Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 01 (68 page)

 
          
McLanahan
swung the control yoke hard right.

 
          
Ormack’s
head banged against the right cockpit window but he pulled himself upright and
scanned as far behind the bomber as he could . . . “Pereira,
five o’clock
, one and a half miles, twenty degrees high
and cornin’ down. Nail him.”

 
          
Yuri
had the shot lined up perfectly, a textbook gun-pass. He had just squeezed the
trigger on his control stick, squeezed olf a hundred precious rounds, before
realizing that the B-52 wasn’t in his sights. It had
moved.
He tried to rudder-drag his sight around to the right but it
wasn’t enough and he was forced to yank off power and roll with the B-52 to
reacquire it.

 
          
He
was almost aligned again when a sharp white flash popped off his left side not
a hundred meters away. He yanked his MiG into a hard right turn and accelerated
away, saw another white flash and a cloud of sparkling shards of metal
exploding above him. The B-52 was
shooting
at him, and that was no machine-gun round—the intruder had tail-firing
rockets . . .

 
          
Yuri
expertly rolled out of his turn, perpendicular to the bomber’s flight path and
out of range of the strange flak missiles.

 
          
A
blinking warning light caught his attention. He was now on emergency fuel—less
than ten minutes time left and with no reserve. He didn’t even have the time to
set up another gun pass. He rearmed his last two remaining AA-8 missiles,
rechecked his infrared spotting scope and checked the location of the bomber.

 
          
Time
for one last pass, and it had to be perfect. At least his AA-8s had to have
greater range than those tiny missiles. He would roll back in directly behind
the B-52 and fire at maximum range when the AA-8s locked onto the bomber’s
engine-exhaust.

 
          
He
made a diving left-turn, staying about twelve kilometers behind the bomber. His
infrared target-spotting scope with its large supercooled eye locked onto the
B-52 immediately and sent aiming information to the AA-8 missiles. The B-52 was
making no evasive maneuvers. Slowly, the distance decreased.

 
          
The
American bomber, Yuri noted, had maneuvered itself onto a flat plateau just
above Anadyr Airbase, heading east toward the
Bering Strait
. It had nowhere to hide, nowhere to evade.
Yuri hoped it wouldn’t smash into
Anadyr
. On
the other hand, what better place to deposit the evidence of his victory? His
vindication?

 
          
The
range continued to decrease. Yuri could see the B-52’s tail now, and the
missile-firing cannon, still pointing up and to the right, jammed in position.
Yuri put his finger on the launch trigger, ready . . .

 
          
A
high-pitched beep sounded in his helmet—the AA-8’s seeker heads had locked onto
the B-52. Yuri checked his target once more, waited a few more seconds to close
the distance—fired. The green LOCK light stayed on STEADY as the two Mach-two
missiles streaked from their rails . . .

 
          
Ormack
searched the skies from the cockpit window. “I can’t see him, I lost him.”

 
          
“Angie,
can you see him?”

 
          
“No,
my radar’s jammed. I can’t see anything.”

           
The plateau dropped away into a wide
frozen plain, Anadyr Airbase centered within the snow-covered valley. McLanahan
did not wait for the terrain-avoidance system to take the Old Dog down. He
grabbed onto the yoke and pushed the Old Dog’s nose down, then shoved all six
operating engine-throttles to full power.

 
          
The
Old Dog had only dropped about a hundred feet down into the valley when
McLanahan suddenly realized the implications of what he was doing and used
every ounce of strength left to pull back on the control column.

 
          
“Patrick,
what the hell are you doing?” Ormack shouted.

 
          
“He’s
behind
us,” McLanahan told him. “He’s
gotta be behind us. If we dive into that valley we’re dead meat.”

 
          
Shattered
fibersteel from the Old Dog’s damaged fuselage screamed in protest but somehow
stayed together. The stall-warning horn blared, but McLanahan still held the
yoke back, forcing the Old Dog’s nose skyward at a drastic angle.

 
          
The
AA-8 missiles, only a few hundred meters from impact, lost their lock-on to the
engine’s hot exhaust when the Old Dog nosed upward. The missiles then
immediately reacquired a warm heat-source and readjusted to a target—the
base-operations building and the vehicles parked near it at Anadyr Airbase,
which was now manned by several squads of the
Anadyr
constabulary. Surrounded by a meter of
unplowed snow in all directions, the halftracks and jeeps were the hottest
objects for miles.

