Death Orbit (47 page)

Still, as the lead pilot pulled out of his strafing run, he aimed his guns squarely on the cruiser’s mainsail. A 25-shot barrage severed the secondary radar dish and the ship’s VHY radio antenna. It also cut down the main mast, tearing through its flag and sending it in pieces into the ocean.

Looking back down at their handiwork, both pilots could see the enemy ship’s colors blown into the sea and slipping beneath the waves.

“That’s the only way I want to see the Iron Cross,” the lead pilot radioed over to the other. “Ripped and sinking.”

“Roger that,” replied his wingman.

The crew of the Hughes SuperSea bomber witnessed the strafing attack and radioed down to the American destroyer that their pilots were returning safely.

But the enemy cruiser was still coming on—and now it was launching a recovery boat, too. This one was literally shot off the deck and was heading at very high speed toward the remaining floaters.

Watching all this on his TV screen, the bomber’s COA told his machine gun crews to stand by. Then he sent another radio message down to the
Louis St. Louis.
There was something he wanted to ask the captain of the destroyer.

At the same moment, Wolf was talking to the Sea Marines in the American recovery boat. They had the one floater aboard and were coming back. Wolf called down to the propulsion room and ordered more gas be put on the destroyer’s double-reaction plant. Then he told his crew to strap in for a quick getaway.

Meanwhile the enemy’s high-speed boat had slowed down and was hauling the second floater out of the water. This man appeared to be alive too, but barely. The third floater had drifted far away by this time.

That’s when Wolf’s air-sea radio began blinking again. It was the SuperSea’s COA with his question: Should his gunners strafe the enemy’s recovery boat?

Wolf had to think about this for a moment. It was a legitimate question. The enemy recovery boat
was
a vessel of war, and thus a fair target. But it did have at least one of the mysterious floaters on board. And the chances were good the enemy cruiser would disengage once it saw the
Louis St. Louis
accelerate and the SuperSea depart the area. So what was the point of shooting at the rescue boat?

Finally Wolf keyed his mike.

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” he told the airplane.

The
Louis St. Louis was
35 miles away from the area just 20 minutes later.

Captain Wolf was in his stateroom, writing up a report on the incident. Behind him, another large computer was whirring softly. He found it a comforting sound. There was a knock at the door. The ship’s Executive Officer, the man named Zal, came in.

He handed his own preliminary combat report to Wolf.

“We never got to use our targeting lamp,” he said. “We were never in range. Our hull temperature
did
achieve thirty-four degrees though—pretty good, considering.”

“They still would have nailed us with a radi-seeker after a third disruption barrage,” Wolf said. “But tell the crew they did well nevertheless. At this point, what difference does it make?”

“Will do, skipper,” Zal replied.

Wolf fed Zal’s report into the huge whirring computer and pushed a button labeled
PROCESS.

“I was surprised to see such a large enemy ship in these parts,” Zal told Wolf. “I didn’t think they could muster enough men or fuel these days to get one out this far.”

“A last-gasp patrol,” Wolf said with a shrug. “They’ll be lucky if they make it back to port. Without their cloaking stuff, they’ll be a big fat target for anyone with an air torpedo.”

Wolf then looked up at Zal.

“So, where is he?” he asked the XO.

“The man we brought aboard?”

“Yes. Is he still alive?”

“He is—and he’s actually in pretty good shape,” Zal said. “Probably hasn’t had a meal in a while. But other than that, he looks like he just went for a dip in the pool. He should be on the way up from sick bay about now.”

Wolf signaled that Zal should close the stateroom door. Then he lowered his voice.

“OK, then—who the hell is he?” he asked the XO.

Zal just shrugged.

“Damned if I know, skipper,” he replied. “I don’t think he knows himself. He’s rather confused at the moment.”

Zal took something from his pocket and laid it on Wolf’s desk.

“This is all they found on him,” he said.

Wolf picked up the rolled piece of cloth and unraveled it. It was a small, tattered American flag. Wrapped inside was a faded picture of a young blond woman.

Wolf let out a whistle.

“Wow, nice babe,” he said.

“Look at that flag, skipper,” Zal said. “It has fifty stars.”

Wolf quickly counted the white stars in the blue field. “Yeah, fifty. What the hell is that about?”

“Last time I checked, the American flag had forty-nine,” Zal said.

At that moment there was a knock at the door. Wolf folded the picture back up into the flag and put it in his drawer. Then he signaled Zal to open the door.

Two corpsmen walked in. Between them was the man taken from the sea.

Wolf took one look at him and then did a double take. The man was tall, thin, muscular, probably somewhere in his mid twenties. His hair was very long, his face bearded, but handsome in features. He was obviously Anglo-Saxon. But he looked—
different.
Wolf even removed his thick sunglasses to get a better look at him.

“Well, who the hell are you?” he asked the man bluntly. “An angel who fell out of the sky?”

The man said nothing.

He was wearing sailor scrubs, but this guy was not an ordinary seaman. At least that was obvious. One of the corpsmen handed the man’s clothes to Wolf, then he and his partner quickly departed. Zal closed the door behind them.

Wolf examined the set of combat fatigues.

“Well, this is obviously a uniform,” Wolf said. “But for what army?”

The man just shrugged.

“I…can’t say,” he mumbled.

“‘Can’t say’ or ‘don’t know?’”

“Both, I guess…”

The man looked around the stateroom.

“This ship,” he asked. “Who does it belong to?”

Wolf put his glasses back on and leaned back in his seat.

