Kill Decision (28 page)

Odin walked toward the ramp. McKinney stood up but remained where she was as the plane passed close above the mystery drone. It was a hundred or more feet below them and a bit farther back, but the entire team was riveted by it—apparently never having seen their enemy with the naked eye.

Odin’s voice came in over McKinney’s headphones. “Let’s hope One was right about these things not having eyes on the back of their heads.”

In a moment Singleton’s voice came over the radio in response. She hadn’t seen him down at the camp, but he was evidently there.
“They’re a Spartan, single-use platform. Their targets are all below them. Eyes above would mean they’d need software to interpret what they’re seeing in a different context. It wouldn’t be justified.”

Odin nodded. “Thanks, One.”

Behind him the loadmaster readied the first pallet with the folded tentlike object on it.

Foxy’s voiced crackled.
“Tailhook, this is Foxy. We are deploying the interdiction bag. Get ready for some drag.”

“Copy that.”

Odin motioned for McKinney to stand back, and he moved against the wall next to her. A moment later the small drag chute deployed, pulling the folded bag pallet toward the emptiness beyond the cargo door. In a moment it tipped off the edge and started unreeling steel cable that quickly pulled taut on the concrete pallet. The securing straps there snapped tight.

McKinney saw the loadmaster checking the cable assembly. He gave a thumbs-up. On Odin’s handheld screen, a night-vision image showed the interdiction bag open like a parachute canopy at the end of a curving, one-hundred-meter length of steel cable behind the C-130.

The loadmaster radioed the pilot.
“Interdiction bag deployed. Tailhook, you are GO for interdiction.”

The pilot’s voice came over moments later.
“TOC, interdiction bag deployed successfully. We’re moving in to capture.”

“Copy that.”

From this distance it looked like the bag was pathetically small. McKinney decided to edge closer to the ramp alongside Odin. He gave her a brief glance, but she was busy taking in the fantastic view. She could also see the drone more clearly from this vantage point. It was only a hundred or so meters back. It looked even less impressive up close, with perhaps a twenty-foot wingspan. She could hardly believe all this ruckus had been caused by this jury-rigged hobby aircraft.

The drone seemed to be inching back relative to the billowing containment bag, the pilot maneuvering it into position. The bag was aerodynamically stable, apparently due to small fins on its side. Hoov was watching the scene intently as he manipulated a handheld joystick. It occurred to McKinney that he must be controlling it.

The whole team watched in tense anticipation.

The pilot’s voice crackled.
“Fifty meters.”
A pause.
“Thirty meters.”

In the green night-vision camera image the unsuspecting drone eased back toward the bag.

The pilot’s voice came over the radio.
“Odin, we’re just three miles to Target One. Altitude ten thousand feet.”

“Just keep it steady.”

On-screen the drone pulled up slightly, and a voice came over the radio.
“Bomb in! Bomb in! Target Two has deployed ordnance.”

Odin spoke. “JOC, you’ve got ordnance inbound. All personnel take cover.”

Singleton’s voice came back with a siren wailing in the background.
“Copy that, Odin.”

The drone began to climb steeply.

The pilot’s voice.
“Pulling up. Keep it in the box. This fucker’s climbing fast.”

Odin motioned for McKinney to get back and followed behind her toward their seats. She heard his voice in her headphones. “We need to bag it, Tailhook. You’re running short on time.”

“We’ll get it.”

The men in the cargo bay grabbed for handholds as the plane lurched upward, chasing the drone up into the sky. Suddenly the entire view through the open cargo bay was of the dark badlands below. Tin Man started sliding back, and Foxy reeled him in by his monkey cord.

Meanwhile, behind them the plane was managing to gain on the drone and center it back into the maw of the bag. The team in the cargo bay watched intently—and in a few moments the drone disappeared, enveloped by the bag.

“Bingo, TOC! Bogey’s in the bag! Repeat bogey’s in the bag!”

McKinney and Odin looked to each other.

The bag was edging sideways, and then the drone suddenly started taking evasive maneuvers. McKinney realized there was nothing to stop the wild drone from hurtling forward a couple of hundred meters into the cargo bay and exploding—taking them all out.

