II - FORT ZANCUDO
I'd learned never to question Lester's logic, but breaking in to Fort Zancudo where the mini-sub was stored and not stealing it seemed, well, kind of stupid.
"We can't just steal the sub from Zancudo," Lester told me when I asked him this very question. "We don't know where it's stored and there's a ton of support equipment that goes with it. On our own we'd never get it operational in time for the heist. No, better to get them to bring it to us, all ready to go."
The way we were going to achieve that was as convoluted as ever. First we'd steal a small jet from LSIA, fly it up the west coast, fake an engine failure and make a forced landing at the Base. Meanwhile, I'd jump out with a parachute, land somewhere near the tower and sneak into the comms room. That was the tricky part, rigging the base's Instrument Landing System so it gave out a false signal, just off by a few degrees but enough that an incoming plane would be a couple of miles away from where it thought it was. In short, we were deliberately going to cause an airplane to crash.
It took me a while to round up the crew. At first, not all of them were as enthusiastic about getting back to work as I was, but after I told them about the two-million dollar take, they were as keen as ever. Of course, I didn't tell them everything, only what they needed to know.
My crew consisted of my Sister Jane, our pilot. Wilby, an ex-army weapons expert, our sniper, and finally Stone, the heavy muscle from the mean streets of Liberty City and our explosives guy.
We all assembled in the heist planning room in my apartment and admired/criticised each other's outfits. I was dressed as an Army Colonel, Jane as a commercial pilot, Wilby as a businessman VIP and Stone was supposed to be his bodyguard. We took the elevator to my garage, then hopped into one of my many cars and went to the dinghy Lester had left for us at the Marina. That took us to the south beach behind the Airport.
We climbed our way up to the security fence at the back of the hangars. By now it was already getting dark. We ran along the fence until we found the gate and Stone got the bolt cutters on the chain holding it, then we were in.
We were looking for the small terminal building on the south side of the airport that was used for the smaller private jets. There were only a couple of security guards around and we soon dropped them with silenced pistols. We were aboard a Shamal jet in no time and Jane quickly ran through the startup sequence. I checked my parachute and my uniform. I didn't want a loose patch or missing button to give me away once I got into the base.
We cleared the boundary of the Airport before anyone had a chance to notice us taking off without clearance. After a minute or so there were frantic calls from air traffic control, but we ignored them. By the time they'd called in a stolen aircraft we would already have touched down at Zancudo.
Jane gained altitude and followed the coast. Once we were out near Fort Zancudo she shut down the port engine and made the emergency call.
"Mayday-Mayday-Mayday. Passenger Jet Lima-Sierra-Two-One-Seven-One - Engine failure. Making emergency landing at Fort Zancudo. Three persons on board."
The tower at Zancudo responded immediately.
"Aircraft calling mayday - permission to make emergency landing denied. Repeat, DO NOT LAND. Continue to Sandy Shores airfield and land there." The plane was losing height rapidly and Jane was already lining up her approach.
"Negative Zancudo Tower, we have one engine out the other is running hot. We're coming down on your main runway."
Jane tried to stay as high as possible over the main runway before we passed the tower, but when I opened the side door it hardly looked like I'd have time to get the parachute open. I jumped anyway, and pulled the ripcord as I exited the door. I held my breath as I watched the ground rushing up to meet me and felt the parachute open not much more than ten feet above the ground. It was a hard landing, but I was lucky it was on the patch of grass behind the tower. I rolled and got to my feet. I couldn't see anyone around.
Down the runway the jet's wheels squealed onto the tarmac and it coasted to a halt at the far end. I could just make out vehicles and soldiers surrounding it and a few trucks and jeeps racing down to meet it. The distraction had worked and I was able to stow my chute in a dumpster behind the tower, put on my Colonel's hat and stroll up to the security room at the base of the tower.
The two guards outside saluted me and stood to attention as I walked through the doors. Inside I met one solitary guard behind the desk, watching a bank of monitors showing the crew of the jet being escorted out of the plane at gunpoint.
The guard looked up, then stood and snapped to attention. I tried to look surprised as the sound of distant gunfire at the end of the runway erupted. We both looked at the monitor and saw one of the army jeeps exploding and several more arriving. The base alarm blared to life and I said,
"Get to it soldier, I'll cover things on this end." The security guard grabbed his rifle from under the desk and ran out the door.
I ran up the stairway. There were six flights to the top and I was already out of breath by the time I was at the third level. I knew the crew would be taking on a whole platoon of marines by now and not being there to help them made me feel even more uneasy. The longer it took me to do my part, the more danger they'd be in, so I pushed through the pain barrier and ran up the next three flights in less than a minute.
