Fly by Night (37 page)

There was silence for a moment, then Schmitt and a voice Davis recognized as Achmed began arguing about an oil pressure gauge. The transmission was continuous, so Schmitt had jammed the radio’s transmit switch on. Davis sat there and listened to the “hot microphone,” eavesdropping on the flight deck of the control ship. He thought he heard Khoury’s voice in the background, but the words were indistinguishable. Soon everything was indistinguishable as the transmission faded. Schmitt’s airplane was too far away.

“Dammit!” Davis muttered. Without the radio link he was helpless.

Then he heard Schmitt’s voice again, a briefly coherent transmission. His words were clear—not because the microphone was near his lips, but because he was shouting. “Dammit Achmed, I’m the captain, and that’s that! Take the airplane while I go back and check. Heading three-five-zero, and keep the speed up!”

The transmission faded again, this time to nothing. But Schmitt had just told him a lot. They were indeed following Blackstar, controlling it. They were heading north. And most important of all was the fact that he’d keyed a hot microphone. Bob Schmitt had made up his mind. He was on Davis’ side.

And he was asking for help.

Davis waited five minutes, hoping for something more. The speaker over his head was stone silent. Even if Bob Schmitt had seen the light, he was flying away at over a hundred miles an hour. Probably ten miles in the last five minutes. Davis turned to the larger problem—the attack
that seemed imminent. Was the drone carrying a weapon? Or was Blackstar itself the weapon, every cavity from nose to tail packed with high explosives? The latter smacked of simplicity, so that got Davis’ vote. The northerly heading would take them to Egypt, then Israel, so the target had to be in that direction. A lot of possibilities.

But what to do about it?

Davis had no way to contact Larry Green, or for that matter anybody who could help. And even if he could get through, what would he say? “There’s a DC-3 and a drone heading north out of Sudan. Jammer Davis says shoot them both down.” What were the chances of that? Davis knew all too well how the alphabet soup of intelligence and military organizations in Washington operated. Collectively, they were like some massive bureaucratic train, full of momentum, full of confidence that brute size would be enough to overcome any obstacle. Never mind that the bridge ahead was out. That’s where Larry Green and Darlene Graham and all the rest were heading at this very moment—to the bottom of Confidence Gulch. But sitting where he was, Davis was in no position to help either. No help to Schmitt or anyone on the other side of the Atlantic.

Davis stared at the instrument panel in front of him.
He who hesitates dies.

He started flipping switches, trying to remember the right sequence. Davis was about to start the port engine when he remembered the chocks. He bounded outside and scrambled beneath the airplane. The big wooden wedges under each main wheel were connected in pairs by a short length of heavy rope. They were as big as concrete blocks, and nearly as heavy. Davis kicked away the front chock on each side, and didn’t worry about the rear. On the way back to the entry door he spotted another problem—the forklift was parked just behind the cargo door, too close to the horizontal tail for the airplane to move.

“It’s always something,” he muttered in frustration.

Davis started the forklift, and after some trial and error with the levers and foot pedals, soon had it backed up and clear. He set the
parking brake, jumped off, and had one hand to the entry stairs when he heard tires squeal and saw the glare of headlights wash over the fuselage. Davis turned to see Rafiq Khoury’s Land Rover settle in front of his left wing. Hassan the giant stepped out.

It’s always something
.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

There is a reason boxing matches are classified by weight. Owing to the laws of physics, a larger man has a significant advantage. Davis had been in plenty of fights in his time—some with referees and official sanction, others decidedly less formal—yet aside from a few childhood scraps with older boys, he had held the size card probably 98 percent of the time. This was the other 2 percent.

Hassan seemed in no hurry as he strolled closer. Chances were, he was a 100 percenter. Fortunately, size wasn’t the entire issue. Training and experience also came into play. Unfortunately, the T. rex had something there too. Davis saw it in his movement and balance, the way his eyes registered everything. He had parked the Rover to block the airplane’s forward path. So he was big
and
trained. But Davis wouldn’t give him the trifecta of the last variable.

Davis stood calmly as Hassan approached, hoping like hell the guy spoke English. He said, “Did you lose your master?”

