Free Chase by James Patterson Page B

observer.”
    “Weatherman?”
    “An Air Force weatherman. They bring us out on potentially longer raids to read the sky, just like the guys on Channel 6. Weather’s important to pilots and planes. Like life-and-death important.”
    I nodded.
    “Go on.”
    “Anyway, so the top special operators, mostly veteran SEALs, were real jazzed about grabbing some bigwig al-Qaeda asshole they got intel on, so they brought all the toys way down there. Little bird choppers, some Humvees, some dirt bikes. There were about thirty of us altogether.
    “So the hot dogs do a recon, to suss out a plan while a contingent of Rangers and B-level folks like myself are supposed to hang back at this remote staging area, as backup in case some heavy-duty shit goes down. While all the hotshots were on surveillance for hours, us peewees were sitting around shooting the shit. And this one Ranger, this guy Toporski, goes exploring on the outskirts of this remote craphole suburb of Basra. After an hour, he radioes us to come running because somebody took a shot at him.
    “We run over there, and there’s another shot from this hut’s window, and we light it up and kick in the door ready to grease Osama, who we hadn’t found yet. But it was better than that. A million times better. It was the mother lode.”

Chapter 30
    I still hadn’t heard the chopper coming back but knew it could return at any second. I nudged Justin to keep him talking.
    “Back in 2003 when we came in, the week before we got to Baghdad, a national bank was knocked over by the guards who were supposed to watch it. Three hundred million in cash and gold. Well, I don’t know how that loot got there to Basra in some shithole of a hut, but that’s where it was.”
    I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Treasure hunting in Basra?
    “There it was in a locked room under a tarp. There were two pallets. On one was millions of dollars in Federal Reserve US hundred-dollar bills, and on the other pallet were stacks of gold bars up to the waist. There were 105 of them in all. Each one twenty-seven pounds of pure gold, with the word Engelhard stamped into them. I’ve seen a few things, but when Toporski pulled that tarp, that took the cake. I mean, it was just…
    “Right then and there, we decide to take it. Don’t tell the hotshots. Screw them. All six of us—including Haber and Eardley, our pilot—grab it all, load it into the Humvee. We had to take out the seats. The truck was scraping the ground. Then we hauled ass back to the plane.”
    “And did what with it? How would you get it out of the country?”
    “Eardley comes up with a plan. He’s gonna drop this gold- and money-filled Humvee from the plane into this lake he knows up north near the base, just open the back ramp and put it in neutral and dump her out. Mark its location, and we’re going to come back and get it.”
    “Like sunken treasure.”
    “Exactly, man. Like pirate booty. Then he’s gonna crash the plane, fake his death, and get out of the country.”
    “Nobody stopped him?”
    “No way. He was on a desert landing strip. Not like he had to ask the tower for permission. It was war.”
    “What did you say when the others got back? Didn’t they ask where Eardley and the plane went?”
    “What do you think we said? We don’t know. Acted like he just went nuts or something.”
    “And they bought it?”
    “Yep. Didn’t find a body, but with the plane down—they shut the case.”
    “So how did he get out of Iraq?”
    “He said he put a good chunk of money in a knapsack before dumping the rest in the lake, and found a guy in a pickup to drive him to the border. He bought a fake passport. He was a smart guy. He learned some Arabic. He would joke around with the Iraqis. He was a likable guy, with giant balls. I miss him.”
    “Bullshit,” I said. “You killed him.”
    “Not me. That was that asshole Therkelson. He said it was an accident.”
    “So what’s all this here?” I said. “The camp