Tuncay watched Walid start the number three engine. A pneumatic starter spun the big fan, and when Walid raised the start lever to idle, fuel sprayed into the engine’s combustion chamber. Nothing else happened.
“Something is wrong!” Walid said in a clipped voice. “Number three is not lighting off.”
“Stop the start!” Tuncay commanded.
Walid moved switches and the big turbofan wound down, its signature hum lowering in pitch until silence reigned. “What now?” he asked.
Tuncay frowned severely.
“We need a mechanic,” Walid said.
“Yes, I will call right away!” Tuncay replied sharply. “A power-plant specialist who is familiar with General Electric CF6 engines. That should be simple enough on a deserted Lebanese airfield in the middle of the night. Oh, and we must warn our mechanic not to go near the fuselage amidships because that’s where the radiation is.”
Walid went silent.
A fuming Tuncay pondered the problem. They were not excessively heavy—the aircraft had a minimum fuel load—so it was possible they could take off on two engines. Unfortunately, that would require a great deal of runway, and their best chance of not crashing on takeoff to begin with was to use as little of the rutted concrete as possible. There was also the matter of the thrust asymmetry introduced by a dead but windmilling starboard engine. Would it be manageable? Would the craft yaw to one side and careen into the hills? There was no way to tell.
He was mulling it all when the increasingly useless Walid said, “Look! The circuit breaker for the number three engine ignition has popped.”
Tuncay looked at the vertical panel above and behind his copilot where hundreds of circuit breakers were arrayed. Sure enough, the tiny round button through which power flowed to the number three engine ignition system had popped, removing DC current from the igniters.
Walid looked at Tuncay, who nodded. He turned in his seat and reset the breaker by pushing it in.
They went through the start sequence a second time, and both men held their breaths. The starboard engine lit off and spun to life perfectly.
Walid sat with a smile etched on his face.
Tuncay could have kissed him.
* * *
“NVGs?” Lieutenant Colonel Bryan said. “They want us to land at some place we’ve never been using night vision gear?”
“That’s what the order says,” said McFadden, who’d been exchanging a continuous stream of messages with CENTCOM. “They want our approach to be lights-out until just before landing. We’re supposed to block the runway so an MD-10 that’s parked there can’t take off.”
“Well now ain’t that just fresh! Is there any kind of instrument approach I can use to line up with this runway?”
“Uh … no, sir. I asked about that, and it seems the reason I couldn’t find this airport in our nav database is because it’s closed.”
“Closed?” Bryan exclaimed.
“As far as I can tell, it shut down over twenty years ago.”
Bryan gave his copilot a look that caused the ex-Marine to freeze. He rang the loadmaster on the intercom.
A sleepy voice answered, “What’s up, Colonel?”
“Willis, tell me again what we’re carryin’ back there.” After nearly a week of trash-hauling, the manifests had run together in Bryan’s sleep-deprived brain.
“Only nine pallets, but it’s heavy stuff. A couple of replacement engines for Seventh Corps armor, and a load of gear for a Special Forces unit—I’m not exactly sure what it is, but the hazmat log lists a thousand pounds of high explosives.”
“We’ve been diverted and we’ll be landing in ten minutes—be ready!”
“Ten mi—”
Bryan snapped the switch that removed Sergeant Willis’ voice from the intercom. He checked the navigation display and saw they had thirty-nine miles to go. “A night diversion to land at a closed airport with NVGs … and I’m carrying half a ton of high explosives! Christ on a bike, can it get any better?”
At that moment, the Lebanese air traffic controller sounded on the radio. “Reach Four-One, I show you off course. You are approaching Lebanese airspace! Turn right heading two two zero immediately!”
The pilots stared at one another.
McFadden said, “If we don’t say something they might try to intercept us.”
“No, Lebanon doesn’t have any fighters … at least, I don’t think they do.”
“They have surface-to-air missiles.”
Bryan keyed his microphone, “Lebanon Control, Reach Four-One is declaring an emergency! We’ve lost two engines and require an immediate diversion!”
The air traffic controller started to say something, but Bryan took off his headset. From here on out, the radio would be nothing but a distraction. “Thirty-two miles. Get in the box and build me an approach as best you can to that runway.”
“How do I know which way is into the wind?”
“To hell with the winds. Go with whichever side has the least terrain.” McFadden started typing on the navigation computer. “When you’re done, go and dig out the NVGs—and while you’re at it, say a little prayer that the batteries are good.”
* * *
There was no mistaking the sound of the engines.
