Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 02 (58 page)

 
          
“Opasno pavarota,
” Zaykov said, and
hurriedly put on her boots and buttoned her uniform blouse. “
Bistra
. ” Maraklov never had a chance to
understand what she said, but the urgency in her voice was clear. He ran out of
the bungalow behind her.

 
          
Workers
were running toward the flight line, some pointing toward the sky to the south.
Maraklov started toward the flight line but Zaykov grabbed his arm. “No. If it
is an attack you should not go there.” Maraklov shrugged out of her grasp and
headed for the flight line, crossed the access road and leaped over the low
gate—none of the security forces stationed around the flight line moved to stop
him, apparently confused by the sirens. He ran into the clear, into an unused
part of the aircraft parking ramp and scanned the skies.

 
          
He
did not see it until it was halfway down the runway— apparently neither did the
anti-aircraft battery located at the south end of the runway. The aircraft slid
silently down the west side of the runway, straight and level—it was so low
that it looked as if it was going to try to land. Then Maraklov realized that
he didn’t hear the aircraft coming—it had made no noise as it passed. That
meant ... he instinctively cupped his hands over his ears and opened his mouth
so the overpressure wouldn’t rupture his eardrums . . .

 
          
.
. . Just in time. The sonic boom rolled across the parking ramp, knocking
unsuspecting workers and soldiers off their feet. The shock wave felt like a
wall of wind shoving him in the face, squeezing his head and chest in an unseen
grip. Men were yelling all around him, as much from shock and surprise as pain.
When he opened his eyes he caught a glimpse of the aircraft as it banked hard
right and climbed a few meters. The sight turned his blood cold.

 
          
Cheetah . . .

*
 
*
 
*

 
          
“I
saw it, I
saw
it,” McLanahan sang
out.

 
          
“Me
too, third hangar from the right, open doors. Hot damn, there it is, they couldn’t
have positioned it any better for us.”

 
          
“You
gotta get back over there before they close those hangar doors.”

 
          
But
J.C. was already pulling on the control stick. “Check, boss. Hang on.”

 
          
McLanahan
caught his handlebars just as J.C. yanked Cheetah into a hard right turn. He
twisted in his seat so he could search in the direction of the turn for
interceptors or obstructions. “Clear right,” he called out. “I can see a
circular barricade at the south end of the runway . . . looks like it might be a
triple-A gun emplacement.”

 
          
“I
saw it," J.C. said, “but we’re a good two miles out of range. I’m goin’
for the hangar.” J.C. completed his turn and leveled off barely a dozen feet
above the east side of the runway. A Soviet helicopter and a small high-wing
airplane blocked their path, but J.C. kept Cheetah coming down and flew between
the two parked aircraft on the ramp. The hangar was the only thing in front of
them now, with the cavernous doors looking like huge gaping jaws ready to
devour them.

*
 
*
 
*

 
          
Cheetah.
There was no mistaking it—the
huge F-15 fighter with the big unmistakable foreplanes, the thundering twin
engines, twin tails to match, broad wings. It was continuing its tight turn at
an impossibly low altitude, barely above treetop level. In a few seconds it
would turn perpendicular to the runway heading right for the main part of the
base . . .

 
          
Maraklov
looked down the flight line toward the hangars. What he saw made him break out
in a run. Men and equipment were pouring out of the hangar where DreamStar was
parked—and they were leaving the hangar doors wide open.

*
 
*
 
*

 
          
“How
bad do you want DreamStar, Colonel?”

 
          
McLanahan
took his eyes off the recon pod control panel and glanced at the forward
cockpit in surprise. “What?”

 
          
Cheetah
was aimed directly for the center of the open doors, md they were skimming the
runway and parking ramp with ess than two thousand feet to go to the hangar.
J.C. said, “I got Cheetah on hard autopilot, Patrick. You punch us out, and
Dye-bye DreamStar.”

 
          
“You
mean
crash
Cheetah into that hangar?”

 
          
One
thousand feet to go. “Now’s the chance, friend. You ;tart evening up for Wendy,
Old Dog right here, right now. [t’ll look like an accident during an authorized
mission ...”

 
          
Five
hundred feet to go. The hangar doors towered above :hem. They could see men
lying on the ramp, soldiers shooting n their direction, trucks and service
vehicles taking off in all directions. They could see access doors open on
DreamStar, :ools lying on the hangar floor, even puddles of fluid. The :amera
pod was whirring away, broadcasting its information to TAWC headquarters.

 
          
Their
immediate mission was finished. The Russians had DreamStar, no question about
it—they apparently were in :he process of dismantling it, in preparation for sending
it Dack to
Russia
. Cheetah was a preproduction aircraft—the \ir Force was in the process
of building thousands of
them.
fhey
would not be sacrificing anything important, and would be keeping one-of-a-kind
DreamStar out of the hands of the Russians . . .

