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“As soon as he's done with the pictures, I'm heading to Tashkent,” Stone said.

“No, you're not.” Iggy pointed at him. He could feel his face and neck getting warm. “This is a Black Management op. We have a command structure. Let me introduce you to it—in our world, I'm a five-star and you get to keep your old rank—what's that, an E-6, E-7?” Iggy held his gaze. “Got that Devil Dog?”

Stone stared at him for several seconds, then said, “Yes, sir. Understood, sir.”

“Good. What's the distance between S
HANGRI-LA
and Bagram?”

“You wouldn't know the station identifier code for Bagram, would you, sir?” Stone said. His voice was stiff with an underlying tone of controlled anger, but Iggy didn't care. Stone had accepted him as the alpha dog and that was all that mattered.

“Oscar–Alpha–India–X-ray.”

Stone punched the code into the flight computer and a color chart of the Bagram airspace appeared on one of the LCD monitors. “Electronic
Jeppesens
. Cool. Says here the range is five hundred forty nautical miles—that's pushing it for helos, sir. And sir, I'm an E-8.”

“Master Sergeant Stone, huh? You don't see a lot of Master Sergeants out doing field work.”

“I volunteered, sir.”

“Good for you.”

“And you can call me ‘Top,' sir.”

“We've got a rescue to plan, Top.” Iggy reached into one of the pilot's salesman's cases and dug around until he found a pen, paper and a calculator. He sighed. “I hate this back-of-the-napkin math when roughing out a mission. Let's see, we can knock the back rows out of the Pave Hawks and stick in two one-hundred-eighty-five-gallon tanks and that will up our fuel to—three-sixty plus two times…” His voice trailed off, but he continued to move his lips and scribble on the notepad. “A gallon of JP8 weighs six point eight pounds…accounting for all the weight from the extra fuel coupled with the high altitude flying out of Bagram, I calculate a burn rate of nine hundred sixty pounds an hour, give or take twenty.”

“Just listening to your calculus, I'd say you've got about five hours of flying time,” Stone said as he tried to read Iggy's ciphers.

Iggy looked over at Stone. “You're good—four hours, fifty minutes plus the twenty minute emergency reserve. Average of one-twenty knots is a safe bet, so we need four and a half hours to target. That means refueling twice which isn't easy.”

“Ferry tanks?”

“Too much drag. We don't have that kind of time. We've got refueling arrangements with the big military for Combat Shadows and Combat Talons, but that's usually when we're working jobs across the border in Pakistan or Iran, and it's expensive.”

“Air-to-air refueling is the way to go—Stella has Pave Hawks?”

“Afghan theater—right where we're headed.”

“Too bad she doesn't have Pave Lows so we could take more troops in.”

“We've got 'em, but they're all committed right now. When I left, it was very hot in Northern Pakistan, chasing down another lead on Abdullah. I might be able to move some around. I'll do what I can. We've also got a half-dozen Super Cobras with the latest upgrades.” Iggy turned in his seat and shouted. “G
ENGHIS
, you still with us?”

“Haven't got rid of me yet,” G
ENGHIS
yelled back.

“I'm not coming up with any good ideas about how to get into that camp,” Stone said. “It'll be risky, but I'm thinking we're going to have to pass as tangos and try the main gate.”

“Nah,” Iggy shook his head and pointed to the larger crater. “We'll fly a Pave Hawk right up to their backside. We'll come in at night, drop down into the pit at the far end—I'd say it's about twenty clicks from the camp—we fly inside the bowl right up to the rock ridge. It'll give us both audio and visual cover.” Iggy motioned to the ridge between the two pits with his artificial finger. A narrow bench along the south tip of the ridge joined the two craters. “You fly. How tough is it to fly that in the dark?”

Stone laughed. “I can barely keep a helo in the air. You need real bus drivers—the best ones you've got.”

Iggy pursed his lips and made a whistling noise as he exhaled through them. “My top flier is in Iraq. He's a cocky son of a bitch, but Beach Dog could pierce the eye of a needle in a sandstorm.”

“I know the guy. Real friendly type.” Stone banked the plane in another circle. “It's about fifteen hundred miles from Baghdad to Bagram—around three hours by jet if you're not exactly respectful of everyone's airspace. It'll be tight. What the hell is taking Ashland so long?”

“Cam's been wanting to buy a jet. We could sure use one of our own right now.”

