There was still a long road ahead . . .
He unconsciously reached into his pocket and felt the reassuring bulge of the folded American flag and the dog-eared corners of Dominique's photograph. He wished for a moment with Peter's perceptive
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power to look the thousands of miles to the west to where Dominique was. "I love you, honey," he whispered, his eyes closed tight. "I'll be home someday..."
Suddenly there was a knock at his door. The hatch swung open, and in the dim light Hunter could see the unmistakable form of a female. She came closer to him. It was Clara, the Madam.
She sat down on the edge of his bunk and nonchalantly put her hand on his upper right thigh. Although she was dressed in a one-piece mechanic's uniform, her zippered front was open to her navel and her perfume smelled like sweet air.
"Mister Hunter," she whispered seductively, "I have something for you."
"For me?" Hunter asked innocently, trying to hide a slight shaking in his voice.
"Yes, monsieur" she continued. "I had a very long talk with Sir Neil earlier tonight."
"And?" Hunter asked, very well aware that Clara's hand was inching its way up his leg.
"And he's agreed to let us-my girls and me-stay on board," she said slowly.
"For the time being . . ."
"He has?"
"Yes, my love." Clara laughed. "Over wine and candlelight, I can be quite persuasive." On cue, her hand moved closer to his crotch.
"So how's this . . . uh, involve me?"
"Oh, Monsieur Hunter," Clara said, leaning over to whisper in his ear. "He told me that it was you that requested we stay on board. He said it was an American tradition, is it not? To have women on board ship? To help, of course."
"Help . . . ?"
"Yes, major," she said, leaning even closer and stroking his long hair. "As therapists . . ."
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"Therapists?"
"Yes, major. This mission you are going on will be very stressful, no?"
"It could get, uh, stressful . . ." His excitement level was reaching the bursting point.
"Well, then, major. When was the last time you had a deep, relaxing massage?"
She didn't give Hunter time to answer. She snapped her fingers and another female slipped into the room.
"This is Emma," Clara said. With that, she stood up and led the other woman to his bunk. Then she gracefully left the room.
Hunter could sense the other woman's shyness, but he had yet to see her face.
He reached up and clicked on the small light over his head. Their eyes met for the first time.
Hunter was thunderstruck . . .
She was young, beautiful, and looked hauntingly reminiscent of Dominique . . .
She didn't speak. She reached up and turned out the bunk light. Then he felt her hands slowly work up his arm to his shoulder. To his neck, down his chest, to his waist, and back up again. He wasn't about to fight it. His hormones were flying about his body in afterburner. Nature takes its course, he thought.
Emma's hands worked his tired thigh muscles, front and back. Then she undid his flight boots -he usually wore them to bed to be ready in an emergency-and let them drop to the floor. His flight suit came off next.
Then she stood and removed her own coverall. In the dim light he could see her lovely silhouette. Small, delicate breasts. Beautiful shape. Shapely rear and outstanding legs. Best of all, the long,
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blonde hair. He closed his eyes and imagined it was Dominique. Younger, before the War, when he didn't even know her. Emma lay down beside him and caressed his shoulders and chest. His mind was working the fantasy overtime.
After what seemed like hours of foreplay, they made love. His psyche was reeling, his brain exploding. It was wonderful. Emma was perfect for him. Even Dominique would understand . . .
It was only much later that he realized that Peter had even had a hand in this.
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It was nearly midnight when the tug slipped into the small Algerian cove and tied up to a rickety dock. The tide was high and a full moon was shining above. The harbor was deserted except for a lone figure, dressed in Arab robes and a turban, who quickly helped tie up the tug, then came aboard.
Sir Neil himself greeted the man with a warm handshake. It was Raleigh, the British officer who had helped arrange the mercenary deals with Heath and Hunter. He had returned to Algiers to facilitate the transactions. Now the time had come for the Brits to take delivery.
While it was no secret that the English had contracted for the nearly 10,000-man multinational force, the exact time and place of their departure from Algiers had been kept especially confidential, as had been their mission.
