State of Emergency (31 page)

—R
OBERT
A. H
EINLEIN

 

Q
uinn lay flat on his belly in the shadowy haze of a jungle morning. He ignored a beetle half the size of his hand that scuttled through the dead leaves in front of him. They'd risen well before dawn, braving possible booby traps and venomous creatures, knowing Borregos would want a pickup as close to daybreak as possible. Clouds of steamy fog hung here and there among the various layers of canopy. Two troops of monkeys, apparently angry at the intruding airplane, screamed from opposite ends of a grass runway. Night birds gave their last few shrieks before sunup. Egrets and other early birds squawked and flitted in the branches.

Aleksandra lay beside him, green eyes burning a hole in the foliage. Dense cover had allowed them to get within a few meters of a wooden supply shack off the side of the dirt runway hacked out of the jungle.

His initial assessment of eight men looked correct. Borregos stood at the aft of a Cessna Caravan supervising two younger men as they struggled to get a long green footlocker into the swinging cargo door. An older man, bald and much thinner than the drug lord, stood at the tail of the plane.

“The Bone Mother,” Aleksandra whispered. “We cannot let them leave.”

“I don't intend to,” Quinn said, eyes darting around the narrow clearing.

The professor's face was visible leaning against a forward window in the aircraft. Apart from the four at the aircraft, four more of Borregos's men stood guard, each taking a corner and facing outbound into the jungle. The one nearest Quinn was less than thirty meters away, to his right. A Kalashnikov clutched in his hand, he looked capable enough, peering into the wall of foliage in front of him. He wore sunglasses, so it was difficult to see which way he was looking. On his belt was a Glock pistol with a set of extra magazines, much like a police officer would wear on duty. A rectangular pouch on his left hip, opposite his pistol, held extra magazines for the rifle. The long sleeves of his camouflage uniform blouse were rolled neatly over muscled forearms.

Quinn took a quick moment to study the other three. All were similarly armed; two looked much younger and one had a full beard with black hair that stuck out from under a green Castro-style cap. None were as squared-away as the professional soldier to Quinn's right. This one was the type to clean his weapon every night and practice weekly because he enjoyed the smell of gunfire.

Quinn didn't want a man like this shooting at him while he worked and the only way to see that didn't happen was to take him out at the beginning.

He cocked his head toward Aleksandra, keeping his eye on the soldier. “Five rounds against a squad of eight well-armed men,” he said. “I'll need two for what I have in mind. You take the other three along with this.” He gingerly slid the grenade from the booby trap out of the length of bamboo, keeping his hand around the compressed spoon. “We need to get this under the plane. I'll get into place and cover you. You count to sixty and start shoot—”

The Caravan's single Pratt & Whitney engine began to whine to life, the prop slowly catching up to the spinning turbine until whirred contentedly.

“Better make that twenty,” Quinn said, already scuttling backwards.

Her mouth hung open. “You only have two bullets.”

“And I hope that's one more than I need.”

 

 

Quinn moved quickly through the brush, thankful now for the rising whine of the aircraft engine. The three other guards looked back and forth at each other in the orange light, eager to give up their posts and make a run for the plane. But the professional soldier stood fast, manning his station until properly relieved.

In order for this to work Quinn needed the soldier DRT—dead right there. He'd seen too many fighters on both sides of a battle absorb a great deal of lead only to keep fighting long past the time they should go down. He needed a target that would ensure that didn't happen.

The moment Aleksandra fired her first shot Quinn rose up from the vines and bushes, approaching from the side, moving obliquely. The soldier spun toward the racket, bringing his rifle to bear and firing as Quinn moved up behind him less than five yards away.

Intent on firing his weapon at the threat to the aircraft, the soldier never heard the real danger padding up behind him. Ten feet out, Quinn let the front sight of his pistol float over a spot at the base of the man's skull. He squeezed the trigger twice, using both rounds.

Borregos's soldier fell in the peculiar corkscrew motion of someone shot in the brainstem, one leg folding before the other did. Quinn dropped the empty 1911 and was on him before he hit the ground. He scooped up the rifle and let the soldier fall away, leaving himself clear to engage the other guards. He was relieved to see one of Aleksandra's shots drop the guard with the beard and Fidel Castro hat.

A man on the plane leaned out to pull up the boarding door. Quinn sent him tumbling onto the ground with two quick rounds to the chest. Incoming fire from one of the other sentries sent Quinn diving for cover as the pilot spun the Caravan and threw on the power, causing it to gain speed quickly since it was five people lighter than expected.

Quinn returned fire carefully, counting his shots and expecting the weapon to run dry at any moment. For all his professional demeanor, the dead soldier had used up much of his magazine in the first full-auto burst to protect the Caravan.

Scanning over the top of the rifle sights, Quinn tried to figure out what Aleksandra was doing with the grenade. A booming concussion answered his question. Shrapnel screamed through the air, rattling through the jungle leaves. For a split second a blossom of black smoke and falling debris obscured the Caravan's tail.