“Outsource it. Get Blackwater to fly Beach Dog up. They rent out.”

“Great idea.” Iggy swiveled in the seat, starting to get up. “I've got a secure satellite phone in one of the rucksacks. I'll start putting everything into place. We've got to get to Cam tonight before they fuck her up too bad.”

Stone stopped him before he could leave. “You can't possibly trust Ashland,” he said in a low voice.

“He's French,” Iggy said, as if he had used his strongest swear word. “They ally with you only because they don't have the cajones to take you on, mano-a-mano. But we might need him.”

Ashland cleared his throat. He stood in the doorway of the flight deck. “Camera's full.”

“Get us out of here,” Iggy said as he stood, ignoring Ashland.

He hopped to the door, but Ashland didn't move.

Ashland said. “Let's be clear. When it comes to stopping terrorists, we're allies—the War on Terror is where we have differences. I've risked my life for two years to infiltrate Rubicon—an American company funding terrorists to secure future business—and what's your CIA doing? Tell me who has cajones.”

Iggy pursed his lips and took a deep breath. He wanted to punch him out on principle, but the son of a bitch was right.

Iggy pushed by him and hopped down the aisle to search for the sat phone and a laptop so he could rough out the SMEAC. If they were going to pull it off tonight, he needed his operation orders ready when they landed.

Shangri-la

The picture of the bearded leader was plastered everywhere in the camp—on banners, on murals painted on the sides of buildings and woven into tents. She had tried to listen in on several conversations to at least pick up which one he was, but she couldn't decipher anything. As the truck carrying Camille pulled into the terrorist training compound, the driver started honking his horn nonstop. Young men poured outside and circled around the pickup, glaring at her. Half of them wore white dishdashi, the other trousers and shirts. From the hatred in their eyes, she could only guess that some saw her as a Western whore, others as the devil herself. Their rage jabbed her from all directions. Any moment, they could mob her and she sure as hell was going to take as many with her as possible. Her hands were tied in front and she was confident she could at least spray an AK. She eyed the tango with the nearest assault rifle and prepared to ram herself into him and seize it for her big finale.

One of the men grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her feet. He yelled something to the crowd and they started chanting. If she threw her body weight against the cross-eyed tango, she could probably get his weapon. The crowd was ready to rock any moment and she preferred to be the one on the offense.

Three
. She took a deep breath.

Two
. She leaned back to give herself a little more force.

One
.

At that instant, she saw a man step from a tent and everyone looked toward him. He had a long peppery white beard and flowing white robe.

The Osama wannabe.

Abort
.

The leader of al Qaeda, or at least one faction of al Qaeda, was less than ten meters from her. She could no longer grab an AK and spray.

She now had to aim.

 

The al Qaeda leader said something that quieted everyone down, then dispersed the crowd. He slipped back into a small white tent with stylized Arabic phrases over the doorway. She guessed they were verses from the Koran. It was the only tent without his image plastered on it. She had just located his lair.

A man in his mid-thirties, an elder in the crowd, directed the men in the pickup, pointing to a small building near one of the construction sites on the far side of the camp, deeper into the crater. The truck engine started and the driver honked for the leftover crowd to get out of his way. He didn't wait, just started moving, bumping into anyone in his way.

Haji
was on a mission from god.

 

The pickup weaved through the center of the camp and she was starting to feel a little carsick. It was so hot the doors of the buildings, tent flaps and sides of tents were open. Most of the tents seemed to be dormitories and the fixed structures included a mosque, an open-air madressa and an office building crowned with satellite dishes and antennae.

The compound was perched on the upper level of the abandoned open pit mine's wide bench. On one side was a fifty meter ridge of solid rock that ran for a couple kilometers beyond the camp, then seemed to open up into another pit; on the other side of the camp the ground suddenly dropped off a good fifteen meters to the next bench, leading to the lower depths of the mine. She could see half a dozen terraces and estimated that the mine was a hundred to a hundred fifty meters deep. The far side was several kilometers away and the south wall was a vertical cliff dropping to the crater's depths. Except for the rock ridge behind the main compound, the walls seemed to be crumbling. Large chunks of several benches had collapsed and were now sand piles on the next level.

They had no concertina wire, no fences to protect them. They didn't need it. There was one way in and one way out. Camille kept studying the terrain for alternate exits, but didn't discover any.

