She gestured and the family ran toward her. She exited the building, glanced over her shoulder to make sure they were following, and then began to jog at a steady rate, pistol at the ready, weaving through the alleys and streets of the slum as if she’d been born there. It wasn’t far, three blocks, and she counted on the explosion to keep everyone indoors for a little while. She had a good idea of response time and felt she had a sufficient window.
She reached the soccer field, sirens wailing in the near distance. Neeley shrugged off her pack as the three Pakistanis caught up, breathing hard. They were staring about fearfully, looking for the helicopter they and the ambush team had expected, Neeley supposed.
They were out of luck in that regard.
Neeley signaled for them to put their hands over their heads. They hesitated and she gestured with the .45 and they complied. She pulled harnesses out of the pack and quickly snapped them on the man, woman, and terrified child. The harnesses were already linked with twelve-foot lengths of high-strength rope. One end was still in the pack and the other end had twelve feet and an empty loop.
“Thirty seconds,” a different voice whispered in her ear.
She reached in her ruck and pulled a cord. A large balloon blossomed forth from the tank that had taken up half the space in the pack, rising rapidly into the air and lifting the rope still in the ruck. Neeley went to the free end and buckled in.
“What are you doing?” the man demanded in Pashto.
Neeley didn’t answer. Coming in from the south low and fast, its dark form barely visible, was an MC-130J Commando II. It was the Special Operations — modified version of the venerable Lockheed C-130 Hercules cargo plane, first deployed in 1956 and still the workhorse transportation vehicle of the air force. This version was capable of all-weather flight and loaded with enough navigation, communication, and countermeasure electronics to make Apple headquarters in Cupertino weep with envy. A pair of metal whiskers protruded from below the nose of the aircraft. The pilot centered on the blimp and dove down an extra fifty feet, barely missing rooftops.
The whiskers caught the rope and it immediately slid to the center where a sky anchor locked onto the rope.
The Pakistani was opening his mouth to say something else when the rope tightened and he abruptly left the ground, followed by his wife, child, and then Neeley.
The MC-130 gained altitude and speed, turning for the Afghan border as its forward momentum swung the rope along the belly of the plane. On the open ramp in the rear, several air force crew manned a crane. They expertly snagged the rope, then began hauling it in along with its passengers.
At the very end of the rope, buffeted about, Neeley spread her arms to reduce the spinning and stared down at the lights of Abbottabad as they began to recede.
Despite the air whistling around and the roar of the engines, she heard Hannah’s voice in her earpiece.
“Good job.”
As she was reeled into the MC-130, Neeley finally allowed her thoughts to drift, to naturally think of Gant as the freezing wind ripped into her. Of his strong arms around her, holding her tight against the Vermont winter that penetrated the stout walls of the cabin he’d built. And then how it had been her holding him, keeping him warm, as his body wasted away.
Those thoughts always led to one place, one she was visiting in her mind more and more often: the grave they’d dug together that last year, in the early fall before the ground froze. Gant always thought ahead and he’d known he would not be around for the spring thaw and this was something that had to be done now. She’d done most of the digging, as he tired easily at that point. Resting, he’d sit on the growing pile of dirt, which he’d soon be part of, drinking a beer, telling morbid jokes and mixing in his Rules, knowing she was soon going to need them more than ever before. They’d had ten years together, long enough for Neeley to learn all his Rules and be taught all his tricks and tactics of covert operations.
But not long enough for her to grow tired of his arms.
As gloved hands reached out and pulled her into the cargo bay of the Commando, she pictured his lined, aged face, peering out the window at that dark hole as winter set in. She’d kept the fireplace blazing, the red glow flickering on his skin. She’d used so much wood, she knew the pile wouldn’t last the winter, but neither would he, and once he was gone, she would be too.
There had been more than the cancer and the specter of the hole eating at him though. He’d been unable, even in love and even dying, to break his oath and tell her of the organization he worked for, the Cellar, and why her life would now be in jeopardy.
As the back ramp rose up into the tail and shut, Neeley shrugged off the harness. Had he known where the journey he’d sent her on would end? Had he known she’d end up taking his place in the Cellar? Had she even had a choice? It was a question she asked herself more and more as she grew older and knew her life options were closing off with each year.
Neeley sat on the red web seating lining the side of the plane as the three Pakistanis were met by an interpreter, the parents’ arms gesturing on all sides, mouths open in argument. She tuned out the voices already muted by the roar of the turboprop engines and inadequate insulation of the Special Operations plane. The front half of the Commando’s cargo bay was hidden behind a curtain, covering the screen watchers and countersurveillance experts who kept the plane cloaked from electronic detection and helped the pilots navigate a spiderweb route back to safety. The pilots were flying 250 by 250: 250 feet above the ground at 250 knots, which made for interesting maneuvering as they reached the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Neeley leaned her head back, still feeling the speed surging in her veins.
Had she ever had a choice? Maybe, but it was so many years ago, well before the Cellar. Everyone has a key point, a golden moment in their life, where there is a fork in the road and sometimes we make that choice and sometimes we’re shoved onto a path.
Ten years before Gant’s death, she’d been a teenager, living in Berlin. She liked to think she’d been innocent and naive, but as the years passed, her retrospect shifted also. She’d been walking through Tempelhof Airport, a large, brightly wrapped package in her hands. She could understand the lilting Berliner accent of the natives, and even then, so many years after the blockade and the airlift, there were still those who remembered and gave Americans, like Neeley, an extra smile.
The men had also noticed her because of her cut-off Levi’s and tight T-shirt. Inappropriate attire for the first week of October in Berlin, but she knew now it was a diversion, set up by her boyfriend who’d given her the package to take to England. It was before 9/11 and security at airports was almost nonexistent.
Except for Gant, for whom there was no such thing as a lack of security. He’d later told her he spotted her right away. Not because of the long, lean legs or taut breasts straining against the thin shirt, but because she clutched the package to her, just below those breasts. It was a tell those who worked in counterterrorism easily recognized.
His row had been called, but he had not boarded. He always joked the plane would leave when the last person boarded, so there was no point rushing, but the reality was, he watched every single person as they entered the gangway.
He had reason to be extra vigilant that day. It was 1993 and the news was full of stories of the Battle of Mogadishu. Helicopters shot down, soldiers dead, bodies being dragged through the streets by angry mobs.
His role in that affair, he’d never been very clear on.