Dead Eye

THIRTY-NINE

Nine Mig-25PD Foxbats, each wearing the yellow trident of the Ukrainian National Air Force, sat in a row on a parking apron at Vasylkiv Air Base, northwest of Kiev. Towable light towers next to each plane gave them a top-down glow. The evening rain had let up less than an hour earlier; now patchy fog hung between the wet fighters and the operations building of the air base, some fifty yards to the north of the apron.

A round and squat control tower rose from the building. On a catwalk around the tower, spotlights hung unmoving next to armed sentries, and inside the tower itself two men sat looking out over the air base. These were not air controllers; there were no official flight operations scheduled this evening. Instead they were the two men assigned to the missile battery attached to the roof of the tower. From the comfort of the heated and covered room they could aim, fire, and control the wire-guided 9M-133 Kornet, a Russian antitank weapon that was also effective against helicopters. Four of the Kornets were visible on rails above the tower.

Three hundred meters west of the control tower, near the front gates of the air base, a concrete barracks building was full of security troops, and this building was also topped with a Kornet missile battery. The two operators at this location were also shielded from the elements and from any attack. In their case an enclosed bunker on the roof right next to the missile launcher protected them. Only their heads were visible through the window, and if there was any sign of trouble, the men could duck down out of sight and operate their weapon in safety by using the camera in the nose cone of the missile.

In addition to the two antitank/antiair batteries, there were eight cement bunkers along the fence line of the air base, each manned with two sentries armed with rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Along with their weapons they controlled powerful searchlights, and all the bunkers were in radio contact with the guard force in the barracks, another sixty men ready to deploy against any threats to base security.

Several armed canine patrols walked the perimeter of the fence, adding an additional ring of protection to the installation.

Although no flight ops were scheduled and no air traffic controllers were present, the lights of the single runway came on just after midnight, and just a minute later, a Russian Antonov AN-74 cargo aircraft appeared above the runway, descending through the impossibly low cloud cover. The plane touched down, stopped on the runway, and, following orders given to the pilot via a text message on his cell phone, taxied toward a darkened hangar near the barracks.

Then the lights of the runway turned off as suddenly as they’d come on.

As the aircraft made its way toward the hangar, Court Gentry crawled out of a drainage ditch alongside the runway. Dressed head to toe in black and wearing a black backpack, he reached back behind him in the ditch and grabbed a second black backpack. It was a large British Army — issued Bergen, and it was slick with mud. He struggled to pull the Bergen out of the ditch and up onto the very edge of the runway, but once he made it to the cement surface, the eighty pounds of equipment inside and strapped to the pack became easier to handle. He’d lashed a skateboard to the back of the bag, after having painted the board and the wheels matte black, and this helped him push the gear along as he scooted along at the runway’s edge.

After ten minutes of movement through the dark, much of it stop and start because he was trying to get his positioning as close to perfect before leaving the runway, he pulled the pack with him into the low wet grass between the runway and the parking apron where the Foxbats were lined up. It took all his might and patience to drag the gear behind him. He strained with the effort, but still he kept his eyes darting from one sentry position to the next.

After another few minutes he made his way to a nearby position in the grass, forty yards from the runway and two hundred from the taxiway and the parking apron. He lay there, prone and still for a moment, alert to any signal that his presence had been detected. When he felt confident his movements had not compromised him, he pulled binoculars from the pack on his back. With them he checked the position of the four men in the two missile battery positions carefully, and then he began backing up in the grass, pulling his huge Bergen with him.

He stopped and rechecked the Kornet locations with his binos. Satisfied he was in the right position for his work ahead, he took a moment to catch his breath.

Court was completely exposed here in the center of the air base; the nearest revetment he could use for cover if the shit hit the fan was over fifty yards away. But he felt good about his chances to remain undetected. He knew all the guards’ positions and he could anticipate their movements, because he had been here on the property for more than twenty-four hours. He’d been delivered inside a base cargo truck that had returned from a local repair shop. While it was in the shop, confederates of the man who contracted Court for this operation had secreted him inside in a stash compartment behind the seats, and then they strapped his gear into the well where the spare tire would normally go.

