The pilot of the Spectre gunship leveled off. “What do you see?” he asked his targeting officer.
“I’ve got them on the ground. Four people.” The man played with his camera controls. “I have the plane too. Off to our left. About a half a mile away.” “Eagle, this is One One. What are your orders? Over.”
Colonel Lorenz didn’t really understand what was going on. He relayed that question to Captain Turcotte on board the bouncer.
Turcotte’s reply was curt.
“Take the plane out.”
The pilot of the Spectre blinked. “Say again. Over.”
“Shoot down the aircraft. Over.”
As far as the pilot knew, no Spectre had ever even engaged another aircraft, never mind shot one down. “Keegan,” he asked his targeting officer over the intercom, “did you hear that?”
“Yeah,” Keegan said. “Far out. We’re a fighter now. The jet jocks will crap when we tell them this. Give me level flight, azimuth, two one seven degrees.”
The pilot of the Sparrow saw the edge of the runway through his NVGs. He nudged the stick forward, descending. He had about a second and a half to figure out what was happening as a solid line of tracers appeared just in front of him before the plane — and him with it — was torn to shreds by a combination of 7.62mm and 40mm rounds.
“What the hell is that?” Faulkener called out as they watched the tracers streaking over head, parallel to the ground.
“Sparrow, this is Horseman,” Toland called into the radio. “Sparrow, this is horseman!” There was only static.
They all turned to look as a bouncer flashed out of the rainy dark and silently flew by.
“There they are!” Turcotte cried out. “Put us down!” They landed, a hundred meters from the four men.
The radio dropped from Toland’s fingers into the mud. His head drooped on his shoulders for a long second, then came back up, and he looked about. There was just the slightest hint of dawn in the east, and the clouds appeared to be clearing.
The third man from Toland’s patrol was lying in the mud, black vomit coming out of his mouth, blood seeping out of his eyes, nose, and ears.
CHAPTER 20
“Endeavor has visual on the mothership,” Kopina said, tapping the TV screen that showed the long black cigar shape above the curve of the Earth. “That’s a forward view from the shuttle cabin.”
She and Duncan were in a small room off the training hangar. Two TVs perched on the edge of the table, one tuned to Endeavor, the other to Columbia.
As the shuttle approached the mothership, the damage caused by the nuclear explosion became evident. There was a long gash, over six hundred meters long down the side. At its widest — where the cargo bay had been — the cut appeared lo be about fifty meters wide.
“That thing actually held up a lot better than I thought,” Duncan said.
Kopina nodded. “We think the skin of the ship was ripped open in the explosion, but the main structure — the load- and stress-bearing beams, remained intact. It’s obvious that in order to be able to sustain the stress of interstellar travel, the structure of a spaceship has to be incredibly strong.” “How soon will they make linkup?” Duncan asked.
“They’re closing relatively quickly,” Kopina said. “They’re going to be in range and try to grab a hold with the robotic arm in about thirty minutes. Let’s hope they get it.”
“If they miss, can’t they try again?” Duncan asked.
Kopina gave her a sidelong glance before answering. “Endeavor has enough fuel for only one try. If they miss, that’s it. And,” she added, “if they use up too much fuel trying to link up with the mothership, they won’t have enough to get back down. The shuttle wasn’t designed to do much moving once it got into a stable orbit.”
“What about Columbia?” Duncan asked.
“It’ll be in the vicinity of the talon about thirty minutes after that.”
“Do you have us fixed?” Turcotte asked, holding the handset for the FM radio close to his lips. “Over.”
“Roger that,” the Spectre replied. “We’ve got the bouncer clear. We’ll track each individual as you come off. You have four people, about one hundred meters due south of your position. We can finish them for you. Over.”
“Negative,” Turcotte replied. “We need them alive. There is something you can do, though.” Turcotte quickly finished giving instructions, then signaled for Kenyon and Yakov to follow him.
Turcotte hopped off and slid through the ground fog and the half light of a sun just clearing the horizon, weapon at the ready. Turcotte sidled to the right, getting off the mud of the runway and into the waist-high grass. He got down on his belly and began slithering forward, his clothing immediately soaked by the wet grass, the others following.
When he had made about fifty meters, he halted. “Stand up,” he yelled. “Throw down your weapons and put your hands on top of your heads.”
“Screw you!” A burst of semiautomatic fire ripped a few feet over Turcotte’s head.
Toland looked at Faulkener. Faulkener returned the look with a glare, his eyes wild. “I’m not going to die like some animal.” The NCO fired another burst from his AK-47.
“We’ve got a chance,” Toland said. “They want to talk!” He looked at the third man. He was unconscious now, blood seeping out of every pore, covered in black vomit.
A noise caught Toland’s attention. Baldrick was turning a knob on one of the cases. “What are you doing?”
“Orders,” Baldrick said.
“Everyone just freeze,” Toland hissed. “I’m in charge here, and I’ll make the decisions.”
Baldrick didn’t stop. Toland rolled twice to get close, then slapped Baldrick’s hands away from the case. “I said stop.”
“The Mission—” Baldrick began.
“I don’t give a damn about your Mission,” Toland said.
“I ain’t going to die like that,” Faulkener said. He began to stand. Toland grabbed him and pulled him down.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Toland didn’t have time to dwell on Faulkener, though, because Baldrick began fiddling with the case. Toland finally understood that he was working on a small keypad — activating a destruct device. Toland drew his knife, grabbed Baldrick’s right hand, and slammed the knife point through the center of the palm, pinning it to the ground.
He spun about as he heard a shot. Faulkener’s body was crumpled on the muddy ground, blood pouring from the self-inflicted shot to the head. “Oh, goddamn,” Toland muttered.
“Hands up!” the same voice called out.
“Who are you?” Toland called out.
“U.S. Army.”
“Why do you want us? We have nothing against you.”
“We want to talk!”
“Talk?” Toland returned. “You shot our plane down.”
“We’ll shoot you if you don’t put your hands up.”
A line of tracers came down from the sky and tore into the earth less than ten meters from Toland’s position.
“Next burst is on top of your position,” the voice called out.
Toland reached over. The third man was dead. Bled out. Everyone was dead, except he and Baldrick.
“You can’t surrender that case,” Baldrick said through a grimace of pain.
“Oh, yeah,” Toland said. “So we blow it up and then we don’t have anything to deal with these people-”
“You can’t deal this!” Baldrick said, his one good hand reaching for the case. “The Missions got you brainwashed,” Toland said. “Nothing is worth that much.” He raised his voice. “You want the imagery — we’ll give it to you, if you’ll give us free escort out of here.”