The French pilot and his daughter were pulled into the hangar and the others were lashed with tie-down chains and locked together in a supply room off the hangar with padlocks from the storage doors. They weren’t killed, because Mohammed had passed orders on to Ajiz mandating that he keep them alive. He knew the pilot would need the incentive of believing he would be left alive at the end of the operation.
Killing the others would tip him off that even his total compliance would not save him and his daughter.
Ajiz ordered the pilot to fuel and preflight the largest craft in the hanger, a blue Eurocopter EC145, then he, his daughter, and the six Hezbollah operators from Lyon rolled it out into the heavy snow on a trailer.
The pilot begged the armed men to reconsider, telling them they would all likely slam into a mountain before they accomplished whatever the hell it was they were planning. Ajiz just strapped in beside him and waved his gun while Claudette was placed in the back in the middle of the rest of the Lyon cell. Ajiz put on his headset and told the Frenchman they would be heading somewhere down in the valley, and he’d provide him more information soon.
The helicopter lifted off into the gray, the pilot used his instruments and his radar and his GPS to pick his way forward slowly between the peaks of the mountains, certain they were all going to die, but aware he’d saved his colleagues back in the hanger, and desperately trying to come up with some way to somehow save his daughter, as well.
The flight was miserable and stressful for all involved, but Ajiz was in comms with Mohammed for most of the flight, and this made things ever more difficult. The pilot flew much slower than Mohammed demanded, but Henri refused to fly faster, even with a CZ pistol jabbed in his neck.
By using a locator app from Mobasheri’s iPhone, Ajiz was able direct the pilot to the van on the road, although the iPhone signal was intermittent as the phone entered and exited tunnels.
When the helo reached an altitude of only twenty-five feet above the highway, the pilot could see both the ground and any wires along the road, and this gave him the confidence to pick up speed.
Mobasheri contacted Ajiz seconds after the van crashed down the hill, and he told the Lyon cell leader they were under attack, and he ordered the men in the helo to engage the Americans and the vehicles on the road.
Just seconds later the two silver SUVs appeared one hundred yards in front of the helicopter, Ajiz ordered the pilot to turn sideways so the men could shoot out of the side door. Henri feigned trouble with the task, but the butt of an AK-47 rifle to the side of Claudette’s head showed him that he needed to comply. As he flew perpendicular to the highway Henri heard the heavy gunfire coming out of the cabin of his aircraft. He ducked down as low as he could, and hoped his daughter would be able to do the same behind him.
A MINUTE EARLIER, DOMINIC CARUSO raced through the rustic village of Villair as fast as he could do so without sliding his big bike into the side of a stone house or crashing through a wooden fence. Off his right shoulder and a thousand yards away he could hear the rolling echoes of gunfire from both M4 rifles and handguns, and he hurried to get back on the road, and then race back to get his own weapon into the fray.
When he was still several hundred yards away from the SS26 he backed off on the throttle for a moment, because he thought he heard a helicopter overhead. It seemed unlikely, impossible really, as there were high hills on both sides of the road here that disappeared into the clouds just a hundred feet or so above his head.
The sound disappeared and he all but dismissed it, but suddenly a new barrage of even more intense gunfire erupted from the site of the FBI traffic stop to the north. It seemed several more guns had entered the fight, and the only explanation Caruso had for it was that somehow the Iranians had managed to show up with reinforcements from the air.
He rolled onto the SS26, turned west toward the gunfight, opened the throttle on his BMW bike, and leaned down behind his little windscreen. He flew headlong through the snowstorm with no idea what he would encounter when he arrived at the battle.
SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT DARREN Albright pressed himself tight against the frozen highway. There was no cover from the helicopter above him, so all he could do was fire on it with his pistol and attempt to make himself as small a target as possible out here in the open.
Another man from the HRT team went down just feet away, and bits of road kicked up around him.
The helicopter made a slow pass over the road, still flying sideways. Albright dumped an entire magazine from his pistol at the threat, then he scooped up the fallen tactical officer’s rifle. The helo spun around quickly to come back for another pass, and Albright flipped the fire selector switch on the rifle to semiautomatic. He aimed on the tail rotor of the aircraft, and it squeezed of a carefully aimed round. Then a second, then a third.
After another shot at the tail rotor, Darren knew he had to take cover behind the SUV on his right, because the blue helo was heading right for him. He lowered the rifle and started to run, but out of the corner of his eye he saw a man on the hill by the side of the road. It was one of the men from the van, and Albright spun his rifle toward him just as the gunmen got him in his sights of his pistol.
Albright felt the blow to his right shoulder, well above his body armor, and his gun flew out of his hand. A second round hit his vest, but the third shot slammed into his pelvis, breaking it and buckling the FBI man to the highway. He fell on his back, his eyes to the sky as the helicopter flew directly overhead on another gun run.
INSIDE THE EUROCOPTER, two of the Lyon cell men were dead, shot by FBI HRT men and still strapped in their seats with their heads bobbing along with the movements of the aircraft. A third man had been hit in the right hand, but he continued firing on the road below with his left hand, until he and the others saw the Iranians move up the hill to the road and walk between the human forms lying still there.
