Dark Horizon, page 28
Miles flicked it open. The device was still charged and it had a single number encoded in its memory. But who would be on the other end of the line?
That rat Finn? Or someone else? Before he could second-guess himself, Miles extended the sat phone’s antenna and hit the redial button.
‘I’m gonna need that,’ said Knox, coming in to grab the phone from him.
‘Nah, mate.’ Miles ducked out of Knox’s reach, making his choice. ‘Not this time.’
TWENTY SEVEN
They found a decrepit Toyota pick-up parked in a shadowed alley between the two hangars, and Kate walked Breeze to the flat bed, helping her up to slump against a pile of old sacks.
Even in the starlit darkness, Kate could see the other woman was fading fast. Breeze’s florid complexion had drained, turned pasty from her exertion and injuries. The way she favoured her side told the pilot that her wound was worse than she wanted to admit.
Despite the temperature of the desert air, Breeze shivered constantly. Kate tried to stave it off, draping her flight jacket around the woman’s shoulders.
‘We’ll be airborne soon,’ she told her, compelled to offer some kind of hope. ‘I’ll get you to a doctor.’
‘Sure,’ said the American, coughing weakly.
Kate couldn’t look her in the eye. She stepped away, back toward the front of the pick-up. The vehicle was missing its driver’s door, and Hamid sat behind the wheel, fiddling with the ignition system. In lieu of a key, the starter had a screwdriver jammed in it, which he used to coax the engine into life.
‘Is it going to work?’
Hamid didn’t look up. ‘It must. If we try to reach the plane on foot, they’ll cut us down before we get ten metres.’
She couldn’t argue with that stark evaluation of their chances. Out on the darkened airstrip, men with guns were sweeping down the runway in a ragged skirmish line, some of them holding flashlights as well as firearms. They were passing the turning apron, getting closer. It wouldn’t be long until they came across the bodies of Finn and the others in the main hangar. Then Kate, Breeze and Hamid would have nowhere left to go.
Among the calls of the gunmen, Kate heard one gruff voice bellowing over the others. Hamid hesitated briefly as he caught it too, then went back to work.
She eyed him. ‘You know who that is doing the shouting?’
He nodded. ‘His name is Zameer. He gave the order to kill me.’
Hamid broke off as the lights across the desolate airfield buzzed back into life, throwing stark pools of white across the hangars, the weed-choked runway and the other buildings.
‘Guess they had a back-up genny, huh?’ Breeze offered the observation to the air. ‘No rush, though. Take your time.’
Kate raised her pistol to the ready. With the lights on once more, they no longer had the benefit of long shadows to conceal them and the Toyota. The first gunman who came into line of sight would see exactly where they were hiding.
Hamid twisted the screwdriver and the pick-up’s starter motor gave a weak buzz, but didn’t catch. He hissed and pulled at a mess of wires dangling from beneath the steering column.
She watched him struggle with it. The irony was acidic, that her life and Breeze’s were now in the hands of a man who had nothing but hatred for both of them. A man who, in other circumstances, would be sharpening the blade to cut their throats.
In the distance, a loud snap of static sounded and then the gruff voice sounded, now amplified over a loudspeaker. The unseen man – Zameer – spoke in rough phrases of Arabic, delivered with a smoker’s grunt and a curled lip. Kate heard Hamid’s name mentioned and, while she didn’t understand the words, the older man’s condescending tone was unmistakable.
‘What’s he saying?’
From the flat bed, Kate heard Breeze give a pained chuckle. ‘That guy is pissed. Talking about Hamid here like he’s the little kid who shit the bed.’
‘Zameer is a senile old fool with a big mouth,’ grated Hamid. ‘He demands that I surrender to him.’
The voice droned on, and Breeze stifled a hollow cough before translating more. ‘He wants to know why you can’t be more like your brother. Damn, this guy thinks he’s your dad!’
Hamid stopped for a moment, moderating his rage before he spoke again. ‘All he knows how to do is talk and talk. Zameer and his kind are poison to my cause.’ He pushed out of the pick-up’s cab, shoving Kate aside as he moved to the front of the vehicle and raised the bonnet. ‘Ignore him,’ he spat, as he pulled at connections inside the engine, ‘and be ready to move!’