The truck stopped at a building site on the south perimeter of the main compound, two hundred meters from the nearest tent. Concrete pillars had been poured for something and one wall had been roughed out, but no tools were scattered about and she didn't get the feeling that any progress had been made there for a long time. Adjacent to the site was a small eight by ten shack made of scrap lumber. A padlock hung on the door, but it wasn't locked. No one had gotten around to painting the boss-man's likeness on its side. The tangos were slipping.

The truck stopped in front of the shed. Two tangos stayed in the back of the truck to guard Camille, but they didn't need to. She wasn't about to try to escape until she knew she could get the head of al Qaeda first.

Several men wheeled out a concrete mixer, then started throwing tools from the shed, emptying it as fast as they could. They clearly had not been expecting houseguests and she hated to impose.

Camp Obsidian, Bagram Airbase, Afghanistan

The Black Management war room was stuffy from the breath of over two dozen men. Nearly half wore flight jumpsuits, the rest combat fatigues. Hunter stood out with his Day-Glo orange prison uniform which he hadn't taken time to change out of because he wanted to be included in Iggy's planning before the mission briefing, not that he had been allowed any real input. Iggy didn't miss a chance to remind him who was in charge. The only break Hunter had taken was to make sure the body of his fellow Bushman was offloaded from the Gulfstream, identified and transferred over to the big military. When he had ducked away the plan called for a minimum of four Super Cobras for close air support and Iggy was still hoping for six. He was curious if he had managed to round up the additional gunships.

Hunter looked around the room for a place to sit. There was an empty chair by the helo pilot Beach Dog. The last time he'd seen him was in Baghdad when he had knocked him out and duct taped him to a steering wheel. He decided it was better to grab the seat beside G
ENGHIS
.

Standing at the head of the conference table, Iggy introduced his staff—adjutant, intel, operations and logistics officers. Hunter looked back to the doorway to see if the others were coming in, then he realized Iggy must only have included the flight crews and the team leaders. The commanders would brief their men en route, he guessed.

Each of Iggy's officers briefed his area of responsibility in the op orders, then Iggy spoke, outlining his commander's intent. So far so good, Hunter thought when he heard that the extraction of Stella was the primary objective and destruction of the tango training facility was secondary.

A giant LCD screen displayed one of Ashland's long range photos of the terrorist training camp, marked up with arrows and symbols showing each chalk, aircraft, and the surface danger zone. Iggy used it to describe the fire plan sketch.

“Each Pave Hawk will insert a team of three operators. C
HALK
O
NE
provides recon, security and support by fire.” He gave the grid where the main force was going. “C
HALK
O
NE
will locate the objective while C
HALK
T
WO
sets up a kill box around the tangos' barracks using Claymores to cover our egress.” He explained that Camille—Stella—was being extracted, so that everyone knew that one extra body would be reentering friendly lines. The entire operation was expected to take forty minutes. Iggy continued, “If everyone's taken out, the Cobras will destroy the target. Now I anticipate a successful mission and upon completion, the Cobras will go in hot and neutralize the camp. When we're finished, not one of those
muj
is ever going to threaten America.”

Hunter opened his mouth, then forced it closed. He caught himself shaking his head and tightened his neck muscles. This was definitely not the plan they had roughed out. He flipped to the second page of the op orders to be sure. Without saying a word to him, Iggy had slashed the number of troops to a fraction of the originally planned size.

When they last left off, Iggy was going to shuffle things around so they would have Pave Lows, helicopters that could carry over thirty troops. Without consulting him the operation had gone from fifty tier-one operators to six. Stella had the men and the equipment, but Iggy had obviously decided against it, if that had ever really been his intent. Hunter could've accepted the decision from regular military, but this was Stella's company and her life was the one on the line. He remembered Stella once telling him that she had to give Iggy a minority stake in the company to lure him on board and Hunter was starting to wonder if this didn't give him a motive to want her out of the picture. He took a deep breath as he tried to hold his military bearing together, listening intently to the rest of the briefing on the mission's execution, then the administration and logistics. He knew there was no need to hear the command and control section of the briefing because it was far too clear who was in control of Stella's army.

“Two Cobras will be running forward reconnaissance and providing route security and CAS.”

Hunter wrinkled his brow and felt himself get warm.

