Now there must have been 100,000 people crowded into the square half-mile-sized base. Few were carrying anything more than the clothes on their backs, although rifles and sidearms were much in evidence. There were so many people, they were lining the runways, standing no more than twenty feet from where monstrous 747s and DC-10s were roaring in and out. Thousands more were crushed inside the airport's terminal, and overflowing onto its outside walkways, its roof, and its window sills. The area surrounding the T-shaped structure was
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thick with people, all of them trying to do one thing: get on an airliner and get the hell out of Casablanca.
The problem was the airliners were landing with much less frequency now. The aerial traffic jam had cleared up the night before; airliners coming in now were given a clear shot at landing immediately. And most of them were landing more for want of fuel than a desire to join the dangerous confusion. Plus, once the airplanes were down, it was taking them two hours or more to pass through the crowds and get from the taxiing strip to the terminal building.
Fewer airliners meant fewer seats to freedom. And the price of the ride was going up -drastically. Where two days before five bags of silver or one bag of gold would have meant at least a seat at the rear of the plane, now greedy aircrews were now charging as much as six bags of gold just to sit on the cabin floor. The quick hike in air fare led to some disagreements. The sound of gunfire, once distracting in its infrequency, was now a constant background noise.
But as bad as the crowd was inside the airport, it paled in comparison with the mob that waited outside the airfield's fence. O'Malley estimated there were close to a quarter of a million people surrounding the facility.
"This is ridiculous!" O'Malley said to Elvis. "A thousand 747s couldn't carry all these people out!"
The Wreckers had arrived just minutes after a gruesome catastrophe. Many of the fences around the airport were no longer strong enough to hold back the burgeoning crowds. Several had already broken down. One of those remaining was the barrier on the north side of the airport, closest to its last operating runway. Its supports finally gave way
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just as a beat-up Swedish National Airline 747 Jumbo jet, smoking and desperately low on fuel, made what was technically an unauthorized landing.
Just as the big airplane came in, the weight of the thousands pressing against the fence made it collapse. Those leaning on the fence when it snapped were forced to run in all directions, the crush behind them was so great. Several hundred were forced right into the path of the landing 747. The airliner's pilots, horrified to see the people on the runway, were too low to abort. The big plane plowed through hundreds of terrified people head on, flipping many '
up and over its wings and horribly sucking others into its jet-engine nozzles.
The pilots had immediately reversed the big jet's engines in an attempt to halt the airplane's screeching roll and stop the unbelievable carnage, but the action only caused the airliner to skid off the runway and plunge into a larger crowd of people. A fire quickly broke out and the airplane exploded, killing its crew, and more than a thousand others.
O'Malley and Elvis had arrived just two minutes later. They found the runway littered with bodies. Only O'Malley's skill allowed the fighter jet to land without colliding with a corpse. Still, in steering the landing aircraft around the bodies, O'Malley was forced to swerve the plane off the runway, and now it was stuck up to its right wingtip in sand and dirt that had turned to mud at the end of the runway.
O'Malley reached inside his flight suit, dug out six bags of silver coins, and gave them to Elvis. "Try to bribe someone with a towline and a vehicle, will you?" O'Malley asked him. "We've got to winch this bird out."
"Roger," Elvis said, taking the silver and bounding off the jet's wing.
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O'Malley reached into the F-4's cockpit and came up with an M-16. "Here, better take this too" he said, handing the gun to Elvis. "And better keep your helmet on."
"Where you headed, captain?" Elvis asked.
O'Malley looked out onto the mass confusion of the airfield, then checked his
.45 automatic sidearm pistol.
"I'm going to the control tower to find out if anyone's seen an F-16 around here."
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The RAF Nimrod reconnaissance aircraft took off and gracefully climbed to 20,000 feet. Although there was bad weather off to the northeast, it was a beautifully clear morning over Gibraltar.
The big plane turned toward direct north and was soon over the coast of Portugal. Hunter and Sir Neil were sharing a large window near the plane's navigator's console, both enjoying the view of the shimmering early morning Atlantic and inviting lushness of the land below.
