Brent’s ex-girlfriend had been right; he should have left the Army as she’d wanted. Somer had spent three years trying to convince him, while he’d fallen deeply in love with her. She was in love with him, too, but not in love with his career. He’d kept saying, “You knew this going in. If you couldn’t marry a soldier, why’d you get involved in the first place?”
“I got involved with a man who happened to be a soldier.”
And she’d just cried and wondered why she had.
Their three years together—really eighteen months since he’d spent the other half deployed—had taught Brent one sad and rather trite lesson: Don’t get involved. It wasn’t worth it. He admired those colleagues who could maintain families despite the challenges; he just wasn’t one of them because the time and distance turned him cold and he couldn’t switch on his feelings just like that. And if he’d just listened to Somer, he’d be at home in California, probably working some day job that didn’t thrill him, but he’d be with her; they’d have a small house or apartment, a couple of kids, and on the weekends they’d buy ice cream cones at the galleria. Was that such a terrible life ?
Now he would die like a filthy dog, probably burned alive as the jet fuel washed over him and the flames licked their way up his spine.
Damn, why was he being such a pessimist? The team needed him now, despite the fact that their lives were in the hands of the pilots, and there wasn’t a damned thing they could do about that—except remain hopeful instead of resigning themselves to death.
He took a long breath, then shouted at the top of his lungs: “All right, everybody! We’re Ghost Recon! We don’t die in crashes! The runway comes to us!”
“Hoo-ah!” they cried, a bit halfheartedly.
“I can’t hear you!”
This time they shouted with everything they had, and just the sheer volume of their voices made it easier to pretend they were still in control.
Sheikh Hussein Al Maktoum glared at Chopra as he tossed his long, curly hair out of his eyes. Then the boy returned the baseball cap to his head and positioned it so the brim jutted cockily to one side.
The oversized black T-shirt that said GANG WARZ in purple text, the hoop earring in one ear, and the large gold necklaces he wore were not quite as surprising as the black tattoo of barbed wire running across the young man’s forearm.
He was a Muslim. Tattoos were forbidden, or at least Chopra understood that they were. Hopefully the tattoo was not real, a decal that would wash away.
“You’re not from Sandhurst,” Hussein hollered, his accent distinctly British.
“Turn down the music!” cried Chopra. “I need to speak with you! You don’t remember me?”
Hussein made a face, pushed open the door, and allowed Chopra to enter.
To say the boy was a pack rat wildly understated it.
Stacks of movies, books, and video games rose along nearly every wall, forming a mottled wainscot of spines and rising in testament to a young life spent consuming all that was commercial and, in Chopra’s humble opinion, all that was deplorable about society.
Framed posters on the wall depicted more of the boy’s thug heroes: shirtless men making obscene gestures while scantily clad women clutched their waists and knelt at their sides to pay homage. At least three flat-screen TVs hung from the upper walls, and every conceivable game console on the market sat on the floor below them: elaborate headsets encrusted with a spaghetti of wires along with high-tech gloves and a rug of some sort that was also wired to an antenna.
In the far corner of this teenager’s nest stood a small refrigerator beside which was a shelf loaded with junk food: chips, crackers, cookies, and assorted candy. Those dietary choices certainly accounted for the young sheikh’s puffy cheeks and the paunch he attempted to hide beneath his baggy shirt and jeans. Chopra also noted the boy’s expensive sneakers made in Vietnam of some space-age fluorescent material that shimmered like blue-green algae.
Now wearing a deeper frown, Hussein sauntered over to a tiny box on one shelf and suddenly lowered the music with a remote he snatched off the top, but even as he turned back to face Chopra, he was mouthing the words of the song.
“Hussein, you don’t remember me?” Chopra repeated.
“Maybe. Like maybe you worked with my father or something. What do you want, old man? Are you one of the new tutors? You don’t look like an officer.”
