"Where…"
The canopy shattered. Something hit Carter hard. Harmon cried out and fell against the controls. Blood sprayed across the cockpit. The plane nosed down and began to turn.
Carter grabbed the stick in front of him and pulled back against Harmon's weight. The plane rose and leveled off. Bullets thudded into the wooden fuselage. A fine spray of oil streamed back from the engine.
He tried for altitude, but they were going down. He tried to keep the plane in the air. Hell, he wasn't a pilot. Just a few lessons, years ago. Carter squinted through the oil and blood coating the broken canopy. The wind tore at him. He looked for a place to set down.
Harmon was unconscious or dead. The engine made loud, hard noises. Black smoke streamed behind.
Ahead, a table top plateau rose from the valley floor, tall and isolated. The top was flat and strewn with boulders and rocks, big enough to set down if he could make it. The engine seized and died. With no power and no way to get higher, he might make the plateau. If he didn’t, they wouldn't have to worry about it.
The plane skimmed over the edge of the plateau. The wheels struck hard on the rocky ground. The shock slammed his teeth together. He stood on the brakes and watched the other side of the mesa coming up. One of the wheels hit a rock and snapped off. The wing dipped and dug into the ground. The plane corkscrewed away from the edge and came to a shuddering halt.
They were down.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
"Selena."
"I’m all right."
Carter reached over to Harmon and felt his neck for a pulse. Unconscious. Still alive. His shirt was covered with blood, his lap soaked in it.
"We’ve got to get out," Carter unbuckled his seat belt. "Away from the plane."
He climbed out of the cabin and stood on the angle between the wing and the fuselage. He hauled Harmon out of his seat. Dead weight, but Nick got him up and out and lowered down to the ground. Selena came after him.
Fuel leaked from the wrecked aircraft.
"Get his feet." They hurried away toward the edge of the mesa.
They set Harmon down.
"Here." Selena handed him the first aid kit. She’d grabbed it on her way out of the plane.
Joe Harmon had taken two rounds. One bullet had missed the lung and exited out the front of his chest. A ragged, bloody hole marked where the second had come out through the front of his abdomen beneath the rib cage.
Carter tried not to think much as he worked on him. Compression bandages. Antibiotic powder for infection. If those rounds had nicked an artery, Harmon would die. If he was bleeding internally, he would die. The abdominal wound would kill him for sure if they didn’t get serious help soon. A field dressing wasn't going to cut it.
Harmon's eyes fluttered. Carter didn’t like his color.
"What…"
"Don’t talk. We’re down, I’ve stopped the bleeding."
"How bad?"
"Two. Both through and through. One high, missed the lung. One low in the side and abdomen." Harmon knew what that meant.
"Mother fuckers." His voice was weak, wet.
"Don’t talk."
"The plane?"
"It’s finished. But we’ll get out. Don’t worry about it. Joe, you gotta take it easy. I’ll get you out of here."
Harmon coughed. A bubble of blood formed on his lips. "Hurts a little." The pain hadn’t really set in yet, but it would in a few moments. There was morphine in the kit. Nick took a syrette and injected it into Harmon's thigh.
"Stay awake," Nick said. "Don’t go south on me."
He looked over at the plane. There was no fire. That was a break, whoever shot them down wouldn’t see smoke and come straight to the plateau. They were certain to come, sooner or later.
"Selena, come with me. We’ve got to salvage what we can."
They approached the plane. The smell of gas made him dizzy. He didn’t think it would go up, or it would already be in flames.
"No smoking, right?"
She laughed. Nervous.
"You stay outside. I’ll hand stuff out to you."
Daylight streamed through holes riddling the fuselage. Nick tossed out the tarp and sleeping bags. The flashlights were useless. His phone was shattered. Water soaked the floor of the compartment, but three of the liter bottles were still intact. The emergency rations were reduced to a few packages of chalk-like granola bars. The gas cans were full of holes. He took the old stretcher from its straps and handed it out.
He took the Mauser rifle and ammo and passed it out to Selena. He touched his holster, felt torn leather and took out the H-K. It was useless, the frame bent where it had stopped a round. He remembered the blow to his chest in the plane. That left them with Selena's pistol and an old bolt action rifle with twelve rounds against an unknown number of enemies with automatic weapons.
Bad odds.
They moved everything over to where Harmon lay on the ground. Carter thought about the situation. He didn’t like what he was thinking.
"How long before they find us?" Selena asked.
"I don’t know. We made maybe two or three miles from where they were. This plateau is safer than the valley floor. We’re a couple of hundred feet up. I don’t think anyone can spot us from below if we keep away from the edge."
"Then we’re safe for the moment." She wiped sweat from her forehead.
"Probably. I’m not sure anyone could get up here if they wanted to, or if we can get down. Harmon can’t be moved."
"I’m going to see if we can get help."
She took her satellite phone out of her bag.
"Shit." She held it up. A round had hit the phone. Useless.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Jibril al-Bausari sat cross legged in the coolness of the shaded overhang at the entrance to the cave. Late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the seared landscape.
Bausari controlled his anger. Young men were impetuous. The plane had been too tempting a target. Three of his men were searching for wreckage and any survivors. The plane had been shot to pieces. It couldn’t have gone far.
But what if the pilot had radioed before it went down? And why, in Allah’s name, did it have to appear now? Now complicated plans might have to be changed.
His fighters were getting ready for departure. He would leave after dark. In two or three nights, God willing, he would reach the coast in Mauritania, where the next phase would get under way.
Bausari wasn’t worried about border patrols. They were few and he could avoid or destroy them. But the American satellites might still find the truck, even at night. Once he reached the coast that would all change.
Bausari knew time was running out. Every day, the illness ate away at him. Allah tested his servants, but soon the test would be over.
Years of poor food, prison, torture, extremes of heat and cold had taken their toll. His old wounds ached. Bausari massaged the contracted, rigid fingers of his crippled left hand, a souvenir of the Muktabharat, the Egyptian secret police.
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Libya, Iraq, Egypt, Algeria — he could no longer remember every cave, every battle, every stretch of desert sand or mountain valley. They blurred together in one endless chain of hardship and struggle. He had killed many infidels, but remembered few. Many he had never seen. God willing, there would be many more. God willing, this time he would strike such a blow that the unbelievers would tremble in fear before Allah’s righteous anger.
The cave made a perfect hiding place along the route to Mauritania. AQIM used it as a place to cache weapons and supplies, out of sight of the accursed American satellites..
AQIM hadn't known what was concealed in the cave, but Bausari had discovered the secret. He had no interest in the supplies AQIM stored there. He'd sent his men ahead to be sure the cave was secure. When he arrived he'd begun looking. The hidden chamber was found behind a heavy fall of rock. Inside had been an old, wooden box under a fragile green cloth.