Stony Man - Triple Strike Part 9

"And do what, blow it up?"

"No," the former British SAS commando replied. "I was thinking of hijacking it. I can fly a b.l.o.o.d.y Herky Bird in my sleep. And if I have our resident flyboy here riding along with me, he can talk us through the NATO fighter cover over Italy so we don't get shot down by some trigger-happy fighter jock."

Bolan turned to Hammer. "What do you think, Jack?"

The pilot didn't blink. "Like I said, I'm signed out with that aircraft, and no one said anything about my having to bring it back under its own power or even in one piece. The only thing that counts is keeping it out of the hands of the enemy. I'm game to try it."

"How good are you on a rappeling rope?" McCarter asked Hammer.

"It's been a while," he admitted, "but I do know the difference between a Swiss chair and a 'beaner.' We did a little of that when I was at the academy."

"You'll do. It's like riding a bicycle."

"Except that you fall a lot harder."

"There is that."

McCarter was already stripping off most of his combat gear. The only thing he'd need down there were his weapons, ammunition and radio. If the attempt failed and they had to pull back, he could al-ways retrieve the rest of his gear later. Taking his combat cosmetics from his a.s.sault pack, he renewed his face paint and recoated his hands. It wasn't going to do him much good out in the open, but he always liked to dress before the ball.

"Come here," he told the Air Force pilot. "We need to rig your Swiss chair."

While Hammer was being fitted with his rappeling harness, James and Manning got out two dark nylon ropes and secured them at the top of the cliff.

"Whatever you guys do," McCarter cautioned the rest of the team, "don't get excited and hit the b.l.o.o.d.y plane. We're going to need it."

"Got you covered," Manning replied as he unlimbered his scoped Remington 700. "If I have to shoot at the plane, I promise not to hit anything vital."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

David McCarter hugged the rocks as he slowly worked his way down the face of the cliff on the rappeling rope. With the enemy so close to them, he couldn't kick free of the cliff and make a standard rappeling free fall; that would be sure to catch someone's eye. Six feet from his left side, Hammer tried his best to keep up with the Phoenix Force waxflor, but wasn't quite making it. The inexperienced pilot was having trouble with the outcroppings he kept running into.

When McCarter reached the jumble of rocks and boulders at the base of the cliff, he moved over to secure Hammer's line for the final few feet. The pilot landed with a heavy thump, but got right to his feet.

After unclipping the rappeling rope from his a.s.sault harness, McCarter grinned at his involuntary teammate. "For a flyboy, you're not half-bad at this grunt drill."

Hammer smiled as he puffed to catch his breath. It had been a long time since he had trusted his body to a quarter-inch-thick nylon rope. But as the Briton had told him, rappeling was something that you never forgot. If you did, you would die on the rope.

"G.o.d knows I'm trying, but this isn't like working out on the golf course."

"This is the original workout."

"I hear that."

"We're in the rocks at the bottom," McCarter radioed to the commandos on the top of the cliff.

"You'd better get a move on it," Bolan answered. "It looks like they're about finished loading the wreckage."

"We're on the way."

As McCarter watched the Iranians carry the last few parts of the Night Owl into the C-130, he saw that Bolan was right. They had to make their move now. With the wreckage on board, the Iranian pilots wouldn't want to stay on the ground any longer than was absolutely necessary. Not during daylight hours. They were taking a risk as it was and would want to trim their exposure time.

After checking his H & K a.s.sault rifle one last time, McCarter clicked in his throat mike. "Let's do it, Striker," he radioed.

On command, the ridgeline erupted in a storm of automatic fire. Caught out in the open with their weapons slung, the Iranians were stunned. Dropping for what little cover they could find on the plain, they responded quickly, though. All eyes were on the ridge as AK fire arched up at the Stony Man team.

With the enemy's attention focused elsewhere, McCarter made his move. "We're going for it!" he shouted to Hammer, and took off across the open ground for the Hercules without looking back to see if the pilot was keeping up with him. At the sound of the first shot, the C-130's pilots had fired up a second turbine and were cranking the other two. Since turboprop engines have a short run-up time, the plane would be rolling in another few seconds.

A ground crewman cut across McCarter's charge, racing for the plane's open rear ramp. The Briton snapped a short burst at him, cutting his legs out from under him. Behind him, he heard Hammer put a couple more rounds in the man for insurance.

