Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 02 (32 page)

 
          
But
one glance out the bulletproof windscreen told him that his luck was running
out. A staff car was heading his way. It was still three hundred yards off,
perhaps more, but it was coming fast.

 
          
Lovyyev
jumped out of his seat and crawled up into the armored open turret on the roof.
He yelled back into the hangar,
“Orlov.
Skaryehyeh! Etah srochnah!
Hurry. They’re coming!”

 
          
“Shut
up, Crowe!” Orlov was hiding against the inner front wall of the hangar, his
M-16/M-203 in his arms and the remote- control detonator around his neck. “Get
down!”

 
          
But
it was too late. In a panic, Lovyyev swiveled the machine gun turret around,
released the safety, aimed it at the approaching staff car, pulled and held the
trigger.

*
 
*
 
*

 
          
Hal
Briggs was thinking about what he was going to say to Rey Jacinto about his
strange behavior when he saw what looked like exhaust smoke rising from the
Commando armored car. Just as he was wondering why Jacinto was starting up, he
saw a line of explosions and shattering concrete race across the tarmac
directly at his car. He slammed on the brakes and dived for the floorboards
under the front seat just as his windshield exploded in a shower of glass.
Instantly he felt a wall of fire envelope him, and realized that the engine
compartment was on fire.

 
          
His
synthetic fatigue shirt began to melt on his back. He clawed for the door
handle, found it, shoved the door open and crawled out of the burning car. He
landed only a foot from the flaming remains of the car’s hood, which had been
blasted apart by the explosion, and half-crawled, half-stumbled away from the
car. Thick black smoke was everywhere. He inhaled a lungful of the gas, gagged,
fell to the concrete. Pieces of red-hot metal were all around him. But at least
the smoke hid him from the gunner in the V-ioo. He stayed on his hands and
knees and began to crawl to where he thought the security checkpoint was ... He
guessed right. A few moments later two guards rushed out and hauled him to his
feet. He let the guards carry him to the guard shack but resisted when they
tried to lay him down on the floor. He picked up the radio, switched the
channel selector to one, the base-wide emergency channel, and clicked it on:

 
          
“Attention
all HAWC security units, this is Hotel on channel one. Execute code echo-seven.
Repeat, code echo-seven. Intruder alert, Hangar Five. Repeat, intruder alert,
Hangar Five. This is not an exercise. Shots fired in front of Hangar Five by
intruders from a V-ioo armored vehicle. Number of intruders unknown.”

 
          
Briggs
paused, rubbing a pain in his right temple. Massaging it, he found a gash in
his head and his hair burned off. “All Foxtrot guard units, secure your posts
and stand by to repel. Break. Rover Seven, converge on Hangar Five, secure the
V-ioo parked there, block the front of the hangar by any means possible. Break.
Red Man, notify Colonel Towland and General Elliott in Mission Control of
situation, use channel nine, and have them order the flight crew on the
airborne B-52 to remain clear of the area and notify the crew of the standby
B-52 to prepare to evacuate. Deploy all available personnel in full combat gear
to security checkpoint alpha and launch helicopter air security units one and
two. Break. Rover Nine, pick me up in front of security checkpoint alpha. I
will take control from Rover Nine. All units, execute . . .”

 
          
Orlov
knew it was no use berating Lovyyev—he might have even saved them by keeping
that sedan away from the hangar until Maraklov, or James, or whatever his name
was now, could get ready. They had been out there for hours. Was Maraklov ever
going to be ready?

 
          
The
security forces were moving faster than Orlov ever thought possible. Seconds
after Lovyyev opened fire, he was receiving return fire from Hangar Four,
although Lovyyev was in no danger except from a lucky shot. M-16 rounds were
pinging off the armor surrounding the turret, forcing Lovyyev to shoot from a
more protected position inside the cab. But it was working. He was holding down
any deadly return fire, keeping the first wave of defenders back. It wouldn’t
last long, but he was buying Maraklov time . . .

*
 
*
 
*

 
          
As
was always the case, the first device to be activated under the Advanced Neural
Transfer and Response System was on the radios. Usually they were quiet. This
time, there was so much chatter on the area air-traffic control frequency that
at first James thought he had dialed in two overlapping Las Vegas AM talk
stations. The words were almost unintelligible, which at first confused him.
Then he realized that the voices were talking about
them
—half the military security forces in Nevada were being called
on to attack Hangar Five . . . they had already been discovered by Dreamland’s
security forces. If he’d spent two more minutes completing the ANTARES
interface they’d all be dead.

 
          
A
millisecond’s mental inquiry told him all he needed to know: Sergeant Howard,
if he was still alive, had done his job well. External air and power were on
and available. DreamStar’s body tanks were full—he had much more fuel than he
had hoped for. Apparently they had drained the wing fuel tanks but left the
body tanks and their thirty thousand gallons of jet fuel intact.

 
          
Both
AIM-120 Scorpion missiles were loaded and even responded to a fast connectivity
and continuity check—which meant they could be launched or jettisoned at any
time. Whether they were armed or capable of defending him was a question that
would have to wait. The twenty-millimeter Vulcan cannon was empty—a fully
loaded cannon would have been too much to hope for.

 
          
Howard
had removed the inlet covers, safety pins and landing gear downlocks, and had
closed all the maintenance covers except for the external power cover. The man
was really efficient. He’d have to thank him someday, if they made it . . .
ANTARES’ automatic flight-data recorder recorded the thought for later
retrieval.

