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Gora Muruntau, Kyzyl Kum Desert, Uzbekistan

Hunter looked outside the window as the Gulfstream descended. The landscape made him feel even farther away from home, farther away from Stella. The desolate valley looked like what was left long after the flames of hell had burned themselves out. The desert floor was scarred with the biggest quarries he'd ever seen, gashes in the earth stretching for miles and miles. The open pits themselves were terraced swirls of lifeless dirt, switchbacks into the depths. The sand and rock cleaved from the ground had been dumped in mounds of rubble that were collapsing back into the abandoned pits. The earth had been gutted and the innards left to rot.

Uzbekistan was where the Earth came to die.

 

Once they were inside a high security facility, he knew they would have little hope of escape and none of rescue. Rubicon would never allow him to come out alive and he would much rather die fighting on a desolate runway than from torture or neglect. Taking over the Gulfstream was his only chance. He stretched as best he could, given the plastic cuffs on his wrists and ankles. His body had to be ready when they de-planed. If he and the other prisoners could find the right opportunity, maybe even one of them would survive. They were an even match with the guards—four prisoners, four guards. The flight crew seemed to stay huddled inside the cockpit, probably some well-paid flyboys who understood that the less they knew about their passengers, the safer they were. As long as the pilots weren't directly endangered, he doubted they would aid the guards in a rumble.

He knew he could trust the skills of Miller and G
ENGHIS
and he was certain they would jump in if an opportunity presented itself, but he wasn't so sure about Ashland—or whoever he was. With Hunter's luck, the bastard would be the only one who came out alive.

As the plane banked, he spotted the landing strip and a vehicle waiting to meet the plane. He couldn't see how many were inside, but his clenched gut told him the odds had just gotten a little worse.

 

“Plane at eleven o'clock, turning into the wind to land,” Pete said, kneeling in position a little behind Camille, to her right.

As Camille searched for the plane, she thought she saw Pete check her sidearm. The sparse desert terrain made it unlikely that someone could approach them without notice, but it never hurt to be vigilant. She reached to her right leg and made sure that her new Spetsnaz combat knife was in its thigh holster.

“Wind twenty-five to thirty knots. Verify,” Camille said. The blowing sand felt like a hard rain, scratching at her face.

Pete looked through her scope. “Verified.”

Camille added a click to the right to compensate for the wind.

The small jet taxied to a stop in a sand-covered part of the tarmac, on the edge of the range Camille had anticipated. Iggy had the better position. The additional meters would add several mils of inaccuracy to her shot, but that would be more than made up for because at that distance the bullet would be silent, friction from the air having slowed it enough to lose the crackling sound it made traveling at the speed of sound. She could get off multiple rounds before anyone noticed or could triangulate her position—not that she had any intention of breaking her perfect record: one shot, one kill.

“Range me to the airframe,” Camille said.

“Eight-two-five.”

“Negative. Eight-five-zero,” Camille said. “Verify.”

“Negative. Eight-two-five. Check your dope.”

Camille checked the settings, but was sure they were correct.

The plane sat on the runway while the engines spooled down. After five minutes, the airstairs were lowered and a man appeared in the doorway, a mil dot above Camille's crosshairs. He was blond, average build and had what looked like a Russian version of an M4 at his side.

“Radio Iggy. First target acquired.”

 

Tariq had learned a thing or two about stealth in the training camp, not that he really needed it. Whoever the sniper was, he was focused upon the runway, not Tariq approaching from behind. As he crept closer, he saw a white jet coming in for a landing.

 

The hot desert air took Hunter's breath away as he stepped through the jet's doorway, tactical scenarios running through his head. Whoever was picking them up was smart enough to keep a distance. A meter ahead of him, a guard stepped from the stairs onto the tarmac, looking around, his eyebrows knit.

Something was wrong.

 

Camille watched through her scope as the first prisoner stooped, exiting with the top of his head pointed at her. He looked up and she saw his face.

Hunter—thank god
.

She caught sight of the second prisoner climbing down the stairs.

G
ENGHIS
?

 

Pete took a long, deep breath, but it didn't clear her head. Her body dripped with sweat. Camille had been good to her, but Joe Chronister was not a man who bluffed. He would make sure the unsolved murder at Fort Bliss was reopened with new evidence that would send Pete to prison for life. She couldn't go through that.

Pete cocked the Makarov.

 

Hunter saw no cover, nowhere to run. The landing strip was between dunes with so little microterrain, the sand looked like it was in constant motion. He was actually surprised they hadn't swallowed the landing strip. The lead guard keyed his radio, calling for the absent greeting party. Something wasn't going according to plan which meant the guards were off-balance, even if for a few seconds. Hunter flashed a glance at G
ENGHIS
, who seemed to already be inching into position behind one of the guards.

 

Camille saw G
ENGHIS
edging closer to her objective, but the shot was still clear. She inhaled deeply to steady herself, then exhaled. The shot felt good, so she slowly squeezed the trigger and fired. The recoil jerked the sight. Without a breath, she acquired the next target.

“I'm sorry,” she heard Pete say.

Camille fired again. As she did, her peripheral vision caught Pete getting up from her prone position.

What the hell?

 

Hunter inched toward the guard closest to him, ready to teach him why he should never zip-tie a prisoner's hands in front. Though if all went well, he wouldn't have the chance to use the lesson. Stella's man G
ENGHIS
was almost in position behind his mark. Without warning, a bullet blew through G
ENGHIS
' target and exited from the back. A pink mist splattered G
ENGHIS
and both men crumpled to the ground. Another guard swung around and sprayed rounds into Hunter's fellow Force Zulu operator, then turned toward Hunter.

