The Chameleon Factor. Don Pendleton

But how to warn…

      Something slammed into her face, and Gwenneth had a brief flash of the steel-plated door to the cockpit before the universe turned black and she tumbled into a warm darkness.

      “Yes?” a voice said from the other side.

      Dropping the unconscious woman to the deck, Harrison pushed the door open, its electronic lock disabled from the humming Chameleon strapped to his belly. Stepping inside, he swung the deadly Tech-9 about, marking his targets. The crew was three, pilot, copilot and navigator, exactly as there should be. No surprises here. Excellent.

      “Hey, that door was locked!” the navigator cried out in confusion, spinning from his console. Then he raised an eyebrow at the pregnant woman holding an automatic weapon of some kind. Shit! A hijacking!

      “Nobody move,” Harrison ordered.

      The copilot fumbled under his seat, while the navigator snatched a small black box from the wall and lunged forward to thrust the Talon stun gun at the intruder, the silvery prongs crackling with electricity. The Chinese man got only halfway before Harrison fired from the hip.

      Hardly any flame or smoke erupted from the muzzle, and only a subdued click was heard, as if the weapon had misfired. But the navigator dropped the Talon as he was slammed backward against his console, blood spurting from his throat.

      Harrison fired twice more, only clicks sounding. The navigator writhed under the sledgehammer blows, his chest seeming to explode and a radar screen behind the man noisily cracked as a slug drilled through. Exhaling life itself, the shuddering man fell to the cold deck, blood pouring from the gaping holes in his body.

      “Alert, Anchorage!” the pilot said quickly into her throat mike. “Code four, repeat, we have a code four in progress!”

      But there was no reply from the airport; not even the soft crackle of static came over her earphones. The radio was completely dead.

      That was when she noticed that most of the control board was dead, many of the instruments giving wildly impossible readings. Shit and fire, her ship was in some sort of a jamming field! There was no other possible explanation.

      Reaching under the chair, she thumbed a hidden button. Then something hit her shoe, and the pilot glanced down to see a misshapen lead slug on the deck. From the pistol? But there had been no noise. What was going on here?

      “That emergency signal will never be heard.” Harrison chuckled, enjoying their confusion. On impulse, he reached up and pulled off his annoying wig.

      The pilot scowled at the sight of the hijacker’s bald head, the skin stubbled with hair. Not bald, shaved, details she would need to remember to help convict him in court before the Red Army firing squad blew off his face.

      “Don’t hurt anybody else,” the copilot said in Chinese, raising both hands. “We will obey. What do you want?”

      The hijacker frowned at the copilot, and the pilot realized he didn’t speak Chinese. That could be useful in the future.

      “This is foolish,” the pilot began in English. “Once we move off course—”

      “Shut up! Do you need the copilot to fly this plane?”

      Not really, no, she admitted to herself. Then the end result of such honesty became horrifying obvious.

      “Yes!” she lied, darting a glance at her friend. “Of course. This aircraft is huge!”

      Harrison smiled. “You lie,” he whispered, and the strange gun clicked twice more. The copilot jerked backward against the hull, then slumped over in his chair, supported only by the safety harness around his chest. Blood began to dribble from his slack mouth, and a second Talon fell to the deck with a clatter.

      “Toy, stupid, useless toy,” Harrison growled in annoyance.

      Then the Tech-9 swung to point at the captain. To her, the muzzle seemed larger than the Beijing Tunnel, and she felt the world shrink to a view of its black interior. A drop of sweat suddenly trickled down her face, and a thousand images and feelings flashed through her mind in a single heartbeat: childhood, family, friends, becoming captain.

      “Obey me, or die,” Harrison said from somewhere in the distance.

      Her attention split in two, the yoke of the jumbo jetliner felt hot in her grip, the elaborate control board only inches away. If it was only her life, she would crash the plane rather than submit. But she was responsible for all the other souls in the aircraft. Honor wouldn’t allow her to abandon them. For the moment, there seemed to be no other choice. Yes, she would obey, and hopefully live, and do her best to keep the passengers alive no matter what.

      Then a muscular hand gripped the pilot’s shoulder and squeezed hard, the sharp painted nails digging painfully into her flesh.

      “Well?” Harrison demanded, pressing the gun barrel to her right eye.

      As if her head weighed a thousand tons, the pilot slowly nodded.

      “Very good.” He chuckled and slid his hand down the silken material of her white blouse to cup a soft breast and squeeze with brutal force.

      She started to cry out from the pain, then bit back the sound and concentrated on flying the plane as the man lewdly fondled her body. Born and raised a Communist, the pilot didn’t believe in any gods, but she still sent a silent prayer into the universe begging for deliverance from the coming hell.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      Nome, Alaska

      The summer wind was warm, gently rustling the bluebell flowers that grew wild in the fields outside the airport.

      The unmarked C-130 Hercules transport was parked all by itself on a secluded landing field as far away from the main terminal as possible. All across the Nome International Airport, the staff, crew and TSA guards were staying far away from the military transport. They had been told when it would arrive, and nothing more. But nobody thought twice about the incident. Alaska was so close to Russia, only fifteen miles at the closest point, that the local population was used to covert military landings, odd troops movements and such ever since the cold war. America and Russia were friendly these days, but the military still kept a close watch on its old foe. Just in case.

      With a strong whine of hydraulics, the rear of the C-130 Hercules transport disengaged, and cycled down to the ground to form a ramp. Deep inside the mammoth plane, headlights flashed on, and soon a civilian SUV rolled into view and bumped down the ramp to reach the tarmac.

      Driving a few yards away from the aircraft, Carl “Ironman” Lyons parked the SUV and waited for the rest of the team to drive out. The vehicle was a dark green in color, so dark it appeared to be black. The windows were tinted, and the license plates carried government numbers.

      What couldn’t be seen was the composite armor lining the SUV, and its hidden arsenal of weaponry in the ceiling, walls and seats.

      Suddenly the massive engines of the Hercules coughed into life, the four great propellers rotating in spurts and then accelerating into a steady blur. Then the rear hatch began to cycle upward as the airplane prepared for takeoff.

      Setting the parking brake, Lyons scowled. What the hell was going on now?

      The side door near the tail swung open and a pair of duffel bags was tossed onto the tarmac, closely followed by Blancanales and Schwarz. Even as the two men grabbed their bags, the C-130 released its brakes and started to taxi forward, heading for an empty runway. The two men walked toward the SUV, and by the time they arrived, the Hercules was airborne and disappearing into the clouds.

      “Trouble?” Lyons asked from behind the wheel.

      Blancanales opened the rear hatch and tossed in his bag. “Yes and no,” he replied. “We caught the squawk from the Farm that a China Air 747 has crashed in the Koryak Mountains of Russia only an hour ago.”

      “Sorry