Two men suddenly appeared in the plane's open ramp door with their AKs in their hands. Seeing the two Americans running toward them, they started to fire. McCarter skidded to a halt to take careful aim. The last thing he needed was for a stray round to clip something important in that machine. The C-130 was a tough old bird and could soak up a lot of damage, but he had to fly that aircraft all the way to Italy and he wanted it intact.

Firing on single shot, McCarter spun one of the Iranians with his first round, causing him to stumble and fall off the ramp. The second shot hit the other gunner dead center in the chest. His arms flew wide and he collapsed, failing back inside the plane.

By now, all four of the aircraft's turboprops were churning and the plane started to roll when the pilots came off the brakes. McCarter was pelted by a bliz- zard of dust and debris thrown back by the prop wash as he leaped for the ramp door. As soon as he had his footing, he turned back to give Hammer a hand up.

The pilot grasped his arm and, catching the edge of the ramp with the toe of his boot, pulled himself up.

"Stay here," McCarter shouted to him over the roar of the engines. "And make d.a.m.ned sure that no one tries to join us."

Hammer nodded and instinctively ducked for cover around the ramp opening. He knew that the thin aluminum skin of the aircraft wouldn't stop an AK round, but he liked having it between him and the people who were shooting at him. Even though the plane was rolling too fast now for anyone to catch up on foot, he stepped out just far enough to send several quick bursts at the gunmen closest to him.

In the c.o.c.kpit, the Iranian pilots were busy concentrating on getting the C-130 off the ground and out of the line of fire. They didn't spot McCarter until he had made his way up to the flight deck and was drawing a bead on them with his 9 mm Beretta. The copilot shouted a warning and clawed at his shoulder holster for his own pistol.

McCarter's quick shot took him in the throat. Clawing at his neck, the copilot toppled from his seat.

Catching the pilot's move from the corner of his eye, McCarter dropped into a half crouch and pivoted to the left to swing his Beretta into play. The pilot's frantic shot sizzled past his head and harmlessly punched through the aircraft's fuselage skin. McCarter's double-tap, 9 nun response was dead on tar-get.

The dying pilot's hand dragged the throttles back, and with no one at the wheel, the plane abruptly slowed and slewed to the left. The gunmen on the ground scattered as the whirling props turned in their direction. The confusion below them gave the Stony Man team several good shots, and they took advantage of the targets.

In the Hercules, McCarter pushed through the nar-row confines of the c.o.c.kpit to drag the pilot's body from behind the seat before sliding into his place. Not even pausing to belt himself in, he kicked down on the rudder pedal to check the plane's swing and bring it back on the runway. He slammed the throttle levers forward, the four turboprops roared anew and the plane leaped forward again.

That little excursion through the pucker brush had brought them dangerously close to the end of the already too short runway, but since they couldn't abort and try it again, he was committed. With both hands on the control wheel, he watched the airspeed indicator slowly unwind as the four bladed props clawed at the air.

As the plane accelerated, Hammer slipped into the copilot's seat and reached across for the flap lever. "I'm going to give you another five degrees of flap,"

he yelled over the roar of eighteen-thousand turboprop horsepower. "We're loaded down."

"Do it," McCarter snapped as an AK round punched a star-shaped hole through the canopy right over his head.

The instant the flaps came down, McCarter felt the wings lighten up. Another few miles per hour, and he'd try to take off. With the trees at the end of the clearing coming on fast, he took a firm grip on the control wheel. "I'm going for it!" he shouted over to his copilot.

"Do it!" Hammer yelled back.

With the props thundering and the turbines screaming, McCarter pulled back on the control col-umn and the heavily laden Hercules responded. In the right-hand seat, Hammer watched the trees rus.h.i.+ng at them as he slammed the gear-retraction lever forward to bring the wheels up and clean up the air-frame.

It was going to be close, too close, and he didn't want to snag a wheel on the treetops.

At the end of the runway, the belly of the C-130 cleared the treetops by less than a foot. But rather than climb for alt.i.tude, McCarter kept the plane on the deck to try to use the trees to s.h.i.+eld him from the storm of missiles that were sure to follow them.

Suddenly the radio crackled with a frantic voice shouting in Arabic. McCarter didn't have to know the language to know what the guy was asking. He wanted to know what in the h.e.l.l was going on. Key- ing the mike, Hanuner spoke a short Arabic phrase in return and the radio fell silent. "What did you tell that guy?" McCarter asked. Hammer smiled. "One of the more useful Arabic phrases I picked up when I was stationed in Riyadh. I told him that his mother enjoyed having public s.e.x-ual intercourse with diseased men. I wasn't sure if he was aware of it and thought that he'd want to know."