Kate grimaced and climbed back into the flat bed, resting her stolen pistol on the roof of the Toyota’s dented cab. She felt a tug on her ankle and looked down at Breeze slumping beneath her.
‘Katie,’ breathed the American. ‘Hear that?’ She fumbled at the jacket Kate had put around her shoulders, looking for something.
A blocky shape fell out of a pocket, buzzing quietly. Finn’s sat phone.
Breeze picked it up and snapped it open before Kate could stop her, putting the device on speaker mode. ‘Hostages R Us,’ she said, with a feeble smirk, ‘how may I direct your call?’
‘Who’s this?’ Through static, Kate heard a man with a distinct Londoner’s drawl on the other end of the line, and she felt a pang of hope. The man who had made threats and forced her to do their bidding had been a Russian. ‘Identify yourself.’
‘Lillian Breeze, C-I-goddamn-A. Who the hell are you?’
‘Breeze? She’s still alive!’ The comment was directed away, toward someone else.
‘Not for long,’ muttered the American.
The other voice returned. ‘My name’s Miles Todd,’ came the reply, ‘I’m with the British Security Services. Where’s Thomas Finn?’
‘Your pal sold us out. He’s deader than disco, Miles.’ The effort of speaking was hard on Breeze, and she cradled the phone close to her face. ‘And we’re up shit creek. Unless you wanna come get us?’
Kate faintly heard someone else in the background of the call, another male voice, but she couldn’t pick out their words. Below her, Hamid eased the pick-up’s bonnet back down, then glanced up. ‘What are you doing? Who are you talking to?’
On impulse, Kate reached out and snatched the sat phone from Breeze’s hand. ‘This is Kate Hood, I’m the pilot,’ she spoke quickly into the device, her words coming fast and breathless. ‘My partner Alex Walker and his son, the men working with Finn abducted them!’
All she cared about was Alex and George – all she wanted in that moment was to hear them and to know they were alive – and a wave of relief engulfed her when Miles broke in.
‘They’re here with us,’ he said. ‘A bit beat up, but safe.’
Hamid came to the back of the vehicle, pointing his rifle at her. ‘End the call!’
‘Listen to me,’ said Miles, his tone becoming urgent. ‘We know where you are. There’s a missile strike inbound on your location, do you understand? Get out if you can, go now!’
Hamid heard the words and his rifle dropped. He scowled. ‘Of course. If the West cannot win a battle through guile, they scorch the earth!’
‘That’s enough, gimme that,’ said the other voice, and the sat phone crackled as someone tore it out of the British agent’s hands. ‘Lillian? You there?’ When they spoke again, Kate recognised the hard growl of the rough-faced man Breeze had left behind at Ridley Hill.
‘First names again, Harlan?’ Breeze coughed. ‘Must be serious. That Brit – is he on the level?’
‘Yeah.’ There was a pause. ‘Sorry. But you know how the game is played.’
‘Prick.’ Breeze shot back the insult, but it didn’t matter. The line had already been cut.
‘Can you start this thing or not?’ Kate threw the demand at Hamid.
‘It will run,’ he replied.
‘Then drive!’ Kate felt a surge of renewed energy course through her, and she banged on the cab.
Alex and George were alive. She could see them again. This could be over.
If I can survive.
Hamid muttered a prayer under his breath before twisting the screwdriver once again. This time he was blessed with the rattle and thud of the pick-up’s engine turning over.
Jamming the stick shift into gear with a crunch of metal on metal, he floored the accelerator and the ageing Toyota bounced forward with a roar of noise, kicking up dirt. Cloying black smoke vomited out of the broken exhaust and the vehicle came racing out of the alley and on to the cracked concrete apron in front of the hangars.
Immediately, a chorus of shouting and yelling kicked off from the northern end of the base, where Zameer’s search party had assembled. Hamid had his assault rifle lying across his lap, and a notion crossed his mind to scatter them with a burst of gunfire, but he decided to conserve his meagre supply of ammunition for when they reached the aircraft.
