Stephen England - Pandora's grave

A shrill, discordant cry arrested his movements. He turned, trying to place the sound. And then he saw him. Tancretti. Pinned against the instrument panel.

He looked around. There was no time to get help. He dropped the Kalishnikov and ran toward the wreck, pulling his combat knife from its ankle sheath.

Perhaps he could cut him free…

“Sitrep, LONGBOW?”

“Overwatch position achieved, EAGLE SIX. No hostiles in sight. Acknowledge.”

“Roger that, LONGBOW. Copy no hostiles.”

Major Hossein smiled in the darkness. They were still unobserved. The radio chatter from the American team confirmed that. He glanced up around him at the hills. The overwatch mentioned could still be most anywhere. They wouldn’t know where until the bullets started flying.

The heat seared Davood’s face as he moved forward, smoke filling his lungs. The door of the Huey was jammed shut, its metal crumpled like paper from the force of the impact. Tancretti’s survival was a providence of Allah, nothing less. But time was running out.

He reached in through the broken window with his knife hand, extending it toward the pilot. No good.

“One moment,” Davood whispered, more to himself than to Tancretti, sweat streaming down his face as he wedged the combat knife in between the pilot’s chest and the seatbelt.

One moment…

5:17 P.M. Eastern Time

The White House

Washington, D.C .

“Very good, Director. Keep me posted on any further developments. Thank you.” President Hancock replaced the phone on his desk and stood, turning to gaze out the window of the Oval Office. The sun was sinking low in the western sky. In Iran, it would be pitch-black. A team of his countrymen would be fighting for their very lives.

Nothing this night had gone as planned. This had been meant as a political coup, decisive military action against a regime feared by the Jewish lobby and hated by the warmongers on the right. Both groups would have applauded a daring, Entebbe-style hostage rescue. And now the quicksand had opened beneath him.

He swore under his breath, eyeing the phone on the Resolute desk. Cahill hadn’t been cleared for TALON, and he wasn’t about to read him in now. This time he was going to have to run his own damage control.

5:18 P.M.

CIA Headquarters

Langley, Virginia

Director Lay left the elevator the very moment the doors opened onto the seventh floor, striding hurriedly toward his office. His secretary, Margaret Caudell, was bent over her desk, organizing paperwork in preparation to leave. A common sight.

She had already stayed twenty minutes over her time, which was also all too common. If she had learned nothing else in the seven years that the two of them had worked together, it was that there was no such thing as a fixed schedule.

“Good evening,” she smiled, glancing up at his entrance.

It wasn’t. “Get the secure line to the White House ready, Margaret. I need to talk to the President.”

2:20 A.M. Tehran Time

The crash site

His shoulder hurt like the devil, pain shooting through his body. He moved his fingers up the length of his right arm, gently massaging the flesh. It wasn’t broken, or at least he didn’t think so.

But it was dislocated, that was sure enough. And it was his gun arm. He was out of it.

He hadn’t heard from the team.

Tex raised himself from the hard ground where he had fallen, wincing at the pain. His head throbbed and when he reached up to check himself, his hand came away sticky with blood.

How long he had been unconscious, he had no idea. He moved his good arm down to his waist, checking for his radio. It was still intact. He adjusted the lip mike and went on the air…

Harry’s headset crackled suddenly. “GUNHAND to all team members. Come in, come in.”

“GUNHAND, this is EAGLE SIX. What happened to you?”

The voice that answered him was uncertain, almost groggy. Something had gone wrong. “Knocked myself out on landing, sir.”

“Status report?”

“I’m approx sixty meters north-northeast from the crash site. Feels like I dislocated my shoulder.”

“Are you combat ready, GUNHAND?”

“Negative, EAGLE SIX. I can defend myself. That’s max. It’s my right arm.”

“Copy that. Will move team to support you. EAGLE SIX to LONGBOW, stay put. Provide covering fire. Acknowledge.”

“Roger, EAGLE SIX,” Thomas replied. “I have covering position.”

“EAGLE SIX to SWITCHBLADE, status report? I repeat, SWITCHBLADE, have you reached BIRDMASTER?” Harry demanded, repeating Colonel Tancretti’s code name. There was no answer. Only the sound of his own voice. “Come in, SWITCHBLADE.”

No response.

“EAGLE SIX to all team members. I have lost contact with SWITCHBLADE. Do any of you have visual on the crash site?”

“That’s a negative, boss.”

5:22 P.M. Eastern Time

CIA Headquarters

Langley, Virginia

“I warned you, director. This operation was meant to reduce our exposure, not blow it wide open.”

There was a dangerous calm in the President’s voice. A part of Lay’s brain registered that fact as he stared across his office, fighting down the angry words that rose in his throat.

The selfishness of it all! “I trust it has occurred to you, Mr. President, that we have soldiers in harm’s way.”

“Soldiers?” Hancock asked, irony rich in his voice. “I prefer to reserve that term for those who proudly wear the uniform of this country.”

There could be no response equal to the bigotry of the comment, nothing that could be said without igniting a pointless debate. Lay held his tongue, staring bitterly at the wall as the President went on, apparently not expecting a response.

“The last thing this country needs is a hostage crisis, Lay. That’s why we launched this ‘op’ in the first place.”

The last thing your administration needs , the CIA director reflected. That was why the operation had been launched, and he had gone along with it, in hopes of proving the efficacy of the Clandestine Service to a man who had tried to eliminate their funding time and again. And now people were dead.

Dead. That’s the way it was out there on the edge. Out where mistakes meant lives ended, not political careers…

2:24 A.M. Tehran Time

The crash site

Davood shoved his combat knife back into its ankle sheath and reached through the window, wrapping both arms around Tancretti’s upper body. “Easy, colonel,” he whispered. “I’m going to get you out of there.”

The blood streaking down the Air Force colonel’s face glistened in the light of the flames, adding to the macabre aspect of the scene. His body refused to budge, the legs still pinned between the panel and the seat, and he screamed in pain as Davood tugged at him.

A jagged edge of plexiglass window cut into the agent’s hand as he struggled, gashing the flesh. “Come on, come on ,” he whispered, ignoring the pain, his fingers wrapping themselves around Tancretti’s legs.

They started to slide out from underneath the instrument panel, slowly but surely. Almost. The fabric of the colonel’s uniform pants caught on the metal, holding him fast. For a moment Davood considered reaching for his knife again, cutting him loose.

There wasn’t time for that.

He circled his arms tight around the pilot’s torso, struggling to slow down his breathing, gather his reserves of strength for one final effort.

If he had any reserves. “Relax, colonel,” he whispered in Tancretti’s ear. “I need you to relax.”

If the man understood him, he showed no sign of it. Davood was going to have to do the whole job himself.