Strike Force Alpha (32 page)

The two cell members were not large men. They were probably in their early twenties, and both bore a faint resemblance to the late Jamaal el-Habini. When the woman they’d taken began to struggle, they shot her in the back. She fell right next to Hunn’s aisle seat. One more bullet gone. The terrorists were now just five feet in front of him, still walking backward towards the flight compartment, still screaming about Paradise and Allah. Hunn really had no choice. He had to stay frozen and let them get to the cockpit. Only then could he think about making a move.

But then they grabbed a young girl. She was not wearing Islamic garb; rather, she was dressed in Western-style clothes. She was about 10 years old, and in a strange way, reminded Hunn of his kid sister. The terrorists yanked the girl from the arms of her mother and pushed one of their pistols into her right ear. She screamed. She began to fight. Hunn could see the terrorist begin to squeeze his trigger.

Damn….

Hunn stood up, pulled the pistol from his waistband, and shot the guy holding the young girl twice, right between the eyes. The man went over like a lead weight, pulling the girl down with him. His partner, like everyone else on the plane, was shocked to see a Muslim woman with a firearm. He fired two shots back at Hunn. Unaimed, the recoil almost knocking him over, the first one missed by five feet.

The second one went right into Hunn’s chest.

The first indication the pilots of the airliner had that something was wrong was when the cockpit door flew open and the lone terrorist stumbled in.

The copilot in the right-side seat saw the gun and screamed.

“What are you doing? What do you want?”

The terrorist was shaking. This hadn’t been as easy as he’d been told. “I want you to turn this aircraft due south,” he said, his voice nervous, moving his gun back and forth between the two pilots. “Do what I say and you won’t get hurt.”

The pilots were instantly terrified—and confused. This man was obviously a Muslim. So were they.

“Sir…” the copilot asked him, “are you sure you’re on the right plane?”

The terrorist replied by shooting him in the head. Then he turned the gun on the pilot.

“Turn south,” he said. “Now….”

“But, my friend…” the pilot said,
“we are brothers….”

The gun pressed deeper into his temple.

“South….”

The pilot got the message. He started a long bank back toward the lower Gulf.

“But to where?” he asked the hijacker.

“To heaven, brother,” the man replied.

The terrorist settled down a bit and wiped the sweat from his brow. He’d done everything he’d been taught to do. Terrorize the passengers quickly, get control of the outer cabin, then the pilots. He just didn’t expect to be doing it all alone. He looked down to see the pilot had wet himself. No matter, they would have to fly for only a little while, just until they spotted the U.S. battle group. Then he would kill the pilot, get into his seat, and fly the airliner into the carrier himself.

He switched the pistol from his right hand to his left and wiped the sweat from his eyes again. Suddenly he was very hot. He could hear nothing behind him; the passengers were absolutely quiet, petrified into silence. At least that part of the plan had worked.

He closed the flight compartment door finally and then crouched beside the pilot, keeping the gun trained on his head.

Strangely though, no sooner had the door been shut than he heard someone knocking on it. Who could this be?

He stood up, opened the door, and saw a huge woman in a bloody
burka
standing in the doorway. The same woman who had shot his partner. But this woman had a goatee.

The next thing the hijacker saw was the barrel of a gun—his partner’s gun. With all the strength he could muster, Dave Hunn pulled the trigger and shot the hijacker in the forehead. The man was blown backward. He hit the flight control panel, then slumped on top of the dead copilot. The plane started to dive. A chorus of screams rose up from the passengers. Hunn staggered into the cockpit and pulled both bodies away from the bloody controls, allowing the pilot to right the plane. Then he collapsed into the copilot’s seat himself.

“Sorry, I fucked up,” he began murmuring. “I’m really sorry….”

The pilot was absolutely astonished. He wet himself a second time. It was only when Hunn reached up and took what remained of the
burka
off his head that the pilot realized he wasn’t a woman.

He was also bleeding heavily. Hunn reached inside his shirt pocket and came out with a very bloody Koran.
Jamaal’s
Koran. It had deflected the bullet away from his heart, but not by much.

