The Emperor's Revenge

FIVE

“I found a body!”

The shout came from one of Nazari’s men. They’d been digging at the side of the plane for a half hour, trying to find a way into the bomb bay. The bomb bay was directly under the wing roots, which they’d revealed early in the dig.

They had also uncovered the canopy, and none of the three officers who’d been aboard the plane were inside. It was likely all three had survived the crash. A dead man would have been left in his seat while the others waited outside for rescue.

When the Egyptian made his discovery, everyone else stopped digging and rushed to see what he’d found.

Only the head was visible. Even though it had been there nearly sixty years, the mummified features were plainly visible. The skin was stretched and dried, exposing the teeth and empty eye sockets in a gruesome expression. Hair still covered the head.

It was the obvious place for them to find remains. Anyone who’d stayed with the aircraft instead of wandering into the desert would have taken refuge in the shade of the immense wing, which had been sheared off fifteen feet from the fuselage but still provided protection from the intense midday sun.

They all scooped sand away from the corpse to uncover a green U.S. Air Force flight suit. The bars on his shoulder indicated he was a captain. The patch underneath read 369th Bomb Squadron. The name on the man’s chest patch was Robert Hodgin.

Further digging revealed the mummified corpse was still holding a logbook. Nazari removed it roughly from the desiccated hand, flipped through it, and tossed it to Juan.

“Translate that.”

The logbook indicated that Hodgin was the aircraft commander. All of the entries leading up to March 10, 1956, were standard status reports about fuel, heading, and aircraft condition.

On March 11, Hodgin’s script suddenly became the less confident scrawl of a man in desperate straits. While Juan translated into Arabic, Eddie and Linc read the English over his shoulder. The date and precise military time preceded each entry.

The scrawl of Hodgin’s writing was getting increasingly shaky. Juan continued to translate.

“That’s it,” Juan said, smoothly pocketing the logbook. He could only imagine the pain, desperation, and loneliness Hodgin must have gone through. Who knows how far Insley and Kurtz got before they succumbed to the elements.

Nazari didn’t seem moved at all by Hodgin’s suffering. “Now we know that the cases are still intact. Keep digging so we can get into the bomb bay.” He checked his satellite phone, then gestured at two men. “Come with me.”

Juan looked at Eddie and Linc, then back at Nazari. “Where are you going?”

“Why is that your business?”

“Well, we’ve just found out that we’re going to be digging out nuclear weapon cores. I just wanted to know if there are any other surprises you haven’t shared with us.”

Nazari stroked his beard in thought before speaking. “Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb wants this recovery as much as we do. They also know the location of this airplane and crossed over the Algerian border from Libya yesterday. We don’t know the size of their force, but they should be coming from the east. I’m going to that escarpment to scout for any signs that they are getting close.” He pointed at a bluff about three miles away.

“We should all go,” Juan said, “in case we need to engage them.”

“No. You five keep digging.”

Juan was protesting for the sake of appearances. In reality, he liked the improved balance of forces. It would be him, Linc, and Eddie against Nazari’s remaining two soldiers.

With his two men, Nazari walked toward a Scorpion, the number 3 dune buggy that was parked closest to the B-47. But instead of getting into the passenger seat, he hopped up into the top seat behind the .50 caliber machine gun. He swung the barrel so that it was pointed at Juan and racked the bolt.

“Drop your weapons!” Nazari yelled.

Juan exchanged surprised glances with Eddie.

Linc looked coiled to go on the attack. “I’m pretty sure I don’t need a translation to know what he just said.”

Juan put up his hands. “What are you doing?”

Nazari didn’t blink. “I said drop them.”

Juan nodded, and they did as they were told. Linc reluctantly unslung the AK-47 from his back, and Juan and Eddie unslung theirs slowly and threw them to the ground. Nazari’s men grabbed the guns and backed up, piling them on the hood of Scorpion 3.

“Now that you know what we’ve come for,” Nazari said as he gestured for one of his soldiers to take his place at the machine gun, “you might get it into your heads to sell the nuclear cores for yourself.” He jumped down as another of his men climbed up and took position behind the .50 caliber M2.

