Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 09 (43 page)

 
          
“I
don’t know—”

 
          
“Rebecca,
don’t hesitate now,” Patrick urged her. “Those arc
your
people on the
ground. We can help them. We just got a refueling, so we don’t need gas—”

 
          
“We’ve
been talking with Oslo Transoceanic for the past fifteen minutes,” Rebecca
argued. “We’ve broadcast our aircraft type on open channels. If we turn around,
they’ll be able to track us.”

 
          
“Not
if we go in hard," Patrick said. “We’ve got enough fuel to go in low right
now. But we need to get turned around
now,
Rebecca. Every pound of fuel
we waste going westbound is one pound less we’ll have over the shootdown
point.” When Furness still hesitated. Patrick added, “I know I can’t tell an
aircraft commander to do anything he or she doesn’t think is safe—”

 
          
“Damn
straight.”

 
          
“—but
I'm ordering you right now. Colonel, as your superior officer: turn right to a
heading of one-two-five, center up the steering bug, and prepare to commence
hostile airspace penetration operations at the original route entry point. Do
it
now,
or by God, I’ll prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law
when we get back to base.”

           
“You’re crazy, McLanahan,” Rebecca
exploded. “You’ll never be able to convict me of disobeying an order like that.
You’ll be laughed out of court—probably court-martialed yourself.”

 
          
“Are
you going to refuse my order?”

 
          
“It’ll
be daylight by the time we reach the shootdown point,” Furness argued. “We’ll
be sitting ducks—”

 
          
“You
don’t know that,” Patrick said. “All we do know is that Dev and Annie
are
sitting ducks right now. We are the only chance they have of escaping or
getting rescued. Now I’m ordering you once more—center up the steering bug
now.”
Rebecca Furness looked into Patrick McLanahan’s eyes and saw nothing but
red-hot fury in them, unlike anything she had seen in the short but intense
time they had worked together. She knew that, although it was probably
unauthorized, his was not an unlawful order. The Rules of Conduct under the
Uniform Code of Military Justice stated that she was not obligated to obey
unlawful orders or orders that violated her own morality. This did neither. If
she obeyed his order, she felt certain she could not be prosecuted for doing
so.

 
          
Damn
it. Rebecca, she admonished herself, stop thinking about the legalities and
start thinking about what could happen if you
don’t
do it! Dev and Annie
could be captured. They were only a few miles from the Ukrainian border—if they
were unhurt from the ejection, they still had a chance to make it across the
border. The Russians might still go after them, but that’s why they needed to
be there for them.

 
          
Rebecca
released the paddle switch on her control stick, which allowed the Vampire
bomber’s autopilot to follow the computer’s steering signals. They were on
their way back to
Russia
.

In the Sredneruskaja Plains, near Obojan, Russian
Federation

That same time

 
          
There
was only one way to describe what ejecting out of an exploding aircraft was
like: pure, unadulterated violence.

           
Annie Dewey’s only warning of what
was about to occur was when the overhead hatch blew free, her shoulder and lap
belt straps tightened, the leg restraints snapped her ankles back so they
wouldn’t flail around during the shot, and the ejection seat slid backward against
the launch rail. Then her body was racked by immense pain as the main rocket
motor fired her clear of the aircraft. The force exerted on the human body
during the ejection sequence had been compared to hitting a brick wall in an
automobile traveling twenty miles an hour—headfirst—and Annie probably would've
doubled that number.

 
          
The
sky, which had been cold, dark, and stormy all night, was a blaze of hot yellow
and red flames. Annie lost her oxygen mask right away—that’ll teach you always
to lock it in tight, she somehow managed to admonish herself throughout the
chaos—and the helmet almost came flying off with it. The only thing that helped
catch her helmet was the chin strap digging into her nose. She was sure her
nose was broken. Time for that nose job she always wanted—maybe she would
finally get Nicole Kidman’s nose at last.

 
          
Because
the Vampire was flying at such a slow speed—almost approach speed—and they were
relatively low to the ground, the ejection sequence happened fast and violent.
She got both rocket motors on full ignition right away, which tripled the force
exerted on her body. Thankfully, that ride was over in less than two seconds.
She then got the mule-kick in the back from the man-seat separator, a thick
nylon strap along the back of the seat that tightened and propelled her away
from the ejection seat pan like a slingshot. Next the drogue chute deployed,
which whipped her body upside down, followed almost immediately by the
shoulder-cracking snap of the big main chute. Fortunately, the Vampire bomber
was still accelerating away, and her chute did not open inside the rapidly
growing fireball that used to be her warplane. Annie got half a dozen good
swings in her chute, but all she remembered was crashing into the frozen rocky
earth in typical Air Force crew member fashion: feet, butt, back of head.

 
          
The
wind tugged at her half-inflated parachute, as if insisting that she get up,
but Annie wasn't going to move one inch, even though she was almost facedown in
the snow. She could smell and taste blood, so she knew that at least two senses
were working. A few moments later, her hearing kicked in as she caught the
sound of her beloved B-l bomber crashing into the low hills, not far away. The
ground heaved and rumbled like an earthquake—touch was okay, too. She tried the
last sense, sight, but that didn’t seem to want to work quite yet. Four out of
Five—not bad for just hitting the ground under a parachute after ejecting from
a shot-up bomber

 
          
Her
plane was gone, history. An incredible, almost overwhelming, sense of fear,
dread, and guilt washed through her brain. What have I done? she asked herself.
If I had followed orders, I’d still be flying far overhead, out of range of
antiaircraft guns and safe from Russian fighters. I’d still be able to protect
the special operations guys with her weapons, or vector in fighter support, or
jam Russian radars, or a whole number of other things. The MV-22 Pave Hammer
crew might have been able to fly the plane out themselves. Or what if a
trigger- happy Russian fighter jock got both them and the MC-130P tanker as
well? Her rescue attempt would have been a waste. What if everything she did
was all for nothing?