Court had no problems getting into the base after this; he only had to wait in an impossibly cramped position in the truck for nine hours until he was certain all ground crews had left their station for the night. Then he climbed out of the truck, falling onto a motor pool parking lot with legs that felt like wet noodles. Once he had the use of his lower appendages, he unfastened his bag from the spare tire well and began his work, moving slowly, avoiding sentries and lights.

By dawn he’d made his way three hundred meters to the ditch far out across the field alongside the runway, and here he spent the daylight hours. He had a radio that picked up all the comms around the base, and he monitored the instructions given to the security forces about the meeting that would take place in the middle of the night.

He could tell from the radio traffic that the head of base protection forces, a Ukrainian Army major, thought tonight’s event to be a potential security nightmare, but he also knew the men in charge didn’t give a shit what the major thought. Court knew that an Air Force general who was well connected to the Ukrainian government was getting paid handsomely to provide the air base as a venue for a clandestine transaction between the Iranian Quds Force and the Russian FSB, and the major and his men would not think twice about killing a lone gunman caught on the base during the meet.

He looked back up to the missiles. They sat on their rails, pointing out over the base.

Those were his biggest threat.

Court was worried about the sentries around the airfield. He was concerned about the troops in the barracks near the gate. He was uneasy about the canine patrols on the fence line… but he was terrified of the Kornet missile systems on the control tower and on the roof of the barracks.

Tonight’s clandestine meeting between Russians and Iranians would involve a swap of cash for nuclear secrets. The Persians had the dough and the Russkies had the smarts — hundreds of gigs of plans for maximizing the efficiency of Iran’s nuclear enrichment program stored on three small hard drives; Court knew all this because he had been told by a Russian general, a man who had been cut out of the arrangement and felt swindled by the whole affair. The general had made a deal with Ukrainian mobsters to stop the meeting and to destroy the hard drives full of critical data. The general wasn’t interested in protecting the world from the evils of nuclear proliferation. He just wanted to do his own deal with Iranians and trade them his own hard drives of critical data.

Not long after Court stopped moving in the wet grass, the lights of the runway came back on. This time it was a Lockheed JetStar that landed, a small business jet that could carry eight to ten passengers comfortably. The plane raced past him on his left and then slowed and stopped much farther down the runway. After a moment it began taxiing toward the hangar near the barracks.

Court knew these were the Iranian Quds Force agents, here to drop off the cash and to pick up the computer drives from the Russians. There was no reason the entire transaction needed to take more than a few minutes, so Court knew he had to prepare quickly for what he had in store.

He unzipped the massive canvas Bergen and from it he pulled three huge weapons. They were Russian Dragunov SVD semiautomatic sniper rifles. Each of the ten-pound guns had an eight-power scope and a ten-round magazine. All these sniper rifles already had a round in the chamber, as Court did not want the unmistakable noise of loading a round to carry across the large open field.

He opened the bipods under the barrels of the Dragunovs, positioned them in front of him, and then returned to his pack to retrieve a fourth long gun. This was a collapsed Kalashnikov RPKM light machine gun. It was similar to the ubiquitous AK-47, but it had a longer and heavier barrel and a seventy-five-round magazine. It wore a simple three-power scope and a carry sling.

Court assembled the RPKM and placed it in the grass five feet behind him, and then he rechecked the missile batteries and the hangar where the Iranian JetStar was rolling to a stop near the Antonov.

Satisfied he was good on time, he pulled two more items from his pack. They were RPG-32s, 72-millimeter antitank rockets. Each was housed in a yard-long firing tube, and each weighed six pounds. He opened the sights and the grips on the tubes, and then he laid them in the grass.

The last item taken from the pack was an electronic detonator, a small apparatus that looked like a cell phone, with a number of buttons and a backlit screen. He stood it up on the wet turf in front of him, and then returned his attention to the Dragunov sniper rifles.

He aimed one weapon at the man sitting in the control tower, two hundred sixty yards away, positioning the crosshairs on the only part of the target he could see from his position, the top of his helmet. The other soldier was standing behind him, but walking around the control tower, using his binos to monitor the action near the barracks.