He could see the executive jet, still standing where the pilot had left it hours before. The shadow of the Hawker was a series of hard angles, lit from within by blobs of light through the cabin windows. To get to it in a straight line meant crossing the overgrown median strip between the turning apron and the runway, and Hamid did not want to chance forcing the pick-up through the knots of dry scrub and over uneven ground. A single unseen pothole or a chunk of debris would be enough to stop them dead.
The Toyota complained as he pulled the steering round, the rear of the vehicle fishtailing into a juddering skid. There was barely any tread on the tyres and the engine stuttered and over-revved. The truck was one of dozens that al-Sakakin’s fighters cannibalised to build what the Western military called ‘technicals’, turning the work-horse pick-ups into mobile platforms for heavy machine guns or troop carriers. This one had been left aside, and now Hamid understood why. The steering was mushy, the brakes barely worked and, from the odours it gave off, the truck was leaking as much oil as it burned.
But it didn’t need to cross the desert for him. All Hamid needed was to get to the jet before the missile strike arrived.
He risked a look up into the night sky, as if he might see them coming, then chided himself. The American rockets would remain unseen until the last moments of their run, coming in low and swift over the terrain before leaping high to arc down and make their terminal attack.
Hamid had seen the aftermath left by a cruise missile once before – a blackened crater of fused sand and unidentifiable fragments of metal where a fighter outpost had once stood. Of the men who had been on that spot when the weapon hit, nothing remained, not even their ashes.
Such machines are an oppressor’s tool, so the old imam had said, when Hamid and Nasir were still boys. Only infidels would dare to field a weapon that mimics the wrath of God.
A bullet shrieked off the pick-up’s frame, shocking him out of the memory. Hamid turned the steering wheel, zig-zagging away down the apron as Zameer’s men bracketed the vehicle with gunfire. For long seconds, he made it appear as if he was fleeing heedlessly toward the far end of the compound and away from the attackers, and then Hamid brought the truck around in a jerky skid, across an adjoining access route and on to the airstrip.
Behind him, the American woman complained loudly, but he paid her no heed. Quite how she was still alive was a mystery to him. Had it been his choice, Hamid would have helped Breeze to her inevitable end. But the pilot wanted her with them, and for now Hamid needed the pilot.
He heard pistol shots ring out from the flat bed as the British woman fired at the men running after them. She had little chance of hitting anything, but the same went for the gunmen. Sprays of red-orange muzzle flare flashed, and rounds clipped at the asphalt speeding beneath them. A hot ricochet keened off the cab roof and Hamid hunched forward against the wheel, as if he could will the vehicle to go faster.
They came up quickly on the jet, racing to meet it head-on. Hamid saw two men with rifles dithering at the open hatch near the front of the aircraft. One sprinted down the wing to get a better angle with his weapon, as the second man ducked under the fuselage for cover.
Hamid wanted to shoot but he did not dare risk it, for fear that a random shot might strike the jet and damage something vital. Timing his actions to the instant, he twisted the wheel so the pick-up veered off the faded white line bisecting the runway, and into another skidding turn.
The gunman near the wing saw the vehicle coming and realised too late what Hamid intended. The man tried to get out of the way but he wasn’t quick enough to avoid being rammed by the Toyota’s cracked grille. Broken by the massive impact, his body spun away into the weeds alongside the airstrip.
Hamid stamped on the brakes and snatched up his gun, storming out of the cab and into a jog while the vehicle slowed to a halt. Rifle up at his shoulder, aiming down its vertical iron sights, he swept around the jet’s conical nose, searching for the next man to kill.
Kate’s stomach twisted at the crunch of bone on steel as Hamid ran the first guard down, and she lost her handhold as the pick-up staggered to a halt alongside the Hawker.
She picked herself up from the flat bed, aware of Hamid leaving the cab with his rifle at the ready. The pistol she had liberated was empty and reluctantly she tossed it away.
‘Breeze, come on,’ she said, reaching for the American. ‘We’re here. All aboard.’
Breeze’s breaths came in faint pops of air and her eyes were hazy. ‘Right . . . behind us,’ she managed.
Breeze was correct. The men chasing them were coming their way at a run, only slowing to fire shots in their direction.