The pilot’s voice came over the radio.
“This thing’s going nuts.”

Odin waved to the crew. “Deploy the deadweight!”

“Stand clear!”

She saw the loadmaster kick the quick-release on the pallet of concrete that formed the deadweight. It whipped along the rails from the drag of the interdiction bag. The huge block tumbled off into the night, and the bag fell down and behind with it.

“Interdiction successful. Bag in free fall.”

A moment later a white flash pierced the night above the Utah desert, and a fiery light and smoke filled the bag. The boom followed soon after.

Foxy was training some sort of night-vision binoculars on the distant object.
“Drone just self-destructed, but the bag looks intact.”

She could hear cheers on the radio, and Odin and McKinney exchanged relieved smiles. He pointed, and they watched the glowing interdiction bag still falling from thousands of feet in the air. “Let’s hope it has the answers we’re looking for in it.”

The pilot’s voice crackled again.
“TOC, missile lock-on! Are any of you guys burning me?”

Hoov’s voice. “
Negative, Tailhook
.”

Then, from somewhere low on the eastern horizon, a missile streaked across the night sky, burning like a flare as it arced upward toward them. McKinney felt the adrenal wave of fear spreading like heat down her legs. Even for a civilian, the sight of a missile ascending toward them was obviously bad.

“Missile six o’clock low! Deploying angel fire.”

McKinney watched amazed as suddenly the sky erupted in a fountain of blinding light, dozens of flares spreading out from the base of the C-130 and trailing behind them. Salvo after salvo of flares formed an angel wing pattern of smoke and green-white light behind them. The plane lurched to the right, throwing her against the wall. Then left. Mc-
Kinney grabbed on to the equipment rack and looked behind them through the open cargo door.

Odin’s voice came over the radio. “Godammit, Hoov, what the hell’s out there?”

The missile raced past them wide on the left and detonated, creating a flash and a powerful
thump
that caused the plane to lurch.

The pilot’s voice.
“Shit, we’re hit.”

Odin raced forward, pulling on his monkey cord to steady himself.

McKinney watched in horror as a burning glow filled the left-side porthole windows, and a noticeable vibration set in on the floor. The C-130 yawed from side to side—still spitting flares every few seconds. The men in the cargo bay still looked incredibly calm to her, checking their monitors and grabbing fire extinguishers. It made McKinney straighten up, wondering what she should be doing.

The pilot’s voice crackled as though announcing the in-flight movie.
“Shutting down engine one. I’m going to try for the base camp airstrip.”

Foxy’s voice.
“Where’d the missile come from?”

Hoov’s voice answered.
“Nothing on radar.”

Odin was pulling gear from a Pelican case. “Did it come from the ground?”

“We’ve got an inconclusive echo moving across our six. Ah . . . now it’s gone again.”

“Opened its weapon bay. Expect another launch. How far out?”

“Three miles.”

“All right. Team Ancile. Execute, execute, execute!” Odin turned to McKinney and unfastened her monkey cord harness. “Check your chute, but don’t jump until I say.”

“
Until
you say? What happened to the pilot trying to land?”

“Change of plans. Get busy, Professor!”

She pulled on the shoulder straps of her parachute and began securing it. It was apparently a military-grade HALO chute. She grabbed for handholds against the lurching of the plane as she familiarized herself with the location of the ripcord and the cutaway. A glance up told her that everyone else was checking their parachutes as well.

The pilot shouted again.
“Missile lock-on!”

McKinney looked out the open cargo doors to see another missile streaking out of the darkness, rising fast from a low angle. Odin was staring out with what looked like thermal binoculars. “I’ve got eyes on two bogeys, six o’clock, low, four thousand meters. I think we got our answer, Foxy.”

“Looks like it.”

Odin started tapping in numbers on a wrist computer.

Flares spouted from the C-130 again, and it took evasive maneuvers that sent McKinney sprawling. She grabbed on to the equipment rack and pulled herself to her feet again.