“We are expecting soft targets only, so the Cobras are carrying full complements of Hydras and fully loaded turrets with HE and SLAP rounds. The Pave Hawks are each outfitted with rocket pods. The intent is to level the camp after the extraction. We're taking along AIM-9 Sidewinders in case the Uzbek air force manages to get its MIG off the ground. When inside Uzbek airspace, if anyone lights you up, you're authorized to neutralize the threat. They've allowed al-Zahrani to train terrorists in their country and they'll have to face the consequences.”

Beach Dog leaned back in his chair and stretched. He was in the requisite olive green flight suit, but wore a bright red, yellow and blue Hawaiian shirt over it like a smock. He held one finger in the air and started speaking before Iggy called on him. “You expecting hostile locals?”

“Negative. We don't anticipate letting them know we're there. The only tricky part is crossing the border. The Russians are still helping them keep up their radar equipment there. We'll fly nap-of-the-earth and through known radar gaps. Intel says that everywhere outside of the border zone, the old Soviet radar net hasn't been working for years. They have some localized radar at their major airports, but they don't even have radar contact to control commercial flights over their territory and rely exclusively on position-reports by pilots. Their airspace is up for grabs and tonight Black Management's going to own it. As for their forces, they have less than two dozen operational Fishbeds and Fulcrums—for you post-cold warriors, I'm talking about MIG-21s and MIG-29s. Their pilots get very little training time in them because Uzbekistan is too cash-strapped.”

Iggy continued, “Two Pave Hawks will transport two teams of three operators each.” Iggy tapped his computer and an old satellite photo of Uzbekistan appeared on the monitor. He gave a six-digit grid for the refueling points. “At zero-one-thirty hours the Hawks will rendezvous at the second refueling point, designation S
TARLIGHT
with a Combat Talon for air-to-air refueling.” He waved his hand in the air for emphasis. “If ever de-briefed, you are to claim that we landed twice each leg in the desert and you believe it was the Russian mob that met us with two Soviet-era fuel trucks. Do I make myself clear?”

G
ENGHIS
carried an IV bag with him and sipped on a Gatorade. He whispered to Hunter. “I'd guess some general's putting a star on the line for Camille by loaning us that tanker.”

“I'd put my money on the OGA doing it to wipe out the tango base. After we grab her, the tangos will bug out and scatter.” Hunter leaned over to G
ENGHIS
and spoke out of the corner of his mouth.

Iggy slapped the table with his artificial hand. “Gentlemen. There is to be no speculation—no discussion—not a whisper.”

“Yes, sir,” Hunter said and G
ENGHIS
echoed him.

“Each Pave Hawk will top off, then land at S
TARBRIGHT
to refuel the Cobras that do not have air-to-air refueling capabilities. You'll find the grid in your orders. The Pave Hawks will be carrying hoses and portable pumps. The Hawks will then return to the MC-130 and refuel themselves.”

 

The briefing ended twenty minutes later and Hunter waited for the men to leave before he approached Iggy, who was sitting down while he turned off the laptop.

“Permission to speak freely, sir,” Hunter said.

“Close the door.”

“Two Cobras and two Pave Hawks—what's that all about? Where the hell are the Pave Lows and all the troops?”

“Three of our Cobras are in for heavy maintenance. I'm still waiting on the green light from the mechanics for one of the two we're taking and it has to launch in twenty minutes if everything's going to run on time.”

“We can't do this with six operators.”

“It just has to be a little more surgical than originally planned.”

“Doesn't Black Management have additional air support in theater?”

“It's committed. There's a major sweep going on in Northern Pakistan against al Qaeda and the Taliban. Everyone's stretched so thin, I've even got the big Army screaming for more. You're a Marine. Do the math.”

“I have. You lied to me.” Hunter clenched his jaws and gritted his teeth. He felt a jab of pain from the empty tooth socket, but ignored it. “You said you would redeploy whatever it took to save her. This is Stella's company for god's sake. This isn't the real military. Pull the fucking resources.”

“Get with the 21st century, Stone. We
are
the real military and we're in the middle of WWIII right now. Camille understands that. She would never forgive me if I yanked resources in the middle of an op. You don't do that and you know it.” Iggy closed the laptop. “And I said I would try and I sure as hell did.”

“I'm starting to think you don't want to save her.”

