Kill Decision

  The pilot’s voice. “Pulling up. Keep it in the box. This fucker’s climbing fast.”

  Odin motioned for McKinney to get back and followed behind her toward their seats. She heard his voice in her headphones. “We need to bag it, Tailhook. You’re running short on time.”

  “We’ll get it.”

  The men in the cargo bay grabbed for handholds as the plane lurched upward, chasing the drone up into the sky. Suddenly the entire view through the open cargo bay was of the dark badlands below. Tin Man started sliding back, and Foxy reeled him in by his monkey cord.

  Meanwhile, behind them the plane was managing to gain on the drone and center it back into the maw of the bag. The team in the cargo bay watched intently—and in a few moments the drone disappeared, enveloped by the bag.

  “Bingo, TOC! Bogey’s in the bag! Repeat bogey’s in the bag!”

  McKinney and Odin looked to each other.

  The bag was edging sideways, and then the drone suddenly started taking evasive maneuvers. McKinney realized there was nothing to stop the wild drone from hurtling forward a couple of hundred meters into the cargo bay and exploding—taking them all out.

  The pilot’s voice came over the radio. “This thing’s going nuts.”

  Odin waved to the crew. “Deploy the deadweight!”

  “Stand clear!”

  She saw the loadmaster kick the quick-release on the pallet of concrete that formed the deadweight. It whipped along the rails from the drag of the interdiction bag. The huge block tumbled off into the night, and the bag fell down and behind with it.

  “Interdiction successful. Bag in free fall.”

  A moment later a white flash pierced the night above the Utah desert, and a fiery light and smoke filled the bag. The boom followed soon after.

  Foxy was training some sort of night-vision binoculars on the distant object. “Drone just self-destructed, but the bag looks intact.”

  She could hear cheers on the radio, and Odin and McKinney exchanged relieved smiles. He pointed, and they watched the glowing interdiction bag still falling from thousands of feet in the air. “Let’s hope it has the answers we’re looking for in it.”

  The pilot’s voice crackled again. “TOC, missile lock-on! Are any of you guys burning me?”

  Hoov’s voice. “Negative, Tailhook.”

  Then, from somewhere low on the eastern horizon, a missile streaked across the night sky, burning like a flare as it arced upward toward them. McKinney felt the adrenal wave of fear spreading like heat down her legs. Even for a civilian, the sight of a missile ascending toward them was obviously bad.

  “Missile six o’clock low! Deploying angel fire.”

  McKinney watched amazed as suddenly the sky erupted in a fountain of blinding light, dozens of flares spreading out from the base of the C-130 and trailing behind them. Salvo after salvo of flares formed an angel wing pattern of smoke and green-white light behind them. The plane lurched to the right, throwing her against the wall. Then left. Mc-

  Kinney grabbed on to the equipment rack and looked behind them through the open cargo door.

  Odin’s voice came over the radio. “Godammit, Hoov, what the hell’s out there?”

  The missile raced past them wide on the left and detonated, creating a flash and a powerful thump that caused the plane to lurch.

  The pilot’s voice. “Shit, we’re hit.”

  Odin raced forward, pulling on his monkey cord to steady himself.

  McKinney watched in horror as a burning glow filled the left-side porthole windows, and a noticeable vibration set in on the floor. The C-130 yawed from side to side—still spitting flares every few seconds. The men in the cargo bay still looked incredibly calm to her, checking their monitors and grabbing fire extinguishers. It made McKinney straighten up, wondering what she should be doing.

  The pilot’s voice crackled as though announcing the in-flight movie. “Shutting down engine one. I’m going to try for the base camp airstrip.”

  Foxy’s voice. “Where’d the missile come from?”

  Hoov’s voice answered. “Nothing on radar.”

  Odin was pulling gear from a Pelican case. “Did it come from the ground?”

  “We’ve got an inconclusive echo moving across our six. Ah . . . now it’s gone again.”

  “Opened its weapon bay. Expect another launch. How far out?”

  “Three miles.”