Sir Neil knew full well that they could never keep an operation like towing an aircraft carrier the length of the Med a secret for very long, but the longer it remained covert, the
better.
So Raleigh had arranged to have most of the Aussie, French, and Spanish mercenaries trucked to
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a small coastal village twenty miles from Algiers, and it was from there the paycheck soldiers would be shuttled to the Saratoga.
"Everything is ready, sir," Raleigh told the British Commander. "The Moroccans are loading on a freighter right now, back in Algiers. The oiler is also standing by. They'll both move just as soon as we transmit the go-code.
Everyone else is waiting up in the hills."
"Well done, Raleigh, old boy," Sir Neil told him, leading him to the stern of the tug. "See that pair of red lights out there?"
Raleigh strained his eyes to make out two faint crimson lights on the dark horizon. "Yes, I see them, sir."
"That's the Saratoga, man," Sir Neil continued. "O'Brien has twelve tugs waiting to come in and start ferrying the troops aboard. Once we've got the majority of them on board, we'll radio the Moroccans and the oiler to make their move."
"I understand, sir," Raleigh said, pulling his hood over his head again, walking towards the gangplank. "Tell the tugs to come in. We're ready for them."
Hunter sat dozing in the cockpit of the F-16. The jet fighter was secured to the carrier's catapult system, ready to rocket the aircraft off the deck at a moment's notice. Should any trouble arise that would interfere with the pickup of the mercenaries, Hunter would be airborne first to counter the threat.
He was beat. The day's preparation for the midnight pickup off Algeria had been brutal. Hunter's role was to check, double-check, and then triple-check each of the carrier's aircraft, then document a lengthy status check on every available pilot. With-153
out the modern conveniences he once enjoyed way back when with the regular Air Force, the combat evaluation procedure turned into a long, arduous process.
Once the ferrying operation got underway, the air arm would be responsible for providing air cover. The job called for helicopters, and the Sea King had had to be left behind on Majorca. But because the Saratoga had linked up earlier in the day with the eleven additional frigates of Captain Olson's Norwegian fleet, Hunter was now flush with choppers. Each frigate carried one -mostly British-built Bell Sea Scouts. Under agreement with the Norwegians, these copters were at Hunter's disposal.
He was also tired because his pleasant liaison with Emma had lasted well into the morning and very little of that time had been devoted to sleeping. She had finally opened up and talked to him, though, about herself and about Clara's girls. Far from being street hookers, the women had actually been the highest-priced group of "mistresses" on the prewar European continent. They had specialized in escorting jet-setters -both men and women, as it turned out
-and all their clients had been fabulously wealthy. Clara had insisted on it: every client had to have at least $10 million in the bank before Clara even returned their calls. It was her way of protecting her girls -along with stringent medical tests. Small wonder Clara's girls had charged-and were gladly paid -as much as $20,000 for just a single night of bliss.
The odd thing about it all was that Emma realized she looked like a younger version of Dominique. Clara had told her so. But how did Clara know? Hunter had asked during the love session. Emma's answer stunned him. She said the man Peter had
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come to Clara and told her that Emma was the girl for Hunter. Once again Peter's perceptive abilities chilled him. He was both mystified and amazed that Peter could look that deep into his soul.
There was a constant chatter of radio traffic bouncing around in his headphones and it was getting mixed up with his half-awake dreams of the beautiful Emma. Suddenly he got a message that didn't come by way of his on-board radio. Aircraft approaching! his senses told him.
And they ain't friendly . . .
Hunter was wide awake in an instant. He knew there were four of them -bombers, flying way up there and coming in from the east.
Reacting fast to his sixth sense, he simultaneously hit his engine-engage switch and radioed the carrier's control tower that he was launching immediately. The F-16 was warm in less than thirty seconds, long enough for the ever-vigilant BBC crew to crank up their lights and catch the action on video. Hunter waved to the launch officer and two seconds later the 16
streaked off the carrier deck, its exhaust flame lighting up the dark Mediterranean night.
