SOUTHERN CHECHNYA
Samman Bin Saqr realized with the first explosion that he had miscalculated badly—it was not the Russians who had found him, but the Americans. As calmly as he could, he worked the plane, starting the engines, securing the hatches, moving forward on the runway.
His flight engineer had not come aboard, but that was a minor matter. He began to turn as he reached the northern end of the runway, his right wing nearly scraping the side of the building as he turned. He hesitated for a second, fearful that in his ineptitude he had failed Allah. But then God smiled at him—he cleared the building and had the nose of the plane pointing into the wind, directly down the runway.
“Let us proceed,” he told his copilot, Vesh Ahmamoody. Vesh reached for the thrusters, propelling the flying bomb into the sky.