First Team [First Team 01] Read online

  Instead of wires, the space was filled by a low-grade radioactive sludge, processed from medical waste. He reached in and began to scoop, pulling out what looked and felt like dry, lumpy clay. Finally he reached metal. He felt all around with his hand, but found no cable. He took his knife and pounded again; this time it didn’t give way.

  All right, he thought to himself, the roof is next.

  Ferguson took off his shirt and cleaned his hand, tossing the shirt back down. Then he pulled over the floor panel, worried that Conners or even he might roll around and fall through if the plane hit violent turbulence.

  Lying near the front of the cargo bay, Conners alternated between sleep and a vague, light consciousness, his mind dipping back and forth between black darkness and gray twilight. A dozen songs played at the back of his head, and at times he saw the face of a friend of his, a kid he’d known in high school, real party animal, always ready with a smoke or beer. Other sensations slipped through his mind, colors and sounds and smells, but he didn’t focus on any one thing until Ferguson came over to him, sitting him up to search for his knife. Conners groaned, his stomach rumbling again.

  “Just want your knife, Dad,” Ferguson told him. “You rest.”

  Ferg’s voice salted his clouded consciousness—Conners snapped fully awake.

  “We have to stop these fucks,” he told Ferguson.

  “Yeah, Dad, no shit,” said Ferguson. “I need your knife.”

  “Force the door,” said Dad.

  “They welded it or something,” said Ferguson. “I couldn’t get it open.”

  “Blast it.”

  “I need your knife.”

  “OK.”

  Ferguson didn’t bother explaining. He took the knife and the laptop and began looking for an easy area to scale.

  “We got to get them, Ferg,” Conners called to him, yelling over the high hum of the engines. He pulled off his vomit-soaked shirt, pushing it toward the pile of puke on the floor.

  Ferguson examined the panel over the center of the plane. He thought he could get all but the last three screws relatively easily. With the others gone, he could put his weight on the panel and pull it down. He propped the laptop up nearby and went to work.

  Conners pushed to get up, thinking he would help Ferguson. Ferg heard him groan as he settled back down.

  “Listen, Dad, you just hang out down there, OK?” Ferguson squinted at him. “I have this under control.”

  “We have to stop the plane, Ferg.”

  “I’m with you. You just relax.”

  The laptop flew off the narrow ledge where Ferguson had wedged it as the airplane bucked with a strong eddy of wind. It smacked into pieces on the floor back near the door. Ferguson cursed, then continued to work, managing to get four screws off in the darkness. He tried to shortcut the process by wedging the knife in and hanging off the panel; when that didn’t work, he went back to working at the screws, his weight shifting precariously as he leaned across from the built-up panel at the side. It was almost impossible to move the screws that were tight, but he found that he could push the heads down a little by prying and hanging on the panel. He began to snap them off, one by one.

  “How’s it going?” Conners asked.

  “We’re getting there. Three more years, and we’ll be done.”

  Conners moved his legs, trying to warm them somewhat. He started humming to himself without really thinking about it, falling into “Jug of Punch.”

  “Glad you’re feeling better,” said Ferguson.

  “How’s that?”

  “You’re singing.”

  “Just humming. Trying to boost your morale.”

  “Go for it.” Ferguson grabbed hold of the side of the panel and put his legs against the edge of the small shelf he’d been perched on. Then he sprang forward, pushing with all his might. The last screws snapped. He tumbled to the floor, the aluminum grate clanging on top of him.

  “Finnegan lived in Walken Street, a gentle Irishman, mighty odd,’” sang Ferguson, starting to look for his knife. By the time he had found the knife, Conners had joined in. Ferguson walked back toward him to climb up; Conners sensed him coming in the dark and reached out his hand.

  “When you take out the controls, we’ll be goners,” he said. His voice was matter-of-fact.

  “Yeah,” said Ferguson. “We got to do it, Dad.”

  “I just want to say, you’re all right for a CIA spook.”

  “Yeah, we’re not all dicks,” said Ferg, reaching in the blackness for his handholds. “Though we try.”

  ~ * ~

  14

  BUILDING 24-442

  Thomas stared at the screen, which had all of the information he had been able to compile on assets connected to the companies he now saw must be related to bin Saqr. Those assets included a 747—but it wasn’t the right airplane.

  He knew it wasn’t the right airplane because he had tracked through the ID registries and—after an assist by the Boeing people to make sure there was no possibility of a mistake—had found the aircraft in operation just a few days before in India. It was registered to a legitimate Sri Lankan firm, and had made a flight into that country’s airport at Kankesaturai.

  But of course that couldn’t be, since the plane was in Chechnya.