The pilot began turning the plane to the west, towards Oman, the nearest place he could land. Then he reached over and touched Hunn’s arm. This man who had just saved their lives was already turning cold.

“Brother…. oh, brother,” the pilot said, “is there anything I can do for you?”

Hunn slumped farther into the seat. He was fading fast.

“Yeah,” he was just about able to say. “Fly this thing to Queens, will you?”

Contrails.

The sky above
Ocean Voyager
was filled with them when Ryder took off.

They reminded him of photographs taken during the Battle of Britain or, better yet, some gigantic piece of surreal art. The puffy white clutter might not have seemed so unusual on a normal day; the Gulf’s air lanes were always busy. But after rising just a few thousand feet above the ship, Ryder could see that a half-dozen of those contrails, coming from a half-dozen different points in the sky, had cut across the normal lines of air travel and had abruptly ended above the same point: the Strait of Hormuz, 35 miles to the south.

Contrails were like the stars: they told you not what was happening now but what had happened sometime before. Ryder could read them, though; he knew what this meant: the six cross-cutting contrails belonged to hijacked airliners, probably those planes that had left Bahrain later in the morning and thus had a shorter distance to fly back once they’d been seized. And as he judged these peculiar contrails were at least 10 minutes old, this meant these planes were already falling on the battle group. The mass mayhem had begun, just over the horizon.

There was nothing Ryder could do about that now. He was up here for a different reason. If six airliners were already close to the battle group, that meant four still were not. And if the planes trying to crash into the carrier now were the ones that had left Bahrain late, then the missing planes were probably ones that had taken off early. Four in a row, just around 8:00
A.M.
They’d all headed toward Europe almost two hours ago, all flying roughly north by northwest. They’d probably be coming back the same way. The Navy would never make it out this far in time to intercept them. No one would. It was up to him and Phelan to stop these planes. Or at least that’s how Ryder understood it.

He wouldn’t need a wingman for this mission, though, just as Phelan wouldn’t need a flight commander. What they were about to do was best done alone. They had a brief phone conversation at 10,000 feet and then they split up. The young Navy pilot peeled off due north. Ryder headed northwest.

He was soon over land and rocketing above the rugged border area separating the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

No more than 40 miles inland, he spotted two airliners up around thirty thousand feet, their contrails stretching back to northwest. The airliners were flying side by side, a very weird sight. When did you ever see two huge airliners flying in formation? There was only one explanation: two hijacked planes had linked up and were heading toward the battle group together.

Ryder started climbing. The airliners grew outlandishly in size as he ascended. One was an Airbus 300, silver and shiny, with Islamic writing on its nose and tail; the other, a Boeing 767, with a fuselage painted sickly yellow. If not jumbo jets, both were still very large airplanes. They filled Ryder’s field of vision so quickly, he felt like a minnow approaching a pair of flying whales.

Even if each of these planes was only half-full, more than 500 people were riding inside them, women, kids, the old and young, and, not to forget, a Delta guy in each. Yet Ryder was here to shoot them down. What choice did he have? He didn’t want to do it. He didn’t need
another
pack of ghosts haunting him. He’d picked up enough demons on this trip already. But these people were doomed anyway. Either they were going to get shot down by the Navy or they were going to die if their airliner somehow managed to get through the
Lincoln
’s air screen and hit the carrier. Every experience Ryder had lived through in the past six weeks told him he had to knock down these monsters and do it quick. Not to do so would put those 5,000 American sailors on the
Lincoln
in even graver danger than they were right now. Protecting them was his mission.

He steeled himself and began prepping for the grim task. Just how does one go about shooting down two enormous airplanes? Ironically, he wasn’t sure. This was not a hot-shit fighter-interceptor he was flying here, not an F-14, -15, or -16. He had no air-to-air missiles, the ideal weapon for this job. The Harrier was an attack plane. It was built to drop bombs on things on the ground. His tango with the Arab fighters that night over the Med was proof: he was out of his league when facing airborne targets.

