Zombie Team Alpha (8 page)
~15~
Ahead was a mush of gray, and Cutter was flying blindly into it without instructions from the tower, and without anything other than the seat of his pants for guidance—in a plane he would be lucky to land even in the best of circumstances on a cloudless day.
He worked his grip on the wheel, wondering what in the hell he was going to do.
Not a damn clue.
But then the clouds parted, and the sun appeared, bright and bold and yellow in the haze of day. His first instinct was to shield his eyes from the sudden change in relative brightness. Instead, he squinted and continued to hold his death grip on the hard plastic wheel, fighting against the glare while trying to keep the plane level and biting enough air to avoid a stall.
Ahead, the single strip of gray concrete that was the Vuktyl airfield loomed large. Behind it was what appeared to be a small community of homes scattered among the random assortment of green treetops. Behind them was a murky river, tinged red.
“Altitude?” he asked into the mike he was practically chewing on, not wanting to spare a moment to look down and check the display himself.
“Three-zero-one-fiver,” the co-pilot said. “Runway is zero-three-fiver-zero. Wind oh-seven-oh, ten knots.”
“How about that?” Cutter said, slightly surprised.
“What?” the co-pilot asked, then, “Repeat?”
“Never mind,” Cutter breathed back into the static.
He reached for the landing gear control to begin deployment then clicked the flaps an additional notch to account for the increased drag. With both engines out, electrical power was scarce, but to his almost overwhelming joy, he felt the wheels deploying, so he pushed forward ever so slightly on the control yoke to compensate a wee bit more.
Gentle
.
Having the wheels down though wasn’t enough to give him any kind of confidence that the landing would go well overall, but it was enough to provide a tiny flicker of hope. Landing with the gear up was never a good option. No matter what, the approach was going to be steep, and during the last leg of the descent, everything would happen very quickly. He’d only get single, solitary shot at it.
Make it count.
He drew a deep breath and said into the mike, “It’s just like shooting womp rats in my T-16 back home.”
Glancing over, he spared a moment to check in with the co-pilot. The guy didn’t seem to get it, which was just too bad.
Some people
—
Cutter rocked the plane back and forth, bleeding off more altitude. They’d been cleared by the tower, and the runway had been swept clean of planes and vehicles. The landing strip was almost five-thousand feet of reinforced concrete when even ten-thousand feet might not be enough.
“Here goes nothing,” he said, hoping God was planning to spare the rod today.
As the G4 neared the ground, the buffeting of the airframe increased to a violent, head-rattling shake. This time, Cutter was firmly strapped to his seat and as sober as he’d been in well over a year.
“One thousand feet altitude,” the co-pilot said.
“Five hundred.”
“Four.”
Math told Cutter that he had just fifty feet left to go, given that the runway was at three-hundred and fifty feet above sea level. As they got closer, the concrete strip seemed to flatten and stretch out to the horizon, but that was only an optical illusion. The town and residences quickly vanished below the treetops and the blackened, tar-filled cracks in the runway all seemed to blur together as they streaked past.
Twenty feet.
He pulled back on the yoke, flaring the nose of the plane, feeling the near-to-ground effect giving the G4’s wings a needed final boost of lift.
Ten feet
.
Leveling
.
Flaring
.
With barely a squawk from the rubber tires, the plane touched down, and those cracks in the runway shuddered the airframe and shook him hard in his seat.
Uh, oh.
With a terrible sinking feeling, he realized he had used up too much runway on approach and had landed halfway down it. From the corner of his eye, he spotted the airport buildings to his right whooshing past, as well as the single taxiway that shot past. He was going hard on the brakes and deceleration kept him punched up against his restraints, but he was also struggling to keep everything going in a straight line over the bumps and cracks in the rough concrete. The plane began to shimmy violently and veer to the right no matter how much control he exerted in the opposite direction.
Closer
.
Stop, please
…
With a sudden jolt, the plane shot off the last of the runway. The landing gear bit into the dirt and grass and pointed them on a new heading—directly toward a cluster of short green trees in the near distance.
The plane started to rotate further and skid sideways, bucking wildly. Cutter bit down hard and forced himself to relax his grip again on the steering yoke. There was nothing he could do other than hang on for dear life, hope for the best, and ride it out until it stopped. Still, he tried what he could, instinctively turning the useless wheel in the opposite direction of the skid as if he were driving a car on ice.
Come on—
And with a sudden, bone-jarring jolt, the plane came to a halt, flipped up, lingered there for a brief moment, and then reversed course and came crashing down, finally settling with an almost perceivable sigh of relief.
For a very quick dozen heartbeats, there was almost complete and utter silence. The only sound was that of fatigued metal reaching a new equilibrium. Cutter blinked twice and shook his head. He licked his dry lips and worked his jaw.
The co-pilot next to him was alternating between beaming wide smiles and mouthing, “Wow.”
Glancing at the man, Cutter said, “So that’s how you do it.”