When I reached the tower, I could hear voices in the room to my left. This wasn't the room I was after, so I looked across the hallway and found the comms room. Inside were a couple of desks and a large bank of computer servers. Lester had told me what to look for and I went behind the racking to find the right machine to plug his little device into. I found it and hooked the little flash drive up, but froze as I heard two men walk into the room. They couldn't see me behind the row of servers and sat down at their desks. I couldn't just stay here indefinitely, but I also couldn't risk alerting the whole tower by shooting them.
I stepped out from behind the racking and just stood there. One of them went for his sidearm and the other grabbed the door handle.
"At ease Lieutenant," I said. "Would either of you mind explaining how I was able to gain access to this critical area completely undetected?" Each looked at the other.
"Colonel Sir? We weren't expecting you until…"
"Always expect the unexpected soldier. Where were you both?"
"Sorry sir," said the more senior of the two, "er, we went to get coffee."
"Then next time, one goes and one stays! Your CO will hear about this," I shouted, walking confidently to the door, suddenly remembering one more task I had to perform. "Oh and Lieutenant, don't you think it would be a good idea to disable the Surface to Air missile system during a training exercise? Or would you also like to be held responsible for the loss of several million dollars worth of military aircraft?"
The Lieutenant dutifully turned off the SAM system and I strolled back across the hallway to the stairs. It took everything I had to resist the urge to run, but if I gave myself away now we'd all pay the price. Once I hit the stairs I radioed in to see how the others were doing.
It turned out that I didn't need to worry. They had taken an Insurgent and Jane was now driving it around the base with Wilby in the back and Stone on the turret wreaking absolute havoc. The base was full of transport planes being loaded with supplies and vehicles and they'd driven into a hangar where one of the Titans was parked. A Rhino tank had showed up to try and stop them and fired a shell into a bunch of fuel barrels which were now burning away in the middle of the hangar. This was keeping everyone away from them while they took potshots at anything or anyone that came into the hangar. Wilby assured me that they could hold out as long as they needed to, and they'd exit the base once they saw I was airborne.
"Everything's set, the air defence system is off-line. I'm going to take one of the fighter jets," I said.
"Don't worry about us," said Wilby, "Jane's got a great idea of how to get out of the base. See you at the rendezvous point."
I walked out of the main doors and everyone was running around in total panic. There were fire crews racing to the other end of the base and everything that could move was being rushed over to deal with the incursion. It was a short walk to the sheds where the P996-Lazers were being prepped and there wasn't a single guard left on duty. I clambered into the cockpit of a jet, fired it up and blasted out of the shed, pulling back on the stick as the g-forces pressed me back into my seat. I went straight up and gained over three-thousand feet before I'd even reached the edge of the base.
I looked out below me and could see the Insurgent with Jane and the others racing out of the burning hangar, along the taxiway then back around on to the main runway. A volley of tank shells exploded around them and then hit the Shamal parked at the end. Jane didn't slow down and punched the armoured truck right through the burning wreckage. Then she hit the sloping baffles at the end of the runway, huge slatted metal structures, designed to deflect jet blasts, they were a perfect stunt ramp.
The Insurgent launched high into the air and cleared the outer fence, landing perfectly on the bank on the other side. Soon, they'd be in the Zancudo swamp and away, then all they had to do was lose the cops and switch vehicles. I flew on, out past the prison and the wind farm. I'd have to bail out of the jet somewhere over the ocean and parachute down to earth for the second time that night, but first I wanted to see if Lester's insane plan had worked.
I went up to eight-thousand feet and passed over the Dam. I gritted my teeth, pulled hard on the eject release and saw the detonation cord blow a zig-zag hole in the canopy. I was catapulted upwards while the jet, still on full throttle, flew out spiralling slowly towards the sea. My parachute opened, suddenly leaving me in the silent still air above the city and the hills.
Then, in the dim light below me I saw it. The military jet inbound from the east, right on schedule, but four or five degrees off course thanks to our little modification to base's ILS. The jet was already making its descent, thinking it was on approach, but the error took it too close to the steep hills behind the Land Act Reservoir. It clipped the top of the hill, throwing turf and metal parts into the air then exploding in bright orange flame. Both wings separated and the fuselage broke in two and slid down the hillside into the water.
I drifted down, over the surface of the reservoir, but there was no trace of an aircraft even having been there at all, save for a scar on the hill and a few rising wisps of smoke from the water. I passed over the dam itself and saw the racetrack and the casino. I landed on the other side of the hedge from the horse racing track, in the brush-land where the stream from the dam trickled into the LS River. Somehow, we'd done it. We'd initiated the first part of the plan, but I knew that even more lay ahead. The things we would have to do next would make everything we'd just accomplished look easy.