Pompeii's Ghosts (A James Acton Thriller, #9) (24 page)

Abandoned 250 Sudan Squadron Royal Air Force Airfield

Professor James Acton unbuckled his lap belt the moment the plane
stopped spinning, rushing toward the front of the cabin. Almost the entire
right side of the fuselage was ripped open, leaving it exposed to the outside
and revealing the horrific explosions that continued several hundred feet away.
He grabbed Niner by the body armor and sat him upright, a deep gash in his
forehead oozing blood liberally. Acton slapped him on the cheek and the man
moaned, his eyes fluttering open.

“What
the hell happened?”

“There
was a hijacking. We just crash landed.”

Niner’s
eyes opened wide and he suddenly seemed to be much more alert. “Help me up.”

Acton
pulled him to his feet then looked down at Dawson’s crumpled body, his chest
tightening as a lump formed in his throat. Suddenly the cockpit door was thrown
open, slamming against their comrade’s corpse.

Before they
could move a gun was pointed in their faces as the leader of this fiasco
stepped out, nursing a nasty bump on his head. He yelled something in what
sounded like Russian and his few remaining men yelled acknowledgements as if
roll call had just been taken.

Acton
heard two from the rear, and two from the cockpit.

Five.

That
meant on top of the two Niner had eliminated, two more were out of commission
from the crash. Acton stepped back, hands raised, to let the three occupants of
the cockpit exit. As he moved, he took the opportunity to survey the cabin and
was relieved to find that all of the “innocent” passengers seemed to be okay,
they being strapped into their seats when the plane made its dive then crash
landing.

The
leader of this group of terrorists—or whatever they were, Acton was leaning
more toward profiteers—peered out the gaping hole in the fuselage, shouting in
Russian and waving his arm at someone to join them. Acton heard more shouting
outside, and it quickly became clear that the evened up odds that he knew not
only he was thinking of, but Niner was as well, had skewed out of their favor
once again.

This was
obviously where they were always meant to land.

About
the only good news he could take from that was the fact they didn’t seem to
have gone that far off course, less than thirty minutes to the west of their
original flight path if he were guessing right, which
should
mean they’d
be easy to find if a standard search pattern were used.

Now they
just needed to survive the theft of the gold.

“Everyone
out the back!” ordered their captor, one of his men opening the supposedly
locked door to the rear cargo space. “Hurry, before that fire reaches us!” he
yelled, adding a little urgency to the cautious movements of the hostages. As
Acton and Niner passed through the door, he took one last glance toward the
front, but Dawson was out of sight, Acton’s view blocked by the chairs. He said
a silent goodbye and stepped through the door.

Daylight
greeted them inside the hold, the rear ramp down as far as it would go with the
landing gear no longer attached to the plane. At least half a dozen men were
standing outside, all armed, all dressed in Special Forces style equipment with
no identifiable markings, all with masks pulled over their faces.

Which
made Acton wonder why the men they were with now hadn’t bothered.

“They’re
going to kill us,” he whispered to Niner.

“No
shit,” replied the Korean American. “First chance you get, you make a break for
it.”

“No
talking!” yelled one of the guards, slamming Niner in the back with the butt of
his machine gun. Niner fell to a knee, glaring at his attacker, but getting
back up silently with the help of Acton.

They
exited the plane and Acton gasped. Debris was scattered everywhere, one of the
wings, torn from the fuselage and resting several hundred feet away was
engulfed in flames with thick black smoke billowing out of it as the fuel
burned. As they were led to the other side of the plane, Acton was relieved to
find the other wing still intact, and as yet, free of any indication of fire.

As they
all lined up along the side of what appeared to be a very old runway, Acton
examined their surroundings. At the far end sat another plane, some sort of transport
plane he thought might be a Hercules, its rear ramp down, a forklift racing
from it and toward the crashed Antonov.

So
that’s how they’re moving the gold.

But
there was a problem. Several men were gathered around the front landing gear of
the Herc and Acton smiled. The tires were flat, a smoldering piece of wreckage
from the Antonov nearby apparently having sliced through the rubber.

“Can
they repair that?” he asked, barely moving his lips.

“Not
unless they brought some spares.”

“So
they’re stuck here with us.”

Two men
exited the rear of the Herc rolling spare tires.

“Shit,” muttered
Niner.

“What
should we do?”

“Forget
the gold, our job is to survive,” replied Niner. “Let the UN worry about the cargo.
They’re the idiots that let this mission proceed with these yahoos at the
controls.”

Reese—the
senior “idiot” on the ground—edged closer. “What do you mean? You think they
knew this would happen?”

“Absolutely,”
replied Niner. “Tell me, when was the gold considered delivered?”

“When we
left Eritrean airspace.”

“And who
insisted on that little piece of the puzzle?”

“I don’t
know, to be honest. I was drawn in later, but they certainly seemed to take
advantage of that clause in Asmara when insisting we take this plane instead of
the one we had arranged. The clause allowed them to choose the method of
transport out of the country.”

“So they
bided their time until they could find the right people, then put them into
position to steal the gold once they had fulfilled their contract. You still
need to pay them their money, and then they probably split the actual gold,
coming out even further ahead.”

“Good
theory,” whispered Acton, “and we can play the blame game later. Right now we
need to figure out how to survive. Once that gold is on the other plane, it
just might be ‘kill all the witnesses’ time.”

“They
never searched me. I still have the gun I took off the guy who shot BD. There’s
at most eight shots left though.”

Acton
sighed. “Better than nothing, I guess. How many do you think you could take
before they get you?”