  Thomas at first resisted the obvious conclusion: that the terrorists were using the Sri Lankan company and owned two aircraft. He searched for more information about the Sri Lankan company and its other holdings: several very old 707s. He thought that the listing of the aircraft with the other firm must therefore be a mistake, since unlike the one believed to have flown from Chechnya this one made legitimate flights.

  The company had to be involved, and there had to be at least two planes. But the firm was not on any of the hot lists and had no connection to bin Saqr or any of the terrorist groups associated with Allah’s Fist, al-Qaida, or any other group. Thomas dismissed it once more as a mistake. But as he prepared to ask for a fresh affiliate search from the DCI Counterterrorist Center, it occurred to him that he was merely avoiding the obvious. He was, after all, doing what countless disbelievers in UFOs did—going through contortions to disprove what was right in front of their noses.

  Two planes. Bin Saqr had two planes, and access to legitimate identifiers belonging to the Sri Lankan company.

  Thomas jumped from his chair His energy grew as he covered his materials; by the time he hit the corridor he was in a frenzy of conviction. He raced downstairs, impatiently submitted to the security checks, then walked so quickly to the sit room that he was short of breath.

  “You need a shave, Thomas,” said Corrigan, looking up from the desk.

  “Sri Lanka,” Thomas told him. “And I think they may have two planes.”

  “Two?”

  Thomas started to push his papers toward Corrigan. “Look at these registries.”

  “It’s all right, I trust you,” said Corrigan. “We’ll put Sri Lanka on the search list.”

  “Kankesaturai,” said Thomas. “The airport there—I have satellite photos of their facilities, and I’ve asked for information on flights out.”

  “What about Manila?”

  “It doesn’t fit yet.”

  Corrigan had taken a shower and a twenty-minute power nap, but he was still bogged down by fatigue. He struggled to focus on Thomas’s data and compute what it meant.

  “Would they bomb Sri Lanka?”

  “They’re not,” said Thomas. “They’re just refueling.”

  “Refueling?”

  “It must be. They could fly from there to Manila.”

  But they hadn’t bought enough fuel to refuel there. Did the Sri Lankan airline have a terminal at the airport?

  Thomas thought it didn’t, but he’d have to check.

  “Thomas?” said Corrigan. “What about LA? Is it the target?”

  “I don’t know,” said Thomas. “To get to LA they’d have to refuel, so it could be. But they didn’t buy enough fuel for that.”<
br />
  “What did they buy fuel for?”

  “A little water taxi, probably just a cover, a phony company.”

  “You sure?” asked Corrigan.

  “No. We should check it out,” said Thomas. He was back to his map—Hawaii had been just outside the range of targets from Sri Lanka. “We have to protect Honolulu,” he said.

  “Hawaii?”

  “Paradise!” Thomas practically shouted the word, realizing now the significance of the NSA intercepts he’d seen the first day he started.

  “You sure?”

  “Do it,” he said. “And Sri Lanka. We have to check there. And Manila.”

  “All right. Take a breath,” said Corrigan, picking up his headset. “Give me the names one at a time.”

  ~ * ~

  15

  MANILA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, PHILIPPINES— AN HOUR LATER

  When Rankin arrived, the airport had been locked down. No aircraft was allowed to land without escort, and none could take off except after a thorough search. U.S. and Philippine military authorities controlled the airspace around the islands, and security was so tight that Rankin and the others had to prove their identities even after an F-16 escorted them to the base.

  A temporary joint command task force had been established in an empty hangar, and they went immediately to find the commander. He turned out to be a lieutenant general from the Marines, who took one look at the unkempt men in front of him and demanded to know what the hell they were doing in a military command post.

  “We’re Special Forces, part of Special Demands and the operation that found the terrorists,” Rankin explained.

  Before he could get to his request for a helicopter and troops to check out the boating operation, the general waved over one of his aides, a major whose shoulders were wider than some small cars.

  “Debrief these men,” said the general. “See what useful information they have for us.”

  “With all due respect, sir, the briefing should come from uh, the Team desk,” said Rankin. “We have our own orders—”

  “I’m countermanding your orders. You’re under my command now.”

  “Well, no, that’s not the way it works,” said Rankin.

  “What? Who the hell do you think you’re talking to, soldier?” asked the general.

  “With respect, sir,” said Rankin. “We already have a job to do. We want to find these fucks.”

  The major looked like he was ready to grab Rankin by the neck and wrestle him outside.

  “You’re not addressing me, are you?” said the general.

  “Well, sir—uh, with respect,” said Rankin, his tone suggesting anything but. “Our orders come through a different pipeline.”

  “Have them debriefed, Major.”

  “Let’s go, soldier,” said the major, putting his hand on Rankin’s chest.

  Guns tugged at Rankin’s arm, and the two men followed the major outside, trailed by Massette. Had the Marine officer simply grilled them on what type of aircraft they were looking for, Rankin might have calmed down and simply called Corrine and asked her to talk to the thickheaded officer. But instead he started bawling Rankin out for disrespect; when the words “court-martial” left his lips, Rankin turned in disgust.