Chopra motioned to a pair of overstuffed leather recliners from where Hussein played his video games. “Please sit. We have a lot to discuss. You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for this moment.”
“Frankly, I don’t care. I’m hungry. And the two dolts who tutor me will be here soon. I don’t have time for this. I’m hungry!”
“Hussein, listen to me. I hold the keys to helping you rebuild your country. But it’s up to you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
He stood there a moment, scrutinizing Chopra. Then something occurred to him and he burst into laughter. “What the hell? Is Southy playing a joke on me?” He moved toward the door and lifted his voice. “Southy! What the hell is this?”
“Hussein, please sit down.”
The boy’s face screwed up into a knot. “Old man, I have no clue what you want, but this isn’t funny anymore. Get out of my room.” He cocked a thumb toward the doorway. “And tell those bastards downstairs they’d best have my breakfast ready!”
Chopra lowered his head and sighed deeply, and when he looked up, a woman stood behind the young sheikh—
The same woman Chopra had seen in the Seychelles. Short, dark hair. Lean, muscular. Penetrating eyes. Jeans and tight-fitting leather jacket.
Wearing a smug expression, she held a pistol with large suppressor to the back of the boy’s head.
“Hussein, don’t move,” gasped Chopra.
But the boy whirled to face the woman. “Who the hell are you?” He glanced at the gun. “And what is this? How dare you wave that piece in my face? How dare you!”
Chopra nearly fainted as Hussein slapped away the woman’s pistol and shouted, “Southy, what in bloody hell is going on here! Who are these freaks? You’re going to pay for this charade! I’m telling you right now! This is the last time you play a joke on me!”
But even as he finished, the woman seized him by the neck, slammed the door behind her, and forced him into the room and toward the recliner beside Chopra.
Though her weapon sent a chill through him, Chopra rose immediately from his chair and shouted, “You will not hurt him! Do you hear me?”
“You sit down!” she screamed.
Then she jammed her pistol into Hussein’s head and spoke between her teeth. “Now listen to me carefully, little boy. Your friends are all dead. And you’re going to do exactly as I say, if you want to stay alive.” She spoke English with a Russian accent, an accent that took Chopra’s breath away. God, the Russians were already on to them.
“This isn’t a joke?” Hussein asked, his voice cracking.
The woman widened her eyes. “Do I look like I’m joking?”
“Who are you? What do you want?” Chopra demanded.
Slowly, she removed her weapon from Hussein’s head, and then she suddenly backhanded Chopra, her leather glove dragging across his cheek. His glasses flew across the room and he groaned, his own palm going reflexively for the pain.
“Quiet, old man. I do all the talking now. You want to know who I am? Well, they call me the Snow Maiden.”
TEN
Joint Strike Force V8-99 Sphinx
En Route to London
The Sphinx jolted forward as the pilot decreased power to both engines and Brent began a mental countdown, believing he could estimate their altitude.
Who was he fooling? He was counting just to keep his mind off their impending doom. Smoke obscured all view through the window, but it seemed they would hit the ground at any second. They weren’t kidding when they said the waiting was the hardest part. Something buffeted the Sphinx, and he wondered
if they’d just taken some fire or hit a downdraft.
Whether they had actually reached RAF Lakenheath remained to be seen. Any solid ground would do for now. He was rooting for the pilot the way he rooted for the Dodgers: with balled fists and pure fury, even when the team was down by ten runs and most fans had already left after the seventh inning. Brent would shove his fourth Dodger dog into his mouth, rise, and with a mouth full of mustard, relish, and hot dog, scream, “Come on, you bums, score a freaking run!”
Their forward momentum began to decrease as the bird pitched forward and descended even more. Brent thought of stealing one more glance through the window to see if the smoke had cleared, but that thought was lost on a terrific boom resounding from the cockpit.
The racket swept over the craft.
And Brent realized they’d struck the ground and were scraping forward because the gear had not fully lowered and locked into place.
That boom had been the gear snapping off.