McCarter tried not to laugh out loud. He liked Hammer, but having the pilot around was going to get all of them killed. Rubbing salt in the wound wasn't going to make this any easier for them.

"Is that load tied down back there?" McCarter shouted as he jinked the aircraft to throw off the missile gunners' aim. "I don't know if they had time to secure it and I'd hate to lose it now."

'Tll check it," Hammer yelled back.

BOLAN WATCHED the C-130 as McCarter kept the plane's belly on the treetops rather than try to climb out to gain alt.i.tude. It was dangerous to fly that low, but it was less risky than it would be to climb up into missile range. If McCarter could keep from go-ing into the trees for a few more miles, he'd be out of the range of the heat-seeking warheads of the Strellas.

Even though the Hercules's hot exhausts were be-ing s.h.i.+elded by the trees and prevented the heat-seeking warheads from acquiring the target, the Iranians triggered off two of their missiles anyway. Since the gunners couldn't get a guidance lock-on, they just aimed the Strellas in the direction of the fleeing plane and fired.

The first missile went straight into the trees at the edge of the clearing and exploded harmlessly. The heat-seeking warhead of the second Strella got a lock on the setting sun and streaked after it. Reaching the end of its trajectory, the time fuse triggered the warhead, but it didn't explode anywhere near the C-130.

Now that the C-130 was safely away, Manning had switched back to using his H&K a.s.sault rifle. Zeroing in on the guy who looked to be in charge down there-at least he was the one standing up, waving his arms and shouting-he gave him a short burst in his chest for his efforts. These guys were going to have to learn to keep down when they were giving orders.

No one else stood up to take the dead man's place, but the Iranians weren't giving it up. Now that the C-130 was out of missile range, all of their attention was focused on the ridgeline above them. A renewed storm of fire kept the Stony Man warriors' heads down.

Seeing that the Iranians were getting their act together, Bolan keyed his throat mike. "Let's get out of here, guys. Gary, you and T.J. pull rear guard."

With James leading, the team headed back for the safety of the mountain to wait out the next phase of the mission, their extraction. Hopefully Katzenelen- bogen wouldn't take too long putting it together, because they had really angered the locals now.

Stony Man Farm BARBARA PRICE and Hal Brognola were crowded into the computer room again as they waited to hear the results of the Night Owl s.n.a.t.c.h. When Yakov Katzenelenbogen's face flashed onto the video monitor, they didn't need to hear his words to know that McCarter had been successful. It was written all over his face.

"They did it," he crowed. "They hijacked the Iranian plane with the Night Owl's wreckage on board and they're on the way back now."

"You'd better make sure that the NATO pilots know that they're coming in an Iranian-marked aircraft," Brognola suggested. "We don't need for them to get shot down now."

"The word has been put out," Katz rea.s.sured them. "And the fighters on this interception are all USA_F, so there won't be any itchy fingers on the triggers looking for a cheap kill to put on their score-board."

"Let me know as soon as they land," Brognola ordered. "The President's waiting for the news."

"Will do."

"Tell Striker that we're working up an extraction plan fight now," Price informed him. "The guys may have to walk a ways to get to the LZ, but we'll try to make it as close to them as we can. But until then, tell them to keep out of trouble if they can. We've had enough excitement around here for a while."

'Tll pa.s.s that on, too."

When Katz killed the connection, he sat back. So far, so good. They had gotten Lacy out, and Hammer was coming back with what was left of his plane. Now all they had to do was to get the rest of the team out of Bosnia, and they could rack up another win for the good guys.

Someone else could worry about the Iranians. Maybe PROFOR could get their hands dirty for a change. He knew that there was little chance of that, but a man could still hope.

Bosnia MAJOR NASLIN COULDN'T believe that the Yankees had been able to hijack the Hercules transport with the prized stealth fighter on board. The imams of Tehran would have his blood for the loss of the two planes and it wouldn't be an easy death. There was no way of getting them back now, and his only hope of redeeming himself was to kill the raiders who had done this to him. Plus, for him to be able to carry out the primary mission he had been sent to Bosnia for, he couldn't afford to have these American commandos running loose. He had to admit that for infidels, the Yankees were good, especially the devil with the silenced rifle. This sniper had taken several of his most experienced group leaders, and he had been forced to promote some of the younger, less experienced men to take their places. The dead men were basking in G.o.d's Paradise now, but carrying out the plan would be more difficult without them.

