Locked On

77

Mohammed al Darkur knocked on the door of Ryan and Dominic’s flat at nine a.m. The Americans were up and drinking coffee, and they poured a cup for the Pakistani major while he talked.

“There have been developments overnight. Artillery shells from India have struck the village of Wahga, just east of Lahore, killing thirty civilians. PDF returned fire into India. We don’t know about damage there. Another shelling, just a few miles further north, damaged a mosque.”

Ryan cocked his head. “How strange that Rehan, the guy who’s orchestrating this entire conflict, happens to be in the area.”

The major said, “We can’t discount his involvement in these acts. Rogue Pakistani forces could be firing on their own country in order to escalate Pakistan’s response.”

“What’s the plan today?” asked Caruso.

“If Rehan leaves his flat, we follow him. If anyone comes to Rehan’s flat, we follow them.”

“Simple enough,” replied Dom.

Georgi Safronov sat alone in the third-floor cafeteria of the LCC and finished his breakfast: coffee, a reconstituted bowl of potato soup from the cafeteria, and a cigarette. He was bone-tired, but he knew he would get his energy back. He had spent most of the early morning conducting phone interviews with news stations from Al Jazeera to Radio Havana, spreading the word of the plight of the people of Dagestan. It was necessary work, he needed to leverage this event in any way possible to help his cause, but he had never worked so hard in his life as he had in the past few months.

While he smoked he watched the television on the wall. It was a news report showing Russian armored forces moving north near the Caspian Sea in northern Dagestan. The commentator said Russian government sources were denying this had anything to do with the situation at the Cosmodrome, but Safronov knew that, like much of Russian television, it was a bald-faced lie.

Several of his men had seen a television in a ground-floor office, and they rushed in to the cafeteria to embrace their leader. Tears welled in his eyes as the emotion of his men brought his own nationalistic pride to the forefront of his consciousness. He had wanted this all his life, long before he knew what that feeling inside him was, the sense of purpose, of untapped power.

A need to belong to something greater.

Today was the greatest day in Georgi Safronov’s life.

A call came over the radio that Magomed Dagestani — Georgi’s nom de guerre — was wanted in the launch control room for a call. He assumed it was his awaited conversation with Commander Nabiyev, and he hurried out of the cafeteria. He was anxious to talk to the prisoner and to make arrangements for his arrival. He took the back steps down to the second floor, then entered the LCC through the south stairwell entrance. He put on his headset and took the call.

It was the Kremlin crisis center. Vladimir Gamov, the director of the Russian Federal Space Agency, was on the line. Georgi thought his own family relationship with Gamov was the only reason the old gasbag was the one communicating with him, as if it made any difference. “Georgi?”

“Gamov, I have asked to be called by another name.”

“I am sorry, Magomed Dagestani, it’s just that I have known you as Georgi since the 1970s.”

“Then we both were misled. Are you going to connect me with Nabiyev?”

“Yes, I will patch him through in a moment. First I wanted to let you know the status of the troop movements in the Caucasus. I want to be clear. We have begun but there are over fifteen thousand troops in Dagestan alone. Twice that in Chechnya and more in Ingushetia. Many are on leave, many are on patrols or multiday exercises and away from their bases. We simply cannot move them in a day. We are pushing everyone north we can. We are flying people out via the airport and the air base, but we will not have everyone out by your deadline. If you can give us one more day and one more night you will see our full commitment.”

Safronov did not commit to anything. “I will check with my own sources to make sure this is not a propaganda trick. If you are really moving units north, then I will consider extending the deadline for one day. No promises, Gamov. Now, let me speak with Commander Nabiyev.”

Georgi was put through and soon he found himself speaking with the young leader of the military wing of his troops. Nabiyev informed Safronov that he was told by his captors that he would be delivered to Baikonur that evening.

Georgi wept with joy.

Clark, Chavez, Gummesson, and Rainbow planners spent the entire day in their heated tent in the parking lot of the Sputnik Hotel, going over schematics and maps and photographs and other materials to help them prepare for an attack on the Cosmodrome.

By noon Clark had come up with ideas that Spetsnaz had not thought of for their hit, and by three Chavez and Clark had an attack plan that was marveled at by the Rainbow officers, men who had been forced into a risk-aversion mentality in the past year and a half. They took a short break, and then the various assault teams broke off for unit planning while Clark and Chavez briefed Russian Air Force pilots.

At seven p.m. Chavez lay down on a bunk for ninety minutes of rest. He was tired, but he was already amped up about the evening ahead.