They began to fishtail like a sports car driver accelerating too hard—and Brent was too familiar with that sensation.
Thrown right, then left, he tightened his grip on the seat rails as the fuselage floor buckled beneath his boots. The cacophony of the impact was muffled only by the sound of his panting into the oxygen mask.
At once a massive crack opened in the deck, and a large piece of the landing gear—one of the wheel arms—burst up into the hold, severed hydraulic lines dancing like bleeding snakes as the nails-on-chalkboard scraping continued.
Brent glanced over at his people, expecting them to be praying some more or cursing or screaming or doing something that would indicate that they were railing against their fate—or at the very least, afraid to die. But there was none of that now. They eyed each other and nodded. They’d had good lives. Done good work. Made a difference. And screw it, if today was the day, they would take it like warriors. Just take it.
In that moment, as he seemed to hang there between worlds, between life and a sudden and horrific death, he never felt more proud of a team. He took a deep breath.
If I’m going to die, then bring it. I’m in good company.
And then, quite suddenly . . .
It was over.
The Sphinx burrowed itself into the earth and came to a sudden halt, lying there, somewhere, creaking, the engines still groaning but winding down—as opposed to Brent’s heart, which jackhammered in his chest.
His ears betrayed him for a moment. The world went muffled, almost silent.
And then it hit: the fear of fire and explosion. And the racket returned, the volume on ten. “On your feet! On your feet!” he cried. “Lakota, blow the exit door! Everybody evac right now! Right now!”
Brent unbuckled from his seat and rose, counting off his people as Lakota worked the release mechanism on the side door and the hatch yawned open.
The pilot and co-pilot hustled through the cabin and joined the group. The co-pilot was nursing her left arm but seemed otherwise okay. Everyone was on the ready line to pile out, everyone except the quiet man, Park. Brent saw him still seated in his chair and unmoving. He raced past the line as the others shifted out. He got to Park, found him unconscious, felt his neck for a carotid pulse and got one. Brent wasn’t sure if the fumes had gotten to him or something else, but he unstrapped the guy and took him up in a fireman’s carry. With his knees buckling, he turned for the doorway—
To find a wall of flames blocking his path.
With a gasp, he realized the fire wasn’t coming from inside the Sphinx.
The words slipped from his mouth. “Oh my God ...”
Their hot landing and even hotter exhaust had set fire to the brown grass field outside. It was midsummer, and parts of the U.K. had been suffering a record drought. The others had made it out seconds before the ground beneath them burst into flames.
Brent’s worst nightmares regarding an explosion would not play out. He wouldn’t die in a crash and fireball like Villanueva had. He’d die in a grass fire created by the ninety-three-million-dollar taxicab in which he’d been a passenger.
You call that a blaze of glory? Aw, if he died, he’d go to customer service with his receipt for a life well lived and ask God for a refund. He deserved a much more dramatic death.
Then again, he was assuming he’d go upstairs instead of downstairs, where the fires of hell would be fueled by the gas tanks of a million burning Corvettes.
He lowered Park to the deck, his gaze sweeping the compartment for a fire extinguisher.
There! On the wall ahead, near the entrance to the cockpit. He darted for the long red cylinder and tugged it free from its rubberized holder. Smoke now billowed into the hold and burned his eyes. He pulled the extinguisher’s pin as he swung around toward the flames.
The air raid sirens came as a muffled hum from somewhere outside, beyond the boy’s room, and the Snow Maiden paused a moment to prick up her ears and listen.
Patti had warned her about trouble—but nothing quite as dramatic. Were the Russians making a move? She’d expected the Americans or Haussler to show up ...
“Is the city under attack?” asked Chopra.
“Those sirens go off a lot,” said the boy. “Usually just a warning.”
The Snow Maiden cocked a brow. “Not this time.”
“How do you know?” the boy asked.
“I know. Both of you—up. We’re leaving.”
“Where are we going?” Chopra demanded.