Plus, he only had 24 rounds left in his cannon. Would they be enough? It took 10 to 20 rounds to fuck up something like an APC or a tank. How many would it take to shoot down a huge airliner? How many to shoot down two? The absurdity of the situation hit him at that moment. This was not the kind of pilot he was supposed to be. He was the wrong guy in the wrong plane at the wrong time.
What the hell was he doing up here?

But then Fate arrived to make his situation a little simpler. The big silver Airbus was flying slightly ahead of the yellow 767. Suddenly the Airbus banked wildly to the left, going up on its wing and coming very close to tipping over completely. Ryder was only 1,000 feet below the planes now; he banked sharply to his left, thinking the big plane was coming down right on top of him. Just as suddenly, though, the Airbus regained control and dropped back to level flight. It only lasted a few seconds, but it was a nightmarish thing to watch. Ryder couldn’t imagine any sane pilot trying such an extreme maneuver.

The Airbus stayed level, but only for a few moments. It went up on its left wing again, this time quicker, more violently, causing its contrail to cockscrew behind it. Just as it looked like the big plane was going to go over for sure, it returned to level flight again, but with so much force, its engines were nearly ripped from its wings. Surely this wasn’t the hijackers doing this. They were still at least 20 minutes’ flying time from Hormuz; they wouldn’t be starting their death plunge so soon. Was there a fight going on in its cockpit? Was the Delta guy onboard trying to retake the plane from the hijackers?

Ryder would never know. The huge craft began bouncing all over the sky, nearly colliding with the 757 that was practically riding up its butt. It turned up on its left wing again, and this time it kept on going. Over onto its back, wings flapping so hard from the strain, both its engines finally fell off.

Then the plane began the long plunge down.

Ryder had seen some very disturbing things in his career. He’d seen combat and he’d been involved in secret warfare, which was always particularly nasty. But he’d never seen anything like this.

He watched the airliner all the way down. It took nearly two minutes to drop those six miles. It finally hit a mountain somewhere in the Saudi desert, vanishing in a cloud of fire and smoke.

A wave of nausea went right through him. The crash really shook him up.
Not so heroic now,
he thought. He took some quick, deep gulps of oxygen. It tasted stale, but it did the job. At least he stayed conscious. What had happened? He had to believe the Delta guy on the Airbus had somehow caused it to crash, just as the passengers on United Flight 93, the hijacked flight heading for the White House, had done on 9/11. If so, then the Delta trooper had indeed made the supreme sacrifice. He’d also done Ryder a big favor. Now he only had to kill 300 people, instead of twice that many.

He began climbing again. Finding the second airliner took only a few seconds. Painted in the garish yellow color scheme of Royal Gulf Airlines, it was cast by the rising sun in an eerie morning glow. Ryder was soon right below it, his cannon aimed for the place he knew its main fuel tank to be. He began to press down on his gun trigger, hoping a couple dozen shells would be enough to light it off….

But suddenly he stopped. He wasn’t sure why. Everything in his body was telling him to fire, now, and get this thing over with. But it was his head that was giving him trouble. Words were ringing in his ears, Phelan’s words. Here he was, playing the Angel of Death again, a role he’d come to darkly embrace since joining Murphy’s outfit. The kids in the camp in Algeria. The people in downtown Abu Dhabi. He’d even had a hand in the mass fruit poisoning. Who lives, who dies, was once again up to him, the fate of hundreds in his sweaty hands.

But just like every decision Ryder had made in the past six weeks, he’d been damn quick in determining that the people aboard this plane
had
to die. And wasn’t that exactly what Phelan had been talking about? Fighting the mooks was a dirty business. But had they really lost that one last veneer of humanity? Was this really what he’d become?

Ryder’s finger stayed hovering over the trigger. Many voices were in his head now. Phelan. Martinez. His wife, Maureen. Even his old partner, Woody. Being an American didn’t automatically mean you were better than everyone else. It just meant you had a better opportunity to be that way. And there was
always
another option than to just go in guns blazing, right?

If so, then it was up to him to think of another way.