“Definitely
three, maybe four or five, depending on the confusion. More if I can get to
some cover. The key is what the others do. If some of our people can get the
weapons of the guys I take out, they can join in. We just might have a chance
at that point. And you two will have to hit the ground as soon as the shooting
starts otherwise you’ll get caught in the crossfire.”

“Are you
sure this is wise,” asked Reese, the only sound of reason among the small group
that had gathered, adrenaline already fueling Acton’s thinking. “We could just
get a bunch of us killed.”

“I’d
rather die fighting, than on my knees,” replied the female Chinese observer,
Lee Fang.

The
sentiment was echoed quietly as the first load of gold was pulled out of the
rear of the Antonov by the forklift.

“We
don’t have much time,” said Acton, looking over at the wheel repair. “They’ve
already got one of those spares on. One more tire and load of gold, and we’re
expendable.”

“Why
haven’t they killed us yet?” asked Reese, it an obvious question that even
Acton had been wondering about.

“They’re
not secure until they’re off the ground,” answered Niner. “If I were them, I’d
secure my cargo, make sure the repairs were solid, load us all on the crashed plane,
then blow it up, making it look like we all died in the crash.”

“And the
gold? They can’t hide that,” said Reese. “Whoever finds us will know that for
sure.”

“Not if
they leave a few bars scattered through the wreckage. The UN might just assume
the Sudanese got it, or some local militia.”

“Militia?”
asked Reese, her eyes darting around nervously. “What do you mean?”

Niner
smiled. “This is Sudan. There’s armed militia groups everywhere. They’re
basically no better than gangs.”

“So no
matter what, we’re back to killing the hostage takers before they kill us,”
frowned Reese.

Suddenly
gunfire erupted from the far end of the runway, a beat-up pickup truck racing
toward them, its rear compartment filled with gun toting locals. Niner shoved
Reese to the ground as Acton landed beside them.

This
might be exactly what we need!

Abandoned 250 Sudan Squadron Royal Air Force Airfield

Command Sergeant Major Burt “Big Dog” Dawson was anything but dead.
Sore as hell, yes, the two shots having slammed into the body armor he was
wearing under his shirt and sending him sailing to the floor. His ribs were
bruised for sure, cracked most likely, but it was every other square inch of
his body that screamed for relief.

One
thing you were trained to do when first awakening in a possible combat
situation was to listen first, make sounds second. And that’s exactly what he
did. He remembered getting shot and blacking out, but nothing after, and
judging from the state of his body, much more had happened while he was unconscious.
The lack of engine sounds told him they had landed, but the smell of smoke,
aviation fuel and chemically treated carpet told him he was still on the floor
of the Antonov and something terrible had transpired.

He
opened his eyes a sliver and found no one in sight. Orders were being barked
outside in Russian and English, those in English being shouted at the hostages,
those in Russian at each other, apparently a transfer operation underway.

Probably
the gold.

He
turned his head slightly, making sure he was alone, then carefully rolled
himself toward the first row of chairs so he’d have more cover. As each part of
his body touched the floor he winced. He looked at the bulkhead he must have
slammed into and saw blood in several places along with a good dent in the door
to the cockpit.

No
wonder I’m sore.

He
wiggled his fingers and toes, then rotated his hands and feet. His entire right
side was a little tender, but he didn’t seem to have any broken bones. Bending
each knee carefully, drawing the leg up to his stomach then slowly back, he assessed
his condition. Elbows and shoulders followed, all the while listening to their
Russian captors. He was fluent in Russian—know thy enemy—but had made a point
to not let anyone know on this mission. He wouldn’t be surprised if the other
Special Ops members from the observer team knew his dossier but there was a
decent chance their captors didn’t.

And if
they did, that would indicate how well connected they were.

He rose
to his knees, his lungs screaming in protest, then peered over the seats.

Holy
shit!

A good
chunk of the side of the aircraft had been ripped away, it appearing the wing
was gone. The passenger cabin was empty except for a couple of bodies piled in
the corner nearby, a bullet hole in the center of one man’s head quite clear.

Niner?

He
scrambled over to the bodies and quickly began a search, relieving them of two
Beretta handguns and half a dozen magazines. He did an ammo check on both then
stuffed one behind his back, the other he kept in his right hand. He rounded
the side of the airplane where he had been sitting with the Professor, it still
intact, at a crouch. As he passed each row, he looked for bodies or wounded,
but found none. As he passed one of the rows he saw a satellite phone on the
floor.

He
grabbed it, turned it off so it wouldn’t give away his position or waste the
battery, then shoved it in the ball pouch just in case he was captured. Most
men didn’t give that area a thorough search, and in his experience, Russian men
were so homophobic they almost avoided the area like the plague.

He found
two more bodies, apparently killed by whatever had happened aboard, bringing
the total dead to four, all bad guys. He could live with that. Satisfied he was
alone, at least for the moment, he fished the phone out of his crotch and
turned it on.

No
signal.

It’s
a satphone! Why the hell isn’t there a signal?

He
flipped the phone over to check the battery compartment when he noticed the
antennae casing was cracked.

Shit!

It might
be repairable, but not right now. He pressed a few buttons and activated the
video camera, then positioning himself near the window, carefully held it up,
slowly turning it for a full sweep then lowering the phone, back out of sight.
He replayed the video and breathed a sigh of relief as he saw Niner and Acton
standing by the side of what appeared to be an old runway, along with several
others including Reese and the Chinese observers. They were being watched by
two guards, but not closely.