It didn’t matter if he knew, so she just told him the truth. “Geneva.”
“Geneva? Why there?”
“I know a good restaurant for lunch. Now quiet. Let’s move.” She motioned with her pistol toward the door.
“I’m not going anywhere,” said Hussein, rubbing his neck. “You can’t kidnap me. That’s ridiculous. That’s probably not even a real gun.”
She grinned. “You’re right. This is ridiculous. And I have no use for you, so ...” She moved toward him, raised the pistol, and felt pretty comfortable about putting a bullet in his head.
“Please,” cried Chopra. “You have no idea who ... I mean, he’s just ... he’s a boy. There’s no need to kill him. Hussein, you will come with us!”
The kid snorted. “Yeah, right.”
Chopra began to lose his breath. “Hussein, we’ll go with her now.”
“You heard me, old man. I’m staying.”
The Snow Maiden couldn’t believe what she was hearing from this little punk bastard. She walked up to him, smiled, then quickly punched him in the face so hard that he fell back onto the floor. Then she fired a round not three inches from his kneecap. The bullet burrowed into the floor. “Now get up. You’re coming!”
He looked at her, at the gun, then began shaking and struggling to his feet. Chopra went to him, and together they ambled to the door.
She predicted they would gasp when they viewed the carnage she had wrought in the kitchen.
They gasped.
And she needed no further demonstration that she was a woman of her word, that she would kill them if they didn’t cooperate.
She’d parked her rental car around the corner but decided on the spot that they would take Southland’s sedan and make at least one more car exchange that she’d arrange with Patti. She dug into the dead man’s pocket, tugged out his keys, and ordered Chopra and the boy into the car, with Chopra at the wheel. She and the boy climbed into the backseat.
“Just get us out of here. Now,” she ordered. “South, toward Dover.”
He started the car and pulled out. She kept the pistol aimed at the back of his head and flicked her gaze to the boy. “All right, I want to know everything.”
Before Chopra could answer, engines roared overhead, and she leaned down to watch a squadron of fighter planes streaking away.
“Something’s happening,” said Chopra. “Something very big and very bad.”
“What do you want with us?” asked Hussein.
She rolled her eyes at him. “Y
ou’re just baggage.”
“You want him?” The boy sounded confused.
“Chopra, why don’t you tell him about the secrets you carry? You’re one of the last keys left. Maybe the only one. From what I’ve read, the boy’s father was very paranoid that way, and there were very few who knew.”
The boy snorted. “What’re you talking about?”
“Come on, Chopra, tell him why I’ve come,” she urged the old man.
“She’s here because the Russians want what is left of Dubai for their own. They think they can decontaminate the oil and gain even more control over the European market. But they’re overzealous fools, and they’ll suffer another defeat—even worse than their invasion of Canada.”
“You think I’m working for the Russians?” she asked, almost chuckling. “No worries there, old man. Those days are long gone. Long gone.”
“Then who are your employers, and what do they want?”
“We know about the secret reserves. We know about the gold. And you’ll get us into the vault.”
“So you’ve come to rob Dubai of what little it has left? That won’t happen. Dubai will rise again. And I’ll die before I see you inside the vault.”
She took a long breath. “You’ll come around. A man like you does not respond well to torture.”
“He’s not the only one who can get you into the vault.”
“Shut up, boy, you’re bluffing.”
“What I mean to say is yes, there aren’t many who can get you inside, but once you’re in, he can’t give you the locations to the oil reserves, the ones my father kept secret. He doesn’t know the password, and he wouldn’t pass the DNA scan. Only someone with my family’s blood can give you what you want. I’ve been there. My father was very careful about this. He taught me a lot. I know exactly what to do. I’ve never forgotten.”
“This is a good story to help keep you alive, huh?” she asked. “You want me to think you’re valuable. That’s pretty clever for a little boy who knows more about video games than the real world.”
“He’s more valuable to our world than you know,” snapped Chopra.