 
          
Chief
Constable Vjarelskiy, who had run from the hangar area to the flightline to
watch the chase unfolding in the skies above Anadyr Airbase, now watched in
horror as the two missiles screamed directly at him.

 
          
Before
he could shout a warning, the missiles hit—one plowing into the wooden base
operations building, the other finding an unoccupied truck with its hood open
because of an overheated radiator. The twin explosions scattered troops in all
directions.

 
          
Properly
enraged, Vjarelskiy pulled his nine-millimeter pistol from his holster and
raised it toward the American B-52, then stopped, realizing how absurd he must
look.

 
          
Yuri
had expected the American bomber to try to duck into the valley. Well, it would
do him no good—actually it would improve the intruder’s heat-signature.

 
          
What
he never expected was a
climb
. . .
the B-52 had appeared out of nowhere from behind the ridge, streaking skyward,
its nose pointed straight up in the air.

 
          
No
missile, not even the new AA-8s, could follow that. Yuri flicked on his cannon
and managed a half-second burst, but his overtake speed was too great and he
was forced to climb over the B-52.

 
          
The
huge black bomber had disappeared beneath him. Yuri could only keep his
throttles at max afterburner, try to loop around and align himself once more
for another cannon pass before his fuel ran out . . .

 
          
McLanahan
was now fiercely pushing the control column, fighting the lumbering Old Dog.
Its airspeed had bled off well below two hundred knots. Over the blare of the
stall-warning horn Ormack shouted to him that they had stalled and to get the
nose down . . .

 
          
McLanahan
somehow did it. He had just leveled the Old Dog’s nose on the horizon when a
blur and a roar erupted just outside his left window.

 
          
The
fighter had rushed past, its twin afterburners glowing. It was so close
McLanahan felt the heat of its engines through the broken glass and bullet
holes. Then it began a shallow climb, arcing gracefully up and to the left.

 
          
Ignoring
the blaring stall-warning horn, McLanahan pulled back on the control column and
pointed the Old Dog’s nose skyward once again.

 
          
But
with the number-eight throttle at full power, the Old Dog began to slide to the
left, its nose reaching a forty-degree angle, knifing skyward.

 
          
“Patrick,
release the controls,
now
...”

 
          
McLanahan
ignored Ormack’s order, waited, bone-tired, wrestling with a hundred tons of
near-uncontrollable machine. Then seconds before the MiG disappeared from
sight, he ordered: “Angie, right pylon missile—
FIRE.
”

 
          
It
took a few seconds, but with a screech and a long plume of fire the
Scorpion
missile sped free of its pylon
rail . . . and in the cold semidarkness of the long Siberian night, with two
bright turbofans in full afterburner dead-ahead, there was only one possible
target.

 
          
The
missile plunged into the fighter, detonating as the hot afterburner exhaust hit
the propellant. The entire aft section of the twin-tailed MiG broke apart,
shredding the nearly empty fuel tanks and adding thousands of cubic feet of
fumes to the fury of the explosion.

 
          
McLanahan
watched the fireball fly on for several moments in a wide bright arc, before
plunging into the snowy peaks of the
Korakskoje
Mountains
below.

 
          
Silence.
No cheers. No gloating. And then the Old Dog turned eastward toward the
Bering
Straits
—and home.

 
          
T
he hospital rooms were small and cold,
the beds hard and narrow, and the food was just edible—but for the past week
the crew of the Old Dog had felt like they had died and gone to heaven.

 
          
For
the first time since their arrival, and by accident, they were all together.
When she was notified by a nurse that General Elliott was accepting visitors,
Angelina Pereira, the only one of the crew not seriously injured, walked
through the frozen streets of the
Nome
Airport
to the Air National Guard infirmary and
General Elliott’s guarded room.

 
          
The
entire crew was assembled.

 
          
“Well,
hello,” she said, surprised but pleased. They were all there— John Ormack,
sitting at a desk beside Elliott, his head and shoulder heavily bandaged;
Patrick McLanahan, frostbite on his ears, hands and face; Wendy Tork, bandages
over parts of her face and forehead; and General Elliott. Angelina went over to
his bedside.

 
          
“How
you doing, Angie?”

 
          
“Fine,
sir . . . I’m . . . I’m sorry about your leg. I’m truly—”

 
          
“Forget
it, Angie,” Elliott said, glancing at the folds of bedspread where his right
leg would have been. “Some team of doctors out at
Bethesda
already has me on the slate for a new
mechanical job, so I’ll be up and making trouble before you know it. I’m not
trying to be brave, I’m just damn glad to be alive . . . actually I’m the one
who should be making the apologies.” He was thinking especially of Dave Luger.