The smile vanished from the man’s face, replaced by a look of abject fear, as if he’d suddenly realized the obvious—that Cutter truly hadn’t known a damned thing about dead-sticking a G4, which was the gods’ honest truth.
Cutter unbuckled himself and worked a kink out of his neck as he stood. When he went rearward to check on the others, he found Morgan already cleaning up all manner of things that had shaken loose or had come spilling out of cabinets and had been bouncing about the interior.
Gauge was still in his seat, nodding and grinning in his own way, which always made it seem as if he were laughing at some cosmic joke only he was privy to.
Outside, the sun was getting ready to set, and new flashes of light visible inside the plane started coming from behind them. Cutter glanced out the window and spotted a single emergency vehicle speeding toward the G4.
He could hardly keep from smiling as he slapped a hand on one of the seat backs and began making his way to the forward exit, where he twisted the control handle to manually lower the door and stairway ramp.
“Company’s coming,” he said as he deplaned and stretched his arms wide and shook the numbness out of his rubbery legs.
~16~
Taking long strides in a way that blended well with a forceful, military-like clockwork precision, a man wearing a dark-colored beret cocked to one side and dressed all in black and white camouflaged fatigues marched toward Cutter and the smoking plane with purpose. Two additional men accompanied the guy, taking care to remain to either side so that if the guy were to reach out an arm, neither of his two followers would be struck by it.
Cutter remained firmly in place by the jet’s small stairway, scratching his chin, figuring he had about another day’s worth of beard growth in the past hour. Or, maybe it had just gone a bit gray.
“Jackson Cutter?” the man in the beret said in acceptable English as he closed the distance. He had a touch of an accent but sounded as though he’d trained hard to eliminate it.
Cutter remained silent and let the man continue his approach. He’d found that it was often better to wait for others to speak first. It was a power thing, and he sort of got off on that, especially now. He was already about as high on adrenaline and joy juice as he had ever been sucking on a bottle.
When the guy was exactly two feet in front of him, the man came to an almost orchestrated halt, as did his men. The two behind the man in the beret thrust out their chests and locked their hands behind their backs and raised their chins. The lead guy in the beret was tall enough that Cutter had to look up a little to stare into the man’s smoke-gray eyes. The guy was clean-shaven and well-tanned and had a jawline that made him look as if he’d often used his teeth to break rocks into gravel, but his belly betrayed him as someone who also enjoyed a good meal or two, or three.
“I’m Colonel Suvorov.” The man thrust out his hand. “Welcome to my country. I expect you had a pleasant flight?”
Cutter said nothing while he shook the man’s well-calloused hand, returning the firm grip received and squeezing even harder.
“You were expected earlier, Mr. Cutter.” The colonel released his grip. “Though, shall I say, we did not expect you to arrive in such a fancy and yet disturbing way. It is a real mess that you have caused for us, yes? I am fully expecting this to cost your employer extra if they desire it to remain private. I hope you can understand.”
“Expected.” Cutter shrugged and scratched his belly. “Bill them. They’ll pay it.” Frankly, he didn’t much care. He’d make sure all the repairs to the rented G4 didn’t come out of his cut. Those backing this expedition would end up paying for it in one way or another. They always did.
Colonel Suvorov continued to stare forward, not moving, not blinking, not perturbed in the least. The stare was meant to bore deep into Cutter’s own returned gaze as if the guy were attempting to expose a hidden weakness. When Cutter returned that same steely gaze, the colonel snorted, glanced away, and grinned a thin smile. It had been just like their handshake and was that same butt-sniffing, alpha-dog thing that all men in their line of work did when meeting each other for the first time. The colonel was just testing him, and when the man blinked, Cutter knew he’d passed the test. But the dominance and pecking order between them had not yet been properly assigned. It would—given enough time.
“Good.” The man nodded almost imperceptibly. “We will get along well, you and I.”
The colonel snapped his fingers, and the two men to either side of him double-timed it over to the airplane and helped the others to disembark. Dr. Martinez was the last one to get off the plane, bags in hand.
A few minutes later, Cutter heard the steady whomp, whomp, whomp of a big chopper coming in from the east. Then, from over the treetops came a fat Mi-8—an old Russian helicopter capable of transporting an entire squad of troops.
“Our ride?” Cutter asked the colonel.
The big man nodded once and pointed to a spot just off the runway where all of the G4’s cargo was being offloaded by four other men who had just arrived. The colonel’s two aides ran to the helicopter and waved their arms to redirect the big bird where to land.
The big chopper beat the air into submission as it hovered over the field, first pivoting to face the plane then turning and landing rear wheels first. Cutter shielded his eyes from the kicked up dust and held his ground. The massive twin blades were kept spooled up, which told him that Suvorov was in a hurry to depart.
A few seconds later, the rear hatch descended on hydraulics, and a group of soldiers dressed in identical camouflage to the colonel’s hustled out and ran to the cargo containers taken from the G4 and quickly manhandled everything back inside the helicopter.