Being an experienced soldier, Ben-Meir only glanced at the MD-10 as it prepared to move. From his position on a tree-shrouded promontory, and without the use of his optics, the aircraft was no more than a dim outline. The jet’s navigation lights remained extinguished, which meant the only manufactured light was a pale white glow from the cockpit windows.
Ben-Meir turned away and surveyed the hills one last time. After months of planning and preparation, his part of the mission would be complete in a matter of minutes. It had not been easy—he’d lost three men, the entire assault force he’d recruited. The kidon had been better than he’d imagined. Or perhaps more fortunate. Their original intent had never been to eliminate Slaton. Indeed, quite the opposite. But then he’d lost Kieras in Malta, followed by Stanev in Zurich. By the time of the encounter in Wangen, all bets were off as far as he was concerned. Still the kidon had survived.
It hardly mattered. Ben-Meir pulled his collar up against the cool night air. This time next week, I will be in a very warm and pleasant place.
Through his optics he saw nothing to the east or south, his primary areas of responsibility. Of course, with Ghazi standing watch on the opposite hill, Ben-Meir knew he was effectively responsible for the full swing of the compass. He searched farther afield and saw a distant herd of goats, and in a wadi at the bottom of the valley the abandoned hulk of a car, its metal losing heat more quickly than the surrounding earth. He lowered his night scope, breathed a sigh of relief, and was trying to recall the check-in time for his morning flight out of Beirut when the report of a shot echoed through the hills.
Ben-Meir snatched up his optics and checked Ghazi’s position. More shots rang out, one of them sounding a different pitch. A second weapon. He spotted two figures. One was unfamiliar, staggering and leaning on a tree. The outline of a hot-barreled rifle lay on the ground nearby. The second figure was moving, making awkward but steady progress toward the runway. Ben-Meir recognized Ghazi’s bulky parka, marked with the IR reflective tape he had wrapped around each wrist.
Ben-Meir scrambled down the hill, stopping periodically to scan for other threats. The man in Ghazi’s abandoned position had gone still, his back propped against a tree. Ben-Meir realized that Ghazi was heading directly for the aircraft. Idiot.
They didn’t have a communication link set up—there had been no time to acquire the hardware, nor to train a chemist on the fundamentals of tactical communication. When he’d heard the first shot Ben-Meir feared he would see a strike force, a dozen or more commandos ghosting in from all directions. Yet things seemed quiet, no more shots, no darting movement through the hills. Someone had stumbled across Ghazi’s position, he reasoned, and the nearsighted chemist had actually gotten the better of an armed shepherd or a smuggler—Mohammed, the demolition man he’d hired, had warned him the hills were thick with both.
Ben-Meir neared the man leaning against the tree trunk with his weapon trained. His senses were keen, sight and sound filtering for the slightest deviation. He saw only a shoulder at first, and then the side of a watch cap. The head inside the knit cap was rolling, like a man about to lose consciousness. Ben-Meir saw a weapon on the ground, an unusual make but vaguely familiar—a high-end marksman’s rifle. Which meant he was looking at more than an errant goat-herder or a black-market smuggler.
The man shifted against the tree, and Ben-Meir took no chances. From twenty meters he sent a round into the shoulder joint. A scream of pain, and the figure fell writhing to the ground. Both hands were in view now, comfortingly empty, and Ben-Meir lowered his gun to his hip over the last few steps. His target, facedown in the dirt, emitted a weak, liquid-filled groan. Ben-Meir rolled the man with his boot and saw a contorted face covered in blood and dirt. Saw the eyeglasses on the ground next to him.
His chest tightened, and all too late Ben-Meir realized his mistake.
He was looking at Ghazi.
He spun and lunged sideways in the same motion. It didn’t save him.
The first bullet struck squarely in his upper chest, an explosion of pain like nothing he’d ever experienced. The second round hit lower, a gut shot, and put him on the ground. Ben-Meir tried to focus. His weapon was in the dirt, just out of reach, and he thought with an odd detachment, So this is what it’s like. He had been on the other end of this exchange many times, and it was curiously illuminating to see things from the target’s perspective. He straightened his back long enough to meet his executioner.
He was standing in Ghazi’s jacket, the chemist’s weapon poised in his hand. It was the kidon, of course, twenty meters away. After a completely silent approach, thought Ben-Meir appreciatively. The pain was excruciating and he hoped, in a mercy he had not always visited upon others, that the assassin would end things sooner rather than later.
It was Zan Ben-Meir’s last thought of this world.