 
          
Angelina
said: “I was proud to serve with you, sir, and proud of what we accomplished. I
think I speak for everybody.”

 
          
Elliott
looked at his assembled crew. “Thank you, I’m damn grateful to all of you.” He
cleared his throat. “I think you’ll be glad to know that I spoke with the
President this morning. He congratulated everyone of you. He also said that a
new agreement has been reached . . . the Soviets have agreed
not
to rebuild the Kavaznya facility,
and in return we’ve agreed not to launch another
Ice Fortress
.

 
          
“He
told me something else that will interest you. Our suspicions about a breach of
security were on target. It seems a certain aide in CIA Director Kenneth
Mitchell’s office was passing information to the Soviets. I don’t know if it
was a birds-of-a-feather sort of thing, or money, or both. Whatever, if we
hadn’t faked that crash over
Seattle
, my guess is that the Russians would have
been waiting for us with every fighter they could put in the air. As it was, we
had our hands full . . .”

 
          
No
one argued with that.

 
          
Elliott
motioned to Wendy, who had gotten a smuggled bottle of wine from the general’s
closet. She and Angelina poured for everyone as Elliott went on.

 
          
“Of
course the destruction of the Kavaznya laser and our new agreement doesn’t nail
down the lid on laser technology. It’s probably only a matter of time before we
develop laser systems equivalent to the Soviet’s. What we’ve got to hope is
that they’ll neutralize each other ...” Elliott raised his glass. “Well, to
right now, and to the crew of the Old Dog. You guys broke the mold.”

           
Angelina raised her glass. “And to
Lewis Campos.”

 
          
McLanahan
forced his voice to be steady. “To Dave Luger . . .”

 
          
“To
Dave Luger,” Wendy added. “The one who really brought us home.”

 
          
They
finished their wine in a strained silence. It was Angelina who finally spoke.

 
          
“What
will happen to the Old Dog, General?”

 
          
“Well,
as a matter of fact, it may be back in action—although I still think John here
suffered a crack in the head he’s not telling us about.” Ormack shrugged. “With
what it’s been through, it doesn’t seem right to let it be cut up for scrap
metal. I’ll supervise some repairs and fly it back to Dreamland.”

           
McLanahan said, “I’m probably out of
my mind, but I volunteered to go back with him.”

 
          
“Patrick
seems to like the idea of hanging around with an old coot like me,” Elliott
said, smiling. “He’s accepted a job working with me at Dreamland.”

 
          
Elliott
nodded at Ormack, who reached into a duffel bag. “I saved this one for you,
McLanahan,” Ormack said, and presented him with the pilot’s control wheel. “It
popped right off the Old Dog’s left control column. I didn’t have it cut off or
anything. I guess the beast
wanted
you to have it.”

 
 
          
♦
♦♦

 
          
Wendy
hung up the telephone at the nurse’s station, turned to Patrick McLanahan
sitting beside her.

 
          
“Everything
okay at home?” McLanahan asked.

 
          
“Fine.
They were relieved to hear from me. They hadn’t been able to get word-one out
of the Air Force for the last two months.”

 
          
“My
Mom was worried too,” McLanahan said. “I had a good excuse, though. Told her I
was busy bombing
Russia
.”

 
          
“You
didn’t—”

 
          
“Sure,
why not? She didn’t believe a word I said.”

 
          
Wendy
smiled, then turned serious. “Pat. . . that girl, Catherine, you told me about.
Did you call her too?”

 
          
“Yes.
We had a long talk. Very long. I told her the truth. I told her I used to worry
I wasn’t making a difference being in the Air Force, that what I was doing
wasn’t adding up to anything. I said I didn’t feel that way anymore, that I was
going to stay in. I think she understood. She wished me luck.”

 
          
“Oh,
well, that’s good ... I guess ... And now you’re off to Dreamland next month.”
She fidgeted with her hands. “I’m sure you’ll do . . . I’m glad things have
worked out for you ...”

 
          
He
stood up and looked down at her, into her eyes that raised to meet his. “Hey,
it’s just a thought, but . . . well, you know, Elliott could use a good
electronic warfare officer at Dreamland. And I’d like it if. . . oh, to hell
with it,” and he put his arms around her and drew her to him. “I want you to
come with me. I want us to be together. How about it?” Her arms tightened
around him, and the kiss that followed gave him all the answer he needed.