Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 02 (95 page)

 
          
“Storm
Zero Two, overflight of
Nicaragua
by American military aircraft is
prohibited. You are in violation of national and international law. You are
directed to land at Sandino International immediately or you will be fired on
without warning. Over.”

           
“Sandino Tower, I say again; I am in
pursuit of a criminal piloting an American aircraft. He is a danger to
you
as well as to the
United States
. I request assistance in pursuing this aircraft.
I am
not
hostile to
Nicaragua
. Please assist. Over.”

 
          
“It’s
not going to work,”
Preston
said. “They’re just triangulating our
position. We’ve got to get out of here, head back across the Honduran border—”

 
          
“Storm
Zero Two, this is
Sandino
Tower
. Please stay on this frequency for
important message. Acknowledge.”

 
          
He
did not reply. A message flashed on his windscreen, warning him that a search
radar was in the vicinity. From the rear seat
Preston
said “We’re getting close to
Managua
’s search radar.”

 
          
“Storm
Zero Two, contact the man on frequency one-three- one point one-five VHF.
Important.
Sandino
Tower
out.”

 
          
He
began a left turn away from
Managua
and changed channels.
Preston
asked, “Are you going to talk on that frequency? It could be a military
ground-controlled interceptor’s direction-finder. They could pin-point our
location as soon as you key the mike without using radar.”

 
          
“Maybe.
But I don’t think so.” He hit the mike button. “This is Storm Zero Two on
one-three-one point one-five. Over.”

 
          
“Storm
Two, this is General-Lieutenant Viktor Tcharin, Deputy Commander of Operations
for Soviet Central America Operations Base Sebaco. Whom am I addressing?”

 
          
“It’s
a damned Soviet general,”
Preston
said. “What the hell does
he
want?”

 
          
Patrick
keyed the mike. “General Tcharin, this is Lieutenant Colonel Patrick McLanahan,
United States Air Force. State your request. Over.”

 
          
“McLanahan
. . . McLanahan ...” Then, sounding as if he was reading from a script, went
on: “ ‘Senior project officer, Midnight Sky. Code name for XF-34 DreamStar
advanced tactical fighter aircraft flight technology validation project. Age
forty-one, white male.’
Ochin kharasho.
Very good. Colonel McLanahan, I believe we want very nearly the same thing. You
want the XF-34. We want Colonel Andrei Maraklov. Perhaps we can make an
arrangement—”

 
          
“I
want Maraklov
and
the XF-34, General.
Do you know where Maraklov is headed?”

 
          
“We
have evidence to that effect, yes,” Tcharin told him. “We believe we have
tracked his course on radar. But we do not have the air assets to pursue him.
You reported to the Nicaraguan tower controller that you are in command of a
fighter plane. Is it your intention to attack Colonel Maraklov?”

 
          
“Yes.”

 
          
“We
have information that may be of use to you. In exchange for this information we
want you to deliver Colonel Maraklov to us, should he survive. Is that
agreeable to you, Colonel McLanahan?”

 
          
“I’m
not making any deals,” McLanahan told him. “I don’t trust you any more than I
trust Maraklov. But if you tell me where he went, and if he survives, I promise
not to kill him myself. What happens to him after that is up to our
governments. How about that?”

 
          
A
pause, then: “I agree. Colonel Maraklov had received instructions” ... he did
not say from whom ... “to fly the aircraft south, to an isolated landing strip
somewhere in
Costa Rica
. He was detected flying forty nautical
miles west of Bluefields in southern
Nicaragua
about ten minutes ago. We have no other
information. He was at twenty thousand feet, flying at five hundred nautical
miles per hour.”

 
          
“Copy
that down for me, Marcia,” McLanahan said. On the radio: “How do I know you’re
telling the truth? He could be flying north to
Cuba
, or east. He could even be on the ground in
Managua
or Sebaco.”

 
          
“You
contacted
us
for assistance and I have given it to you. If you do not trust
us, your request makes no sense.”

 
          
“Why
can’t you get Maraklov by yourself? Isn’t he delivering the XF-34 to you?”

 
          
“It’s
not clear
what
orders Colonel
Maraklov has chosen to follow. Our last orders, from the Kollegiya, were to
turn over the XF-34 to you at Puerto Cabezas. Why he took the aircraft, I do
not know. We want to question him about that matter, as well as the killing of
two Soviet officers and two soldiers. My orders are to capture Colonel Maraklov
for questioning, but I have no resources to do it. That is where you can help .
.

 
          
If
this Soviet general was lying, every mile he flew south could be two miles that
Maraklov was increasing the distance on his way to
Cuba
or someplace to the east. Yet he had no
other possible options.

           
“Marcia?”

 
          
“I
don’t see much of a choice. I don’t trust him either, and I sure as hell don’t
like making deals with him, but it’s the only lead we have. Our AWACS from
Grand Cayman
is covering the north
Caribbean
—so south seems like a good direction for us
to be heading. Might as well try it.”