  “All right. Team Ancile. Execute, execute, execute!” Odin turned to McKinney and unfastened her monkey cord harness. “Check your chute, but don’t jump until I say.”

  “Until you say? What happened to the pilot trying to land?”

  “Change of plans. Get busy, Professor!”

  She pulled on the shoulder straps of her parachute and began securing it. It was apparently a military-grade HALO chute. She grabbed for handholds against the lurching of the plane as she familiarized herself with the location of the ripcord and the cutaway. A glance up told her that everyone else was checking their parachutes as well.

  The pilot shouted again. “Missile lock-on!”

  McKinney looked out the open cargo doors to see another missile streaking out of the darkness, rising fast from a low angle. Odin was staring out with what looked like thermal binoculars. “I’ve got eyes on two bogeys, six o’clock, low, four thousand meters. I think we got our answer, Foxy.”

  “Looks like it.”

  Odin started tapping in numbers on a wrist computer.

  Flares spouted from the C-130 again, and it took evasive maneuvers that sent McKinney sprawling. She grabbed on to the equipment rack and pulled herself to her feet again.

  What the hell am I doing here? The question kept repeating in her mind. She looked at that fiery glow in the left-side portholes and was relieved to see that it had almost gone away. She was tempted to run out and jump from the cargo ramp, but she resisted. She had to stay with the team. The image of Ritter’s ghoulish eyes came back to her.

  She’s as good as dead, and you know it.

  Odin’s voice came over the radio channel. “Tailhook: Clear your people.”

  “Copy that, Odin.”

  Odin rummaged through equipment cases again. The other team members were hurriedly grabbing weapons and strapping on gear. “Move it, people!”

  McKinney kept her eyes on the incoming missile as it streaked into the flares and past them without exploding. “Jesus Christ . . .”

  The pilot’s voice came over the radio. “Setting autopilot to twenty-three thousand. All crew, bail out! Bail out!”

  The plane tilted into an upward climb, while Foxy stomped toward Odin along with a half-dozen crew and team members. Foxy held his kora by the neck, and as he approached he looked sadly at it. “Well, another one bites the dust.” He tossed it out the cargo bay doors and into the abyss.

  Odin gestured to Foxy with a slashing motion across his throat as he pulled the mic boom from his helmet. Then he shouted something directly into Foxy’s ear for several moments. She couldn’t hear it over the roar of the plane and her own insulating headphones, but after a moment Foxy nodded and motioned for the others to follow him.

  He saluted McKinney. “See you in hell, Professor!”

  The whole group went single file, launching one by one off the back ramp and into the moonlight over the Utah desert. McKinney watched them go and could see their silhouettes recede into the void. She felt like launching with them.

  Odin grabbed her by the shoulders. “Not yet, Professor.”

  “Are you crazy? Someone’s shooting missiles at us!”

  “Remember that discussion we had about you being bait?” He was fiddling with a small nylon pack, clicking red buttons. “I left some parts out.”

  “Why in the hell do you keep lying to me?”

  “Because whatever you knew, they now know.”

  The remaining flight crew came down from the deck and through the bulkhead door into the cargo bay. The navigator and copilot saluted Odin and jumped from the r
amp one after the other. The pilot stopped and put a hand on his shoulder. “Ship’s clear. Happy hunting, Sergeant.”

  Odin just thumbed toward the exit. The pilot nodded and ran off into the void.

  Odin glanced down at his Rover tablet and showed it to McKinney.

  It was an image from the surveillance camera watching her decoy. Where “she” had been, there was now only burning debris and fake body parts. Her stunt double was charred.

  “My God.”

  Odin tossed a satchel with a blinking red light on it well forward through the bulkhead door. “Whatever these things are, they just shot down our Predator drone too.”

  McKinney held on to the equipment rack and glared at him. “Then what the hell are we still on this plane for?”

  He pulled off his helmet and goggles and, from one of the Pelican cases, produced a full-faced aerodynamically designed black helmet with integrated tinted goggles and oxygen mask. It looked like something from a Star Wars convention. He pulled out a second one, flicked a switch, and shoved it into McKinney’s arms, motioning toward his throat.