Hunter put the fighter into a steep climb, mentally setting a course to intercept the incoming aircraft. He climbed to 30,000, 40,000, 50,000 feet, all the time listening to his own inner voice guide him toward the unidentified airplanes.
His radar picked them up less than a half-minute later sixty-five miles out.
"Christ," he whispered as he interpreted the blips on his screen. "They look like Ilyushin-28s."
The Ilyushin-28 was a Soviet-built, medium-sized, two-engine jet bomber, from the 1960s. He knew it carried fairly sophisticated equipment which enabled it to find and hit a target accurately, but not from
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this high an altitude. Another strange thing, these four airplanes must have converted to night-fighting duty, not exactly a routine retrofit.
Hunter was within twenty miles of them in a minute. From there he could clearly study the aircraft on his video-imaging radar and try to ascertain what they were up to. They were acting suspicious-one clue was the fact they were "flying quiet," that is, under radio silence.
He radioed in to Heath, who was manning the CIC on the Saratoga. "We've got trouble," he reported. "Four Ilyushin mediums, in preattack formation, but right now flying too high to hit anything."
"Any idea what their intentions might be?" Heath asked through the static. He knew, as well as Hunter, that a bomber formation flying around the volatile Med region wasn't all that unusual. They just couldn't go around shooting at anything that flew by, without making a lot of unnecessary commotion or enemies. Plus Hunter had his Sidewinder shortage to think about.
"They're flying in pairs right now," Hunter said, arming his three remaining Sidewinders. "Judging from their course, two could be heading for Algiers, the other two could maybe break off, dive, and go for our tugs. But these guys have to get down on the deck for their bombing runs."
There was a short silence. Both Hunter and Heath evaluated the situation.
Then Heath broke in. "We calculate that at their present course, speed, and altitude, they'll have to break off and dive within the next ninety seconds if they expect to hit us.
"In other words, if we wait, they could just fly over and keep on going. But-"
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"But, if we wait, they could come in and sucker-punch us," Hunter finished.
There was an annoying burst of static, then Heath said, "Can you ID them, Hunter?"
"Well, I'm sure they've seen me on their radar," Hunter answered. "No point in keeping it a secret."
He throttled up and streaked passed the slow-flying bombers. As he flashed by, he was able to get a good look at the markings on the bombers. Even he was surprised. On the side of each airplane was the unmistakable red star of the Soviet Air Force.
Hunter radioed back, "You'd better get someone else up on deck and ready to take off. These guys look like genuine Soviet Air Force."
"I say, Hunter," Heath called back. "Did I copy? Soviet markings?"
"Roger," Hunter confirmed. "I'd know that red star anywhere. I put them only forty miles from the carrier and the tugs right now, and even closer to the port at Algiers."
A half-minute went by. It was agonizing. If they were belligerent, the Soviets would have to go into their attack mode within forty-five seconds. If they had decided to mind their own business, they would just keep on flying.
Hunter had never been in this position before. In the past, any Soviet airplane he spotted was immediately judged an enemy and immediately attacked.
Things were done differently in and over the Med.
His radio crackled to life again. "We have two Harriers warmed up, Hunter,"
Heath responded. "And Sir Neil is now aware of the situation."
The aircraft were now only thirty seconds from the port of Algiers and the small harbor where the ferrying operation was taking place. Were the planes
-although Russian -simply flying through?
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Or had the Soviets learned about the carrier's mission and were they attempting to disrupt it? Maybe the airplanes were being flown by mercenaries, although it's a rare occasion when the Soviet Air Force permits freelancers to fly its equipment while still carrying the old Red Star. Then there was another way-out possibility: could the bombers actually be on a bounty-hunting mission, with Hunter and the billion-dollar reward as the prize?
The last thought shook him slightly. But whatever the case, Hunter knew the airplanes would have to act soon.
"Hunter?" Heath called. "Do you think your friends up there might chat on the radio?"
"Only one way to find out," Hunter said, turning on his UHF band radio and closing to within a mile of the bombers.
"Ilyushin-28 flight commander," he began. "This is Major Hunter of the . . .