 
          
McLanahan
keyed the radio again as he began a right turn toward the south. “General
Tcharin, if I get Maraklov alive I promise you’ll have an opportunity to question
him about the murders. I was a witness to three of them in Puerto Cabezas.”

 
          
“Unfortunately
an American is an unacceptable witness in our military court of law,” Tcharin
said, “but I believe we have a deal . . . Colonel McLanahan, the XF-34 is armed
with twenty-millimeter shells, two radar-guided missiles and two
infrared-guided missiles—not the most modern Soviet weapons but proved
effective against your F-i6s over the Caribbean. One more item: Maraklov is
wounded. We have tested and found his blood at a site here in Sebaco as well as
the blood of one of his victims. You have clearance to transit Nicaraguan
airspace west and south of Bluefields. Costa Rican approach control frequency
for crossing border restricted airspace MRR Three is one-one-nine point six, El
Coco Control.”

 
          
And
the channel went dead. McLanahan told the computer to set the frequency, and he
checked the computer flight- information database and double-checked the flight
information files for
Costa Rica
—Tcharin’s information seemed right on.

 
          
“Well,
you wanted a plan, Marcia,” he said as they approached the border. “I never
expected to get it from the Russians, but we’ll take it.”

*
 
*
 
*

 
          
Pain.
Intense, burning.

 
          
For
at least the past year the pain that always came to Andrei Maraklov when the
ANTARES interface was completed was fairly easy to suppress. The concentration
and the exhilaration of flying a machine like DreamStar usually did the trick,
but this time it wasn’t working. Obviously the shoulder wound was the culprit.
Every time he thought about his throbbing left shoulder his body would receive
a jolt of pain from the ANTARES system.

 
          
So
far it didn’t seem to affect his flying performance or his ability to monitor
his ship’s functions. In spite of the hard flying that DreamStar had done
during the past week she was running perfectly. Her automatic monitors detected
a higher than normal level of metal particles in the oil, suggesting an overdue
engine overhaul or contaminated oil; other systems detected clogged fuel-metering
systems from dirty fuel, moisture in computer components and a few loose
panels. He made a mental command to have a list of these items recorded and
played back to him just before the next shut-down, to remind him to have them
checked. It was a long list, but Maraklov told himself he would have time to
check over his bird. In any case, these minor discrepancies did not seem to be
affecting DreamStar’s performance.

 
          
He
was flying in the deep mountain valleys of the Cordillera de Guanacaste
mountains of northwestern
Costa Rica
, staying as low as possible to avoid
detection from radar sites at
Santa Maria
International
Airport
to the east and Lomas Guardia International
to the west. Although Costa Rica had an air force deployed at Santa Maria
Airport and a few other small training bases, it was made up of a handful of
aging American-built F-5 day VFR fighters to scare away drug smugglers, plus
several single-engine piston prop planes for surveillance. The federal military
forces were very small—the nation’s popular phrase nowadays was “we have more
teachers than soldiers,” and fortunately for him that was true.

 
          
It
was also true in
Costa Rica
that most provincial and municipal security
(it could not be called “law and order”) came from privately funded and equipped
armies, which was legal in this country of only three million people. If you
were rich enough you could own a good-sized town in Costa Rica, which could
eventually turn into one’s own little nation—including one’s own army, and it
was legal for certain citizens to make their own stamps, set prices, deal with
other countries, appoint their own judges and mayors.

 
          
One
such privately owned city-state was Venado, a thirty- thousand-acre plantation
in the heart of the
Guanacaste
Mountains
. Two thousand people lived and worked on
this plantation, nearly half of whom were soldiers. The entire plantation, the
well-equipped army and the airport within it were all funded and maintained by
the KGB, one of dozens of secret KGB bases scattered over the world, bases so
secret, so well disguised, that most party members outside of a few ranking
officers in the KGB knew nothing about them. This was Maraklov’s destination.

 
          
Finding
the airport was no problem, but making an approach to it in daytime without
being seen was going to be difficult. Maraklov had already had to weave around
scores of private airstrips dotting the
San Juan
Valley
and the northern Costa Rican jungles to
stay out of sight; he could not afford just to shoot directly into Venado, with
some farmer or peasant watching his approach and blabbing to his boss or the
police. Maraklov’s plan was to hug the northeast rim of the
Guanacaste
Mountains
, stay as deep in the valleys as possible,
sweep around the valleys to the southwest and then come back up over Venado
from the west. This way, he should be shrouded by mountains almost all the way
to landing.

 
          
There
was another summer storm brewing out over the Pacific to the west as Maraklov
started his low-altitude swing to the southeast along the mountain range. His
holographic display showed slivers of surveillance radar above him, but most of
the energy was blocked out by the tall mountains of central
Costa Rica
. The area was sparsely settled, but
occasional glances out the cockpit showed a few very beautiful haciendas below,
where men had retaken the jungle and turned it into lush fields of coffee or
fruit. Maraklov throttled back on the power as much as possible, balancing his
energy to avoid making as much noise as possible but keeping up his speed to
avoid letting anyone on the ground get a good look at him.