  She sighed and tore off her helmet, goggles, and oxygen mask. The cold hit her face like fire. She quickly put the new helmet on and realized it had integrated thermal or night vision in the goggles. She felt his hand fumbling with switches at her neck and suddenly heard the hiss of oxygen flowing and his voice in her ears.

  “—secure comms. Can you hear me?”

  “Yeah, I hear you. What the hell’s going on?”

  He pointed out the back. She could see much more clearly in the night now, and that made it all the more alarming to see yet another missile streaking up toward them. But farther back she could also see twin pinpoints of heat glowing—distant aircraft following them.

  She was about to jump toward the exit when she felt his rock-hard fingers gripping her shoulder.

  “Think about it.”

  “Think about what? Let go of me!”

  “Who knew we were here?” He was now hanging what appeared to be a belt-fed machine gun across his chest and cinching it tightly. It had a large boxlike magazine. He looked up at her as he adjusted a twin pistol harness as well.

  She couldn’t keep her eyes off the incoming missile. “We need to jump! Now!”

  “It’ll hit an engine.”

  “And what if the fuel tanks explode? What if a wing comes off?”

  He was concentrating on prepping his gear. “I’ve seen a Talon take worse. . . .”

  “Odin!” She started pulling him toward the edge of the cargo ramp and the vast space beneath them.

  He held her back. “Not quite yet, Professor.”

  The plane was still vibrating from the earlier hit, and the two remaining plastic-wrapped equipment pallets were hopping around. McKinney hit the deck as the missile streaked in and detonated somewhere off the right side.

  The plane lurched and yawed to the right, then developed a truly disconcerting undulating pattern. Piercing alarms started wailing. McKinney crawled to her feet again and could see thirty-foot flames and dark smoke trailing from the port wing—all portrayed in the black-and-white phosphorescence of her helmet’s night vision.

  “Steady . . .” He grabbed her arm and started walking slowly toward the lip of the cargo ramp. The Utah desert scrolled by fifteen thousand feet or more below them in the black-and-white world of her helmet. A glance up front.

  Flames were licking through the bulkhead.

  McKinney struggled against his grip, then tried a self-defense move she’d learned in a class that prepared female researchers for remote fieldwork overseas—a kick toward his groin.

  Odin deflected it easily and got her in an armlock. “Cut it out, Professor. We’re not quite at altitude yet.” He looked out the back ramp at the incoming objects, then started tapping numbers into a small computer integrated into the wrist of his HALO suit.

  She noticed that the plane was indeed still angled in a climb.

  “I figure two minutes of free fall is the most we’ll get. At a distance of three miles and a speed of three hundred knots, that should put us close enough.”

  “Close enough for what!”

  She could see the reflected glow of the flames trailing behind the plane in his insectlike helmet eyes. He was like the devil incarnate, standing amid the fire and chaos, his voice calm, his legs absorbing the now violent shuddering of the aircraft. He rammed the bolt back on the machine gun.

  “You’re insane! You’re going to get us both killed!”

  “Look, I don’t come to your job and tell you how to research ants.”

  He nodded back behind her, and she turned to see yet another air-to-air missile arcing up toward them, but now she could more clearly see where it was coming from. Two sleek flying wings were below them and closer now—a few miles away.

  “The people behind this need to think we’re dead, Professor, or we’re going to be too busy looking over our shoulder to find anything.” He raised his gloved hand to reveal a palm-sized trigger device. The flames glowed higher in his plastic eyes. “You ready?”

  “Oh, my God . . .”

  “We stay in close formation. Do not deploy your chute until I give you the signal.”

  “Screw formation! It’s pitch black out there! If we collide—”

  “Hey!” He grabbed her helmet and put his right in her face. “You’ve got a hundred and two USPA jumps under your belt and the best night-vision money can buy. No excuses for dying. We need to be well below radar before we deploy. If you deploy your chute early, they’ll know we bailed before the crash. Which means they keep hunting you. Are we clear?”

