Page 37 of Clive Cussler Ghost Soldier

The question was, where was it all going?

Juan ducked down behind one of the pallets and fished around in the compartment of his combat leg, pulled out his Thuraya X5-Touch, the world’s smallest satellite smartphone, and powered it up. The screen indicated several missed incoming calls from theOregon. He punched a saved number and after a series of electronic squawks and beeps an encrypted voice came on the line.

“You had us worried there, buddy,” Max said. “We’ve been watching your tracker flying through the air for the last two hours. Wasn’t sure if that was you or Superman. You good? By the way, you’re on speakerphone.”

Every member of theOregoncrew including Juan had a GPS tracker embedded in their hip or thigh for just this kind of scenario.

“Got my clock cleaned pretty good, but I’m still in it to win it. My Taliban friends tossed me into the back of a flying milk wagon, only it ain’t milk I’m staring at.”

“You just crossed over the Pakistani coast. You’re about fifteen thousand feet above the Gulf of Oman.”

“Not far from where I started.”

“Fortune favors the bold, or so I’ve heard.”

“What’s my flight path?”

“You skirted south to avoid Iranian airspace. Could still be headed for the Saudi peninsula or maybe Africa on the other side. No telling just yet.”

“Have Eric pull up flight logs for a Tajik Air flight out of Kabul. Takeoff would have been, what did you say? Two hours ago, give or take.”

“On it,” Eric Stone said.

“What’s your situation?” Max asked.

“They bundled me up pretty good, so they must not think I’m a threat back here in the cargo bay. Neither the pilots nor the crew have come back to check on me.”

“No indication of any Tajik Air flights out of Kabul yesterday or today,” Eric said.

“What’s our radar show?” Juan asked.

“No IFF, if that’s what you’re getting at. We married up an aircraft blip with your tracking GPS, so we’ve got a pretty good fix on you. The cross section on our screen is a little fuzzy. We’re guessing there’s some kind of radar-absorbing coating on the plane’s skin, but it looks something like an Airbus A320.”

“That’s correct, but trust me, it’s no ordinary Airbus. I wish I knew where this rig was headed.”

“It will be out of our radar range pretty soon,” Max said. “Maybe we can hack into local ground radar and track it as it moves.”

“Unless it decides to fly below or around ground radar range,” Eric added over the speaker. “African air traffic control isn’t exactly up to speed in that regard.”

“Mark, any chance you can hack into this thing’s computer?”

Juan had read enough security briefs to know that the National Security Agency had developed sophisticated hacking tools to break into enemy aircraft avionics in order to either crash or hijack them in times of war. Most militaries had taken defensive precautions against such cyberattacks, but this was a civilian plane. If Mark could breach the system, he could rifle through the plane’s avionics to determine its flight path and final destination.

“That’s a long shot, Chairman. If I can find its GPS guidancesignal, I might be able to sneak in through the back door, depending on the chipset. Give me a sec.”

What seemed like an eternity to Juan abruptly ended as Mark Murphy came back on the line. “Looks like your plane isn’t using GPS.”

Juan was surprised. “Inertial guidance? That’s pretty old-school.”

“Yeah, but it prevents exactly the kind of shenanigans we just tried to pull off.”

Juan blew out a long breath. He really needed to find out where this flight was headed. Without any electronic means he only had one other option.

“Gentlemen, the service on this airline is the pits. I’m gonna have to file a complaint with the captain. I’ll be in touch.”

19

Cabrillo killed the call, pulled his Benchmade knife and pried open one of the AK-47 crates. He kept checking the cockpit door to see if any armed crew members were charging out to check on him, but so far, so good.