SWITZERLAND

It took over half an hour of climbing for the Super Vivats to reach their specified altitude. Once there, Silo One’s pilot checked his position and then began the process of reconfiguring his craft as a glider. After cooling the engine at reduced power, he brought it to a complete stop, centered the prop, and then retracted it all the way into the nose of the aircraft. He then flipped the fuel shutoff and turned off the engine master switch. Immediately, the craft was enveloped in complete and total silence. Schroeder had never flown in a glider before, but he could now understand why Harvath, and Otto Skorzeny before him, had chosen it as a perfect means for their covert insertion.

Harvath, on the other hand, was already focused on what would happen during the first three minutes after they touched down. With only Schroeder and one other team member to exit the plane with him, they would be naked until reinforcements started landing. Even then, they would total only fourteen shooters against a security force three times that size. On top of that, he’d have to keep one eye on Rayburn, who would remain flexicuffed until just before they touched down, while Claudia kept Jillian safe from any hostile fire. Regardless of Schroeder’s opinion, the odds were definitely not in their favor. The only thing they had going for them was the element of surprise, and Harvath prayed it would be enough.

As they neared their objective, the pilot gave the three-minute warning. Harvath ran through the objective once more in his mind as he checked his weapons and then took a moment to try and steady his breathing and slow his heart rate. The adrenaline had already started pumping through his bloodstream and along with it came the same feeling that always visited him before he went into harm’s way-fear. He had learned early on that anyone who said that he wasn’t scared before such an undertaking was either a liar or a fool. Absence of fear didn’t make you brave; it was what you did in spite of being afraid.

Having conducted all of his final checks, Silo One’s pilot entered the airspace above the small mountain plateau from downwind, lowered the craft’s landing gear, and began his descent. Harvath retrieved the Benchmode knife from his pocket and cut Rayburn’s flexicuffs loose.

The approach was perfect. It wasn’t until they were about ten feet off the ground that they all noticed something that hadn’t shown up in any of Harvath’s reconnaissance photographs. Their landing area was cratered with potholes and littered with rocks the size of basketballs.

Silo One’s pilot tried to pull up, but it was too late. He was already committed to the landing, and there wasn’t enough lift. Like it or not, their aircraft was going in.

The first thing to go was the forward left landing gear, which caused the wing to tip all the way over to the left and gouge into the ground. With the left wingtip acting as fulcrum, Harvath expected the entire craft to spin in a violent circle, but instead, the left portion of the wing sheared completely off, and the plane kept racing forward.

Immediately, Silo One’s pilot tried to create a ground loop-a whipping corkscrew maneuver-in the hopes of halting the aircraft. He rapidly rotated the wheel to the right, right up to the stops, while mashing the right rudder with the force of a bat slamming into a base-ball. As that was happening, Rayburn took advantage of the chaos and lunged for Harvath’s silenced H amp;K MP7. Instantly, the cockpit was filled with the weapon’s distinct pop, pop, pop as a three-round burst was discharged in the mêlée. Two of the rounds shattered the Plexiglas canopy above them, while the third creased the back of the pilot’s head.

The pilot stayed at the controls for only a second or two more before collapsing over the aircraft’s yoke. With help from Schroeder, Harvath wrestled the weapon away from Rayburn and with no choice delivered a sharp, open palm strike to the man’s nose. A torrent of blood poured out, and the ex-Secret Service agent roared in pain. His weapon back, Harvath simply ignored him.

One look out the shattered canopy confirmed what he already suspected-the Icarus was picking up speed and they were quickly running out of meadow. Rushing forward to meet them was the edge of the cliff and its drop-off thousands of feet into the valley below. This was a contingency they hadn’t planned on.

Based on the reconnaissance photos, they had all known that the landing would be extremely treacherous. The only way it would work was if each pilot began putting a lot of pressure on the brakes the moment they touched down. With all the extra weight they were carrying it would be dicey, and even then, their best projections were that they would stop with just feet to spare.

With a landing strip that only allowed for one aircraft at a time, the idea had been for the team members to unload while each pilot opened the nose of his aircraft and extended the prop back outside so he could taxi back up the meadow, turn around, and come rushing back toward the edge of the cliff for takeoff.

Harvath leaned forward over the seat in front of him and tried to aid Schroeder’s commando, Gösser, in peeling the pilot off the aircraft’s yoke. It was too late for the brakes. Their only hope was to steer the glider away from the cliff, which they were racing closer and closer toward.

Getting his hands underneath the pilot’s arms, Harvath wrenched backward with all his might. As the pilot came free, Gösser grabbed hold of the yoke and yanked hard to the right toward the balance of the meadow and the château.

The remaining tires groaned against the ground in protest as they bounced over several large rocks. The cliff face was less than twenty meters away. Harvath thought about opening what remained of the shattered canopy and bailing out, but he knew that at their rate of speed, all it would take was for his head to hit one rock and he’d be killed instantly. Even if he was able to avoid the rocks, he’d hit the ground so fast, he wouldn’t stop rolling until after he had gone over the edge. There was only one way out-they had to turn that aircraft, and that meant not only using the yoke, but the rudders as well.

“To the left!” yelled Harvath as he unbuckled the pilot and struggled to pull him over the seatback and into the second row, where he was sitting. “Turn the yoke the other way as hard as you can and pin the left pedal to the floor!”

“But we’ll crash into the side of the mountain!” screamed Gösser.

“Do it!” shouted Schroeder, who understood what Harvath was trying to accomplish. In its current condition, there was no way the Icarus was going to give one inch in turning to the right toward the little expanse of meadow alongside the château. Their only hope was in steering into the damage. Better to hit the side of the mountain than to go over the cliff.

Gösser strained with his whole body and pulled the yoke to the left as hard as he could, but the aircraft refused to respond. Harvath glanced forward, calculated the distance until the drop-off, and prepared for the worst. They were going over the edge.

Then slowly, ever so slowly, the clipped glider started to nose in the direction they wanted it to go. It was almost imperceptible at first, but then the craft made a marked shift to the left. Harvath was about to breathe a sigh of relief when he saw a pile of granite rubble directly in the center of their path.

With no other choice, he braced for impact, using the pilot’s body as a makeshift airbag.

The jagged pile of rocks met the plane and acted like a ramp, tearing away half the glider’s nose as it was catapulted right at the face of the mountain. Harvath’s stomach caught in his throat, and he knew that they were airborne. The mountain stood poised to meet the tiny aircraft head-on, but just as they were closing in on impact, something happened.