  She stood unsteadily.

  There was a flash and another BOOM. The plane started yawing to the side again, rumbling.

  “Goddamn you . . .”

  “Go!” He let go of her arm.

  McKinney spun to face air-forward as she leapt from the cargo ramp, spreading her arms and legs to stabilize into free fall. Odin was right behind her. The racing wind hit her as a wall of pressure, but the high-tech jumpsuit and helmet kept her insulated. She’d never worn anything so effective at cutting wind. She concentrated on her form, and it started to calm her mind. The view was breathtaking even in night vision.

  The flaming C-130 cargo plane receded ahead and above them.

  Odin glided slowly toward her as he raised the detonator in his gloved hand. He squeezed, and the big, stricken plane detonated in a blinding flash, followed by a blast wave. The plane came apart in a ball of flame. Odin tossed the detonator and motioned calmly for her to drift one-eighty as he coasted alongside.

  She heard his voice in her earphones. “Remember: Don’t open your chute until I give the word.” He strained to bring the tightly strapped machine gun barrel down against the onrushing wind and scanned the eastern sky as they fell.

  He extended one hand skillfully as a fin to swerve him ten yards away from her as they continued in free fall, the cold wind rushing past them at one hundred and twenty miles an hour. Seven or eight thousand feet below them, she could see they were dropping down toward two fast-moving objects headed in their direction. She matched Odin’s movements as he extended and retracted his arms to guide himself faster, slower, left or right, adjusting an intercept course.

  “This is insane. They’ll kill us!”

  His voice came through on her headphones. “These are autonomous drones, Professor. I’m betting they’re using visual intelligence software to understand what they’re looking at.”

  “So?”

  “Humans can’t fly. Which means we can’t be here. I’m betting they won’t be able to figure out what we are. . . .”

  As they fell through twelve thousand feet, the drones passed below them and to the right by a couple of hundred meters. McKinney saw, more than heard, Odin’s machine gun open up. Fiery tracer rounds raced out like brilliant white sparks in her night-vision goggles. The bullets stitched the sky around the approaching aircraft, and although the rounds w
ent wide, she saw that the drones immediately reacted to the incoming projectiles, veering off to the right and left around them as Odin’s fire chased them. One thundered past, headed for the falling, fiery wreckage of the C-130, but the other drone curved around, coming back to have another look at the attack coming from midair.

  For a fleeting moment she clearly saw it as it whipped past them, followed by a thunder so loud she could hear it even within her helmet and all the rushing wind. These weren’t propeller aircraft but jet fighters that looked like flying black manta rays, tails blazing with heat. And it was clearly an unmanned drone. There was no cockpit—and it definitely didn’t look like a hobby kit.

  She heard his voice in her headset. “See that? Home-built drone, my ass. We caught the one they wanted us to catch.”

  “Then why did they send these too?”

  “There’s something else going on. Something I’m not seeing yet.”

  She was distracted by all his shooting, the tracers spraying wildly out into the night. “Do you really expect to hit those things at these speeds and distances?”

  He kept firing intermittently at the drone. “If I can get them in close enough.”

  “Altitude!” She could see the ground closing in. They were already passing through nine thousand feet. She looked back up and realized they were well below the jet-powered drones. The one that had turned back toward them, though, was also arcing down to follow them in their vertical dive.

  It was coming after them.

  “Come on down, fucker. . . .”

  “You’re insane!” She clutched her ripcord but, at the last moment, held back, resisting the urge to deploy. Looking up she realized the drone might plow straight through her canopy.

  Odin opened fire on the drone diving down from above them. His tracers spat upward like a fountain of sparks as the craft roared closer, now only a few hundred meters above and gaining fast, its array of buglike eyes staring down on them.

  * * *

  Several miles away Foxy, Ripper, Hoov, and the others folded up their parachutes on the desert floor and gazed up at the fireworks in the sky—tracers spreading into the stars as jet engines roared and fiery debris rained down farther on.