To Quinn's horror the plane kept rolling unaffected by the blast or the rounds. Aleksandra continued to engage the two surviving sentries while Quinn focused on the rapidly departing Caravan. With the engine pointed away he aimed for the thin walls of the fuselage, hoping to throw enough rounds into the avionics to stop them. If he was lucky he'd hit the pilot. Two rounds later, he was empty.

The plane continued to roll, picking up speed with every yard down the grass strip. It was airborne in a matter of moments, banking hard right to get beyond the trees. Quinn ran for the downed soldier, ignoring the bullets that thwacked the dirt at his feet as he grabbed for a fresh magazine on the dead man's belt.

Aleksandra silenced the last sentry with a commandeered rifle at the same moment the Caravan disappeared over the treetops.

Quinn stood in the middle of the clearing wrapped in stunned silence. He held the freshly loaded Kalashnikov to his shoulder, though there was nothing to shoot at but air. By degree, the shrieks and chatter of the jungle crept back to normal as if the gunfight had never happened and Borregos's plane had not just flown away carrying a five-kiloton atomic bomb.

M
ovement along the edge of the grass strip caught Quinn's eye. When he went to investigate, he found the man who'd fallen out of the plane was still alive.

Quinn's first round had hit him in the chest, but the second had gone low, entering the back of the knee as he tumbled down the boarding stairs. He lay in the grass with his leg turned unnaturally underneath his body. Dark eyes had sunken into deep sockets as if the life was seeping out from behind them. His chest heaved in ragged breaths.

He didn't have long.

Quinn turned to Aleksandra. “Ask where they're taking the bomb.”

She did, prodding his wounded leg with her toe to get his attention.

“Laa! Laa!” he cried.
No, no.

Quinn looked down, shocked. He was speaking Arabic.

“Who are you?” he asked in Arabic.

The wounded man looked up, blinking his sunken eyes.

“
Allahu Akbar
,” he sighed with his last breath, the sound of air seeping out of flattening tire.
God is great.

“Damn you stupidly shit!” Aleksandra attempted to curse in English, kicking the man again in frustration.

Quinn touched her arm.

“Let's think,” he said. “This guy is an Arab and there were Yemeni AQAP reps at the party where you and I met. Borregos was there as well, but I'm betting this guy's people picked the target. Borregos is a narcotics smuggler . . . probably moving the bomb for a share in the profits.”

Quinn stooped to search the dead Arab's pockets and found a satellite phone. He pressed the power switch and held his breath as it cycled. As he suspected, they'd been in the jungle long enough the battery was completely spent.

“Dead,” he said, holding up the phone so Aleksandra could see it.

“There is a small generator beside that building,” she said.

None of the other guards had a satellite phone or a charging cord, but there were a handful of tools and a few spare aircraft parts in the shed. It took over four hours of scrounging wire and other materials to jury-rig a charging cord that would attach to the satellite phone's battery—and another two to get the generator chugging long enough to give the phone enough juice to make a call.

It was nearly noon by the time Quinn was finally able to connect with Win Palmer. He had no idea how long the battery would last and uncharacteristically told the boss to shut up and listen as soon as he answered. He gave Palmer a CliffsNotes version of the past few hours' events.

“I'll take some photos of these guys with my phone and text them to you as soon as we get a signal,” Quinn said. “We could use an extraction for two ASAP. In the meantime, I suggest you get Diego Borregos's photo out to every law enforcement agency within two hundred miles of the border.”

“I'll get someone to you right away,” Palmer said, pausing. The sound of clicking computer keys dominated the line. “Bo is stable, by the way,” he said while he typed. “And Thibodaux is too damned stubborn to take it easy until we know for sure about his eye.”

“Thanks for the update,” Quinn said, relieved. “I wonder—”

“How long is the strip there?” Palmer spoke before Quinn could ask any more about Bo.

Quinn looked from one end of the grass field to the other. “Maybe twenty-five hundred feet,” he said. “But I got forty feet of jungle canopy rising up right off both ends of the runway.”

“Twenty-five,” Palmer inhaled sharply. “That's awfully tight for anything fast enough to get to you anytime soon and big enough to carry you both. . . .” His voice trailed off giving way to more clicks of the keyboard. “Okay, I think I have something,” he said at length. There was a long silence, followed by a resigned sigh. “Hope you don't get airsick.”

 

Q
uinn recognized the high-pitched whine of the Cessna A-37B before it screamed over the treetops, rolling slightly so the pilot could get a better look at the cramped jungle runway. The twin GE turbofan engines gave rise to the aircraft's nickname of the Tweety Bird or Super Tweet—but Quinn had always agreed with those who called it a six-thousand-pound dog whistle. All but mandatory in just about every South American coup since the 1970s, the A37 had a slender tail and broad, tandem cockpit that gave it a toady look. Bulbous tip-tanks hung at the end of each Hershey Bar wing. A seven-round rocket pod was attached to the pylons on either side, midway between a second set of fuel tanks and the fuselage. This one was painted olive and brown and bore the red and white flag of the Peruvian Air Force.

