The landscape had contorted into a postapocalyptic charcoal painting, with a ribbon of mottled white separating two fields of unrelenting fire. Those fields swept out toward a greater curtain of flames beneath which lay the shattered remains of the Sphinx, its rotors tipped forward into the dirt but still rotating like a pair of massive grass edgers. The fuselage had split in two and was bathed in orange and blue beneath the faint shadow of the wings, one intact, the other hanging half off at an improbable angle. A mound of still-settling earth completely obscured the aircraft’s nose, where yet another dust cloud was still rising into the air.
And above it all hung a morning sky filling steadily with wide columns of black smoke, while smaller ones corkscrewed upward on the periphery of the crash site.
Lakota was muttering a roll call to herself, while the pilot and co-pilot were just behind Brent, talking with the tower and their superiors on portable radios.
Brent coughed, cleared his throat, and activated his Cross-Com. “Hammer, this is Ghost Lead, over.”
Dennison appeared in a data box in one corner of his HUD. “Ghost Lead, this is Hammer. We’ve got evac transports en route. ETA should be ten minutes.”
“Roger that. I’ve got a man down and a sky busier than A’stan on a weekday. What the hell’s going on?”
“The Russians know she’s in London, Brent. They’re dropping in ground troops. Could be a full battalion.”
“They’re fools. We’ll cut ’em off. And they won’t damage the infrastructure, not when the Brits are buying all their oil.”
“We know that. And they know we know. This is just a diversion. We haven’t picked up Haussler yet, but we know he’s there somewhere. We finally got the sister to talk, and we have the location of the boy. He’s near Sandhurst. GPS coordinates uploading now but we can’t get our satellites in close for a look. The Russians are jamming us. You’ll proceed there immediately. The Voecklers will rendezvous, but they’ll get there first.”
“Roger that.”
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a little problem in London.”
“Yes, you do…”
Brent blinked hard to clear his vision, then regarded Copeland, who was holding an oxygen mask up to Park’s face. Park was conscious and breathing steadily.
“He’ll be all right. Might be a little high for a while,” said the medic. “Fumes got to him before he could mask up.”
“Thanks, bro. Good job. I mean it.”
“Thank you, sir. You sure you’re all right? Looks like you could use a little more oxygen.”
“No, no, I’m good. I’ve just never liked flying.”
Copeland cracked a smile. “Me neither, sir. And I hate landing even more.”
Brent gave a little snort and shook his head at the burning field. Then he turned back.
Clouds of dust rose in the distance like small dust devils, and Lakota, who’d lifted a pair of binoculars to her face, cried, “Here come our rides! Get ready to saddle up!”
She then jogged over to Brent. “Saw the new GPS on our target.”
“Yep.”
“You think she’s still there?”
Brent took a long breath. “Without eyes in the sky? All we can do is hope — and get our asses in gear.”
The Brits had sent out a pair of Huskies that resembled the JSF’s HMMWV or “Hummer” but were smaller, so the team had been forced to pile into the small flatbeds. The vehicles were normally crewed by four, but these had only a driver and gunner manning a big fifty-caliber out back. Brent rode shotgun in one truck, Lakota in the other.
While en route to Sandhurst, Dennison told Brent that the helicopter transports she’d secured were now unavailable, so they were forced to take the Huskies all the way down to Sandhurst, at least a two-hour drive through rolling countryside.
He reminded Dennison of the crash landing and lack of satellite and helicopter support, that these were circumstances beyond his control and that the time delay might result in loss of the target.
“I understand that, Captain. But you have your orders. And your mission. Hammer out.”
She didn’t want to hear it. And if the op went south again, he would take the fall. She’d already gone to bat for him and couldn’t do any more.
So now he could play it two ways: be the stressed-out maniac barking at his people… or remain cool, calm, and collected, a man already resigned to his fate who stared into the sun as it was about to explode and said, “No problem, people. Let’s get to work.”
He leaned over to the driver. “We need to be there yesterday.”
“Right. Tell your folks out back to hang on. There’s nothing I like more than breaking the speed limit!”
Brent smiled. “You and me both! Go for it!” He then passed word back to the others as the Husky leapt forward with a roar and subsequent vibration working up through the reinforced floor.
After a burst of static, George Voeckler appeared in Brent’s HUD: “Ghost Lead, this is Romulus, over.”
“Go ahead, Romulus.”
“We should be at the target coordinates in about thirty minutes. Suggest we move in immediately and try to secure the target, over.”
The word Negative was about to escape Brent’s lips, and he was certain that George expected him to deny the request and order him to set up an observation post and wait for them.
But it was all about timing, not ego, and the Russian attack had no doubt alerted the Snow Maiden. She was a fool if she wasn’t already on the move, and they needed to check out the leads quickly and efficiently.
“Romulus, I want you guys all over that location. You get in there and try to take her alive. But if not, you know what to do. No delays.”
George appeared a little flabbergasted, his face shimmering a bit in the HUD, but then his voice came steadily. “Roger that, Captain.”
“And keep the channel open. I want full access to your cameras.”
“Will do. Romulus out.”
As he settled deeper into the seat, Brent wondered if they hadn’t given him the Snow Maiden job as a way to ditch a troublemaker. They were always two steps behind her, and the more he failed, the easier it was for them to bust him down and out.
Now he was just being paranoid, and he wasn’t the biggest troublemaker in the group. They’d given him the job because they knew he wouldn’t play it by the book. Never did.
He got back on the Cross-Com, called Dennison, and asked to speak directly to Warda if he could. He waited. Five minutes later he had the woman on the line. His focus was on the vehicles owned by her brother’s staff. She didn’t know tag numbers but had a general idea of style and color. He asked Dennison to relay these details to the local authorities. She said she was right on it.
Suddenly, a fist was rapping on the cab’s back window. It was Daugherty, looking wide-eyed and pointing above them.
Brent thrust his head out the open side window as two helicopters swept overhead, one of them decidedly Russian, the other an AH-80 Blackfoot American gunship firing on the Russian bird, the rounds and tracers missing as the Russian swept down toward the field.
And then more rotors drew closer, and with an immediate roar one more Russian bird appeared, a gunship itself, and fired on the American chopper, all of it happening not more than five hundred meters ahead, the first Russian helicopter descending to less than a hundred meters above the road. It was, in a word, surreal to see Russian Federation military aircraft flying over the U.K. and being engaged by Americans. Even their driver remarked on the audacity of it all. Obviously, JSF forces had been called in to assist, but now it seemed that the lone American bird could use some help.
“Can you tell your gunners to put some fire up there to help him out?”