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?”
He pulled off his helmet and goggles and, from one of the Pelican cases, produced a full-faced aerodynamically designed black helmet with integrated tinted goggles and oxygen mask. It looked like something from a Star Wars convention. He pulled out a second one, flicked a switch, and shoved it into McKinney’s arms, motioning toward his throat.
She sighed and tore off her helmet, goggles, and oxygen mask. The cold hit her face like fire. She quickly put the new helmet on and realized it had integrated thermal or night vision in the goggles. She felt his hand fumbling with switches at her neck and suddenly heard the hiss of oxygen flowing and his voice in her ears.
“—secure comms. Can you hear me?”
“Yeah, I hear you. What the hell’s going on?”
He pointed out the back. She could see much more clearly in the night now, and that made it all the more alarming to see yet another missile streaking up toward them. But farther back she could also see twin pinpoints of heat glowing—distant aircraft following them.
She was about to jump toward the exit when she felt his rock-hard fingers gripping her shoulder.
“Think about it.”
“Think about what? Let go of me!”
“Who knew we were here?” He was now hanging what appeared to be a belt-fed machine gun across his chest and cinching it tightly. It had a large boxlike magazine. He looked up at her as he adjusted a twin pistol harness as well.
She couldn’t keep her eyes off the incoming missile. “We need to jump! Now!”
“It’ll hit an engine.”
“And what if the fuel tanks explode? What if a wing comes off?”
He was concentrating on prepping his gear. “I’ve seen a Talon take worse. . . .”
“Odin!” She started pulling him toward the edge of the cargo ramp and the vast space beneath them.
He held her back. “Not quite yet, Professor.”
The plane was still vibrating from the earlier hit, and the two remaining plastic-wrapped equipment pallets were hopping around. McKinney hit the deck as the missile streaked in and detonated somewhere off the right side.
The plane lurched and yawed to the right, then developed a truly disconcerting undulating pattern. Piercing alarms started wailing. McKinney crawled to her feet again and could see thirty-foot flames and dark smoke trailing from the port wing—all portrayed in the black-and-white phosphorescence of her helmet’s night vision.