Ajiz ordered the pilot to land, and Henri did as he was told.
AS THE HELICOPTER TOUCHED down Mohammed Mobasheri climbed to his feet behind the van at the bottom of the hill. He pointed his pistol toward Ethan Ross, who remained on the frozen ground in the fetal position.
“Move!” Mobasheri ordered.
Ethan stood slowly, his hands in the air, and Gianna Bertoli stood up with him. Together they walked up the hill with Mohammed bringing up the rear.
THE FRENCH PILOT LOOKED to Ajiz while they sat parked on the highway. Through his headset he said, “I want to speak to my daughter.”
“Why?”
“She knows the highway down here. She can help us get away. I only fly up on the mountains.”
Ajiz looked over his shoulder. The woman’s wrists were bound with the straps cut from of one of the seats, and she was buckled into another seat. There was blood across her face, but it was blood from one of the dead Hezbollah men and not her own. She sat next to a headset on the wall behind her. He motioned with his pistol for her to put the headset on.
She did so, and before she could say anything, Henri spoke to her in Italian. Henri and his daughter were French, but they both knew Italian. He could only pray the Middle Eastern man next to him did not know the language.
“When we leave I will fly low over the mountains. If you can do it . . . you must get out.”
“But what about you?”
“These men won’t let us live. Believe me. I want you to survive. I will try to survive myself, but only if you are safe.”
“I can’t leave you—”
He snapped at her. Ajiz glanced at him, but assumed they were arguing about the route through the valley. “Then we both die today. Please, Claudette. You are the one who can give us both a chance.”
Their eyes met, she nodded slightly, and then they discussed the route they would take to the south.
THE STRETCH SS26 NEAR the idling helicopter was a scattered scene of bodies, blood, and damaged vehicles. Four or five civilian vehicles had stopped in each lane; the drivers had missed the shooting and saw
merely what they at first perceived to be a horrific automobile accident and a rescue helicopter. The rotor wash of the helicopter blew the already whipping snow into a blinding torrent and added to the chaos and confusion. Only the first car facing each direction saw the guns and the fact the men standing were doing nothing for the men lying in the road.
The four Quds Force operatives still alive climbed into the helicopter after unfastening the two dead Lebanese men from the Lyon cell and letting their bodies fall out onto the frozen highway.
Ross boarded as ordered, he was shoved into a seat in the back and strapped down.
Mobasheri himself was in the back of the group boarding. As the men loaded up, he realized there would not be enough room for everyone, he pushed past Gianna Bertoli as she tried to board, and she was happy to let him take the final place, thinking he would let her go.
But as soon as he took his seat Mohammed turned to Gianna. Over the booming rotor noise, he shouted, “Unfortunately for you, I need Ross, and I need these men. I no longer have any use for you or ITP.”
His pistol rose quickly and he shot her through the forehead at a distance of six feet. Her head snapped back, her curly black hair flew over her face and she dropped onto her back on the highway.
Ross saw the Swiss woman die, he screamed in shock, and the helicopter lifted off into the snow.
48
AS DOMINIC RACED TO the scene he heard the low-flying helicopter churning the air right over his head. He looked up, but he could make out only a slight lightening in the clouds from the aircraft’s running lights as it flew by. He still couldn’t imagine how in the hell anyone could get airborne in these conditions.
Within seconds he was driving his bike through the after effects of the battle. There were bodies lying motionless on the road. He passed the unmistakable form of Gianna Bertoli, she was on her back and snow had already blown across her jacket, dusting it with white.
He found Albright lying on his side by one of the shot-up silver Expeditions. Dom parked the BMW and ran to the man, rolled him onto his back.
Albright was alive, but there was blood everywhere. He’d been shot in the shoulder and the hip, he groaned in agony, but he was conscious. He reached out to grab for his mobile phone, which had been knocked several feet away in the gunfight. Dom scooped it up and handed it to him. “Is Ross gone?” Albright nodded. He grunted in pain again, then said, “Helicopter.”
“I still hear it. It’s heading southwest.”
“Farsi.”
“What’s that?”
“They were speaking Farsi. They’re Iranians.”
“That figures,” said Caruso.
“We’ve got to let the Italians know,” Albright said, and groaned.
Dom pulled a med kit out of the closest vehicle and returned to Albright, who was dialing a number on the phone with his bloody fingers.
Dom knelt to treat the man’s wounds, but Albright waved him off. “Check the others first.”
MOHAMMED MOBASHERI was not satisfied with the pilot’s performance, they seemed to be flying too slow, though it was difficult to be certain in the near white out conditions.
The Iranian put on a headset and crawled between the Lyon cell men just behind the pilot’s seat. “Go faster!” He looked to Ajiz in the copilot’s seat, and the Hezbollah man waved his pistol in the man’s face.
The pilot did not seem to notice. He was covered in sweat and his eyes were locked on the multifunction display in front of him, worry evident on his face.
Ajiz, who had been flying alongside the man for a halfhour, noticed a change in the man’s behavior.
“What is it?”
“A problem.”
Mohammed held his own pistol to the pilot’s head. “You lie! You will fly this helicopter south. To Genoa.”
