Allston kept looking at his watch as he stood on the ramp with Toby. “Any time now,” he said. The C-130s had been gone for three hours. The flight time was one hour each way, and with one hour on the ground to turn around at Juba, they should be back at any moment. That meant all four could be turned and launched with a full load of refugees well before first light. He fought the urge to get on the radio and break radio silence, but the SA had to be monitoring their frequencies. “Come on,” he urged.
“Did you get all your folks out?” Toby asked.
“We evacuated a hundred,” Allston answered. “We got all the spare parts and equipment for the birds and enough tents and MREs to set up shop at Juba.” He scanned the dark sky, looking for a telltale shadow moving against the moonlit clouds. He had to talk, anything to break the rising tension. “We got twenty-six folks still here; eight ground crew to turn the birds and eighteen security cops.”
“And you,” Toby added.
“There,” Allston said, pointing to the south. A dark shadow punched through the clouds.
“You got good eyeballs,” Toby said.
They watched as the darkened C-130 flew a lights-out approach, the pilots relying on their NVGs. It touched down and taxied in. The rear ramp came down and eight South Sudanese soldiers double-timed off. All were carrying weapons and full backpacks. Private Hans Beck was there to meet them and they quickly climbed on board a waiting truck and sped away. Just as quickly, Loni Williams and one of the loadmasters who had volunteered to stay behind, marshaled over a hundred refugees up the ramp. The Hercules taxied out as the ramp came up.
A lone figure walked towards him. It was Jill. Allston stared at her. “Doesn’t anybody understand an order anymore?”
“A point of discussion, sir,” Jill answered. Then, “We have a problem at Juba.”
It was a tense meeting as Jill described the situation at Juba. “The South Sudanese closed the airfield and won’t let us takeoff. I have no idea why. Major Lane is furious and collected all the money we had to bribe the guards. Then he asked for volunteers to fly a special mission. Marci put a crew together; the copilot was Bard Green, Riley the flight engineer, and MacRay the loadmaster. I asked the soldiers hanging around if any wanted to kill some SA. You saw the eight who took me up on the offer. Colonel Malaby got the Herk refueled, MacRay loaded the soldiers, and Marci just took off, no flight plan, no clearance, nothing. No one stopped them.”
“And you decided to come along,” Allston said.
“You ordered me to be on the first shuttle to Juba,” she said, her voice matter-of-fact. “And I was. You never said I had to stay there.”
Vermullen laughed. “You have another lawyer on your hands.” He turned serious. “The Legion trained those eight soldiers and they say more want to come.”
“Did they say why Juba had closed the runway?” Allston asked. Vermullen shook his head.
“The South Sudanese are split by tribal factions,” Toby said. “It’s a matter of bribing the right tribe. If we can get D’Na to Juba, she’ll find the right people.”
“Do we have enough money?” Allston asked.
“The mission has about 50,000 Euros worth of Krugerrands in Juba,” Toby replied. “A little gold goes a long way in this part of Africa.”
“Reverend, you shock me,” Allston said, trying to break the tension. Toby gave him a helpless look, his arms outstretched. Allston’s head came up. In the distance he heard a familiar drone. “That’s a 130.” The sound of the turboprop grew louder. “Let’s go howdy the folks. Toby, can you get D’Na to the airstrip ASAP? The Herk won’t be on the ground long.” Outside, the first light of the new day cracked the far horizon. They ran for their vehicles as the first shrieks of incoming artillery split the air.
TWENTY-FOUR
Mission Awana
Allston floor-boarded the accelerator as he raced for the airfield. Off to his left, dust and dirt mushroomed into the air as another artillery shell exploded. The concussion rocked the pickup as shrapnel cut into the back and shredded a tire. Allston slowed as he regained control. A second round exploded harmlessly further away. “It’s not aimed,” he shouted.
“Close enough for me!” Jill shouted back. The coppery taste of bile flooded her mouth and she held on, fighting the panic that was tearing at her. Two more explosions pounded at them as they reached the airstrip. Ahead of them, a C-130 came down short final, its nose high in the air. It banged down and reversed its props, roaring to a stop. It turned into the parking area, spun around, and stopped. In the growing light, they could see Marci sitting in the left seat. She gave them thumbs up as the ramp came down. A mass of humanity ran for the aircraft, desperate to escape the hell around them.
Another artillery round exploded. “They’re getting closer!” Allston yelled. Two more rounds walked towards the Hercules. “Go! Go! Go!” he yelled, urging the people to hurry. “Damn it,” he moaned. “If we had a howitzer with a counter-battery radar we could blow those bastards halfway to Khartoum.”
“A howitzer?” Jill shouted, partially deafened by the explosions.
“Yeah. Those sons of bitches are out of range of Idi’s mortars. We need something that can reach out and touch them.” Jill ran for the C-130. “Where the hell are you going?” he yelled after her. She was the last to board as it started to taxi. Jenkins ran the engines up as she turned onto the runway and accelerated. The nose came up and the big bird lifted into the air. Marci immediately turned out to the right and for a split second, Allston was sure the right wing tip would strike the ground and they would cartwheel in flames. The Herk rolled out, barely a hundred feet above the ground as a shell hit the runway, exploding harmlessly but leaving a nasty crater.
“Cheated death again!” Allston shouted. The C-130 hugged the ground as it disappeared to the south. Another round hit the airfield and Allston ran for one of the freshly dug slit trenches that ringed the airfield. He piled in and covered his head with his arms. A body landed on top of him. It was Williams. A loud explosion washed over them. Then it was silent. Slowly, Williams lifted his head.
“Sorry, Boss,” he said, climbing out and standing. Allston stood. His truck was a burning pile of steel and rubber. “Looks like you need another set of wheels,” Williams said.
“Well, it did have a flat tire,” Allston replied.
Vermullen drove up in his Panhard utility. “Ah, I see you are okay. Your Major, she comes, she goes. Are all your officers like that?”
“She specializes in pissing me off,” Allston groused.
“Perhaps you noticed something unusual?” Vermullen asked.
“Other than getting pounded by artillery, not a thing.”
“The last few rounds were very accurate,” Vermullen said. “If your pilot had climbed out straight ahead, well, do not think about it.”
“So what are you saying?”
“They have an artillery spotter on the field.”
“Wonderful news,” Allston muttered.
“There is some good new, Boss,” Williams offered. “We got about a hundred-fifty refugees out.”
“Thanks to Marci Jenkins,” Allston said.
“Did D’Na get out on the C-130?” Allston asked Toby. The two men were huddled with Vermullen in the sandbagged bunker the Legion was using as its command post.
“She was with the refugees along with two bodyguards.”
“No word, I assume,” Allston replied.
Toby shook his head. “The phone line is cut and our radios are all jammed.”
“It is the same with us,” Vermullen added. “Even our satellite communication frequencies are jammed. It is very sophisticated. Probably Chinese.”