 
          
DreamStar
had the ability to go from complete power off to full military takeoff thrust
in moments. Fighters in the twenty- first century would routinely have it—now
only DreamStar did. James again placed his life in the hands of a computer—
only a machine could control the enormous amount of power that he was about to
unleash. It was the ultimate in combat speed and efficiency—but it could just
as easily turn the one hundred-thousand-pound fighter into a huge bomb.

 
          
Power,
fuel, air—all engine start systems activated with a single thought. Lights and
transmitters off—no use in making it easier for Briggs and the Air Force to
find him. A compressed air tank, filled from the external power cart, collected
twenty thousand cubic feet of air at five thousand pounds PSI pressure, then
emptied it onto the sixteenth-stage compressor in DreamStar’s turbofan engine
in less than a second. At the same time fuel was injected into the combustion
chamber and the high-voltage ignitors activated. The blast of compressed air
spun the engine turbines at three thousand RPMs, mixing air and fuel in the
proportions to create a huge explosive ignition equal to the force of a ton of
TNT.

 
          
In
ten seconds DreamStar was ready for flight. With full power available, his only
concern now was to get off the ground as fast as possible.

*
 
*
 
*

 
          
Orlov,
as Sergeant Howard, had been briefed on DreamStar’s fast-reaction-start
capability, but he never quite believed it. One moment the fighter was silent,
cold, without power— the next, the engine was at full power with a huge shaft
of fire burning out the engine exhaust, expelling dangerous unburned gases. It
reminded him of watching a tiger being fed at the Moscow Zoo—one moment the
tigers were sleeping soundly, but at the first scent of blood they were
unstoppable dynamos of motion and energy.

 
          
The
external power cables and air hoses dropped off the service port by remote
control, and before he could rush to the side of the cockpit to see if Maraklov
needed anything, DreamStar was moving forward—ready to fly.

 
          
Orlov
didn’t hesitate. He reached up to the remote-control trigger device, pressed
the button, then threw the device away in the hangar and sprinted for the V-ioo
armored car.

 
          
He
reached the car just as columns of fire lit up the gloomy early morning sky.
Orlov hadn’t counted on how bright those magnesium mortar shells were—he had,
though, tightly closed his eyes just as he heard the loud puff's when the
mortar rounds were launched. Lovyyev, inside the V-ioo, had neglected to shield
his eyes, and Orlov found him rubbing and blinking furiously.

 
          
“Move,
get out of the way!” Orlov ordered. Lovyyev followed Orlov’s grasp and tumbled
into the clear area under the gun turret as Orlov scrambled into the stiff
driver’s seat, put the V-ioo into gear and hit the gas pedal.

 
          
“Can
you operate the machine gun?” Orlov called to Lovyyev and checked his assistant
as he hauled himself into the gun-turret brace. Lovyyev was still trying to
blink away the flashblindness, his face red and puffed, but Lovyyev, longer on
courage than brains, was the kind who would say he was okay if both arms were
blown away. All Orlov could do was drive. Either Lovyyev was up to the task of
holding off the response forces, or they would die.

 
          
“Just
don’t shoot
behind
you,” Orlov told
him. “Maraklov and his fighter are right behind us. Shoot at anything else that
moves. Don’t waste a single shot. Our only hope is—”

 
          
Orlov’s
voice was drowned out by a rhythmic hammering sound on the hull of the armored
car. He thought it was from Lovyyev’s gun until he realized that the sound came
from outside. He was about to warn Lovyyev to take cover when the young KGB
agent’s body, minus his handsome blond head, slumped into the bottom of the gun
turret. Orlov stomped hard on the gas pedal. Never leave a pretty corpse for
the enemy.

 
          
Dreamland’s
security forces had reacted much faster than Orlov had anticipated. Now the
last obstacle lay ahead—the long moveable steel gate that enclosed the fence
surrounding the research hangars. Orlov had to work fast. Once fully closed,
huge steel pilings would be lowered into place and the gate would be unmovable.

 
          
Driving
with one hand on the wheel, gas pedal to the floor,

 
          
Orlov
reached up and swung the fifty-caliber machine gun back facing forward, then
fumbled with the remote trigger mechanism, finally clipping it into place on
the rifle’s trigger. He was less than a hundred yards from the gate. Firing in
short bursts, he swung the wheel back and forth, pointing the gun’s fire at
anything that moved near the gate.

 
          
To
his surprise, the gate was already fully closed. Time had almost run out. Two
soldiers were low-crawling along the gate, trying to reach the locking
mechanism.

 
          
Orlov
swung the V-ioo toward them, trying to rake the fence with fire to pin them
down, but the Americans refused to stop. Orlov caged the fifty-caliber forward
and headed for the lock mechanism, spraying the area with bullets. But that
lasted for only a few seconds—the shell-feeder on the machine gun jammed.

 
          
It
was too late. One guard was dead but the other threw the handle on the locking
mechanism and dropped the steel post into place.

 
          
One
chance left. Keeping the throttle full open Orlov aimed the Commando right at
the gate opening. If the lock could be broken and the gate dislodged from the
piling he could use the V-ioo to push the gate far enough open for the XF-34A
to get through.

 
          
Under
a hailstorm of bullets from all sides, Orlov’s V-100 plowed into the gate’s
locking mechanism at well over sixty miles an hour—the four-ton armored car had
built up enough force to demolish a house. But it was still not enough to Snap
the five-inch steel post securing the gate. Instead, the force of the impact
snapped the motor mounts off the armored car, and the heavy armored plating in
the car’s nose acted like a giant piston, driving the engine and transmission
into Gekky Orlov’s body. The bones in his body were pulverized like dry twigs
under a steam roller. The V-100 exploded, starting a fire in the electric and
hydraulic lock systems and killing the second security guard. But the gate held
fast.