The pilot spoke into his mike. “It’s the tail rotor.”
“What is wrong—”
“It’s not responding properly.”
Mobasheri screamed at the man. “No! You are lying!”
He struck the pilot in the head, but the man did not react, so carefully was he watching his gauges. After several more seconds, Henri said, “It’s getting worse!”
Henri did feel an abnormal oscillation in the tail rotor, but he was not, in fact, losing control. He used the opportunity to bank to the right, following the moving map display in front of him to fly along the snowy ridgeline at the top of the valley.
He decreased altitude and lowered his speed. The Middle Easterner next to him screamed at him, and the man between the seats behind him shouted as well, but Henri focused on what he was doing. Right as he arrived at the top of the ridgeline, he shouted into his headset.
“Claudette!”
BEHIND HIM, HENRI’S DAUGHTER took her opportunity. She unhooked her seat belt, dove onto the blond-haired man by the back door, then she kicked her legs out over the side. Shiraz recognized what she was doing, he lunged for her, desperate to take hold of any part of her clothing. The coiled wires of his headset pulled tight just as he got his hand on the cuff of her ski jacket, but gravity was stronger than his grip, and she was out of the helicopter, disappearing over the side.
The other men in the back saw the movement, but they were too late to do anything more than lean out over the side and watch her disappear into snowy trees. Her fall was no more than fifty feet, with hundreds of branches to slow her before she hit the powdered drift on the ground.
She would break bones and lie in pain for hours, but she would survive.
Henri turned back around in his seat when he heard the shouting in Farsi. As he turned he prayed he would not see his daughter in the cabin, but at first he could not be sure. He saw nothing but arms and legs and blurred motion of angry men crawling over one another. More screams in his headset told him the men were agitated, so he had reason to hope, but he could not see the seats directly behind him. It was possible Claudette had been moved. It was not until the men on the starboard side looked down into the trees below, shock and anger and even some fear registering on their faces, that he knew she had done it.
His beautiful, brilliant, brave daughter had fucking done it!
His heart had been pounding in terror unceasingly for the last hour, but now it pounded with a father’s pride.
Henri turned back to the windscreen in front, and he flew the helo over the peak, picking up speed as fast as he cold. The little winding valley disappeared below him, and these men would never be able to find it again. Claudette was, if not safe, then at least safe from these murderous terrorists.
Now he steeled himself to be as brave as his little girl. He turned to his right and eyed the man called Ajiz, then looked over his shoulder at the little man with the boyish face. They called him Mohammed. He appeared to Henri to be truly the least likely in the group to be in charge of anything, much less these other brutes. Mohammed had been focused on the activity in the back, he shouted what were obviously admonitions at his men, only two of whom were wearing headsets and able to hear him.
Now Mohammed stopped talking suddenly, and he spun his head to the pilot.
Henri stared back at him, a thin, determined smile on his lips.
The Iranian’s eyes widened. He shouted, “Non!”
Henri’s smile grew with the terror evident on Mohammed’s face. “Oui,” he said, grinning now.
Henri turned back to the windscreen, and sucked in a chest full of air, and he slammed the cyclic forward, while pushing the collective to the floor.
The Eurocopter pitched down and dove toward the undulating landscape hundreds of feet below. Mohammed screamed in sheer terror, while Henri closed his eyes and found himself at peace, thinking about how damn lucky he had been to have lived his life in such a beautiful place as this mountain.
MOHAMMED LOOKED away from the pilot toward a sudden darkness that filled the right half of the windscreen in front of him. A craggy mountain wall was directly in the path of the Eurocopter, a violent jolt from behind tol
d all on board the tail rotor struck the rock face. The rotor disintegrated and the helo spun hard to the left. The main rotor dug into trees and the aircraft slammed into a forested hillside and tumbled down.
DOM HAD FOUND two Americans still alive in addition to Albright, though both men were badly injured. Several cars full of civilians had appeared at the scene with their own medical kits, and they began treating the wounds to the best of their abilities. Caruso had just returned to Albright and knelt down to help him when he heard a sound to the southeast.
It was far in the distance but unmistakable. It was the low muffled thump of an impact.
The faint but persistent rotor noise of the distant helicopter stopped abruptly.
He stood up quickly and spun toward the noise. “They crashed! The helo just went down!”
Albright was holding the phone to his ear and gauze against his bloody hip. He’d heard the noise, too. He looked at Caruso. “Go get that asshole. I can treat myself.”
“You sure?”
Albright shouted now. “Go!”
The FBI senior special agent put down his phone and lifted his pistol for Dom to take. But Caruso ignored it. Instead, he scooped up one of the dead HRT team member’s carbines and dropped the magazine to check the round count. It was fully loaded with thirty rounds, and there was a 3.5 power scope on the rail.
Dom ran back to his motorcycle without another word.
49
MOBASHERI FOUND HIMSELF FACEDOWN with his forehead buried in snow and his body lying on a broken Plexiglas windscreen. He pushed himself up, rising slowly to his knees, and he shook his head to fight the daze from the crash. Looking himself over he saw that his coat was torn the length of the right arm, and he felt a gash above his elbow.