Le Win Fo had said Schubatis was in the south wing of cell block 3, but as far as Bogner could tell, none of the cells was marked. He would have to check each one.
As he worked his way down the corridor, he reached up and unscrewed the lightbulbs. He needed every advantage he could get.
He was in luck; the doors to the first six cells were open. The floors were covered with a scattered layer of dirty straw and there was the pungent odor of urine and human waste.
The seventh cell was occupied. There was a small barred opening in the door, and Bogner stabbed the thin beam of his E-light into the recesses. He trailed the light over it twice before he saw the gaunt, hollow-faced shell of an old man staring back at him from a corner with eyes that betrayed his hopelessness. The man was dirty and naked and shivered in the chilled dampness. Bogner knew that even if he unlocked the cell, the old man did not have the strength to escape. He was too weak, and too far gone to cope with the world that lay beyond the barred doors.
The search slowed when he found six of the next seven cells occupiedone by an old woman, and two with men that Bogner was convinced had already gone to meet their creator. There was the undeniable smell of death.
He had reached the midpoint in the corridor when he noticed the crude chalk markings indicating cell numbers. On the right side, the third door carried the marking 38. He shoved the beam of his E-light through the bars and saw the distressed, unkempt figure of the man whose presence had triggered the Saint Martin's massacre.
"Schubatis?" he whispered.
For a moment there was no response. Bogner repeated the Russian's name and the man slowly lifted his head, squinting into the pinpoint of light.
"I'm here to help you."
The man tried to get up, stumbled, and fell back to his knees.
"Can you walk?"
Blinking, unsteady, and uncertain, the humorless Russian Bogner had met the previous Sunday had aged a lifetime since then. He struggled to his feet again and limped to the cell door.
"Dr. Schubatis, my name is Bogner. I was with you when you were attacked in Washington. Do you remember?"
The Russian's eyes searched Bogner's face. The thick glasses were gone, and he grappled with the fragmented pieces of recollection to make the connection.
Bogner glanced up and down the corridor and began sorting through the unmarked keys.
"You… you're… you're the American," Schubatis finally managed. His voice cracked with emotion. "You're with them. You're one of them…"
"Keep your voice down, dammit," Bogner said.
"What… what are you doing?" Schubatis muttered. He looked at Bogner and backed across the cell toward the corner. "Stay away from me. Leave me alone."
"Look we're here to get you out. Understand? You're going to come with me."
Schubatis was still shaking his head. "Leave… leave me alone. I have… have already told you, I will not… not assist you. Leave me alone."
The Russian's hands were crusted with blood and he was trembling. He was even weaker and more disoriented than Bogner had expected, and because of his leg, he was having difficulty moving. Just getting Schubatis to the hangar where the Covert was housed was going to be a great deal harder than either he or Driver had imagined.
"Stay away from me," Schubatis pleaded. His voice quaked. Then, from under his torn shirt, he produced a spoon that had been honed into a weapon on the stone wall of his cell. He thrust it at Bogner. His hand was shaking. "No, stay away."
Bogner grabbed the man's hand and twisted the makeshift knife away from him. "Dammit, I don't have time to explain. You're coming with me."
Schubatis recoiled again, but this time he was pinned in the corner. His eyes betrayed his confusion and anger. He started to cry out, but Bogner clamped his hand over the Russian's mouth before the sound could escape.
"Sorry about this," Bogner muttered as he caught the Russian's jaw with a quick jab that dislodged the lower half of the man's false teeth. The stunned Schubatis sagged back against the wall and Bogner caught him before he hit the floor. He plied the dislodged plate from between the Russian's lips, threw it aside, tore off a piece of the man's soiled shirt, wadded it up, and stuffed it into the Russian's mouth. Then he picked Schubatis up like a rag doll and threw him over his shoulder.
At the door of the cell, Bogner checked in both directions before he started down the stone corridor. As he left the building, he checked his watch. He had already burned twenty-three minutes. He had exactly thirty-seven minutes to find Driver.
Driver was less than a hundred yards from the main hangar when the fuel truck pulled out of the fuel storage area and a returning Komisko settled onto the wet tarmac in front of Hangar 3 for refueling. The area was illuminated by three large banks of mercury-vapor floodlights along the front of the hangar.
Driver stopped just long enough to get himself oriented. He was on the north side of the building. According to Le Win Fo, his access was to the weston the second level.
There were two light reconnaissance planes parked in an area immediately to his left. Beyond them was a maze of fuel storage tanks and maintenance sheds. He counted three armored vehicles, and noted there was no security fence around any of it. Le Win Fo knew what he was talking about; Quan's security had major holes in it.
Several hundred yards behind him he could still see the muted glow in the sky where the Komisko had crashed, and he could still hear the sounds of sirens and men shouting. Along the way he had counted three vehicles racing to the scene of the downed helicopter. Driver smiled to himself; the old joke about Chinese fire drills had some truth to it.
He waited while they finished refueling the Komisko, then worked his way to the fire escape at the side of the building, scaled it, and went in through the steel fire door on the second level. He was in luck. Just as Le Win Fo had sketched it for them, the big doors to the hangar were open, and the main floor was dark. Only two areas were lighted, at opposite ends of the hangar. One appeared to be a maintenance area and the second looked to be some sort of personnel dayroom. The door was open, the light was on, but there was no activity.
In the maintenance area at the south end of the building, two men were working on a truck. The hood of the vehicle was up and the men were talking. While Driver watched, the phone rang, one of the men answered it, talked briefly, nodded to his companion, and both men left.
He began working his way cautiously toward the north end of the hangar where Le had placed the quarters for flight personnel. From his vantage point on the catwalk, he could see the entire hangar. There were the two Su-27 Flankers armed with AAMs that Le had described when he reported seeing them fly over Hua's orphanage. Both of the Flankers appeared to be alert ready. The cockpit canopies were open, the roll-away mounts were in place, and the bank of red ready lights in each cockpit created a surreal glow in the semidarkness.
In the middle of the hangar was what they had come for. From where Driver was standing, the Russian Covert appeared to be slightly longer than the sixty-six-foot-long F-117X he had been testing at the site of the former Sandia Labs nuclear weapons facility southeast of Tonopah. It had a wider wingspan, a similar humpback designand like the F-117, it was thick in the places where most aircraft are designed to be sleek.
It did not surprise him that it was faceted, painted a flat black, and appeared to have a RAM coating. What did surprise him was the side-by-side cockpit layout. The Americans, for whatever reason, had long ago scrapped their plans to build a two-seated version.