The Airspace Near the Turkish-Syrian Border

Grigori, the Georgian pilot of the MI-26 Halo helicopter, was on his radio. Neither the special-ops guys nor Joshua, as they sat in the jump seats, could understand what he was saying, but they could read his face and body language. It looked like there was a complication. Grigori and his copilot talked back and forth during the radio conversation.

The pickup in Azerbaijan had been flawless. The saving grace was that the helicopter was branded with a Black Sea Petro-Chem sign on the side, and the Georgian Ministry of Commerce had alerted the Russians, Turks, Syrians, each of them that one of their commercial aircraft was off course. The coalition said they would allow it to travel through their airspace but couldn’t guarantee its safety. Not ideal, but a plan. The idea was to transport the Americans directly back to Israel with a drop-off point in Israel, near the Syrian border. They’d been assured that everything had been cleared with the Israelis.

But then, midflight, the pilot, in broken English, announced something disturbing and cryptic in his deep Slavic accent. “Sorry so much … but headquarters say that there is big trouble in Israel … you now all have to go to my homeland, Georgia. Maybe then fly to Berlin. Maybe then from there to United of States.”

Joshua asked, “What kind of big trouble?”

“War breaking out … some kind big trouble war. Dunno anymore.”

That was all that Joshua needed to hear. “My daughter’s back there. I need to go to Israel. We’ve got to stick to the plan, the drop-off point … the original plan … up on the Golan Heights, just like we planned. Do you understand? There’s an Israeli helicopter that’s supposed to be waiting for me there. You said so yourself, Grigori.”

“Yes, but, oh, I dunno … can’t do that maybe.”

Cannon joined in with Joshua. “Oh, yes, you definitely can ‘do that maybe.’ You’re going to stick to the plan, Grigori, like our friend says. We all go with the original plan. Savvy?”

So Grigori called his superiors. When he was done with his long radio call he half turned to his passengers. “Okay, here it is going to be … I got the okay to take Mr. Jordan to drop-off point but has to be real quick.”

Joshua gave a satisfied nod.

“But rest of you, no … can’t do. You commandos have to go to Georgia with me. Then fly to Berlin like I say before.”

“Unacceptable,” Jack shouted out. “Totally unacceptable. We stick with Josh the whole way.”

“Look,” Grigori shouted back, “I have orders. You don’t want it this way, then you get it no way. When I stop in Turkey to refuel, I kick you all out. You want that? I don’t think Turks will be happy with you.”

Cannon turned to his team. He whispered, “Any of you guys know how to fly a helicopter?”

They all shook their heads no.

The ex-Ranger chuckled and muttered, “Gee, what kind of special-ops team are you guys anyway? Well, I was hoping.” He lowered his voice and added, “We could sort of disable our friend and his copilot and fly to Israel according to plan. I’m getting a bad feeling about this.”

Joshua said in a low voice, “I was trained on a Blackhawk, but man, that was a long time ago. Look, let’s stand down for a second on that idea. Let me talk to the pilot.”

Then Joshua shouted up to the pilot. “Hey, Grigori, what’s the problem with all of us being dropped at the Golan Heights, just like we planned?”

“Headquarters says … you four guys there … you are commandos, right?”

Joshua still didn’t get it. “Yeah, these guys are commandos. So what?”

“Headquarters says that if I drop commandos while war is about to start big time, that’s bad idea … not going to happen. Then someone says that Georgia is part of war …”

The dawn was breaking. “Okay,” Joshua said to the team. “I see what he’s saying. Look, when we get to the checkpoint, there should be an Israeli helicopter waiting. If there is, I jump out. Job done. Mission accomplished.”

Cannon smiled. “Or we get to the rendezvous point and we all jump out together. What’s Grigori going to do. Shoot us?”

“Yes!” Grigori said over the two-way intercom that had been left on. “I will shoot you.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “We’ve been had.”

The copilot had unbuckled his seat belt and was in the aisle, pointing his handgun at the Americans.

Grigori ordered them to hand all of their weapons to the copilot. “You be good boys. Don’t want blood all over my nice helicopter.”

The team reluctantly disarmed themselves.

Cannon was unhappy. “Like I’ve been saying, this is starting to stink.”

But Joshua didn’t see the problem. “You don’t have to hold my hand, guys. You’ve saved my life. I’ll never forget it. But once I’m in the Golan, I can take it from there. Okay?”

Jack said, “But what about this ‘big trouble war’ that Grigori’s talking about?”

Joshua tried to dismiss it. “What’s new about that? Israel’s always got some shooting match going on with one of its Arab neighbors. Look, like we already heard from the CDCI rebels, Israel has already kicked Iran back over the goalposts with the nukes they turned around. Game over. So how bad can things be?”