Nighthawk

24

A long, pointed cone stuck out horizontally from beneath a tarp. It stood a dozen feet off the ground and was unmistakably the nose of a high-speed aircraft. Streaks of blackened oxidation swept back from the tip that suggested it had been through a fire, but the soot-colored stripes were caused by friction with the air and the heat of traveling at five times the speed of sound.

Several men with reddish brown skin hauled lines connected to the tarp and pulled it forward until it covered the entire aircraft.

“Stake that down,” someone yelled. “I’ll not have another windstorm pulling it free.”

While the first group of workers pulled the tarp taut, a second group moved into place with sledgehammers. With repeated blows, they pounded long spikes deep into the ground. When they’d finished, the tie-down rings at the edge of the tarp were hooked to the spikes and locked down.

As the men worked in the chilled mountain air, white vapors streamed from their mouths and noses. They wore colorful coats of alpaca wool, while the man who supervised them was dressed in modern black garb and wore a balaclava over his face.

“Two more spikes here,” he said.

As the section he’d pointed to was secured, another man came up to him. He had his long sleeves pushed up to the elbows, exposing an old scar that ran the length of his forearm. “We’ve doubled the number of stakes,” he said. “And the men are cutting more branches to lay across it.”

“Have them cut slits in the tarp as well,” the man wearing the balaclava said. “Up high.”

“But won’t that expose—”

“It will keep the tarp from lifting. Aerodynamics. Trust me, my friend. This is my business.”

The second man nodded. “Do you think we’ve been noticed?”

“I checked the satellite tables,” the man in the balaclava said. “Fortunately, we’re in a remote part of the mountains. No one is flying spy satellites over this area. Not yet, at least. But, we can expect that to change soon. Another exposure could ruin everything.”

“But you want them to find the bomber?” the second man said, unsure and trying to follow his master’s lead.

“Oh, yes. But on our schedule, not theirs.”

The man with the scar on his arm nodded and turned away, walking toward the forest. He made a whirling motion with his hand and chain saws roared as the men began cutting down branches and felling entire trees, all of which would be dragged forward and used to disguise the landed treasure.

The man in the balaclava was pleased. With the aircraft covered again and the camouflage work progressing, he ducked under the edge of the tarp and walked beneath the bomber’s sharply swept wing. He passed the squared-off engine pods and continued forward beneath the fuselage, careful not to bump any of the antennas or aerodynamic probes that stuck out beneath the plane. With its sharp edges and armored exterior, the aircraft seemed to him like a sleeping dragon. One that would wake and breathe fire soon enough.

He arrived at a ladder that dropped from the center of the fuselage just behind the nose gear. He climbed it slowly, arriving in the darkened crew compartment. Another of his men was inside. He wore fur-lined boots and a colorful poncho over his shoulders.

“What about them?” the man asked in his native tongue. “Another night like the last and they’ll freeze to death.”

He was referring to the Russian pilots, bound and gagged and sitting on the floor of the aircraft. Three nights in the frigid plane without food or much to drink had taken most of the fight out of them. A swath of dried and frozen blood beside them where another crewman’s throat had been cut served as a warning not to argue.

“They bring disease,” the man wearing the balaclava said. “But we’ll need them when the time comes. Take them to the cave.”

The man in the poncho whistled down to several others and the prisoners were soon being taken down the ladder and hauled away.

With the tarp covering the aircraft, it was dark in the cockpit, but it would be darker for the prisoners in their cave. And darker still for the world to come.

“Keep everyone on alert,” the man in the balaclava replied. “Things will happen at a rapid pace now. The lure has been set. The trap will not remain empty for long.”