Hassan didn’t respond, so he either didn’t speak English or wasn’t going to let Davis distract him. As he ducked under the left wing, Hassan grabbed a set of wheel chocks. When he cleared the wing and stood tall, he raised one of the wooden blocks with a bent vertical arm, leaving its mate dangling by the short rope that connected the pair. It looked like he was holding a massive pair of nunchucks. Davis searched left and right, figuring that he wanted something too. He stepped sideways toward a toolbox that was resting on the back of the forklift. Davis looked into the tray of assorted tools and grabbed the biggest thing he saw, a foot-and-a-half-long crescent wrench that looked better suited to an ocean liner than an airplane.

Hassan quickened his pace, and when he was five steps away he pulled the chocks back and took a big roundhouse swing. Davis realized late that he’d let Hassan get too close. Maybe he’d underestimated his reach or the length of the connecting rope. Whatever the case, when the big blocks came his way in a sweeping arc, there was only one way out. Davis ducked low. But Hassan had anticipated the move. He kept the swing low so that Davis couldn’t get completely under it.

Maybe he does have the trifecta.
That was Davis’ last thought before a twenty-pound block of oak ricocheted off his head. He went down hard, his knees crashing to the concrete. The world seemed to spin around him.

“I have no master,” Hassan said.

Davis tried to move, tried to focus. His head was vibrating like a well-thumped tuning fork. When his vision cleared, he was looking at Hassan’s knees. Davis shifted his eyes up and saw the big Arab lifting one of the massive yellow chocks high for a coup de grâce. But then Hassan finally made a mistake. He was taking too long, savoring one extra moment. Davis clenched his right hand and felt the wrench still there. He swung, twisting his entire body to get weight behind the blow, and connected with Hassan’s knee.

The big Arab screamed and fell back, hit the ground clutching his leg. Davis tried to shake off the cobwebs and get to his feet. They’d each gotten in one blow. Both were on the ground. Hassan was first up, but he looked unsteady on a bad leg. He came like a limping bull, shoulders down and arms outstretched. He reminded Davis of a rugby player heading into a tackle.
That’s good
, he thought.
That’s my ground
.

Hassan was tall, his center of gravity riding high over an injured base. Davis set himself lower, planted his feet, and put a shoulder into Hassan’s gut. The collision was massive, but Davis had better balance. He began moving, pumping his legs, and the two men went down again, this time together. He felt Hassan grappling, trying to keep him close. Davis pried away, knowing mobility was his advantage. Nearly out of the Arab’s grasp, Davis slipped on an oily spot on the ramp and fell back, landing against the side of the forklift. Hassan was on top of him instantly, pushing Davis into the forklift and pinning his head to
the driver’s seat. The massive Arab was lying on him, a forearm jammed across Davis’ neck. Both men grappled and swung, but the close proximity stunted any force behind either man’s blows.

Davis tried to use his legs to sweep Hassan’s away, but the bigger man had a good set. Hassan stopped punching, transferred all his effort to the arm across Davis’ throat. He didn’t have to do anything else—keep that, and it was just a matter of time.

For the second time in two days, Jammer Davis struggled to breathe. He had the same feeling, the same sense of foreboding he’d had yesterday when his scuba gear had malfunctioned—the body’s natural reaction to a lack of oxygen. His punches were ineffective, and he swept his free hand under the seat searching for the crowbar he’d used two days ago in Schmitt’s office. Not there. His vision began to fail, but Davis kept clawing, searching for anything to help. His hand found a lever, and he realized the forklift was still running. He jammed the lever forward, and the machine jerked into gear.

Hassan’s balance was upset, and he tried to pull himself up onto the moving tug. Tried to keep his advantage. Davis got a breath, found the accelerator with his hand, and pushed it to the floorboard. The machine jumped forward.

Hassan tried to hang on, his legs dragging alongside. Neither man saw the airplane coming. The forklift’s twin iron bars, raised to mid-height on the lifting mechanism, speared the fuselage of the DC-3. Initially, the aircraft’s thin metal skin was no match, but then the forklift slammed to a stop as more integral parts of the airplane came into play. Davis was thrown forward against the steering wheel and levers, and that was where he stopped. Hassan went airborne. His massive body flew ahead, smashing into the fuselage and then down to the concrete.