 
          
The
fear and the cold caused her to shiver. It was hypothermia setting in. Annie
didn’t care. She had failed. She had probably killed Dev, and she had certainly
caused the loss of a multimillion dollar warplane. The Russians were obviously
going to find the wreckage and discover who and what they were. Their secret
would be out. She would be captured, Dev’s body taken to some grimy little
prison morgue, maybe broadcast around the world so Dev’s poor parents could see
his mutilated body. The
United States
would suffer one of its greatest foreign
policy and military embarrassments since Iran-Contra. The
United States
government might disavow any knowledge of
their mission. Lives and careers would be ruined. Everything the
United States
said or did for the next decade would have
the stink of this failure tainting it.

 
          
I
might as well die, Annie thought. Death would certainly be preferable to living
with the shame of what her decisions had caused tonight. She was probably
already blind, certainly shattered from the ejection and the hard landing. So
not only would she be a national disgrace, but if she lived, someone would have
to take care of her. She’d have to be fed through a tube, shit in a pair of
diapers like an infant, be set out on a patio like a potted plant so she could
get some sun so she wouldn’t shrivel up and die, and the attendant would know
who she was and would be embarrassed and probably disgusted to have to take
care of such a loser oh God why did I do it why didn’t I listen to orders oh
Jesus I want to die let me die don’t let me live like a paraplegic vegetable
being hated by my mother and father oh mom oh dad I'm sorry I apologize I only
wanted to help I thought I was doing the right thing I...

 
          
It
was a clump of snow falling off a branch and landing a few inches from her face
that finally snapped her out of her despair. It sounded like a footstep, and a
thrill of panic—a new panic—shot through her head. I’m not dead. I'm going to
be captured. Should I pretend to be dead or unconscious? What if they just
shoot me to make sure I’m dead? What if 1 ... ?

 
          
NO!
she screamed at herself. Stop it! Stop talking yourself into dying or screwing
things up even worse than you already have! She had a crew member out there
somewhere who probably needed her help. She had a duty to herself and to her
country to get out and make it back into friendly territory. Stop feeling sorry
for yourself. Annie Dewey, and get on your damn feet and
move!
If Dev
Deverill dies because you were too busy feeling sorry for yourself, then you
do
deserve to die!
Get up, you bitch
, and act like a real American airman
instead of a whiny overprotected coed!

 
          
She
heard no voices and no more footsteps. Good time to get the hell away from
here. Hands and arms, working. Good. Try to roll over . . . no, bad,
very
bad,
excruciatingly painful back pain, like ice picks were being driven up
her spine. She tried to return to her original spot to try to relieve the pain,
but her body was telling her, too late, Annie, there’s no pain-free way to move
now. She cried out as she rolled over on her back. The pain seemed to constrict
her throat, cutting off her airway, strangling her. Now panic was setting in
again. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, and the pain in her back was mind-
numbing. Stars swam in her field of vision, and she prayed she would pass out
to save her from the pain.

 
          
She
wasn’t that lucky. The only soothing thing she felt was the cold and wet snow
against her back. The pain was still there, still as sharp as ever, but at
least she felt it, and at least she could move. She wasn't paralyzed. Even
through the shattering pain, she felt a twinge of hope. Maybe she would be all
right.

 
          
Annie
reached up to her eyes and immediately found one source of her vision and
breathing problems—her helmet had shoved itself down over her face. Making the
slightest movement only increased the pain even more, but she was able to
unsnap the helmet and pull it off her head. Her fingertips found a deep crack
in the helmet—it had saved her life. A gash like that on her skull would've
easily killed her.

 
          
The
snow on the back of her head felt good, and several moments later she started
to see and sense more things—flickers of fires in the distance against the
stormy skies, the acid smell of burning jet fuel, and the creaks, shrieks, and
groans as the Vampire bomber continued its death-rattles; wet icy snow falling
on her face, cold moisture seeping through her flight suit and cold-weather
gear against her butt. She wasn’t wearing ultra-cold-weather stuff, but she was
wearing insulated long-underwear, thick wool socks, a turtleneck long underwear
shirt, and cold-weather Thinsulate flying gloves. The pain felt like it was
subsiding. Now she started to be afraid of going into shock if she got too
cold, so it was important that she get moving. Get up, Annie, she told herself.
Find Dev. Find the survival gear, Find shelter. Get away from the crash site
and hide.

 
          
The
pain came back full force as soon as she tried to get up, but she knew she had
no choice—either get up and have a chance of surviving, or stay on the ground
and freeze to death or get captured. With the helmet no longer muffling her,
she was able to cry out as loud as she dared, but she knew searchers would be
on their way and she didn’t want to risk being captured. Crawling to her hands
and knees seemed to take a half hour, but she did it. Reaching up to unfasten
her parachute risers and unbuckle her parachute harness seemed to drain every
erg of strength from her body, but she did it. Pulling on the nylon strap that
connected her harness to the survival pack seemed an impossibility, like trying
to pull a cruise ship into its dock after someone on deck threw her a line, but
she did it.