Vince Flynn - Order to Kill

“Copy that. Now get that thing out of here.”

“What about you and Scott?”

“Go!” Rapp said, scooping up the ammo box and running back to Coleman. It turned out that he was still breathing, but in a shallow, labored way that Rapp had seen too many times before.

The sound of grinding metal rose up from the front of the building but he didn’t bother to look at what was causing it. Instead, he lifted Coleman into a fireman’s carry and grabbed the rifle and spare ammunition with his free hand.

The main door was nearly fully open but none of the Pakistanis were visible as he ran across the shop floor and took cover behind the same machine Coleman’s attacker had. He laid his friend on the concrete and pulled the magazine from Maslick’s rifle, quickly slapping in a fresh one as he watched the shadows of the men moving around in front.

They didn’t seem all that anxious to enter, and he used the time to dial Irene Kennedy on his satellite phone, patching it through his earpiece.

“Mitch!” she said upon picking up. “I’m getting reports of a firefight in downtown Faisalabad.”

“That’s me. Most of the terrorists are dead and Maslick’s in the air with the nuke.”

“Where are you?”

“Pinned down in a warehouse. You need to get on to the government and tell them to pull their men back. So far I’ve been shooting wide but if they move in on me I’m going to start dropping them.”

“I’ll do it right away. Where’s Scott? Is he with Joe?”

A small metal canister came sailing through the open door and bounced a few times before starting to spew tear gas.

“He’s with me. He couldn’t make it to the chopper.”

“Why? Is he injured?”

“Sooner would be better than later on that call, Irene.”

He disconnected the line and used Maslick’s rifle to shoot out some of the still-intact windows near the ceiling-more to put the fear of God into the men considering charging him than out of concern about the gas. The building was too large and well ventilated for it to have much effect.

A weak hand gripped Rapp’s leg and he looked down to see Scott Coleman’s eyes fix on him. The injured man managed to speak but when he did, a thick mix of blood and spit drooled from his mouth.

“I’m done, man. Get out of here.”

Rapp shook off memories of Stan Hurley, who had looked up at him in a similar condition a few weeks ago. The difference was that he’d been an old man dying on his own terms. Coleman wasn’t.

Rapp knew that any hint of concern or sympathy would just weaken his friend further. He was a soldier. One of the best in the world. And that’s the way he deserved to be treated.

Rapp pulled the pistol from his waistband and slapped it into Coleman’s limp hand. “Quit whining and make yourself useful.”

JOE Maslick was lying on the metal floor of the chopper with his head hanging out the open door. He’d been raised by dirt-poor parents in a trailer park tucked into the mountains of South Carolina. When he graduated from high school, he’d never been out of the state. Never eaten Chinese food. Never seen the ocean, except on his family’s static-ridden TV.

Thinking back on that made him wonder how the hell he’d ended up in Pakistan, staring down at an atomic bomb. That cashier’s job at the local gas station was looking better and better.

“This thing’s swinging really bad,” he said into the mike attached to his headset.

“You want to come up here and fly, asshole?” was the predictable response.

The man at the controls was Fred Mason, a retired navy pilot who now flew search-and-rescue missions out of California. Coleman brought him in when second-best wasn’t an option.

“It’d just be good if it didn’t go into the tail rotor, you know?”

“I didn’t remember you being the nervous type, Mas.”

They climbed out of range of the cops and soldiers below, but Maslick could still make out detail around the warehouse. The front entrance was open and there were at least ten cops and soldiers lined up next to it. Smoke was curling from the bay doors but none of the men appeared to have masks on. The general impression was that no one was in charge. That should play in Rapp’s and Coleman’s favor.

The nuke settled down and he started to use the winch to reel it up. When it got close, the copilot came back to help him wrestle it inside. Even with the two of them, it was a herculean task. In addition to the weight, there wasn’t anywhere to get a good grip. They got it partway in the door a couple of times but it always hung up and fell back onto the cable.

The pilot heard all the swearing and glanced back for a moment. “Watch your asses, boys!”

The left side of the chopper suddenly dipped, slamming Maslick into the back of the door gun and rolling the nuke up onto the skid. Then the floor dipped right, tossing him into the other wall. When the aircraft leveled out again, the weapon was inside and rolling lazily toward a cargo net hanging from a set of eyebolts.

“Asshole!” Maslick said, rubbing the back of his head as the copilot trapped the nuke in the net and began securing it.

An urgent beeping indicating an incoming satellite call echoed through Maslick’s headphones and he cut out the two pilots before picking up. “Go ahead.”

“Give me a sitrep,” Irene Kennedy said in a worried tone.

“We have the nuke on board and we’re heading home, ma’am.”

There was a pause that suggested she wasn’t as happy about that as she should have been. “I’ve lost contact with Mitch.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that, ma’am. We just left him and the situation didn’t look like anything he wouldn’t be able to handle.”

Another long pause. “Scott’s injured and I can’t get through to General Shirani or the local police commander to get them to issue a stand-down order. I need you to go back for them.”

Maslick wasn’t sure how to respond. Rapp had made it clear that he was to get their cargo to safety. And, while Kennedy was technically in charge, he was only mildly afraid of her. Rapp, on the other hand…

“That’s a negative, ma’am. I have my orders.”

“You take orders from me and those orders have changed!”

He was a little startled by the force of her response. In all the years he’d known her, he’d never heard Irene Kennedy raise her voice.

Maslick suffered a rare moment of hesitation. If she was right-and she almost always was-then his team was in trouble. Rapp would never leave Coleman and the Pakistanis would eventually get organized enough to surround that building. The thought of abandoning them was a thousand times worse than the thought of dying with them. On the other hand, he had no idea what Rapp would do if his orders weren’t followed to the letter. It never really happened.

Finally he pressed a button and linked in the pilots again. “Turn us around, Fred. We’re going back.”

“What? Could you repeat that?”

“You heard me.”

“You realize you’re literally sitting on a nuclear bomb, right?”

Maslick looked down. He actually was sitting on it. “Do it, Fred.”

The chopper banked hard and Maslick used his free hand to switch to the frequency monitored by Rapp. “We are inbound to your position. Do you copy?”

The response was barely intelligible due to interference. “That’s a negative. Continue on your previous heading.”

Maslick couldn’t shake the feeling that he was a dead man. The only question was whether it was a lucky shot from a Pakistani or a perfectly placed one from Rapp. “Be advised that we are operating under revised orders and will be over your position in approximately three minutes.”