Court let this rifle rest on its bipod and then he pulled the second rifle to him. This one he aimed at one of the Ukrainian soldiers on duty at the battery over the barracks, three hundred forty yards distant. He pulled a large beanbag from his backpack and used this to prop the buttstock of the weapon up, keeping the crosshairs on the target.

He placed the third Dragunov in the grass as close to the second as he could, and with it he aimed at the second sentry in the concrete structure on top of the barracks. This man was walking back and forth with his binoculars, just feet from his seated colleague, and although Court used another beanbag to keep his crosshairs positioned to a point near to where the man walked, he did not track his movements with the rifle.

Instead Court pulled a foot-long aluminum rod from his backpack, and he slid it through the trigger guards of the two Dragunovs positioned toward the antitank missile battery above the bunkhouse.

He blew out a long sigh.

This was going to be tough.

In all his preparation for this op he’d known the absolute most difficult aspect of the equation was the four Ukrainians who could fire wire-guided missiles from the protection of armored bunkers and then, calmly and easily, fly them across the airfield and right up his ass. The only way to prevent them from blowing him to bits, he decided, was to take all four men out while they were in the open. The problem with this plan was, of course, that once he fired his rifle at one target, the other men would only have to drop out of their chairs to be out of sight, where they could still operate their missiles with the onboard television cameras.

Even if he used a suppressed sniper rifle, the flash of light in the center of the air base would be obvious to anyone looking in his general direction, and suppressed gunfire was not silent; it would still carry across the open ground.

He knew he would have one chance before the men ducked down out of his line of fire. If he didn’t get them all at the same moment, the rest of the mission would be a moot point, because Court wouldn’t be alive to execute it.

So he would fire on all four men simultaneously at the beginning of his attack. He’d spent hours on the geometry, using maps and photographs of the air base, and he’d picked all his equipment accordingly.

He grabbed his binoculars and checked the meeting going on at the hangar. Apparently he’d missed the exchange, because the JetStar was closing its cabin door and, less than thirty seconds later, it began rolling back toward the taxiway.

Gentry’s heart pounded as time grew short. He pulled the detonator closer, just under his chin, then he took the Dragunov aimed at the control tower, and dragged it across the grass, and cradled the barrel in the crook of his right arm at his three-o’clock position. He supported the buttstock of this gun with his left biceps, and rested his left trigger finger against the trigger guard. To see through the scope he had to lean to his left and look upside down through the lens. He moved the gun slightly, then focused his attention on the other two rifles. These were in front of him, just four inches apart from one another, their triggers set to fire as one as soon as he pulled back on the aluminum rod resting against them. He looked through each scope and squeezed each beanbag a little to put the crosshairs in the right position. The seated man in the building was lined up perfectly, but the wandering guy with the binos was walking back and forth across the center of the crosshairs.

Court had spent a day in a ditch waiting patiently, but now things started moving very quickly. The JetStar taxied toward him on the runway. It would roll to the end and turn around to start its takeoff roll. The bigger Antonov had loaded up and it waited at the far end of the runway. Court looked left and right, and then back over his shoulder, making sure there were no canine patrols anywhere near him, and then he eyeballed the apron and the row of MIGs, and he saw there was no activity over there, either.

The Iranian jet was one hundred yards away and rolling up the runway on his left. Court started a silent countdown, and then began moving his head from one sniper scope to the next.

He checked the weapon aimed at the control tower. He had the seated man in his sights and the second man was behind him, walking in and out of the line of fire.

He checked the weapon pointed at the seated man at the barracks’ missile battery. The crosshairs were on his forehead.

He checked the other weapon pointed at the missile battery on the roof of the barracks. The moving target walked a little to the left of the crosshairs.

Gentry adjusted the beanbag and then went back to the first scope to repeat the process.

In the space of thirty seconds he checked each rifle three times, made millimeter adjustments when necessary, and continued his countdown, but added a second running clock in his head, and then a third, as he tried to time the movements of the two moving targets.