“Enough, Stone.” Iggy stood and took a step toward Hunter. His face was bright red. “You are not the only one who loves Cam. You're just the only one who can have her. It's not fucking fair, but I still saved your ass when that was what she wanted. And you can bet your life I'm going to do everything I can to get her back safely.”

“I didn't know.”

“Well now you do. And I appreciate you not telling her. Dismissed.”

 

The rotors of the Pave Hawks were starting to move when Hunter walked with Iggy to the lead bird. The operators were standing around on the ramp. The Super Cobras had already left. Hunter patted the side of the Hawk for good luck as he climbed into the back. Beach Dog had stuck a small cat figure with a raised paw onto the dashboard. Hunter had seen them all over Okinawa and was pretty sure they were some kind of a Japanese good luck charm, but he couldn't figure out how it fit into the guy's usual Hawaiian motif.

Hunter stuck his head into the front and put his hand on Beach Dog's shoulder.

“Sorry about what happened back in Baghdad,” Hunter said. “I want you to know I have nothing against your kind of people.”

“Surfers?” Beach Dog looked up from his checklist and smiled. “I think you misunderstood me. All's cool, dude. Let's just go save the lady.”

 

Hunter watched as G
ENGHIS
positioned himself on the outside seat of the four-man NOMEX bench so that he didn't risk anyone bumping against his arm.

“Sure you're up to it, buddy?” Hunter said as he sat beside him, not happy that he was about to spend nearly five hours cramped in a middle seat. G
ENGHIS
' quick rebound surprised him, but he'd known other snake eaters like him. The more bunged up, the more hard-assed they became.

Just then Iggy boarded the helicopter and pointed at G
ENGHIS
. “What are you doing here? You're supposed to be in the infirmary.”

“Waste of time. The nurse was a dude.”

“Get out. Raab here is my second shooter.” He motioned to a stocky guy standing several feet away on the ramp who looked like he could drive fence posts with his bare hands. He and Ashland were hurrying to smoke the last of their cigarettes.

“With all due respect, sir,” G
ENGHIS
said and continued, “Ms. Black is there because she tried to get an IV to save my life. I owe her and I don't like debts.”

“I can't risk others by asking them to count on a teammate who's already wounded.”

G
ENGHIS
glared at him, then stared at his artificial arm. Hunter started to say something, but Iggy could take care of himself. He'd sure proven that.

“Sir,” G
ENGHIS
said. “Ms. Black has earned my loyalty and my respect. I'll give my last breath to save her. Besides I'm all knitted up and ready to tango.”

Iggy pursed his lips and held his breath for several seconds as he stared at G
ENGHIS
. “If you show any signs of disorientation along the way, you're staying in the helo.”

Ashland and Raab approached the Pave Hawk and Hunter could smell the cigarette smoke even over the jet fumes.

Iggy motioned to Raab. “You're bumped to C
HALK
T
WO
. Take Callaghan's place and tell him to go home for the night.”

“Yes, sir.”

Iggy radioed the replacement orders to the C
HALK
T
WO
team leader while Ashland climbed onto the empty backwards-facing seats. The extra internal fuel tanks were a plastic wall within twelve inches of the seats. He wedged himself in and sat sideways with his legs facing the door.

“Hey, hey, hey. What are you doing?” Iggy tapped his artificial hand on Ashland's leg.

“I left you the last seat. I didn't think you'd want to sit back here,” Ashland said.

Hunter could tell from the bulges that Ashland had body armor on even though he wore civilian clothes—brown trousers and a white shirt. With his curly jet black hair and swarthy complexion, he could easily pass as one of the tangos like he had when Hunter and Stella had discovered him in the insurgent safe house back in Anbar.

“You don't have the right skill set for this,” Iggy said.

“But I do. My Arabic is flawless. I might be French, but my mother is Algerian. My father was pied-noir.”

“I don't give a flip about your pedigree. Get out.” Iggy glanced at his watch.

“You need another Arabic speaker if you want find her. I know you have enough margin with the fuel to cover my weight.”

“Can you shoot?”

“Definitely.”

“I can use you for recon. Finding her is going to be a bitch. But fuck with me and I'll draw and quarter you myself.” Iggy stifled a yawn as he climbed into the Pave Hawk and strapped himself in. He was ready to blow, so he took a deep breath to calm himself down. He was getting fed up with constantly being challenged and argued with every step of the way. Private military had its drawbacks and one of them was the lack of a stockade.