Two Ukrainian Mi-26s “diverted” from Zagreb would come in at 0300, and Alan would brief their crews. Off at 0445. Seven hours from now.
He slept.
When he woke, he reached for Rose and murmured her name. His hand felt the grit of the floor and he remembered where he was, a cot in the company office. Through the door, he could see men in flight suits and hear their talk, all charged up. The chopper crews. He had slept right through their arrival. Sitting up, he felt how tired he really was, and he thought, This isn’t a good idea. I’m wiped. But it was too late.
He put his wallet and his tags in his pack, checked himself for anything that would show he was American. His watch. His wedding ring; it came off hard, and he sucked the knuckle and got it off with the spit. Reluctantly, he put the Browning in the bag; he wanted to carry it, but it had been his father’s and had personal engraving on it. Even his skivvies, which had a label. Then he dressed from the skin out in stuff the Italians had given him. No rank marks. This is really stupid, he thought. He pushed the pack toward the Italian captain. “If something happens—I’m anonymous. My people will figure it out.” He wrote a couple of lines to Rose and stuffed the paper in the pack and pushed away the thought of what she would say if she could see him. Then he was on.
“It’s a short trip, gentlemen—ten miles in, ten out. I figure six minutes’ flying time each way, including diversion. The target is a house in a village called Pustarla, just one street and a few houses around it. Problem: there’s deep snow everywhere. Roads around the place took a week to get plowed, then some of it was done with horses—we got aerial photos. Only two sure places to put down a chopper, the town soccer field, which I’ve marked Bravo, and this smaller place marked Alpha, which is cleared—for a helo, we think, but the helo wasn’t there yesterday. We believe no land mines. It’s a hundred meters from the target; the soccer field is close to four hundred. The village street is a mess—ruts, ice, high banks. The police station is three hundred meters farther along; there should be ten to twelve guys there, well armed, capable. Respect them! They’ve got two armored cars, one probably inoperable because it hasn’t been dug out of the snow.
“We’re going in to Alpha as our primary landing zone; Bravo is backup and will be where the helos go if there’s trouble while the troops are at the target. That would leave us four hundred meters to cover on foot to get out.” He didn’t like that part. Four hundred meters could be a long way in snow.
“If the Yugoslavs scramble aircraft, they’re only fourteen minutes away. However, if they do that they’re going to get pasted.” Deny Flight was still on under a different name, the pilots impatient because nothing much was happening in deep winter. The F-16s and F-18s, Jaguars, Hornets, Tornados, and Fighting Falcons of several countries would love it if the Serbs scrambled so much as a flying chicken.
The Ukrainian choppers had come with crews and their own ground defense, two tough guys each with squad weapons. Alan made sure there would be room for prisoners and material coming back, double-checked with the Kenyans and the Italian ground troops. It would be tight: the Kenyans had insisted on sending two medics per helo; they wanted in on the action. The Italians were sending twenty altogether, two teams they had decided to call Romulus and Remus. Oh, shit, why not? Gagliano had told him that the Dutch had a mortar unit up the hill that was itching to put stuff over the border if the militia there made a move; the Canadians would have two electronics surveillance F-16s in the air, with the new US Air Force operation at Tuzla on alert. Certain shrugs, looks, and evasions suggested that the operation had been put together the way crucial spare parts were sometimes got—what was called “moonlight acquisition.”
“Captain Gagliano will brief you on the operation itself. I want to remind everybody—everybody—of what we’re after: intelligence. One, prisoners; two, electronics—computer stuff, direct links, comm, anything; three, records, including photos. We’re going to go in, grab what we can, and get out. If we have to shoot up somebody who happens to be a war criminal—” He looked around. “Sending messages is part of intelligence, too. I don’t object to sending a message.” Somebody guffawed.
Translations were going on all over the tent. The Kenyans and Italians had already got together with the Ukrainians, and they’d cobbled up some kind of signal system, with somebody who could speak English on each team. Still, it would be hairy, he thought. Speed, they had to emphasize speed. Surprise and speed, and baling wire and spit.
The big helos pounded south from the takeoff, seeming for three minutes to be heading back toward Srebnik, as if they might be taking hospital cases out. Then they cut sharply east, then east and north, two hundred feet off the deck. It was still dark, but the first light made the eastern horizon visible. The chopper interior smelled of metal and hot oil and sweat. Somebody passed gas, not helping matters at all.
“Four minutes.”
The word went along the helo, quattro minuti, quattro minuti.
Alan was in the second helo with the Kenyan surgeon and the hit team, Remus. Gagliano was in the lead aircraft with the Romulus team, which would protect against the police. They had two shooters with shoulder-fired antitank weapons, at least one guy with a rotating rocket grenade launcher. If things went right, Romulus would already be on the street when Alan’s helo touched down.
Thirty seconds on the street, he thought, forty-five max if the ruts are bad. How long did it really take you to trot a hundred meters in full battle gear? He shifted uneasily. The Italian body armor felt strange; so did the helmet. NATO gear, but not quite right, somehow. He was too thin for the body armor. He had a 9mm Beretta in a holster, a weapon he’d never liked as well as the Browning. Different safety, different trigger pull. If he had to use it, it would be in close, fast. Not good with an unfamiliar gun. What was he doing here, anyway?
“One minute.” Uno minuto, uno minuto …
He would be among the last out, only the Kenyans behind him, then the Ukrainian rangers who would stay with the chopper. He put his hand on the buckle, ready to unstrap. Where were his gloves? On his hands, of course. It was cold out there. Strange weapon, gloves, Christ—
“Thirty seconds.” Trenta secondi—
“Avanti!”
He watched the Italians bail out; they emptied the chopper like apples coming out of a basket. Alan jumped into the dark after them and hit the snow running, staggered, felt somebody hit him from behind, and he was up and following the dark line of figures ahead of him. They weren’t trotting, they were sprinting, or so it seemed. Somebody passed him, too eager. He whispered, “No—” It must be the Kenyan medics. “Polepole, polepole—” But they surged ahead of him. Only Doctor wa Danio back there now, floundering a little in the snow.
They came out into the village street. It felt like a tunnel, the snowpiles high on each side, thrown up there with shovels, tree limbs overhead like fingers, then charcoal sky. It was lighter in the east, noticeably so now. Faint lights showed in a few of the houses, maybe not even electric, but they were mostly blocked by the snowbanks. He slipped in a frozen rut and almost went down; ahead of him, the Italians were sliding, lurching. His feet made loud crunching noises, like the other feet, all out of step as he’d briefed them so there would be no pounding rhythm. Otherwise, it was silent. Not a tunnel but a tomb. A tomb with running men, running figures that would have been dark shadows moving through their town if anybody had seen them. Ghosts in NVGs.
A cow was walking down the other side of the road. Its breath came out in steamy puffs. Suddenly, it frisked to the side, stood splay-legged, staring at them. It jumped again, then tried to run back up the street, sliding.
He was hyperventilating now. Only a hundred meters, and he was puffing as if he was running the mile. Too fast, too fast, he thought. He