After one more look through his scopes and a quick glance at the Iranian jet, he put his left trigger finger on the trigger of the rifle positioned at his three o’clock, then hooked a finger on to the aluminum rod controlling the triggers of the side-to-side rifles at his twelve-o’clock position.

He checked all four targets again, looking into both side-by-side scopes and then upside down through the scope on the rifle in the crook of his right arm.

He waited a moment, willing the moving men to move into his crosshairs. “Now,” he said softly, and then he pulled back on the aluminum rod while, simultaneously, his left index finger pressed the trigger on the Dragunov positioned toward the control tower.

All three rifles fired at once, creating a single cacophonous report. The two guns in front of him were not supported by his shoulder, so they flew back into Court’s face as the bullets and hot gasses left their barrels. The gun pointed at his three-o’clock position lurched hard into his biceps.

In the control tower the window glass shattered, the seated man flew back out of his chair, and the man on his feet just behind him dropped his binoculars and fell to the ground.

In the bunker on the roof of the barracks the seated soldier’s head snapped back and he fell forward on the console in front of him. Next to him the man with the binoculars went airborne as he launched back over a desk, and he landed faceup on the cement floor.

Court did not know if he’d hit all four targets; he figured he would only know for sure if an antitank missile arced into the air and began chasing him across the airfield. He did not wait around for this to happen though; as soon as he fired the rifles, he reached for the detonator and pressed a button.

On the parking apron the third MIG 25 Foxbat in the row erupted in a ball of fire. Seconds later a secondary explosion blew fragments of the fighter plane one hundred feet into the air.

In the motor pool parking lot the truck Gentry had used to get into the air base exploded; a fiery cloud roared straight up into the night sky and shrapnel shattered glass in the base operations building.

Court did not stop to watch this handiwork. He rose to his feet, grabbed the RPK light machine gun off the wet turf, and brought it up to his shoulder. He aimed at the Iranian jet taxiing up the runway, just twenty-five yards away, and he fired three short bursts directly through the cockpit windscreen. He slung the big rifle over his shoulder and knelt back into the grass, then he grabbed the first of the two antitank grenade launchers.

Five seconds later a roar of light erupted from the launch tube, and a glowing rocket shot low over the air base, streaking toward the Russian AN-74. It impacted directly with the fuselage at the wing, penetrated the fuel tank, and the entire aircraft disintegrated in a fireball. The airfield came alive with lights and shadows as the fireball rose over the area.

Court left the second rocket tube in the grass and sprinted toward the JetStar, which was now motionless on the runway.

As he ran he began taking fire for the first time. He assumed some of the sentries in the outer fence positions had seen the rocket launch and were firing in the darkness at his position. He had intended for the massive explosions of the MIG and the truck and the Antonov to distract the guard force away from the center of the airfield, but the crack of supersonic rounds whizzing past told him that at least some of the sentries had not been taken in by the ruse. He was two hundred yards away from the nearest sentry, however, and the incoming fire was inaccurate and sporadic.

Searchlights began sweeping the ground all around him as he ran.

He arrived at the motionless executive jet on the runway, aimed his RPK at one of the cabin portals, and released a long burst of automatic fire, shattering the window and depressurizing the cabin. He attached a small stick-on “hinge-popper” to the cabin door, then he rolled under the aircraft to get away from the blast. As the explosive fired, ripping the door off its hinges, Court pulled a flash-bang grenade from his utility belt, and he tossed it through the now open hatch. Again he ducked down and away, and he dropped the RPK onto the runway. When the bang and the flash subsided inside the cabin, he spun back into the doorway, drawing his Glock 17 pistol and leveling it at the three terrified Iranian men inside.

A long burst of machine gun fire raked the runway, kicking sparks up just feet behind him. Court launched himself up and into the cabin of the aircraft, and shoved his pistol against the forehead of the first Iranian intelligence officer.

“Two seconds! Where are the drives?”

“What? What drives? I don’t know what you—”

Court shot the man in the head, then pulled him to the open hatch and kicked him out onto the runway.

