Daniel Suarez - Kill Decision

McKinney and Odin looked to each other.

The bag was edging sideways, and then the drone suddenly started taking evasive maneuvers. McKinney realized there was nothing to stop the wild drone from hurtling forward a couple of hundred meters into the cargo bay and exploding-taking them all out.

The pilot’s voice came over the radio. “This thing’s going nuts.”

Odin waved to the crew. “Deploy the deadweight!”

“Stand clear!”

She saw the loadmaster kick the quick-release on the pallet of concrete that formed the deadweight. It whipped along the rails from the drag of the interdiction bag. The huge block tumbled off into the night, and the bag fell down and behind with it.

“Interdiction successful. Bag in free fall.”

A moment later a white flash pierced the night above the Utah desert, and a fiery light and smoke filled the bag. The boom followed soon after.

Foxy was training some sort of night-vision binoculars on the distant object. “Drone just self-destructed, but the bag looks intact.”

She could hear cheers on the radio, and Odin and McKinney exchanged relieved smiles. He pointed, and they watched the glowing interdiction bag still falling from thousands of feet in the air. “Let’s hope it has the answers we’re looking for in it.”

The pilot’s voice crackled again. “TOC, missile lock-on! Are any of you guys burning me?”

Hoov’s voice. “ Negative, Tailhook.”

Then, from somewhere low on the eastern horizon, a missile streaked across the night sky, burning like a flare as it arced upward toward them. McKinney felt the adrenal wave of fear spreading like heat down her legs. Even for a civilian, the sight of a missile ascending toward them was obviously bad.

“Missile six o’clock low! Deploying angel fire.”

McKinney watched amazed as suddenly the sky erupted in a fountain of blinding light, dozens of flares spreading out from the base of the C-130 and trailing behind them. Salvo after salvo of flares formed an angel wing pattern of smoke and green-white light behind them. The plane lurched to the right, throwing her against the wall. Then left. Mc-

Kinney grabbed on to the equipment rack and looked behind them through the open cargo door.

Odin’s voice came over the radio. “Godammit, Hoov, what the hell’s out there?”

The missile raced past them wide on the left and detonated, creating a flash and a powerful thump that caused the plane to lurch.

The pilot’s voice. “Shit, we’re hit.”

Odin raced forward, pulling on his monkey cord to steady himself.

McKinney watched in horror as a burning glow filled the left-side porthole windows, and a noticeable vibration set in on the floor. The C-130 yawed from side to side-still spitting flares every few seconds. The men in the cargo bay still looked incredibly calm to her, checking their monitors and grabbing fire extinguishers. It made McKinney straighten up, wondering what she should be doing.

The pilot’s voice crackled as though announcing the in-flight movie. “Shutting down engine one. I’m going to try for the base camp airstrip.”

Foxy’s voice. “Where’d the missile come from?”

Hoov’s voice answered. “Nothing on radar.”

Odin was pulling gear from a Pelican case. “Did it come from the ground?”

“We’ve got an inconclusive echo moving across our six. Ah… now it’s gone again.”

“Opened its weapon bay. Expect another launch. How far out?”

“Three miles.”

“All right. Team Ancile. Execute, execute, execute!” Odin turned to McKinney and unfastened her monkey cord harness. “Check your chute, but don’t jump until I say.”

“ Until you say? What happened to the pilot trying to land?”

“Change of plans. Get busy, Professor!”

She pulled on the shoulder straps of her parachute and began securing it. It was apparently a military-grade HALO chute. She grabbed for handholds against the lurching of the plane as she familiarized herself with the location of the ripcord and the cutaway. A glance up told her that everyone else was checking their parachutes as well.

The pilot shouted again. “Missile lock-on!”

McKinney looked out the open cargo doors to see another missile streaking out of the darkness, rising fast from a low angle. Odin was staring out with what looked like thermal binoculars. “I’ve got eyes on two bogeys, six o’clock, low, four thousand meters. I think we got our answer, Foxy.”

“Looks like it.”

Odin started tapping in numbers on a wrist computer.

Flares spouted from the C-130 again, and it took evasive maneuvers that sent McKinney sprawling. She grabbed on to the equipment rack and pulled herself to her feet again.

What the hell am I doing here? The question kept repeating in her mind. She looked at that fiery glow in the left-side portholes and was relieved to see that it had almost gone away. She was tempted to run out and jump from the cargo ramp, but she resisted. She had to stay with the team. The image of Ritter’s ghoulish eyes came back to her.

She’s as good as dead, and you know it.

Odin’s voice came over the radio channel. “Tailhook: Clear your people.”

“Copy that, Odin.”

Odin rummaged through equipment cases again. The other team members were hurriedly grabbing weapons and strapping on gear. “Move it, people!”

McKinney kept her eyes on the incoming missile as it streaked into the flares and past them without exploding. “Jesus Christ…”

The pilot’s voice came over the radio. “Setting autopilot to twenty-three thousand. All crew, bail out! Bail out!”

The plane tilted into an upward climb, while Foxy stomped toward Odin along with a half-dozen crew and team members. Foxy held his kora by the neck, and as he approached he looked sadly at it. “Well, another one bites the dust.” He tossed it out the cargo bay doors and into the abyss.

Odin gestured to Foxy with a slashing motion across his throat as he pulled the mic boom from his helmet. Then he shouted something directly into Foxy’s ear for several moments. She couldn’t hear it over the roar of the plane and her own insulating headphones, but after a moment Foxy nodded and motioned for the others to follow him.

He saluted McKinney. “See you in hell, Professor!”

The whole group went single file, launching one by one off the back ramp and into the moonlight over the Utah desert. McKinney watched them go and could see their silhouettes recede into the void. She felt like launching with them.

Odin grabbed her by the shoulders. “Not yet, Professor.”

“Are you crazy? Someone’s shooting missiles at us!”

“Remember that discussion we had about you being bait?” He was fiddling with a small nylon pack, clicking red buttons. “I left some parts out.”

“Why in the hell do you keep lying to me?”

“Because whatever you knew, they now know.”

The remaining flight crew came down from the deck and through the bulkhead door into the cargo bay. The navigator and copilot saluted Odin and jumped from the ramp one after the other. The pilot stopped and put a hand on his shoulder. “Ship’s clear. Happy hunting, Sergeant.”

Odin just thumbed toward the exit. The pilot nodded and ran off into the void.

Odin glanced down at his Rover tablet and showed it to McKinney.

It was an image from the surveillance camera watching her decoy. Where “she” had been, there was now only burning debris and fake body parts. Her stunt double was charred.

“My God.”

Odin tossed a satchel with a blinking red light on it well forward through the bulkhead door. “Whatever these things are, they just shot down our Predator drone too.”

McKinney held on to the equipment rack and glared at him. “Then what the hell are we still on this plane for?”