“We are supposed to leave on this flying tadpole?” Kanatova scoffed as the little jet made another low-altitude pass. It skimmed the trees, low enough Quinn could clearly make out the pilot as he turned his head back and forth, planning his landing—and his eventual takeoff—in such cramped quarters.

Two minutes later saw the squat aircraft banking over the treetops, minus the external fuel tanks that had been under each wing. Engine whining, airbrake deployed, it settled in over the grassy strip and rolled to a stop with a nearly two hundred feet to spare. Both Quinn and Kanatova plugged their ears as the twin turbofans—little more than kerosene-burning sirens—pushed the little jet to the end of the field and finally spooled down.

A short, bantam rooster of a man with broad shoulders and stubby legs to match his airplane flipped up the bubble cockpit cover and climbed out. He wore a green Nomex flight suit and a flight helmet with a dark face-shield.

He peeled off a Nomex glove and extended his hand.

“J. C. Fuentes,” he said with only the slightest of Latin accents. Black hair hung across his forehead in a Superman curl. “Fighter Squadron 711 of the Peruvian Air Force. Are you Señor Jericho Quinn?”

“I am.”

“Very well then,” Fuentes said. “Climb aboard and we'll get under way. My orders are to fly you to Talara at once.”

Aleksandra looked at the cockpit, then turned to the pilot. “There are only two seats.”

Fuentes shrugged. “I am lighter on fuel now. It will be tight, but you are small enough we can fit you in on Señor Quinn's lap. Unfortunately, neither of you will be able to wear a parachute.”

“Then do not crash,” Kanatova said, giving the jet a sullen frown.

“As you wish.” The pilot smiled. “I will remove crashing from my list of things to do today.”

Aleksandra wrinkled her freckled nose, not amused.

Quinn worked his way into the Super Tweet's right-hand seat, one leg on either side of a control stick matching the pilot's. He was surprised to find the low sidewalls made him feel as though he was sitting on rather than in the plane.

“It's interesting to see the Peruvian Air Force here in the middle of Bolivia,” he said, buckling in.

“Your friend Señor Palmer is our friend Señor Palmer.” Fuentes held Kanatova's hand as she stepped gingerly into the aircraft. “He made a call to my commanding officer and my commander made a call to me. It is simple really.”

“But Peru?”

“Bolivia is landlocked.” The pilot shrugged. “My government has an agreement to give her access to our seaports. In return, she is friendly to us at times such as this when we need a little favor.”

Quinn put his arms around Kanatova, resting them on her thighs to keep them out of the pilot's way. Though spacious for two pilots, shoehorning three into the cockpit wasn't anywhere in Cessna's specs. Quinn found himself hyperaware of the rudder pedals at his feet and the array of controls just asking to be bumped or flipped in the close confines of the cockpit.

“I used the extra tanks to get here from my base in Arequipa.” Fuentes nodded toward the wings once he was seated. “I have enough fuel to get you to Talara in time for your connecting flight.”

“What sort of connecting flight?” Quinn asked. Oppressive heat and humidity closed in around them and he was anxious to get into the air.

“I honestly do not know, señor.” Fuentes buckled his seat belt and turned before putting on his helmet. “I only know Señor Palmer wants you back in the United States as soon as possible. I am left to assume that, whatever it is, it will be extremely fast. Now, if you will excuse me, I must figure out how to make this airplane jump off the ground like a helicopter.” He pulled on the helmet, then pushed a button in the console to bring the Plexiglas bubble down over the cockpit.

Fuentes had plenty of swagger. He'd been able to set the plane down in the narrow jungle gash without a problem, but taking off with the added weight of two more people would prove much more difficult. He'd need every bit of his swagger—plus a healthy dose of skill and luck.

Quinn pulled Aleksandra closer in an effort to make them both as small as possible during the dicey takeoff. The smoky odor of the jungle clung to her hair.

Fuentes brought the turbofan engines to whining life, standing on the brakes as the entire plane began to shake and tremble, trying to move. When he appeared to be satisfied that all the instruments on the console were reading correctly, he released the brakes and let the plane jump forward, hurtling down the narrow strip. The jungle loomed ahead, dark trees growing quickly as the end of the bumpy runway screamed up to meet them. Three fourths of the way down, with less than five hundred feet to spare, he tugged back gently on the stick.

The little jet leaped into the air, engines screaming. Without warning, Fuentes fired two missiles at the trees in front of him. Each left its respective wing-pod with a hissing shriek. The little jet flew straight through the rolling ball of flames and black smoke.

“Did you do that to clear the trees?” Quinn said, surprised at the tactic.

Fuentes flipped up his dark visor, chuckling. He appeared relaxed now that they were safely in the air. “No, señor.” He grinned. “Far too much peace lately. I do not often have the opportunity to fire missiles.” He banked the airplane hard, coming around again over the little strip. “I think I will shoot a few more and give the drug lords a little surprise the next time they try to land.”