He turned to the next man. “Two seconds! Where are the—”

“They are here!” he shouted, and he pointed to a silver case on the floor by his knee.

“Open it!”

The man did as requested, and Court saw three boxy-looking hard drives.

“Both of you. Take off your jackets.”

The men were wearing business suits. They pulled their coats off quickly, with no small amount of confusion. Outside sirens wailed across the airbase, and the bright searchlights locked themselves on the Iranian jet. No one had fired on it yet, but Court knew he couldn’t wait around for the Ukrainians to decide if they would just blow the aircraft off the runway with an antitank missile.

With their coats off, Court was satisfied they weren’t hiding any more computer drives. He ordered the men to climb out of the broken cabin door. They did as they were told, probably stunned that they were being allowed to live, and then both men raised their arms, waving at the searchlights, imploring anyone out there to hold their fire.

Court crawled to the cockpit now, pulled the dead copilot out of his seat, and started to climb into his place. The windscreen was riddled with holes, but Court ignored the poor visibility, and he pushed the throttle all the way forward.

He had less than half the runway to work with, and he was taking off with the wind instead of against it, but Court had done his math, and he knew he had enough concrete ahead of him to get into the air.

As he picked up speed, he adjusted the flaps for takeoff. Tracer rounds from automatic weapons began sweeping across the night sky in front of the jet, and he tried to lower his body down in the seat, but he did not have much room to work with, so instead just did his best to get his speed up as fast as possible.

A burst of gunfire hit the fuselage behind him, but he kept his focus out the broken windscreen ahead, and he pulled up on the yoke near the end of the runway.

The aircraft lifted into the air and was immediately enshrouded by the thick clouds.

As the damaged jet climbed past five hundred feet, Court left the controls, climbed out of the cockpit, and made his way over the body of the copilot and back into the cabin. The wind screamed through the open door, the black cloudy night pressed right up to the interior cabin lighting, giving Gentry the impression that he was flying inside a bowl of thick soup. He dropped to his knees, took off his backpack, and removed two items.

The first was a small parachute rig. It took up half the size of the backpack, and he was able to put it on in under twenty seconds.

The second item was smaller, just three pounds and no larger than a loaf of bread. The black box had a protective cap on one end, and he slipped his finger under the cap and flipped a switch. He placed the device next to the three hard drives on the floor of the cabin, and then, at an altitude of less than two thousand feet, Gentry rolled out of the cabin of the JetStar and into the wet black sky.

The aircraft continued ascending for another thirty seconds, and then the three pounds of Semtex plastic explosive detonated, obliterating the jet and everything inside it.

Gentry landed in an open field less than ninety seconds after bailing out of the stricken jet.

Russ Whitlock relayed the story he had just heard from Gentry, putting necessary details in the first person. On the other end of the phone, Ali Hussein did not say a single word while the American talked, but when Russ finished, ending the story in the field west of Kiev and telling Hussein that the rest of his exfiltration was none of the Iranian’s business, Ali Hussein finally spoke. “Mr. Gray, I am more than satisfied now. Your version matches perfectly with the testimony of our two surviving operatives. The contract is yours. I only need to know where you would like me to deliver the payment when the contract is fulfilled.”

Russ Whitlock smiled. There had been difficulties, setbacks, but his operation was finally back on track.

“I will send you the account information via text.”

“Very well.”

Russ said, “There is one more thing. When the contract is completed, regardless of the circumstances… my circumstances… regardless what you hear about me… you will pay the money.”

Ali Hussein did not understand. “Please make your conditions clear, Mr. Gentry.”

“Simply put, I will need to go to ground after this. You may hear that I have been killed. Of course it is possible that I won’t survive my attempt on Prime Minister Kalb, but more likely what you see on the news will be well-orchestrated disinformation.”

“I see.”

“Your organization will be tempted to keep the money owed me.” He paused a long time before saying, “That would be a mistake.”

“I understand. Be assured. Inshallah, when you fulfill your obligations in the contract, we will fulfill ours. Whether you are around to withdraw the money from the account or not, the money will be there.”

“Very good, Ali Hussein. I will text you the account number,” he said, and he ended the call.