What the hell am I doing here?
The question kept repeating in her mind. She looked at that fiery glow in the left-side portholes and was relieved to see that it had almost gone away. She was tempted to run out and jump from the cargo ramp, but she resisted. She had to stay with the team. The image of Ritter’s ghoulish eyes came back to her.

She’s as good as dead, and you know it.

Odin’s voice came over the radio channel. “Tailhook: Clear your people.”

“Copy that, Odin.”

Odin rummaged through equipment cases again. The other team members were hurriedly grabbing weapons and strapping on gear. “Move it, people!”

McKinney kept her eyes on the incoming missile as it streaked into the flares and past them without exploding. “Jesus Christ . . .”

The pilot’s voice came over the radio.
“Setting autopilot to twenty-three thousand. All crew, bail out! Bail out!”

The plane tilted into an upward climb, while Foxy stomped toward Odin along with a half-dozen crew and team members. Foxy held his kora by the neck, and as he approached he looked sadly at it. “Well, another one bites the dust.” He tossed it out the cargo bay doors and into the abyss.

Odin gestured to Foxy with a slashing motion across his throat as he pulled the mic boom from his helmet. Then he shouted something directly into Foxy’s ear for several moments. She couldn’t hear it over the roar of the plane and her own insulating headphones, but after a moment Foxy nodded and motioned for the others to follow him.

He saluted McKinney. “See you in hell, Professor!”

The whole group went single file, launching one by one off the back ramp and into the moonlight over the Utah desert. McKinney watched them go and could see their silhouettes recede into the void. She felt like launching with them.

Odin grabbed her by the shoulders. “Not yet, Professor.”

“Are you crazy? Someone’s shooting missiles at us!”

“Remember that discussion we had about you being bait?” He was fiddling with a small nylon pack, clicking red buttons. “I left some parts out.”

“Why in the hell do you keep lying to me?”

“Because whatever you knew, they now know.”

The remaining flight crew came down from the deck and through the bulkhead door into the cargo bay. The navigator and copilot saluted Odin and jumped from the ramp one after the other. The pilot stopped and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Ship’s clear. Happy hunting, Sergeant.”

Odin just thumbed toward the exit. The pilot nodded and ran off into the void.

Odin glanced down at his Rover tablet and showed it to McKinney.

It was an image from the surveillance camera watching her decoy. Where “she” had been, there was now only burning debris and fake body parts. Her stunt double was charred.

“My God.”

Odin tossed a satchel with a blinking red light on it well forward through the bulkhead door. “Whatever these things are, they just shot down our Predator drone too.”

McKinney held on to the equipment rack and glared at him. “Then what the hell are we still on this plane for?”

He pulled off his helmet and goggles and, from one of the Pelican cases, produced a full-faced aerodynamically designed black helmet with integrated tinted goggles and oxygen mask. It looked like something from a Star Wars convention. He pulled out a second one, flicked a switch, and shoved it into McKinney’s arms, motioning toward his throat.

She sighed and tore off her helmet, goggles, and oxygen mask. The cold hit her face like fire. She quickly put the new helmet on and realized it had integrated thermal or night vision in the goggles. She felt his hand fumbling with switches at her neck and suddenly heard the hiss of oxygen flowing and his voice in her ears.

“—secure comms. Can you hear me?”

“Yeah, I hear you. What the hell’s going on?”

He pointed out the back. She could see much more clearly in the night now, and that made it all the more alarming to see yet another missile streaking up toward them. But farther back she could also see twin pinpoints of heat glowing—distant aircraft following them.

She was about to jump toward the exit when she felt his rock-hard fingers gripping her shoulder.

“Think about it.”

“Think about what? Let go of me!”

“Who knew we were here?” He was now hanging what appeared to be a belt-fed machine gun across his chest and cinching it tightly. It had a large boxlike magazine. He looked up at her as he adjusted a twin pistol harness as well.

She couldn’t keep her eyes off the incoming missile. “We need to jump! Now!”

“It’ll hit an engine.”

“And what if the fuel tanks explode? What if a wing comes off?”

He was concentrating on prepping his gear. “I’ve seen a Talon take worse. . . .”