At the same time Hunter dropped, a sniper's bullet cratered the guard's chest.

 

Camille glanced away from the shot to see Pete kneeling beside her, pointing a pistol at her. She didn't pause to think. Her right hand reached for her knife as she rolled out of the line of fire, toward Pete. With a single stroke, she sliced through Pete's Achilles tendon. The calf muscles seized and Pete collapsed toward her, bringing her throat down where Camille needed it. She thrust her knife into her neck. An aerosol of blood spurted out.

“Why?” Camille whispered as she rolled over, using the knife as a handle to pull Pete's body over hers to hasten death as the blade ripped through her trachea and arteries, dousing her in a fountain of blood. Sickening steam rose from the sun-baked sand. She couldn't understand it, but she didn't have time to figure it out. Kicking free from Pete's body, she twisted around and righted the Dragunov.

 

Iggy was mad that his first target had moved at the wrong moment and it had taken him two rounds to make the kill. And now he couldn't get a clear shot at the fourth guard. He was sure Camille had it. He had been in the field and on the range with her several times. Cam was lightning. What was taking her so damn long?

 

On the tarmac, Hunter saw a guard get up and scramble toward the stairs. Just as the guy lifted his left foot toward the first step, Hunter rushed up behind him and spun around, pushing his left hip against the right side of the man's body. Back to back with the guard, Hunter threw his zip-tied hands over his right shoulder and looped them around the man's chin. Hunter dropped to his knees, twisting the neck until he felt it give. He brought his hands back over his own head, flipping the dead guard over his shoulder and onto the ground.

Now the four guards were dead and there was no sign of the ground crew. He picked up the AK-102 with his cuffed hands and stuck his head through the strap.

At that moment he heard the Gulfstream's engines spooling up, preparing for takeoff.

 

Blood soaked Camille's sand-caked hair and she tasted copper as she peered through the Dragunov's sights. One Rubicon escort was down with an apparent broken neck and G
ENGHIS
lay on the ground beside another one, pressing on his upper arm as blood spurted out. She counted bodies of three other guards and one prisoner. Then she focused on Hunter and saw his head jerk around as if startled. A second later, she heard the roar and understood why: the engines were starting up.

She shifted her sights to the cockpit. If bird strikes could sometimes shatter the reinforced windshield, she was certain her round could do it. It might even extend her the favor of slowing the bullet enough so that it didn't damage anything beyond the flight crew. An unpressurized ride out of there would be breezier, lower and chillier than she would have liked, but she didn't see a lot of options. She checked the wind and ranged the target.

The captain would be first; she always respected the chain of command. She took a long breath and exhaled. The shot felt right. But as she started to squeeze the trigger, the plane started rolling while the airstairs were still retracting.

Hunter was hanging underneath the stairs. He swung himself up onto them and climbed into the plane.

Camille had to do her best to make sure Hunter saw her and knew she was there before the plane took off. Otherwise he could head anywhere and she might not find him. But she didn't want to chance someone else seeing her too soon. She took off the restrictive ghillie suit, stripping down to the T-shirt and shorts underneath, snatched up the radio and called Iggy as she ran, carrying the Dragunov. “Hold your position and give me some cover fire.”

Even though she had spent the entire morning watching the empty desert, she still didn't want to chance sky-lining at the top of the dune or casting shadows at its base. She ran along its military crest, halfway down it, but the soft sand gave way under her feet and she slid with each step. She couldn't get any traction. It went against her training, but she would have to risk casting a shadow if she wanted to reach Hunter in time.

 

Hunter rode the airstairs up and rolled onto the cabin floor of the moving plane. The plastic ties bound his wrists and ankles, but there was no time to search for something sharp enough to free himself. He lay on his back in front of the cockpit door, clutching the compact assault rifle, as he set it to single fire mode. After 9/11, commercial flight deck doors were always locked, but they still needed break-away panels in case of explosive decompression. Knowing Rubicon's thriftiness, he doubted that they had even installed the latest security door. He pulled his legs back until his knees were over his chest, then he kicked the panel at the bottom of the door. It separated and flew into the flight deck. Hunter flipped around as fast as he could, targeted the captain and fired a round into the back of his head while the copilot reached for the emergency axe. Hunter shot him, then wiggled through the hole.

The plane was picking up speed.

 

Camille felt the sand give way under her foot and she tumbled straight down the dune, surfing a small avalanche to the firm tarmac. Scrambling back up, she left the Dragunov on the ground and sprinted onto the runway to get Hunter's attention. Then she realized her mistake.

The plane was speeding toward her.

 

Hunter hooked this bound wrists over the back of the captain's seat and pulled himself up in time to see the plane hurtling toward the dunes at the end of the short runway. He glanced at the groundspeed: 131 knots. He had no idea what the rotation speed was, but he could feel the nose starting to lift—it was too late to stop.

Then he saw Stella directly in its path.

Using his elbows, he shoved the throttles forward, then sat on the captain's lap, grabbed the yoke and jerked the stick back as hard as he could, throwing it into a steep climb, twenty degrees nose high. The plane lurched violently as it zoomed into the sky. As long as he cleared her, he didn't care if he pulled the nose too steep and it stalled out, dropping him straight to the ground.

“Climb, dammit.”

He wanted the gear up immediately to give her more clearance, but could only stare at the gear lever and his bound hands. The stick started to shake and a stall warning horn blared. Then he heard the electronic voice warning, “Stall! Stall!”