“If you don’t trust us,” Juan said, “why did you hire us?”

“Because you had the only means to get us here before the Libyans. And since I need to go see if they are anywhere close, I can’t leave you with three-to-two odds. As I mentioned, you seem to be a man who will do what it takes to get the mission done.”

“Your mission is the same as my mission.” Both the truth and a lie, depending on how you parsed the phrase.

“Maybe. But I can’t take that chance when we’re so close. If you keep digging, I’ll let you live. If you try anything, Hasim is to kill you without hesitation.” He glanced at the man on the machine gun, who nodded, and then turned back to Juan. “Do you understand?”

Juan backed up and picked up one of the shovels. “Of course.” Eddie and Linc followed his lead and lifted two more shovels. They started digging, joined by Nazari’s other soldier. Hasim stayed at his post behind the machine gun, his hands resting on the vertical spade grips, his thumb on the trigger.

Nazari and the other two soldiers got in Scorpion 1.

“I hate to point this out,” Eddie said, “but Nazari is taking our ride.”

“I noticed,” Juan said as he shoveled sand. “We’ll deal with that when we need to.”

The driver started the engine and took off, flinging sand behind the fat tires. In another minute, they were over the next dune and out of sight.

As they dug, Juan nodded his head in a rhythm only he could hear. After five minutes, he seemed to point and give instructions in English to Eddie and Linc about where to dig so that their captors wouldn’t realize they were having a conversation.

“We’ll give Nazari fifteen minutes to reach the escarpment and dismount,” he said. “That’s when we’ll make our move. Linc, you take out our digging companion. Eddie and I will rush the machine gun.”

Linc nodded and started digging in the spot that Juan had pointed to. “Do you think that’ll give us enough time to recover the nuclear cases?”

“Did you figure out Hodgin’s code?” Eddie asked.

Juan nodded in response to both questions. In his translation to Nazari, he’d left out one key note that Hodgin had recorded in his logbook. Linc and Eddie didn’t give any sign that Juan had skipped it, and he had committed the passage to memory.

Hodgin knew that no Russian would recognize the American references. Jimmy Durante was a famous comedian and singer of the era known by the nickname “The Schnozzola” for his bulbous nose. Hodgin had buried the cases straight in front of the plane’s nose.

The number of paces to count off referred to Elvis Presley’s hit “Blue Suede Shoes.” Juan had played the song back in his head while he was digging and counted twenty-one mentions of the word blue. If he was right, twenty-one paces out was where they should dig.

“I’m glad you knew the song,” Linc said. “I’m more of a Marvin Gaye fan.”

“If it had been a Beatles song, I would have been all over it,” Eddie chimed in.

“That would have been about ten years too late,” Juan said. “Be ready for my signal.”

He waited another ten minutes to be sure Nazari was at the farthest point in his trek. The timing would be close, depending on how far down the cases had been buried. Given Hodgin’s feeble condition at the time, he couldn’t have dug very deep. They had to hope the same storm that exposed the aircraft hadn’t heaped more sand over the spot.

Juan speared his shovel into the sand and leaned back to stretch. He took the canteen from his belt and conspicuously drained it. He shook it out looking for more, then turned and started walking toward the Scorpion.

Hasim, the soldier at the machine gun, straightened at the movement toward him.

“Where are you going?” he demanded.

“To get more water.”

“Keep digging.”

Juan kept moving toward the dune buggy only forty feet away. “I’m thirsty.”

“I don’t care. You’ll get water when Nazari gets back.”

Thirty-five feet. The AK-47s were still lying on the hood of Scorpion 3.

“Stop! I will kill you and your men if you don’t.”

Juan picked up his pace. Thirty feet now.

The M2’s sight was squarely on Juan’s chest.

“Stop!”

Juan broke into a run.

Hasim didn’t shout again. He thumbed the trigger and let loose a deafening barrage of .50 caliber shells.