The pilot called back a reading and Sir Neil checked a navigation chart. "All right, major," he said with a sly smile. "We are soon to cross over Lisbon. If you look down into their port facilities, I think you'll see something very interesting."
Hunter moved closer to the window. Despite a bunch of puffy clouds, he could begin to focus on the port of Lisbon below. Immediately, he saw what Sir Neil was talking about.
"Jeezuz," Hunter exclaimed. "I've never seen so 65
many ships in one place in my life!"
The port and the surrounding waterways were crowded with ships. Freighters, ocean liners, warships, large ferries. There must have been at least 200 of them. They were anchored side by side in a line that stretched for miles. All of them were painted with the same drab, gray-green color scheme.
"Those are the ships of The Modern Knights," Sir Neil said, a touch of boast in his voice. "Two hundred and forty major vessels. It is a fleet to rival only Lucifer's."
"I should say so," Hunter said, fascinated at the sight of concentrated power.
"But, it's what will be riding in those ships that's important, major," the Englishman continued.
The airplane turned east. Soon, they were flying over what Hunter recognized immediately as a massive military complex close by a mountain range.
"This is Montemor-o-Novo," Sir Neil said, rolling the word perfectly. "This is the major staging facility for The Modern Knights. They have hired hundreds of thousands of mercenaries. From all over western Europe. There's another facility like this at Plymouth in the UK. It is these troops, traveling on those ships, that will go against Lucifer's Legions. This undertaking rivals the invasion force put together for the Normandy landings back in World War II."
While the Nimrod circled, Hunter studied every aspect of the huge base. It did look like a scene out of the movie on D-Day. "Just when will these troops be ready to move out?" he asked.
"We are hoping they'll embark just a few days after we do," Sir Neil said, slowly. "Trouble is, the logistics of such an operation are monstrous."
Hunter looked back at the Englishman. For the
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first time since meeting Sir Neil, Hunter heard a hint of uncertainty in his voice.
An hour later, Sir Neil was seated at the navigator's control station with Hunter peering over his shoulder. The Englishman fiddled with the bank of touch-sensitive buttons that controlled the airplane's sophisticated
"look-down" radar.
The Nimrod had climbed to 50,000 feet and headed northeast. They had hit the bad weather just before crossing over the Pyrenees. Now, even at this height, rain pelted the jet, and strong headwinds buffeted its wings.
"We'll be over our second 'target' in a few minutes," Sir Neil said, working hard to get the jumble of lines on the video screen in front of them to properly shape themselves to the contour of the earth below. "This weather gives us a good hiding place, Hunter, but it also plays daffy with the TV
imaging."
Sir Neil gave the control panel a well-placed slap just above its fuse bank.
The screen blinked twice and then became crystal-clear. Where there had been hundreds of lines of wavy static before, now there was the sharp, neon-blue-and-white image of the snow-capped mountain range.
"Ah, yes, the Pyrenees," Sir Neil said happily by way of explanation. "Used to take the wife skiing there before the war. She's in Free Canada now, thank God."
Hunter couldn't help but think of Dominique; she too was in Free Canada.
The TV screen was beautifully registering the ground ten miles below, despite the poor weather. The image was so clear, it almost looked like it was 67
being shot by a television camera, not a ground-imaging radar.
"Great piece of equipment, this," Sir Neil said, fine-tuning the picture even more. "It's a LORAL TK-1Q imager."
"Next best thing to being there," Hunter agreed.
Slowly the image of the mountain faded and was replaced by the swaying lines of the ocean.
"We're over the Gulf of Lions now," Sir Neil said. "That's Marseilles up ahead."
The airplane bucked once, hard. The video screen protested with a brief burst of static, then returned a faithful picture of the southern coast of France.
Hunter turned to look over the heads of the Nim-rod's pilots and out the cockpit window. The rain was getting heavier, the air more turbulent. The pilots had the airplane's windshield wipers working overtime, and were taking turns wrestling with the controls in an effort to keep the airplane level.