“Let us ask the questions first, OK?” he told the man. “Have a seat.”

Zal guided the man to a chair opposite Wolf, then he took a seat himself on the couch nearby.

“Do you have any idea how you got to be out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean?” Wolf asked the man.

The man just shook his head. “No idea.”

“Were you part of a ship’s crew? An officer maybe?”

The man shook his head again. “I don’t know.”

“Were you in an airplane? Are you an aviator?”

“Could be one of those top-secret flyboys, skipper,” Zal interjected. “You know, the Air Corps Commandos.”

Wolf thought about this and nodded slowly.

“How about it, sport?” he asked. “You a secret Air Corps guy? Under orders not to speak?”

“He could have been flying one of the new doodlebugs,” Zal added. “Those guys ain’t supposed to talk to nobody.”

“Any of this ringing a bell, pal?” Wolf pressed.

But the man just shook his head again.

“None of it,” he replied.

Wolf stared back at him. Even his voice sounded weird. Yet, just like the man’s overall appearance, he wasn’t exactly sure
what
was different about it.

The man was studying some of the papers on Wolf’s desk. “Can I ask a question now?” he wanted to know.

“OK, sure, ask away,” Wolf told him.

“What year is this?”

Wolf and Zal just looked at each other.

“Well, it’s 1997, sport,” Wolf replied.

A look of surprise registered on the man’s face—but it disappeared just as quickly.

“And you are at war, correct?” he asked Wolf.

“You saw that firsthand, didn’t you?” Wolf replied.

“But who are you fighting exactly?”

Wolf and Zal looked at each other again. It was a strange question to ask. Maybe it was best to ignore it, they thought.

“Hey, what’s with your hair, man?” Wolf asked him instead. “What army or navy would let you have hair like that?”

The man just stared at the floor. He
was
confused.

Wolf looked over at Zal.

“Well, this is going well,” he said sarcastically.

The XO came over and sat on the desk in front of the man. He lowered his voice slightly.

“Look, you ain’t a German, are ya, pal?” he asked him.

The man shook his head no.

“Well, now we’re getting somewhere!” Zal exclaimed.

Wolf leaned forward in his seat a little. “Are you an American?” he asked.

The man thought a moment and then replied. “Yes.”

“Are you a member of the armed forces of the United States of America?”

The man thought another few moments. “No, I am not,” he finally replied.

This sent Zal scratching his head.

“So you’re a member of the armed services,” he said. “And you are an American. But you are not a soldier of the United States?”

The man just nodded. “That’s right—I think.”

Zal kept on scratching. “Well, now I’m confused,” he said.

“Me too,” Wolf added.

He turned around in his chair to his computer. He popped the keyboard out, typed in a few quick notes on the interview and then pushed a button that would convert his words into an alpha-numeric language only the computer could understand. Basically he was asking the machine what he should do next.

The computer whirred and blinked and burped and blinked some more. Finally the answer came out on a long piece of ticker tape.

“Terminate interrogation,” it read. “Return to port immediately.”

Wolf showed the message to Zal, who nodded.

“Listen pal, we’ve got to stop this right here,” Wolf said. “We’ll be bringing you back with us. I have a feeling someone higher up the ladder will be very interested in you.”

The man just shrugged. “Do what you’ve got to do.”

Wolf nodded to Zal. “OK, get him fed. And keep him away from the crew. It will take us about four hours to get back into port.”

Zal tapped the stranger on the shoulder.

“Let’s go, pal,” he said.

The man stood up. He really was a strange-looking cat.

“Just one more question,” Wolf said. “How about your name? Do you remember that?”

The man thought for a moment, then he finally replied:

“Yes, I do. My name is Hawk Hunter.”

Wolf looked at Zal, who just shrugged.

“Never heard of you,” Wolf said.

Out at sea, on the edge of the Demon Zone, one man was still floating.

Up until a little while ago, two other people had been in the water with him. But one had been picked up by an ultraspeedy warship; the other by a floating iron castle.

The gray, speedy vessel looked like a destroyer—but it was sleeker than any destroyer he’d ever seen. And the iron castle looked too big, too cumbersome to even stay afloat.

But the airplane that had circled above him the whole time was the strangest thing of all. It was the biggest, slowest, oddest-looking airplane he’d ever seen.

But they were all gone now. The destroyer had left the area at incredible speed carrying away one guy, and the black floating castle had departed in slower fashion towards the south carrying another. And then the gigantic airplane had simply flown away, leaving him here, all alone.

He had a huge bump on his head and a long scrape on his left arm. He’d been bobbing in the water for more than an hour now, and he was getting damned cold. He wasn’t sure how he got here; his memory was very foggy. In fact, he couldn’t even remember his name.

But he was coherent enough to know he was in very dire circumstances. He looked in all directions and saw nothing but water. He could tell by the cloud formations there wasn’t any land mass for hundreds of miles. But what could he do?

He couldn’t last much longer like this. He had to do something.

So he looked up at the sun and determined which way was west.

And then he started swimming.

Mack Maloney is the author of numerous fiction series, including Wingman
,
Chopper Ops
,
Starhawk, and Pirate Hunters, as well as
UFOs in Wartime: What They Didn’t Want You to Know
. A native Bostonian, Maloney received a bachelor of science degree in journalism at Suffolk University and a master of arts degree in film at Emerson College. He is the host of a national radio show,
Mack Maloney’s Military X-Files
.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1997 by Mack Maloney

Cover design by Michel Vrana

978-1-4804-0678-0

This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media

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New York, NY 10014

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