He banked hard right and then climbed. In seconds, he was on the airliner’s tail. He booted throttles ahead full max and streaked right over the top of the big 767, so close he thought he felt an electrical jolt pass between the two planes. Just the noise alone would be terrifying for anyone inside the plane. That was his plan. A diversion might give the Delta guy onboard a chance to do something. If Ryder distracted the hijackers with his earsplitting, heart-stopping pass, maybe the American trooper would get the message and act.

Ryder peeled off to the left and looked over his shoulder. The airliner had dropped about one thousand feet, caused no doubt by sheer fright on the part of the person flying the airplane. But the 767 quickly recovered and leveled off at about twenty-nine thousand feet. Once back under control, it resumed its course toward Hormuz.

Ryder now banked hard left and went into a steep dive, streaking by the plane’s right wing a second later. Not only was he making a tremendous noise; he was also disrupting the airstream in front of the huge jet, which usually led to some serious turbulence. But again, nothing happened. The jet bounced around a bit but still pressed on.

Damn, he really didn’t want to shoot this thing down.

He did a quick check of his position. He was about thirty miles west of the strait, soon to pass back over the United Arab Emirates. With every second they were getting closer to the trouble zone.

He took another deep gulp of oxygen and buzzed the airliner a third time, streaking by just off its left wing this time. Once again, the big plane rocked around a little, but nothing more.

Clearly, this wasn’t working. It was time to switch tactics.

He went full throttle again and rocketed ahead of the airliner. Two miles, three miles. Four. At five miles out, he went ass over end and turned 180 degrees, reversing his direction. Now the huge airliner was coming right at him.

If a distraction was still needed, then Ryder could think of no better one than to aim his plane at the airliner head-on. A game of chicken at 29,000 feet. That was bound to get someone’s attention.

He increased power to 400 knots. The big plane was coming at him at least that fast. Ryder hunkered down farther into his seat. He and the airliner were closing on each other by a combined 800 miles an hour. Still, he pushed his throttle forward.

One second he was about 2,000 feet away from the 767. The next he was just 1,500, then 1,000—then just 750. Could they see him coming? That was the whole idea. He held the stick with both hands and fought to keep his eyes open.

Five hundred feet. Four hundred…

He was just seconds from a high-speed collision.

Three hundred…

Two hundred…

The airliner was not altering course and neither was he.

Hundred…

Fifty…

Did they see him?

He yanked back on the stick and roared up and over the airliner. As he streaked by, he could see right into the cockpit and in that instant, through the heavily tinted glass, he thought he saw at least a half-dozen people, faces white, looking back out at him. He’d come that close to colliding with the plane.

He fell away to the left and tore the oxygen mask from his face. His flight suit was soaked with sweat. His hands were shaking. Even 20 years ago, this would have been a heart-pounder.

He turned over again, checking his fuel load as he went. The noisy head-on pass had used up about a quarter of his remaining gas and taken a decade or two off his life, years that he dearly wanted to preserve.

But had he done anything at all?

He looked over his shoulder again and at last saw the airplane start to fall. Not like the first one, not like a B-17 falling on Berlin. The airliner’s wings were level and it seemed under control.

But falling nonetheless.

More than five miles below, Habel el-Habella had just finished feeding his two camels when he heard a tremendous commotion off to the west.

Habel was a Bedouin, 85 years old, and he’d walked these desert sands for nearly as long. But in all that time he could not recall hearing such a frightening screech as the one he was hearing now.

His camels bolted immediately, spooked to the point of relieving themselves. Habel grabbed for their reins and held on tight; they dragged him 100 feet before he got them to stop. Then somehow, he was able to look over his shoulder and was amazed to see a huge cloud of sand traveling at great speed, heading right for him.

Was this a
haboob?
No way. Habel had lived in the desert for so long, he could tell when a
haboob
was coming hours before it hit. They never came up this suddenly. So then what was this?

Before he could move, before he could think, the cloud was upon him. It was so loud it even drowned out the cries of his animals. The air became incredibly hot; it felt like flames going right through his lungs. So sure that he was about to meet his maker, Habel fell to his knees and let his camels go, something from childhood he’d been told never to do. But the animals must have felt as he did, because they both plopped down beside him. The noise was just tremendous. The sand was whipping around him so fiercely, it was cutting his face, his hands, his neck.