Georgi Safronov was told that Israpil Nabiyev would arrive in a Russian Air Force transport helicopter around 10:30 p.m. The Dagestani rocket entrepreneur and terrorist, after conferring with some of the thirty-four remaining rebels, told Gamov how the transfer would be made. His stipulations were specific to ensure that there were no tricks on the part of the Russians. He wanted Commander Nabiyev’s chopper to land on the far side of the parking lot at the LCC, and Nabiyev alone to walk the seventy meters to the front entrance. The entire time he would be under bright spotlights mounted on the roof of the LCC. There would be gunmen on the roof as well as gunmen at the front entrance of the LCC to ensure no one else got out of the chopper.

Gamov wrote everything down, conferred with the crisis center, who agreed to all Safronov’s requests. They did have one caveat. They demanded that all the foreign prisoners be released from the LCC at the same time Nabiyev was released from the helicopter.

Safronov smelled a trap. “Director, please, no tricks. I will require simultaneous video feed from inside the helicopter linked to us here in launch control. I will also require direct radio comms with Commander Nabiyev for the journey from the airport to the LCC. If you stock the helicopter with your troops, I will know it.” Gamov again left the call to confer with others, but when he returned he agreed that an audio/video link with Nabiyev inside the helicopter could be established en route from the airport so Safronov and his people at the LCC could see that the Dagestani military commander was in the helicopter with only a few crewmen and minimal security watching over him.

Georgi was satisfied, and he ended the call to notify his men of the arrangement.

The streets of Lahore were still chaotic at nine p.m. Jack and Dominic were alone at the time, sitting in a fast food restaurant a quarter-mile from where Rehan and his entourage had gone into a mosque. Al Darkur had sent one of his own men into the mosque to keep an eye on the general, and al Darkur himself had gone to a nearby police station to requisition body armor and rifles. He had also contacted a friend in an SSG unit stationed nearby, asking the captain to send men to assist him on an intelligence operation in the city, but the SSG had been inexplicably ordered to remain in their base.

Ryan and Dom watched the news on a TV set up on the counter of the restaurant. They were hoping for news of events in Kazakhstan, but in Lahore, Pakistan, at the moment at least, all news was local.

They had just finished their fried chicken and were sipping their Cokes when a booming explosion rocked the street outside. The glass panes in the windows shook, but they did not break.

The two Americans ran out of the restaurant to see what had happened, but just as they made it onto the sidewalk, another explosion, this one closer, nearly knocked them down.

They assumed a pair of bombs had gone off, but then they heard a hellish sound like ripping paper broadcast through an amplifier. This sound ended with another explosion, this one even closer than the first two.

“That’s incoming, cuz!” Dominic said, and both men joined the crowd on the sidewalk running in the other direction.

Another ripping-fabric noise and another crash, this one a block away to the east, turned much of the crowd to the south.

Jack and Dom stopped running. Ryan said, “Let’s get inside. Not much else we can do.” They ran into a bank building and got far from the windows. There were another half-dozen explosions, some barely audible in the distance. The sounds of sirens filled the air, and then distant chattering of automatic gunfire.

“Shit. Did the war just start?” Dom asked, but Jack thought it likely that Pakistani forces in the city were getting jumpy.

“Like Darkur said, this could be some Rehan-allied PDF artillery battery swinging their own guns around on orders from their leader.”

Dom shook his head. “Fucking beards.”

Outside the bank, PDF armored cars raced by, civilian vehicles swerved out of their way.

Jack’s phone chirped, and he answered it.

It was al Darkur. “Rehan is on the move!”

Rehan finally left his flat near the Sunehri Mosque at nine p.m., during the height of rush hour in the congested city. In addition to the commuters, the rush out of town continued, clogging streets that were filling up quickly with Pakistani Defense Force armor and troops.

Ryan, Caruso, al Darkur, and two of the major’s subordinates had trouble tailing the general and his entourage at first, but when Rehan and his small team pulled into a parking lot on Canal Bank Road, where they met up with three carloads of young bearded men in civilian dress, the van following them found them easier to keep an eye on.

Ryan said, “There must be a dozen guys in those cars, plus Rehan and his crew makes sixteen.”

The major nodded. “And these new men do not look like ISI or PDF. They are LeT, I would swear it.”

Ryan said, “Mohammed, if we have to go up against sixteen bad guys, I could use a little more firepower.”

“I’ll arrange for that, do not worry.” And with that the major grabbed his mobile phone.