.
It wasn’t that she didn’t like to fly; on the contrary, she loved flying. Or rather, she loved piloting. She loved it so much that being a passenger made her feel extremely out of sorts. Even sitting in the back of a C-20 Gulfstream, she felt as if she ought to be doing something other than studying the thick folders of reports on her iPad, or tracking through the myriad classified e-mails related to her duties at the Office of Special Technology.
The Gulfstream was assigned to the Pentagon for VIP travel, and carried a full suite of secure communications. So she was surprised when her own secure sat phone rang.
Until she saw the call was from Jonathon Reid.
“This is Breanna.”
“Breanna, can you talk?”
Breanna was the sole passenger on the plane. The cabin crew consisted of a tech sergeant who was sitting in the back, discreetly reading a magazine.
“Yes,” she said.
“I’ve pieced together information,” said Reid. “I don’t have everything. But I think what I have is accurate.”
“OK.”
“The UAV was contracted for about three years ago, an outgrowth of the same program that produced Tigershark, as we already know. The development was entirely covert; obviously I don’t have all the details.”
The CIA had a long history of developing its own aircraft, going all the way back to the U-2. At times it had worked with the Air Force, and in fact it might very well have done so in this case.
“But it’s not the aircraft that’s important,” continued Reid. “I think there’s a lot more to it.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t feel comfortable talking about it, even over this line,” he said. “We’ll have to talk when you come back. I know you’re supposed to go directly to SOCCOM for that conference in Florida, but I’d like to speak to you in person as soon as possible. Tonight, in fact.”
“Can you meet me there?”
“I’d rather spend the time looking into this further, if possible,” said Reid. “How important is the conference?”
The “conference” was actually a two-day meeting with members of the Special Operations Command to listen to requirements they had for new weapons. It was starting the next morning at eight, but Breanna was due to have breakfast with the commanding general and his staff at 0600—6:00 A.M. sharp, as the general’s aide had put it to her secretary, noting that his boss was a notorious early riser with a packed schedule and an almost hyperbolic sense of punctuality.