*
 
*
 
*

 
          
Maraklov
yelled at the guards to close the doors but it was too late. Cheetah was on top
of him before he could run twenty steps, and the quiet, deadly hiss of the
shock wave approaching him made him dive for the tarmac . . .

 
          
Incredible
. . . Cheetah was going to hit. DreamStar was going to be destroyed . . .

*
 
*
 
*

 
          
“Standing
by for ejection ...” Powell told his commander. It was now or never . . .

 
          
“No. ”

           
Less than one hundred feet from the
hangar door J. C. Powell yanked Cheetah on its tail and threw in full
afterburner. It cleared the hangar roof by only a few feet—Powell and McLanahan
could feel the unearthly rumble of metal beneath their feet as the sonic wave
pounded the tin roof. J.C. kept the climb in for a few more seconds, then
rolled inverted, pulled the nose to the horizon, rolled upright and leveled
off.

 
          
“Get
us out of here,
sir,
” J.C. said.

 
          
“Right
turn heading zero-one-zero,” McLanahan said evenly. “Keep it on the deck. Ten
minutes to the
Honduras
border.”

 
          
They
flew on in silence until McLanahan reported that they were crossing the border.
There were some MiG-29 pursuers detected, but they were far behind them by the
time they had reported in to Tegucigalpa Air Defense Control, and an entire
flight of six Honduran F-16 fighters was scrambled to turn them away. J.C.
ordered the voice-recognition computer to activate the IFF identification
radios, then started a shallow climb at best-range power and turned northward
toward home.

*
 
*
 
*

 
          
The
roar of Cheetah’s twin engines didn’t subside in Maraklov’s head for several
minutes, until it was gradually replaced by the sound of sirens wailing up and
down the flight line. Slowly he rose to his feet and surveyed the scene around
him.

 
          
To
his surprise, everything seemed relatively intact—Cheetah had not been carrying
a bomb on its centerline station, as Maraklov had thought, or else some major
malfunction had kept it from releasing. But from the quick glimse he got, it
looked more like a camera pod than a bomb. Cheetah, it seemed, had come to take
pictures. Well, they definitely got what they wanted. They had caught everyone
off guard, with DreamStar unprotected and vulnerable.

 
          
It
had to be J.C. Powell flying Cheetah. Several pilots at Dreamland were checked
out on Cheetah, but only Powell would be crazy enough to fly it so close to the
ground and so close to the hangar. Any other pilot would have been happy with a
hundred, even fifty feet above ground. Not Powell.

 
          
For
a moment it appeared that whoever was flying Cheetah was going to kamikaze
himself right into DreamStar’s hangar. Cheetah and DreamStar gone together?
Maybe not such a bad ending. But how different was his situation as it was?
With DreamStar gone and out of his control, his career was surely at an end. There
was no good future for him in the Soviet Union—he would be like a tiger, caged
for the rest of his life, hunted by the U.S. and distrusted or worse at “home.”
He would never be closer to
Brazil
or
Paraguay
than he was right now.

 
          
And
DreamStar was still safe—though for how long, now that the Americans knew where
it was? No choice but to play out this hand and see how the cards fell. Somehow
the photographic attack on Sebaco gave him some hope—maybe, just maybe,
DreamStar would fly again. And with the right man at the controls.

*
 
*
 
*

 
          
It
wasn’t until they had completed their final air-refueling over the Gulf that
J.C. felt confident enough to approach the subject:

 
          
“We
could have had them, boss,” he said. “You could have done it.”

 
          
McLanahan
had said nothing the entire flight, except the curt, monotone checklist of
responses required of him. But this time he spoke up. “I know that.”

 
          
“The
ACES seat would have blown us clear of the impact. We could have made it out.”

 
          
“Maybe.”

 
          
“Why
didn’t you punch us out?”

 
          
“I
don’t
know
why. Maybe I thought it
wasn’t my job to waste Cheetah. Maybe I think we still have a chance to get
DreamStar back. Maybe I thought it was a dumb idea all on its own. We are still
alive, we haven’t been captured by the Russians, Cheetah is in one piece and
we’ve accomplished our mission. So if you can stand it, let’s leave it at
that.”

Sebaco
Airbase
,
Nicaragua

 
          
“Where
were your air-defense forces, General?” Maraklov said to General Tret’yak as
the commander of the KGB airbase came over to the hangar.

 
          
“Ahstarozhna, tovarisch Polkovnik.
Calm
yourself, was anyone hurt, was there damage?”

 
          
“Do
you know what that was, General? It was an American fighter. It was carrying a
camera pod or some kind of reconnaissance unit—but it could have just as easily
been carrying a two-thousand-pound bomb. We’d all be dead now if it was.”

 
          
“I
said calm yourself, Colonel. Our air-defense forces were dispatched in response
to an intrusion northeast of here near the Nicaraguan radar site at Puerto Cabezas.
Our interceptors destroyed two unmanned drones heading back out to sea.
Obviously they were part of this attack, used to draw away our defense forces
while this fighter staged its pass.”