Davis righted himself quickly and shifted the forklift into reverse. He pulled back, and the forks came out of the airplane like two knives out of a soda can. He saw Hassan under the airplane, rising unsteadily to his feet. His other leg looked damaged now. The man was nearly immobilized, but his eyes were more fearsome than ever. His massive arms flexed, ready to swing and claw. Davis wouldn’t get close enough for that. Not again.

Hassan stumbled toward him, and Davis jumped down off the machine and backed two steps away. Then he saw what he needed. He hefted the entire toolbox from the back of the forklift. Filled with all the tools it took to keep an airliner running, the big red box had to weigh two hundred pounds. With Hassan only steps away, Davis lifted the box over his head, one hand in front and one in back, and threw it like a harpoon. It flew straight at Hassan, who did the natural thing. The wrong thing. He tried to catch it. It was like trying to catch a ship’s anchor. The blunt metal side of the box struck Hassan squarely in the chest, lifted his feet, and planted him flat on his back. He didn’t move.

Davis did. He climbed back onto the forklift, put it in gear and spun a quick half circle until the twin loading forks were directly over the groggy Arab. Davis lowered the forks.

Hassan saw the twin metal tongues coming down, one across his legs and another over his chest. He pushed out with his huge arms, caught one of the forks and tried to straight-arm it. He succeeded to a degree—the bar stopped moving, but the front wheels of the loader began to rise off the ground. Davis stopped the lift mechanism. He got out of the driver’s seat, walked over, and stood by the struggling Arab.

“That’s not bad,” he said. “I’ve never seen anybody bench-press a forklift before.”

The man said nothing as he strained under the weight.

“Where is that drone going?” Davis asked.

Hassan’s eyes flicked away from the tremendous machine that was hovering over him. He looked at Davis with seething hatred and spit in his direction.

“Yeah, I figured as much.” Davis leaned closer, and put a casual arm on the lifting blade to add a little extra weight. “About those two pilots, the Ukrainians. That was your work, wasn’t it?”

Hassan’s face was crimson, the veins in his arms popping out as rivers of blood flowed to his muscles. Muscles that were beginning to quiver from exhaustion. “You,” Hassan grunted, “will be next.”

“No,” Davis said. “I don’t think so.” He took his arm off the bar, exchanged a glare with the hating eyes, then vaulted up astride the forks, one under each leg.

Hassan’s eyes went wide. The extra two hundred forty pounds did the job. The Arab’s arms began to shake violently. They wobbled. And then they folded. The twin forks fell hard. Laying supine, Hassan’s chest was the thickest part of him, and that was where the damage was done, nearly a ton of weight crushing vital organs in his torso. There was a massive letting of air as the big man’s chest caved in, expiring like a Thanksgiving Day parade balloon with a pulled plug.

Davis didn’t say a prayer. Wouldn’t have if he’d had the time.

He looked at the DC-3 in front of him and saw two gaping holes in the fuselage. An out-of-service airplane if he’d ever seen one. Fortunately, there were two spares. He began trotting toward the nearest one, but as Davis approached the abandoned Land Rover he slowed. Hassan had left the door ajar. It almost looked like an invitation.

A quick detour put Davis in the driver’s seat. He scoured the floor-board and consoles, hoping for a cell phone or a radio. Maybe a master plan in an envelope labeled
TOP SECRET
. That was what he needed. What he got was discarded food wrappers, broken sunglasses, pencils with broken points, and empty water bottles. He was about to give up when something in the backseat caught his eye—a stack of heavy bond paper, at least a thousand sheets face down in a neat, rectangular brick. Like it had just come from a printer’s press. And with that idea in his head, Davis correlated the smell. The acrid chemical vapor of freshly run ink.

He reached back, took a page off the top of the stack, and turned it over. He saw a full bust photo of an officer in service dress, wheel cap over brass stars and a forest of ribbons. The wide ebony face was set in a stony, no-nonsense stare. There was something familiar about the photo, although Davis was sure he’d never seen the man before. Then he noticed a name and a title printed at the bottom. The name was a match—same as the soldier’s acetate nametag in the picture. But the title was wrong. Very wrong. It didn’t say General or Commander or Chief of the Armed Forces. The title Davis saw made no sense at all.