"I am going to put the plan on hold," he told the Bosnian. "Until we can run down those Yankee dev-ils, it is too dangerous to continue with it until we know that they are dead."

Dragan Asdik wasn't sorry to hear the Iranian's decision to delay Tehran's plan and would have pre-ferred to see it canceled outright. He didn't mind killing his Serb and Croatian enemies; he had done that all of his life, it seemed. But killing them with poison gas offended his sense of righteousness.

Enemies were for killing, but for killing man-to- man and face-to-face. Even though he knew that the Iranian plan would advance the cause of his people, he had never liked it. He wanted a Bosnia free of the Serb and Croat infidels as much as any son of the Prophet, but he didn't think that a merciful G.o.d wanted them to be killed like sheep the way the Iranians planned to do.

"And," the Iranian continued, "I will need to use your men, as well as mine, to make sure that we can kill them as soon as we can."

"As I told you," Asdik said, "my men are my men and they fight for me. A handful of Yankees can do me no harm here. Plus, they have taken back everything they came for, both the men and that d.a.m.ned airplane. Now they will leave and go home. They will be gone from here in a day or two."

"But they made us both look like fools."

"Not us," Asdik said. "It was your idea to keep the Americans prisoner, and it was your plan to try to fly that wreckage back to Tehran."

"The commandos have acted against the will of G.o.d," the Iranian insisted. "They have east dung in the faces of the faithful, and G.o.d demands that they be punished for their crimes."

Asdik thought of himself as a good Muslim, but he wasn't as sure that he knew what G.o.d wanted as the Iranian seemed to be. To Naslin, everything that happened was either G.o.d's will or the hand of Satan working against the Almighty. Asd'ik knew that nothing was ever that simple and that luck played a large part of any military action. The Yankees had proved that. Only blind luck could have placed them on the ridgeline when the plane had flown in. Their skills as warriors, though, had let them successfully exploit that luck.

Asdik was man enough to admit that he had seriously miscalculated the danger the Yankees had presented. This was one time that Naslin's paranoia had been accurate. Whoever those men were, they were good. Nonetheless, he was convinced that they no longer represented a danger, at least not to him.

"If that is true," he told the major. "I am content to let G.o.d punish them. They will be leaving now, and things will get back to normal."

"We will see," the Iranian almost hissed.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

Aviano Air Base, Italy The flight of the Iranian C-130 carrying the wreckage of the Night Owl back to the Aviano air base went off without a hitch. With Hammer talking them in, they had been met halfway across the Adriatic by a flight of four American F-16 Falcons from the base. The fighters were fully armed, but Harmher knew all of the right code words, and one of the pilots was a drinking buddy of his. With the fighters flying off both wings, no one bothered them.

They were cleared to land immediately, and once he was on the ground, McCarter taxied the Hercules to the big hangar at the far end of the flight line as Hammer directed. When the waiting ground crewman signaled him to stop, he killed the fuel feed to the turboprops.

"Home, sweet home," Hammer said as the American Air Police rushed to throw a cordon around the Iranian plane. "You know the drill, get out of the plane with your hands up and a.s.sume the position."

"Been there," McCarter said, grinning, "done that."

Katz had made the necessary arrangements for McCarter and Hammer to be driven directly to the Stony Man CP for a debriefing before anyone else talked to them. The only thing the Air Force needed to know right then was they had their secret spy plane back and they would have to be satisfied with that. They didn't need to know the details of how they had gotten it back.

Hammer stood back and looked at the makes.h.i.+ft CP. He had never seen so much electronic gear thrown together in one place outside of a repair facility. Some of it was easily recognizable, but much of it was as foreign to him as a microwave oven would be to a bushman. He still didn't know who the h.e.l.l he had gotten mixed up with, but they certainly didn't lack resources. A maid, however, wouldn't be out of order.

Without waiting for an invitation, he walked over to the coffeepot, pawed through the debris piled around it to find a semiclean cup and poured himself a hot one. If he was violating some kind of protocol by serving himself, they could shoot him later. Right now he needed a cup of coffee.

"This is Major John Hammer," McCarter intro-duced him, "the Night Owl pilot we came across in the castle."

"I'm Yakov Katzenelenbogen," said the older man with a stainless steel prothesis in place of his right ann. "But everyone just calls me Katz."