  “I don’t have time for this horseshit,” said Rankin, furious. He started to walk away.

  “Soldier, you get your butt back here until you’re dismissed,” said the major.

  Rankin’s graphic description of what the Marine officer could do with that particular instruction was deflected by Guns, who suggested that all parties concerned would benefit from a phone call to the Cube. He pulled out his sat phone—the major’s eyes grew a bit wide as he saw it—and dialed into Corrigan.

  Massette took advantage of the momentary diversion to pull Rankin away, and the two men walked away from the hangar.

  “Fucking asshole,” said Rankin.

  “He’s an officer; what do you expect?” said Massette.

  “Exactly,” said Rankin.

  Guns in the meantime managed to calm the major by handing the phone to him; Corrigan applied some of his PsyOp training, assuring the major that it was due to his unit’s efforts that the Philippines were considered secure—and by the way, the hippies who’d just arrived there were CIA employees, not familiar with the chain of command. Temporarily mollified if misinformed, the major handed the phone back to Guns. Corrigan told him to run down the water taxi service Thomas had found and stay the hell away from the lieutenant general until Corrine talked to him. The service had an office at Polillo, an island in the bay on the other side of Luzon.

  “How we supposed to get there?” Rankin asked Guns when he came back.

  “Corrigan suggested we rent a car.”

  “Screw that. We’re at a fucking airport.” Rankin craned his head around. There were several Marine Sea Stallion helos nearby, but it was a good bet the Marines wouldn’t be lending them out anytime soon. Nor would the Navy give up any of its aircraft if it had to check with the lieutenant general for clearance.

  On the other hand, there were four Philippine Air Force MD 500MG Defenders parked by an auxiliary building near an American Airlines flight that had been parked for a search.

  “Beats driving,” said Massette.

  They made their way over to the helicopters, and after checking with their guards were directed to the colonel in charge of the unit. The colonel had indeed been shunted away from the action by the Marines and was none too pleased about it. The MD 500s were older versions of the A-6 Little Bird scouts, which were used by SOAR and other SF units; though no longer on the cutting edge, they were still potent scouts and capable gunships. Rankin explained who they were and that they had a lead out on Polillo.

  “Why would the terrorists want a water taxi?” asked the colonel.

  Rankin could only shrug. “We won’t know until we get there,” he said.

  “Well, let us go then, all of us,” said the colonel, turning and snapping orders to one of his aides.

  “You’re beginning to sound like Ferg,” said Guns, as they climbed into one of the choppers.

  “Fuck you, too,” said Rankin.

  ~ * ~

  16

  OVER THE PACIFIC

  Ferguson stabbed the knife at the thick wire cable, unable to see in the dark what he was hitting.

  The blade deflected off something hard. He pounded again, felt it slap through something softer. Ferg pulled it out and stabbed once more. The knife found the plastic covering of the cable, cut through—he hacked at it, confidence beginning to build. But with his next blow he felt the knife tip break. Stopping, he leaned back and put the knife into his belt, then reached up to feel the spot with his fingers. A thick collar ran beneath the plastic; beneath that was a piece of pipe. He took the knife out and hacked more carefully, prying away material until he had about six inches’ worth of it exposed about the thickness of a fist.

  “I’m going to try shooting through it,” he told Conners. “You with me, Dad?”

  “I’m here, Ferg.”

  Ferguson adjusted his feet, then leaned on his left arm, trying to get into position so he could brace his arm as he fired. He shifted around twice, leaning back and forth.

  “Yeah, here we go,” he said. Ferguson pushed his forehead against his arm to help steady it, then pressed the trigger.

  ~ * ~

  17

  ABOARD SF COMMAND TRANSPORT 3, OVER THE PERSIAN GULF

  As soon as Corrigan described the Sri Lanka connection, one of the operators at a nearby console put up his hand and started waving at Corrine. “There’s a Sri Lankan aircraft approaching grid space F-32,” he said. “It’s a 747.”

  “Get planes on it.”

  “They’re already approaching.”

  The aircraft in question was a cargo version 747 just entering air space over Malaysia. It took about three minutes to arrange for a radio feed directly into the pilots’ circuit. Slammer One-Four and Slammer One-Six wer
e about sixty seconds from having the plane in visual distance. It had already been checked electronically, and Corrine’s own information confirmed that the plane was on a scheduled flight to Brunei.

  “We want them to land at Subang,” Corrine told the pilots. Subang Air Base was part of Kuala International Airport. Two American Special Forces soldiers were assigned as advisors to an army unit there, and the Malaysian military had been contacted to stand by and secure any diverted aircraft. “They’re to land there immediately.”