‘I know!’ Kate grabbed her arm. ‘So move your arse!’
‘Nope. Won’t. Can’t.’ Trembling, Breeze pulled open the jacket Kate had put around her, revealing the sticky, reeking, coppery mess it concealed. Dark, glistening crimson-black covered Breeze’s side, her clothes saturated up to her chest and down her thigh. Bleed-out through the bandages over her belly wound pooled on the flat bed, soaking into the rough hessian of the empty sacks she lay on. ‘There’s more of me outside than in,’ she coughed again, blood gathering at the corner of her mouth.
Kate tried to speak, but nothing came. All along she had been moving too fast to stop and consider that Lillian Breeze might not actually be able to make it to the plane. Now the reality of that reached out and sucked the pace from her.
‘I’ve chased that monster for years,’ said Breeze, her gaze slipping out of focus. ‘For all the things he did, all the lives he took. Got away – every fuckin’ time.’ Breeze gripped Kate’s hand tightly. ‘He can’t disappear again.’
‘I—’ Kate’s voice dried up as Breeze let go, and the rise and fall of her chest stuttered to a halt.
Gunshots crackled on the other side of the aircraft and she heard a man scream, then a body fall. Hamid reappeared at the front of the jet and called out to her. ‘What are you doing? Get in there!’
‘Breeze—’
‘Is dead, yes?’ Hamid grabbed Kate by the arm and dragged her off the flat bed. ‘I have no wish to join her, do you?’ He raised the rifle and fired bursts across the back of the pick-up, in a vain attempt to slow their pursuers.
Kate climbed the steps on the hatch, half in a daze, half by instinct. She was aware of Hamid coming in behind her, still firing, picking off any attacker who came close, but it seemed to be happening at a great distance.
She sucked in a dry breath and shook off the hazy grip of shock, forging forward into the cockpit. The gunfire outside subsided and Kate wondered if, after everything that had happened, Zameer and his cohorts still wanted Hamid alive.
The pilot pushed that thought aside, taking her seat at the controls. The Hawker’s systems were still in standby mode, and enough charge remained in the aircraft’s batteries to bring it back to life.
The power unit whined as lights blinked on across the control panel, not all of them favourable. The damage the Hawker had suffered before would make take-off and flight difficult, but not impossible. Turbine blades began to spin, and the jet rocked forward, slowly picking up speed. The abandoned pick-up, with Breeze’s body still aboard, disappeared from Kate’s view. She gave the other woman a silent farewell.
The pilot heard Zameer’s amplified voice shouting out, his tone turning furious, and Hamid answered back with the final rounds in his rifle. ‘That is all,’ he called from the vestibule, as he pulled the hatch shut. ‘Now we live or die on your skill.’
‘No pressure,’ muttered Kate, dropping her hand to the throttle. Dull metal thuds sounded through the fuselage and she realised that the gunmen had given up on capturing them. Now they were firing at the jet.
She had no time to taxi to the end of the runway and set up for a full controlled roll-out and take-off. This would be a combat departure with the throttle all the way to the detent, in an aircraft that wasn’t designed for such a thing. Kate double-checked the harness securing her to the seat and pushed power to the engines.
The Hawker’s twin turbofans screamed in the thin desert air and the jet surged, wind buffeting the wings as it ate up the short runway. As their speed increased, she held tightly on the Y-shaped control yoke, willing the aircraft’s nose to rise, praying silently for lift.
Then she saw them. Off in the middle distance but closing fast, two dark rods on flares of white fire coming in from the west, one leading the other.
Tomahawks.
TWENTY EIGHT
Nasir rocked in the back of the jeep as Zameer’s driver raced the old man’s vehicle over the cracked, pot-holed asphalt, almost running down their men in his haste to catch the jet before it could escape.
But the aircraft was already rolling down the runway, gathering speed as it crossed in front of them. His errant brother’s transgressions were now complete and total: he had abandoned them.
‘They are escaping!’ Zameer stood up in his seat, bellowing in rage, the length of his grey-white beard whipping in the wind. ‘Kill them! Kill them!’ The old man glared down at Nasir, with eyes afire. ‘You allowed this to happen! You let your bonds of family blind you to his offences!’
