Jed took a deep breath, then pulled himself across the eight-inch gap, crossing the slipstream and into the Boeing. He landed painfully on his left knee but steadied himself in kneeling firing stance. Muscle memory in control, he loosened the sling to his rifle, brought it up to his cheek, and scanned the dark, windy cargo hold for targets. He felt the disturbance behind him, then a moment later the squeeze of Eli’s hand on his shoulder. With Eli behind and to his right, they were up and advancing in the unlit and apparently empty belly cargo hold.

Jed snapped the NVGs on his helmet down into place in front of his eyes. The space came to life in green-and-gray night vision and he confirmed it empty. Ben had seen the weapon in the main cabin, which was configured to carry cargo in this transport configuration. However, there was no way that the cargo hold door ripping off the side of the Boeing had gone unnoticed, certainly not by the pilots or anyone sitting above them. Most likely, they would assume it was an aircraft structural failure.

Because operators sneaking from one plane to another in flight really isn’t a thing . . .

Regardless, they’d lost some of the element of surprise and someone would be down to investigate any second.

“We’re on board—sitrep,” Jed whispered in his boom mic.

“Check,” Ben said.

“We might have an issue. I can’t find the pilot’s thread,” Corbin said on the line.

“What about the guy in the cabin?” Ben came back. “Go for him.”

“On it,” Corbin said, her reply sharp.

Jed and Eli had been briefed on the Boeing’s design by the pilot spooks. In the passenger configuration, there was no access to the main cabin from the cargo bay—unlike what was frequently depicted in the movies. Some transport variants of this model had an access hatch installed between the cargo hold and main cabin at the rear of the aircraft. That was plan A. The backup plan, if they weren’t so lucky, was to cut a hole in the forward bulkhead of the cargo hold to gain access to the electronics and environment compartment. From there, they could enter the cockpit via a hatch in the E&E compartment overhead / cockpit floor.

But everyone knew this was wishful thinking and would take more time than they had.

And if the Boeing made any move to fire the weapon before they could seize control, the F-16s would blast it out of the sky . . .

And Jed and Eli with it.

“Help me look,” Eli whispered, flipping his NVGs up and turning on a powerful flashlight, which he aimed at the ceiling.

They crept aft, back toward the blowing air of the open cargo door, scanning the overhead for a hatch.

“There,” Jed said, pointing at a ladder along the rear bulkhead with rungs leading up to the ceiling.