Brad Thor - Blowback

After moving the Super Vivat Icarus craft out onto the runway, their pilots conducted the final preflight checks. Inside the hangar, the commandos did a final check of their own, going over their weapons and communications equipment and stuffing their pockets and pouches with as much extra ammunition as they could carry. When all of the motorgliders had been loaded and the first one was cleared for takeoff, the remaining commandos climbed into their two rental cars and headed out for Le Râleur.

LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

Brian Turner looked over both shoulders to make sure he was alone and then sat down at the terminal and logged in. He’d always marveled at how the CIA was more concerned with a hack from the outside than they were with an interior breach of security.

Turner had been fascinated with encryption technology since he was seven years old. While the NSA had heavily recruited him years ago during his senior year at Cal Poly, it was the snap and panache of the CIA that had ultimately won him over. But life at Langley, especially post-9/11, had failed to live up to his expectations. It was nothing like he had seen in the movies, and with all the bullshit rules he and his colleagues were expected to play by, he considered it only a matter of time until America was struck again by another devastating terrorist attack.

That was probably what had attracted him most to Helen Carmichael. That and the fact that after the Senate Intelligence Committee had toured the new counterterrorism center, or CTC as it was more affectionately known at the CIA, one of her aides had contacted him asking if he would be interested in participating in an above-top-secret focus group. Turner had jumped at the chance and was invited to dinner with the Pennsylvania senator.

It was soon obvious that Helen Carmichael had no intention of conducting any hush-hush focus group, but rather wanted to develop her own personal relationship with him. The first night Turner ever met with her one on one, she took him to one of the biggest power restaurants in DC, Smith amp; Wollensky, where they dined on thick steaks and discovered their mutual love of dirty martinis. Later, in the back of the limo the senator had rented for the evening, he discovered that she gave the world’s best blowjob.

The blowjob was followed by a night of incredible sex at his apartment-sex he never would have thought the senator from Pennsylvania capable of. Helen Remington Carmichael was a hot ticket, and as far as Brain Turner was concerned; her husband was missing out on a first-class freak. The things she did and said when they were together would succeed in getting even the most straight-laced accountant fired from a one-man office.

He was sick of life at the CIA and saw the senator as his ticket out. As the senator’s national security advisor, he would hold enormous responsibility when she came into the vice presidency and then, with enough patience, would hold the utmost power when she eventually became president. The petty thefts and incursions he performed on her behalf now were nothing. In fact, Turner saw them as serving the CIA its own just deserts for not better protecting itself from hackers based inside CIA headquarters.

Snarfing a handful of French fries he had purchased at the CIA’s all-night cafeteria, he launched his newest, untraceable, personal-best blind mouse program and awaited its results.

Twelve minutes later, Turner practically choked on his Mrs. Fields cookie when his flat-screen burst to life with a file containing the names, dates, payments, and details concerning United States president Jack Rutledge and his own personal covert action team.

SWITZERLAND

It took over half an hour of climbing for the Super Vivats to reach their specified altitude. Once there, Silo One’s pilot checked his position and then began the process of reconfiguring his craft as a glider. After cooling the engine at reduced power, he brought it to a complete stop, centered the prop, and then retracted it all the way into the nose of the aircraft. He then flipped the fuel shutoff and turned off the engine master switch. Immediately, the craft was enveloped in complete and total silence. Schroeder had never flown in a glider before, but he could now understand why Harvath, and Otto Skorzeny before him, had chosen it as a perfect means for their covert insertion.

Harvath, on the other hand, was already focused on what would happen during the first three minutes after they touched down. With only Schroeder and one other team member to exit the plane with him, they would be naked until reinforcements started landing. Even then, they would total only fourteen shooters against a security force three times that size. On top of that, he’d have to keep one eye on Rayburn, who would remain flexicuffed until just before they touched down, while Claudia kept Jillian safe from any hostile fire. Regardless of Schroeder’s opinion, the odds were definitely not in their favor. The only thing they had going for them was the element of surprise, and Harvath prayed it would be enough.

As they neared their objective, the pilot gave the three-minute warning. Harvath ran through the objective once more in his mind as he checked his weapons and then took a moment to try and steady his breathing and slow his heart rate. The adrenaline had already started pumping through his bloodstream and along with it came the same feeling that always visited him before he went into harm’s way-fear. He had learned early on that anyone who said that he wasn’t scared before such an undertaking was either a liar or a fool. Absence of fear didn’t make you brave; it was what you did in spite of being afraid.

Having conducted all of his final checks, Silo One’s pilot entered the airspace above the small mountain plateau from downwind, lowered the craft’s landing gear, and began his descent. Harvath retrieved the Benchmode knife from his pocket and cut Rayburn’s flexicuffs loose.

The approach was perfect. It wasn’t until they were about ten feet off the ground that they all noticed something that hadn’t shown up in any of Harvath’s reconnaissance photographs. Their landing area was cratered with potholes and littered with rocks the size of basketballs.

Silo One’s pilot tried to pull up, but it was too late. He was already committed to the landing, and there wasn’t enough lift. Like it or not, their aircraft was going in.

The first thing to go was the forward left landing gear, which caused the wing to tip all the way over to the left and gouge into the ground. With the left wingtip acting as fulcrum, Harvath expected the entire craft to spin in a violent circle, but instead, the left portion of the wing sheared completely off, and the plane kept racing forward.

Immediately, Silo One’s pilot tried to create a ground loop-a whipping corkscrew maneuver-in the hopes of halting the aircraft. He rapidly rotated the wheel to the right, right up to the stops, while mashing the right rudder with the force of a bat slamming into a base-ball. As that was happening, Rayburn took advantage of the chaos and lunged for Harvath’s silenced H amp;K MP7. Instantly, the cockpit was filled with the weapon’s distinct pop, pop, pop as a three-round burst was discharged in the mêlée. Two of the rounds shattered the Plexiglas canopy above them, while the third creased the back of the pilot’s head.

The pilot stayed at the controls for only a second or two more before collapsing over the aircraft’s yoke. With help from Schroeder, Harvath wrestled the weapon away from Rayburn and with no choice delivered a sharp, open palm strike to the man’s nose. A torrent of blood poured out, and the ex-Secret Service agent roared in pain. His weapon back, Harvath simply ignored him.