On the not-so-good side of the ledger, there were six of them.
Six men with guns.
Rapp pictured the cabin’s layout as he rehearsed each and every shot.
Then he was aboard.
CHAPTER 82
DAMON might have hung up his flight helmet two years ago, but he still had an attack helicopter pilot’s instincts. Right now his gut was screaming that an unseen threat was sliding into a shooting position at his six o’clock. A bandit approaching from out of the sun, intent on shredding his aircraft with high-explosive rounds.
The woman didn’t look like much.
Pretty, with dark, expressive eyes and an athletic figure that even her unflattering ASF uniform couldn’t quite mask. But other than the fact that the officer’s raven hair cascaded to her shoulders absent the confines of the expected hijab, there wasn’t anything about her that Damon could lay his finger on. Nothing that should have his fight-or-flight response sparking like a live wire.
Then death slid by.
After realizing that the woman was determined to board his airplane, Damon had reluctantly made room for her in the small space between the cockpit and the Beechjet’s cabin. While the business jet’s accommodations were nothing to sneeze at, the aircraft was not a Gulfstream GVI with a full galley, couches, and a bedroom or wet bar. The interior could accommodate six passengers in its pairs of leather reclining seats, but the cabin space was relatively modest. Damon had edged to the starboard as the woman entered, clearing the narrow corridor leading from the cockpit to the passenger area. He’d assumed that she wanted to address his passengers.
She didn’t.
Instead, the ASF officer had followed Damon, crowding him against the bulkhead.
At first Damon hadn’t understood.
Now, he did.
Though she’d been the one doing the talking, the woman was not the main attraction. Her job had been to draw everyone’s attention while making room for the star.
Her partner.
The woman had attempted to distract Damon with a loud burst of Urdu. Her expressive body language was coupled with indecipherable hand gestures and head motions that made the most of her unbound hair.
The woman’s efforts had almost worked.
Almost.
Despite her captivating performance, Damon was a gunship pilot. A gunship pilot who’d once gone head-to-head with a ZSU-23-4 antiaircraft system while spearheading the American invasion into Iraq. The sensation he felt now was eerily similar to the moment when his Apache had been locked up by the ZSU’s fire control radar and golf ball–size projectiles began hurtling past his cockpit.
The man who flowed into the cabin wasn’t physically intimidating. As with the woman, he was dressed in the ASF uniform, which featured a woodland camouflage pattern. Also like the woman, the bulky uniform masked his physique. He was neither fat nor unduly muscled—an average build for an average man.
The way he moved was not average.
While stationed in Thailand, Damon had once witnessed a cage fight between a mongoose and a cobra. The cobra was death personified, but the mongoose had been created with a singular purpose—to kill cobras. As the man slid past with a gait reminiscent of a surging tide, Damon was struck by the image of a mongoose.
A mongoose entering a den of snakes.
CHAPTER 83
ASHANI fought against a haze of pain and drug-induced paranoia.
He was determined to remain conscious. Or at least as conscious as his wounds and the heavy dose of the barbiturate that Quds Force officers were partial to using during interrogations permitted. Asleep, Ashani would be swept along to his eventual rendezvous with Evin Prison and a custom-made gallows from which he would hang.
A gallows no doubt already under construction.
Awake, Ashani had a chance to alter his destiny. A chance that might be so slight as to be almost nonexistent, but a chance all the same. Despite his best efforts, it had become harder and harder for Ashani to differentiate between his surroundings and the pain-free euphoria to which his mind begged to retreat. Twice he’d seen his wife and daughters and tried to call out, only to be jerked awake as an unconscious spasm inflamed his injuries. Riding the pain, Ashani had clawed his way to lucidity long enough to mark his surroundings.
He was on a plane.
A small business jet.
A change in the sound made by the roaring engines prompted Ashani to turn toward the window next to his seat. The jolt of agony accompanying the small gesture took his breath away, but the new information the pain garnered was worth the price.
They were still on the ground.
So why was the engine noise quieting?
The lessening ambient noise allowed Ashani to make out a cluster of voices echoing from the front of the cabin. Gritting his teeth, he tried to sit up for a better view. The movement sent bolts of lightning arcing through his abdomen. Brilliant points of light flared across his vision, but the tears leaking from his eyes weren’t just from the unspeakable pain.
Three figures were clustered around the cockpit door.
Two he didn’t recognize.
One he did.
CHAPTER 84
FOR a long moment, Ashani just stared at Rapp.