"Here it comes!" Sir Neil called out, drawing Hunter's attention back to the screen. At the same time, the Nimrod's pilot called back to them. "Toulon is clear, Commander."
Hunter knew the pilot had just done a routine electronic-weapons sweep of the ground below and found no hostile SAMs waiting for them. Now, as Hunter studied the TV screen, he saw the outline of the once-famous French Riviera come into view.
An anxious jolt ran through him. The most important element of the Brits' plan to capture the Suez was soon to come into view below. The closer they got, the wilder the British plan was becoming to Hunter.
"Just a few seconds now," Sir Neil told him. "Just the other side of Nice and we'll see it . . ."
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Sir Neil and his men were convinced the only way to seize control of the Canal was with air power. Warplanes were rarer items in the Med than in America.
Lucifer's Legions had very few, although the madman's allies in the area boasted some small but formidable air forces. These were mostly local air units, satisfied with their role as air terrorists in Lucifer's employ, doing occasional air pirating or freelance bombing jobs on the side.
On the other hand, the RAF, with its major air facility at Gibraltar and a few outposts like the Highway Base scattered throughout the Western Mediterranean, could muster as many as thirty aircraft, of varying types and quality. And unlike the air raiders, the Brits had a coordinated air-command system; their units frequently did training exercises together, with the entire command carrying out extensive maneuvers several times a year.
The trouble was the British air power found itself confined to the western Med. The RAF airplanes rarely ranged much beyond the airspace west of Sardinia. There were no friendly air fields that would serve them if they did.
These days, going from west to east on the Med was like sailing up the proverbial River of Fools. The further one traveled, the more bizarre and unpredictable things became. All kinds of dangerous characters plied the waters of the central and eastern sea, as well as sometimes prowling the skies above it. Appropriately enough, the miscellaneous madness peaked right around the Suez Canal. And just 250 miles beyond that lay the outer reaches of Lucifer's evil empire.
Just as in America, where Hunter and democracies stopped a larger land army with a small but effective air force during The Circle War, the Brits 69
felt that if they could project their air superiority-quickly-to Suez, they could seize the canal and the air above it. Thus, the skies would be in friendly hands when The Modern Knights arrived a few days later.
"We're like the air commandos who go in just before the big invasion," Sir Neil had told him. "Get there before the enemy. Hold him off with our air power. Deny him use of the canal."
The question was: how to move all that air power?
The answer lay directly below the RAF Nimrod.
"Here it comes," Sir Neil said, adding in all proper English seriousness,
"Major Hunter, this will be one of the most beautiful sights you will ever see."
Hunter focused his eyes on the radar-imaging screen. The big jet -still rolling and pitching in the severe weather-was over the once chic city of Nice. He could see the miles of shoreline, the glamorous beachfront buildings he knew were casinos. It evoked memories of the happier, exciting time of the prewar world.
Suddenly the Nimrod hit a violent air pocket, driving the aircraft down and causing another wave of static to burst onto the video screen. "Bloody - " Sir Neil murmured as he tried to revive the video screen.
Hunter readjusted his flight helmet, which had been knocked almost 180-degrees around his head in the latest jar. By the time he fixed it and could see again, Sir Neil had the TV screen back up and working. "There it is!" Sir Neil was yelling. "Isn't it tremendous?"
That's when Hunter saw it. It was so big it filled the radar screen even though they were ten miles high.
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"Jezzuz," he whispered. Suddenly everything started to make sense. The Brits couldn't fly their air armada to the Suez-so they were going to float it there instead.
"It's an aircraft carrier," Hunter said.
"It's the USS Saratoga," Sir Neil informed him.
"It's an enormous aircraft carrier."
"Well, you see, it looks very big because it's run aground," the Englishman explained with glee. "You're seeing a lot of what's usually below the water line.
"It's still the biggest goddamn thing I've ever seen."
"That's quite true-it is one of the largest you Yanks ever built," Sir Neil told him. "It was converted to nuclear power. Had a proud war record too.
Until it washed up here anyway."