Less than five minutes later, Cutter and everyone except the co-pilot of the G4 were airborne and heading northwest over the muddy river to their destination, presumably the mine site.
Cutter glanced out the window as the airport faded into the distance, wondering if they were going to taxi the plane back somewhere and fix it up, or just leave it in the field along with another wreck he’d spotted from the air. The G4 was their primary ticket home, and he hoped it hadn’t broken like Humpty-Dumpty.
After the airport had vanished into the haze, he scanned the assembled men sitting on the bench seats around him. They were little more than scared and scrawny. The colonel appeared to be cut from a different cloth entirely, but the men under his command had not been fed well or cared for. He’d heard stories that the true Russian military was made up of many of these types, and except for the elite soldiers, or the ones used in parades on television, most of the men that made up their Army were conscripts too poor to know better, finding military service a way of getting out of the squalor in which they were raised. But what they seemed to find by joining up was only slightly better than what they left behind. Which, as Cutter examined each man in turn, meant that these guys were going to be about as reliable as a politician’s promise on election day.
~17~
Under a dull overcast of gray, twilight began to purple the sky. The big Mi-8 helicopter entered the airspace above the mine site and fell into a lazy circle.
Inside, arrayed on twin benches running the entire length of the craft, the young men sat with their hands folded across their packs, some stoic, some showing fear, which didn’t fill Cutter with much confidence. But he had Gauge and Morgan to rely on, so as long as these young guns kept their weapons on safety, there shouldn’t be any troubles. In fact, it should be a simple shoot and scoot mission. Get Dr. Martinez in, scoop up the artifact, and get the hell out. Maybe then find a ride back to Texas and figure out what the hell the FBI and Homeland Security had up their collective asses.
He sat forward, near the cockpit. Gauge was directly across from him, slumped low, next to Dr. Martinez. The man was still about a head taller and a foot wider than her. Morgan rested next to him, separating him from Colonel Suvorov.
In a voice loud enough to cut through the whine of the twin turboshaft engines, Cutter leaned across Morgan and asked Colonel Suvorov, “What can you tell me about this place?”
Shaking his head, the colonel grunted his disapproval and said nothing more, so Cutter leaned in close to Morgan’s right ear, and asked her the same question.
She turned and said in his ear, “Didn’t you do your homework?”
Cutter glanced away then back. “And start doing something new?”
Morgan pulled back a few inches and stared at him. She most likely hadn’t heard him, but she’d read his lips and had probably understood his meaning.
“This installation is not supposed to be here,” she said in his ear. “It’s an illegal mining site.”
“Come again?” Cutter said, and she shook her head. He bent closer to her to repeat it in her ear.
She said in return, “This whole adventure is illegal, Jack. The mining operation. What we are doing. Everything. The Komi Forest is a World Heritage Site. Which means that any kind of mining in the area is strictly prohibited.”
“Then why hasn’t someone put a stop to it?”
She nodded toward Colonel Suvorov. “How much do you think he gets paid?”
Cutter had no idea, so he shrugged.
She frowned, then said into his ear, “The equivalent of about fifty bucks a month by the Russian government. That’s all they pay for a colonel like him this far out on the fringes of their former empire. The others make even less. Many far less, and probably gamble it all away first chance they get.”
She took a breath before continuing. “How much do you think he makes doing whatever chores Mr. Moray’s operation has him performing on the side?”
Again, Cutter didn’t know, but he could guess. He shrugged. “More. A lot more. A hell of a lot more.”
“Right. A heck of a lot more. Same with the miners. And with most of Russia in the same miserably corrupted state, it is easy to overlook a single mining site that is making money in defiance of the UN’s various decrees. Even one this big. Plus, those pompous fools at the UN are too busy hosting dinner parties to notice what is going on anyway. As long as their checks clear.”
Grinning wryly, Cutter pulled away and glanced at Gauge, who remained unmoving and poker-faced with his arms crossed over his chest and thumbs pointing upward. Morgan really knew her shit, even though she would never use such a foul and nasty word to describe it.
He let the matter drop as the helicopter continued to circle above the mining site.
Colonel Suvorov shifted positions and slid the forward side door open, creating a loud rush of wind that filled the interior. The air smelled dusty and slightly of pine. The man grabbed the side rail next to the door and hung out over the edge, looking downward.
Cutter moved into a squatting position next to the man and squinted against the onrush of air as he peered through the open doorway and down at the site.
Below him, nothing was stirring.
This late in the day? Something should be moving.
Trucks hauling supplies? Men going to and fro? Some smoke or dust trails at least.
He followed the two narrow roads leading out of the area with his eyes, searching for any vehicular traffic along them.
Nothing
.
Nothing at all
.
Weird.
Then, catching his eye, he spotted something. There was a figure moving far down below. It was running across a barren stretch of gray, which could only be crushed gravel.
What the—?
The hairs on Cutter’s arms all stood on end at once, and an icy chill tickled his spine.
It was a guy. He was running for his life.
What the hell was he running from?